Speaking of the Fourth Amendment

Via Bruce we find out they are drug testing sewage.

So, here is how it works… They test at the main outlet for drugs, then start moving up the pipe and at each junction they mark it “clean” or “dirty” and keep moving upstream on the “dirty pipes” to the individual homes. When the arrive at your back door they have probable cause and you are busted.

The same sort of methodology will find gun owners (gun powder residue) and Jews In The Attic (DNA markers) and can also be applied to your trash at the landfill and the air downwind from your community.

I love the comment to Bruce’s post by John Thurston:

This opens a new form of blackmail:
“Be nice to me or I’ll pee in your toilet.”

Ecofascist Defined or “Where does the fascism lie exactly?”

This is in response to a comment by Frish, from this post.

You must start with an understanding of the word.  You can look it up in history, but Fascism is an appropriate description for the process whereby a group of people attempt to wrest control away from other people by force (specifically of other people’s property) and control it centrally.  The eco movement’s focus on legislation and treaties, rather than free choice, is exactly that.

The term came from Benito Mussolini’s Fascisti in Italy in the 1930s (he ruled from the late ’20s to early ’40s).  Mussolini was a devout communist who had his own plan for bringing about a communist regime.  His vision, his method for arriving at pure communism, was called fascism.

There is a common thread running through today’s eco-movement, regardless of what particular group is involved:  They all are striving for less individual rights, particularly less property rights, and more centralized control, i.e. fascism.  Q.E.D.

We can argue over whether a free market economy, based on the principles of liberty, on one hand, verses a centralized, authoritarian system wherein those in control see humanity as a stain on the face of the Earth on the other hand, is most likely to produce a prosperous, clean, healthy, successful, long-lasting society that would be worth living in.  What we must first agree on is that fascism (now that you know what it means) is almost universally favored by the eco movement in this country.  The use of force (laws) is their primary if not their sole focus.  To the extent that they urge voluntary compliance, I submit, they are preparing their followers and priming the rest of us for future laws forcing compliance.  Once the voluntary bit fails, which it will because there is no possibility of “success”, force becomes necessary, as we’ve seen in places like China, where there have been hideous anti-procreation laws.

As soon as you ecofascists start offering only free-market solutions to the problems you say in your wisdom exist, some of us who believe in freedom just might start taking you seriously.  But then a fascist is a fascist, regardless of the particular cause they’ve latched onto for a given day, so asking a fascist to embrace free-market solutions is a bit like asking Ted Bundy to look after a sorority.  The problem is in the basic world-view, and that has to change first.  Stop hating humanity, seeing freedom as loathsome and frightening, and start respecting humanity, seeing freedom as hope.

On that note I will give you a practical example of what I mean:  The Sierra Club spends enormous resources attempting to get legislation passed– land use restrictions, limits on businesses, etc..  The proper, polite, human rights-friendly, American method to achieve their stated goals (large tracts of land void of humanity, more animal habitats, etc.) to an extent far greater than mere legislation (which can be overturned at the next election cycle) would be to purchase those large tracts of land.  I can’ remember that last time I saw then in a TV ad, trying to raise awareness or money.  Instead they waste their money on lobbying efforts which must by necessity continue on without end if the laws they favor are to remain in force.  By buying land, asking for voluntary conributions, or through a multitude of possible free market offerings, and nothing more, they would be favoring the same things that real Americans are favoring– respect for property rights, and low taxes.  We wouldn’t be correctly referring to them as fascists, but would get along nicely with them as fellow Americans instead.

Bottom line:  You either respect humanity, respect human rights, and want to further a system of liberty, of which capitalism is an inseparable component (and are therefore an American) or you see humanity as a threat, a stain, a bunch of unworthy sinners, etc., and want to keep people from pursuing their dreams by using government as a means of initiating force to bend them to your will (and are therefore a fascist).

 

Quote of the day–Spider Robinson

I really did comprehend, intellectually at least, that I was engaged in one of the most profoundly thrilling endeavors in human history.

How conservative can you be if you have jumped off the edge of the solar system?

