End the War on Freedom

"All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand." -- Stephen Wright

Klyde Morris - Al-Queda Extension Center - cartoon commentary on how well the U.S. government is doing in completing bin Laden's goal. Too true to be funny. [pournelle]

# W Ketchup is sold by a company in Eagle Bridge, NY for $3.00 per 24 oz. bottle (cheaper in volume). You just can't make this stuff up. [warblogging]

You don't support Democrats.

Why should your ketchup?

W Ketchup™ is made in America, from ingredients grown in the USA.

A portion of every sale is donated to the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships for the children of active duty service members killed in the line of duty.

...

Choose Heinz and you're supporting Teresa Heinz and her liberal causes, such as Kerry for President.

Choose W Ketchup and you support the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships to the children of our brave heroes who have fallen in battle.

# If you look at the AW Ban Sunset countdown in the right-hand column, you'll see that we've broken the two week barrier. Less than 14 days until people in most states can obtain newly-manufactured regular capacity magazines and outfit their evil-looking black rifles as they please.

# Jeff Head - Special Note about the Publication Schedule for Volume V of Dragon's Fury - writing finished this weekend, to printer on Friday, eBook versions available immediately after Labor Day. Yay!

# J.F. Wolfington at The Philadelphia Enquirer - Foolish laws on guns - good letter to the editor. awbsunset

The assault weapons ban is worthless, and its proponents know this. If it is reauthorized, someone will immediately say it needs to be expanded, even though there is no proof that it has reduced violence. The screws will just keep getting turned tighter and tighter.

Right-thinking people throughout this commonwealth and nation have finally had enough with foolish (and cynical) legislation that seeks to demonize an inanimate assemblage of metal. This is not just about guns anymore; this is about the slow erosion of civil rights. What more fundamental right can there be than the right to self-defense?

# Jon Caldara at The Daily Camera - Pistols and rifles and cans, oh, my! - good article on the absurdity of banning evil-looking rifles, except Mr. Caldara doesn't know the difference between a flash hider and a muzzle brake. [awbsunset]

The very term "assault weapon" is a politically manufactured term made to emotionalize a certain look of a gun. What is an assault riffle? Emotionalists answer that the same way social conservatives define pornography: I know it when I see it.

But technically an assault weapon is a gun that was made illegal decades before Clinton's law. It is a fully automatic gun (one trigger pull will shoot many bullets) with a detachable magazine or a semi-automatic gun (one trigger pull will shoot only one bullet) that can be set to full auto.

Emotionalists say that these guns used high-powered ammo. Nope. Those mean-looking guns use mid-sized ammo, nothing compared to what the average hunting rifle takes.

...

And the silliest part of this whole thing is that these mean-looking guns are used in only a small fraction of gun-related crimes.

If you still have to outlaw something that looks nasty, ban Ted Kennedy.

# Joe Vialls at LizMichael.com - Russia Ready to Vaporize the Jewish State And then kick America out of the Eastern Hemisphere's oilfields - Should Israel make the fatal mistake of launching a nuclear attack against Iran or Syria, Russian Sunburn missiles will vaporize their country, writes Mr. Vialls. [lizmichael]

# George Paine at Warblogging - The RNC is Not Welcome - Mr. Paine marched yesterday in New York City. He was impressed with the peacefulness of the marchers and the police. nyc.indymedia.org has lots of photos and a video of the burning dragon. This page is the most link rich, but there's a lot more there. [warblogging]

Both the protesters and police behaved themselves admirably. I was heartened to see that, in contrast with earlier protests in New York City, the NYPD was out in regular uniforms and without riot gear. Their stepped down appearance was appreciated and no doubt helped prevent any actual violence.

The NYPD was supportive. Several times police officers made positive comments about the protests, several times police officers smiled and gave protestors the thumbs up. One NYPD captain even turned on his bullhorn simply to say "Thanks! Keep up that energy! There's another half-mile to go!"

...

Among the secret evidence introduced by the Department of Justice in its recent battle with the ACLU over the use of secret evidence was a government-produced document that was heavily redacted. Entire paragraphs were struck over with black marker. As the Washington Post reported , the judge demanded that the Justice Department reveal what lay behind the black marker.

The government had redacted, among other things, a quotation from a 1972 Supreme Court ruling on government power. The Court had written, and the Department of Justice had censored the following passage: "The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent."

The contest in November is about the fundamental character of the American Republic. It is, in fact, a referendum on that character. It is a popular vote, up or down, on the survival of the Republic as we know it. It is a referendum on the usurpation of Congressional war making powers by the Executive. It is a referendum on the use of Executive power to bypass the courts system, deny individuals due process and hold American citizens like Jose Padilla indefinitely and without charge.

The promise that America will never attack another nation except in self-defense, the ideals of the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the very concept of habeas corpus are all on trial.

