5.31.2006

The fatal blow of libertarianism?

Very happy this morning. I can't believe this sentence showed up in a major CNN article:
Libertarian fatalism has infected and afflicted the leaders of both political parties, and none of us should take seriously the partisan posturing from either the Republicans or Democrats.

Yep. Die, major parties, die. How does "Culotta 2014" sound on a bumper sticker? Meh, not so good. :)

5.19.2006

"Illegal" immigrants? We're all immigrants...unless you're Native American.

See here's just another example of how this border/immigration thing is messed up.

SAN DIEGO, California (AP) -- The world's busiest border crossing reopened early Friday following a nine-hour closure that occurred after federal authorities shot and killed the driver of a sport utility vehicle headed for Mexico, officials said.
...
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents began following the black SUV after somebody reported seeing it pick up suspected illegal immigrants near the U.S. side of the Otay Mesa border crossing, Lt. Kevin Rooney of San Diego Police Department said.

I just don't get it. The government is supposedly morally justified in shooting and KILLING the driver of a vehicle after it was REPORTED that he picked up SUSPECTED illegal immigrants. Guilty until proven innocent. Couldn't they have shot out the tires, at least? And now you won't know the whole story, just the government's side, because he's dead. Sad.

I loathe this government so much. When you go to vote, and you pick a non-libertarian candidate, just know that you're voting to take MY money and rights by force. That's what people don't realize. "Voting" and "democracy" is a process where you force your views and morals on other people who don't agree with you, and you use the government as your weapon. It's just a nasty thing all around, I think.

Ok, I'll stop now.

5.12.2006

What's the bigger problem?

For those of you who insist we're not heading downhill in this country in a number of facets, take your pick today: Diebold machines have another critical flaw (and we just lost an effort to ditch them in November here in MD), or Halliburton building large-scale "immigrant detention centers", yet another $385 million of YOUR tax dollars.

Keep paying, bitches, and vote for your pathetic candidate in the fall who will steal more of your money. Yes, steal. Taxes are force. Back to our cubicles, sheep. :)

I can't wait for the rest of Dubya's term. So exciting!

/click
//the sound of exercising my 2nd amendment rights
///the 15-round magazine part

4.17.2006

Tax "fun"!

Given that tax time is now over (for this year at least), I leave you with a "fun" statistic.

Americans spend 6 billion hours on their taxes every year, or $265 billion. Basically, 22% of every tax dollar collected. Yeah, 22% overhead just to collect the tax. That number is just for tax prep time, and does not include any litigation disputes, or running the IRS itself.

Keep that in mind this November when you go to select which retard you elect to tax you more. I'll be taking off that day to, er....educate the masses. Not that it will do much good. :P I've also reworked my withholding forms so I don't think I'll be getting anything back next year....which means it will be making 4% in my ING account in the meantime, Uncle Sam. It was my money in the FIRST place. I can't help you screwed up and took too much.

Back to work! Your government needs 40% of your pay today to go bomb some people or spy on you, or something. Hop to it, citizen.

/wow, that was a rant
//haven't even see "V for Vendetta" yet, either
///Remember, remember. 16th of December. (Boston Tea Party)

3.07.2006

Frontin' on tha interweb?

You know it's the 21st century, when the gansters are getting up their own websites to spam each other.
"Netbanging": Street gangs are now establishing an internet presence, both for recruiting as well as for scheduling fights with other street gangs.

Well, I guess it's better than shooting each other?

2.28.2006

Indecision 2006?

Ah, I just can't wait for the elections in the fall. Watch as the masses keep voting for people who "lack a clear plan":
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- By a large number, most Americans lack faith in the ability of Democrats or Republicans to solve the nation's problems, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released Wednesday indicates.
Sixty-eight percent of people surveyed February 9-12 said Democrats had no clear plan for the country, while 67 percent said Republicans lacked one.

Nevertheless, most of the respondents -- 52 percent -- said things are going very or fairly well in the country, a statistically similar response (49 percent) to the last time the question was asked in November.
Sic friatur crustum dulce.

2.26.2006

Quote of the day/month/year....

Yeah, no posts for a while, but this has got to be the new banner quote if I ever redesign the site:

"There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt


Says it all, for me. So when I ramble on to my friends...just remember I'm only on the first box. :)

2.15.2006

6 Types of Libertarians....

Poll time from my favorite podcasters, FreeTalkLive....how liberty-minded are you, really? Libertarians broken down based on what level of force you think is allowed against others:

  • Limited Government Libertarian
  • Minarchist
  • Free Market Retributionist
  • Free Market Reparationist
  • Self Defense Libertarian
  • Pacifist

...scroll to the 2nd post for the full defs. The "Limited Govt. Libertarians" is how it needs to be sold to Americans to make it palatable, as it's far better than our current system, but I think I'm in with either the Free-Market Retributionists or Minarchists. I need my revenge factor...for example: someone kills your cat, and the Retributionists say that you can only get the monetary value of your cat back. I want his ass beat. but not sure if the option to have it done privately (non-gov't force) is best, which isn't allowed under Minarchism.

