I Feel Like I've Been Through This Already....

"Amazing Grace" on bagpipes always makes me cloud up.


And this image says a great deal:

Book Recommendation: A Long Time Until Now

Michael Z. Williamson's latest, A Long Time Until Now is out in Baen's eARC (electronic Advanced Reader Copy) edition.  I read the twelve sample chapters Monday, bought the book yesterday and just now finished it.

The précis is that two MRAP vehicles containing a Lieutenant and nine troops in a convoy in Afghanistan vanish from the present and end up about 15 centuries millennia in the past in the same physical location.  There are natives.  And later, other groups displaced from other times and places.

That was a GREAT read, and this one's not a trilogy you have to wait two years for the next serving of.  Strongly recommended.

Quote of the Day - GeekWitha.45 Edition

From a comment to yesterday's post:

One of my old friends, a scholar of Talmud and Kaballah, once opined that there was a really important reason $DEITY led Moses and the Israelites around the desert for 40 years between their deliverance from slavery and arrival at the promised land, and it had little to do with petty Divine annoyance on the subject of golden calfs. It was, he explained, to give that society time to let the slave generation die off and train the new generation to conditions of self reliance, to become people fit to determine their own fate. I think there's a lot to that. Slave instincts of servility are pernicious, and difficult for even the hardiest to shake off.

The Geek's comment produced this, from reader Magus (edited for clarity):

That one concept has set off a chain of thought within me that makes me weep for the future.

The American Revolution will probably be unique in the rest of human history. There are no more frontiers. There are no more areas where people can learn that they are or can become competent in managing their own life. Now there's always an "agency" to take your problem to. And if you don't take your issue to the appropriate "agency" you are punished.

We are among the last generations that will know anything like freedom or liberty. Privacy, for the most part, has already been destroyed. If you say anything like that to the majority of people now they'll tell you that "you're batshit crazy".

Freedom is not comfortable or stable, and people want comfort and stability.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once said:

In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being. Nothing is left, then, but concessions, attempts to gain time and betrayal.

I believe they're both describing the same condition.

And I am reminded once more of the words of the Rev. Donald Sensing from 2003:

I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I'd tell them to emigrate, but there's nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free.

"When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril."

This is the second post I've given this same title. The previous one also dealt with the state of New Jersey, and referenced an earlier case, State v. Pelleteri from which the quote originated. In that case, an instructor, gun collector and avid shooter was found to be in possession of a Marlin Model 60 tube-fed semi-automatic .22 rimfire rifle with a magazine capacity that exceeded the arbitrary limit of fifteen rounds as established by the New Jersey legislature. That made it an "assault weapon," and verboten to possess in that "dark and fascist state," as ex-New Jerseyite GeekWithA.45 has characterized it.

The New Jersey Superior Court proclaimed, as it upheld Mr. Pelleteri's conviction, "When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril."

Many residents of the dark and fascist state have learned that lesson since.

The most recent is 72 year-old Gordon Van Gilder, arrested for transporting a pistol without a concealed-carry permit. A 300 year-old flintlock pistol. An unloaded 300 year-old flintlock pistol that not even the BATFE considers a "firearm."

Someone on Facebook posted the graphic below. I think it needs to be tattooed on the foreheads of every member of the New Jersey legislature and every sitting judge in the New Jersey court system:


It's not about guns. It's about control.

UPDATE:  As of 2/25 the prosecutor in question used "prosecutorial discretion" to drop the case.  So they're not completely insane there, just close.

If We're Lucky, They'll Treat Us Like Pets

That's a quote from Science-fiction author Vernor Vinge on the topic of artificial intelligences after "The Singularity."

Howard Tayler (of Schlock Mercenary fame) has a short-story take on the question.

THIS Promises to be Interesting

Just got a new follower over at Quora:

Michael J. McFadden

Author, "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" & "TobakkoNacht -- The Antismoking Endgame"

Grew up in Brooklyn, lives in Philadelphia. Background in Peace Studies, psychology, physics, basic statistical and propaganda analysis, writing, editing, nonviolence theory/training/organizing, transportation and bicycle activism, social activism in general, conflict resolution/moderation, vocal pest-control (one hour of me singing will clear most houses of all living things), and cultivating cobwebs.

I can see (obviously) massive parallels between the anti-smoking and anti-gun movements, but I have to admit that I wonder if Mr. McFadden has a blind spot when it comes to "non-violence" and guns.

Time will, I suppose, tell.

Irony

French Artist’s Calls For Peace End in Brutal Beating By Local Muslims


French street artist Combo was physically assaulted over his latest art work. Photo: Combo Culture Kidnapper/Facebook

It was very offensive and local Muslims demanded he take it down.

Four Muslims in Porte Dorée (the Golden door), a ghetto east of Paris, beat artist Combo after he refused to take down his Coexist street art. Combo suffered a dislocated shoulder, bruises and a black eye.

Guess he should have painted this version:


That would have worked so much better.

SORELY Tempted

I can't justify it, but something really, really, REALLY makes me want to buy one of these for the .458 SOCOM hog-hammer:


3x night-vision scope.  It's good to about 200 yards, and so is the .458. Seems like a perfect match....

One Facet of The Other Side™

Why are anti-gun people so violent?


Seen on the Book of Face.

Challenge Accepted!

OK, more überposting over on Quora.com.  Mr. Jason Lancaster and I have re-engaged.

He opens: 

I know it seems like I pick on you a lot, but your stuff keeps coming up in my feed. :)

And a bit later:

I wonder if you'll share this exchange on Quora with your gun buddies on your blog?

Why yes, I think I will.