aubreyturner.org

Perry de Havilland skewers a misguided Democrat in this article at samizdata.net.  It seems that someone actually made the proposition that libertarians would be better off with the Democratic party.  It boggles the mind that he could make such a statement.  The Democrats stand for just about everything that disgusts a libertarian:

• Redistribution of wealth.
• Affirmative action.
• Gun control (and no, this guy still gets it wrong there; it’s not about enforcing existing laws, it’s about repealing them).
• Socialized medicine.
• Multiculturalism.
• Giving up national sovereignty to international bodies.

I could probably name more, but those are all deal breakers.

This guy just doesn’t get it.  Don’t get me wrong—there’s a lot that I hate about the Republican party.  But I consider it to at least provide a little raw material to work with, as opposed to the Democratic party, which would have to be razed to the ground and rebuilt from scratch before I’d even consider it.

A new Home Depot store is being built in Roanoke at the intersection of 114 and 377.  It is almost done and they have a sign up that says that they are taking applications for employment now.  What caught my attention was that the same message was repeated in Spanish at the bottom of the sign.

One of the things that disturbs me is the growing number of people who are living and working in this country who do not speak English.  Worse, to my way of thinking, is that there is a rather vocal group of people who don’t see anything wrong with it.  These people like to frame this as a racist thing, that if I don’t support their right to live in this country without speaking the language that I’m some insensitive racist.  They’d be wrong, but that doesn’t seem to stop them from screaming it from the rooftops.

Let’s be perfectly clear, though, that I am not against people coming to this country.  I just want three things of people who want to come here: 1) Do it legally, 2) learn to speak English, and 3) be willing to work.  People can speak whatever language they want amongst their friends and family, but the vast majority of this country speaks English and if people want to truly succeed, they must speak the language. 

I’ve long wondered what happened to the old paradigm of the melting pot in American culture.  I think it was a good one and we should get back to it, as nothing will destroy this country more quickly than if we become a collection of factions and ethnic enclaves that are all in competition with each other, which I am afraid is the direction that we’re heading now.

If we want this country to succeed, we must ditch the hyphens and all become Americans.

The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.
   —Joe Ancis

I wasn’t sure whether to categorize this under “Music” or “Guns.”  Someone has created an MP3 player in an AK-47 magazine.  Some interesting pictures on that page (and the MP3 player is kinda neat too ).

Link via Slashdot, where, unfortunately, the anti-gun idiots have come out of the woodwork in the comments section.

Update:  The woman in the picture is committing one of the three mortal sins of gun handling.  Thanks to Bitter Bitch for reminding me about this in the comments.

My Linux system is setup such that each time I login the ‘fortune’ program runs.  The fortune program picks a quote or saying from its quote file and outputs it on the terminal’s stdout.  I liked this one quite a lot.

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.
    —Charles A. Beard

More from Charles A Beard.

Someone please tell me that this will not ever come to completion. 

Damn.  Someone please just shoot me now and put me out of my misery.

Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who!

Now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, I think that Identity was an OK movie.  I think my reaction to it was based on my misconceptions as to the true subject of the movie.  Being something of a true crime afficionado I’m usually left cold by the slasher/serial killer/spree killer genre.  In real life, most killers are pretty simple types who do not set up elaborate traps or play games with their victims (and especially with the cops).  However, given the plot of this movie, all the unrealistic stuff actually makes sense in a way.  I can’t say much more than that without giving it away.

One other observation that I made about the movie is that the director seems conflicted about wanting to provide clues to the past action as well as wanting to keep you a bit confused about events until the end.  He does this through a series of flashback sequences.  I was reminded a little of Memento and Mulholland Dr.  It’s unfortunate that I was reminded of this, as it is pretty difficult for a movie to live up to Mulholland Dr. on the flashback meter.

I think it may be time to bitch-slap PayPal and kick ‘em to the curb.  A few weeks ago I got an email from them saying that their acceptable use policy had changed and that I had to accept the new policy by a certain date (originally they said the terms would go into effect automatically, now they’re saying that my account will be severely limited after that date).  When I last logged into PayPal I declined the terms, as they were not acceptable to me.  They are now sending daily emails warning me that I must accept the terms and conditions.  It should be noted that (according to the last email), there are 82 days until the deadline.  I was going to wait until June to see if they came to their senses and changed the policy, however I will go postal if they send me 82 more emails….

I’ve been listening to internet streaming radio via my Turtle Beach Audiotron.  Lately I’ve been listening to the “Lounge – Secret Agent ” station from Turtle Radio’s “New Age & Ambient” genre.

I just found that Turtle Radio is simply picking up this stream from SomaFM, which has a number of alternative streams available.  If anyone is interested in the weird music I listen to, here’s a link to the Secret Agent 128K MP3 stream (you’ll need WinAmp).  If your internet connection won’t support a 128K stream, go to the SomaFM link and scroll down the the Secret Agent section for lower bandwidth streams.