Atomic Cannon
"(Terrorists) are planning to disrupt our democratic process. It's scary I know, but we're not going to let al Qaeda tell us what to do. In fact, our government has decided that if al Qaeda attempts to disrupt our democratic process, we are going to respond by disrupting it first." -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Showand:
"The reason we can't find a relationship between the Constitution and the (present) government is that there is none." -- Michael Badnarik
Mark Fiore - Minister of Fear - Flash animation commentary on the Bushtapo's fear tactics. "Ahhhh! Ahhhhh! Remain calm." [smith2004]
# Acme License Maker still works. I tried to put it on a Wyoming plate, but that would only allow seven characters, and "Buck Fus" didn't make much sense to me.
# Stuff U Can Use - Proof that the moon landings were faked - well, what can I say. I'm convinced. Hehe. :) [samizdata]
# The Technoptimist - Gratuitous Atomic Cannon Post - a 1953 photo of the detonation of an atomic shell fired by a cannon. See Russell's post for a couple more links. Click on the image for the full-size version (90K, 1024x617). [survivalarts]
# Sierra Times and Armed Females of America have been off-line for a few days due to server problems. I sent email to Nicki Fellenzer and she said that she knew about the problem and expected it to be fixed soon. When I checked last night, Armed Females of America was part-way back up, and had a new name server.
# jiveturkey - The single greatest event of my life - this blogger and a friend held up a "More Trees, Less Bush" sign as GW drove through East Lampeter, PA. When Bushnev saw the sign, he flipped them the bird. Hehe. [whatreallyhappened]
Sean had to go back to work (he snuck out to join in the fun), so we drove him back to my place where his car was, then me, Adam, and Brendan went to another spot along the highway that we had spied earlier. A friendly Kerry supporter named Mr. Shenk let us use his front yard to display our banners. Now comes the good part. After waiting around for about 45 minutes, the motorcade passed by us again. A few police cars, followed by a van or two, drove by. Then, a Bush/Cheney bus passed, followed by a second one going slower. At the front of this second bus was The W himself, waving cheerily at his supporters on the other side of the highway. Adam, Brendan, and I rose our banner (the More Trees, Less Bush one) and he turned to wave to our side of the road. His smile faded, and he raised his left arm in our direction. And then, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States of America, extended his middle finger.
Read that last sentence again.
I got flipped off by George W. Bush.
A ponytailed man standing next to us confirmed the event, saying, "I do believe the President of the U.S. just gave you boys the finger." We laughed probably for the next half hour, and promptly told everyone we knew. Brendan actually snapped a picture of Bushy in action, but the glare and the tint of the bus windows make it difficult to see him at all. Nonetheless, it was the best possible reaction.
We pissed George W. Bush off. We are true patriots.
# Mimi Hall and Barbara DeLollis at USA Today - Plan to collect flier data canceled - CAPPS II is dead. May it rest in pieces. In the seventh level of Hell. [smith2004]
# Jeff Cooper's Commentaries - June 2004: Summer Storm - 4th of July at Gunsite; Theodore Roosevelt Reunion October 15-17 at Whittington; continued reports from the front on the importance of personally controlled fire; C Stories; Ice Man's copper chopper was an anti-personnel device; digital flashlights; 458 Winchester Magnum vs. 458 Lott vs. 460 G&A: "With the heavy rifle cartridges it is important to cycle all rounds through the action of the individual weapon before taking the combination to the field"; "The old 1911 continues along its way to replacing the dog as man's best friend"; if you had only one personal firearm...; H&K have a new sporting bolt-action rifle; the Fusilier and the Grenadier; Springfield's SOCOM 16; the Colonel sees no need for the 6.8 military cartridge, .308 suffices; McClusky's Turn; A View from the Eye of the Storm; The Advanced Military Combat Course at Camp Pendleton proved the effectiveness of the Scout Rifle over the M16; "We do wish that the press would quit belaboring the unthinkable - which is a leftist victory in November. With the Holy War in full cry, we can certainly do without enemies here at home. God save the Republic!"; the history of Gunsite Gossip as of 1990.
