End the War on Freedom
January 7, 2009
15:28
Responding to an idea on the Get Your Hands Dirty! forum, I have created ObamaBodyCount.org, a display of the number of civilians killed in Iraq since Obama was elected president of the US. Go there for instructions on including the image below on your web site (or "view source" here).
I'm taking the numbers from IraqBodyCount.org, subtracting their value when Obama was elected, and displaying those in the image, updated daily, when I remember.
If you prefer a coalition forces body count, I've got that, too:
Those numbers come from icasualties.org.
January 5, 2009
08:09
L. Neil Smith and Rylla Cathryn Smith - Neil and his daughter are writing a book. This column is its introduction, explaining, of course, that libertarians believe in the Zero Aggression Principle, openly, unabashedly, honestly.
Quote:The problem—for the sophists, that is—is that, once the Zero Aggression Principle has been brought into the ethical discussion, nothing can ever be the same again. Anyone—including those who may fraudulently call themselves libertarians—who is aware of the Zero Aggression Principle and refuses to live by it, or promise to, gives himself away. He is a badguy, at least potentially, reserving a right that he mistakenly believes he has to beat you up or kill you, should he deem it necessary or convenient sometime in the future. He tells us that he cannot be trusted, as a friend, a neighbor, a colleague, or a comrade.
I have studied this extremely simple yet revolutionary concept all of my adult life, almost half a century, and I still discover aspects and ramifications that I hadn't thought of before. Unlike some other ethical systems, for example, the Zero Aggression Principle does not require us to pacifically turn the other cheek. Once an aggressor has revealed himself—by initiating force—it is up to those against whom he initiated it to decide what must be done with him. At the same time, the Zero Aggression Principle doesn't license any and all acts of violence toward others. The villain must meet highly stringent standards of villainy before anyone is ethically free to act against him.
January 1, 2009
08:16
Mike Vanderboegh was going to write to Reverend Robert Smith, Jr. of the New Bethel Baptist Church, about the Reverend's Ban All Guns essay, but he received a dispatch from hell that did a much better job of it, so he forwards that dispatch here. [ vanderboegh]
Quote:Reverend Smith,
Me and the boys of the Black Legion would like to thank you for your op-ed piece entitled "Ban All Guns." I have to tell you that it gave us the biggest laugh we've had in, I don't know, maybe ten years (ever since we saw Bill Clinton on the Condemned News Network saying, "I did not have sex with that woman. Ms. Lewinsky"). I must say you improved our morale immensely.
...
So you're wondering why a big-deal racist cracker like me liked your editorial? That's easy. I like a black man that's disarmed, because he's easy prey. We Kluxers always have. Hell, uh, Reverend, the first gun control laws in this country were written by white men like me to keep black men like you from having guns. Then came Reconstruction, same thing. I want to tell you, the only thing us Kluxers ever feared was guns in the hands of black men who knew how to use them.
And here you are, preaching unilateral black disarmament. Me and all the Kluxers and the Black Legion boys down here just didn't live long enough. I mean, look at you. You're doing a better job of killing yourselves off than we ever dreamed of doing. Every time a young black girl goes to an abortionist, we grin. Every time one of your young men embraces the "gangsta" death culture and kills another of his own race, we giggle. And now you want to unilaterally disarm?
December 31, 2008
19:38
The Ludwig von Mises Institute has reprinted Murray N. Rothbard's classic libertarian manifesto, For a New Liberty. Believe it or not, I haven't yet read this. But my copy arrived in today's mail. Looking forward to it.
08:50
Lew Rockwell at LewRockwell.com - Mr. Rockwell introduces his new book, The Left, The Right, & The State.
Quote:In American political culture, and world political culture too, the divide concerns in what way the state's power should be expanded. The left has a laundry list and the right does too. Both represent a grave threat to the only political position that is truly beneficial to the world and its inhabitants: liberty. What is the state? It is the group within society that claims for itself the exclusive right to rule everyone under a special set of laws that permit it to do to others what everyone else is rightly prohibited from doing, namely aggressing against person and property.
December 30, 2008
08:36
Candice Chan at Wired - to hear better on your cell phone in a crowded place, cover the microphone, so that the ear listening to the phone hears only the person on the other end, not the background noise. Haven't tried it. Sounds like a good idea.
08:30
Mike Vanderboegh talks about Nechama Tec's book, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, about a group of Jews who defied the Germans, and survived the war. He also reprints Sultan Knish'es review of the not-yet-released movie.
