Category: Uncategorized

DD writes: I feel so defeated as an American. I also feel defeated as a human. I feel like I can see where this world is going but I cannot find it in myself to take the actions to attempt to prevent the un-preventable, albeit a true man of courage and conviction would stand up and confront evil forces regardless if he feels he will lose. How do you balance a love of country with the truth of God’s word, especially when it seems abundantly clear that the actions of ones country runs contrary to the nature of the Gospel. I am not a religious person at this point in my life. I am more confused about my faith than I am about what’s happening to our country. The more I try to learn, the more I realize that I’m clueless. On top of that, I live a debaucherous life of drinking, sex and I just stopped doing drugs.

Is there any truth left down here. What exactly are we supposed to fight for in this day and age? I wish I knew. I want something to fight for. I want to step onto the battlefield. Unfortunately for me, I see that a war is going on, against God as well as the fundamental principles of our republic, but I don’t know where to start.

You cannot be defeated by an external enemy. Whatever defeat you feel is a battle that you have lost with yourself. Before you can step onto the battlefield, you have to experience victory in yourself, and you already know why you do not have that. The ancient Greeks rightly believed in developing strength of body, mind and soul, and as most Americans are incredibly weak in all three, it should be no surprise that so many of us are prone to despair. The early Christians were not afraid to confront the might of Imperial Rome; we cringe in fear before a suspect look in the eyes of a neighbor and the threats of jumped-up accountants threatening to take worthless digital bits away from us. Where to start? Start with yourself.

What are we supposed to fight for now? The same thing that those before us and after us will fight for: the truth. No one ever said the way was easy, quite the contrary, in fact. But we have hope. George Washington almost never won a battle as an American general, but he won the war because he stubbornly and faithfully persevered. There is no secret, only a simple answer. When you get knocked down, get up again. Once you have decided to get back up again no matter how often you are knocked down, you have already won; you cannot be defeated. Some do it with saintly grace, others with snarling defiance. Hold to the truth regardless.

Your country is not your government. You can love the one and despise the other. Nor do you need to approve of something to love it, indeed, when we love something it is often the very flaws that make it unique that we come to love the most. I love the friendly, unpretentious savagery of my countrymen, the singular combination of unsophisticated good nature and lethal barbarism that makes them both amusing companions and fearsome enemies. It is this very trait that gives me hope that one day America will wake up, and turn with a vengeance on those who have tried, like Lilliputians with Gulliver, to bind her down that she might be destroyed.

But even if this is not the case and America succumbs to the eroding forces of evil, I will feel more encouraged with every satanic step towards global tyranny, implanted GPS tracking and total financial monitoring. Because we already know from the Revelation that it must get worse before it will get better, and even if our petty efforts are in vain, those of the one we serve and worship will not be. We may be the Spartans of our day, but the glory of our cause will long outlast Thermopylae.

From USA Today: Clark also has provoked two rounds of controversy on abortion. Earlier this month, he told The Union Leader of Manchester there should be no late-term limits on abortion. But on Thursday, he said he agrees with Supreme Court decisions to legalize abortion in the first six months of pregnancy and let states set some restrictions.

Gee, where have we heard this before? Saying two different things on two different occasions? Unlike Newsweek, USA Today doesn’t blame this on Clark’s tone and manner, but on his inexperience as a candidate. Sure, whatever. The truth is that this again reveals what Clark’s former boss, General Shelton, pointed out. Namely, Clark’s character issues.

JB writes: I’ll promise you that the CP and LP (as it is now) will never merge! We can work together on some things, but LP platform is pro-abortion among other things that would prohibit this.

The Libertarian party is not actually pro-abortion, although this is a common misconception. It is officially agnostic on the issue, which for all intents and purposes, is the functional equivalent of the Republican party. Saying that government should be kept out of the question is not tantamount to saying that abortion is a right, and leaving the matter up to the states is far preferable to allowing the Federal government to be involved. The Libertarian Party’s only specific platform position on the matter is that no government funding of any abortions should be permitted, which is actual superior to the de facto Republican position that allows for the funding of abortions in this country and abroad. I do not believe that the Republican Party is any more serious about ending abortion than they are about reducing the size of government, so abortion is no reason to stay away from the Libertarians if your principles otherwise lead you to support them.

