www.2600.com seems to be hacked (coming from my domain at least).

The site comes up with certain bits of porn and some javascript. Either hacked or hijacked and I cannot say which.

I once considered this possibility.

Life is an MMORPG or First Person Shooter with RPG elements.

(A grind at the library raises your Knowledge, a grind at the gym raises your STRength and CONstitution, a grind in the wilderness raises your Experience, a grind in a warzone raises your ARMs skill and THAC0 :)

The Spirit... (aka the Player) logs in.
The Spirit (Player) creates a Soul (Account).
The Spirit then creates a Body (Player Character), under that Soul (Account).
The Spirit/Soul then adventures (plays) in that World (Server) using that Body (Character) logged in from the particular Soul (Account).

Thus, if the Body ever dies, during a MMORPG, are you really dead as a player/Spirit? If the Account (Soul) is deleted, is the player/Spirit truly destroyed? Hell no, you just make up a new account, retain your previous experiences in the game, and start a fresh character. The game continues, and like with many games, a lot of nutbag Spirits take the game TOO seriously... and let it rule their lives, which is not much different than the fatass slobs sitting on a couch, who have difficulty getting up to take a piss when the urge strikes them.

Playing a game can be fun, but taking it too seriously can be hazardous to your health. Perhaps the same warning exists on some other plane of existence/awareness to whatever we consider to be our Spirits. Perhaps.

Interesting concept, eh?

Infowars article on Oregonians abused by cops for filming an abuse of their property...
Quoted article from the Oregonian, as it were.

Lawful action... "Yes, I got it all on film. They had no right to come on this property."

CRIMINAL action: Cops taze the man, lawfully there and accuse him of "criminal trespass." And of refusing to surrender the camera "which could be used as a weapon."

Last I checked with "lawful use of force" he had to have actually THREATENED physical force WITH the camera for it to be considered as such.

Snippet:

Police officers followed a police dog onto the property during a search for a fleeing suspect. After the dog keyed on a car, officers broke out a window. Upset residents, insisting no one had run onto their property, started to videotape the police search.

When one woman was told to stop recording, she gave the videocamera to Waterhouse. He walked to the edge of the property, climbed up a dirt embankment and continued to record. At one point, he yelled to his friend, "Yes, I got it all on film. They had no right to come on this property."

He says in the suit that police immediately came after him, and yelled at him "put it down." Officers moved towards him, and he said, "Don't come after me." Waterhouse said seconds later he was shot with a bean bag gun and a Taser and fell to the ground.

Officers wrote in their reports that Waterhouse ran off, they chased and then bean-bagged and Tasered him. One officer wrote, "He had refused to drop the camera which could be used as a weapon."

Waterhouse was arrested, accused of criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. A jury acquitted him of all charges.

** Frankly I hope he takes the local government and especially the individual cops to the CLEANERS!! I hope he plunders the entire socialist treasury of every penny it has. **

Act like serfs, be treated like serfs.

Do you believe that police abuses are okay, so long as the government is compassionate and absolute (socialism) or disconnected and absolute (fascism)? Or do you believe that you "were born free, will live free, to die free"?

Pay attention to the question at the end, and see if it applies to you as a "geek" or "slashdotter" or just plain "man" or "woman".

All other talk about "free speech" or "free software", or "patent enforcement" or "internet taxation" is moot, until you realize that without asserting your rights, and behaving as if you had them, you do NOT have them. Rights, like all else, are yours to lose. This article makes a good point of it. Government is the one with responsibilities, YOU as an individual are the one with rights. Authoritarians and statist totalitarians have confused everyone into believing the opposite.

Mencken is quoted to have stated as follows among his many other writings. This is attributed to the July 26th, 1920's Baltimore Sun (I presume this is the same Baltimore Sun as the one now printed in Baltimore, Maryland.)

"...all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre -- the man who can most easily (and) adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

I leave conclusions to the readers :)

Original quote was pulled from this blog.

Speaking of which....

Even the games the industry comes up with nowadays are rehashes of old crap, and I mean crap. They're not even as fun as the old cliches. Cliches were escapes from reality... Oldies were cliche tales, save the damsel, save the world, be the macho hero, wield guns and swords that would be simply unwieldy in real life blah blah, the new ones are rehashes of real life... you no longer need to join the army to feel the rush of shooting civvies and helpless enemies that can barely figure out which end of their guns bullets come out of, nope, you can simulate it now. All the violence without getting in shape! All the bloodshed without the chemical poisoning or the psychological trauma.

What's the point of escapism when the escapist venue is just a tired remake of the miserable or boring life you're escaping from? Similar to the music industry. What's the point of listening to ghetto rap when you live in a ghetto? What, you're not depressed enough with your life that you gotta pay some "gansta" to tell you how much better he's off than you? I won't comment on country or jazz because I have some local groups I listen to and buy from, but they print their work on CDR's anyways :)

The newer classical music seems uninspired, as if some freshman at the conservatory tried his hand after a glass of whiskey as a compensator for lack of inspiration or even talent, and the rest of the pop, teeny bopper and easy listening music isn't worthy of playing on the grocery store intercom radio. It sounds much like what came out in 1994, only now the singing girl is devoid of a singing voice too, not just the ability to carry a tune.