Do conservative people travel at relativist speeds?

By the end of the first year of our voyage we were already traveling at more than a third of the speed of light. And even though there were no sensory cues at all to confirm that we were all well of it and believed it. And I think I can safely say we all found it more than a little thrilling. By the time we reached turn over in nine more years our velocity was going to peak at a hair frying 0.99794 C.

Does a conservative man race photons?

Joel Johnston
A character in the book Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson.
[Johnston is referring to a literal definition of conservative, not the present day political definition. I have another 20 minutes worth of the book to listen to. Both James and I are enjoying it a great deal.–Joe]

Quote of the day–G. Eric Engstrom

Dear Jamie,

Money is the root of all evil. A man does need roots.

Remember to dream with your eyes open so you can act on them to make them real.

G. Eric Engstrom
March 23, 2000

Inscription inside the front cover of Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution Behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft
[This inscription was addressed to our son James–who now works at Microsoft. The book is about Eric, Craig Eisler, and Alex St. John. I worked for them when I first started doing contract work for Microsoft in 1995. I’ve known Eric for about 20 years now starting when we both worked for Zortech (they sold a C/C++ compiler for MSDOS and later OS/2 and Windows). While researching this quote, much to my surprise, I discovered Craig is now back at Microsoft.–Joe]

More signs of victory

As I (and others) have been saying for quite some time we are winning:

A recent Zogby International poll question conducted for Associated Television News found that 66% of the American voting public in a recent poll of 1,020 Americans from August 8-11, 2007 (margin of error of +/- 3.1%) found that the American public rejects the notion that new gun control laws are needed.

The poll asked: “Which of the following two statements regarding gun control comes closer to your own opinion? Statement A: There needs to be new and tougher gun control legislation to help in the fight against gun crime. Statement B: There are enough laws on the books. What is needed is better enforcement of current laws regarding gun control.

Conversely, only 31% of the American public think new and tougher gun control legislation are needed.

A majority of voters who support enforcement of gun laws already on the books exists virtually across all demographic groups and in all regions of the country with the only exception being Asian and liberal voters.

Don’t slack off, don’t celebrate for more than a day. We need to politically exterminate them. Our job isn’t done until they are as unpopular as the KKK and the neo-Nazis.

Its Happening Here, Too

When our first child was born, and again after the second, a state case worker was assigned to visit us, inspect our new house, ask us a list of questions and determine whether we were deemed by the state to be fit to keep our own child.  We were allowed, but only after installing fire extinguishers and making a few minor changes around the house, which I had planned anyway.  I had almost forgotten about that small, (to me then) but at the same time insidious, outrage.

Fast forward 14 years, to a post I’d already been working on:

***

Your Doctor as a Politician, Politicians as Doctors

My wife took our son in for a sports-physical the other day.  The kid’s as healthy as any.  I can almost be persuaded to go along and agree with the school’s requirement, but only in empathy with the administrators, in light of what the trial lawyers have done to our society.   Football is strenuous, sure, but so are a lot of things.  We don’t get a checkup every time we plan a bicycle trip, or for doing farm work, which he did this summer, or shoveling the snow…

The typical string of health related questions was asked, then this question, tagged on at the end:

“Are there any guns in your house?”
“Yes, several”
“Are any of them loaded?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.”
“Well…….stay safe!”

Aside from being completely irrelevant to a sports exam, it’s a bit of a trick question, isn’t it– are any of them loaded?  We teach our kids to treat every gun as if its loaded, never to assume it is unloaded, but I digress.

I wish I’d been there, so I could have explained my point of view to the good doctor, preferably while holding a baseball bat, you know, just to demonstrate that although we keep baseball bats in our house, we keep them for sporting purposes only.

We all need a medical doctor once in a while.  Sometimes our lives may depend on it.  This of course is why people who desire control over other people are trying so desperately to get hold of the medical industry.  Our doctor had ceased being a doctor with those gun questions, and had become a schlep/tool for anti-gun activists, fishing for potential leverage against gun owners.  Remember during the 1990s when they were defining “gun crime” as a “public health” issue?  That was about the same time our co-president was pushing for full nationalization of health care (I say “full” because we’re already halfway there).