Quote:"Without a rifle you are nothing, worthless, you are waiting for death, any minute, any second." -- Aron Bielski
...
And that, rather than the uplifting messages, serves as the real lesson of the Holocaust. You either survive, or you don't. The Holocaust is not a call for tolerance or for sanctifying victimization, those are the liberal American Jewish fallacies. The Holocaust was a wake up call, warning that none of the strategies that Jews had used until now, negotiation, waiting, appeasement, all defense reactions had been nullified. You could give up, run if you could, or fight to survive.
...
That is the first and foremost lesson of the Holocaust to be learned. For all the unanswered moral, philosophical and theological questions-- the bottom line is that millions of Jews were killed, because they could be. The only true defense against a Holocaust is the ability to resist and to survive one. Before the State of Israel was officially declared, the Bielskis made their own Jewish state in a forest, to live as free men and women mere kilometers from their would be killers, and though like the real state and its real leaders, they may have been flawed, their triumph is not some uplifting moral, but a matter of accomplishment, the 1200 they hid in the forest against all odds, and through determination and hard work, they did not become victims or fatalities, they survived. And through their guidance and efforts so did 1200 others. No higher praise is needed.
08:25
Russ Stewart at The Duluth News Tribune - a college professor and former city council member reveals the dark underbelly of the so-called "gun show loophole". Vanderboegh's copy is here. [ vanderboegh]
Quote:Peterson wrote that we need to pass a law to “require unlicensed sellers to perform background checks on buyers at gun shows and other venues.” What she didn’t write was that these “other venues” include my father’s living room. The proposed legislation requires a background check for every private firearm bought, sold or gifted. So when Peterson claimed the proposed law “wouldn’t change anything for law-abiding citizens,” she was simply wrong.
Another thing firearm prohibitionists won’t tell you is that in order for a universal background check system to be effective, every gun would need to be registered with the government.
...
I’ve got news for the prohibitionists of the world. My father won’t give up his freedom to pass on his legacy without government interference — and neither will I, nor will my family, nor my friends. Nor will millions of other freedom-loving citizens. The passage of a new set of gun-control laws would simply create a new class of felons out of formerly law-abiding citizens.
And that may have a set of unintended consequences all its own.
08:18
The New Liberty - I linked this for the title and the quote below. Didn't bother to read the article, since I could mostly guess what it's about. Obama is going to try to do the same thing FDR did to end our current recession, and, like FDR, he'll make another Great Depression out of it. Guaranteed.
Quote:Why anybody would allow some idiot elected by idiots to have control over their lives and property I’ll never understand.
December 29, 2008
21:16
Below are ten silver rounds, two each of five types, that I managed
to get together to photograph. Click on the photo for a bigger version (1024x735 pixels, 267K). billstclair.com/blog/images/five-silver-rounds-2708x1944.jpg is the full-resolution version (1.4 megs).
The layout is as follows:
Buffaloobverse
LibertyDollarobverse
SilverTradeUnitobverse
Eagleobverse
Eaglereverse
MapleLeafreverse
MapleLeafobverse
Buffaloreverse
LibertyDollarreverse
SilverTradeUnit reverse
07:02
Dave Barry at The Miami Herald - hilarious overview of 2008. [ root]
Quote:JANUARY
. . . which begins, as it does every four years, with presidential contenders swarming into Iowa and expressing sincerely feigned interest in corn. The Iowa caucuses produce two surprises:
• On the Republican side, the winner is Mike Huckabee, folksy former governor of Arkansas or possibly Oklahoma, who vows to remain in the race until he gets a commentator gig with Fox. His win deals a severe blow to Mitt Romney and his bid to become the first president of the android persuasion. Not competing in Iowa are Rudy Giuliani, whose strategy is to stay out of the race until he is mathematically eliminated, and John McCain, who entered the caucus date incorrectly into his 1996 Palm Pilot.
• On the Democratic side, the surprise winner is Barack Obama, who is running for president on a long and impressive record of running for president. A mesmerizing speaker, Obama electrifies voters with his exciting new ideas for change, although people have trouble remembering exactly what these ideas were because they were so darned mesmerized. Some people become so excited that they actually pass out. These are members of the press corps.
Obama's victory comes at the expense of former front-runner Hillary Clinton, who fails to ignite voter passion despite a rip-snorter of a stump speech in which she recites, without notes, all 17 points of her plan to streamline tuition-loan applications.
