Comments temporarily for registered users only

Because of some apparent abuse on the part of a suspected individual on the "The Ronfather" post, I am temporarily turning off anonymous comments. You must be registered with Blogger in order to leave comments at the present time. I'm hoping to lift this and return to normal commenting - which you can choose to be anonymous or not - as soon as possible.

EDIT 5-03-2007 1:03 a.m. EST: Normal commenting has been restored.

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Student disciplined for making video game map of his high school

The Fort Bend Independent School District (in Texas) is upholding the suspension and subsequent placing in an "alternative education center" of a Clements High School student whose only crime was... get this... building a video game map from his high school!

Here's more of the story:

...on April 17, the day after the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 dead, Clements High School officials learned a student had been playing Counterstrike, an Internet-based shooting game. The locale of the shootings depicted on this student's game were the hallways of Clements High School.

School district police investigated the report and questioned the student at school and then visited his home. The student's parents gave police permission to search the 12th-grader's room and computer. Simpson said police determined no criminal charges were warranted but that disciplinary action was.

Simpson said because of the violent nature of the game and because the actions had taken place in a computer-generated rendition of the high school, official consider the matter to be very serious.

"This was nothing to kid around about," she said.

Simpson said the student was transferred to an alternative school for the remainder of the school term.

The teen's parents appealed the decision. The school district has a four-step appeal process at the end of which a student can make a final appeal directly to the board of trustees...

Magee said he thinks the district probably reacted too strongly to the situation.

"He did it at his house. Never took anything to school. Never wrote an ugly letter, never said anything strange to a student or a teacher, nothing," Magee said.

Bryant said police need to take situations like this seriously.

If we have come to the point where we are threatened by a video game... then I'm sorry, but America has completely lost it. These school officials are blithering idiots and the people who started this mess against this student don't possess nearly enough spine.

Look, this is something of a tradition. Making video game maps based on real-life locales is nothing new. It started over ten years ago with Doom, and people hacking that game so that they could run around Notre Dame or their office or some other place they were familiar with. To the best of my knowledge, I don't know of anyone who used those home-brewed maps to practice a real-life killing spree. It's just natural that if you have the time and talent to do this sort of thing, that you would use a place you know like the back of your hand.

And notice that this student did this at home, on his own time, without using any school time or resources. So I have to wonder: what the hell gives these damned busybodies in the school system the right to intrude on his domicile?

Oh yeah: based on what they're saying in this story "Virginia Tech changed everything!" is what they'll probably say.

More reason why our children's education should not be trusted to those who are riding mental tricycles.

I still remember quite a lot of detail about my old high school. I wonder if I would get in trouble for making a Doom or Quake or Counter Strike map based on it?

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Fox News handling of Republican debate shows how screwed-up this country is

Let me see if I've got this right...

Fox News may exclude SEVEN candidates from its Republican presidential debate - including Internet favorites Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter - because they and others are hovering around 1% support in national polls. Fox News doesn't want to give airtime to anyone who is showing just that 1%.

If they had live and unfettered airtime during the debate, they more than likely stand a good chance of seeing their percentage of support skyrocket across the country.

But in order to have that airtime, they have to be well-known enough to the public now, from a considerable amount of news coverage, which Fox News, CNN, CBS, and the rest of the mainstream media will absolutely not afford them. Why? Because candidates like Ron Paul are not the "favored elite" among either party. They're not the ones "picked to win" by their parties' bigwigs and the controllers of corporate media. On a level playing field, someone as intelligent and as articulate as Ron Paul would wipe the floor with George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton.

But we aren't allowed to have sincere brilliance rise into leadership roles anymore. They would upset the apple cart too much in this country. The leaders of both major parties have too much to lose than to let "loose cannons" take away from their power. The mainstream press... well, it wants power too, but it's also terminally lazy and doesn't want to go through the hassle of reporting on people with real ideas. The corporate media only wants people from whom it knows what to expect.

