Penfist

1. I’m a libertarian war hawk
2. I drive fast and aggressive (but still use turn signals)
3. I generally don’t care what others think of me
4. I constantly talk about the negative aspects of government
5. I own lots of guns
6. I shoot those guns all the time
7. I think our tax system is a form of economic slavery
8. I like to take surprise photos of people
9. I dance like a chicken with no head (white boy style)
10. I am neither conservative or liberal

I try to keep an open mind. Really, I do.

But the white Moslem has made me nervous today. He found out I’m going to Iraq and immediately began proselytizing and justifying the resistance to the occupation of Iraq. Yes, the man with the Scottish last name and the Arabic wife lectured me on fatwahs, when it is justified to kill soldiers (do you suppose he was including me) and why the Quran justifies killing unbelievers, among other details.

The world can be a kind of spooky place some days.

We invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a destabilizing influence in the region, wont to attack his neighbors and sow seeds of discontent throughout the Arab nations. Saddam is done and Iraqis are running their own country now, for the most part. But the blind hatred that has been with us from the cave days continues mostly unabated.

I told the white Moslem that I had considered the idea of adopting an Iraqi war orphan. He said that would not be possible because unbelievers are not allowed to raise Muslim children. Intolerance. I hate it in all its manifest forms.

I want to live in a world where we all value the protection of life and the creation of choices and opportunities more than we value the spreading of our own flawed outlook. If you think you have a handle on what God wants for everyone else’s life, here’s a hint – STFU. God doesn’t need self-proclaimed enforcers of His will. I don’t care what your religion is, keep it to yourself unless you’re asked.

If I had to describe myself, I would want to do it as well as Rob. Read a post or two, blogmark him, and then check out his About Me page.

How would you characterize your political leanings: I am a Randian Libertarian in most things. I believe government should exist to provide a standing army, to protect the rights of the unpopular and to prevent anarchy. Otherwise, it should butt the hell OUT OF MY LIFE! I believe we are horribly overtaxed, over-regulated and over-nannied by a government that is bloated, incompetent and staffed largely by people who can’t find their asses with both hands. Our politicians are whores and our bureaucrats are brain-dead. I suppose I might be called a Radical Individualist. Yeah, that’s ME.

I love the unvarnished truth, even when it’s not to my advantage.

I’m usually the first one to criticize government. Ask anyone who has ever met me.

I despise the IRS. I mock the TSA. I criticize the ATF. I love to call out members of Congress by name for a verbal browbeating. I think most of the legislation coming out of Washington is bad for the country. The Republicans want to legislate too much on issues of personal morality. The Democrats want us all drooling and dumb, unable to fight our way through life ourselves.

But the Bush bashing is getting ridiculous. The anti-Bush crowd makes the anti-Clinton crowd look positively magnanimous.

Just visit whywehateBush.com.

Here’s a list of why they think people hate Bush:

1. Bush and his oligarchic companions sabotaged American democracy so they could pillage taxpayer resources.
2. Bush and his cabal of henchmen lied to the American people about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and they continue to obfuscate the truth while their companies cash in, Iraqis suffer and American soldiers die.
3. Bush is bad for business and the economy. He is only interested in enriching himself and his friends.
4. Bush is bad for the future. He is compromising the prosperity of tomorrow’s America by shortchanging today’s children.
5. Bush is bad for the environment.
6. The Bush Administration has manipulated the media to the point of undermining the Constitutional guarantees of a Free Press.
7. Bush has tried to undermine the United Nations, a democratic institution created in large measure by Presidents Eisenhower and Truman. Without even understanding what the UN does, Bush has called it “irrelevant” when it fails to fall in line with his dictates.
8. Bush is inarticulate and projects a stereotype abroad of Americans being ignorant and myopic.
9. Bush torpedoes global agreements on everything from racism and global warming to biological weapons and land mines, and then expects the world to line up behind him.
10. Bush took positive patriotism and global support in the wake of 9/11 and forced it behind his own narrow self-interest in Iraq. He hijacked 9/11 for his own benefit.
11. Bush stands against everything America stands for.

That’s all fine and dandy. I’m not Bush fan No. 1, that much is certain. But people, where do you live? What are your priorities? A lot of your complaints are silly, and the vitriol you spew reminds me of myself when I was 5, except that I was more mature when I threw a tantrum. You’re all holding hands and rocking back and forth and popping Wellbutrin as quickly as you can, crying in your soup and watching that fat piece of shit Michael Moore over and over again while you rehearse your tired mantra that Bush is fighting an illegal war in Iraq, yadda yadda yadda.

Please.

The problems with American government don’t flow from Bush. He’s not the source of the river of corruption in Washington. He’s not the reason that Americans are hated in many parts of the world. George W. Bush is a man with a shitty job doing the best he knows how, as far as I can tell from the information available to me. He has at least 52 million supporters right here in the United States. Get over it.

If you want to make this country better, pick a cause worth fighting for. Bush will be gone in a few years. Why don’t you spend your time getting ready for the next leader of the free world? Your whining and self-commiseration is doing no one any good.

Michael Yon is a former American soldier and is currently serving as a freelance journalist in Iraq. Please join me in supporting him financially. I just made a Paypal donation and would encourage those of you who support what our troops are doing in Iraq to do the same.

It doesn’t sound like there’s much doubt that Spartanburg teen Cory Williamson, 17, raped a dog. The dog, Princess, later died from internal bleeding.

When I got here we were laying on the deck looking at him and he had his pants down and he was doing sexual activity with the dog like a man would do to a woman.”

–Sylvia Jones, Princess’ owner

Some people are born to serve as an example to others of what not to do. If Cory Williamson is convicted of raping a dog, he should be euthanized. This is digusting. Even worse, he has also been accused of molesting little girls in the neighborhood.

Had I come home from work to find Cory Williamson raping one of my dogs, I would probably be facing manslaughter charges at this time.

Read the whole story if you can stomach it.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A car bomber sped up to American soldiers distributing candy to children and detonated his explosives Wednesday, killing up to 27 other people, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. One U.S. soldier and about a dozen children were among the dead.”

My enemy is pathetic, and my enemy saddens me. For my enemy is craven. I can understand being angry enough, or sick enough, or depressed enough to take one’s own life. Since a human being, in my belief system, owns his or her own life, I have no issue with you if you wish to commit suicide.

When you blow up children along with yourself you are a cretin. If Allah smiles on such human offal, then Allah is unworthy of worship. I’m starting to wonder if the Middle East is host to the world’s largest population of adult retards.

This is why I rejoined the armed forces of the United States. To wipe out these baby killing, self-loathing, hate worshipping morons and stop their pointless quest to deprive others of life.

Anyone who has read my blog more than once should have a clear idea that I have quite a number of points on which I am disatisfied with Western civilization and with the current system of American government. I do not feel represented by the current crop of elected leaders in Washington, D.C. The American political process is obviously dangerously close to be broken. I could march into a random crowd and blow myself up, sure. But I long ago learned that kicking oneself in the ass as hard as possible is counterproductive.

If you are considering becoming a human murder bomb, it would serve you well to remember that all you are doing is hardening the hearts of all those who witness your imbecilic act of meaninglessness.

Allow an infidel to quote the Quran to you. “Respect and honor all human beings irrespective of their religion, color, race, sex, language, status, property, birth, profession/job and so on [17/70]”

May Allah reject all those who spit upon the life He created and cast you into darkness.

Other opinions:

Mike’s America
Angel Dressed in Black
Jujutsi Generis
Mudville Gazette

Boortz has posted an update on the saga of the Marine and the Prinicipal.

The bad news – Ulrica Corbett is still influencing Georgia children. The good news – Marine Sgt. Zach Richardson will be speaking to the children anyway, but outside the school environment. The ugly news – Matthew Lund no longer teaches at Anita White Carson Middle School. I wonder why.

Perhaps you remember this particular brouhaha … it happened several weeks ago at the Carson Middle School in Greensboro, Georgia. U.S. Marine Sgt. Zach Richardson wanted to visit the students at Carson Middle School who had been writing to him while he was serving in Iraq. The children’s teacher, Matthew Lund, arranged for the visit only to be thwarted by the school’s principal, Ulrica Corbett. Ms. Corbett ordered Sgt. Richardson off the school grounds citing concern for the safety and welfare of the students. This was the lead item in the June 2nd. Nealz Nuze, which I urge you to read again by clicking here.

Well .. now the good news. Next Monday, July 18th, the students from the Carson Middle School who wrote those letters to Sgt. Richardson, along with their teacher, Matthew Lund, their parents and other community leaders, will get their chance to meet and talk with Sgt. Richardson and several of his fellow Marines. The meeting will take place at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge at Reynolds Plantation and will be followed by a lakeside barbecue at the Ritz to show support for Sgt. Richardson, his fellow Marines and the students from Carson Middle School who’s letters meant so much. The Ritz-Carlton Lodge will be providing rooms to the Marines … and having stayed at this particular Ritz-Carlton, let me tell you … these Marines are in for a treat.

I don’t know what eventually happened to the principal. I do know that she caused her school and the Green County School quite a bit of embarrassment. Her disdain for this Marine in particular and for what our armed forces were doing in Iraq in general was obvious. Matthew Lund is no longer teaching at the Carson Middle School. We hope he has found a job at a school that appreciates him and our men and women in uniform. “

Ulrica Corbett never did answer my requests for an interview. I’m assuming she still has her job working as a modern day feudal lord in the fiefdom of Anita White Carson Middle School, Green County, Georgia. The quest for educational excellence free of the evil influences of the U.S. military continues.

If anyone knows how I can get in touch with Matthew Lund or Sgt. Zach Richardson, please e-mail me using the link provided on this site. Much appreciated.

And if you live in or near Green County, go show your support for a United States Marine.

Author’s Note: This test is flawed in some ways. It’s geared more towards anarchists than minarchists, which is what I am. Both are closely related to libertarianism. Any transition from a statist society, which we currently have, to an anarchist society would be very violent, which is why I espouse minarchy. Violence is only justifiable in self-defense.

Your score is…

122

What Your Score Means

0 points: You are not a libertarian by any stretch of the imagination. You are probably not even a liberal or a conservative. Just some Nazi nut, I guess.

1-5 points: You have a few libertarian notions, but overall you’re a statist.

6-15 points: You are starting to have libertarian leanings. Explore them.

16-30 points: You are a soft-core libertarian. With effort, you may harden and become pure.

31-50 points: Your libertarian credentials are obvious. Doubtlessly you will become more extreme as time goes on.

51-90 points: You are a medium-core libertarian, probably self-consciously so. Your friends probably encourage you to quit talking about your views so much.

91-130 points: You have entered the heady realm of hard-core libertarianism. Now doesn’t that make you feel worse that you didn’t get a perfect score?

131-159 points: You are nearly a perfect libertarian, with a tiny number of blind spots. Think about them, then take the test over again. On the other hand, if you scored this high, you probably have a good libertarian objection to my suggested libertarian answer. 🙂

160 points: Perfect! The world needs more like you.

Take the test.

When the elected leaders that are supposed to be answering to the people start making rules about what you can and can’t do and say during elections, you know there is a rotten apple in the barrel and it’s well past time for an insurrection.

Elected leaders who try to regulate their own elections should be drummed out of office immediately. There is absolutely no way to claim it’s ethical to regulate speech in relation to elections. We already have laws on the books to deal with libel and slander, so why we have an FEC eludes me, unless it’s there to try and affect the outcome of the election by throttling the ability of people and groups to express their opinions or finance particular candidates. Having a government body regulate opinions that affect the outcome of government elections is asinine and inherently dishonest. Any politician who tries to claim otherwise should be pelted with rotten tomatoes or worse.

Every individual working for the FEC has a vested interest in ensuring that all future elections produce politicians who support the continued growth of government power. The continued growth of government power is the antithesis of freedom. Houston, we have a problem.

Please join the insurrection before these arrogant legislators ruin the country beyond any hope of repair.

And please, keep blogging freely. The government can’t stop us all. Not yet. Not ever.

My time in the sandbox draws closer. I have it in writing now that I will be spending up to 540 days on active duty. Our Guard unit is severely understrength, and we’re told that additional troops will be brought in from other states’ Guard units to fill out the empty slots. This means that as we prepare for the reality of life on the ground in Iraq, we’ll also be getting to know strangers and redefining our roles and individual duties. It should prove to be interesting.

As I blog my life during the upcoming year, I’ll be using nicknames to identify my fellow troops, to protect their privacy and to try and add some humor to a situation that may present me with a more than fair share of days that will be less than fun filled.

My nickname in the unit, which I did not come up with, is Sgt. Gadget. I received this name because I carry around a backpack filled with electronic gear which I am constantly whipping out for various uses during training. I have a gadget for almost every type of event.

My moniker was a gift from Sgt. Sour. Sgt. Sour is a lanky 40ish guy with an incredibly dour look permenently etched on his face. He does not tolerate pointless bureaucracy well. Since our unit is also home to Sgt. Stressball, who loves pointless bureaucracy, Sgt. Sour is often very dour indeed. He carries a set of brass balls around with him and is prone to hurling office supplies through the air while achieving an incredible torrent of verbal spew about once a month, depending how active Sgt. Stressball is in the general vicinity at any given time.

Stressball and Sour get along fine when the day’s assignments have been completed, which is good. Unit cohesion will be hugely important once we’re actually in Iraq, and it is my hope that Sour and Stressball will both fall into routines that allow them to accomodate one another’s vastly different ways of getting the job done.

If left alone to do his thing, Sgt. Sour does it very well. I think Sgt. Stressball knows this, but it is in his nature to micromanage things because he is a perfectionist. To be fair, Stressball demands perfection of himself too. His heart is in the right place – if he can learn not to hover things will be OK – at least between Stressball and Sour.

There are other characters to introduce in the near future, and each of the vibrates at a wholly different frequency. It should be an interesting year, to say the least.

Tommorrow, I will present my employer with a letter informing them officially that I will be whisked off to a place halfway around the world in the very near future.

Hell, all this time, I’ve been writing just because I care. Now I learn from Bump in the Beltway that I can influence people.