After a bit of evaluation, resulting in similar feelings to the above paragraphs, I found that I've saved so much cash and TIME on games and DVD's thanks to "staying legal" (i.e. not buying OR pirating) with DVD's and Music, that I've actually got cash I know not what to do with... quite a predicament. And wouldn't you know it, I've got tons of time on hand too. I've caught up on a LOT of reading and traveling. Simply boggles the mind how little we live our lives because of the mind numbing amount of cash we blow on unnecessary crap... and I do mean CRAP.

Here we go, this is where "mandatory healthcare" will get you.

If you buy the ADD or ADHD, BS... you've just found yourself a paying customer to the new millennium "snake oil" salesmen.

Regardless of all the cameras, safety, and crime prevention are still the domain of potential victims, not the troops, troopers, cops, ninja masked, body armored thugs, or any other agent of the state... your safety is still YOUR problem... surprise.

London has a 20% crime "clearup" rate. Strange how when they depend on tax money, "authorities" never deliver what they promise, but continue to scream that they cannot deliver because they don't get "enough funding".

Each year their budget matches or increases, their spending is increased, they buy more cameras, more tazers, more guns, but show to possess less and less civil skills (something necessary in any civil "peace officer" especially one given the monopoly on force that today's "society" grants to its "police" forces).

People don't trust cops anymore, and those who still make the mistake to do so put themselves at more risk than those that don't. And for good reason. In older times, a man who took your money and didn't even deliver a pretense of a fair trade, and who claimed he needed yet more money to keep not delivering... was called a QUACK!! Today they're called "politicians", "civil engineers", "city planners", "authorities" or "lawmakers".

What is it with these people. Hillary, Obama and Edwards are running on "mandating government insurance for all".

Mandatory UnHealthy Care 2.0

I guess in a 50.1% majority world, it matters not what the individual prefers. It doesn't matter if I want my own doctor, or prefer one, or know one, I have to do (at gunpoint no less) whatever the Fearless Leader tells me to?

What are they going to to, arrest those of us who refuse to either PAY FOR, or BUY INTO their programs? What if I prefer a different health care / prevention routine than the industrial abattoir of licensed medics?

After all, I avoid doctors now, because for every preventable or naturally occurring issue, they come up with "lets get you started on [X drug]". Rarely do they say, "lets see how we can keep this from happening again... what do you eat, what do you drink, what kind of exercise do you practice and how often?" Nope, its always, "start taking this, if it works okay, I won't prescribe 3 more expensive drugs for something that goes away by itself." Hell, we have FLU VACCINES?!?!? Nobody I have known in my life has died of the flu. Not here, not at work, not in my childhood, not anywhere, and everyone got the flu almost every year. We ate EGGS as kids, we drank natural egg nogg, and nobody died of miracle flu, or avian flu, or other disease... why? Because we grew our OWN chickens, not industrial grown chickens... we knew where our food came from... not because there was an approval label on it, but because we grew it.

Whenever the government gets involved in anything, all they do is complicate it, take a cut of the "protection money racket" (read:taxes) and eventually result in even WORSE tyranny than some misguided out for profit scumbag whom the market (had it ever been left to its own devices) might have crushed utterly. For example, if the local big box mart wasn't protected by government thugs and government protocols, the locals, if enough felt threatened might well burn it down or force it to close its doors. But instead, the government decided what is "good for everyone". Doesn't matter if the government had to steal my land to build the big box mart... the law said they could and it was for the good of everyone that they did it.

There is a quote that will again be ignored as the election season ramps up.

"Necessity is the creed of slaves, it is the argument of tyrants.

I smell further collectivization of America, but I doubt there will be any "prosperity", other than perhaps the few well fed "sample citizens" that will be touted in front of the cameras.

"Look, my tax dollars hard at work."

(pause)

"Coming to arrest me."

Check this out if you wish to see how the socialists handle actual horseplay. I wonder what else will be "devastating to the psyche" (besides the "justice" system itself).

Incorruptible system hard at work... treats all equally... (with contempt that is).

I've been thinking. Everyone left and right has heard of the New World Order, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (NAFTA 2.0 or the North American Community) and various other things.

Sure, the idea sounds the death knell of the Republic.

Frankly, I think the death knell of the Republic sounded back in 1913, and what has transpired before that was the "prep" what has transpired since is the "mop up". In my opinion, the Republic is on a stretcher, with a mortician covering up its face with a big black bag.

Many will say "the Illuminati have killed our Republic!!"

I disagree. I feel that it was the ordinary rank and file Americans, who did not push back when the government first began to carry out tyrannies (about 1792 was the first big year of criminal conduct by then president Washington, and it hasn't ended since).

It was the compliance that was made to seem that it was "mandatory" or "required", yet few Americans today did what Americans in 1774 were notorious for. Reading LAW. English law dictionaries sold MORE copies in the American Colonies than they did in England.