I've very little doubt that we are going to see Hillary or Guiliani or Obama or McCain or someone else among "the anointed" sworn in as President come January '09. And when they do, I'll only be able to close my eyes and shake my head in disgust, just as I have done when George W. Bush was inaugurated and Bill Clinton before him. There are no more adults to lead this country: we are now, and will for the foreseeable future, being led by the delinquent and the insane. All cheerfully brought to you by the network of Fair and Balanced reporting and others of its ilk.

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Ron Price: He'll make you an offer you oughta refuse

If this is The Ronfather, does that mean its central character is "Ron" Corleone?

Someone called here yesterday to ask me about the Ron Price situation and I told this person that at no time have I "hated" the guy. Been disgusted with him? Certainly. But that's a far cry from outright loathing his guts. At the same time, he's doing wrong: both by staying on the Rockingham County Board of Education (in spite of being an admitted thief) and by this lawsuit against the Moores... which many here believe will be only the first in a series of retaliatory strikes against those on Price's "enemies list".

Bear in mind that at one point I was one of Price's strongest supporters. I even offered to make a TV commercial for his campaign back during the election season... for free. You don't do that for someone unless they've won your trust. That, Price did. I told this person yesterday that I'm going to be a lot more careful about being eager to support someone so readily from now on.

Anyway, one of the things Price has said in his lawsuit against Richard Moore is that he's been caused "embarrassment". I don't see anything wrong with that. Embarrassment and shame can be a good thing... especially when the person in question is an elected official in charge of a multi-million dollar budget and moral decisions affecting thousands of people. Why shouldn't Ron Price feel embarrassed and ridiculed, in light of what we now know of him?

So I've got no problem in making these parody images, because Ron Price only has himself to blame for all of this. If he would do the right thing and step aside, I wouldn't have to be making these. But this is how I fight the bad guys, with whatever creativity and talent that God has given me.

It's what we all should have been doing, every one of us, no matter where in this country or this world that we've been put or what we've been given to work with. This is where America is going to either live or die: at the local level, fighting the crooks off in your own backyard.

I wonder if MAD Magazine would hire me...

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Tonight's LOST goes out of "the box" and into "The Brig"

A few weeks ago in the episode "The Man from Tallahassee", Ben told Locke (Terry O'Quinn) that on the island there was "a box" that would produce anything you wanted. Locke laughed at the idea. And then at the end of the episode Ben told Locke that "I'm going to show you what came out of it."

What Locke saw when he opened the door and looked inside the room was probably the biggest shocker of the show's entire run.

We've only seen Locke very briefly after that, when he told Kate that he was leaving with the Others for... wherever it was that they were headed for. On tonight's Lost - titled "The Brig" - Locke returns and based on what little I'm hearing, this is going to be an episode as fine as any that we've seen lately... and those have been some of the best television ever produced in the past decade. Word on the street is that tonight's flashbacks show what Locke has been doing with the Others for the past several days. More intriguing still, "The Brig" might finally resolve a longstanding mystery from the first season involving Sawyer (if you watch the show then you know what I'm talking about).

Enjoy every minute of this while you can. After tonight there are only three more episodes and then Lost goes away until next January :-(

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Tom Poston - aka George Utley on NEWHART - passes away

When I was growing up, Newhart was one of the few television shows that I really liked to watch. Guess it was all those weird characters living together in that tiny Vermont town. One of the quirkiet was Tom Poston's George Utley. I think it was in his very first appearance on the show that he gave Bob Newhart's character Dick Loudon his business card and all it says on it is "GEORGE UTLEY", no phone or address: people have to shout for him if they wanted him. The look on Dick's face after that is what set the tone for all the years of the show that followed.

Well, news is coming out tonight that Tom Poston passed away Monday night at the age of 85. In addition to a life of great acting and comedy roles, he was also a pilot during World War II who flew soldiers in and out of a lot of dangerous areas. I think I remember reading that at one time he was a boxer, too.

Sad to see him go. We are steadily losing an entire generation of performing giants, and there really isn't anyone with their kind of caliber to fill in for them. But I couldn't wind down this post without sharing my all-time favorite George Utley scene from Newhart. It was from that episode that was made up entirely of dream sequences (I think this was like two years before the show ended with perhaps the most famous dream sequence in television history). Anyway in the first act we see George's dream and in it Dick is showing George all the crazy thing that can happen while dreaming, and at the end of it George lifts up his arms and goes flying off like Superman. It was hilarious!