Carol Darr, director of George Washington University’s Institute for politics, democracy and the Internet, said those who read and write blogs aren’t “the sad, the mad and the lonely.” Rather, research shows they tend to be people able to influence others, she said.”

Well, maybe, but only if I change my blog to an “online magazine.” Rumor has it that if I don’t, I might become a criminal soon. Oh my! That’s terrible. Wonder if I’ll be able to blog from prison?

Thanks for nothing, McCain/Feingold. Please go fuck yourself. I would like to encourage anyone who comes across this blog entry not to vote for shady politicians like John McCain and Russ Feingold, because the pieces of shit will step all over your first amendment rights. The FEC is an abomination that should be dissolved.

Did I influence anyone?

Four blasts rocked the London subway and tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour Thursday, sending bloodied victims fleeing in the worst attack on London since World War II. At least 40 people were killed, U.S. officials said, and more than 360 wounded in the terror attacks.”

All the more reason to continue killing these barbarians as quickly as possible. They purposely target civilians, women, children and people who have little or nothing to do with the conflict. The perpetrators of such heinous acts are like cancer cells. They need to be wiped out of existence in a cold, clinical fashion.

I hope the surviving victims and the families of those who did not survive all realize that their country, like many others is infected with a disease. You cannot reason with a disease. You cannot convince it to act more moderate. And thus far, the only way to beat a disease is to kill it.

Today is a sad day in London, and for the rest of us far removed from the horror. I hope that as in World War II, the hearts and minds of the British are resolved for the long war ahead.

on the street where you live

Originally uploaded by Lorrie McClanahan.

Thanks to my flickr posting extolling the virtues of .lush I’ve been introduced to Lorrie McClanahan.

Lorrie reminds me of the power of the digital darkroom with this very cool manipulation.

Thanks for introducing us, Robbie.

Joseph Edward Duncan III, 42, of Fargo, N.D., a convicted sex offender on the run from an earlier child molestation count, was charged Tuesday in 1st District Court with two counts of first-degree kidnapping. He’ll probably be charged with multiple murders in the very near future. Turns out that Mr. Duncan was a blogger.

Purportedly from the blog of a murderer and child molester:

If you knew without doubt that closing 9 out of 10 prisons and releasing the 9 least violent out of 10 prisoners would reduce new crimes by more than half in less than 5 years, would you be for it?”

An interesting question.

Be sure to read the comments to his last entry. Joseph Edward Duncan III is very sick, but so is the lynch mob fan club he’s attracted. I guess evil attracts passionate stupidity and coarse idiots like a magnet attracts metal filings.

Here are some sample comments, since I’m sure the Fifth Nail blog is going to be taken down shortly:

My only wish is that could log on one last time and tell us how she was.
# posted by Anonymous : 2:12 PM

Excuse me Anonymous as 2:12, your IP address is showing….your next.
# posted by Anonymous : 2:19 PM

See, crimes like this wouldn’t even happen today if it werent for them damn democraps. the democraps stand in the way of everything. in 2006 elect nothing but republicans so america can get back on the right track.
# posted by Anonymous : 2:54 PM

He deserves a BIG THANK YOU. He got rid of two drug addicts and two future prison/welfare losers. He showed the young girl how to live a productive lifestyle and taught her how breakfast was important. I think a parade is in order for this guy.
# posted by Anonymous : 3:06 PM

Some days I wish Internet access was prohibitively expensive. That would keep out most of the riff raff.

Visit Urban Grounds for more perspective on Joseph Edward Duncan III.

You may notice that I tagged this entry under Privacy Issues. That’s because Mr. Duncan was using PGP encryption to keep some sort of secret diary. I’ve argued in the past that encryption is a good thing, and want to reiterate that. Just because bad people use encryption doesn’t mean that authorities should be able to punish everyone else for using it. What Duncan has apparently perpetrated is tragic, and it’s likely he’ll pay for his crimes, despite having encrypted whatever it was he had to hide.

Society has zero right to curtail my privacy because people like Joseph Edward Duncan III happen to exist.

For the record, anyone who blames their problems on “demons” is highly dangerous, and not to be trusted. That’s my wisdom gem of the day, free to you, dear reader. The devil cannot make you do anything you don’t want to do.

the delicate beginning

Originally uploaded by .lush.

.lush (formerly golush) offers up some of the best photos on flickr.com.

Take a peek.

Editor’s Note: This new security also checks for drug traces. The War on Terror and The War on Drugs – exchanged willingly by Americans for two obsolete concepts – freedom and liberty. Good luck with that. I’ll be on the sidelines as much as possible, narrating each freedom lost and liberty spit upon.

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Transportation Security Administration
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 15, 2005
TSA Press Office: (571) 227-2829

Explosives detection trace portal has proven successful in the pilot program

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has successfully completed the explosives detection trace portal program pilot phase for passenger screening. This new technology was tested in a pilot program in 14 cities and met TSA’s rigorous standards for excellence.

TSA is eager to expand this program as an important step towards increasing explosives detection capabilities at passenger screening checkpoints at our nation’s airports. Positive feedback from participating airports, airlines and passengers indicates that the technology greatly enhances customer service. Starting in July, TSA will begin the first round of deployment by adding 44 additional machines and ten additional airports to the program.

“The explosives detection trace portal technology is a proven and valuable asset in our layered approach to aviation security, improving our ability to identify explosives,” said Kenneth Kasprisin, Acting Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security for TSA. “TSA continues to seek out new technology that both enhances security and improves customer service. This technology meets those goals.”

Airports in the following cities were included in the pilot program and are already using the new technology: Baltimore; Boston; Gulfport, Miss.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami; New York (JFK); Phoenix; Providence, R.I.; Rochester, N.Y.; San Francisco; San Diego; and Tampa, Fla.

By the end of September, TSA will complete the first wave of deployment of this new technology to airports in the following cities: Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas (DFW); Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Newark, N.J.; New York (LaGuardia); Palm Beach, Fla.; Pittsburgh; San Juan, P.R.; and Washington, D.C. (both Dulles and Reagan National).

TSA continues to conduct site surveys and will announce the next round of airports to receive this technology by the end of the summer. TSA anticipates deploying 100 additional machines targeting the nation’s largest airports by January 2006.

At airports with the new technology, some passengers will be directed by TSA screeners to step into a portal at the checkpoint. Passengers will stand still for a few seconds while several “puffs” of air are released. The portal then collects and analyzes the air for traces of explosives and a computerized voice indicates when a passenger may exit.

TSA will purchase 25 trace portal machines from Smiths Detection of Pine Brook, N.J., for $3.6 million and 19 trace portals from General Electric of Wilmington, Mass., for $3.2 million. All equipment must be delivered by September. TSA is working on a procurement strategy for the next round of equipment purchases.

###

Many of you have only the vaguest notions of why our forefathers chose to risk (and lose) their lives, declare their colonies ‘free and independent States,’ and fight a bloody war for nearly a decade to secure that freedom.”

Make no mistake that while I am a member of the United States Armed Forces and hawkish about Iraq, I have very deep reservations about what is going on in the rest of our government.

The vast labyrinth of our bloated bureaucracy of buffoonery has created a bastion of busybodies bent on the wholesale eradication of our freedoms.

Read I/O Error’s very worthy post on this topic. Every single day of your life should be independence day. But most of your government is hell bent against that.

After a four year tour of duty in the Marine Corps, I thought I was done with the military. There’s a lot of idiocy that must be put up with when you choose to serve in this nation’s armed forces. It can get quite unappealing some days.

But then, in life, you come across an enemy that simply needs killing. This enemy needs killing so badly that you think to yourself, it will be worth putting up with the bullshit that goes along with military service.

Human offal has to be cleaned up. I might as well participate in that process, even at the possible cost of my own life. It’s totally worth it.

Here’s hoping that we only have to spend one bullet a piece on the human pieces of trash that are willing to hold another human being down and saw off that human being’s head with a rusty knife. Americans are as flawed as other human beings. But the idiots who constantly spout their anti-war nonsense should realize that Americans are trying to build things in Iraq. Most of us value human life. We try to improve the quality of life, and extend the length that people live.

Our enemy, whom I am capable of killing with very little regret, does not value human life and disrespects it at every opportunity. There is no justification for such behavior, and no reason not to kill those who engage is such behavior in the same manner that one would exterminate vermin.

I want to be a builder, not a destroyer. Join me, if you’re willing and able.

Please read this interview with Sgt. Eric Holtan, who is currently serving in Iraq.

There are lots of negative people out there screaming about what we’re doing in Iraq, here’s someone who is positive and more importantly, someone who is THERE and has an idea of what’s really going on.

It’s not the Fourth of July, it’s Independence Day. How independent are you? Probably not very. Here’s a little image reminding you how this country originally became independent. It was through violent revolution, just in case you slept through that history class.

Shoot off your fireworks, if they’re legal in your state. Drink beer, sit around and watch TV. But remember, you wouldn’t be able to do any of the stuff you like doing if it wasn’t for the people with guns who defend you.

For the weapons aficionados who stumble by, I shot this bullseye at 25-yards with a Glock 23, using the crappiest ammo possible.

I created a new category for this one, Signs of the End Times.

When you live in a place where grabbing a teenager’s arm is treated as a sex offense, you should indeed be hoping for the Rapture because the lunatics are certainly running the asylum and only Jesus can save you.

Fitzroy Barnaby can no longer live near a park or school and must register with police whenever he moves. And that’s stupid as hell.

The World Wide Rant calls it insanity.
Ripclawe believes the problem is Chicago.
Say Anything worries about sex offender registries.

UPDATE: One of my readers claims there is more to the Fitzroy Barnaby story – that he grabbed the girl and tried to pull her into the car. Can anyone verify whether this is true? There was nothing about it in the article I read.

Sandra Day O’Connor has resigned. I can almost guarentee that whoever replaces her will be a bigger asshat, since as modern day Justices go, O’Connor was one of the least foul on the Supreme bench.

O’Connor still managed to betray me on issues of economic freedom, personal choices and the larger issue of the role of government in my life. She did little to minimize that role, so I won’t miss her. But I do dread her replacement.

I wonder how many of the justices have read Unintended Consequences, by John Ross. It should be a requirement.

Have a nice life, Sandra Day O’Connor. Hope you’re happy with the decisions you’ve made.

I’ve taken down the Drug War Poll. The question I asked – what is your favorite aspect of the War on Drugs. Here are the vote results:

I only had 33 responses. Hopefully, future polls will draw more.

I could have included lots of other possible choices but didn’t in the interest of brevity. The poll was just there to remind people that we’ve been fighting this ridiculous war for 40 years and drug use is higher than ever. All we have to show for it is the highest prison population per capita of any developed nation. And the plethora of personal liberties we’ve given up to prosecute this unwinnable battle (as currently being fought) is staggering.

If we really wanted to do anything positive we’d focus on education and treatment instead of enforcement.

Dr. Zubov at Banter in Atlanter has posted an entry worth reading that discusses a possible relationship between lifting gun restrictions and a decline in gun violence.

Well, more than nine months have passed and the first crime numbers are in. Last week, the FBI announced that the number of murders nationwide fell by 3.6% last year, the first drop since 1999. The trend was consistent; murders kept on declining after the assault weapons ban ended.”

I personally think it’s too early to throw out statistics, I think you need a few years to track a trend like this effectively. But hey, if I ran the world, you’d be able to have any weapon your government was permitted to have.

The Mexican government issued a series of stamps yesterday depicting a dark-skinned Jim Crow-era cartoon character with greatly exaggerated eyes and lips, infuriating black and Hispanic civil rights leaders for the second time in weeks.

I can’t think of many things less important to get angry about than the stamps pictured above. Maybe the price of postage pictured is worth getting angry about, but not the black caricature. That’s just idiotic. If one of the stamps had pictured Memin Pinguin getting lynched, then it would be OK to have a verbal spew or two.

Let’s put Memin Pinguin in context. Does Memin Pinguin represent an ideology of hatred? No. Does he represent rapists, murderers and thieves? No. He’s a circa 1940’s cartoon stereotype. Getting rid of him won’t feed hungry children, won’t “heal” the damage done by slavery, and won’t affect Americans in any substantial way whether he travels around the world on stamps or not.

I’m not black, but if I were, I’d ask the idiots claiming to represent me to please focus on issues that actually matter, like the loss of economic freedom being suffered by the upper and middle classes. I’d ask them to find out why I am being treated like a cow when I fly and get it fixed, by God! I would focus on a thousand things other than a series of stamps issued by a foreign government. But because my self-appointed “leaders” would mostly be idiots if I were black, I’d be a sad black man.

Since I’m white, and my self-appointed white leaders are mostly idiots, I’m just a sad white man. The quality of the minds we are continuously exposed to by the media in this country is appalling.

Reverend Jackson, please, focus on getting more women pregnant. You’ll be doing less damage. Reverend Sharpton, find a competent hair stylist, there is some sort of mind parasite living in your hair. La Raza, go back to trying to steal back the Southwest for Mexico or whatever it is you people do. The buzz of your meaninglessness is bothering me. We all have bigger things to worry about right now.

LaShawn Barber, who is a blogger and happens to be black, feels differently than I do.

It’s a caricature, for God’s sake. Let’s stop taking everything so damn seriously and get back to talking about issues that actually matter in the grand scheme of our lives.

I have installed the Modified Cat2Tag plugin for WordPress 1.5 today. I’m hoping it will draw more visitors who either think like me or like how I think. Or at least bring in a few new electic freedom lovers.

Thanks, Jeff Minard and Edmundo Hidalgo for the work you’ve put into this and for sharing it.

UPDATE: I added Cat2Tag to the plugins because I wanted to test the effectiveness of TagCloud. If you scroll to the bottom right of the menu bar here, you’ll notice a list of tags that contains terms used on this site is now being generated. That’s TagCloud, but TagCloud is only working because of Cat2Tag’s presence.

As you pass through my blog today, please consider signing this petition for redress of greivances, which demands the impeachment of the five SCOTUS justices who voted against property rights for American citizens, and by doing so, spit on the Constitution of the United States of America and all those who have died for the freedoms we enjoy.

