6/17/2005
The Problem with "Temporary" Taxes...
Is that they never go away.
From the "I learn something new every day" file: this press release from the Libertarian Party about the telephone excise tax, enacted in 1898 to fund the Spanish-American War. A war that ended over a century ago, and yet the tax is still with us. All the veterans of the war are long dead, but the tax lives on.
And the telephone tax isn't the only one. The estate tax was enacted to pay for World War I, but it's still with us (though hopefully it will die soon.) Income tax withholding, with its insidious hiding of tax payments from taxpayers and conditioning us to think of our refund as a gift from the government rather than the interest free loan it actually is, was thought up to enuse the government a steady flow of cash in World War II.
I saw this proposed somewhere else within the last month (if it was your site, drop me a line so I can give you credit), and with these taxes in mind it seems especially apt to add this to my list of Constitutional amendments I would support: That every law must have a sunset date, with an effective period of not more than 10 years. Furthermore, that every law submitted for re-approval must have a full debate on the floor of each house of Congress. This would restrict the growth of government by restricting the amount of time available for Congress to debate new bills. Once they reached a critical mass of laws, they would be forced to let current law expire in order to have time to debate anything new.
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6/16/2005
I Almost Overlooked This
I was so engrossed in Michale Yon's blog that I almost let it slip by...9 years ago yesterday I raised my right hand and took the following oath:
I, (state your name), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of Second Lieutenant, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of The United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Nine years...it doesn't seem that long, and yet somehow, not being in the Army seems a distant memory. Hopefully I can make it at least 11 more.
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6/15/2005
You Must Read This.
Go there now. Read the whole thing. Just be sure to set aside a good chunk of time to do it.
Days rolled on. Showing evidence of training, the terrorists began seizing and trying to hold entire neighborhoods in Mosul. They carefully selected terrain that would be defensible, stationed fighters with rockets and machine guns on rooftops. They lined streets with explosives, apparently believing they could keep out the Americans. The 25th Infantry would roll into the strongholds and kill dozens of fighters at a clip. One linear ambush was more than a mile long. The 1-24th was caught by surprise. But after they managed to fight through to the end of the ambush, the commander, who was in the thick of the fight, ordered his men to turn around and head back into the ambush, then led his men into the kill zone to kill more enemy. The insurgents stopped using this tactic.
Fighting your way through a mile-long kill zone, then turning around and going back in to kill more of the enemy. When the book is written, I'll buy it. When the movie comes out, I'll go see.
Courage. Discipline. Those boys must have it in spades. And leadership. I don't even know that young captain's name, but I can tell he's a hell of a leader. If he stays in, he'll be a general someday. To bring his company through something like that, and then have them follow him back in, that's something very, very special.
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How Did They Figure Out I'm in the Army?
 | You scored as Gunshot. Your death will be by gunshot, probably because you are some important person or whatever.
Bomb | | 67% | Gunshot | | 67% | Posion | | 60% | Accident | | 60% | Cut Throat | | 53% | Suicide | | 47% | Natural Causes | | 40% | Disappear | | 40% | Suffocated | | 40% | Eaten | | 40% | Stabbed | | 27% | Drowning | | 20% | Disease | | 7% |
How Will You Die??
created with QuizFarm.com |
As long as when it happens, I'm out of ammunition and my face is toward the enemy, I can handle going out that way. But that paintball gun sure ain't going to do it.
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6/14/2005
Resolution of the Continental Congress
14 June 1775
"Resolved, that six companies of expert riflemen be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia; that each company consist of a captain, three lieutenants, four sergeants, four corporals, a drummer or trumpeter and sixty-eight privates.
"That each company, as soon as completed, shall march and join the Army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry under the command of the chief officer in that army.
"That the pay of the officers and privates be as follows: a captain at 20 dollars per month, a lieutenant at 13 adn 1/3 dollars, a sergeant at 8 dollars, a corporal at 7 and 1/3 dollars, a drummer [or trumpeter] at 7 and 1/3 dollars, privates at 6 and 2/3 dollars; to find their own arms and clothes.
"That the form of the enlistment be in the following words. 'I have, this day, voluntarily enlisted myself as a soldier in the American Continental Army, for one year, unless sooner discharged. And I do bind myself to conform in all instances to such rules and regulations as are, or will be, established for the government of said Army.'
"Upon motion, resolved, the Mr. [George] Washington, Mr. [Philip] Schuyler, Mr. [Silas] Deane, Mr. [Thomas] Cushing and Mr. [Joseph] Howes be a committee to bring in a draft of rules and regulations for the government of the Army."
----------------
Today is the United States Army's official birthday. Defending freedom for 230 years.
This, We'll Defend.
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So Much for That Idea
I was planning to swing by the CMP North store on my way to Washington next month and pick up either a Springfield or a Garand.
Then the bearings went out on the auxiliary coolant fan on my car. Ture, the fan is auxiliary, meaning it's not totally necessary. Only if you want to run the A/C. $700 parts and labor.
No new old guns for me for a while.
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6/13/2005
Some Proposed Interogation Techniques
Much has been made of the interrogation techniques used by our intelligence services at Guantanamo Bay, and how "offensive" many of them are. Well, I for one, refuse to believe that attacking a subject's cultural foibles qualifies as torture. So, with that in mind, I'd like to propose a couple of techniques that would not physically harm the captured enemy combatants in any way, but would probably cause them great mental anguish.
-Put something like an overstuffed oven mitt, but without the opposable thumb, on the detainees' right hands, thus forcing them to do everything with their left. Given that, at least in Arab clutures, the left hand is regarded as unclean (supposedly because that's the hand they use to wipe their ass), I figure this would mess with their heads a good bit. Alternately, you could use a cast that denied the the use of the fingers and thumb of the right hand.
-Given the extreme aversion many of them seem to have to 'improperly' dressed women, we should take them to strip clubs. Sneak them into Miami a few at a time, and rent out a club or clubs for the night. Pin money all over their clothes, and take them into the champagne room for individual attention. For the extra hard cases, bring in a leather clad dominatrix type.
Now, on a different and more serious note: I'm not old enough to remember, but did any part of our media, even a single solitary reporter on KBFE radio in Bum F**k, Montana, make any effort to publicize and protest the conditions in which the North Vietnamese kept our POWs in the Hanoi Hilton? Men kept in small cages in the blazing sun with no water, subjected to repeated beatings and other forms of physical abuse (to this day, Sen. John McCain can't raise his arms above shoulder level because of his treatment while a POW), and given inadequate food to eat. Why weren't Walter Cronkite and the other talking heads of the MSM screaming from the rooftops then?
I can only draw one conclusion from the disparate treatment: the MSM wanted the US to lose then, and they want us to lose now.
UPDATE: Dusty at Castle Argghhh!!! has more on how our POWs were treated in Vietnam, as well as more general ventage on the topic.
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Britain is Worse than I Realized
Looks like the BolshevikLabor government in the UK is moving to ban handloading, at least without a license. I didn't even realize you needed a license to purchase ammo in the UK. Why don't they just take down the Union Jack and run up the Hammer and Sickle?
I do have a question though, which may just be a matter of terminology differences between the US and UK. The story states that a killer "had built his own ammunitions factory in a Leeds lock-up which included powders, bullet cases and a bullet-making machine."
In the US, lock-up is usually slang for jail. Does it mean something different to the Brits, like maybe a self-storage unit?
Oh, and by their definition, I've got my own munitions factory, since I've got the hardware (Dillon 550 and RCBS Rockchucker) and the supplies to load my own ammo in a few difference calibers.
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