Thanks for the years of good laughs, Mr. Poston.

EDIT 12:57 a.m. EST: Hey, here's a clip of that scene on YouTube! Enjoy!

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Happy anniversary Ed and Olivia!

It was a year ago today down at Cypress Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina that my longtime collaborator "Weird" Ed Woody was united in holy matrimony to his lovely bride Olivia. Here's a pic of the happy couple...What Ed, ya think I would let this day go by without remembering that? :-)

Happy anniversary you two!

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It's illegal to have this number on your blog

Hexadecimal 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

This is the decryption key for most of the HD-DVD titles that have been released. Apparently the bigwigs in the entertainment industry are going after websites and blogs that host it. This is similar to what happened a few years ago when DeCSS was discovered. Some people were arrested for spreading the code for that one around (in quite a few creative ways). Just for the heck of it, here's one of DeCSS's smaller C implementations:

/*     efdtt.c     Author:  Charles M. Hannum              */
/*                                                                         */
/*     Thanks to Phil Carmody  for additional tweaks.    */
/*                                                                         */
/*     Length:  434 bytes (excluding unnecessary newlines)                 */
/*                                                                         */
/*     Usage is:  cat title-key scrambled.vob | efdtt >clear.vob           */

#define m(i)(x[i]^s[i+84])<<
unsigned char x[5],y,s[2048];main(n){for(read(0,x,5);read(0,s,n=2048);write(1,s
,n))if(s[y=s[13]%8+20]/16%4==1){int i=m(1)17^256+m(0)8,k=m(2)0,j=m(4)17^m(3)9^k
*2-k%8^8,a=0,c=26;for(s[y]-=16;--c;j*=2)a=a*2^i&1,i=i/2^j&1<<24;for(j=127;++j;c=c>y)c+=y=i^i/8^i>>4^i>>12,i=i>>8^y<<17,a^=a>>14,y=a^a*8^a<<6,a=a>>8^y<<9,k=s
[j],k="7Wo~'G_\216"[k&7]+2^"cr3sfw6v;*k+>/n."[k>>4]*2^k*257/8,s[j]=k^(k&k*2&34)
*6^c+~y;}}

But what would have happened if DVD encryption hadn't been cracked? It had mostly been an effort so that Linux users could use DVDs on their systems, because the industry had up to that point refused to support DVD on Linux. Would there have been the boom in do-it-yourself DVD recording that we now enjoy had the algorithm not been broken? Probably not.

Let's face it: for whatever intent they have, hackers do almost invariably do a great long-term service for us. They open up new technology, and they challenge hardware and software producers to constantly improve the products they pitch to us. Same thing is going to happen with high-def DVD content getting cracked: my bet is that it'll eventually make self-production of 1080p discs at home that much more viable.

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RONBO: Lawsuit story hits the News & Record

Gerald Witt has a write-up in today's News & Record about the lawsuit that Ron Price has filed against Richard Moore (click here for more info on that). At the beginning of his story Witt makes mention of something that's currently on Moore's website and I couldn't resist posting it here either for sake of posterity...

Political sniping going to court

By Gerald Witt
Staff Writer

WENTWORTH — Ronbo — a mash-up of Rambo and Rockingham County school board member Ron Price — greets visitors to Richard Moore's Web site.

Moore, a local political pot-stirrer, independent publisher and unsuccessful 2006 school board candidate, doesn't seem rattled by a slander and libel lawsuit Price filed against him last month claiming $140,000 in damages.

A copy of the complaint is on Moore's site, next to the Ronbo photo: Price's face on the body of John Rambo , a long-haired, tank-topped Vietnam vet played by actor Sylvester Stallone.

"Ronbo"... heh-heh :-)

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Ron Price channels spirit of Trotsky in latest show of cockiness

It finally dawned on me today: Ron Price really is, unequivocally, a neo-conservative. And "neocons" are the most loathsome political movement in American history, without a doubt. These are people who believe in "the noble lie": that it is perfectly okay to deceive people if the goal in mind is political power. As was proudly boasted in National Review recently, neo-conservatism is an off-shoot of the teachings of Leon Trotsky, who helped bring communism to Russia along with Lenin. Well, neo-conservatism is Trotsky's beliefs in absolute power without apology... coupled with excessive narcissism and feeling of self-importance without regard for others.

