the USA (Un)Patriot Act

Now for something rare. Good news.

A judge finally ruled against some of the gov's new powers it gave itself post 9-11. This ruling block[s] the government from conducting secret, unchallengeable searches of Internet and telephone records as part of its fight against terrorism.
...
In his ruling, the judge called national security of "paramount value" and said the government "must be empowered to respond promptly and effectively" to threats. But he called personal security equal in importance and "especially prized in our system of justice."

Every now and then the ACLU fights the good fight. Not only did they fight on the right side (this time), they won. Now to overturn the rest of the tyrannical bills passed by Congress in their 'patriotic' fervor following 9-11.

Royal Coronation

On the D&D quiz our beloved Pink Kitty scored a Neutral Good Gnome Bard Mage.
From here on henceforth and forthwith, soforth and so-on Pink Kitty (AKA The Empress) will also be known as Highbulp

Michael Badnarik Interview

Here is an interview with Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian party. Has some interesting material, I recommend it. It is hosted on Slashdot

The Sword Of Truth

I have been reading through the series "The Sword Of Truth by Terry Goodkind. Not only is this an excellent series it is also a good way to teach libertarian principles to others. While you will find that most sci-fi and a lot of fantasy (not the harlequin sort) exalt the ideas of freedom, there will always be those that stand up just a bit higher. This series is one of them.

The previous book (or maybe book 6) dealt with communism, this one deals with moral relativism and its resultant pacifism. Yes, sometimes the story suffers a bit for taking on these concepts (as do all such books, think Ayn Rand) but still makes for a good read

From book 8, Naked Empire.

"Land?" Richard spread his arms. "We do not fight for land. We are loyal to an ideal --an ideal of liberty wherever man lives. We dot not guard territory, bleed for a piece of dirt. We don't fight because we love violence. We fight for our freedom as individuals to live our own lives, to pursue our own survival, our own happiness.

"Your unconditional rejection of violence makes you smugly think of yourselves as noble, as enlightened, but in reality it is nothing less than the abject moral capitulation to evil. Unconditional rejection of self-defense, because you think its a supposed surrender to violence, leaves you no resort but begging for mercy or offering appeasement.

"Evil grants no mercy, and to attempt to appease it is nothing more than a piecemeal surrender to it. Surrender to evil is slavery at best, death at worst. Thus your unconditional rejection of violence is really nothing more than embracing death as preferable to life.

"You will achieve what you embrace.

The right, the absolute necessity, of vengeance against anyone who initiates force against you is fundamental to survival. The morality of a people's self-defense is in its defense of each individual's right to life. Its an intolerance of violence, made by real unwavering willingness to crush any who would launch violence against you. The unconditional determination to destroy any who would initiate force against you is an exaltation of the value of life. Refusing to surrender your life to any thug or tyrant who lays claim to it is in fact embracing life itself.

D&D Character

For those of you who are into D&D...
This is actually a fairly decent quiz as it has quite a few questions and possibilities so it can nail ya down well.


I Am A: Chaotic Good Elf Ranger Druid


Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value of goodness. They have little use for governments and other forces of order, and will generally do their own things, without heed to such groups.


Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.


Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.


Secondary Class:
Druids are a special variety of Cleric who serves the Earth, and can call upon the power in the earth to accomplish their goals. They tend to be somewhat fanatical about defending natural settings.


Deity:
Solonor Thelandria is the Chaotic Good elven god of archery and the hunt. He is also known as the Keen Eye, the Great Archer, and the Forest Hunter. His followers respect nature, and only hunt when needed, but are quick to defend the forest from intruders. Their favorite weapon is the bow, and they tend to be extremely talented with it. Solonor Thelandria's symbol is an arrow with green fletchings.


Find out What D&D Character Are You?

What gun are you?

Props to Bane on this one.


Smith & Wessen .44 Magnum. You are old school. Fat
Sheriff Deputies fancy you. Reliable but not
too practical.


What handgun are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Bumper Sticker

Another interesting item found at the gun show was a bumper sticker that states "Question: You are locked in a room with a lawyer, a child molester and a murderer. You have a gun with only two bullets, what do you do?
Answer: Shoot the lawyer twice and pistol whip the SOB till you are sure he is dead"

Nikki found this one at an Army Surplus store
"Kerry/Edwards!
So full of sh*t it needs two johns!"

