The guy's far enough removed from a true fruitcake to actually run as a candidate for the Libertarian party. From what I read in the local papers, one of the judges he threatened was scared enough to be sleeping with a gun in his bed. (oops--forget where I was posting. May be normal for some people here??)

Sentence seems a little extreme to me. He didn't actually harm anyone. I'd classify him as a pretty run of the mill, standard gun nut. The sentence seems to be more of a statement about challenging the people in power and judges closing ranks rather than a reasonable response to the actual threat he poses.

Sort of like the tax protesters that say the 13(?) amendment wasn't properly ratified and therefore they don't have to pay taxes.

Come on, you don't think there aren't a couple hundred people in jail who made that argument and lost? Like there is some federal judge who is going to say "Holy cow your right, we have been doing it wrong for the last 90 years. Get out of here you brilliant knucklehead"

I sorta like the Liberatarian Party because they start with a simple premise and follow it through to it's logical extreme e.g. no public roads, private enterprise should build them and charge tolls. But that is also the same logical, foolish, consistancy that dooms them and attracts the nutjobs.

The Lib's I have known have consistently been high IQ people lacking in common sense. They are smart as hell but just don't seem to fit in and have a world view that's a bubble off plumb.

Like every other party, the libertarians have their fringe. There are also a lot of idealists who bear the label, who feel that any compromise of their principles in the name of what is practical or possible to be implemented is a betrayal of the ideal and therefore wrong.

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.

3. Colt: The original point and click interface.

4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.

5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?

6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.

7. "Free" men do not ask permission to bear arms.

8. If you don't know your rights you don't have any.

9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights reserved.

11. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?

12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.

13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.

14. Guns only have two enemies: rust and politicians.

15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.

16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

17. 911 - government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.

18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.

19. Criminals love gun control -- it makes their jobs safer.

20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.

21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

22. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.

23. Enforce the "gun control laws" we ALREADY have, don't make more.

24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.

25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.

26. "A government of the people, by the people, for the people..."

Are you waiting for the sun to warm things up so you can go out and work on a car too?:D

If you're talking to me then no. 60% chance of rain and it rained off-and-on all morning. So I left home and am now at my office working on a project that I hope to have completed this month.

I'm at work rectifying some 1938 aerial photography and mosaicking them to produce a base map on which habitat features will be delineated. It's a simple task but the computer crunching is time-intensive, even with a fast dual processor and 4 Gigs of RAM and 1.2 TB of disk space. So while the computer is puttering along I check-out what is going on here.

This afternoon I'm start the thing mosaicking all of the rectified images, which takes several hours. When that starts I'll go to "Fresh Pickings", a local produce market and pick-up veggies for next week. Then I'll go to Veron's Meat Market and buy meat & fish for the coming week. After that I'll go home. If NetFlix hasn't delivered a Kurasawa film I ordered I'll probably cook supper and while it's cooking, I'll log on to the Shop from home to see what's going on.

Then later in the evening I'll come back up to my office to see how the mosaicking went and probably tweak some parameters to color-balance the images. Then I'll go back home, pour myself a glass of whisky and log on here again.

That's my day. Now why the f**k do you care what I have planned for the day?

B

I don't know about him, but I always read the articles that you post here. Sometimes I click on the links to read the entire thing. So I'm hoping for some more eclectic reading material.

Keep 'em coming. Thanks.

Diggin' in the archives of political eccentricity Bot? I remember webwench...;)

Hey bot you forgot to mention the time to post that. Any restroom breaks in there?

Why do the mundane details of my life have such appeal to you?

B

Your appeal to a mundane question has sparked my appeal to your mundane life.

Oh great, another stalker.

B

Nice! :)

Bot, you are my kind of "run of the mill gun nut" (as Kerry would describe us). ;)

Mike

The 16th Amendment was NOT properly ratified.

I have a lot of issues with it too, and with the entire concept of a progressive income tax altogether, as you know.....

...but I'm not willing to commit intentional tax evasion and go to jail over it.

Mike

Yep.

They just made an example of the guy because he is such a vocal and visible opponent of gun control, government corruption and meddling, the duopoly of the two major parties, and of the status quo in general.

He was making too many waves, and his ill-advised publicity stunt gave the authorities a convenient opportunity to discredit and silence him, at least for a while.

...Although I must admit that he was asking for trouble, and it was a pretty stupid stunt.

There are far more productive and less risky ways to accomplish one's goals.



--Your favorite "run of the mill, standard gun nut",
Mike