Sounds just like confessed thief and disgraced Rockingham County Board of Education member Ron Price, who is now violating his oath of office by suing his opponents for practicing their constitutional rights.

Well, as considerably more than one person told me months ago would happen, Price is letting his sense of power go to his head. Today on his blog he lashes out at local media for spending "a disproportionate amount of time on rumors and gossip". Here's more from his post:

In order for Rockingham County to climb out of its pattern of decline, the attitudes and concerns must shift to an emphasis on creating wealth and away from an emphasis on gossip.

As one looks around the county it is apparent to me that there are organizations in the media that concentrate on emphasizing the negative and even exacerbating the negative to the point of senseless and useless ridicule and cynicism. All the while they are doing this they are pulling attention away from creating wealth and directing it towards gossip and failure.

As we move forward we must all concentrate on the goal of wealth building and allow those organizations that don’t to die out from lack of support. Some of these groups and people are on the wane but may regain strength if the county loses its focus on creating wealth.

Henry County, one of our sister counties to the north in Virginia, share some of the same economic conditions and a common TV station problem as well.

"A common TV station problem as well." That says it all. Price hates WGSR-Star 39 in Reidsville for helping to keep his "sign incident" toward the forefront of most people's minds around here.

He can't own up to his wrongdoing, so once again he's lashing out at his "enemies".

But this time he's attempting to spin this as if those who have tried to hold him accountable are now a threat to the community! According to this latest screed by Ron Price, stations like Star 39 and "independent" media like the Neely Chronicle (and this blog, no doubt) are economic and cultural liabilities that are holding back development in Rockingham County.

Really, Mister Price, I think you are seriously attributing too much power and influence toward me!

This thing about "creating wealth" that Price harps on troubles me. If you were to believe Ron Price, the only thing that we should be concerned with is materialism. He completely glosses-over such matters as simply doing what's right. There are things you can't put a price tag on y'know... like principles.

By the way, in case Ron Price is wondering: I don't like to brag about it, but I am doing my darndest to cultivate a real filmmaking industry in Rockingham County. Something that everyone in this community can have and take pride in. I grew up here. I have real love for this area. It's not like I'm some carpet-bagger from Florida who only blew into town a year ago and hasn't done anything toward promoting the local economy.

Dear Lord, has there ever been a politician in the history of Rockingham County who has tried to frame so much in reference to himself as Ron Price is doing now? Does Ron Price actually believe this is all about "Me Me Me"?!

"The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end."

-- Leon Trotsky

Ron Price really is a student of Trotsky, isn't he? I mean, he can't win any other way, so he's trying to rile up the "proletariat" so that they'll revolt against his political enemies. And if he has to lie and deceive and obfuscate everyone so that he can get his way... well, he doesn't think there's anything wrong with that, does he?

I swear, people like Ron Price make me sick. They're part of the cancer that's eating away at this country. The "SCREW YOU I GOT MINE JACK!" mentality is destroying America, and right here in our own backyard we see it personified in Ron Price.

Why am I so opposed to this man? Because we either do our damndest to stop people like him now, or else we have to tell our children that we didn't stop the bad things from happening when we had the chance. We have to, as Barney Fife so eloquently put it, "nip it in the bud!"

In the meantime, "Ron Protsky" wants to incite revolution. Let us hope that he doesn't get exiled to anywhere that has a surplus of icepicks.

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"Gandalf 3:16"

Was flicking through channels and saw that tonight TBS is running The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Which reminded me of something that I don't think I've ever mentioned in this space before...