Show your support for seizing the home of Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.

Press Release

For Release Monday, June 27 to New Hampshire media
For Release Tuesday, June 28 to all other media

Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter’s land.

Justice Souter’s vote in the “Kelo vs. City of New London” decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter’s home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

“This is not a prank” said Clements, “The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development.”

Clements’ plan is to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be used to raise investment capital for the project. Clements hopes that regular customers of the hotel might include supporters of the Institute For Justice and participants in the Free State Project among others.

# # #

Logan Darrow Clements
Freestar Media, LLC

Phone 310-593-4843
logan@freestarmedia.com
http://www.freestarmedia.com

I’m making lists of Top Tens, which I’ll archive and continue to adjust as I age. Here are my top ten personal beliefs:

1. Some lives are worth more than others.
2. Discrimination is a healthy survival trait.
3. Groups that protect the individual succeed. Those that don’t are doomed.
4. Citizenship should be earned, not a birthright.
5. Using force to redistribute income is evil.
6. I am responsible for the consequences of the choices I make.
7. Self-defense is my right and I’m willing to protect myself.
8. Technology is a double edged weapon.
9. Education is a holy endeavor.
10. Who owns you? Why you do, that’s who.

Thursday’s decision by the Supreme Court that any government body can take your home and give it to a developer is disgraceful and an embarassment to anyone who has ever claimed that Americans are a free people.

When I got to work this morning, I asked Fred—the 61-year old retired Marine Master Sergeant that I share an office with—what he thought about the decision. ‘Someone’s going to get shot’, was Fred’s straight answer.”

–Urban Grounds

Property taxes are bad enough, forcing you to rent your land from local government, and allowing them to take the land anytime you fail to pay. So you were already renting from the government. But until now, if you paid those taxes, in most cases, you couldn’t be driven out. Not so anymore. Now any developer and city council that decide they want your most valuable possession, your home and property, can take it by force. I’m enraged and disgusted by this decision.

It was a close call, with 5 traitorous justices making a decision that robs millions of Americans of the dearly held principle that a man’s home is his castle. I don’t use the term traitor lightly, but it is the only one that fits here. These five human beings are saying it’s OK for government to seize private property merely because it wants too. I thought theft was illegal. These traitors say otherwise.

I might as well make a list:

Traitor #1 – John Paul Stevens
Traitor #2 – Anthony Kennedy
Traitor #3 – Stephen G. Breyer
Traitor #4 – David A. Souter
Traitor #5 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Read the bios of your non-elected overlords, these five betrayers of the American ideal that any American property owner, no matter how weak or poor, is secure in his or her property. They’re nothing but enablers for greed and theft. If it were up to me, they would be replaced immediately and barred from further “public service.”

IO Error’s take on the decision.
Liberty for Sale speaks out.
Urban Grounds thinks someone’s going to get shot.

Join the Castle Coalition now and fight the government robbers who want to invade your domain.

If some things are worth dying for, and I think they are, property rights are on the list of those things. SCOTUS, you are being warned by many voices, and should listen carefully before you write a check you cannot cash. Why, oh why, are fools lining up in droves to help break down freedoms that made America a beacon for the rest of humanity? Something’s gonna give, and soon. A nation divided cannot stand, and we’re setting ourselves up for a nasty fall.

In a politically correct environment the rules make about as much sense as dipping your genitals into boiling water because “I was bored” would. I understand that there are dumb people in the world, and that I have to live with them from time to time. What I don’t understand is why we allow them to make rules about how we fly.

If you are the government, and you have issued rifles and pistols to your troops, and they will be flying with those rifles and pistols, how does it make sense to take away their nose hair clippers and lighters, as well as other “dangerous” items, while you ferry them like herd cattle into a combat zone where they may well die?

A lot of the energy in our national discourse as of late has been dedicated to complaining about desecration of various items like flags and holy books. The definition of desecration is: “blasphemous behavior; the act of depriving something of its sacred character.”

I submit to you, the reader, that by handing our servicepeople pistols and rifles and then taking away their nose hair clippers, lighters and knives, we are desecrating them. We are mocking their willingness to give up their lives voluntarily so that we can walk around fat, happy and ignorant. And that disgusts me. Stop the insanity by speaking out against this nonsense.

I love this country, and I’m willing to fight for it, but let me keep my goddamn pocketknife, you idiots. It comes in handy on the battlefield.

Bruce Schneier comments on this topic.

For the record, I believe that those who want to make burning the U.S. flag illegal are as emotionally immature as the ragtag bands of fanatical Muslims who run around screaming and rioting when they hear someone might have desecrated the Koran.

My advice to Orrin Hatch and cronies – grow up, you’re wasting time on bullshit that does nothing to actually advance the cause of America. In case you’ve forgotten, we used to advertise ourselves as the land of the free and the home of the brave, so please stop trying to make us the land of the regulated and the home of the legislative. It’s gotten fairly idiotic.

I am a member of the armed forces of this proud nation, and I would like to say that I support everyone’s right to burn flags, books and bras, or whatever else suits your fancy as long as you didn’t steal whatever it is you’re burning, and as long as you control the fire.

Being able to burn something in protest is an exercise of political free speech, and should be tolerated by a nation of free people, even when we disagree with the motivations behind the actions. You can no more desecrate a flag than you can desecrate a book.

How about spending the time you spent worrying about the flag possibly being burned working on ways to support the troops in Iraq and bring them home as quickly as possible? That would be a nice change.

The clearest indicator of a nation leaning towards facism authoritarianism is when it starts to imprison those engaged in peaceful dissent. An authoritarian government is incompatible with a nation of free people.

Visit the Flag Burning Page.

Don’t worry – the government only does good things for good reasons. You can relax. Someone else will take care of it.

That’s why it shouldn’t bother you that the Transportation Security Administration is saying one thing and doing another, in violation of directives specifically given to it by Congress. I’m not a big fan of either body, but the TSA does report to Congress, and is bound by law to follow mandates that Congress issues to it. So it’s no big deal that the TSA lied and gathered a “test database” about every single traveler in the United States during June 2004. Don’t worry, all that data is safe and will only be used for “official purposes.” Yeah, right.

Some people call me paranoid. Maybe I am. But I don’t want government to know any more than it needs to about me. It already knows way too much.

Others comment on the TSA’s abuse of government authority:

Prometheus – Hey, you think you’re processing credit cards here?
Billville – Transportation Security Administration Collected Airline Passenger Data Without Public Knowledge
Secondary Screening – More Questions about TSA and Privacy

The TSA isn’t looking for the right things, can’t find what it is looking for (I know, because I test) and won’t stop a determined terrorist(s). But honestly, how many of you think the next terrorist event in the U.S. will be plane related?

I flew to Dallas from Atlanta on Monday, and as I was shuffling through the security lines next to a dignified older couple, the man leaned over to me as he was struggling to put his shoe back on and said, “I think the terrorists have already won.” He’s right.

By causing the creation of the TSA, the terrorists scored a major victory in the war against freedom and liberty in America.

Perspective is an interesting thing. I present as evidence this joke found on an Iraqi’s blog. (edited for grammar)

An old Arab lived close to New York City for more than 40 years. He would have loved to plant potatoes in his garden, but he is alone, old and weak. His son is in college in Paris, so the old man sends him an e-mail. He explains the problem: “Beloved son, I am very sad, because I can’t plant potatoes in my garden. I am sure, if only you were here, you would help and dig up the garden for me, I love you, Your Father”

A day later, the old man receives another e-mail from his son. “Beloved Father, I hope the garden is dug up by now and you can plant your potatoes. That’s all I could do for you from here. I love you, Ahmed.”

Perspective. It colors everything we do, and everything we are.

I found an interesting blogging tool called Nucleus that is a) open source and b) claims to have built in anti comment spam capabilities.

However, the demo had been hacked. That’s a potentially discouraging sign.

I’m pretty sure the real admin has no interest in adding an entry consisting of the above information. I’ll keep my eye on them though, because comment spam is the venereal disease of blogging.

As you’re reading in the post-E3 buzz, Civilization IV is getting better and better. The game is nearly complete, and right now you can play a quite satisfying single or multi-player game.

So says the Firaxis web site’s Spring 2005 Behind the Scenes letter. I am a huge fan of every version of Civilization thus far. I have fond memories of countless hours spent exploring the world in Civ I, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Civ VI might have to offer.

In fact, I love the Civilization series so much, I’ve requested an interview with Firaxis regarding the upcoming release of Civilization VI. Whether or not they want to talk to a lowly blogger remains to be seen, but I’m hoping for some inside juice on what to expect.

Read an early review of the game.

One of the features I’m greatly looking forward to is the expanded trade system:

The system has been greatly expanded with the addition of many more resources, all of which are tradable. Some of the new resources, like marble, help to increase wonder production, some are food resources (these help with the overall health of your cities), and some, such as iron or copper, allow you to build certain types of units.

–Barry Caudill

I’ve always thought trade should play a more vital role in the game, and it sounds like Firaxis is going to coddle me this time around. Another promising change is the Alliance victory. If two players can work cooperatively on-line, maybe I can get my wife interested in playing this game with me. That would be awesome.

I feel a little bit like I’m seven years old again, and it’s Christmas Eve. It’s likely I’ll be in Iraq when the game is actually released, but I am willing to jump through whatever hoops necessary to get a copy of Civilization 4, even if I’m halfway around the world.

Look for an in-depth review to be posted here when I do.

While you’re waiting, don’t forget to visit the best Civilization series info source & forum on the Internet – Civ Fanatics.

Would foreigners sign up to fight for Uncle Sam? I don’t see why not, because so many people are desperate to move here. Serving a few years in the military would seem a small price to pay, and it would establish beyond a doubt that they are the kind of motivated, hardworking immigrants we want.”

–Max Boot, LA Times Editorial

I am a fan of the idea that no one should be born a citizen. You should have to earn it. Obviously, I’m in the minority – that’s OK, most of my ideas aren’t exactly in line with mainstream America.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across an editorial in the LA Times by columnist Max Boot, suggesting that America offer potential immigrants from around the world the opportunity to earn citizenship by serving a set length of time in the military. The idea has merit.

I served in the Marine Corps for four years as a legal immigrant and discovered other immigrants were serving with me. Many of them were from the Carribean and Latin America. There is no shortage of third world males who would jump at a chance to earn U.S. citizenship. Our own population is, for the most part, far too lazy and self-centered to consider entering the military at this critical juncture in U.S. history.

Contrary to the conclusions some of my fellow bloggers have drawn about me, I’m not a wild-eyed absolutist hell bent on anarchy.

Despite my core beliefs in the least possible amount of government, I recognize that lots of people disagree with me. So I’m willing to support compromises. The Fair Tax Plan is something I can live with.

The plan would tax consumers and reward those who invest. It’s a much better plan than the current tyrrany called the IRS. I could live with it.

Check it out, maybe you will want to support it as well.

Neal Boortz and John Linder have written a book explaining the Fair Tax Plan. It’s worth purchasing.

Now that runaway retard Jennifer Wilbanks has decided to make money off her idiotic life story, I rescind my earlier posts in which I said that she shouldn’t go to jail. Jennifer is proving herself to be the mentally weak, self-indulgent ignorant slob that gives this country a bad reputation.

Not only Jennifer Wilbanks, but her fiancé John Mason are now cashing in on the fame they acquired during Jennifer’s little episode last April. A book is in the works, and a movie is being pushed. Now maybe we understand why Mason is hanging around. Money talks, Jennifer walks. It’s easy to slam Wilbanks and Mason for cashing in on her actions .. and her lies … but let’s not forget to look at ourselves here. Perhaps the real blame here should lie with the disgusting celebrity culture that permeates our society. The average American is more interested in just who Brad Pitt cheated with on Jennifer Anniston than they are who represents them in the congress. My hope for the runaway bride and her now-fiancé? May you flop .. and may the both of you one day return to the anonymity you so richly deserve.”

–Neal Boortz

Make sure you submit your entry for Neal’s contest to name Jennifer’s new book. Might as well mock her as much as possible. What a dirty whore.

She should be court ordered to turn over all profits from any book and movie deals related to her story to private charities that help victims of real crimes.

Others weigh in on the continuing saga of the retarded runaway from Atlanta:

News Before It’s News – Possible covers for the new Jennifer Wilbanks book
Shadowscope – More Jennifer Wilbanks horseshit

The headline: House votes no on Patriot Act provision

The keyword is provision. The rest of the act could be dumped without having the slightest impact, positive or negative, against a single terrorist cell. At least, no one in government has proven otherwise. Let’s keep on talking about the Patriot Act until the entire unpatriotic piece of authoritarian garbage is nothing but a bad memory.

Let’s hope God speaks to President Bush and reminds him that there is no rational reason to veto this. That’s what I’m praying for. You listening Big Guy?

The War Liberal and I are now firing salvos back and forth. Here’s my response to “An open response to Trevor”. Mac’s (the War Liberal) in italics, in case you’re confused.

1. The claim that technology would have made slavery go away is a laugh — and an oh-so-typical Libertarian claim that the “market” will take care of any injustice. It reminds me of nothing so much as the Marxist claim that the state would wither away. There’s no evidence of it and in fact experience shows otherwise. It took almost a hundred years after the legal end of slavery in the United States for southern blacks to gain basic civil rights. Slavery still exists in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. The only technologies that ever did anything to end slavery were printing and the Springfield rifle.

I’m not famialiar with whatever Marxist claim you’re referring too. And I certainly won’t argue that it took a long time after the Civil War for blacks to gain their civil rights. Hell, they still get treated differently than whites.

As far as technology supplanting slavery, I think I have a valid point. Technology would have made it economically impossible for a Confederate States of America to compete against the Northern United States of America if the CSA had been allowed to secede. I realize it is easy to gloss over the fact that Northerners practiced slavery too, and so most people do. But slavery in the North was ending by itself, without a Civil War, due to social pressure and economic realities that included new technology.

Some have argued that the Civil War was actually the great turning point in enslaving all of us. I suppose that depends on your personal definition of slavery.

