The NO CARB Diet for 2004
Skinning Your Knees on God
Little by little,
You will turn into stars.
Even then, my dear,
You will only be
A crawling infant,
Still skinning your knees on God.
Little by little,
You will turn into
The whole sweet, amorous Universe
In heat
On a wild spring night,
And become so free
In a wonderful, secret
And pour Love
That flows
From a conscious,
One-pointed
Infinite need for Light.
Even then, my dear,
The Beloved will have fulfilled
Just a fraction,
Just a fraction!
Of a promise
He wrote upon your heart.
When your soul begins
To Ever bloom and laugh
And spin in Eternal Ecstasy -
O little by little,
You will turn into God.
(I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
Have you heard of the NO-CARB Diet for 2004?
NO C-heney
NO A-shcroft
NO R-umsfeld
NO B-ush
and "Absolutely NO RICE!"
This is a diet that will take you successfully through the next election. Pass it on to your intelligent friends.
# Joe Riley - Archive of Hafiz poems posted to Panhala - Mr. Riley used to post these to a Yahoo Group, and I would often copy them to my blog. Here are a bunch, each with a beautiful photograph and uplifting music. Not actually Hafiz, but "versions" of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky that to me capture the spirit better than any of the pure translations I've read. Salaam (peace).
# Claire Wolfe at Backwoods Home Magazine - Gulching: Yes, You Really Can Herd Cats - resistance without resisting. Kule. [lrtdiscuss]
# Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - Bisecting the Bureaubrain - to the bureucrat, nothing exists until government says it exists.
# Anthony Gregory at LewRockwell.com - Bush's War on the Bill of Rights - how the Busheviks have violated every one of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. [lew]
# Ed Henry at The Price of Liberty - The Draft - A Reminder - if you suffer the indignity of being drafted, and you don't want to go, don't sign anything, and don't step forward or say the oath. They'll make it hard for you, but at the end of the day, you'll go home. [price]
# John Ross - America, Islam, and Those Prison Photos, or Maybe Our Side Isn't as Clueless as I'd Thought - why the sexual mistreatment of Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison shows surprisingly good understanding of Arab psychology. Of course it was still a really bad move on the part of whomever decided to do it. Makes us look like the bad guys. But of course, the U.S. government is the bad guys. This is really plain evidence. Wish it weren't so.
Let's get something straight here: For all the talk about the "religion of peace," or "respecting different cultures," or whatever other platitudes you want to spout, a cornerstone of Islamic faith is the absolute subjugation of women and the total repression of women's sexual pleasure. Understand this: There is no living creature in this country that Americans on an ongoing basis treat the way Arabs treat women.
As they are growing up, Arab men are taught that they can't even look at women, let alone touch them. Sex outside of marriage isn't just a sin, with Billy Graham or Jimmy Swaggart saying you'll burn in Hell. Under Islam, it's a criminal offense. If you're lucky, you'll only get a severe beating. If you're not, you'll be executed. In the late '70s I read of a couple of TWA stewardesses that had violated some sort of law in Saudi Arabia (extramarital sex, kissing a man, exposing their ankles, I don't remember what it was) and they were stripped to the waist and whipped in public. TWA was powerless to do anything--the stews had to grin and bear it. Our State Department, I believe, actually negotiated the whipping. The alternative was execution.
Arab culture is all about male power. Our Intelligence people in Iraq obviously understand that. That's why they took pictures of what is probably the smallest female soldier at Abu Ghraib prison, making fun of naked prisoners, cheerfully climbing on top of them after putting them in a naked dogpile, and nonchalantly keeping one of them naked on a leash. A few days later it comes out that the Americans did an even more heinous thing: They had sex with each other and made the prisoners watch.
# John Ross - Defensive Firearms Advice for Those With No Experience - "Conflict Avoidance... Your Mindset... Gun Issues... It's a Hell of a Lot of Work If You Don't Like It... Specific Recommendations for Those Still Reading." How to become proficient enough with a firearm to be able to use it to save your life.
Diligent practice is necessary for several reasons. The most important one, much more so than absolute pinpoint accuracy, is to acquire familiarity to the point of instinct. If you are shooting for several hours every week or month, you will get to the point where you don't have to think about how to hold the gun, how to align the sights, how to disengage the safety, how to breathe, and how to squeeze the trigger. It will become automatic.
I have heard different figures as to how many repetitions are required before something becomes automatic, but the lowest number was one thousand. When you park your car, you probably turn the key to "off" and remove it, release your seatbelt, open the door, and hit the power lock button, all in about two seconds and without even thinking about what your hands are doing. This is because you have done it so often it has become instinctive. It is this level of habit that you must acquire with your firearm, and the only way it will happen is with frequent, sustained practice.
If you are at this level, you will be in decent shape when the previously mentioned armed gang advances towards your house. You will, from your protected shooting position, yell though your bullhorn "Watch the concrete block ten feet to the left of the guy in the plaid shirt." The armed gang will hear no hint of fear in your voice because you will not be afraid. (You won't be afraid because what you are about to do will be no more difficult than throwing a baseball through a doorway that is five feet in front of you.) Then you will fire three quick shots that will turn the block to dust, and it will take less time to do than I took to describe. You picked up your rifle and it hit your shoulder with the sights perfectly aligned as if by magic. The concrete block looked ridiculously large at such a short distance, because your skill level is such that you regularly hit golf ball-sized targets at the same yardage.
The armed gang will almost certainly depart. If they do not, you will take the next step, which you should have decided long in advance. Depending on your value system, you may shoot to kill, shoot to wound, waste more ammo on warning shots, or surrender. Whatever your choice, the time to decide what you should do is TODAY, not months or years from now.
# One Ragged Hole - One Hole Sight - a replacement for the leaf sight on Ruger pistols and Winchester rifles. Replaces the open leaf with a ghost ring. Five minute installation. $25 for Ruger. $33 for Winchester. Shipping included. Discount for three or more. This High Road thread says that they're planning a Marlin version this summer. [highroad]