# ch at New York City Independent Media Center the real story at 37th and 7th on sunday - apparently not all the cops were peaceful yesterday. [nyc.indymedia.org]

a bit before noon, a couple to a few hundred of people on bikes set off from the east side of union square for a ride on a beautiful sunday afternoon. there were obvious undercover members of the NYPD on cycles too, but who could blame them? it was a fine day for a ride. some of these cyclists were asked as to their involvement in law enforcement. they were photographed. we set off on our ride.

initially, the mood was festive and cordial. we were stopping at red lights--unless asked to proceed by uniformed NYPD cadets working traffic enforcement. some riders were thanking cadets as we passed them. at approximately herald square, things became suddenly very surreal. out from apparently nowhere anywhere from 9-12 undercover officers on unmarked vespas began recklessly swarming into the group of cyclists. they were ramming bicycle wheels and individuals' legs with their motor-vehicles, they were crossing several lanes of traffic without signalling, they were leaning into cyclists so as to attempt to knock them from their bikes. never at anytime did these provocateurs identify themselves as NYPD officers, display their detective shields, order anyone to stop or dismount from their bikes. they solely acted in aggressive and unwarranted fashion putting public safety in an extraordinary amount of harm. at that point, some cyclists escaped the vespas and continued north. others headed east, still more turned around and went south. i was with a group who took an ill-fated turn down 37th street from 6th avenue. when we hit broadway, half of the undercovers accelerated to the mouth of 37th at 7th avenue. they formed a barricade with their scooters. the other half accelerated into the crowd of cyclists. during that moment of acceleration, those undercovers and the ones at the mouth of the block ran their scooters completely into riders, tackling them from their bikes to the ground, STILL NEVER EXPOSING THEIR SHIELDS, CLAIMING TO BE NYPD OR OFFERING ANY COMMANDS. i and a group of several others dismounted from our bikes and walked them on the sidewalk. some doing this were also grabbed by undercovers and tackled to the sidewalk. around this time, uniformed officers arrived at the scene. they witnessed NONE of the occurrences, yet were responsible for putting plastic cuffs on bikers and claiming to be "arresting officers," arrests that they had nothing to do with, nor knew anything about. at that point o was on the east side of 7th on 37th. the curb had already been barricaded with wooden NYPD sawhorse barricades as demonstration preparation. there was also scaffolding errected around the corner of that block. i was walking my bike north on 7th. undercovers who left the scene after uniformed officers arrived were now on their scooters riding to 38th and 7th to move in on the group of us who had turned the corner. for some reason, they backed off and seemed to be responding to something else. they actually were not. those of us who had escaped arrest circled the block and went west down 37th again. legal advisors were at the scene taking names, shield numbers (of uniformed officers) involved in injury, and video and photographic doccumentaion of the scene that had transpired in the time it took us to walk our bikes around a block. it was a very different scene than the initial one. several dozen uniformed officers and NYPD brass were at the scene. TARU cops were videotaping observers and arrestees. most of the most aggressive, reckless undercovers had vanished from the scene (they had actually parked their vespas at 36th and broadway, leaving a scene of chaos that they had unconditionally been responsible for having created to high-five eachother and drink water (which wasn't provided to the arrestees). the few undercovers who remained at the scene--maybe 6, now had their detective shields displayed.

# Shut It Down! is encouraging New York City service industry workers to call in sick on September 1. [nyc.indymedia.org]

The most significant impact we can have as New Yorkers during the convention is simply not showing up. September 1st is the perfect opportunity for New Yorkers who work in the city's service industries to call in sick. Actors, musicians, waiters and waitresses, retail salespeople, hotel staff --- we know who keeps this city running, at least as far as the visitors are concerned.

We have the power to SHUT IT DOWN. But the sacrifice should be shared and we are challenging all New Yorkers who want to send the Republicans a strong message, to SHUT IT DOWN and call in sick to work on September 1st -- the day before Bush's acceptance speech. There should be the maximum number of conventioneers in town, looking to see a show, go to dinner or shop that day. We can make it difficult if we SHUT IT DOWN.

Don't Bring Your Hate To Our Doorstep and Expect a Welcome Mat.

# NearlyFreeSpeech.net provides web hosting for $1.00 per gigabyte transferred plus $0.01/MB/Month for disk space plus $7.30/year for domain name service & email forwarding (they handle requests to your domain, NOT registering the name itself). You pay in advance, and as long as you have enough on account to cover your usage, your web site remains active. It works. I opened an account, deposited $10, uploaded some pages, and was able to view them in my web browser. It took about 15 minutes. It handles the server side includes in my 9/11 Timeline mirror. I haven't tried the Perl CGIs I use, but they claim they should work. Once I try them, I may switch to save about $20/month. They do NOT provide email storage, nor do they yet provide web site access logging. Site update is via FTP. Added to my links page in the "Web Hosting" column of the "Other Stuff" section. [bugmenot]

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