2. Another Libertarian problem is that they can’t seem to get their minds around the fact that just because an injustice will go away “someday” that actual human beings are suffering now. We have a duty as members of a society to fight injustice even if in a few generations that injustice will be gone. In the long run, we are all dead. (Ooh, I quoted Keynes at him. Now we’re really going to have a flamewar.)

We have a private duty to fight immorality. The federal government has no appropriate role in any such activities. I’m a transhumanist, so I don’t believe that in the long run, we’ll all die. I might die. Maybe. I don’t like to watch humans suffer, but I tend to tend to my own needs first.

3. Libertarians may be quarrelsome, but every one I’ve ever run across agrees on two central points:

* The Federal income tax is the worst thing ever.
* Guns are neat.

Very astute of you.

4. Seriously, the Libertarian obsession with the supposed horror of Federal government control has blinded them to the very basic and obvious fact that local authorities are at least as capable of oppressing their people as the central government. In fact, they’re usually more capable, because they can focus more closely upon individuals. Even with modern information technology, the 280 million people of the United States are pretty much an undifferentiated mass to the Feds, while local governments can focus and micromanage.

Local governments are also easier to fight or run away from. If you don’t like a local government, you have options. When the FedGov does turn lumberingly to focus on an individual citizen it’s like a big dumb mean kid with a magnifying glass burning an ant. The ant has very little chance. Hell, fleeing the country isn’t good enough anymore, if the FedGov decides you’re a bad man, you may find yourself hunted down in Borneo. Which is OK, when the FedGov is right. But the FedGov f**ks up a lot.

5. Similarly, Libertarians are (bizarrely) incapable of understanding that personal liberty depends upon a strong government, one that keeps the wealthy and powerful from exploiting the poor and weak. American history is rife with examples of individual citizens and corporations denying personal liberty to countless individuals. The checks and balances between the public and private sector are just as important as those between the branches of government.

I suggest you purchase and read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers so we may continue our discussion with both parties appropriately armed. A strong central government always decreases the rights of individuals. While you’re waiting for your books to be delivered, find the nearest inner-city crack house to your geographical location and ask some of the addicts inside if they think our strong federal government is doing a good job of protecting the poor and the weak from the strong and the rich. I’m sure they will all agree that a strong federal government has vastly improved the quality of their lives. And I’ll bet that they too find us libertarians to be bizarre creatures.

6. This is my site, I’ll do what I want with it. Very Libertarian.

Got no argument with this.

Update: After reading my entry comparing the IRS to slavery, Mac claims he’ll ignore me from now on because I’m crazy. I’m not sure why Mac got all angry all of a sudden – perhaps he is offended that I want to keep my life’s work instead of being forced to share it while being told the whole process is voluntary. Maybe he is unware that if I refused to cooperate with the IRS I would have all my assets seized and end up in a fine federal penitentary, which is certainly a form of slavery. Or maybe Mac is just a fan of organized theft, as long as it is done by officials in bad suits. I guess I’ll never know since I’m crazy and he is ignoring me. Maybe I should just throw up my hands, starting watching sitcoms like everyone else and give up my dreams of smaller government.

A slave is: One who is abjectly subservient to a specified person or influence (in this case massa is the FedGov.)

The top ten ways the U.S. Federal Government has made U.S. Citizens slaves:

1. Mandatory seat belt laws – FedGov owns your body and makes decisions about how you treat it. You must strap it in or you will be fined!
2. OSHA – These folks spend all day designing rules that are supposed to keep us safe in the workplace. Sometimes they actually accomplish this. Mostly, they just make it more expensive to get things done. Ask any small business owner who has ever been bankrupted by one of their rules. Ask that small business owner’s former employees.
3. Patriot Act – Secret searches, secret judges. FedGov has removed a number of checks and balances to make it easier to spy on you. All it has to do is label you a terrorist. The word terrorist is quickly changing meaning. It now means "anyone who presents any challenge to the existing federal government."
4. Medicare – FedGov takes money you have earned and sets standards about what types of medical care that money will be used to provide to you. Takes a cut of that money in process.
5. Social Security (FICA) – FedGov takes money you have earned and uses it for a plethora of other purposes throughout your entire adult life. Does not pay you interest. Gives you back a little bit of the money in your old age if you are lucky.
6. ATF – The Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. FedGov uses this group of testosterone imbalanced mental cases to regulate and tax three completely unrelated government regulated items. They routinely violate the Bill of Rights in the pursuit of FedGov desires.
7. DEA – Another constitutionally nonauthorized group of rogue agents whose job is to accelerate the process of helping drug addicts destroy their own lives by imprisoning them, seizing their property and violating their civil rights in any number of ways.
8. TSA – The Transportation "Security" Authority makes all the rules related to airline security. Their crowning achievements – ensuring you cannot have matches on board a plane and that you are promptly arrested if you display a bad attitude about being treated like a herd animal while attempting to pass through airport screenings.
9. Fiat currency – a monetary standard with zero value. All money printed in the United States was backed by gold in the past. Now it’s just made up as the government needs it. The green paper you use to value everything in your life has no value because it is backed up by nothing tangible.
10. IRS – The number one way that the FedGov has declared that it owns you is the Internal Revenue Service, which steals your money from you before it is ever even doled out by your employer. If a private citizen tried to do this it would be called theft. But when the IRS does it it’s called "voluntary" taxation. Funny, I don’t remember volunteering to be a government slave. I’m only cooperating because you have more guns.

Who owns you? They do, that’s who.

Author’s note: I’d love to hear your feedback, here or via e-mail. Do you agree with my top ten list? Let me know how you would change it. Feel free to revise and redistribute it. I’ll try to update it as I receive feedback and reconsider what I’ve written.

In a splendid display of petulance, the War Liberal has threatened to censor me for using the term “War of Northern Aggression.” I love it!

As you point out Mac, it’s your site – help yourself to a heaping helping of censorship if you wish.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
— Abraham Lincoln, From the November 19, 1863 Gettysburg Address

That quote just as true today as it was in 1863, except the current war is an infowar being fought between red and blue states and red and blue ideology. When this war is over, libertarians will be here to pick up the pieces and put back into place a minarchy. At least that is my hope.

Holly, this post is in answer to your question – who is Neal Boortz?

I’ll start by posting a portion of Boortz’s bio from his web site:

“For those of you who don’t know, Neal Boortz (that’s me) has been a Talk Show Host (What Bill Clinton would refer to as a “Preacher of Hate”) in Atlanta, Georgia since 1969. Since 1993 I have been holding forth on News Talk 750 WSB, a radio station with a 50,000 watt afterburner. Since early 1999 my show has been syndicated on radio stations from Maine to California and from Alaska to Florida. My program airs live from 8:30 to 1:00 pm each weekday. Right now I am closing in on four million listeners nationwide. Hey, that’s not up to Limbaugh standards, but then I’m growing faster than he is.”

And here is why Neal Boortz is important in my life –

“. . .Politics? I’m a confirmed Libertarian. I believe that the principal difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats just want to grow our Imperial Federal Government a bit faster than the Republicans do.”

Libertarian and minarchist – those are two labels that help define who I am. Boortz introduced me to libertarian thought and that led me to the concept of minarchism. Minarchists believe in the minimum possible amount of government.

I don’t want government to provide me with anything other than a strong national defense on the federal level and some minimal domestic police forces at the state and local levels. In my mind, everything else that other tolerate from government is bunk. I consider the current tax system we live under nothing more than organized theft.

Boortz has been a strong influence helping me reach the conclusions that shape the type of human being I am, and the type of human being I strive to be. Government teaches us that we cannot do anything well without government. Boortz helps me to confirm over and over again that the opposite is usually true – most things go better without government.

Neal Boortz showed me that government oversight of any project is an almost sure fire recipe for cost overruns and massive delays in completion. I work in the construction industry, where either of those two ingredients is a sure recipe for bankruptcy. Our government doesn’t have any need to be fiscally responsible though and Boortz has spent the last few decades trying to change that.

Boortz just finished writing a book about the Fair Tax plan, which is a good start in changing the level of fiscal responsibility we citizens demand from our federal government.

We all need heros and role models. Neal Boortz is one of my heros. He’s one of my role models and he’s also a very funny man. His radio show is great, and I read his Nealz Nuze religiously. A lot of my blog entries are based on something he posts to his site. This is not to say we don’t disagree on some points, because we do. But I don’t have a daily audience of 4 million. Boortz does, so he’s obviously got things to say that resonate with people.

I would rather be molested by Michael Jackson than have to listen to one more minute of the idiotic talking heads on Fox News. Their ceaseless prattle is driving me insane. I can’t find a talk show or news channel that is talking about anything important. Michael Jackson is not important. He doesn’t make decisions that affect your choices. He can’t tell you that you have to carry a special new ID or that you’re not allowed to smoke pot, even if it would relieve the pain of your terminal cancer.

It’s all pundits chewing on the Michael Jackson case like it’s the best piece of beef jerky they’ve ever tasted in their lives. It’s disgusting. Stop interviewing the tards on the street about what they think. Stop speculating on what Jackson will do now. Talk about something that actually matters. The circus sideshow is over. Drop it and move on.

1115: Interrogators began telling detainee how ungrateful and grumpy he was. In order to escalate the detainee’s emotions, a mask was made from an MRE box with a smily face on it and placed on the detainee’s head for a few moments. A latex glove was inflated and labeled the “sissy slap” glove. The glove was touched to the detainee’s face periodically after explaining the terminology to him. The mask was placed back on the detainee’s head. While wearing the mask, the team began dance instruction with the detainee. The detainee became agitated and began shouting.”

Time Magazine tells the torrid tale of a terrible torture. Translated, that means that Time Magainze is reporting the awful and horrid abuse of a GITMO detainee. What’s most shocking about this story is – nothing.

The U.S. military routinely treats its own elite forces worse than what is described here while preparing them for the possibility of actual combat against enemies. Time is merely attempting to be sensationalist by pandering to an audience of fat, spoiled people who have mostly never experienced any real hardship in their overly protected lives.

SERE Level C training is much harsher than what is being described above. If our own troops are being exposed to psychological stress tactics for training purposes, why shouldn’t a potential mass murderer and suspected or proven enemy combatant be exposed to the same thing?

Some days, I think the enemy within – the fat, soft, and ignorant parasites in our society – those whose biggest contribution is complain about everything, will be the ones who bring us down. Fighting and winning isn’t a problem if you are prepared to face the reality that comes with such a commitment.

I’ve argued in this blog that torture is wrong I stand by that argument. But let’s all work on a common definition of torture – I’ll use the dictionary one as a starting point.

tor·ture

1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.

Neal Boortz lists some of the “torture” that was inflicted on a GITMO detainee:

“* Daily interviews that sometimes began at 4 a.m. and continued until midnight. Long day. Poor baby. Should of thought about that before you attacked America.
* He was asked to bark like a dog. Oh, the humanity!
* He was shown pictures of the 9/11 attacks. How could we be so cruel?
* He was asked to write letters of apology to the families of 9/11 victims. Write? He can write?
* Refusal of bathroom breaks, resulting in al-Qahtani peeing his pants. Wahh.
* Interrogators woke this character up with Christina Aguilera music at midnight to start the questioning. A little harsh, but it could be worse. He could have been shown Paris Hilton’s sex video, but that should only be a last resort.
* A female interrogator violated his personal space! Oh my God, not that!
* Other assorted methods included standing for prolonged periods, isolation for up to 30 days, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair and hanging pictures of half-naked women around his neck. Awww.”

Give me a break. I am a basically trained Marine and I was subjected to the same types of games. That is all they are. Games. Anyone without the inherent mental weakness we seem to be culling in our current generations of Americans would survive this sort of stuff without blinking an eye. I know, because I did.

Our real special forces types – the Recon Marines, SEALs and Green Berets, to name a few, eat this sort of psyops stuff, digest it, crap it out and keep moving. I’d like to see the Congressmen who are complaining about the treatment of these prisoners of war be forced to undergo a shortened SERE type course as a condition of their continued service to country. What a bunch of pathetic mental midgets. They are doing their constituents and the country they claim to serve a great disservice.

Time Magazine should be ashamed of its sensationalism and silliness in calling the treatment of Detainee 063 “torture.” Grow up, you’re hurting Americans by publishing this tripe. If you have evidence that people are being beaten, killed or disappeared while under American jurisdiction, I want to hear it. Till then, STFU. You’re urinating on the memories of the people who jumped, were burned up or crushed to death on September 11, 2001.

Update: Powerline provides a link to a Department of Defense Memo regarding Guantanamo Bay, and defending the mission and methods there.

I’ve mentioned this before, but since government spreads like cancer, I have to mention it again and again till either I’m in jail or the FEC has gone to hell where it belongs.

Theron Parlin over at Thought Mechanics warns that the FEC is still trying to regulate “political” blogs, which means it wants regulatory control over anyone with an opinion.

Be warned, if you ever blog about anything remotely involving politics, you’re about to become a new class of criminal unless you’re willing to be intimidated, censored, and controlled by the threat of force.

This is nothing more than an attempt to silence Americans from expressing their feelings about politicians. Politicians, as a class, are dirty, lying, narcissistic vultures that feed off the corpses of productive members of society through economic slavery. McCain-Feingold is garbage, and this proposal is an attempt at more garbage.

Where the hell did the land of the free go? The FEC and anyone involved in trying to censor blogs can kiss my ass.

To be fair, many bloggers are claiming the FEC has little to no interest in regulating blogs. I don’t believe them, because I know bureaucrats too well – they want to regulate everything. If you ask a bureaucrat to make up some new rules, they salivate in exactly the same way as an 18-year-old male will salivate if you parade a buxom nude female in front of him.

Not many people realize that until World War II, Americans paid their income tax by writing a check at the end of the year. Back then, the max rate was about 2%. The withholding part of it got started to help out the war effort and was supposed to be temporary. Here in 2005, my income tax is about 25% to the fed, best I can figure. Government can’t be trusted much, so if anyone in government is even dreaming about censoring bloggers, we should be concerned.