2.09.2006

Bitter rant...part 3? Yeah, it's still going on.

Told you that search engines other than Google were evil. Your surfing gets you jail time in China. Good thing our own government isn't spying on you in secret in America.

...Yahoo! provided Chinese authorities with personally identifying data on yet another of its customers in China. Li Zhi, a 35-year-old resident of Sichuan province, used what he believed to be an anonymous Yahoo account to express his opinions on message boards and chatrooms, and was accused of communicating online with overseas dissidents.

The data Yahoo gave authorities led to his imprisonment for eight years, -- that would be the second such case involving Yahoo in less than a year (Shi Tao, the Chinese journalist jailed for ten years with Yahoo's help).

2.08.2006

Holo-rific!

Was commenting to a co-worker the other day about how "yeah, PDAs are getting smaller, but like laptops, the screen is now the limiting size and we need that holographic crap like in Star Wars....'Obi-Wan, you're my only hope' and all that".

Once again, reality is right on the heels of sci-fi:
A new device developed by Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology uses lasers to project "real" 3D images into the ether. A special projector can cast three-dimensional shapes of white light between 2 and 3-meters into the air -- previous devices only tricked the eyes into thinking the image was 3D. The images are created by blasting the nitrogen and oxygen in the air at fixed points resulting in glowing plasma emissions which hang-out just long enough to etch an ephemeral image.

Now we just need Emperor Palpatine to show up and execute Order 66.

2.01.2006

Guess you should stick with the plain t-shirt next time?

Yep, at last night's State of the Union speech (which I refused to watch live, lest I throw a rock through my nice HDTV), people supporting BOTH sides of the view on Iraq were kicked out becuase of their t-shirts.
Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan wore a shirt with the message, "2,245 Dead. How many more?" -- a reference to the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq.

Beverly Young, the wife of 18-term Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Young of Florida, wore a shirt that read, "Support the Troops."

Both women's shirts resulted in their owners being ejected from the House chamber before President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

See why I push for a smaller government? Too many cooks in the kitchen. Vote for big government parties, and you get.....yep, big government in your life.

Are you happy knowing almost half the money you're at work for today is for your government? We spend 40+ hours a week working.....how much is an hour a week of e-mailing or writing your legislators (here and here) or signing some petitions for reform?

1.24.2006

Quote of the week....

I'm blogging a blog of a post from another site, too many degrees of separation? From the cool guy at Alphecca.com comes the quote of the week, at the end.
Maybe that's why "Stand Your Ground" bills are becoming popular in various state houses here in the U.S. Last week I reported on one introduced in Alaska that is under consideration. Naturally there is opposition to it including (besides the usual Brady Bunch) trial lawyers. From the Fairbanks News-Miner:

The senator said the law would act as a deterrent to criminals. Melissa
Fouse, executive director of the Alaska Association of Trial Lawyers, disagreed.

"Nobody has ever proven that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime," Fouse said.

She describes the bill as a "boutique immunity bill" designed to deprive people of their right to sue over wrongdoing.

"We don't think that's right," Fouse said. "Besides, why would you shoot somebody over a car?"
Well, as one commenter to my post said, "Because it's my car!"

1.20.2006

Bitter rant...part 2?

An update from Wired about Google being the only company so far to fight the search engine subpoena.

I never understand people who say "if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem?" Well, my personal privacy for one, which I value above almost every other inalienable right that I have as a human being in this world. I am not a terrorist, dammit. I will not let my privacy be violated without due cause. This is exactly what "unreasonable searches and seizure" is.

So...since other search engines have already bowed to the subpoena, I respectfully ask that you and everyone you know stop using any web search engines except for Google, who is the only one I know so far to fight back. That means no MSN search, Yahoo, AOL. Hell, Microsoft is in the government's pocket anyway.

As a free citizen, what you search for on the web is NOT the government's business. Guard your privacy....it's another part of your personal liberty they are trying to take.

Your resident libertarian,
Kris

1.19.2006

Bitter rant....strangely involving porn.

Need I say anything about invasion of privacy on this one, that hasn't already been said about the current Bush administration?
The Bush administration, seeking to revive an online pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, has subpoenaed Google Inc. for details on
what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine.

Google has refused to comply with the subpoena, issued last year, for a broad range of material from its databases, including a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period

Given the most recent (blatant) abuse of executive power, I'm surprised they even BOTHERED to ask a court for the subpoena. And just watch the Democraps whine ineffectively from the sidelines. Our 2 parties are a shambles...corruption and endless bickering everywhere, while a third of your paycheck is squandered away.

TAKE IT BACK. If you don't help break the political stranglehold on this country by voting for a Big Change, then you deserve the crap country we are turning into. Don't come running to my house when they start tagging your kids with chips to track them and tax you into poverty so you can wait in line for more "entitlement" programs from your OH-SO-LOVING GOVERNMENT.

Hey, it worked SO well in Soviet Russia, right? Apathy leads to liberty for none.