Not to mention the fact that the Pro-Life movement is much larger than the current Libertarian Party, which is already 40 percent pro-life.

I am a pro-life extremist myself, but this is the actual Libertarian Party position: Recognizing that abortion is a very sensitive issue and that people, including libertarians, can hold good-faith views on both sides, we believe the government should be kept out of the question. We condemn state-funded and state-mandated abortions. It is particularly harsh to force someone who believes that abortion is murder to pay for another’s abortion. It is the right and obligation of the pregnant woman, not the state, to decide the desirability or appropriateness of prenatal testing, Caesarean births, fetal surgery, voluntary surrogacy arrangements, and/or home births.

T writes: No sir. Bush and the Repubs must be given a bit of time to kill the Dems first.. then rise against them…

We’ve been hearing this sad excuse since 1980. In the past 23 years, only Ronald Reagan accomplished anything in terms of moving the country towards freedom, and even his presidency was ultimately a failure, not eliminating a single Federal department, massively increasing debt and leaving a legacy of Bush-league conservativism behind.

If the saying goes: “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”, what does that say for the foolishness of a Republican who gets fooled three, four and five times? What does George Delano Bush have to do to convince you of his lack of conviction in republican ideals, order the confiscation of all private firearms while having sex with Hillary Clinton on Nickelodeon? Personally conducting a polygamous multi-species gay marriage in the Oval Office? Even that wouldn’t be enough for some Republicans, who would argue that now, having locked in both the anti-gun and trans-species votes, the Republican party is really, really, really, really in a position to reduce all of the central government expansion to which the party itself has contributed for the last two decades. Stop judging them by their words, people, judge them by their actions!

LW writes: I agree, Bush and congress are spendocrats. But I do believe any democrat that gets in office will increase spending a great deal more. That is not a defense of what is going on, only a practical assessment.

History strongly suggests that this belief, however strongly held, is nothing more than a naive rationalization. “The greatest increases in average annual domestic discretionary spending over the last 40 years were, except for Reagan, during Republican administrations: Bush II (8.2%), Ford (8.0%), Nixon (6.8%), LBJ (4.3%), Bush I (4.0%), Clinton (2.5%), Carter (2.0%), Reagan (-1.3%).”

Many conservatives commentators who believe in republican ideals call the Republicans the Stupid Party. It’s not hard to see why. For who could argue that it is, without a doubt, the best of all possible political parties.

“[Tolkien’s] Middle-Earth mythology, he hoped, would serve as a wake-up call for the West, to return it to its pre-statist, pre-imperialist, pre-materialist phase. ” – Tolkien vs. Jackson

Like Tolkien, who hated “statism in every form” we Christian Libertarians may be the ultimate reactionaries. It is why I shudder at George Bush’s call to move “forward”, and my first reaction is to ask, forward to what? How is his call to progress any better, or for that matter, any different, than that of the progressives who have brought us so much forcible servitude and slaughter over the last century?

“I look East, West, North, South, and I do not see Sauron. But I see that Saruman has many descendants. We Hobbits have against them no magic weapons. Yet, my gentle hobbits, I give you this toast: To the Hobbits. May they outlast the Sarumans and see spring again in the trees.” – JRR Tolkien, 1958.

In today’s column, I compared George Bush to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The comparison is an apt one. But if the One Ring can be reasonably compared to the State in all its power, there can be little doubt that the president is one of Tolkien’s Sarumans, and that the Republican Party, like those who attempt to wield the One Ring in an attempt to do good, have been corrupted by its power and will be destroyed because of their decision to embrace it.

To the Hobbits, who against all worldly logic, wait for the return of the King.

The Libertarian Party’s Statement of Principles

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual. We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life — accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action — accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property — accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.

