Sierra Times Returns!
# Irish Jaeger at ToddMontanye.com - The Minuteman: The Newsletter of the Patriot Movement - Junker has started publishing Mr. Jaeger's militia newsletter. Bravo! [clairefiles]
#
John Silveira at Backwoods Home Magazine -
Fake lawsuits, stacked juries, and LAWYERS! - why we need to
change U.S. tort law to once again be like the rest of the world,
where if you sue somebody and lose, you have to pay their defense
costs. And why we have to eliminate jury stacking
voir dire. O.E. MacDougal, "Mac", shares some more of his
wisdom. [backwoodshome]
# James Bovard at AlterNet - Lie and You Thrive - George Bush'es lies have gotten him nothing but success. And people who claim to be patriotic continue to forbid questioning his lies. Sigh... [lew]
# Karen Kwiatkowski at LewRockwell.com - Roadmap for the Prosecution - Al Lorentz is getting in trouble for his article on the Iraq war Why We Cannot Win. As an NCO on the ground in Iraq, he has what the Busheviks don't, credibility. So they're thinking of charging him with disloyalty. Ms. Kwiatkowski makes the point that the true disloyalty to their oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution is at the top of the chain of command. [lew]
# Murray Polner at LewRockwell.com - A Draft After the Elections? - probably, and even though the Selective Service rules have been changed making it harder for your and my sons and daughters to avoid it, you can bet that there will be exceptions for those animals that are more equal than the others. [lew]
This time Selective Service System (SSS) regulations have been changed. This time, as SSS states, "a college student could have his induction postponed only until the end of the current semester. A senior could be postponed until the end of the full academic year." Canada will no longer welcome anti-draft people. A new SSS plan, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer last May, proposes raising the age of draft registration to 34 years old, up from 25, and possibly including women as well. People with special skills, such as computers, foreign languages, medical training and the like, will also be subject to being drafted. In effect, if approved, it will be a universal draft where everyone, including the kids of the rich and powerful, will allegedly be eligible to serve in the military.
But remember this: No congressional son was drafted during the Vietnam War and today there are virtually no congressional sons or daughters serving as enlisted combat personnel in Iraq. Since 9/11, it is almost impossible to name a single prominent pro-Iraq war activist, those who demand an all-out war against terrorism, whose son or daughter has enlisted for active military duty.
# Bob Wallace at The Price of Liberty - A Rush to War - Rush Limbaugh is an outspoken proponent of the war on Iraq. Mr. Wallace imagines Mr. Limbaugh's reaction should he be informed that he is being forced to walk his talk. [price]
# Jim Davies at Strike the Root - Ten Minutes With C-SPAN - Mr. Davies watched James Comey on C-SPAN, arguing for Ashcroft's "delayed notification" search warrants. Barf. [root]
Give government a yard, and it will take another inch. Then another, and another, without limit over time until it has choked off all freedom, all joy, all prosperity and all life. There is simply no rational alternative: government must never begin, and if it has begun already it must be ended without residue.
# Bob Wallace at Strike the Root - Why Plants Don't Have ADD - unlike children, especially boys, plants don't require lots of physical activity in order to properly develop their brains and nervous systems. [root]
The school system cannot be fixed. "Not paying attention" and "not doing homework" are not the problems. "No Child Left Behind" is not the fix. Sitting for hours in a class is the problem. Private schools that copy public schools are going to find themselves in the same quandary.
Not only are school not good for the intellectual development of children, it also doesn't "socialize" them, one of the main claims of government school defenders. If your brain remains underdeveloped, you're sure not going to be socialized properly, either.
"P.E." isn't the answer. I am reminded of what Woody Allen added to the saying, "Those that can, do; those that can't, teach": "Those that can't teach, teach gym." Being forced to do leg-lifts and run outside in circles is no one's idea of fun. When I was in school, the overwhelmingly majority of us wanted nothing to do with P.E., or P.E. teachers, who we thought were more Neanderthal than Homo Sapien. Yet, after school, we get plenty of physical activity.
Anything that improves posture, gait, balance, endurance, timing and synchronization of muscles will improve cognitive function. That means play, not work. And since when are government schools play?
# Fred Reed at Strike the Root - Fredwitz on War: He Doan No Nuffin' - a light-hearted exploration of some of the reasons some people say the U.S. is at war on Iraq. [root]
People seem to be, with occasional exceptions, starkly polarized over the war and eager to avoid ambiguity. Those who favor it often point to the beheadings, for example, as evidence that "they" are barbarians and deserve no mercy. It does not occur to them that bombing residential neighborhoods, because a guerrilla might be there, seems to those in the neighborhood to indicate that the Americans are barbarians and deserve no mercy.
# Packing.org - CCW Ohio - Ohio's Attorney General hasn't wasted time finding other states with essentially identical permits. Ohio now honors permits from Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming. In particular, they honor a Florida non-resident permit, which can be obtained through the mail.
# vanfunk at The High Road - Range Report: AR, G3, AK, CZ, Musket... - hilarious transition from today's guns to a "1777 .69 caliber Charleville musket reproduction", then some discussion of old black powder muskets. [highroad]
# Jeff Quinn at Gunblast - Thoughts on Muzzleloading - from flitlock through the new smokeless powder muzzle loader from Savage, there are lots of choices in muzzle loading firearms. [gunblast]
This Sile carbine is the subject of an ongoing experiment. Back about 1990, if my memory serves me correctly, Ox-Yoke Products came out with a new muzzleloading lubricant called Wonder Lube 1000, and was quickly marketed also by Thompson/Center as Natural Lube 1000. The premise behind this product was that it contained no petroleum, which made the fouling much softer. Petroleum, when mixed with black powder fouling, makes for a hard residue that builds up in the bore, and must be removed frequently. The claim was that there was no need to clean between shots, and that the Natural Lube seasoned the bore, much like seasoning a cast iron skillet. Cooks know that a well-seasoned piece of cast iron will not rust, and even burned food rinses out easily. I had become accustomed to the ritual of daily cleaning my muzzleloader with soap and hot water, followed by a generous dousing of a rust preventative lubricant, as had most muzzleloading hunters. Every day during hunting season, after a long day of hunting, I would come home, fire the gun, and spend the better part of an hour cleaning the thing. I knew that the fur trappers and mountain men had neither the provision nor desire to daily empty their weapon and clean it. I also knew that leaving their rifles unloaded in bear and hostile Indian territory was not an option. They used their rifles daily, and animal fat was their only lubricant, yet there is no historical record of their weapons rusting beyond the point of being useful. During the first few years of using the Sile carbine, even after carefully treating it for storage in the off season, it would need a new nipple every year, and I would find that the fire channel had to be cleaned out, no matter how well I had doused the gun with rust preventative. I decided to give the Natural Lube a try. Now, after fourteen years of never cleaning that rifle, it will fire off each season just like a new gun. Allow me to clarify that: I have not cleaned that muzzleloader in fourteen years. I use it each season, leave it loaded all season, but never clean it. I use the Natural Lube on the REAL bullets, but that is it. One year I even left it loaded until the following season. After being loaded for almost a full year, it fired without a hitch. I do not suggest that anyone go fourteen years without cleaning any gun. I regularly clean all of my guns. I will however hunt with the carbine again this year, but it will not be cleaned. After hundreds of shots fired through it and fourteen years of field use, it still fires off perfectly each season. It is still an ongoing experiment. The Natural Lube 1000 works, and works well.
