Libercontrarian

Friday, 29 April 2005

The Lazy Libercontarian's Way To Blog

In lieu of creating any cohesive thought, I felt it would be a good idea to highlight some of my past posts that are particularly "instructive" about my way of thinking...

This Rifle Defended Your Freedom!

Hero

Why Liberals Hate Your Guns So Much

Do We Have A One-China Policy?

Three humorous posts, 'cause everybody's got to laugh:

Vacation Report

Interesting Observations About Bubbleville

Eaten In Bubbleville

posted by: underwhelmed at April 29, 2005 12:00 | link | comments |

Saturday, 16 April 2005

Car Swarm? Dog Swarm?

So I'm at the dog park - blogging. This is the ultimate expression of the concept of irony; a 21st century mix of high-tech and low-down, dirty fun. Buddie has made some friends and run himself ragged (mission accomplished), and I'm working even as I write. Battery power is down, so I'll finish later.

Edited 4.17 1036: I had to go back to work, recharge my PDA, and sell some phones for an employee whose kid was hurt. Anyhow, it's a wonderful age - you can do cool things with the net whereever you go.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 16, 2005 14:16 | link | comments (1) |

Friday, 15 April 2005

A Great Post About The Warrior Spirit - and Barbarians

An unknown fellow by the name of "Control Group" has written a post James Lileks would be proud of here. It's a must-read for like-minded thinkers(Eric, are you listening?).

posted by: underwhelmed at April 15, 2005 19:39 | link | comments (1) |

Thursday, 14 April 2005

Just Silly

Just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder: Look at these fantastically weird cars from Japan.

Those loopy Japanese kids really know how to take things to the next level! The photos seem to start fairly conservatively, but the further you scroll down the page, the stranger things become.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 14, 2005 14:23 | link | comments (2) |

Monday, 11 April 2005

Oh, Brother - What A Bunch Of Whiners!

I'm sure you've met someone who always looks at the dark side of things - the kind of person that complains if life is good, and complains if things go wrong. These folks can always be depended upon to find a problem with every solution.

The Tuscon Citizen is just such an entity. Eager to print disparaging stories about the Minuteman Project's month-long border-watch in the Arizona desert, Claudine LoMonaco, a reporter-cum-opinion-maker, has created a "hit piece" on the detrimental economic effects of right wing hatred that masks itself as "patriotism," and has quoted such unbiased sources as a university professor and an allegedly-legal Mexican citizen, who openly calls the Minutemen "immigrant hunters" and associates them with the numerous lawless criminals who populate, and indeed, govern his third-world paradise that so many are trying to flee from.

Now, the project's been going on for 10 days, and the only reported incident that the press has felt the need to report involved an illegal who was fed by the Minutemen and let go - of course, this poor undocumented worker complained about his detainment - who knows, maybe the milk in his cereal wasn't cold enough. In a fit of political correctness, the Minutemen Project canned the volunteer because of his violation of the No-Contact Rule.

"The volunteer's actions were admirable, justified and undeniably humane," Chris Simcox, a project official, said in a news release, "but unfortunately they jeopardized our established procedures and overall purpose of passively monitoring the border.

"It's unfortunate, but we had to dismiss him from further participation," Simcox said. "Our adversaries will take even the most benign event and try to develop it into an international incident. We cannot allow any digression from our established policies and procedures."

It's ironic that, since there's no bad news to report, the Tuscon Citizen feels compelled to create some. Yet another example of left-biased opinion-making masking itself as "journalism."

posted by: underwhelmed at April 11, 2005 10:35 | link | comments (4) |

Thursday, 07 April 2005

Yaaar, Me Hearties! Prepares To Repel All Boarders!

It's just NOT a good idea to play around with an ex-Navy guy. You could end up dead, especially if you are trying to pull off poorly concieved acts of piracy on the high seas.

Way to go, shipmate!

posted by: underwhelmed at April 07, 2005 12:45 | link | comments (2) |

"The Chimperor"

Another humorous nom de guerre for George Bush - "The Chimperor." Try to keep in mind that the funniest of these names are usually created by conservatives, making fun of the left's pathological fascination with attacking Bush at every turn, mis-under-estimating him at every pass, and generally regarding the conservative movement in the U.S. as evidence of retrograde evolution.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 07, 2005 12:12 | link | comments |

Wednesday, 06 April 2005

New On The Blogroll: John Keyes

Like pastoral pictures of New England as much as I do? Go to John Keyes Photographs to check them out; this guy has a real passion for his work, which, when you view it, will relax you and make you smile.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 06, 2005 15:48 | link | comments |

Section 922(r)

Seen in a email cc'd to me from Dan the AK Man to a prospective customer (he's pretty far out there, usually, but on this I think he's smack on):

"...the ATF has NEVER prosecuted someone for 18 USC 44 Section 922(r) alone, even when Franscisco Duran of Security (Colorado Springs), Colorado was tackled firing a non-922(r) compliant SKS rifle (illegal folding stock & 30 round after-market magazine/clip) at the Whitehouse one Saturday afternoon in October of 1994.

