End the War on Freedom

“Make no mistake: all politicians — even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership — hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it’s an X-ray machine. It’s a Vulcan mind-meld. It’s the ultimate test to which any politician — or political philosophy [...]

“CNN’s Rick Sanchez may have got his knickers in a bunch over armed (but peaceful) protesters outside a venue where President Barack Obama was giving a speech to veterans, but Secret Service and local law enforcement acted with appropriate restraint, leaving the demonstrators alone to make their point. Their respect for the protesters’ rights to [...]

Ant writes "John Scalzi's AMC blog shows a short guide to the most epic FAILs in Star Wars design — 'I'll come right out and say it: Star Wars has a badly-designed universe; so poorly-designed, in fact, that one can say that a significant goal of all those Star Wars novels is to rationalize and mitigate the bad design choices of the movies. Need examples? Here's ten ...'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[This level of fraud, corruption, and willful evil is the reason I run this site. Do NOT let anyone stick you or your child with any shot that contains mercury or thimerosal (approximately 49% ethylmercury). Just Say, “NO!” --MJ] "Analysis of two independent government databases shows that the alarming increase in reported cases of autism not only slowed but actually reversed since thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines" "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) disagreed" read more

I was going to blog about the fact that using org-mode, referred to in my previous diary entry, made the important but non-urgent tasks more visible. I was going to use sorting out backups for interesting data (say, my e-mail archives) as an example, and discuss the solution I came up with, but I have just realised that the trust model is exactly backwards (my server trusts root on the backup machine). This is annoying, because I thought I'd got it right, and because getting it right would have been equally easy. Oh well. So, instead, I'll return sorting out backups to the TODO (or maybe STARTED) state, and (prompted by some recent discussion on #lisp IRC) I'll blog about SBCL's interpretation of Unicode characters, with the up-front caveat that I'm Not An Expert in this languages, glyphs, graphemes, characters and all that jazz. Common Lisp's string type is defined to be a vector specialized to hold only characters or a subtype thereof. This definition is already hard to wrap your head around, and has amusing consequences documented here in the past, but I don't want to get into it too much; merely to say that already this definition restricts to a fairly large extent the possible implementation strategies for supporting Unicode. Why so? Because in Unicode there are several notions of ‘character’, and we have to decide which of them we're going to use as our Lisp character type (and use as string constituents). The simple answer from the implementation point of view (and the route that SBCL currently takes) is to define a Lisp character as an entity corresponding directly to a Unicode code point. This is simple and straightforward to implement, but unfortunately has the side effect of making various Common Lisp string functions less useful to the user. How so? Well, consider the string comparison functions, such as string=. As specified, string= compares two strings, character by character. In SBCL, then, this compares two sequences of Unicode code points, character by character, for equality. The problem is that this operation doesn't in general have the semantics of ‘string equality’, because in Unicode there is more than one way to encode the same abstract character: for example, the e-acute ‘abstract character’, or possibly ‘grapheme’, e-acute (which is usually displayed ‘é’) can be represented either as the single code point U+00E9, or as the combining character sequence U+0065 U+0301. So, that's OK; the Unicode FAQ on Combining Marks says that characters and combining character sequences are different, and even implies that programmers should be dealing with Unicode code points (SBCL characters). Unfortunately, Lisp has been around for longer than Unicode, and code has been written essentially assuming that string= performs a language-string equality comparison rather than a codepoint-by-codepoint equality comparison, simply because (pre-Unicode) these two concepts were conflated. What about the alternative? We could try defining Lisp characters to be abstract characters, represented as combining character sequences. One problem with this idea is that there's the char-code function to implement: for every Lisp character there must be a corresponding unique integer. That's not so much a problem – Lisp has bignums after all – but it will make char-code-limit surprisingly large (in principle, I think every combining mark could be applied to a given base character). This means that we'd lose the ability to represent an arbitrary character as an immediate object, meaning that accessing characters from strings would in general cause heap allocation, and lead to surprises elsewhere in the system. So, given that we stay with a Lisp character corresponding to a Unicode code point, what other pitfalls and details are there to consider? The memory representation of strings of type (simple-array character (*)) is worth mentioning; because there's a fairly strong cultural expectation of O(1) access time in vectors, we don't do any compression, but simply store each Unicode codepoint in a 32-bit cell. SBCL has a separate base-string representation, where each ASCII codepoint is stored in an 8-bit cell; a long time ago I gave a talk about this. Also, interpretation of the contents of strings has caused confusion recently. Granted that a string is a vector of (effectively) code points, what does that mean for strings containing surrogate characters (code points in the range U+D800–U+DFFF)? These code points do not correspond to any abstract characters directly; instead, pairs of surrogates are (in certain Unicode encodings, such as UTF-16) interpreted as characters beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane. Some Lisp implementations (such as OpenMCLClozure Common Lisp) go so far to resolve this ambiguity as to forbid the creation of a Lisp character with a surrogate codepoint. In SBCL, however, we take the view that those characters exist, but should not be interpreted in any way; a string containing surrogate pairs should be considered to have individual surrogate characters in it, and no attempt should be made to combine them. If there is data in an encoding which uses surrogate pairs (such as UTF-16), then that data should be read in using the :utf-16 external format, so that no surrogates are present at the Lisp level; an attempt to write out a surrogate Lisp character in a Unicode encoding should generate an error. (NB: not all of this is implemented yet). All of this merely scratches the surface of Unicode support; I'm hoping to find time to implement better support for finding properties of the Unicode Character Database, and to implement Unicode algorithms for normalization, collation and so on; I'm also planning to tighten up support for the Unicode encodings (to address the potential security issues that exist from nonconforming decoders) and generally to improve support for doing useful things with non-ASCII. As usual, there's likely to be a significant lag between planning and doing...