Our doctor asked no questions about any of several more common and statistically far greaterd dangers found in a typical home.  “Do you have any insect poisons? for  instance, was not asked.  Nor was anyone in the medical field interested in how much time our kids are spending on bicycles, around a swimming pool, around matches and gasoline, in the sun without sunscreen, or whether there are stairs in the house, or unlocked liquors (which there are, by the way).  They didn’t ask about access to sharp knives, time spent on the highways, running with scissors, unprotected sex, or the condition of our house wiring.  Therefore the gun questions can without hesitation be said to have been motivated exclusively by politics.

***

After writing that, I came across the following, courtesy of K. Dutoit.  The Britts are taking kids away from parents by the thousands, it seems:

He tells Mrs Brookes: “I would like you and your baby to stay in hospital until the courts have made a decision.”

As though they were being given a choice.  That’s cute.  Its also dishonest and sickening.

The social worker says the two or three days the mother has with her baby in hospital will allow her to begin breast-feeding and that once the infant is taken away, social services will pick up expressed breast milk from her home and deliver it to the foster carers (sic) for bottle-feeding.

I can imagine the Social Services (SS) worker speaking in a German accent:  Vee haff come for zee breast milk.  If you haff not met zee quota, schnell! (Those of you with children will understand.  The rest of you will think I’m trying to be funny.)

The social worker admits to the couple that a back-up plan is being drawn up in case the judge refuses the application for a care order. He says: “What we also have to think about is a child protection plan that looks at you, at home, with your baby. There is no immediate risk to your child from yourselves, that’s my understanding from reading documents.”

Throw ’em a bone of hope in an insane situation, like you’re on their side.  F*<%ers!  Those of you with children will understand.  Those without children:  You can never understand the extent of the pure evil of this.  Its how they get you.  You cannot fight them.  You cannot do anything but hope you can have your child back.  Its all that matters to you, and you won’t do anything to risk upsetting those in charge of your baby’s fate.  It is a hell like you cannot imagine.  Nothing alleged to have happened at Abu Ghraib under U.S. control comes anywhere close. I am not kidding.

Juxtapose the UK story with our doctor’s incongrous gun questions for my son here in the U.S., and I submit that unless we stop this sort of thing, smack it down wherever it pops up, we’ll end up with our very own police state, with the medical profession, social services, and lets not forget education, as integral parts of the enforcement system.  All acting very polite of course, saying, “Please do this” and, “Please do that” while they have absolute power over you.

Hillary-Care anyone?

No.  I’ll opt for Liberty, thank you very much.

Honoring Our Troops

Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton, among others, is telling us that we might “honor” our troops.  This “honor” is not to come in the form of allowing them to win, and not through convincing the enemy that they will be utterly defeated no matter what it takes, but by bringing our troops home.

Lets apply that same logic to our firemen:  Lets “honor” our firemen by keeping them out of fire trucks and away from fires.  While we’re at it, we can “honor” our public school teachers in similar fashion, by sending them home, sparing them the difficult and often unpleasant task of dealing with the ins and outs of teaching kids: Planning course syllabi, meeting on-going certification requirements, writing and grading assignments, dealing with administration and parents, etc..  We can further “honor” our poor, suffering teachers by accusing them of torturing kids.  We can then “honor” them by launching false prosecutions and endless investigations against them.

As long as we’re “honoring” whole cross sections of society, we might consider “honoring” our senators by reducing legislative sessions (and adjusting pay, of course) to one day per year.  Would could at least “honor” Hillary by “redeploying” her out of Washington, possibly to the Philippines, where she could be called in on two or three-days’ notice in the event we desperately need her inside an hour.

As is typical with other words misused by leftists, it seems the words “honor” and “support” have taken on new and diametrically opposite meanings.

I would therefore like to; “Honor Hillary.  Send her home!”  She can’t win anyway.  Her war against America is a lost cause, based on a lie.