Gunshow

As I said saturday, Nikki and I went to a gunshow on sunday. As with every show there was some lame stuff and some really cool stuff. And then there is the stuff that makes ya drool. I found one such item. AKs, .50 BMGs and AR-15s a plenty but the thing I liked the most was a custom machine gun.

2 Ruger 10/22s (.22 caliber) attached so the tops were together and the grips were horizontal to the ground. What appeared to be, but werent, cooling barrels (like you see on real machine guns) were over the Ruger barrels. The stocks of the rifles had been removed, and underneath the rear was a new trigger assembly that was attached to the Ruger triggers, while on the right was a wheel that was the actual trigger. (Squeeze the new trigger to engage the wheel, spin the wheel to fire) All this upon a fully articulating tripod and I was drooling. $900 is a bit steep for a college student however. Perhaps I will be able to find plans online to make one myself.

More Blogneglect

For those of you who read my blog regularly, I apologize for my inattentiveness. This time I am gonna blame it on the beautiful and talented Nikki. Today we have been together for a month(YaY) and between work, school, and spending time with her I havent even had time to keep up on others blogs (which I do before my own) Tomorrow we are going to a gun show and will be taking another lesson for swing dancing (4 left feet between the two of us) I'll let ya know if I buy anything interesting at the show.

Odd quote

I came across an interesting quote in an AP story. "I think in the next few years, synthetic urine will replace human urine"

It isnt so bad taken in context however. Story here.

Zod's Blog

I really should be studying but umm, anyways, I took a quick peek at Zod's blog and the picture that greeted me was a pleasant site.

Log Cabin Republicans

Found an article over at Claire Wolfe concerning the Log Cabin Republicans. For those who dont know, the LCR is a homosexual activist group that happens to be more conservative (fiscally etc). Since the beginning of his administration, Bush has been courting this group with weekly calls to get their input on policies and input. It seems however that, once again, the Republicans simply dont know who their friends are. It is not yet known who the LCR is endorsing but it is clear that it won't be Bush.

Republicans are politically inept. They reward their enemies (Planned Parenthood) court those who will never befriend them (LCR) and ignore their core constituency (Religious Right.) Is there hope for this party?

Single Issue Voter Guide

In a continuance of my voter guide I present my 'single issue' guide. This is for all those people who decide whom to vote for by a single overriding issue such as abortion or 'green' policies. I'll give the top two candidates for each issue.

Abortion (Pro-life)
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution)
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)

Abortion (Pro-choice)
John F. Kerry (Democrat)
Ralph Nader (independent, formerly Green party)

Constitution (acting according to its wording
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution)

Taxes (reduced taxation, abolishing the IRS)
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution)

Eco-Friendly (Gov mandated rules/regs)
Ralph Nader (independent, formerly Green party)
John F. Kerry (Democrat)

Eco-Friendly (free market)
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution)

Economy (growth, cutting inflation, job creation)
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution)

Abolition of the Federal Reserve
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution)

Drug War (keeping as is or tougher)
George W. Bush (Republican)
John F. Kerry (Democrat)

Drug War (abolishing)
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)
No second place on this one

Illegal Immigration (curtailing)
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution)
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)

Secure Borders (military/border patrolled
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution)
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)

War on Terror (as is being fought)
George W. Bush (Republican)
John F. Kerry (Democrat)

Welfare State (reduce, abolish)
Michael Badnarik (Libertarian)
Michael Anthony Peroutka (Constitution)

Best Looking Daughters
George W. Bush (Republican)
John F. Kerry (Democrat)

On Illegal Immigration and Secure Borders: I gave this to Peroutka as I believe he would be more likely to use force to close down those areas (as I believe they need to be) legal immigration = good, illegal immigration = bad

On Constitution: I gave this to Badnarik as he is an actual Constitutional Scholar, unlike our current President who declared "How would I know what's unconstitutional?"

