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Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:00:00 GMT
From drugsense:
"Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, and the light of the world and the chief glory of man." -- Bertrand Russell

From clairefiles:

"The 'checks and balances' of our government work thus: Those whose checks come from the government's bank balance, know for whom they are working." -- H.M. WoggleBug, T.E.

From smith2004:

"If the events of September 11th have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American--our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that." -- Jon Stewart

# I added a "Google site search" link in the right-hand column of blog pages and on the home page. This actually works better for most searches than the FreeFind search, mostly because Google walks the entire site, and FreeFind's free service has a page limit, so I keep it out of some of the large mirrors. Webmasters: this is the easiest way I know of to add search to your site. [Jsoftware]

# The AnCap Wiki is getting contributions form a couple of people other than me. Join the fun.

# Sunni Maravillosa - Do It Your Way - commentary on Sunni's recent "walkabout". Anarchy works. Do Freedom! Your way. [clairefiles]

# Bill Whittle - Building the Ideal American: 1.0 Introduction - another glorious essay. First in a series. [whittle]

While the temptation to finish may be overwhelming at times, remember: no one wants to discover that shortcuts taken in the character, ingenuity and integrity subchapters has left one with the bitter disappointment of having constructed an Ideal Belgian. Stay with the plan. Take your time. Do it right. There is no substitute for the Ideal American.

You may also find people sneering at and mocking you during the construction process. Most of them will likely be Europeans and may safely be ignored, a process that rapidly grows easier with practice. However, you may run into individuals who -- incredibly! -- will lob disdain and contempt on your American...and claim to be American themselves!

You can readily test whether or not this is true by performing this simple experiment:

Counter such a person by saying that they are not a real American. If this produces an immediate stuttering, whining or grinding sound, chances are you have encountered a Liberal, who can also be safely ignored. (Warning: If the word 'Nazi' is heard you have stumbled across the rare and highly toxic Progressive. Remain calm. Back slowly toward the nearest exit and call the authorities. Report that you have just encountered a Progressive; this is a serious matter, and an elite Dissent Crushing Regiment will respond within minutes with a fleet of black helicopters, and excruciatingly painful, electric stun rifles. The Progressive will then be taken to an undisclosed location for re-education and recreational beatings.)

If, however, you immediately find yourself on your back staring at the sky or ceiling -- whether through a single punch in the nose or six slugs from an ivory-handled Colt revolver, then your initial prognosis was incorrect and you have indeed encountered a real American.

# Joseph Sobran at Rense.com - Advocating The Violent Restoration Of The Constitution - like me, Mr. Sobran would settle for the U.S. Constitution, if it were narrowly interpreted and rabidly enforced. [geekwitha.45]

Once, before appearing on a TV talk show, I was told I must not advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government. I hadn't actually been planning to foment revolution, but this warning gave me an idea: "May I advocate the violent restoration of the Constitution?" I got no answer.

Some people think I'm a "purist," or even a "fundamentalist," for harping on the Constitution. Actually, it's just the opposite. I'm willing to settle for the Constitution as a tolerable compromise. Really principled people, such as Lysander Spooner, the late, great Murray Rothbard, and a number of my living friends, consider the Constitution itself tyrannical, endowing the Federal Government with far too much power. (Don't tell the children, but so did Patrick Henry.)

These are the real purists, and I honor them. My only point is that even if they're right, returning to the Constitution - to a government strictly limited to its few enumerated powers - would be a huge improvement over the kind of government we have now. At this point I'd gratefully settle for that. I don't ask much.

# Mark Moford at The San Francisco Chronicle - Scenes From A Sad Airport: Welcome to America. Please give us the finger. Smile for the camera. Now get the hell out - another article that makes you want to take five guys with battle rifles into each airport in Amerika and eliminate the Taking Scissors Away problem. Permanently. Of course it would be better if the entire nation just said, "Hell No!" the next time someone asked us to put our carry-on luggage on the belt and walk through the metal detector. Or even just, "I don't do that" or "Do you have a search warrant?" Extremely well written article. [grabbe]

Do you hear that? That screaming? Of course you do. Just another outraged mother of three, her appalled shouts echoing all the way to the food court as LAX security gropes the living hell out of her stunned 2-year-old daughter after the tot's teddy bear appeared to have some odd-looking wiring in its cute fuzzy little arms.