May we live long and die out

If you have sometimes suspected that the ecofascists hate humans then you may be pleased to see the evidence to support that hypothesis–The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement:

Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.

“Crowded conditions” are either voluntary or imposed by government action. They are not an inevitable result of our present population.

“Resource shortages” would get worse if there were far fewer people on the planet. This point might not be obvious so I will explain. Imagine you and a few hundred others are marooned on a large isolated island that in addition to the sand, has tillable soil, fresh water, metal ores and, deep underground, oil. How long before you will have tractors and cultivators such that you can raise a surplus of food? How long before you will have electrical power, air conditioning, computers, and cell phones? There are a great many things that are only possible because there is a large enough market to justify the initial investment.

VHEMT apparently lives in a fantasy world.

Update: VHEMT responded on their Yahoo email group confirming my suspicions:

I think this is one of the funniest views of VHEMT I’ve seen so far:

[…snip of my post above…]

I don’t know what “Crap for brains” refers to at the end. It was
placed to the right like a signature.

Les

Apparently he was unable to determine that “Crap for brains” was a topic tag.

Obviously Joe Huffman has never lived off the grid without A/C,
refrigeration or phone service.  I have, and must confess I prefer life
without all the amenities.

Camille

Camille (and Bob) have a Yahoo profile. Occupation: Eco-Smugs.

Does anyone else find it ironic their favorite quote is “The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind. Albert Camus”?

When growing up on the farm there were several years we did not have a phone or A/C. However, we did always have refrigeration. I’ve been camping and backpacking many times without any of the amenities. It’s enjoyable for a few days but I wouldn’t want to live my entire life like that. I find it ironic that Camille is posting on the Internet about her preference for living without “all the amenities”.

Well, his blog is subtitled, “Ramblings of a red-necked,
knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal” so I do think “crap for brains” is a
signature!

😉
Doris

Another person in the group that couldn’t figure out the topic tag “Crap for brains”–confirming the correctness of my categorization.

It may be illegal to delete files

I consider Stottlemire’s actions unethical. But he does have a point:

Stottlemire, 42, of Fremont, California, insists there was no encryption or hacking involved, and therefore he did not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. “I honestly think there are big problems when you are not allowed to delete files off of your computer,” says Stottlemire.

I also think he is on shaky, at best, legal ground. The law says:

`(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that–

`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or

`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The law doesn’t say the circumvention has to have anything to do with “encryption or hacking”.

Where it gets interesting to me is that if someone were to design their copy protection based on the existence of a browser cookie such that if you had the cookie you couldn’t copy the “protected work” and if you didn’t you could do the copy. Then if someone make a program or script that selectively deleted just that one cookie they would be violating the law. But a web browser which allowed the user to selectively delete cookies would apparently not subject the authors to legal action. And furthermore someone who told you how delete the cookie with the browser or even the command prompt would not be subject to legal action either.

This is so alien to me

I grew up in Idaho and when I wasn’t residing there I lived in next door Washington. As I have reported before my interactions with and knowledge of local law enforcement have been what I considered very fair. And as I have also reported before that isn’t the case in New Jersey. And apparently it isn’t the case in New York City either:

When motorists see traffic-control officers breaking the same rules they are paid to enforce, it can send them over the edge.

Meet “Jimmy Justice,” one of those frustrated motorists.

But instead of railing against fate, he decided to do something about it. Taking camcorder in hand, he’s compiled nearly 30 hours of video — most of it accompanied by his own highly indignant commentary — of traffic enforcement officers parking in front of fire hydrants while going for lunch, making illegal U-turns, and breaking every other traffic rule in the city.

“The traffic cops in New York City are especially mean-spirited and very aggressive,” the 36-year-old video vigilante told TODAY’s David Gregory.

“Although they’re doing their jobs, they go over their bounds a lot. What hurts a lot more than getting a ticket — especially if you didn’t deserve a ticket — is watching the same person who gave you a ticket go and commit the same violation with their official vehicle. That’s just wrong. The whole goal of traffic enforcement is to increase safety in the city for pedestrians and motorists.”

