Hunter Arrested in Ohio
Wednesday for carrying a concealed handgun, a felony in Ohio. He
travels with a bit more than I do, but given the state of the country,
I'd certainly want my battle rifle far from home. The Mansfield News
Journal is running a
slightly different version of this story. I started a discussion
thread on it
at The Claire Files. [smith2004]
Troopers searched the man and found two loaded handguns, another loaded magazine, seven knives and a can of chemical irritant.
Also found was a homemade device, possibly some kind of detonator.
"We don't know what it is. We sent it to BCI, they might send it to the Summit County Bomb Squad to see if it's some sort of trigger," said one trooper.
Troopers searched the vehicle Wednesday after obtaining a warrant. They found a locked case with an assault rifle, several swords and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
Claire Wolfe at Backwoods Home Magazine - New Years Res-Illusions - you're not going to keep those New Year's resolutions anyway, right? So why not resolve something really big? Hehe. [claire]
Sunni Maravillosa - Individual and Group: A Perpetual Tug of War? - an advertisement for Richard Rieben's Handbook for Liberty, also available directly from the publisher, Berapa Press. [sunni]
Ho hum, you may be thinking, so this Rieben guy is an anarchist. You'd be wrong. Rieben claims that for liberty to work, we need protection from groups, and that anarchy doesn't provide that. So what will? According to Rieben, "a political system of liberty [that] disempowers all groups" will. In Rieben's view, culture -- no matter the flavor or form -- is a "despotic value" that is poison to liberty. He devotes an entire chapter to showing how libertarianism -- the group culture that professes to value liberty -- poisons liberty as well. Agree with him or not, a reader with integrity will have to confront the fact that Rieben has some powerful evidence supporting this contention.
So how does one overcome this and truly create a liberty-loving society? I won't give away Rieben's answer, but I will say that the answer is right under our noses, where it has been all along. It's so simple that we often fail to see it -- some refuse to see it. I recognized elements of his approach when I was a young girl, but despite that insight I often fail, still, to be mindful of it.
Garry Reed, the Loose Cannon Libertarian - Liberty's Last Legs? - reflections on recent Supreme Court decisions and a few peaceful resorts to regain our lost liberty before we let the bullets fly.
Miss Beers, my sixth-grade teacher at Willard Elementary School, has finally been sanctified by none other than the US Supreme Court. Having been whacked on the back of her head by a wayward spitball, Miss Beers demanded the culprit fess up. When nobody breathed, she angrily decreed the bureaucrat's standard punishment: "Nobody gets recess!" Innocent and guilty alike. It was our introduction to the injustice of guilt by association.
Lost in the libertarian wrath and rancor of the Supreme Judicalcrats' anti First Amendment ruling that upheld most of the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Campaign Finance Scam was Miss Beers' No Recess validation. The Court's Guilt by Association ruling in December decreed that if cops discover a car occupied by multiple people plus contraband ('kän-tr&-"band, noun: any inanimate object declared illegal by a majority vote of Congresscrats) and nobody fesses up to owning it, everybody gets arrested. ("Nobody gets recess!") Innocent and guilty alike.
BBC News - Martin case tops BBC's Today poll - BBC Radio apparently has a periodic poll where listeners are asked to pick a bill they would like to see passed by their legislature. They most recently picked a proposal that would allow homeowners to use "any means" to defend their homes. As it should be. Anybody who steps inside your home without your permission should consider himself lucky if you allow him to live. There is Samizdata.net commentary on this story by David Carr and Brian Micklethwait [samizdata]
Dick Freely at No Treason - Do Something - an oldie but goodie, worth posting on the wall, but probably not at work since it contains honest language. Get off your butt and DO freedom, today. [notreasonblog]
Chris Floyd at The Moscow Times - Global Eye -- Best-Laid Plans - Bushnev has been accused of having no plan for post-war Iraq. He's got a plan alright. It's just not the one they've been telling us about. [lew]
Of course, it's not always easy to discern the president's steadfast adherence to principle through the defeatist fog of the liberal American media. For instance, this month saw perhaps the most significant progress yet toward the fulfillment of Bush's master plan, yet there was not a word about it anywhere in America's media "Establishment." No, Britain's Financial Times and South Africa's Sunday Times provided the unvarnished truth last week.
We refer, of course, to the $40 million contract awarded by occupation authorities to a private security company called Erinys Iraq. This plucky start-up is one of the great success stories of the occupation, having already bagged big money to ride shotgun for Halliburton and Bechtel as they spread their beneficent tentacles throughout the conquered land. Now little Erinys will guard the Holy Grail of the entire invasion project: Iraq's oil industry.
Erinys is a joint venture between a large South African freebooting firm and a few choice Iraqi investors. How choice? They are intimates of Ahmad Chalabi: leader of the Iraqi National Congress exile group, member of the Bush-appointed Governing Council, convicted swindler, darling of the Pentagon -- and the Bush plan's designated tyrant-to-be, the Iraqi face of a compliant, corporate-run colonial outpost in Mesopotamia.
...
That's why the occupation seems such a shambles. The stated policies don't really matter; they're just window dressing for the master plan. Thus they can be discarded the moment they're no longer politically expedient. What matters is getting the strongman in place -- Saddam 2.0, a more obedient, more presentable, less quirky upgrade, who will "invite" a lasting American military presence and uphold Bush's arbitrary decrees granting foreign corporations a stranglehold on the Iraqi economy.
Now, is this an evil plan, conceived in ignorance and arrogance, predicated on the war crime of military aggression, an act of terrorism on a scale than bin Laden could only dream of? You bet. But let's be fair: it is a plan. You can't say that Bush hasn't got one.
Henrietta Bowman at Sierra Times - A New Year's resolution I can keep - get prepared for the death of the Amerikan state. [sierra]
America may not survive another Bush term. I cannot tell you what you should do. I can only tell you what I will do. I will vote my conscience, move to the Ozarks, buy guns and ammo (and mags), and I will set my family up to survive by barter. I will be living off the grid. I have come to the conclusion that America will have a second revolution...if we are lucky. Otherwise, we will descend into totalitarianism. America has 90 million plus gun owners. If only 5% of those decide to rebel -- the same percentage that fought in our first revolution -- you are talking about 4,500,000 people. Remember what TWO snipers did in DC. Remember what happened to the Russians in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Remember what is happening to our troops in Iraq since Dubya declared the war over. Remember what happens to helicopters when they meet up with RPGs or mountains. Don't say it cannot happen here. It can...and someday, will.
AP via The Daily Herald - Cyber dissident sentenced to seven years in jail, three years house arrest - For criticizing the Vietnamese government on the internet. Lest we forget how good we still have it in the U.S. of A. [kaba]