On the night of December 18th, 2001 - just less than a month after we got engaged - Lisa and I went to the Beechwood 11 Cinema in Athens, Georgia for the movie's midnight premiere. It was the first time that Lisa had ever done a "midnight showing" of a new movie. Well, a few months before at Dragon*Con in Atlanta, the good folks at TheOneRing.net had given us these nifty t-shirts from their website. We wore them to the theater that night, and I brought along a sign that I'd made before we left Lisa's apartment:

Here's a pic that Lisa took of me waving the "Gandalf 3:16" sign around while we were waiting for the show to start:

And here's some folks who came to the event in costume:

Here's the photos, along with an after-action report, I made for TheOneRing.net (you have to scroll down a bit to find it). Incidentally we saw Fellowship of the Ring twice on its opening day. We got back to Lisa's apartment about 3:30 a.m. and caught some sleep (I crashed on her couch) and then saw it again about 12 hours later that afternoon. Not completely as crazy as what I did when Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out (saw it twice on opening day all before 6 a.m.) but that's another story.

Anyhoo, I saw that the movie was on TV tonight and thought it'd be fun to share that lil' anecdote and the pics :-) It definitely was one of the best movie experiences I've ever had in my life.

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Ron Price makes good on "enemies list" threat - Lashes out with "silly" lawsuit - Openly violates oath - The Knight Shift expected as next to be hit

Ron Price, disgraced member of the Rockingham County Board of Education ("I don't have anyone to hold my Bible for me" he lamented meekly when he was sworn-in this past December), has filed a lawsuit against fellow former school board candidate Richard Moore and Moore's wife Debbie in retaliation for the Moores trying to hold Price accountable for his stealing campaign signs on the night before last November's election.

Here's the story that's being reported in today's Reidsville Review.

In filing this suit, Ron Price is grievously breaking the law - and subsequently is violating the oath he took when he was sworn-in to serve on the Board of Education - by attempting to "punish" others for practicing their rights under the Constitution.

And good money sez that The Knight Shift blog and Yours Truly will be getting hit soon too, as the supposedly "Christian" Price lashes out against those on his "enemies list".

If you've been reading this blog for awhile now, you know the details. Here's the first post about it along with my open letter calling for Price to step aside, on the grounds that he was no longer morally fit to serve on the school board. If you look through the archives from November 2006 through today you'll find several items relating to what Price calls as "the sign incident" (unlike Ron Price, I haven't "scrubbed" anything about this from my blog). You'll also see that I couldn't help but openly mock Price and his insistence on being on the board ("The Rockingham County Star Chamber" and the "But Mommy..." graphic most come to mind).

Price's lawsuit against Moore mentions "several other Defendants to be named at a later date". Because of that and in realizing that I did wind up having a somewhat prominent role in taking Price to task in public for his stealing ways, I'm more than expecting to be next to get slapped with a lawsuit...

...because after reading through the suit that Price has filed against the Moores, I wouldn't put anything past Ron Price (Richard Moore currently has all 8 pages of the lawsuit up on his site for public viewing). Among other things Price is suing Richard Moore for wearing a t-shirt to a school board meeting, for having criminal charges filed against Price (even though Ron Price admitted on live televison on the night of the election that he had stolen the signs), and for assisting with the petition drive - that was signed by I don't know how many Rockingham County citizens but it was several hundred at the very least - to have the State Board of Education look into Price's suitability to serve on the board.

If there weren't grounds enough to petition for Price's removal from the Rockingham County Board of Education, there sure are now. Ron Price is now openly attempting to deprive others of their First Amendment rights: namely, the right to free speech and the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".

Now, what kind of example of citizenship does Ron Price possibly think he is setting for the children of Rockingham County by acting as if the Constitution is not much more than a mere piece of paper?

How does "conservative Christian" Ron Price reconcile this lawsuit - which in the past few days several people have told me is "silly" and "the most bizarre thing I've ever read" - with 1st Corinthians chapter 6? If we as believers are instructed not to sue each other, how much more are we not to file frivolous suits against anyone else? We are supposed to be establishing a good witness for Christ with all of our actions. Throughout this entire matter, from the moment he chose to steal the signs, Ron Price has acted as anything but a Christian... and much less a "conservative" one.

What I would especially like to know is this: every day, school teachers throughout the country have to put up with a lot worse in their own classrooms than anything that Price has "suffered". How dare Ron Price expect us to have any more sympathy for him when those teachers have done nothing wrong and Price has done nothing right throughout this situation?