Although the Feds charged Duran with 18 USC 44 Section 922(r), only as a 'tool' to hold him in jail (for the attempted assasination of Clinton), when the case went to trial all 922(r) charges were dropped.

This was/is possibly due to the fact that the ATF & the U.S. Attorney's Office/Justice Department are not so sure that the 'Sporting Purposes' rationale behind 922(r) will survive a constitutional challenge on appeal, should someone be convicted of violating what many feel is a law that conflicts with the actual intent of the 2nd Amendment itself."

An interesting interpretation. Anybody have any information to the contrary?

A funny side note: I did some logo work for Dan's website in 1999, and he's still using it. I was a web designer, and did photoshopping on the rifles, bullets, etc. Kind of neat to see it again, even if it isn't particularly well assembled in its current format.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 06, 2005 15:24 | link | comments |

Tuesday, 05 April 2005

"Curveball" a Dropped Ball

The CIA, who relied on an Iraqi chemical engineer through the German intelligence Agency for the reports on WMDs in Iraq, didn't know that he was an insane, mendacious wingnut.

It would have been nice to know, prior to, say, GOING TO WAR that the reason we were giving the world would turn out to be a bogus one, with the result that our government would be made to look like a dangerous collection of warmongerers and imperialists to other nations always too eager to see us in that light.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 05, 2005 11:31 | link | comments |

Jiggity Jams

Jiggity from Avoiding The Tar-Baby deals with one of those self-proclaimed "intellectuals" of the left:

"intellectual" > "If I have not seen academic bias in my school(s) I attend(ed) - then it does not exist at all"

Jiggity > "Brillant. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'll be sure not to ask you for directions because if you have no map then the road does not exist."

Beating up on leftists = nice work, if you can get it.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 05, 2005 11:21 | link | comments |

Lawmaker Victim of Identity Theft - It Can Happen To You, Too

Jeeze - can this happen to me? This makes me nervous, because I just lost my PDA (stolen last Thursday from Best Buy in Park Meadows, Colorado), and was able to buy a new one online while applying for a credit card. This took about four minutes, and I hardly needed any identifying information. I'm praying that the criminal asshat that has made off with my PDA just hard-resets it to sell on ebay...

posted by: underwhelmed at April 05, 2005 11:08 | link | comments |

Dorkafork Prangs Jon Stewart

Scott, of Dorkafork, one of our BloggerBash attendees, did a real funny bit on Jon Stewart. In it, he links through lefty blog-strangler Hellblazer to Jeff Goldstein of Protien Wisdom, making fun of the continual AmericanSocialist underestimation of GWB: Chimpy McHitlerBurton. I always like seeing the AmSoc people fall apart into pieces when their side is caught trying to put out the fire with gasoline.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 05, 2005 10:40 | link | comments |

Sunday, 03 April 2005

Bloggers, Wine, Cigars, and Fun - But No Women

Last night, underwhelmed, a.k.a. Libercontrarian, your Sergeant Major of of the Armchair Commando Brigade of Aurora, Colorado attended the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash 4.0. I had a riotously good time down in the toney quarters of the Denver Press Club.

I learned two things last night: a.) There's some people in the world smarter than me (much, much smarter - I felt like a mental midget in this crowd of overachievers), and b.) Mix strong-minded people with strong drink and you get some pretty loud "discussions."

Here's a rundown of the event as it relates to participants I had the good fortune to meet:

Stephen Green, of Vodkapundit, was there... and was drinking (you guessed it) VODKA. I know this must come as a shock to you. Our BlogHero Green is self-effacing, every bit as bright in person as he is online, and funny. He also likes kids - a lot! - and hints at the potentiality of mini-Greens in the future.

Jeff Goldstein, of Protein Wisdom, is one sharp guy who can argue, and who cleverly employs sarcasm to drive home his point. At one point in the evening, he shouted something, which taken out of context, would be scandalously blasphemous, but was riotously funny. This is a man whose mental faculties would be handy to have on your side in a court of law.

Andy O'Reilly, of World Wide Rant and our generous host for the evening is another witty, clever man. I did not get to spend nearly as much time with Andy as I wanted to. Thanks, Andy, for organizing this wonderful affair!

