Month: February 2006

This article at SANS Internet Storm Center warns that

…a serious vulnerability has been found in Apple Safari on OS X. “In its default configuration shell commands are execute[d] simply by visting a web site – no user interaction required.” This could be really bad. Attackers can run shell scripts on your computer remotely just by visiting a malicious website.

You’ve been warned. Be careful out there.

PSA’d at Conservative Cat

While inferring the “strained” Southern argument for apportionment in Federalist #54, James Madison outlines three criteria applicable to slaves:

In being compelled to labor, not for himself, but for a master; in being vendible by one master to another master; and in being subject at all times to be restrained in his liberty and chastised in his body, by the capricious will of another — the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank…

Hmmm… two out of the three chracteristics of slavery seem adequately fulfilled by our present income taxes. Who has first claim on your labor? Who can put you in prison or otherwise “chastise [your] body” for failing to give your labor FIRST in its service? That you are not—yet—”vendible” by this master is the only manner in which income taxation fails the benchmarks of slavery mentioned by Madison.

Ironic that the first successful efforts to implement both the incremental involuntary servitude of income taxation and the absolute involuntary servitude of compulsory military service were implemented by… Abraham Lincoln.

Both income taxation and compulsory military service were eschewed by the Founders in their Constitutional deliberations for very good reasons. Among them, concerning taxation, is something very like what we have today in our inconcievably large (in the Founders’ day) Republic with a nearly universal suffrage—specifically avoided by the Framers!—which has resulted in a set of circumstances the Framers wished ardently to avoid (read Madison’s exposition in Federalist #10). As Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker wrote for The Claremont Institute in 2002 in Regressive Thoughts on a Progressive Tax, citing the Founders views,

“Given the fact that the poor everywhere outnumber the rich, political philosophy had held that a government based on majority rule was likely to lead to the misappropriation of the property of the few rich by the many poor.”

/sarcasm/ No, really?

*sigh*

We do not have the Founders’ Republic any more. Don’t believe me? Just read the Constitution, really read it. It’s a relatively short document—kinda long for a blogpost *s*, but still relatively short—written in fairly simple terms.

Here’s an idea: how about pressuring your congresscritters for a return to at least a shadow of the Republic the Founders envisioned by ditching the abhorrent income tax?

It’s doable, folks. For a start:

The FairTax.

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Served with a backspin at Freedom Watch

When Apple chose (or was compelled by fabbers and market forces, take your choice) to begin producing a “Mac” using an Intel chipset, the handwriting was on the wall. Sure, Apple chose to use an “elilo” (Intel compatible extensible linux bootloader) instead of the usual BIOS routine, in order to attempt to lock other OSes out of installation and use on the Intel-based “Mac,” but who really expected that to be a barrier for long?

The Apple “Mactel” barrier has fallen. According to this article on Linux Watch, Edgar ‘Gimli’ Hucek has the title of being the first to boot Linux on a “Mactel” computer. Can there be any doubt that running Windows apps via WINE can be far behind?

The only fly in the ointment this observer can see is this: why spend extra to get a “Mactel” in order to ditch the expensive Apple OS for a better or more familiar platform, when purchasing (or building) a computer with similar (or better) hardware and installing the OS of one’s choice can be done for less to begin with?

Linked at Adam’s Blog, Freedom Watch

Crossposted at Balanced News Blog

Any shocker here for anyone who’s visited this blog more than twice?

You scored as Serenity (Firefly). You like to live your own way and don’t enjoy when anyone but a friend tries to tell you should do different. Now if only the Reavers (“scum-sucking, cannibalistic feeb busybodies” would serve) would quit trying to skin you. Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 94% Serenity (Firefly) 94% Moya (Farscape) 88% SG-1 (Stargate) 81% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 69% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 69% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 69% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 56% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 50% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 50% FBI’s X-Files Division (The X-Files) 38% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

The only surprise is that I scored identically for Firefly and Babylon 5, needing a tiebreaker to render an accurate assessment. *heh*

Yes, “Sometimes someone needs to be killed to protect you and your crew.” Yep. I’d pull the trigger. Or swing the axe. Or whatever was necessary. The lives and wellbeing of MY “crew” (call it “friends and family”) are more important (and more worthwhile) than whomever might threaten them. Period.

Take it up with the Framers and their darned Second Amendment.

Seen at Eric’s Grumbles Before the Grave

Opening a communications channel to Moon of Conservative Cats and Space Station Picnic, Basil.