And the mother up and slaps the scowling groping security agent and alarms are sounded and guns are drawn and children are screaming and Spongebob backpacks tumble to the ground and spill their bright happy contents all over the stained tiles in terrible slow motion, like a bad Tarantino outtake.

And thus were lines held up and 16 flights from Dulles and O'Hare and JFK delayed for nine hours, causing a domino-effect 27-hour backup systemwide and thusly pumping yet another enormous and savage dose of frustrated rage and angst and sighing ennui into another artery of the cultural bloodstream.

...

Welcome to America, foreign traveler. Please hold still and place your finger here and smile for the camera and enjoy your first taste of our trademark, wickedly ironic and hypocritical joke about America being the land of the free. Is that weird necklace a religious symbol or something? Are those beads filled with white-hot hate for our glorious freedoms and our 24-hour Safeways and our love of low-rise jeans on teenage girls? Are you in some sort of cult?

Repeat after us: Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to have their spirits snapped like chicken bones and be made to feel as if they are all, by default, criminals and thieves and Bush's "gol-dang guilty durty heathen furriners." Thank you. Please proceed like mad cow-infested cattle to the next airport screening agent.

# Donald Silberger at The Village Choice - Sighting in Schumer - scroll down to the "* Rant of the Week *". Dr. Silberger offers to be the Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senator from New York. [villagechoice]

The thrust of my campaign would be simple:

Where there are the most obvious and least excusable violations of the individual liberties and rights of American citizens; against those I would speak on every plausible occasion.

These include, first, the drug war, which I aver must be scrapped in its entirety, with its victims compensated in every case possible.

Second, I would decry the drive to disarm honest citizens, because such disarmament diminishes their ability to pose a potential physical threat to the tyrannies large and small that are burgeoning over us all. I have long been a member of the community of shooters and Second Amendment activists: former President of the Dutchess County Pistol Association, the current Vice President of the New Paltz Rod & Gun Club, the Captain of its pistol team, and a participant in innumerable RKBA activist organizations.

Third, I would rage against the spate of excessive recent "security" excesses that are increasingly imposed upon our citizenry, with the menace of terrorism deftly if often fraudulently employed as justification thereof.

# Al Giordano at Big, Left, Outside - Venezuela Decriminalizes Drug Possession - Yay! [drugsense]

Today, you can see the whole truth, kind reader. Fear no more. In January 2004, Venezuela decriminalized the drug user and the small doses he possesses. And if the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela sustains the inevitable backlash from Washington that will now come for daring to exercise its democratic will to increase human freedom, you will soon see other Latin American nations follow suit. Ecuador had already done it quietly (reported only by Narco News), but Venezuela's action, because of the size and influence of the country and its economy, and the context of its role in the current American drama, now provides cover for Brazil, Argentina, and the rest of the continent to do the same.

# Jsoftware - J "is a modern, high-level, general-purpose, high-performance programming language. J is portable and runs on Windows, Unix, Mac, and PocketPC handhelds. J runs both as a GUI and in a console (command line)." Unix flavors supported are x86 Linux, Mac OSX, SunOS, & AIX, PocketPC versions: StrongArm & Mips. Free run-time. License required to program (free for beginners). The Windows installer is 3.9 megs. I found it on Ward Cunningham's JayLanguage page. APL on steroids, but typed with a normal keyboard.

J is a very rich language. You could study and use it for years, and still consider yourself a beginner. The good news is that the essence of J is so simple and consistent, that you can quickly learn enough to start solving real and interesting problems.

J is particularly strong in the mathematical, statistical, and logical analysis of arrays of data. It is a powerful tool in building new and better solutions to old problems and even better at finding solutions where the problem is not already well understood.

J systems have:
  • an integrated development environment
  • standard libraries, utilities, and packages
  • a form designer for your application forms
  • an event-driven graphical user interface to your application
  • interfaces with other programming languages and applications
  • integrated 2d and 3d graphics
  • memory mapped files for high performance data applications
If you are interested in programming solutions to challenging data processing problems, then the time you invest in learning J will be well spent.

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