10/09/2004
Picture & Link of the Day
DATELINE AFGHANISTAN. Via AllahPundit.
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End the Drug War
Drugs are destructive. The physical, mental, and spiritual effects of drugs can do terrible things to a person. But the so-called War on Drugs is also destructive. Drug prohibition means there are huge profits to be made from their illicit sales. There profits attract amoral criminals the same sway bootlegging profits attracted criminals during the Prohibition era. The money involved also means these criminals are willing to commit extremely violent acts in the furtherance of their trade. This in turn pushes the police into things like no-knock raids and increasingly invasive surveillance techniques which chip, and in some cases blast, away at our Fourth Amendment rights.
What is to be done? I say legalize drugs. All of them. What business is it of the government's if a person wants to poison himself? This legalization would come with someconditions. however. First and foremost is that drug users would be responsible for paying for their own rehad, should they ever decide they don't want to fry their brains anymore. Whether this means that paying for rehab is entirely the responsibility of the individual, or if it were to be funded entirely by taxes on the various types of narcotics, I don't care. But citizens who choose not to use drugs should not have to pay to clean up the consequences for those who do.
An interesting side note to the drug war business: drug prohibitions exist as part of both state and federal law. What would happen if a state or states were to get up the guts to say "This drug war is stupid. It costs us a ton of money, breeds violent criminals, and erodes the rights of our citizens. We're not going to play anymore." and repealed all of their drug prhobition statues. Drug dealers would still be breaking federal law, but the local cops wouldn't bother them. (Much like the current medical marijuana situation in California and a few other states.) The feds don't have enough manpower to bust every street corner pusher and every junkie. If enough states did this, would the Feds be forced to give up as their laws were de facto nullified by the states?
But my bottom line remains the same: if elected to any office, state or federal, I would push for the repeal of all narcotic prohibition laws. I would replace prohibition with state laws establishing a system to tax the drugs, and use the funds thus raised to pay for rehibilitation of drug users.
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10/08/2004
Cool Pic
Via Johnny Knuckles, an extremely cool picture of Mt. St. Helens. The floor of the crater, or the lava dome (I can't recall) has apparently bulged 250 feet in the last week or so. It's geting ready to do something.
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Linkin' Logs
I really can't say it better than these people, so I won't try:
Mickey Kaus susm up why it's meaningless that the Deulfer report says that Saddam didn't make any WMDs after 1992:
If a man says he has a gun, acts like he has a gun, and convinces everyone around him he has a gun, and starts waving it around and behaving recklessly, the police are justified in shooting him (even if it turns out later he just had a black bar of soap). Similarly, according to the Duelfer report, Saddam seems to have intentionally convinced other countries, and his own generals, that he had WMDs. He also convinced much of the U.S. government. If we reacted accordingly and he turns out not to have had WMDs, whose fault is that?
Bill Whittle is alive, and has posted his latest, Deterrence I and II.
Kevin at Smallest Minority has some excellent coments on an article about the differences between families that loves guns and familes that don't in John Edwards is Right: There Really ARE Two Americas!. Kevin also echoes the Leftist Brownshirts theme with his prediction of post-election violence if when Bush wins.
Gunner at No Quarters has some great commentary on a proposal to give the British government near unlimited 'emergency powers' entitled A Very British Coup.
Last, but never least, Say Uncle quotes himself in a post on another liberty-destroying aspect of the war on Freedom Drugs: asset forfeiture.
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Computer disc found in Iraq contained floor plans, other data on schools in six states
From MSNBC via THR
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 — Federal law enforcement authorities notified school districts in six states last month that a computer disc found in Iraq contained photos, floor plans and other information about their schools, two U.S. officials said Thursday.
The downloaded data found by the U.S. military in July — all publicly available on the Internet — included an Education Department report guiding schools on how to prepare and respond to a crisis, said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
I wonder what the odds are that whoever was collecting this information has any ties to the Beslan group. Given that we've also captured al-Qaeda training tapes a couple years ago in Afghanistan showing school takedowns, I'd say pretty good.
So now they're finding school floorplans (map recon), and researching how schools and local authorites are taught/trained to react (figuring the tragets most probably course of action-MPCOA). The next step, if they're not already doing it, is actual on the ground recon of the school(s) they want to hit.
Now, when you're planning a mission and working up the Enemy Situation (and remember, to a-Q, the Enemy is us) you build two estimates of what you think the Enemy will do. The first is the aforementioned MPCOA, and the second is the Most Dangerous Course of Action-that is, what the Enemy can do to most disrupt you and prevent you from accomplishing your mission. The terrorists already know our MPCOA. We need to undertake the MDCOA.
We need to arm and train the teachers, the janitors, the principals-every adult in the schools. The Israelis did this after some of their schools were attacked. The attacks stopped very quickly.
Unfortunately, our education establishment is ruled by GFWs who have declared our schools to be victim disarmament zones. I fear that it will require a Beslan here in America to make them understand.
I need to get the cosmoline off my trunk rifle.
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10/07/2004
I Love My Wife, Pt III
So, my folks are flying in from Kalifornia for a visit. And they're going to watch Junior Saturday afternoon/night/Sunday morning so the wife and I can get away for a night. So, where are we going, you ask?
To Charlotte, NC, for the gunshow, of course!
I'll be the tall guy in the "Molon Labe" hat if anyone else it going.
PS: Anyone know anything else to do in Charlotte?
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Now with Trackbacks!
Haloscan trackbacks have been added. Special thanks to Gunner from No Quarters for the assist.
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GOA Rates the Candidates
Gun Owners of America has posted their candidate ratings for Senate and Congressional races in every state.
Check it out, and vote your guns.
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10/06/2004
Who's Supposed to Be the Brownshirts Again, Mr. Gore?
