Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

I Have Seen My Future

Today, I went to a street carnival in downtown Salzburg. Predictably, I spent far too much time and money at the shooting range booths (most of which were surprisingly honest, considering they were Carnies). One of the booths had both handguns and long guns set up, so I tried my hand at pistol shooting.

The pistol I picked was a Hammerli P26, which is a CO2-powered replica of the SIG Sauer P228. All I can say is "wow" Seven out of ten shots into a hole just under and to the left of the bulls-eye. The pistol fit my hand like a glove.

I'm buying one, a real one, as soon as I can once I get back to the US.



13+1 rounds of 9mm (15+1 if I buy some Mec-Gar magazines, which are actually cheaper than the factory mags), which is plenty of firepower for most situations, and the pistol is compact enough to carry on my person should I decide to go the distance and get a CCW Permit. Plus, they can be had used (but in very good shape) for less than $600, and SIGs are famous for their near-absolute reliability.

I have seen my future... and it is full of awesome.

Friday, September 18, 2009

My New Favorite Song



Citizen Soldier by 3 Doors Down

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Line in the Sand

NEW YORK – A government that is constitutionally required to offer each citizen a "useful" job in the farms or industries of the nation.

A country whose leadership intercedes to ensure every farmer can sell his product for a good return.

A nation that has the power to act against "unfair competition" and monopolies in business.

This is not a description of Cuba, communist China or the old USSR. It's the vision of the future of the U.S, as mandated by a radical new "bill of rights" drawn up and pushed by President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein. Until now, Sunstein's proposal has received little scrutiny.

In 2004, Sunstein penned a book, "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR'S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever," in which he advanced the radical notion that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state. His inspiration for a new bill of rights came from President Roosevelt's 1944 proposal of a different, new set of bill of rights.

WND has learned that in April 2005, Sunstein opened up a conference at Yale Law School entitled "The Constitution in 2020," which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.

Sunstein has been a main participant in the movement, which openly seeks to create a "progressive" consensus as to what the U.S. Constitution should provide for by the year 2020. It also suggests strategy for how liberal lawyers and judges might bring such a constitutional regime into being.

Just before his appearance at the conference, Sunstein wrote a blog entry in which he explained he "will be urging that it is important to resist, on democratic grounds, the idea that the document should be interpreted to reflect the view of the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party."

In his book, Sunstein laid out what he wants to become the new bill of rights, which he calls the Second Bill of Rights:

Among his mandates are:

  • The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
  • The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
  • The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
  • The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
  • The right of every family to a decent home;
  • The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
  • The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
  • The right to a good education.

On one page in his book, Sunstein claims he is "not seriously arguing" his bill of rights be "encompassed by anything in the Constitution," but on the next page he states that "if the nation becomes committed to certain rights, they may migrate into the Constitution itself."

Later in the book, Sunstein argues that "at a minimum, the second bill should be seen as part and parcel of America's constitutive commitments."

--http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=109529



Dear God. It is not enough that Obama and his minions blatantly ignore the Constition. They now want to fundamentally alter it. The very document that dictates how our government must be run and guarantees us our liberty would instead give the Government absolute control over all Citizens.

Don't believe me? Think I'm crazy? Read the article again.

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation." So the government will give us jobs that we may or may not be qualified for, and possibly force us to keep that job even if we don't like it. Oh, and no one will have incentive to work anyway, because we would have "The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation." You'd get paid for your job even if you didn't show up to work ever. And you wouldn't have to worry about earning a living anyway "The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living." So the government would set the prices on anything and everything you produce, even if it costs you more to manufacture than the Government says you can sell it for.

I could go on, but I think (hope) that you get the idea. Basically, this new so-called "Bill of Rights" will allow the Government to control virtually every aspect of your life, including where you live, where you work, how much you are allowed to earn, what sort of medical care (if any) you are allowed to receive, etc. That is not a Republic. That is not Democracy. In fact, I daresay that it transcends even Socialism and Communism. This is absolute Totalitarianism.

And I will not stand for it.

This, ladies and gentlmen, is my absolute line in the sand. Should this "change" to the Constitution occur, I will not stand idly by and watch. I will not allow my freedom to be completely stripped away. I will not become a Subject of our Government rather than a Citizen of our Nation.

No.

I say again.

No.

This is my line in the sand. I stand before it, waiting for the Government to cross. And I know that I am not alone. I know that there are others out there, true Americans all, who are standing there with me.

We will not be disenfranchised. We will not have our rights stripped away. We will not become Subjects to a Tyrannical Government. And we will not back down. We will do everything, everything, in our power to protect the Liberty that our forefathers shed their blood to secure for us and our children. And we will not be silenced.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Where Were You When You Heard?

I was in the 8th Grade. 9:30 AM. I had to go into the nurse's office to have my snack for my hypoglycemia. Right as I walked in the door, our principal came over the PA system and said that a small plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I figured, oh, it was probably just a moron in a Cessna or something, or maybe it's foggy over NYC. I remembered having read something about a B-17 that crashed into the Empire State Building in the 40's.

Then the nurse, who was on the phone with her daughter, screamed "THEY BOMBED THE PENTAGON?!?" Right then, I knew that whatever happened in NYC was much, much worse than a simple plane crash, and that it wasn't an accident. I quickly wolfed down the rest of my snack and ran across the hall into class. Just in time to see recorded footage of United 175 go into the South Tower. We watched for maybe another ten minutes before my teacher had to force himself to turn the TV off so we could have some semblance of a lesson. He couldn't keep it off for long, and turned it back on at about 9:55. I watched the South Tower go down on live television. My teacher couldn't bring himself to teach any more after that; all any of us could do was watch. I saw the North Tower go down a half hour later.

The rest of the day is a blur. I remember speculating with my friends about what might be hit next. I remember coming home and watching the news with my family for hours, watching the planes going into the towers and the towers going down over and over again until I felt sick.

I will never forget that day.
I will never forget all those who died in the fires.
And I will never forgive those monsters who were responsible.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Thank Goodness That's Over

My computer was acting screwy all afternoon. Running really slow, running really hot, refusing to reboot from sleep mode, crazy stuff like that.

Fortunately, I figured out what was making it do that (I think): I installed Skype on my system this afternoon.

Okay, before Skype comes after me for libel and defemation, let me explain what exactly happened. When I downloaded Skype, I also downloaded a Skype app for Firefox. Said app is apparently very big and memory intensive, so when I had Firefox running (which is pretty much all the time when my computer is turned on), it was sucking up about half of my laptop's (which is a POS, by the way) CPU power. I've disabled the app, and that seems to have fixed pretty much all of my problems. Not sure about the refusing to reboot from sleep mode, though, as that problem seems to pop up on it's own every few months....

Anyway, if you download Skype (which I absolutely love, by the way, and I'm not just saying that to appease Skype for the rest of the post) and you have Firefox, I would recommend immediately disabling/uninstalling the Skype app. Especially if you have a laptop.


And, on another note, I've just begun writing a treatment for a new story idea. Zombie Apocalypse told through a journal of one of the survivors. Leaning heavily towards turning it into a graphic novel. (Any artists out there?)


And on yet another note: I LEAVE FOR AUSTRIA IN THREE DAYS! W00T!!!