Read the proposed rules in their entirety (requires .pdf reader). Warning: 13 pages of mindless bureaudrivel designed to bore you to death so you won’t care enough to bother paying attention.

Update: Please read the story of Iranian blogger Mojtaba Samienejad. How long do you think it will take before American citizens are in prison for blogging if the FEC has its way? It always starts with a few restrictions that only a few people really care about – no political blogging without such and such happening within 90 days of an election can quickly turn into your blog must be approved by the Department of Correct Thinking to ensure that you are projecting proper thoughts that do not offend anyone else.

This blog entry is a detailed response to Patrick Stone, who takes issue with me for my comments about Ulrica Corbett and the state of public education in the United States. Our dialogue is based on my original Ulrica Corbett post of several days ago. Ulrica Corbett is the school principal who ignored a request for a Marine to come and visit one of the classes in her school and thereby ignited an angry response from the pro-U.S. military portion of the blogosphere.

For the record, my problem with public schools is that they no longer make education a priority. Rather, in many cases, public schools seem to focus on indoctrination and medication.

US 15-year-olds scored measurably better than their counterparts in only 3 of 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in a new test of problem-solving in math.

—The Christian Science Monitor

1) Me:“It seems to me that Ulrica Corbett was the one muddying the issue by ignoring the request (for the Marine to visit).”

Stone: Seems. Your assumption isn’t necessarily the truth and I see little to support such an assumption. Do you know something the rest of us do not? Have you done some kind of Vulcan mind-meld with her and now know her motives?

Me: Assumptions are a valid survival mechanism. I use assumptions to make decisions in situations when I am faced with incomplete information and time constraints. For instance, if I filled out a bureaucratic form and it was ignored, I might assume that I needed to proceed on my own recognizance.

2) Me: “Are you a public school administrator by any chance?”

Stone: No. But then, the issue isn’t me, right?

Me: I’m not sure yet. I haven’t quite figured out why you’re defending Ms. Corbett so vehemently.

3) Me: “I can’t figure out why you are such a strong defender of someone who thinks that a U.S. Marine represents a threat to the safety and welfare of U.S. schoolchildren. Reaching such a conclusion is indicative of poor ability to reason on the part of Ulrica Corbett.”

Stone:Wow… we’ve gone from her not approving a request to assuming she now considering Richardson a “threat.” You must teach me this Vulcan trick of yours. I would very much like to peer into the heads of others and divine their innermost thoughts. That’s remarkable!

Me: The words of Ulrica Corbett seem pretty clear to me, “My decision not to allow Zach Richardson to speak with the students on Monday came out of my regard for the safety and welfare of our children.” I too find her conclusion that Sgt. Richardson represented a threat to the safety and welfare of American school children remarkable. That’s why I’m blogging the topic.

4) Me: “By the way, you win the $2 fancy word contest for using discursive in a sentence.”

Stone: “Discursive” is a fancy word? (Shrug.)

BTW, that’s suspiciously close to an ad hominem comment. Am I to be insulted for using “fancy” words? Does that make me a pointy-headed liberal elitist or something? Let’s keep the topic at hand in mind and steer clear of personal comments. Can we do that?

Me: We can do that.

5) Me: “So far, that I am aware of, her only statement has been that she was doing it for the “safety of the children,” which is an incredible pile of steaming bullshit.”

Stone: Sigh… you don’t understand what she means by that because (as you have admitted) you don’t volunteer your time in public schools. You’re assuming she’s stupid and doesn’t understand what a Marine is. The reality is that she (along with the rest of our pathetically under-funded public schools) is under a lot of pressure to keep track of who comes and goes and to make sure someone *is* who they claim they are–and that takes time to do, time that they simply don’t have to spare.

Me: Pathetically underfunded? You’re living in a dream world. I suggest you read the article linked in the quote below.

Among more than 25 industrialized nations, no country spends more public and private money to educate each student than the United States, according to an annual review by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

School administrators should be focused on educating students, not “protecting” them. It speaks volumes about our society that our priorities for school administrators have shifted from educating students to nannying them.

Stone:What’s to stop a terrorist from dressing up and claiming to be an active duty Marine who wants to speak to the kids in some class? As a school admin, I assume you would throw caution and policy to the wind and bow down before the uniform and let such a person have free reign of the school, right?

Most terrorists don’t have a valid military ID card. Also, Matthew Lund is clearly not going to vouch for someone who is a terrorist. If I were a school administrator, I would a) trust my teacher to prescreen visitors they are requesting b) check Sgt. Richardson’s military ID card and speak to him if I had any feeling that things weren’t kosher c) called Sgt. Richardson’s command if necessary to verify who he was and d) thanked Sgt. Richardson for his service to country and for speaking to the kids.

6) Stone: Probably. Do me a favor. If you ever get into school administration, let me know. I want to keep my kids as far away from your school as humanly possible.

Me: I hope your kids manage to grow up with some common sense and independent thinking skills even though the odds are stacked against them. It could happen if they only pretend to swallow their Ritalin and spit it out when you and Ms. Corbett aren’t looking.

Update: Reason Magazine article called How Schools Cheat. Read it. Thanks to Liberty Dog for his related article.

We spend so much time being negative in this country. I am one of the worst offenders. Michael Yon’s blog gives me hope and helps me see the glass as half full again. Thanks for a much needed recharge, Mr. Yon. You are using up your life in a way that earns my deepest respect.

In case anyone has formed the impression that I’m against the war in Iraq from reading this blog – you are dead wrong. Like the Bush administration and most world governments, I thought Saddam Hussein was sitting on weapons of mass destruction. I know he was funding terrorism. He represented a threat to world stability and to the U.S. Anyone who thinks Saddam wouldn’t have jumped at any chance to assist mass murder of U.S. citizens is a delusion idiot. The occupation of Iraq makes sense, if we see it through.

I have lots and lots of problems with government, but very few with self-defense. As long as I am convinced that invading Iraq was about self-defense, I am at peace with my own military service. Michael Yon is offers you and I a look into the country of Iraq, and into the minds of those who live there, and our troops who are serving there. Read every entry and see if you come away the same person. Unless you’re brain dead I do not see how you could.

Here in the U.S. we had the FBI spying on e-mail with Carnivore and then commercially sold software (government obviously sucks at creating snoopware). Our government relies on no-knock searches and secret courts to take care of “protecting us.” I’m sure some of this activity is legitimately done with good intentions but all of it violates the fourth amendment to our Constitution, as far as I’m concerned. As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Anyhow, we Americans aren’t the only ones having our privacy invaded by government. The Europeans have it worse. France, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom are considering and pushing a requirement that will force ISPs to keep records of all phone and e-mail for all customers for 12-36 months. If this is passed, stand by for the cost of making a phone call or sending an e-mail to rise drastically in Europe.

To assert my privacy rights, I am now encrypting all my computer files. It isn’t that I have anything to hide, it’s just that I don’t feel any obligation to share anything I don’t want to share with the authorities just because they are the authorities. I am no more enthusiastic about freely sharing my private data than I would be about freely submitting to DNA testing on demand. Authoritarians are dangerous, and should be caged whenever possible to protect the rest of us from their desire to manage things that don’t need managing.

Jennifer at The Shout is thinking about privacy rights too:

Why research the law or have encryption software if you aren’t doing anything wrong? This is the disfavored interpretation that people are worried about. The second is that the encryption and expectation of police raids suggests that the defendant must have gotten rid of the incriminating pictures. “

Read the whole piece. It’s worth your time. Also, I highly recommend getting a copy of PGP 9 or some other encryption software while you still can legally do so. It’s important to assert your convictions. Just because some people are bad doesn’t mean I should be denied my privacy or be assumed to be a criminal. A society that doesn’t respect the individual and individual rights doesn’t deserve to exist.

If society is allowed to invade every facet of the existence of an individual at will or suspend the rights of an individual based on whether or not they are using encryption to protect a secret, I don’t want to be a part of it. I have a right to privacy and self-defense that outweighs society’s desire to control and monitor my behavior.

We know that US borders are porous, that major targets are largely undefended, and that the multicolor threat alert scheme known affectionately as “the rainbow of doom” is a national joke. Anybody who has been paying attention probably suspects that if we rely on orders from above to protect us, we’ll be in terrible shape. But in a networked era, we have increasing opportunities to help ourselves. This is the real source of homeland security: not authoritarian schemes of surveillance and punishment, but multichannel networks of advice, information, and mutual aid.

Question Authorities is one of the best articles I have read in any mainstream publication this year. Thank you for writing it, Gary Wolf. I shall honor you with addition to my blogroll and my readership of your blog.

Thanks primarily to Michelle Malkin linking to my site, I’m up to 300 visitors a day. Initially, Michelle’s link brought in 1,100 visitors over a 48-hour period. The traffic spike has petered off to a level that is still three times what I was receiving prior to her casual mention.

Michelle is thinking about some of the same things I’m thinking about these days, albeit from a slightly different perspective.

The details of her blog post regarding possible prisoner murders by the U.S. military in Iraq are important and should be read and considered carefully.

One thing I try to keep in mind when the pundits are flapping their gums is that I am constantly being bombarded by information and that most of it is of dubious or low quality. One thing I appreciate about Michelle Malkin is that she researches topics before mentioning them. That’s important, because it means the level of quality of the information spewing forth from her is usually higher than that coming from many other sources.

I say this without consideration of her personal politics.

People build perceptions over a period of time based on the information that is constantly bombarding them. In a society as information rich and quality poor as ours, it’s important to have filters. Michelle Malkin, then, is one of my information filters. She helps me sort and quantify. Neal Boortz is another person I rely on as an information filter. Many of the blogs I read regularly also act as such filters. The New American Revolutionist, A Dog Named Liberty, Bruce Schneier and others are valued filters.

My worldview is increasingly shaped by those I entrust with the role of my filters. Thank you. You keep me sane.

From My War, I have garnered the following information:

The Pentagon has ‘no specific guidelines on blogging per se,’ said Cheryl Irwin, a Defense Department spokeswoman. ‘Generally, they can do it if they are writing their blogs not on government time and not on a government computer.'”

I’ll try to do my blogging generally, as opposed to privately. There’s an attempt at a witty pun hidden somewhere in this blog entry. Yes, I’m bringing my own personal computer to war. I hear it’s very chic to do so.

Since I’m scheduled to be deployed to Iraq, I have begun looking for information about the possibility of bringing my Glock 23 and Bushmaster Varminter overseas with me. When I asked the soldier directly above me in my chain of command, I was laughed at. Of course, that is to be expected. Most enlisted guard troops aren’t the eptiome of original thought or initiative. I am often surprised that the Army hasn’t published a manual outlining the approved methods for wiping one’s own ass after defecating.

Now I’m scouring the web trying to find out what the chances are that there is a legitimate process for getting official approval. I found a site that claims I may be able to bring my own pistol with me, but might then be unable to bring it back. Why would I want to throw away a $600 pistol? On the other hand, I won’t be issued a personal pistol as an non-infantry Army sergeant.

Black Five has a post with lots of anecdotal evidence that confuses me.

But the bottom line is this: I already own weapons of better quality than what would be issued me in Iraq. My Bushmaster Varminter is scoped and is built much better than the M-16A2/A3 I’m most likely to be issued. Why the government wouldn’t want to save money by having appropriately equipped troops bring their own weapons is beyond me. There is also a historical precedent for bringing my own weapons to war.

I want the best tools possible while on deployment. Does anyone have any information about a legal method for bringing my own weapons with me?

Update: Colby Buzzell of My War has e-mailed me to let me know that a pistol is mostly useless in Iraq, and gave me feedback that makes me think my idea to bring my own weapons was probably ill conceived because of the rigid bureaucracy that is the military command structure.

I sometimes have to fly places for business reasons. This is a highly distasteful part of my life, because I hate the TSA with a passion. It embodies the height of government arrogance and stupidity.

I cite as an example of this idiocy the new signs in the Atlanta airport which indicate severe penalties for joking about bombs and/or terrorism. The colorful new signs are all over near the security checkpoint. I would have taken a picture of the signs, but that is probably considered a crime as well.

Let us ask ourselves — are real terrorists likely to skip through the airport laughing and telling bomb jokes? Do human monsters who will be soon be boarding the plane with evil intent walk toward that plane while loudly recounting humorous anecdotes about that time in Scotland when they took over a plane using only a book of strike anywhere matches and a D-cup sized bra from Victoria’s Secret.

Anyhow, the Transportation Security Authority does nothing to make me feel secure. And signs warning travelers that inappropriate jokes will result in imprisonment remind me that increasingly, the United States is NOT the land of the free. My guess is that most people who get belligerent and make inappropriate statements while moving through security are doing so because security is a joke. Some of them may be rebelling against being treated in a way that is discourteous. Others may simply feel offended by the fact that compliance with modern American airport security is more about compliance than it is about security.

I digress though. This post isn’t about the TSA.

This post is mainly about the gentlemen I sat next to on the plane last night. He is a former soldier who believes that the U.S. military routinely tortures people to death. I politely told this gentleman that if I ever had any proof of such activity taking place with official sanction from a general level officer, I would immediately request a dismissal from the remainder of my contract to serve my state and nation.

I want to know, am I completely in the dark? Are there secret programs where we torture human beings by cutting their off fingers and shoving high pressure water pipes up their asses and subjecting them to electric shocks in senstive places? I’m sure we’ve had isolated incidents. But I believe that the U.S. military would punish such activity appropriately, once it was discovered. I don’t believe the vast majority of U.S. troops would willingly participate in such events as torture and murder.

The U.S. is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons, into which people are being literally disappeared, held in indefinite, incommunicado detention without access to lawyers or a judicial system or to their families”

–William Schulz, Director, Amnesty International USA

Physical torture is inappropriate for civilized human beings to inflict on other humans and should not be an acceptable form of extracting information. If our Constitution protects citizens from cruel and unusual punishment, then it should also protect our enemies from the same thing.

You cannot advertise yourself as the home of the free and the land of the brave if your government supports secret prisons, illicit torture and disappearing people. It would be morally wrong to support such a government, anywhere in the world.