Protestors Ransack Bush/Cheney Headquarters In Orlando
Bush/Cheney Signs Chainsawed in Colorado
Shots fired at Knoxville Bush-Cheney office
Swastika Burned Into Grass On Bush-Cheney Supporter's Lawn in Wisconsin
Demonstrators Storm Republican campaign office in West Allis, Wisconsin
Mob of up to 100 people stormed into a Republican campaign office in Dearborn, Michigan Amusing quote from that last article: Rodell Mollineau, spokesman for Sen. John Kerry's campaign in Michigan, said
he knew nothing of the intrusion and questioned whether the protesters were
Kerry supporters.
Actually, they probably don't really support Kerry. Very few people are actually pro-Kerry. But I'll give you 10 to 1 that they were union goons, just like the ones in Orlando. And we all know who the unions support.
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10/05/2004
Am I An Idiot?
Or am I just a clueless noob?
Can someone out there please explain to me how trackbacks work?
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A Truly Senseless Freedom Drug War Death
Freedom Sight links to a story where a Quadriplegic dies in jail doing time for pot.
The guy is in a motorized wheelchair, for fuck's sake. But he's still such a menace to society that he had to spend 10 days in jail. The fucktard judge who sent him there should be charged with negligent homicide, or whatever it is they use to characterize death due to depraved indifference. WTF? All you have to do is put a lock on his wheelchair and his home is as good as jail, and there's people who can take care of him there. The lakc of judgement, in a person for whom exercising judgement is pretty much their entire fucking job description, is simply inexcusable.
Prohibition of alcohol didn't work. Prohibition of drugs doesn't work either, and it leads to hideous miscarraiges of justive like this one. I don't care how awful you think drugs are-carrying one fucking spliff shouldn't get you a death sentence. I hope this guy's family sues the living shit out of the jail, and I'll pay a couple bucks more in taxes to cover the judgement.
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10/04/2004
Reasons to Oppose the D.C. PPA
Matt at Triggerfinger links to and comments on an article by Robert Levy which expresses, in a more erudite manner, what I said last week.
Levy:
Nonetheless, there is a valid reason to oppose the D.C. Personal Protection Act. Two Second Amendment lawsuits filed by decent, peaceable, upstanding D.C. residents are now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. I am co-counsel in one of those suits, which was filed by six plaintiffs who simply want a handgun at home to defend their lives and property. If the pending bill is enacted, both lawsuits will be dismissed as moot. After all, plaintiffs cannot challenge a law that no longer exists.
Otherwise, the lawsuits could well be headed to the Supreme Court; and that's where they belong. The citizens of this country deserve a foursquare pronouncement from the nation's highest court about the real meaning of the Second Amendment for all Americans — not just the residents of D.C. Presently, because the Court hasn't resolved its view of the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms extends only as far as each state's constitution or statutes permit. That's not good enough. A Second Amendment right without a legally enforceable federal remedy is, in some states, no right at all.
It's not just about Washington, D.C.. It's about New Jersey, California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and all the other GFW states that want to encroach on the rights protected by the Second Amendment, too.
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Bumming
The San Francisco Giants season is over, and it is now 50 years since they
last won the World Series-back when they were still in New York. The most
feared hitter of this generation will have to wait another year to try for a
ring. My very amateur take on what the G-men need to do to get the chance:
1) Find a F@%$*g closer. Rob Nenn has been sucking up $9 mil a year for two
seasons to not pitch. With a good closer, they might have avoid a couple of
the late inning collapses this season (like Saturday's) and made the
playoffs. I don't think David Aardsma is ready, and neither is Merkin
Valdez, so off to the free agent or trademarket is is.
2) Find a bat to make people pitch to Bonds. Barry is awesome-and even more
so when he gets pitches to hit.
3) Find a shortstop and right fielder who can play defense.
4) Fix the bullpen. The starting rotation for next year looks good-Schmidt,
Lowry, Tomko, Williams, and Reuter, with Foppert waiting in the wings-but
the bullpen needs help.
The Forty Niners are awful. Combine that with the fact that I'm stuck on
the East Coast and the local Fox affiliate has a tendency not to show the
late game, and I pretty much never get to see them anyway. The NHL season,
and with it the San Jose Sharks, is on indefinite hold wwhile a bunch of
millionaires squabble over money.
So here I sit, waiting until that magic day in February when pitchers and
catchers report.
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10/03/2004
Incentive Program
I took a PT test-push-ups, sit-ups, and 2 mile run-a couple of weeks ago. My score, while good, wasn't quite where I want it. So I've decided to make an incentive program for myself. $0.25 a mile, and $0.25 for every 100 push-ups and sit-ups. Whatever I do during normal PT doesn't count-it has to be above and beyond. Now, I haven't quite decided what to put the money toward, so I thought I'd give the band of rogues who read my blog a vote. My three choices:
Oly Arms PCR-10, flat top, collapsable stock. MSRP $835.
Romanian FPK SDM Rifle. $649 at Classic Arms. (Scroll down a bit)
Krebs KTR-03S. $999 at R-Guns, plus another $50 or so to get it here.
UPDATE: OK, I actually did the math and figured out about how much I could reasonably expect to 'earn' per week...and it would have taken me about 3 years to get any of those rifles. So, I'm going to have to downsize my expectations a bit.
The new list:
Finnish M39, probably a 'B' barrel, from WG&A: $190-250.
Russian capture K98, probably from Empire Arms: $190-250.
Czech VZ-24, same source: $180
Yet another Yugo M59/66 SKS for the Arsenal of Liberty (TM), from AIM Surplus, plus a Choate Dragunov-style stock and a peepsight from Tech-Sights. $220-250
Leupold M8 IER Scout scope for use on one of my K-31s. $190-225
Those are the new choices. Happy voting.
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