If Ron Price can't take the heat, he shouldn't have run for the seat in the first place. Price definitely shouldn't have broken the law - of God if not of man - by taking what was not his.

There's more that I could say about this... and there is likely going to be a lot more that I will be saying... but for sake of brevity and because I lack the time this morning, I'm going to hold off on those thoughts for the time being. I've little doubt that a deputy sheriff will be arriving at my doorstep in the near future with my own lawsuit, and when that happens I'll scan and post the pages of that for your mirth and merriment.

In the meantime, I have this message to Ron Price. Ron, if you are reading this, I have but one thing to say to you, in addition to how much more I and many others are laughing at you for this latest stunt...

To quote the great philosopher Thanos: "Come and get me!"

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New product: The "Shoot Them Both" Anti-Republican/Democrat t-shirt

Want to show the world how honked-off you are at both the major political parties? Have we got the shirt for you!

The "Shoot Them Both" Anti-Republican/Democrat t-shirt! Let everyone know that you don't fall for the two-party fraud. Make a bold statement about your independent streak! Let's face it: we all know the system is headed toward collapse because of the criminal conspiracy that is "bipartisan politics". Show everyone that you're ahead of the curve by wearing this shirt (and even if you don't wear this shirt, show it to everyone anyway, however you can).

$14.99 through CafePress, click here to order.

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AMC is running PSYCHO II right now

Funny story about that movie...

It was like early 1987 or so and one day at the video store my sister and I rented Psycho II (actually we got Mom to rent it and she said the original Psycho was a good movie but they didn't have that one). So Anita and I popped it in the VCR and watched it. Even without seeing the original, I was able to understand Psycho II pretty well.

So the movie ends and Anita and I are getting up from the floor and walking down the hallway and just as she's passing by the bathroom I point and scream out "BLOOD'S COMING OUT OF THE TOILET!!"

My sister screamed like you wouldn't believe. To this day, I don't think she's ever forgiven me for how bad I scared her like that.

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It was late and I was hungry ...

Working late on a few things, and I had to go out for a bit. This was like at midnight. And I was feeling both that I needed a good nighttime drive, and that I was feeling hungry. How many places for good food are open at this time of night though?

So 20 minutes out from home, just before 1 a.m., I stopped by Sandy's Subs and Italian Grill at Elon. This was a place I loved to eat at when I was a student at Elon. Well, Thursday through Saturday nights they're open 'til 4 a.m. I got a foot-long ham and cheese and brought it back home. And it was dee-licious!

Sandy's Subs is on Haggard Avenue not far from campus (if you're on Williamson Avenue coming through from the direction of I-40, turn left and it's just a short distance on the left, near the Domino's Pizza). Well worth checking out if you're ever in the area.

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Making martial law easier

You know what? At this point, I'm starting to just not care anymore. America seems so hell-bent on its own destruction that nothing your or I can do would do anything to stem it. I don't even know if anyone can make the case that this country is worth defending anymore, because what is there to defend? So much has been taken away already.

The American Conservative has a sobering article about how much easier it has become for President Bush... or any ensuing president... to declare martial law. And how it seems that our elected officials are completely indifferent to it. And the likelihood of this new power to be abused.

And it will be abused, no doubt about it. Politicians can not resist using power, if they know that they can get away with it. And there is really nothing left to stop them from doing it (Fred Reed writes about this better than I can).

It's funny: President Bush has done things to the Constitution that, if Clinton had done this 8 or 9 years ago, the "conservative Republicans" would be ready to storm Washington with torches and pitchforks. But these same people turn a blind eye to Bush or anyone else claiming to be a "good Christian" (see Chuck Baldwin's new article for an especially good read about that).

Some people cheer for "our President" getting this new power now. How joyful will they be when the next president, or the one after that, uses the powers they gave this current one to come after them. And it will happen. It is the nature of the beast that is unregenerate human nature.

This is why I have come to believe that widespread gun ownership is vital for the survival of liberty in this country. It's so you will be able to kill them when they follow their orders and come for you.

Call me a kook if you like, but I just know from history how these things tend to wind up...

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Three words

Falwell v. Flynt.

To whom it may concern:

Bring it on.

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