I have been remiss in my reading. While I’ve been boning up on our society’s Founding Fathers with The Founders Constitution and other works, I’ve still missed a lot in my catch-as-catch-can autodidacticism over the years. Jerry Pournelle points to Jose Ortega y Gasset’s 1930, The Revolt of the Masses and includes this among the material he excerpts:

It is illusory to imagine that the mass-man of to-day will be able to control, by himself, the process of civilization. I say process, and not progress. The simple process of preserving our present civilization is supremely complex, and demands incalculably subtle powers. Ill-fitted to direct it is this average man who has learned to use much of the machinery of civilization, but who is characterized by root-ignorance of the very principles of that civilization.

The command over the public life exercised today by the intellectually vulgar is perhaps the factor of the present situation which is most novel, least assimilable to anything in the past. At least in European history up to the present, the vulgar had never believed itself to have “ideas” on things. It had beliefs, traditions, experiences, proverbs, mental habits, but it never imagine itself in possession of theoretical opinions on what things are or ought to be. To-day, on the other hand, the average man has the most mathematical “ideas” on all that happens or ought to happen in the universe. Hence he has lost the use of his hearing. Why should he listen if he has within him all that is necessary? There is no reason now for listening, but rather for judging, pronouncing, deciding. There is no question concerning public life, in which he does not intervene, blind and deaf as he is, imposing his “opinions.”

Well… yes. Of course. And is it not even more true today than in 1930?

Gotta get it!

The Revolt of the Masses

This week’s Guard the Borders Blogburst is from MinutemanHQ:

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MINUTEMAN CIVIL DEFENSE CORPS
ANNOUNCES NATIONWIDE ‘SECURE OUR BORDERS’ OPERATION FOR APRIL 2006

(PHOENIX, AZ) February 16, 2006 – Chris Simcox, President of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (“MCDC”), today announced plans for the group’s nationwide “Secure Our Borders” campaign in April 2006. Simcox also announced a new operational structure for the original Minuteman Border Project to meet the growing needs of the continued expansion of Minuteman border security operations.

Thousands of MCDC volunteers, augmented by the new national support team, will hold border watch patrols in northern and southern states along an estimated 800 miles of international borders during the month of April. The Minutemen will observe and report suspected illegal border crossings to the proper authorities. As always, they will maintain a “no contact” policy with the exception of providing emergency water to those illegal aliens found in distress in the wilderness.

Last year, MCDC revolutionized the national debate about border security and illegal immigration by focusing the nation’s attention on the dangers of America’s wide-open borders in a post 9/11 world. The Minutemen have demonstrated that the borders can be secured with sufficient political will and dedication.

Since the MCDC 23-mile border watch in April, 2005, interest in joining and supporting the Minutemen has exploded nationwide. MCDC chapters have been formed in southern and northern border states, as well as interior states. To date, 6,500 men and women have passed the required background check and interviews to qualify to become official Minuteman Border Project volunteers – with more waiting in the queue for approval. Over 120,000 people have become friends of the Minutemen through their support and volunteer work.

Given the success of the Minuteman Border Project efforts, and two successful month long 24/7 operations conducted in April and October of 2005, a new national volunteer operational structure has been launched to support the Minutemen. The new structure is necessary to respond to these thousands of volunteers and supporters asking what they can do to help.

MCDC has asked for and accepted the help of experienced border volunteers who have been on the front lines, some for as long as four years. With this expansion we will be ready for the thousands of volunteers who will participate in the “Secure Our Borders” operation in April 2006. This expansion further solidifies MCDC’s ability to continue the largest neighborhood watch effort in American history. The Minutemen will continue their civil defense operations assisting authorities in securing the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada until properly relieved.

Contact MCDC at (520)829-3112 or info@minutemanhq.com

For more information about MCDC: www.minutemanhq.com

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This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It was started by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we’re going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terrorism. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration facing our country, join our blogburst! Just send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

Blogs already on board:

Euphoric Reality	Curley’s Corner	TMH’s Bacon Bits
Part-Time Pundit	The Right Track	Cao’s Blog
Mover Mike	In The Bullpen	Stuck on Stupid
NIF	Kender’s Musings	Freedom Folks
Parrot Check	Gribbit’s Word	Right on the Right
Team Swap	Gina’s Rantings	The Irate Nation
Publius Rendezvous	Watchman’s Words	Bear Creek Ledger
Something and Half of Something	Ogre’s Politics and Views	Independent Conservative
The Neo-Con Blogger	Ravings of a Mad Tech	Third World County
A Lady’s Ruminations	Mensa Barbie Welcomes You	Intergalactic Source of Truth
Woman Honor Thyself	Adam’s Thoughts	Amboy Times
Gun Toting Liberal	Right on! Blog	American Daughter
Right Truth	Universe and Other Things	A Tic In The Mind’s Eye
Jarhead’s Firing Range	Nova Townhall Blog