Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Yesterday I received an iPod Shuffle as an end-of-project gift for one of the products I worked on. It's an interesting gadget, but it turns out that the design keeps it from fitting into any of the four USB ports on my PC! Apple recommends the purchase of a USB extension cord or an iPod Shuffle dock (neither included, of course). My first thought was to finally get some use out of the USB extension cord that comes with new Macs, but it turns out that particular cord is only for connecting Apple keyboards to Apple computers, and won't work for anything else. I wasn't too impressed. 5:28:54 PM    comment () From one of the mailing lists I subscribe to: Russell opined: My only quibble is this: as Jeff Cooper has pointed out, in my presence and *pointedly* to a cop who called non-cops "civilians": cops are _also_ "civilians." Cops are not military, they are "civil authority." Only the ignorant copy use the term civilians... the others call us "little people." Russell, this is not only complete bullshit, it's dangerous bullshit, even if Jeff believes it. I once had a disagreement on this same issue, with one of those "almost a libertarians" you hear about, a police chief friend of Aaron Zelman's, who regurgitated the same lame theory. Cops are armed when civilians can't be, often with weapons civilians can't have. I can't tell you how sick I get of seeing notations in catalogs like Brogade Quartermaster that certain items are for cops only. Cops live and operate within a strict hierarchy, usually with titles like "sergeant", "lieutenant", "captain", and so forth. Most of them wear military-style uniforms, and an argument can be made that so-called "plainclothes" operations ought to be outlawed. Increasingly, they wear military battledress and carry military weapons. Cops form a culture all to themselves, like professional soldiers, and usually have little to do with those who are not cops. They do call us "civilians". I never heard this term "little people" before. They also call us "assholes" and say that the public just consists of criminals who haven't been caught yet. I know because I was there at one time. Yeah, I understand the theory that they're civilians, too. I repeat that it's bullshit. What they are, in fact, is an occupying military force, with strategic bases in every hamlet in the nation -- which is why they and their hangers-on lie to us and possibly to themselves about being civilians, too. They are the very standing army that the Founding Fathers were afraid of. And for good reason. L. Neil Smith I have the same opinion of cops, but I couldn't say it half as well. 2:37:23 PM    comment () THE VICIOUSNESS OF THE “REAL AMERICA”: CELEBRATING “ABU GHRAIB DAY”. Rush Limbaugh likes to claim that he represents the "authentic values" of the "real America." I prefer to think that Limbaugh is wrong on this point; at least, I certainly hope he is. Because if his contention is true, we are well and truly damned, now and for all time. Yesterday, I wrote about [...] [The Light Of Reason] Whether Limbaugh is right or not, he certainly provides a clear example of just what Busheviks stand for. 1:01:40 PM    comment () # Manuel Roig-Franzia at The Washington Post - Fla. Gun Law to Expand Leeway for Self-Defense - it seems that Florida slipped one under the radar of the Brady Bunch. For some reason they don't understand that if somebody comes at you with a knife, he has forfeit his right to life, and you are completely justified in shooting him dead, no questions asked. Fortunately, the Florida legislature understands the reality of the situtation. Bravo! [trt-ny] The Florida measure says any person "has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm." Florida law already lets residents defend themselves against attackers if they can prove they could not have escaped. The new law would allow them to use deadly force even if they could have fled and says that prosecutors must automatically presume that would-be victims feared for their lives if attacked. The overwhelming vote margins and bipartisan support for the Florida gun bill -- it passed unanimously in the state Senate and was approved 94 to 20 in the state House, with nearly a dozen Democratic co-sponsors -- have alarmed some national gun-control advocates, who say a measure that made headlines in Florida slipped beneath their radar. ... [Florida lobbyist Marion P.] Hammer, a 4-foot-11 dynamo with a national reputation for her persuasive powers, dismissed the papers as "liberal, anti-gunners" and "Chicken Littles." The current law unfairly forces Floridians to make split-second decisions about a criminal's intent, she said, and NRA lobbyists like to note that was deemed impossible generations ago by legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. "Detached reflection," Holmes said in one of his most oft-quoted pronouncements, "cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife." [End the War on Freedom] I'm pleased to see this development. It's strange that Florida actually had worse self-defense laws than California, and I'm happy to see that at least partially rectified. 12:25:47 PM    comment () What Made the Next Depression Worse. With the fall of socialism, the world economy has opened up as never before. New technologies have wrought new efficiencies. Private enterprise has become ever better at mass marketing to the benefit of everyone. The division of labor is expanding internationally. No matter how hard the government continues to try, it just can't seem to throttle the extraordinary power of the market economy. And yet we cannot bar every contingency, particularly for the US. The economy is not depression proof. FULL ARTICLE [Mises Economics Blog] A good overview of how government intervention messes up the economy, and a list of the Bush administration's ten worst economic errors. 11:59:59 AM    comment ()

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