1sockchuck writes "Opinions differ on when the Internet will run out of IPv4 addresses, prompting a wholesale transition to IPv6. In recent videos, John Curran of ARIN provides an overview of issues involved in the IPv6 transition, while Martin Levy of Hurricane Electric discusses his company's view that early-mover status on IPv6 readiness can be a competitive advantage for service providers. Levy's company has published an IPv4 DeathWatch app for the iPhone to raise awareness of the transition."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As'ad AbuKhalil points us to this press release from Human Rights Watch, detailing an ongoing campaign of torture and murder against Iraqi homosexuals (and "suspected" homosexuals and men considered not "manly" enough). The killings are being carried out by the sectarian extremists unleashed by the American invasion – including agents of the American-installed government. As HRW reports: Iraqi militias are carrying out a spreading campaign of torture and murder against men suspected of homosexual conduct, or of not being "manly" enough, and Iraq authorities have done nothing to stop the killing... The 67-page report, "‘They Want Us Exterminated': Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq," documents a wide-reaching campaign of extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, and torture of gay men that began in early 2009. The killings began in the vast Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a stronghold of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, and spread to many cities across Iraq. Mahdi Army spokesmen have promoted fears about the "third sex" and the "feminization" of Iraq men, and suggested that militia action was the remedy. Some people told Human Rights Watch that Iraqi security forces have colluded and joined in the killing....The killers invade homes and pick people up in the street, witnesses and survivors said, interrogating them before murdering them to extract names of other potential victims. They practice grotesque tortures, including gluing men's anuses shut as punishment. Human Rights Watch spoke to doctors who said that hospitals and morgues have received dozens of mutilated bodies, living and dead. "Murder and torture are no way to enforce morality," said Rasha Moumneh, Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "These killings point to the continuing and lethal failure of Iraq's post-occupation authorities to establish the rule of law and protect their citizens." HRW also points out that the killings and torture violate even the most fundamentalist understanding of Sharia law, which the perpetrators are claiming to enforce. In his brief post on the report, AbuKhalil goes on to make this pertinent observation: Good for Human Rights Watch for issuing this report. I just hope that they notice that the American invasion of Iraq has killed Iraqi gays, lesbians, heterosexuals, and asexuals alike. Yes, when you destroy a society by aggressive war, when you kill more than one million innocent people (out of a total population of 25 million: a kill rate of one out of every 25 Iraqis), when you dispossess four million innocent people, when you join with your local puppets in a savage war of ethnic cleansing, when through invasion and prior years of near-genocidal sanctions you eviscerate one of the most secular states in the Middle East, when you empower violent religious extremists to further your own agenda of domination, this is what you get: the eruption of the human mind's most savage instincts and blind fears, set loose in a maelstrom of degradation. And still, the urbane, educated, civilized, "progressive" president can stand before the world and declare that America's military rapine of Iraq is "an extraordinary achievement." And so it is. And so was the Holocaust, the Inquisition, the Trail of Tears, the liquidation of the "kulaks" and many other epiphanies of human civilization. But to be extraordinarily evil is not usually considered something to brag about. That Obama can do so without batting an eye is a telling indication of moral degradation of our own society.