I don’t see anything in there that contradicts my thinking on abortion, since pregnancy is neither a voluntary nor a contractual relationship between the mother and child. And I think Sara is right. The Libertarian Party is hamstrung by its equivocation on abortion. In order to remain agnostic on the matter, as it does, it is forced to implicitly deny that the unborn child is an individual with the same right to life as the mother, which is contrary to Biblical teachings, Judeo-Christian historical tradition and modern science (based on the two distinct DNAs). So, what do we do? Do we stick with the Republicans, who have done next to nothing about abortion and are actively working to oppose the majority of what we believe in? Or do we take steps to help the Libertarian Party wake up to the one area where it falls short of its ideals?

That, my friends, is the question.

Here’s one for Boggie and all the leftist military experts who know squat about the military. From NRO’s Corner: “I worked for Gen. Shelton [chairman of the joint chiefs at the time of the Kosovo conflict], but not for Gen. Clark. My specialty was the transition from the Deep Fight to the Close Fight which is where the Apache [helicopters] operate….

“My comments about Gen Clark’s remarks center on his comment about the offer for the Apaches from JCS: The doctrinal use of that weapon system is well defined and the planners for that part of the battlefield are among the best in the world. (They are referred to as ‘Jedi Knights’ among the staff). I assisted in that kind of planning for General Shelton when he was commander of XVIII Corp. He is very capable of understanding a concept paper unless it departs from doctrine or [is] very poorly written.

“Furthermore, it is odd that General Clark would not have initiated the request for the Apaches BEFORE being asked if he could use them only days out from the Line of Departure, especially if, as he implies, they were so important to his success. It appears to me that he did not understand the use of those systems and was ignoring his planning staff until prompted by the JCS.

“Finally, I recall the most disturbing sight of that conflict, aside from the human horrors, was the footage of a Maverick missile destroying a [light] truck. This was paraded for the media as the success our technology could give us. Using that weapon to destroy a parked truck was not only a waste, but evidence that they did not have a target matrix worth a tinker’s dam. In summary, I expect General Clark is more [of an] expert on gay marriage….”

This was clearly written in response to Clark’s bizarre explanation of the Apache fiasco in an interview. As I wrote previously, more and more evidence of Clark’s character flaws and general incompetence will be forthcoming over the next few weeks. I myself recall hearing that the same Serbian tank was destroyed on multiple occasions, as the Serbs moved it around to give our high-altitude fighter-bombers something harmless to hit. There are many officers from every branch, some at the highest ranks, who have zero desire to serve under him as Commander-in-Chief.

UPDATE: Newsweek piles on: The problem may have been partly a matter of Clark’s tone and manner. As an ambitious officer, Clark gained a reputation among his peers for telling different people what they wanted to hear, without seeming to realize that his listeners might later compare notes and accuse Clark of being two-faced.

That’s not a problem of tone and manner. That shows a weakness of character and an extremely short-sighted point of view. In other words, exactly what Shelton was warning about and then some.

As awful as it sounds, the guy calling himself Mystery knows exactly what he’s talking about when it comes to picking up attractive women. It may, in fact, be one of the strongest indictments of the sickness of our culture that in order to date desirable women, you often must first make yourself interesting by destroying them psychologically.

I discovered the concept of what Mystery calls “the neg” inadvertantly. I was in a tiny bar in Tokyo talking to someone, and another girl kept interrupting me from behind. I was rather short in telling her to take a hike without bothering to turn around, which caused her to become even more intent on attracting my attention. I was quite surprised when I finally did turn around to get rid of this annoying little pest and discovered I was blowing off an international model. Of course, the fact that I was an arrogant jerk in those days probably didn’t hurt either.

The reason, I think, that nice guys lose almost every single time is that they’re just not interesting. Seriously, The Perfect Aryan Male is possibly the world’s nicest guy and about as major a catch as it gets, and he practically needs a construction crane to pick up a woman that isn’t already throwing herself at him. Do you have any idea how many times a beautiful girl has heard someone tell her that she’s really pretty? Figure ten times a day from the age of two – that’s almost 60,000 boring repetitions. No wonder she’s ready to throw herself at the first person who doesn’t immediately begin fawning all over her. Nobody is really comfortable with respect that they haven’t earned, even if they come to expect it over time.