"What is behind the suicide murders? Money, power and cold-blooded murderous incitement, nothing else. It has nothing to do with true fanatic religious beliefs. No Moslem preacher has ever blown himself up. No son of an Arab politician or religious leader has ever blown himself up. No relative of anyone influential has done it. Wouldn't you expect some of the religious leaders to do it themselves, or to talk their sons into doing it, if this is truly a supreme act of religious fervor? Aren't they interested in the benefits of going to Heaven? Instead, they send outcast women, naive children, retarded people and young incited hotheads. They promise them the delights, mostly sexual, of the next world, and pay their families handsomely after the supreme act is performed and enough innocent people are dead. ...
"... A suicide murder is simply a horrible, vicious weapon of cruel, inhuman, cynical, well-funded terrorists, with no regard to human life, including the life of their fellow countrymen, but with very high regard to their own affluent well-being and their hunger for power. ..."
...
"Gunsite Gossip is obviously not all my own work, as I quote freely from other commentators whose thoughts I admire. I do not apologize for this, since in an era when few read broadly, such hits of eclectic wisdom are herein made more readily available.
"From the beginning I have affected the `editorial we,' which annoys some people very much. Obviously I rather like it, and since I have no boss I can write to please myself. One cannot write to please any group, since groups are made up of individuals. One can write to please the king, or his wife, or a publisher, or a client, but he cannot write to please the `average reader,' because there is no such person. So I write for my own amusement and let the chips fall where they may.
"In our currently polarized society one might expect that only those who love liberty more than equality would fancy personal weapons and skill-at-arms, but this is not universally true. The men of the left, `who don't care what anyone does as long as it is compulsory,' find my views obnoxious. So be it. I do not care for theirs, either. The objective of Gunsite Gossip is to edify the shooter and to irritate the liberal."
# Claire Wolfe at Backwoods Home Magazine - The Hardyville Freedom Film Festival - pick your favorites in six categories of movies. Ballot due by August 20. Winners of "The Hardies" will be announced in the September 1 column. [claire]
# Chalmers Johnson at Common Dreams - Our First Victory Was Zapatero - Some good insights on the empire mentality of the Busheviks, but he supports Kerry, who won't make things much, if any, better. [smith2004]
Despite endless hypocrisy about how we have brought freedom to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, we know that almost all the citizens of those countries who have come in contact with our armed forces and survived have nonetheless had their lives ruined. The courageous, anonymous Iraqi woman who edits the blog "Baghdad Burning," subtitled "Girl blog from Iraq," writes (on May 7), "I sometimes get emails asking me to propose solutions or make suggestions. Fine. Today's lesson: don't rape, don't torture, don't kill, and get out while you can -- while it still looks like you have a choice. . . . Chaos? Civil war? We'll take our chances -- just take your puppets, your tanks, your smart weapons, your dumb politicians, your lies, your empty promises, your rapists, your sadistic torturers and go." Her reports on the Internet are indispensable to an understanding of the disaster we have made of a country that we invaded in the name of "preventive war."
...
Today, we have a professional, permanent standing army that costs around three-quarters of a trillion dollars a year -- that is, about $750 billion. This amount includes the annual Defense Department appropriation for weapons and salaries of $427 billion, another $75 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, $20 billion for nuclear weapons funded by the Department of Energy, and at least $200 billion in pensions and disability payments for our veterans. We are not paying for these expenses but putting them on the tab. Since we are today running the largest governmental and trade deficits in modern economic history, our militarism threatens us with bankruptcy.
# Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - The Moon is a Harsh Mistrust" - Mr. Reed hopes that Hollywood won't butcher Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress when they make it into a film. Ditto.
# John Lopez at No Treason - The Perils Of Partisan Politcs - this starts out uninteresting, but ends up being a pretty good back-and-forth about anarchism vs. coercive government. Search for "Baker" to avoid wading through the initial crap. [notreasonblog]