[…]

Keeping his real identity secret is, he said, is a matter of self-defense

“I think there will definitely be reprisal attacks against me by different city agencies that I’m embarrassing by showing the public the truth,” he said.

Gregory asked Jimmy how he can be sure the officials he tapes are not on official police business.

“It’s pretty obvious if they park blocking a fire hydrant and then walk into a restaurant and then stand on line ordering their lunch,” he said. “That’s not doing their job, that’s ordering lunch. We’re not allowed to block a fire hydrant — it’s a matter of safety. What’s the difference if it’s my vehicle blocking a fire pump or the vehicle of a traffic enforcement agent?”

Is this just an “east coast thing”? Or is it because cops are the only ones who can legally possess firearms in public and they feel superior to the people that supply their paycheck?

Quote of the day–Traci Hughs

If we had less guns on the street, more people would be alive today.

Traci Hughs
August 21, 2007
D.C. police spokeswoman
In Study Of Gun Traffic, Va. Stands Out
[She doesn’t address the issue of whether the homicides she is referring to were felonious, justified, or praiseworthy. She doesn’t address the issue of substitution of other weapons as a means of homicide. She doesn’t address the issue of felonious homicides that are committed without a gun that could have been prevented had the victim possessed a gun. And I’ll bet she can’t answer Just One Question. And I don’t think it is a misunderstanding of the English language that throughout the article author, Alison Klein, refers to firearms being seized by law enforcement as being “recovered”. “Recover” means “to bring back to normal position or condition”.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Perry Barlow

You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

John Perry Barlow
[Barlow was speaking of the Internet but he just as well could have been talking about the gun culture in our country.–Joe]

Stockpiling ammo

Lots of people have been reporting on the high price and shortages of ammo recently. I know the folks over at Master Blasters Bullets and they told me the price they pay for lead has increased something like a factor of four in the last two years.

And if you are, or will be, into reloading you should buy some bullets before the price goes up again. I know the prices at MBB will be going up very soon and I have my order in at the existing prices.

And stocking up now is a good idea just to help counteract the anti-gun bigots.

Speaking of socopathic dictators

Recently I posted a quote about sociopaths. Auntie Tam tells us of how one such sicko died a violent death after being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands including:

In 1868, when the allies were pressing him hard, he convinced himself that his Paraguayan supporters had actually formed a conspiracy against his life. Thereupon several hundred prominent Paraguayan citizens were seized and executed by his order, including his brothers and brothers-in-law, cabinet ministers, judges, prefects, military officers, bishops and priests, and nine-tenths of the civil officers, together with more than two hundred foreigners, among them several members of the diplomatic legations (the San Fernando massacres). During this time he also had his mother flogged and ordered her execution, and also attempted to have himself canonized by the local bishops.

Sociopaths; just one of the many reasons gun control fails my Jews in the Attic Test.

Quote of the day–John Gilmore

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

John Gilmore
[This, or a similar, quote is often attributed to John Perry Barlow but Barlow gives credit to Gilmore (and here) for at least the concept if not the exact words. Regardless, this point is being hammered into the psyche of the anti-gun bigots. They no longer have their hand on the throttle of information dissemination. Freedom of information is something some people just can’t tolerate.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Mac Johnson

A number of sources on the left held up for praise in the decision the one dissenting judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, whose opinion that the gun ban was constitutionally permissible was based on at least two stellar deductions. The first was that since the District of Columbia is not a state (as in “necessary to the security of a free State…”), then the 2nd Amendment did not apply in that part of America. This is a wonderful precedent, not only for the District, but also for America’s other territories such a Puerto Rico.

According to this same logic, Amendments 14, 15, 19, 24 and 26 (among others) do not apply in the District either, which means the District is free to a) deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, b) deny the vote to blacks, c) deny the vote to women, d) institute a poll tax, and e) deny the vote based on age. Clearly, Henderson deserves her new status as a liberal hero.

Mac Johnson
Court Rediscovers 2nd Amendment, Liberals Fear Other ‘Rights’ May Soon be Found
March 15, 2007