Tonight's Declaring Independence will be a rerun. Things are a bit crazy at the Michigan Messenger this week, with our national editorial director on vacation and the assistant editorial director traveling to Indianapolis for a conference today, so I'm going to stick close to home to keep an eye on the site. Unfortunately, I missed out on a dream interview that I had hoped would take place for today's show. A week and a half ago I was contacted by the publicist for Benny Hinn, who has a new book out. Would I be interested in interviewing Hinn about the new book, she asked? Oh, would I ever. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Imagine being so far out on the lunatic fringe that you think the Worldnutdaily isn't crazy enough. No, don't imagine it - just read the letters they get from readers. Reading the letters to the editor of the Worldnutdaily is truly enlightening. It's a constant struggle for dominance between stupidity and insanity. And once in a while you find one that even goes beyond that site's normal ratio of nuttiness. Like the first one, which takes the fake news outlet to task for -- get this -- referring to Obama as president: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Barney Frank gave perhaps the best answer I've seen to one of these idiots claiming that giving health care coverage to those that don't have it is reminiscent of the Nazis and makes Obama the next Hitler: On what planet do you spend most of your time? It's a good answer. And it continues. He gives such people exactly the amount of attention and respect they are due, which is none whatsoever. Ridicule may lawfully be employed where reason has no hope of success. Video below the fold. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Mikey Weinstein asked me to pass along this statement from an Army officer and West Point graduate about the constant problems he has faced in the military from aggressive Christian superiors who have badgered him relentlessly about his own religious views. The whole thing is worth reading. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

If you didn't like the last one, you're probably really not gonna like this one. Yes, it's harsh. It's also funny. Try to read it with a sense of humor and some understanding of the time in which it was written. This was written in 1924: Again, there is the bad author who defends his manufacture of magazine serials and movie scenarios on the ground that he has a wife, and is in honor bound to support her. I have seen a few such wives. I dispute the obligation. Read the comments on this post...

A tip of the boonie hat to typeay for bringing my attention to this marvelous specimen of what passes for the "Master Race" these days.Meet Calvin Lockner, aka "Hitler." Calvin is a convicted sex-offender who, with two other brave young Aryan lads, beat up an old black man fishing under a bridge in a park in Maryland. They knocked him to the ground, kicked him, beat him with fists and a baseball bat, then stole $19 from his wallet and his car. Cowardly bastards.Now if Maryland allowed its law-abiding citizens to carry firearms in parks, then this elderly citizen could have killed all three of these scum-suckers in righteous self defense, and the gene pool could have been saved from possible future pollution.Another missed opportunity courtesy of killer citizen disarmament laws.MikeIIIMd. police: Man nicknamed 'Hitler' beat black man By BEN NUCKOLS (AP) – 17 hours agoBALTIMORE — A white supremacist accused of beating a 76-year-old black man has a tattoo of Adolf Hitler on his stomach with the words "He Lives" beneath it, and uses the Nazi dictator's last name as a nickname, according to police and court documents.Calvin E. Lockner, 28, was ordered held without bail Wednesday morning. He's been charged with a long list of crimes including attempted murder, carjacking and assault, and prosecutors can seek tougher penalties under Maryland's hate crime law.Lockner told police that the attack early Tuesday on James A. Privott, who had been fishing with his wife in a city park beneath the Francis Scott Key Bridge, "wouldn't have happened if he was a white man," court documents show.Lockner, a convicted sex offender, has other racist tattoos and told police he was a member of two white supremacist groups, including the notorious prison gang the Aryan Brotherhood.When Lockner was taken into custody, he said, "I'm sorry I did it," the documents show.Lockner and two other white men shouted racial slurs as they kicked Privott to the ground, punched him in the face and hit him with a baseball bat, the documents show.The men stole $19 from Privott's wallet and drove off in his sport utility vehicle, which was equipped with a theft-monitoring device. Police tracked down the vehicle, which overturned and crashed after the driver fled. The men ran off, but officers found Lockner with the help of a witness, police said.Lockner will be represented by a public defender but has not yet been assigned one, a Maryland Public Defender's Office spokeswoman said.Police had not yet found the two other suspects Wednesday afternoon.Privott (pronounced pruh-VAHT'), of suburban Windsor Mill, suffered serious head trauma and lost two teeth and may also have broken an eye socket bone. He was in fair condition Wednesday at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, a spokeswoman said. His wife was not injured.Privott's stepdaughter said he was doing OK and that police had asked the family not to speak to reporters during the investigation.Baltimore is about two-thirds black, and police monitor the city's active white supremacists, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said. Many are affiliated with a white prison gang called Dead Man Inc., although Lockner was not part of that gang, police said."Baltimore's a big city," Bealefeld said. "Just as assuredly as we have Bloods and Crips, we have DMI and we have Aryan Nation and we have outlaw motorcycle gangs and we have MS-13."Mayor Sheila Dixon said she met with Privott in the hospital Tuesday, and he told her about good fishing spots around the city and suggested the park he was attacked in may need better lighting and security."People should have the right to go out ... fishing, relaxing, in a great park in the city," Dixon said. "His family is understandably shaken from this and by the violence and what was said to him and what was done to him."