December 28, 2008
08:42
From vanderboegh:
"If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side." -- Orson Scott Card
December 26, 2008
09:52
Priya Ganapati at Wired - Wired's top ten technologies for 2008. Flexible displays, edible chips, Speedo LZR, Flash memory, GPS, the Memresistor, Video-capable SLRs, USB 3.0, Android, Apple's App Store. I'm looking forward to USB 3.0, flexible displays, and memresistors. I'm hoping that USB 3.0 will finally get rid of the plethora of incompatible battery charger connectors.
December 25, 2008
14:38
From Library of Economics and Liberty:
"For centuries, the State (or more strictly, individuals acting in their roles as "members of the government") has cloaked its criminal activity in high-sounding rhetoric. For centuries the State has committed mass murder and called it "war"; then ennobled the mass slaughter that "war" involves. For centuries the State has enslaved people into its armed battalions and called it "conscription" in the "national service." For centuries the State has robbed people at bayonet point and called it "taxation." In fact, if you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band, and all of the libertarian attitudes will logically fall into place."
-- Murray Rothbard, For a New Liberty
12:07
My daughter has been playing the harp for a quite a few years now. She started out with a rented full-sized harp, then got a Dusty Strings 26-string harp of her own, which she now takes to school on the bus once a week. My wife has been looking for a full-sized harp for many years. She finally found one, on eBay, a few days ago. It's a Dusty Strings FH36B in Bubinga wood. She won the auction on Tuesday afternoon, and drove to a pawn shop in the Bronx yesterday, in the rain, to pick it up. What a Christmas present!
With our Christmas Tree
Dusty Strings FH36B in Bubinga
The Dusty Strings Logo
Label inside the harp
The Pawn Shop
December 24, 2008
12:38
I waxed eloquent a few days back about making Capulin Coffee in my Aeropress. Well, I've been using an old old blade coffee grinder to turn my beans into powder, and I got tired of it. So I ordered a brand new KitchenAid Pro Line Burr Coffee Mill. Works good. Only took a few tries to get the grind size and amount ideal for how I like my coffee. 10 pounds of stainless steel and glass. It will probably survive me. The photos below are after grinding some beans, ready to mix with hot water, plunge, and enjoy!
10:36
From sagebrush:
"Barack Hussein Obama - The last President of the First American Revolution." -- WT
December 23, 2008
17:53
Lest we forget, Franklin D. Roosevelt made it illegal to "hoard" gold in 1933. Someone at TMM posted a link to an image of the poster they hung in Post Offices at the time. I transcribed it into HTML at billstclair.com/fdr-gold-confiscation.html. The images linked from there are large (750K), so don't click on them if you're on dialup, but the transcription itself is less than 9K. I wonder if Lord Obama will do likewise.
At notesforinvestors.com, there is an image of one of the gold certificates mentioned in the order. I pulled out the certificate itself. Click for larger version (1301x601 pixels, 280KB).
December 18, 2008
06:52
Jeff Quinn of Gunblast visited the Ruger factory in Newport, New Hampshire. This is his story, with lots of photos.
Quote:The trip to New Hampshire was a good one, despite the ice storm, no power or water at the hotel for several hours, and the cold temperatures. I got to see some things that are very interesting to me; the way a firearm comes together in a modern factory. The food was great, and the hospitality of the Ruger folks was outstanding. Look for some new products and variations for the coming year from Ruger, like the long-awaited Flattop Blackhawk .44 Special, the Anniversary Super, and the return of the six-shot .480 Super Redhawk, at least for a while. There are a couple of new chamberings for the Number 1 rifle, a .480 Ruger/.475 Linebaugh, and a .460 S&W Magnum. Ruger also has a pair of very interesting firearms in the works which we shall see in 2009. For now, I am sworn to secrecy, but do not miss our daily SHOT Show updates starting on January 14, 2009.
December 17, 2008
14:01
I reported over two years ago about my acquisition of the Aerobie® Aeropress™ coffee maker. Well, about six months ago I discovered an incredible coffee, Capulin Coffee. Shade grown in the jungles of Mexico, processed by hand without water. Best coffee I've ever had. Not cheap, but easily worth every penny. Well, I left my Aeropress at my sister-in-law's place at Thanksgiving of 2007, and didn't get it back until Thanksgiving of this year. Tried the Capulin Coffee in it. What can I say? Putting the best coffee in the world into the best coffee maker in the world makes Bill a very happy hacker. Yum!
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