Killing in self-defense is acceptable. Murdering and torturing human beings, even the ones who want to murder and torture you, is not.

I know my government is stupid enough to muck up the process of providing security to civilian travelers by treating them all like a million herd animals, but I do not believe my government is evil enough to systematically create secret prisons where it tortures and kills prisoners with the blessing of general level officers.

What do you believe?

Update: Mustang has some good comments over at Social Sense on this issue. According to the stats he publishes from Rueters, the percentage of credible torture allegations being investigated that resulted from 28,000 interrogations is 10. That’s a percentage of less than .035 and doesn’t indicate any type of systemic or officially supported prisoner abuse.

When I was culturing cells in the lab there’d be an occasion where I was finished with the culture and we destroyed it. We’d take the cells, we’d do the experiment and then we’d throw them away in an efficacious manner. We’d sterilize them so they were dead, but is that destroying life? Those cells are living cells, so that’s life in a sense. Bacteria are living, and viruses are living by the definition, they can self-replicate. So, what kind of life are we talking about here?

Most of the lay public has really no concept of what is done in the laboratory today. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there are people that are very familiar with cells and the embryology behind the development of the fetus and those are the people that really, I think, understand what we’re doing in the laboratory when we’re manipulating cells. So Bush says that we’re destroying life, well what kind of life are we talking about here?”

–Dr. John Leavitt

I believe that it is wrong to kill a human being except in cases of self-defense.

Having said that, I have zero problems with stem cell research, and feel that President Bush is out of line for using the power of government to stop it from happening in this country. On the other hand, using the power of government to steal money from people and use it to fund stem cell research is also wrong.

If, like most people, you are ignorant of what stem cell research really entails, please read this interview from the very thoughtful Theron Parlin over at Thought Mechanics. It may shed some light on the debate and help you decide where you stand.

I’ve concluded that stem cells are much like warts, except more useful. Yes, they’re life. They don’t think or feel so they aren’t human life. Try and convince me otherwise. For now, I’m a wholehearted proponent of private stem cell research.

The Department of Homeland Stupidity is at it again. They are now vigorously enforcing copyright law. Why?

How does this make our homeland safer from foreign and domestic threats?

Shouldn’t they be spending their resources on matters of national security instead of worrying about who is downloading the new Star Wars movie? Here’s the DHS’s mission statement, in case anyone is unsure what they’re supposed to be doing.”

— Bruce Schneier

This is another example of why big government is bad. We don’t need a giant overlord agency in this country.

Shortly after the Department of Homeland Stupidity was created, I had to call 911 on their ass. It was an ineffective ploy on my part, but it made me feel that I at least had registered my displeasure in some small way.

The reason I called 911 on the DHS – I was traveling on a local interstate when one of their white cargo vans passed me going well above 100 MPH. The emergency lights were not on, and the van was not responding to any national security threat. Cargo vans are not designed to go 110 MPH and weave in and out of traffic. This was just some government employee taking advantage of their position to drive recklessly.

The DHS is just one giant invitation for bureaucrats to abuse the power of government. I realize it was created to make individual agencies more responsible to a central authority, but I haven’t seen any massive improvements in the effectiveness of the federal government, nor do I expect too anytime soon. The Department of Homeland Stupidity is not doing a damn thing to move the United States any closer to being the land of the free and the home of the brave.

More bureaucracy will always lead to additional problems and never to viable solutions. This is clearly evidenced when you have a federal government so bloated with unnecessary management that your “security team” has a division enforcing copyright law and trademark infringement.

If the United States Government was really interested in security, it would be cutting red tape and trimming departments instead of creating whole new cadres of overlords. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians, stupid.

Wow.

I realize I’m a small potatoes blogger. Not making ripples. Michelle Malkin, on the other hand, is marketable. She’s a known entity and well respected in some circles. Other circles loathe her with great ardency.She linked my blog! How cool is that? Pretty cool.

I am not the type to get starstruck, but it does mildly tickle me to think that I’m going to get at least a little traffic from a pundit who has a lot of things to say that I agree with. The only thing that could top a link from Michelle Malkin would be a link from Neal Boortz.

Warning: nearly-nude male adult below! If such material is offensive to you, please leave now. Come back in a week and this post will be safely hidden.

I’m going to be posting one collage image of me once a month for the next three months to catalogue what sort of physical changes I can achieve (or not) by following an advanced workout program with a Bowflex Extreme. I realize I’m not male model material. That’s OK. This is for educational purposes, not titallation. That’s why the smiley faces have been placed over strategic portions of my anatomy. I’ll likely blog the workout itself at some point down the road.

I have several goals with the Bowflex. I want to try and lower my blood pressure and heart rate a little bit. I have, in the past, been a half-pack a day or so smoker, and have also enjoyed many beers over the last ten years or so. Both of these activities have been curtailed as I prepare for my journey to Iraq. It’s ironic that as I prepare for entry into a hostile zone, I being taking better care of my body.

Anyhow, through minor lifestyle and dietary changes, I have dropped 15 pounds off my frame already, and the goal now is to build back some muscle where the beginnings of middle aged fat have started collecting. My chest is sadly shrunken from my Marine Corps days, so I’ll be attempting repair work in that area.

The Bowflex itself is quieting down. I was worried during my initial workout – the machine made lots of creaking noises. However, I think the cables and so forth were stiff, because the creaking was much less pronounced during this evening’s workout (which was performed clothed, I might add).

I am being somewhat loose with the weight and repitition guidelines that the i-Trainer software has recommended – I am tending towards adding a set or two sets and doubling the recommended weight.

The images below represent the starting canvas, so to speak. My wife was kind enough to snap them. In about a month I will post this collage again. While my face won’t be any prettier, I’m hoping my body itself will show improvement.

At 34, it could be worse. It could also be much better. Bowflex Grandma from the commercial has no reason to be jealous. Not yet.

I’ve taken the image down temporarily so as not to compromise the fact that I’m currently an active duty soldier. It will go back up after I am off active duty.

Chances are, if your child is being publically educated in the United States, they are good at filling out forms and not much else. It’s also likely they have very low expectations from authority figures, since most of the figures in authority are mentally incapacitated. A prime example – meet Ulrica Corbett, Prinicipal, Anita White Carson Middle School.

Here’s the long story in short form. A teacher at this middle school by the name of Matthew Lund is friends with a Sargeant of Marines serving in Iraq named Zach Richardson, who just returned from duty in Iraq. Mr. Lund setup a correspondence between Sgt. Richardson and school children at Anita White Carson Middle School. This is a healthy thing. School children should be exposed to those serving them in wars. Whether you think the war is right or wrong, it’s healthy to talk with those who are fighting it. How else will you get real opinions? Certainly not from top government officials or the news media.

When Sgt. Richardson returned to the United States he told Matthew Lund that he wanted to come to the Carson Middle School to personally thank the students for their support and letters. Lund filled out and submitted a “Resource Visitor or Guest Speaker Form” and submitted it to Principal Corbett. Lund says he never got the form back from Corbett. He says he asked the Principal about the form, and was told that she was not going to look at it.”

–Neal Boortz

Pretty much everyone who has been within 1,000 yards of any public school knows they run on forms, and that without the proper form filled out nothing can be accomplished (not that much of any significance is anyhow.) But why would a public school principal ignore a request for another public servant (a military serviceperson) to visit schoolchildren and thank them for writing him while he was serving in a combat zone?

Ulrica Corbett appears to have been paid $66,282 in 2003 to manage your rugrats. I have a nagging suspicion that paying Ms. Corbett to manage a school is not a wise use of taxpayer funds.

Ms. Corbett apparently harbors ill will towards Marines, or maybe the military in general. Ms. Corbett needs to publicly defend herself. Until she does so successfully, I will harbor a nagging suspicion that Ms. Corbett is one of those types of people you encounter in life that the Marine Corps labels a “shitbird.”

I’m only speculating, but I’d love to hear from the principal parties in this matter. I want the undiluted facts out of the mouths of the participants. Ulrica Corbett, what is your problem? Sgt. Richardson, what’s your take? Mr. Lund, anything to say about the state of affairs at Anita White Carson Middle School?

What is it these kids are learning over there in Greensboro, Georgia?

Other bloggers thoughts on this topic:

Political Yen/Yang
Of the Mind
Conservative Dialysis
Nonsequiter Rantings
Patriots for Bush
Sierra Faith
Cognitively Dissonant
Susie Pie
Buck’s Blog

Update:

E-mail Ulrica Corbett

Here’s an excerpt from a very readable article that discusses transhumanism, its proponents and opponents.

If we have the know-how to safely cure spinal cord injuries, cheat death, and tint your skin green, why keep it off the market? On the other hand, how do we balance individual desire and freedom against the needs of others, including other creatures? Defining life and death, already touchy issues, will become even more volatile in coming decades. Finally, there’s the question that seems destined to haunt the 21st century: Will we control our technologies, or will they control us?”

Read it and weep. If you use encryption, Minnesota considers you a criminal. Very dangerous precedents being set by Big Brother these days.

Before long, any government official will be able to sleep with your wife on your wedding night. OK, maybe I’m leaping ahead a decade or two from now. Remain complacent. As long as the TV is crappy and the potato chips are full of heart clogging fat, and you have a comfy coach, there is no need for any sense of urgency or activism.

I have PGP installed, and I’m keeping it. I have a right to privacy and I’m ready to defend it. I’m not willing to have my mind or anus probed on a bureaucrat’s demand just because someone else may or may not be hiding Very Bad Things®.

Web loggers, who pride themselves on freewheeling political activism, might face new federal rules on candidate endorsements, online fundraising and political ads, though bloggers who don’t take money from political groups would not be affected.

The pride and joy of Americans everywhere, the FEC, is considering regulating how you blog. This all sounds good in theory. It sounds nice that the government is going to force political bloggers to report where their money is coming from. If that’s where the story ended, everything would be grand.

The problem is, once you allow a little regulation, you inevitably get a lot. Before too long, the FEC will be requiring bloggers to submit their political opinions for a six month review. They’ll have to be licensed, of course. A blogger review board will be created, and bloggers who draw its wrath will be fined or imprisoned for violating the will of the FEC Honesty in Blogging Regulatory Commission, which will be run by self-righteous tight asses who are no good in bed.

This is the nature of government. It starts off with good intentions, or at least the appearance of good intentions. In the end, government grows to a size that is no longer able to sustain itself and collapses, usually in a violent revolution. The only way to avoid this is to constantly trim the size of government by saying no to new regulations and laws. The only way to shirk bloody upheavals is to stop committees of the incompetent from ruling the ignorant.

Blogging is one of the few frontiers left to us. It doesn’t need to be regulated, because regulation is bad for the health of freedom, and freedom is being eroded enough elsewhere. If you want to blog without a nanny, as an adult, let people know that they should speak out against this foolishness.

I am participating in the TTLB Ecosystem because it’s fun. Having moved my primary domain name from trevorsnyder.info to willtoexist.com has clearly caused my ranking within that ecosystem to go nuts. I get 200 visitors a day at the moment, and should clearly not be a Marauding Marsupial. I am not sure why I am being credited for 94 links to my own blog from my own blog, but it’s obviously related to the fact that Will to Exist is listed twice in the Ecosystem. That’s a bug! I tried to fix it, but the code for posting your new URL didn’t work. Hopefully N.Z. Bear will get around to correcting this. I know the Ecosystem is a labor of love.

If you’ve linked to me from trevorsnyder.info and have the time, please consider switching the link over to willtoexist.com.

bowflex-initial

Originally uploaded by trevor.snyder.

I’ve completed my first workout on the Bowflex Extreme. My wife will be taking pictures of my progress over the next 90 days to show whether or not the Bowflex commercials represent anything close to reality.

I’m starting my Bowflex regimen with some initial impressions that might be helpful to people thinking about purchasing a Bowflex. There are a number of models and prices. My model is the Bowflex Extreme XTLU. After having assembled this model and performed my initial workout, I am somewhat irritated by how much time I had to spend playing with the cables. I spent about half my workout time playing around with the cable and pulley system. If I could do it over, I would probably choose the Bowflex Extreme 2, although it does cost several hundred dollars more.

Barring that, however, I was pretty happy with the quality of my workout and the included Bowflex i-Trainer software. I’ll discuss the i-Trainer software in more detail later when I have some data collected.

Terrorists in Iraq are having such a hard time recruiting new suicide bombers that they’re now using suicide-bomber dogs.”

Just one more reason that I joined the National Guard in this time of world conflict. I disagree with many aspects of the day to day conduct of my own federal government and with the attitude of many of my “public servants.” However, I am unaware of any United States government policy that would endorse strapping explosives to a dog and then attempting to blow up human beings by blowing up the dog.

Such methods are cowardly, digusting and indicative of a complete disrespect for life. That is why I consider my enemies – the enemies of my values and my worldview – to be worth less than dogs. There is no basis for negotiation with beings that do not place any value on the lives of their fellow human beings. There is nothing I can say to reason with men who made are less than animals by their beliefs and actions.

They must be extinguished, because they are a cancer that will destroy humanity if left untreated.

Well I have another Nantahala camping trip under my belt. This one was temperate, and I’m grateful for that. I’ve uploaded an image gallery for the enjoyment of those who couldn’t make it.

There were a number of shots I didn’t get this time around. Hopefully, I will have one more opportunity to go before the Iraq sojourn. The ranger didn’t show up this trip, but we did see more hikers and campers than normal due to the holiday.

Officials, in a predictable fashion, have charged Jennifer Wilbanks with a felony for lying to police. Clinton got away with lying about his oral affairs, so I’m not sure how District Attorney Danny Porter is justifying this sort of charge. If lying to the whole country isn’t a felony, lying to a few local police officials and FBI agents certainly can’t be. My suspicion is that Little Danny is looking for his own 15 minutes of fame, and that this has nothing to do with any actual sense of justice being served.

Lots of people seem to be looking for pictures of Jennifer Wilbanks’ breasts, if the search results being pointed to my blog are any indicator. Lots of people are also seeking information on spanking Jennifer Wilbanks. Why? The public is a scary animal.