Dave Jones, Resurrection Song's "zombyboy," our other enigmatic host, is a cherub-faced giant, a man with a noble vision of creating order out of the chaos that is Africa. I would encourage you to go read of his dreams in Africa Blog; he has let it go for a bit. He also proposed dissolution of NASA so that private industry can take the reins of space exploration, as he feels that advances in science which result from space exploration would benefit all mankind.

I talked with Matt Moore of Blog Of The Century Of The Week, Marvin of Little Red Blog, and Ryan Scott of A Bellandean!, while the great Jess from Avoiding The Tar-Baby held court. Jess was one of the best and brightest of the bunch (this was no mean feat, I assure you), and commented on Christianity, spirituality, and the pressing issues of that face America about which many Americans are too afraid to address. Jess remarked that his blog's name has garnered charges of "racism" and even a death threat! You know you're doing something right if you can piss people off like that.

Matt Traylor from Roverpundit brought in a lovely companion, one of only five female attendees They are a friendly and bright couple, and I enjoyed talking with them a great deal.

Jed from FreedomSight is a devout Libertarian, gun owner/shooter, and non-conformist. He's also your Sergeant-Major's newest shooting buddy. Jed and I will be organizing a shoot at Left Hand Canyon for any and all interested parties, and we welcome new shooters, especially Scott from Dorkafork, who we will safely indoctrinate in the Way of the Gun. Publicola, another gun-blogging enthusiast, will be expected to bring his cache of surplus military weaponry as well, and I personally look forward to seeing his restocked Garand.

Steven Wheeler, author of Off In The Tall Weeds, offered me vital input about military topics. A former naval officer, he's now my official "go-to" guy whenever I have questions about the Navy/Marine Corps mission. This man did the hard work under the seas, protecting our country from the threat the Soviets posed to the American way of life. The Libercontrarian appreciates this sailor's service to our country.

Chuck Pelto of Pueblog USa is primarily concerned with issues that affect Pueblo. "It's a small community of 100,000 people" says Chuck, whose wife, Sukey, joined him at the event. This dynamic couple have turned the lights on the Pueblo City Council, who are apparently trying to exceed their authority by violating historical protections they created. "Four of the seven members of the City Council are real-estate agents - doesn't that sound like a conflict of interest to you?"

The thoughtful and soft-spoken Robert Hayes, of Let's Try Freedom and and the Blogger News Network, chimed in, "This is where all blogs are headed." Robert believes that since all politics are local, thus will be blogs. This "blogvolution" will create mini-news agencies for local happenings. I think that there's much merit in his assessment - opinions on global and national issues are as common as dirt, but real news - the kind that is happening in your community, your temple, your corporation, your school, and most importantly, your city council (the seat of ever-expanding and intrusive governance) is happening right in front of you, the blogger, every day. If you see it happening, send it to Bob Hayes @ BNN.

Eventually, our conversation turned to issues of loss and spirituality. Robert left me with a sobering thought about the apparent cruelty of God (taking loved ones so early), and an inspired tale of how life is like a salami - we see it sequentially, as if we are slicing it. There's a beginning and an end. God, not needing the worry of time, sees it from end-on, and only looks to see what kind of meat made up the inside. From this well-delivered life-lesson, I took away this: it's not how long you got to do the things you did, it's how well you did them while you were in your "window of opportunity." I guess that this is the quintessential lesson of what being a Christian is about.

To round out the evening's affairs, Darren Copeland, Colorado Conservative, introduced me to Chris, his bear-sized Libertarian guest. Chris and zombyboy got into a good-natured shouting match, which was ably joined by an equally loud, but considerably smaller Jeff Goldstein. I had a terrific evening, and am glad to be able to connect the faces with our collective online personalities.

posted by: underwhelmed at April 03, 2005 20:35 | link | comments (9) |

Friday, 01 April 2005

A Long List of Charming Gentlemen Who Oppose Us In The War On Terror

I offer to you this strikingly long list of kind-hearted, easygoing ~~murderers~~ gentlemen - this comes to us courtesy of Monsieur Green at Vodkapundit.

As you scroll... and scroll... and s-c-r-o-l-l down this plethora of thugs, take careful note of some of their fates in the War on Terror... "apprehended," "at large," and "in Hell" adorn their particular statuses.

It's a bit of a reminder that the War is not even close to being over, in fact, it has barely begun.

We have a lot of work before us, as many of these hatemongers will doubtlessly produce sons, who will certainly be taught the hatreds of their fathers.

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