Vox’s Rules for Guys

1. Know your league. You can reasonably date one up or one down.

2. Girls like: Power, Fame, Money, Looks, in that order.

3. You can’t be a nice guy and expect to get a phone number.

4. You can’t be a jerk and expect to keep a girlfriend.

5. No one can see character in the first two weeks, let alone the first two hours.

6. If you’re out to pick up chix, take a pretty girl with you.

7. Don’t even think about using a line. Even the guys nearby are cringing.

8. Vague civility bordering on disinterest is like catnip for most women, but you can’t fake it.

9. Never lie. Men and women alike find brutal honesty laced with irony to be interesting. Answering the question “what do you do?” with “I design computer games” sends the subtextual message “I’m a dork and you will hate yourself for continuing this conversation.” Answering it with “Well, today I was trying to decide which sound was more appropriate for an axe striking human flesh before blowing off the rest of the day by killing hundreds of innocent aliens with a shotgun” will either get you a date or a look of complete horror. Either result is amusing. And if you get the latter, don’t forget to punctuate the encounter with a burst of laughter that’s just slightly too loud.

The ironic thing is that I never had the chance to use any of my finely tuned pickup skillz with Space Bunny. She happened to find the mohawk interesting – it was freshly shaven – and asked if she could touch it. I turned around, saw this slender, gorgeous blonde, and figured, yeah, sure. The next thing I know, I’m calling the Old Fox asking him to hook me up with his international diamond connections.

JD writes: Since the only Linux news I’ve heard from you is the problem with random slides in Open Office, I assume all is well on the Linux front, which is good news.

Yes and no. I gave up trying to solve the problem of getting my wireless PCMCIA card to work in Fedora Core 1 because the motherboard on that Dell laptop is failing and I don’t dare turn it off since it takes up to 20 tries to get it to successfully into either Fedora or Windows. I leave it in Windows since the USB connection broke on my other Dell laptop (which is successfully running Fedora Core 1 and the same wireless card) and I need it to transfer ebooks and documents to my Dana. I also haven’t been able to get Samba running on that other Dell – my work machine – but that doesn’t matter now until I get another computer, as I can access the Windows Dell without any problem from Nautilus.

Hardware-wise, it was a horrific 2003. The motherboard on my HP Pavilion 850 went out, although I always hated that poorly-designed kludge of a machine so it wasn’t much of a loss. Then the motherboard started failing on this Dell, and was replaced under warranty before the USB connection broke post-warranty and then the second Dell motherboard started dying. Three motherboards toast in one year, and I’ve never had a single one go out on me since my first Apple IIe. So, I’m not real impressed with the hardware designers these days.

So, the columns are written in OpenOffice 1.1, email is Evolution 4.5.1 and I’m blogging in Mozilla. There’s still some minor irritants – I can’t get the nice anti-aliased fonts to work in Mozilla 6 so I’m still working with Mozilla 4 despite two whacks at it, the Samba thing and Impress slide shows are less easy to construct than Powerpoint, but on the other hand, I’m not crashing four times a day either. And most importantly, I’m fully functional and 95 percent MS-free.

If anyone has any good recommendations on desktops shipping with Linux, particularly Firewire-friendly with DVD-burning support, let me know.

Despite an increased willingness by elected officials to consider ways to build stadiums for the Twins and Vikings, most Minnesotans don’t think the two pro sports teams need new facilities and nearly two-thirds oppose paying for them with their taxes, the latest Star Tribune Minnesota Poll shows.

And here only three weeks ago, they were talking about how things had changed and how people were surprisingly open to funding a new stadium… again. I hated the Metrodome from the beginning, of course, so while I’d like nothing better than to see it nuked and replaced with a decent stadium that is open to the winter elements, the state should not fund it.

It would be simple for the NFL to fund such stadiums, of course, if they would allow teams to go public like the Packers or any ordinary corporation. But the league won’t do that, because they’ll lose the ability to extort communities into building them free facilities by threatening them with losing their team. One benefit of this is that it illustrates very well how big business and big government work hand in hand against the people; any notion of fundamental conflict between them is utterly misguided.