When I was a kid, we played outside with the other kids in the neighborhood with most of our free time. We also made the most of recess at school. We kept ourselves quite occupied in a decidedlky non-geeky, low-tech way. It's still possible, and lots of fun.

The lamestream media told you: Obama has appointed a car czar to handle the automobile companies the government took over. The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that: Tzars are helatious tyrannical dictators detested the world over, and most were ousted or...

The lamestream media told you: Nothing. The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that: Data released by the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reported 968,145 checks in June 2009. This figure is an 18.1 percent increase from the 819,891...

"09.12.09 March on Washington: The Tea Party Movement Goes to Capitol Hill"Folks,The March on Washington on 12 September will likely represent the culmination of all the anger and resentment that the Obamanoids' various grabs for power have generated all over the country. We have all, I think, participated in various Tea Parties in our local AOs and have experienced the indignation, the building rage at being forced by our "betters" to shut up, pay up and do what we are told. For the first time in my life, I think liberty-loving people, every-day folks, are ready to march in the streets in numbers. And frankly, I want to be there when they do.I know the march is being organized by Dick Armey's people. I know that there will be folks there who actually are part of the problem. I also know that nominally this demonstration is about Obamacare. Except that it isn't.For just as Obamacare is not really about health care, but about the government grabbing control over more of our lives, so too is the protest against it more than about health insurance.It is about liberty. And where people demanding liberty are, that's where the Three Percent need to be.I will be in DC by the afternoon of 10 September to meet with an old friend, and likely some new friends too. Link up information will be posted later. The recognition sign will be some sort of III percent logo, Threeper patches on boonie hat or jacket, an improvised III on an armband or a hat, anything.Look forward to seeing y'all there. Maybe we'll have a Threeper "flash mob," who knows?Information on the demonstration can be found here.MikeIIINote: We will, unfortunately, be obeying all local laws. DC is not Arizona, more's the pity. Hey, here's a thought. Is it illegal in DC to carry TOY guns?

Although plastic has long been considered indestructible, some scientists say toxic chemicals from plastics that begin to break down in only one year may be leaching into the sea and harming marine ecosystems.

My thanks to avcat for forwarding me this story from Michael Yon's outstanding blog. The photos are outstanding. The story will make you cry.MikeIIIavcat comments:St. Elmo's Fire runs actinic-white to blue; whereas these exhibit the typical heating paradigm of a meteor, going red-orange-yellow-white. I suspect it is more that the high-speed boundary layer of air on the rotors is creating dust particle meteor swarms as the particles are instantly heated to vaporization. I like Michael's name for it - the Kopp-Etchells Effect.

You simply have to watch this to believe that a bit of sand could be turned into art of such emotional depth. I am simply left speechless by the performance artistry of this young Ukranian woman. PS: I owe many thanks to Sharon Shannon for making me aware of this....