Speaking of scary, what’s the deal with the guy up on the crane? I don’t know about other major American cities, but Atlanta has its fair share of these fool crane climbers. We seem to have about one a year. They shut down traffic and generally interfere with commerce. My first question is: why aren’t the construction companies improving security to avoid this sort of thing? My second question is: what is it about the air in Atlanta that makes people climb cranes?

I know that I’ve read living in Atlanta during the summer is like having a one pack a day cigarette habit, but there must be some extra chemical floating around that pushes already unstable people up to the top of cranes, where they are hoping the air will be clearer. Carl Edward Roland is certainly one of the more stubborn fresh air enjoyment fanatics to foist himself into the consciousness of the Atlanta public in recent memory.

Just remember, Carl, if you come down alive, they’re still going to investigate you. It appears you may have beaten your girlfriend to death. In the proud tradition of Van Halen, I’d say go ahead and jump. You might as well jump.

The question that should concern Congress today is: Does the US government have the constitutional authority to fund any form of stem cell research? The clear answer to that question is no. A proper constitutional position would reject federal funding for stem cell research, while allowing individual states and private citizens to decide whether to permit, ban, or fund this research. Therefore, I must vote against HR 810.

They call him Dr. No. Ron Paul is the only man in Congress that consistently acts in a manner that I respect. He’s the only man in Congress that seems worthy of my trust.

The man refuses to vote for any piece of legislation that is not authorized by the U.S. Constitution. Why can’t any of his fat, disgusting, lying, cheating, stealing fellow Congresspeople follow his example?

If I had the power, I’d replace Congress with clones of Ron Paul and retire to a cabin in the mountains. Everything else would take care of itself. It’s good to have a dream.

In personal accounts Zarqawi is usually described as somber and unintelligent, with a violent temper.

Speculation continues about the status of terrorist jackass Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

It does appear he has been injured but the sources I can find are all speculative as to the extent of his injuries. Hopefully, they will kill him. Zarqawi has a history of ruining the lives of his fellow human beings dating back to his sexual assault in the 1980s.

Many of his neighbours recalled him as a tattooed, under-educated thug, once jailed for drug abuse and sexual assault in Jordan, who was an embarrassment to his long-suffering father, a retired army officer.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. That is all.

I’m already a fairly cranky man. Just ask my wife. However, some people are absolutely off the deep end when it comes to being ornery. Dorothy Densmore, of Charlotte, North Carolina, is this year’s prize winner. She called 911 20 times in 30 minutes because someone refused to deliver pizze to her house.

She told dispatchers Sunday that a local pizza shop refused to deliver a pie to her south Charlotte apartment,” said Officer Mandy Giannini. “She also complained that someone at the shop called her a ‘crazy old coot,'” Giannini said.

Well, lady, all I can say is – if someone calls you a crazy old coot, you should consider whether or not you are a crazy old coot before calling 911 to report the incident.

I have a neighbor who is addicted to meth (as far as I can tell, it’s not like I share pipes with him). He gets high all the time and calls the cops to let them know I’m in a militia and that I am trying to drive him off his property. He also thinks the FBI and CIA are driving around in the mountains where I live on silent black ATVs, watching him.

Maybe I could help my neighbor make a love connection with Dorothy Densmore. They could share some pizza and the meth pipe.

It’s a wonderfully wacky world.

Here’s a very factually incorrect story about a member of the Free State Project being arrested for practicing cosmetology without a license.

H.R. 1528, cynically named “Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act,” would compel people to spy on their family members and neighbors, and even go undercover and wear a wire if needed. If a person resisted, he or she would face mandatory incarceration.

Hey Mr. Sensenbrenner – I knew you were a dirty and dishonest man when you snuck the Real ID act into emergency legislation to fund the military. Now you’re trying to pass legislation forcing Americans to spy on other Americans. That’s dirty, dishonest and intolerable. I think you’re going to have to jail me if this legislation passes, Mr. Sensenbrenner, because I’m not going to cooperate with a bill that tries to force me to play informant. Go fuck yourself, Mr. Sensenbrenner.

You can’t touch my mind, it’s still free. I’m not going to use force to regulate what other adults put into their bodies, and I’m not going to cooperate with people who do. You, Mr. Sensenbrenner, disgust me beyond anything I can put into words.

Thanks for tipping me off to this story, How Not to Blog.

Read the full text of this anti-American, anti-freedom bill. James Sensenbrenner thinks he owns your body. Tell him he’s wrong.

Write your representatives and tell them not to support this bill. Tell them that locking up 1 million non-violent drug offenders is enough, and that you don’t support locking up their friends and family members too. Tell them people like Mr. Sensenbrenner are leading our country down a dangerous path that will destroy everything that makes us great.

Some days start off poorly and end on an up note.

I haven’t had access to news all day, so it was nice to return home to find that Abu Musab Al Zarqawi may be injured. I hope you are dying, Mr. Zarqawi, you human offal. I’m not normally one to celebrate the demise of human beings, but I make exceptions for some politicians and most terrorists.

Of course, we may all find out this is just a ruse, but one can hope you’re injured and have resigned yourself to die. You are your cult of neck slicers are overdue for your dirtnap.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that it had issued an emergency revocation of Hayden L. Sheaffer’s pilot’s license because he ‘constitutes an unacceptable risk to safety in air commerce.'”

My only question: what about all those incompetent security screeners? Don’t they add up to an “unacceptable risk to safety in air commerce? I mean, come on. Which is a worse threat? A two-seater plane or 45,000 pompous idiots with an annual budget of $5 billion whose most recent security innovation was to ban lighters even though NO ONE HAS EVER HIJACKED OR BLOWN UP A PLANE WITH A STINKING LIGHTER and the chances that someone ever will are lower than the chances that Muslim murder-bombers will actually find themselves waking up with 72-beautiful virgins eagerly waiting to pleasure them for all eternity.

Ah! I curse the foolishness of humans some days. Fire the f*@king TSA and its evil predecessor the FAA, Americans!

People these days are finding me while seeking out hot sex and non-strike anywhere matches. Enjoy the links people. I’ve quality checked them both.

Don’t ask me why handbag.com is offering sex tips. I guess there’s nothing to get you in the mood like a faux leather handbag in hot pink. And please don’t tell me that non-strike anywhere matches are making my air commuting experience any safer, because I’m likely to punch you right in your face.

I threw in this link on How to Survive a Commercial Airplane Hijacking. Couldn’t find any tips for surviving a private airplace hijacking. Apparently, private planes are better defended and we don’t need a guide.

In other news, Bowflex Grandma has dropped to a distant third on the list of ways people find this blog. I’m still planning on blogging my Bowflex experience, but will probably have to wait a year now since I’m scheduled to be in Iraq.

Yours in freedom and minarchy,

Search Terms of the Obtuse and Unknown

Preston over at Six Meat Buffet has an interesting thought or two regarding how to deal with the Saga of Saddam and the Mysterious Case of the Tighty Whiteys.

Remember folks, his Geneva Convention rights were violated! As a dictator, he always followed the Geneva Conventions to the letter. While feeding the prisoners into plastic shredders guards were often reminded to treat the screaming victims with the respect and dignity they deserved. Saddam’s torture and rape squads were always meticulous about following Geneva Convention rules when they raped and murdered the wives of dissenters.

I recently discussed a new initiative by the feds to create an Internet accessible national database of sex offenders, which in my opinion is a privacy rights violation. I believe if you do your time, you paid for your crime and should have your legal rights restored.

However, government marches on. To make up for the lack of privacy that former sex offenders can expect, they are receiving Viagra at taxpayer expense through the fine, fine entitlement program called Medicaid.

This is what modern American government produces – an environment that dehumanizes sex offenders by taking away their right to privacy at the same time it endorses taking money out of your pocket by force and giving those same sex offenders penis hardening pills. What a country!

Death could become a thing of the past by the mid-21st century as computer technology becomes sophisticated enough for the contents of a brain to be ‘downloaded’ on to a supercomputer, according to a leading British futurologist.”

I’m not sure why the article I’m quoting uses the term downloaded. You’d have to upload the contents of your brain before they could be downloaded.

However, it is interesting to note that telecommunications giant BT has a head futurologist on staff. His name is Ian Pearson and he has some other interesting predictions. My favorite prediction – a toilet that analyzes your waste material and nags you about not eating healthy.

I think it’s healthy to have role models at any age. Ian Pearson,futurologist, is a new one of mine. What he lacks in snappy wardrobe is more than made up for by his professional commitment to thinking about the future.”

Something has gone wrong with my custom theme. It appears to have broken all by itself. I’ll have it fixed as quickly as possible.

Update: The TTLB Ecosystem is at it again – the darn thing slows down and breaks my site quite often. I’m working on trying to figure out why.

Update 2: I’ve solved the issue by temporarily turning off the TTLB Ecosystem Cache plugin. The plugin sets the TTLB status to only update every 24 hours, which speeds up loading the blog but for some reason broke my theme. Will post another update once I figure out why.

I’m not a big fan of child sex offenders. But I did used to think that the point of serving a jail sentence was that you got a second chance after serving your term. Increasingly, that’s just not true.

I’m not a psychologist, psychiatrist or child molester. I hear a lot of those saying that the rate of recidivism is very high when it comes to this particular crime. If that is true, if this is a disease, why don’t we treat it like one?

American justice can be particularly cruel sometimes. I would imagine that child molestors, like alcoholics, know that something is wrong with them, and have to spend each day either giving in to the compulsion or fighting it.

Can’t we find a better way to deal with them than letting them back into the big pond with a sign that says “kick me” on their backs?

If there is no chance for redemption, ever, then what it the point of life? I really don’t want to live in a society where we have subclasses of citizens who have less rights than the rest of us. These people need to be segegrated or fixed in some way, not made into Internet pariahs by having their names and addresses available to any semi-retarded crusader of justice who has an Internet connection.

I don’t think a photo inspires murderers. I think they’re inspired by an ideology that’s so barbaric and backwards that it’s hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think.”

-George W. Bush

The President and I appear to agree on the only important conclusion a rational person can draw from the latest round of photos of Saddam that appeared in the highest circulation tabloid printed in the UK. We agree that murderers are barbarians.
Sure, it’s hard for those of us in the Western world to comprehend how murderers think. Most Westerners hold life precious. In 2000, the murder rate in the United States was 15.5 people per 100,000. Americans can expect to live 77 years, on average. In 2000, there were no accurate murder rates availablfe for Iraq. However, in 2003, the average life expectancy for Iraqis was 68 years. That’s not too bad. In the nation’s capital, the murder rate was about 45 per 100,000. That’s significantly higher than the national average. In the nation’s capitol, Washington, DC, the murder rate climbs. With a murder rate of 45.8 per 100,000 people, the home of our national politicians is the place you are most likely to be murdered in the United States.

Policy makers should be proud! Using the statistics, one could conclude that our nation’s most powerful policians live in the city with the highest rate of backwards barbarians in the entire country. Something to write home to the grandkids about, I suppose.

Another mark of pride that George W. Bush and other Washington leaders – the United States of America locks up more people per capita than any other “civilized” country in the world. I am not sure which fate is worse – being a prisioner, or being murdered. I suppose murder has more finality than virtual slavery. However, a life without almost no individual choices doesn’t appeal to me. I am not arguing against imprisoning people for crimes, but we could at least limit the offenses we jail people for. If no force or fraud has been perpetrated why should a person spend time in jail?

While I don’t necessarily think that history will look on the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship as a mistake, we have lots of things to fix here at home, and I for one am not looking to George W. Bush or his home city of Washington, D.C. for my answers. If I die with a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment, it won’t be because of anything a politician has done for me.

The Western world has lots of growing up to do.

Jeb Bush vetoed a bill that would have required people in the left lane to get out of the way for faster vehicles.

There’s no evidence to suggest that it’s a real problem, number one. Number two, I couldn’t get over the fact that this bill would punish law abiding citizens that were going below the speed limit within the law”

-Jeb Bush

I have two thoughts regarding this – 1) A law prohibiting slower drivers from hanging out in the left lane won’t work any more than speeding laws work. In other words, if it passed, it would raise revenues for the state, and that’s about it. Laws don’t change people’s behavior. Laws punish people who get caught breaking those laws. 2) Jeb Bush must be high if he hasn’t noticed the plethora of rude and arrogant drivers on the road. I commute 70 miles each way to work every weekday. There are all kinds of selfish, apathetic and outright hostile people who won’t signal and won’t get out of the way.

I’m talking to you makeup lady in your Suburban. I’m talking to you cell phone guy. I’m talking to you fat pig with the burrito remnants hanging out of your mouth and the year’s worth of fast food wrappers hanging around the floor of your car.

Editor’s note: This post contains an idea. Ideas can be dangerous. Do not try this idea.

The power of ideas is often scary.

Take for instance, the recent controversy and outrage over the possible desecration of a book.

I took sociology in high school, and came away from the class with a fear of crowds. After studying how individuals seemingly lose 40 points off their IQ the moment they become part of a mob, I decided to avoid crowds whenever possible. The images I saw of black men lynched by white mobs in the South decades ago scared the hell out of me.

This is leading somewhere. I had an idea two days ago.

What if some brave soul went on Ebay and posted the following two auctions:

Auction 1: For sale: Picture of men flushing pages from the Quran down the toilet.
Auction 2: For sale: Picture of men flushing pages from the Bible down the toilet.

I think a number of things would happen. First, Ebay would cancel both auctions, but not soon enough to avoid a feeding frenzy of press interest. Muslims would riot and be killed. Their clerics would call for a holy war. Christians, on the other hand, would grumble. A few self-professed believers would likely initiate death threats against the person who set up such an auction. On the whole though, for the Christians, the majority of irrational activity would be vocal, and would not involve rioting and killing.

I could be wrong in my speculation. And personally, I wouldn’t rip up either book and flush it, burn it, or otherwise disrespect the messages. I’m not a fan of such methods.

Still, it’s an interesting scenario to think about. We are all somewhat programmed by our economic status, education levels and cultural mores. Our family units train us from birth and tell us how to react to various input. I wish we could all evolve at the same rate and that people didn’t kill one another over ideas about God. Isn’t life short enough already?