Abortion Ban Ruled Unconstitutional

Abortion Ban 'unconstitutional' again.
This third ruling rules similarly to the other two, destroying the 'partial birth abortion' ban. I am sure that Republicans will say that there is still a chance at the Supreme Court level, but I say there is as much chance of that happening as the IRS giving me my money back. Not only will the courts not allow a PBA-Ban the PBA-Ban never did anything in the first place. In the legislation the procedure was defined as something other than the current procedure, so this ban never would have stopped a PBA in the first place.

So to recap the Republican 'progress' on abortion
1. PBA not actually outlawed in the Ban
2. the PBA-Ban is ruled unconstitutional
3. Reps actually increased funding for Planned (un)Parenthood by 60 million
4. Bush stated in the 2k race that he would not use pro-life views as a 'litmus test' for his Court nominees.
5. Bush appointed the Texas Supreme Court judges that struck down a bill that would require parental notification for minors having abortions.

If you are a single issue voter, and abortion is that issue, how can you still support Bush? How could we have more abortions under Kerry than we do under Bush? Or for that matter, is it possible to have less abortions under Bush than Kerry? (Kerry's face is something of an antiaphrodisiac, and therefore would reduce the number of pregnancies worldwide were he to have daily coverage.)

Stream of Conscience

News story on the AP wire about a woman finishing the Santa Fe Trail over 8 years. I'd like to hike the Colorado Trail. The Colorado is a shorter at only 500 miles but it crosses several mountains, even one thirteener.

What possesses someone to want to squirt milk out their eye? And should someone have that problem, why shout it to the world by trying to get a world record? Maybe his prize can be some counseling?

Nikki and I made some homemade ice cream yesterday. Not the machine kind, but by shaking it till it turned into ice cream. Very good and a lot of fun, highly reccomended.

Yigal Amir, serving a life sentence with no parole for assasinating Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was married by proxy this past month. The couple is trying to get the Supreme Court to allow conjugal visits, while the state is worried he might get out his 'radical' message to his supporters. I dont know what I think on that one.

Another headline states "Miss Universe Suffers Wardrobe Malfunction." I think this term is here with us to stay. pretty sad really. The other thing that is pretty sad is that I have put up so much useless stuff on my blog! I am fairly well rested and have nothing to do, but dont worry, Miss Nikki keeps me from that too much. (o= shalom

Packet Tracer 3.1

If there is anyone out there studying Cisco routers or is just a geek (like me) looking for a way to learn some networking, Packet Tracer 3.1 is a fantastic tool. It is part of the curriculum at the academy so I know it works well. Just make sure you subnet properly so your routers can talk.

9.3 meg file on a slow server so it takes a while.

Decidedly Un-manly Poetry

I read in SOF that John Effing Kerry is refering to the 'great' american poet Langston Hughes' work "Let America Be America Again" Check it out if you want to, but let me just tell you it really isnt much worth reading. Of perhaps more interest is not that particular piece of work, but who Langston Hughes was and the other things he has written. Hughes was a G-d hating man and a communist. Of particular interest to me is his poem "Goodbye Christ"

A bit from that last piece...
You ain't no good no more.
They've pawned you
Till you've done wore out.

Goodbye,
Christ Jesus Lord God Jehova,
Beat it on away from here now.
Make way for a new guy with no religion at all—
A real guy named
Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker ME—
I said, ME!

Go ahead on now,
You're getting in the way of things, Lord.
...
And step on the gas, Christ!
Move!

Don't be so slow about movin?
The world is mine from now on—
And nobody's gonna sell ME
To a king, or a general,
Or a millionaire.

80's Movie Test

A short test to match 80's movie quotes to the movie
I got 7 of 10 but I marked one wrong so it shoulda been 8.

strUctUrEd rAndOmnEss

Been thinking on James 2:16 today. Itsays "And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be [ye] warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what [doth it] profit?" Been thinking on charity and how to apply that in my life (towards others obviously)

Does China have the economic clout to bully the US? Has it done so to get things like Most Favored Nation Status?

What sort of things can I/we do to raise awareness of Peroutka & Badnarik? And when will Christians awake to the evil of our government?

Hope you all get a long weekend and have loved ones to spend it with.

Meterstone

I'd call it a mile stone, but it is closer to 1000 which is more the metric thing. Anyhoo, I made it to a 1000 visits today. Do you have any idea how hard it is to clear your cookies some five hundred times and while refreshing this page so that I could get here? (o=