I was taught growing up that God gave us all free will. I wonder if it makes Him sad when so many of his creations spit in his eye by exercising their free will to enslave, murder, torture, rape and generally disrespect their fellow human beings. I wonder if it bothers Him that people seem to get their kicks murdering one another over asinine differences of opinion.

Old Whig recently blogrolled me and I noticed that he put a question mark next to the word transhumanist. Allow me to elucidate. . .

I once met a Luddite. He told me that the ultimate evil of our technologically-preoccupied society would be realized when man succeeded in uploading himself into the computer.

I disagree. I think it will bring us one step closer to God.”

-Unknown

Transhumanists espouse “Philosophies of life (such as extropian perspectives) that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values.”

As a transhumanist, I believe in extending my life using technology. I believe that humans have the capacity to evolve beyond the physical bodies we are born into. I believe biotech and nanotech will change everything in the coming decades. These two fields of science will accelerate the culture clash that is currently reshaping societies around the world.

Transhumanists can often be found hanging out with futurists and extropians.

Congress likes to make choices – a lot. Every choice that Congress makes is one less choice that you get to make.

Today, Congress chose to force you to pay for 911 services if you use VoIP. It doesn’t matter if you want 911 or not.

I’ve called 911 before and been told they were too busy to send anyone. People abuse the system all the time. Operators are often poorly educated and poorly paid, as well as unethusiastic, displaying all the typical personal concern about your problem(s) you’ve come to expect from bureaucrats. Sure, 911 saves lives, sometimes. But it should not be forced on me, especially if it costs me money.

I don’t appreciate other people making choices for me. Congress sucks. I wish they would focus on real problems.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”

African Proverb

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is not a stupid man. He knows that he has fanaticism on his side and he believes that the American people are weak willed. He is partially right. Many Americans are not only weak willed, they are weak minded to boot.

You must understand that a man willing to committ mass murders in as gruesome a fashion as possible in order to get media coverage is not someone who can be placated. al-Zarqawi must be squashed like a bug. I think Nicholas Berg would agree, if he could comment. However, he was held down and had his head sawed off. His father is one of those weak-willed and weak-minded Americans that al-Zarqawi is counting on to win his fake holy war. I say fake because I think that al-Zarqawi is a narcissist at heart, and only believes in himself.

Michael Berg is the epitome of the modern American idiot. He blames Donald Rumsfeld for the murder of his son, displaying a total lack of reason in the process. A list of several things that Donald Rumsfeld didn’t do come to mind. He didn’t buy Nick’s plane ticket to Iraq. He didn’t capture Nick. He didn’t hold Nick down and cut off his head. Guess who is responsible for two of those three actions – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

I hope that these words from Michael Berg, scare you. Because al-Zarqawi does not forgive, and he does not understand mercy, and he must be wiped out if anyone he disagrees with is ever to have any hope of living in peace.

Contrast the two men.

Where does it all stop? When does it all stop? How do we stop it? We stop it by being first to stop.”

-Michael Berg

Democracy is also based on the right to choose your religion, and that is against the rule of God.

-Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

These two men are both my enemies but only one of them needs to be terminated. The other one just needs mental help. By serving in my country’s armed forces, I am protecting my enemy from my enemy and hoping that Michael Berg will reconsider his ill-advised and naive worldview. There can be no peace with al-Zarqawi and his ilk. It’s him or us.

Today’s sixth most popular phrase in the blogosphere is “female orgasm.”

The article that spawned all this discussion of that elusive little beast states:

But the Darwinian logic behind the female orgasm has remained elusive. Women can have sexual intercourse and even become pregnant – doing their part for the perpetuation of the species – without experiencing orgasm. So what is its evolutionary purpose?”

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that anyone who spends their time investigating the female orgasm in this manner is likely not experiencing them firsthand?

Another fine quote from the article goes:

Nipples in men are similarly vestigial.”

Please read the full article for lots of clitoral stimulation. Here’s a link to the author’s book on the subject.

In any case, it’s amusing to me that my nipples are vestigial and that female orgasms have no evolutionary purpose. I guess the feminists will have to admit that creationism makes more sense in light of the revelations we’ve all been given. I’ll also bet Dr. Lloyd gets a lot of action when she does the whole bar scene thing.

I’ve been waiting with bated breath for porn stars to start revealing all the glamourous details of their private lives, and it hasn’t been in vain.

If it’s not easy being a porn star, it’s not always easy being a porn-star blogger, either. Someone posted a link to Parry’s blog on the Yahoo! Groups page for his high school graduating class, providing the adult actor with a level of exposure he hadn’t anticipated.

I can’t wait to find out what Melinda Melons and Dick E. Normous read while they’re sitting on the toilet. I’m eagerly anticipating reading long lists of tips for picking up porn stars in bars. I will relish reading about the secrets of rejuvenating a sagging vagina.

Rejoice, for porn stars are now blogging and you have one more way to be a voyeur. What a world.

Editor’s note: This article was written by a sarcastic author.

America’s Drug Czar John P. Walters thinks America’s policies on destroying lives and seizing property over citizen’s use of marijuana is “just right.”

Mr. Walters is obviously a dreamer. The problem is that his attempt to realize those dreams includes a willingness to destroy lives and seize real property (which is theft.) So, in order to “save our children” Mr. Walters is willing to use force and fraud, the two most morally unacceptable activities that humans beings can perpetrate on other human beings.

Walters recently published a flawed editorial in which he states that, “Our drug policy balances prevention, treatment and interdiction.” Bullshit!

From the Almanac of Policy Issues

Despite generally declining rates of drug use over the past two decades, drug arrests have been up significantly over the same time period. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, roughly 1,532,200 drug violation arrests were made in 1999, up from 580,900 in 1980.

These arrests have resulted in a dramatic increase in prison and jail populations. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an estimated 109,200 people were held in jails due to drug-related offenses in 1996, compared to 20,400 in 1983. About 236,800 people were held in state prisons for drug-related offenses in 1998, compared to 148,600 in 1990.

Mr. Walters, I have a question for you. When you say treatment is part of the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s approach to fighting the War on Drugs, can I assume that by treatment you mean anal rape? Because that’s what happens to a lot of the non-violent marijuana users that have been locked up in America’s stellar penal systems.

Mr. Walters, when you talk about prevention, can I assume that by prevention you mean preventing marijuana users from owning anything? After all, you endorse government seizure of real property just because someone who owns that property or happened to be using it disagreed with you and your jackbooted thugs over what substances they should be allowed to ingest into their body.

Do you own all of us Mr. Walters? Is that what justifies your destruction of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Your way of thinking makes me sick.

The grackles zeroed in on a lawyer who shooed a bird away before he tripped and injured his face, Jue said. The lawyer was treated for several cuts.

Birds in Texas understand that lawyers are ruining our country. At least that’s how I see it.

OK, seriously, a grackle isn’t that big. Take a self-defense class and learn the lizard fighting style. Everyone knows that’s the best one for counterattacking grackles.

Or, you could move to Dallas, where the grackles are more laid back. Another alternative location is Pakistan, where the grackles only attack people who disrespect the Quran.

From Bruce Schneier today:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has requested more than $2 billion to finance grants to state and local governments for homeland security needs. Some of this money is being used by state and local governments to create networks of surveillance cameras to watch over the public in the streets, shopping centers, at airports and more. However, studies have found that such surveillance systems have little effect on crime, and that it is more effective to place more officers on the streets and improve lighting in high-crime areas. There are significant concerns about citizens’ privacy rights and misuse or abuse of the system. A professor at the University of Nevada at Reno has alleged that the university used a homeland security camera system to surreptitiously watch him after he filed a complaint alleging that the university abused its research animals.

Bruce’s full comments and his source material.

I think the Department of Homeland Security should change it’s name to the Citizen Monitoring and Intimidation for the Sake of Inefficiency Bureau. All cameras do is open up new opportunities for the authorities to abuse their authority. When crimes are deterred by cameras, it’s only because they move the crime out of view. Unless society is willing to be watched everywhere all the time, then cameras are just another layer of government we don’t need, can’t afford and won’t benefit from.

MIT is developing $100 laptops. This has the potential to be a really good thing.

The laptops are going to be running Linux.

The first generation machine will be based on a 500-MHz processor from Advanced Micro Devices, which is one of the project’s main backers, and will have 256MB of main memory, 1GB of flash memory in place of a hard drive, and a wireless LAN connection, he says. The machines will automatically connect with others, forming a mesh network to support communications and also Internet connection sharing. . .

Go check out the project’s details.

I am bothered by the statement: ” Please note: these laptops are not in production. They are not—and will not—be available for purchase by individuals.” Why wouldn’t they want to make the laptops available to low income individuals? That seems silly. If the project was successful, MIT could profit financially from it, and stop sucking so many tax dollars. Isn’t it better to generate your own revenues through capitalism than to rely on money extracted from others by force or threat of force?

Newsweek and the Quran are apparently both in the toilet.

Lots of people are blaming Newsweek for the riots by Muslims protesting the supposed “desecration” of the Quran. The deaths resulting from Newsweek’s report may indeed point to flaws in the quality of reporting at Newsweek, but they also point to flaws in the quality of adherents to the Islamic faith.

Fanatics who are willing to riot and kill over the burning of a book get no respect from me. I don’t care if you are Christian or Muslim or Jainist. Whether or not U.S. government interrogators flushed a copy of the Quran down the toilet is irrelevant. This is the same cancerous kind of thinking that is destroying our way of life in the U.S.

If someone disrespects your favorite book, you don’t get together for a riot. That’s silly. Print more copies of your book and distribute them to those who want them. However, any religion that mandates the death penalty for “desecration” of its holy tome should be marginalized and discouraged at every opportunity and its adherents should be the pariahs in a civilized society. They should be constrained from violent outbursts and educated zealously and constructively.

“It’s not acceptable now that the magazine says it’s made a mistake,” said Hafizullah Torab, 42, a writer and journalist in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, where the protests began last Tuesday. “No one will accept it.”

News flash, Mr. Torab. Newsweek isn’t the main problem. Rigid and easily offended religious fanatics with a penchant for violent rioting are the main problem. The only thing worse than religious fanatics are religious fanatics who are also in charge of a national government.

Newsweek may need to work on the quality of reporting. Interrogators at Gitmo may need to change their tactics. But Muslims need to police themselves and stop acting like spoiled children. The pious and self-righteous are a cancer that is eating the well-being of the human species.

The world keeps spinning, and in my life, the direction of the spin is towards the country of Iraq. I don’t have official orders yet but the omens and portents indicate a long journey ahead of me.

My National Guard unit is passing along information about where we might end up, and when we might end up there. It’s all speculation at this point. No one really knows what we’ll be doing, but we are military journalists, so it’s likely I’ll be spending a year shooting video and assembling the stories of soldiers participating in our occupation of that country.

The stories I write for my command will have a positive slant. Our job is to report the positive, not the negative. We are a propaganda tool.

It will be interesting to form my own opinions about the reality of life as an occupier. I intend to try and learn the basics of Arabic prior to arriving in country. I do not want to rely on others to tell me what is going on around me, especially when my continued existence could depend on my ability to understand what is being said.

I am trying to make my mind into a tabula rasa in regards to expectations about this journey, but I’ll fail, as usual. I’ve created a new category in this blog – Citizen Soldier for the purposes of documenting my time away from home. I’m going to teach my wife how to keep my blogging server up and running so I can post my experiences and share them with her and a few friends, as well as the people who randomly visit this blog.

I’m getting mail bombed and it was smashing my incredible 768K of broadband down to nothing. I paid them back though. Hopefully this isn’t going to become a full out war.

Another useless bill is being considered by a mostly useless legislature.

Still drunk with the glory of its massive successes in creating legislature designed to reduce the worldwide volume of e-mail missives hawking natural penis enlargement products, Congress is once again proving its effectiveness and efficiency by considering not one but two seperate and equally useless bills that are certain to confuse and intimidate the three members of the American public who will actually peruse them with a serious attitude.

Spyware programmers all over the world have recently been seen quaking in their boots and consulting with their brethern spam mail writers in hopes of finding inexpensive ways to assuage the wrath of the fat old white men and irrational angry black women that populate the hallowed halls of our nation’s Capitol building.

If Congress was serious about dealing with spyware they would just force all Americans to download and install Microsoft’s free (in beta) Anti-Spyware product. Of course, that would be a monopoly officially supporting another monopoly and God knows we can’t have that sort of thing. Not here in the land of the free.

Tell Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. what you think his sponsorship of Real ID, which I’ve written about extensively in the last two days. You can reach him a variety of ways:

Contact Information
Washington DC EMail Address:
sensenbrenner@mail.house.gov
Washington DC Web Address:
http://www.house.gov/sensenbrenner/
Washington DC Web Mail Address:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Washington DC Address
2449 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4905
Phone: 202-225-5101
Fax: 202-225-3190

District Address – Brookfield
120 Bishops Way, Room 154
Brookfield, WI 53005-6294
Phone: 262-784-1111
TollFree: 800-242-1119

“Even though it might be quite painful (for the victim) and you obviously feel quite sorry for them because they’re injured or hurt or whatever and they’ve done nothing to deserve it, it’s still funny because it’s like seeing the sketch on TV,” he said.

This article describes a fun pasttime called Happy Slapping. Happy Slapping is a process whereby “game participants film each other on mobile phone while slapping strangers.”

I have a fun game I like to play too.

It’s called Friendly Beatdown.

If you initiate a Happy Slap incident in my vicinity or upon my person, I will respond with an appropriate and highly amusing Friendly Beatdown. I may even wrap up the good times being had with the ever popular Crotch Destroying Fast Feet Fellowship Dance. Everyone will be invited and I might even blog the video right here. Of course, you’ll need to sign a model release, but I’m sure I’ll be able to convince you that it’s in your best interests.

Kids today. What a gas! What a hoot! So fresh and full of vim and vigor. Always getting into something or another. Have a Happy Slappy day, kids.

Make an appointment to Happy Slap me and receive your free Friendly Beatdown.