When you pay attention to what is done, you have enough people, even if it is the 5% minority, who have the wealth, the willpower and the desire to simply say "NO".

I am not going to say I know what will happen. If I did, my life would probably be tasteless, boring and devoid of any enjoyment.

Instead, I will say that I view the next 10 years or so with great interest. There is a chance that people the world over might just stand up for themselves, say "NO" and refuse to be on someone else's leash anymore.

Of course it is more likely that they will continue to value their comfort more than either happiness or any semblance of freedom, and will continue to allow others to dictate their choices. This is fine, as it is only the removal of comfort that forces the modern human to ponder what he has exchanged for the transitory pretense of safety. None of us have safety, because there is no chance we can truly control the Chaos of this world. This place is Chaos born, and despite the veneer of order we place upon it, things constantly change, not always along a predictable axis. This is because Chaos can be adapted to, but never truly mastered.

Our desire for safety and Order, is what has been used against us each and every time someone has argued from the vantage point of "safety" or "security", yet each time they were selling a bill of goods, but kept the goods. Every "good intentioned" ruler has imposed a system they believed would lead to safety, and security, and it may well have. The problem is that happiness is on the exact opposite of that scale. Being happy and fulfilled requires us to step outside the comfort zone and learn more about ourselves. Remaining in a shell, never taking a chance, and always cowering in the shadows is exactly what has allowed the masters of past ages to feed upon the poor and oppressed. The poor and oppressed saw their predicament and accepted it. It was a small price to pay for predictability, and "safety". In one word, they traded happiness for safety.

In the end, they found neither. Perhaps it is time to ponder a paradigm shift, not towards more and more control, but towards less control. Less control over others, and more over ourselves. I understand it is a radical system that actually involves pondering one's actions and the natural and artificial consequences of one's actions. But I believe in the long run it may prove more fun for all involved. It is either that or monotony, boredom, eternal safety, with none of the spark. I understand that safety sells. But much like masturbation, it may suffice and be very safe for an inexperienced teenager but will never be as good as sex with a talented and interested partner.

Much like the search for the "perfect" partner, those seeking safety have been "educated" in government schools that have had it in their best interests to crush dissent and unpopular opinions. Instead of seeking that which made life worth living, they sought that which made life monotonous, predictable, and turned life from something interesting, into the mere wait for death. Far too many people today live a cyclical bore, waiting for only one thing, that which they fear, yet the only thing they look forward to. Death. And the only reason they are not aware of it, is because they are too caught up in the entire boredom of it all.

So few nowadays actually look up at the stars. Or even bother to smell the flowers (it they even keep any). There are many things to do, yet we live in boxed sets, awaiting only the next videogame, or the next movie, or perhaps the next picnic. Always the same things, safe, boxed and ready made for consumption. Perfectly safe.

I stepped outside of that box years ago, even if it has been a tougher journey. It has made me more discriminating in those I associate with, as coworkers, as friends, as lovers. I chose not to associate merely with "anyone" but with those whom I felt lived life also. And I have not been alone for it, because I have found others on the same path. Many have been called eccentric, some rich, some broke, none were ever "poor", though a bit unusual, or even crazy. "Poor" is a mindset, it is a defeated mindset, and it is highly contagious. But if having less people around me, but of a different quality is the price to pay to LIVE life, instead of merely existing. Then that price has indeed been a small one.

** My posts will once more decrease in frequency, as I have discovered what I came here to understand. Thank you all. I wish you fortune in your endeavors, and perhaps we'll meet somewhere down the road. **

Is your economic outlook Austrian?

25 questions. Requires some introspection. There is a 10 question shortie and its also available in Spanish. Should bring a lot into perspective. There is no pass fail. It simply gauges your outlook and what kinds of "economies" you favor.

NOTE: only submit your email address if you wish to have the results emailed to you.

Here's one with a refreshing take on how the market could handle many things that governments do not handle effectively or efficiently at all, either in the West, or in the East or anywhere else in this day and age.

Since the options ahead of us are the furthering of tyranny either into a Borg like society where all are monitored by a central computer entity or cluster that makes all decisions for the drones, or the continuation and possible merging of today's milquetoast tyrannies of the west and outright iron fist tyrannies of the east, perhaps it is time to inject a concept that has fueled the black markets for centuries as the only true alternatives to working to pay the king's ransom each time the king's men demand it.

Article from Ludwig VonMises Institute on private defense handled by a true free market, such as rarely surfaces even in modern America.

For further reading I recommend this article also on the same site.

Disclaimer: I have no ties to any defense contractors, or private government contractors, I run my own business in the eastern USA contracting in small shop info tech and construction and personally choose my clients. However, I stand by my principles and take no government money or handouts and do no government work whatsoever by choice.

Definitions and clarification of certain terms will be placed at the bottom to preserve the readability of this paper.

I've watched the great 'left vs right' battle and it amuses me because it really is more like Professional Wrestling... part steroidally enhanced behemoths, raising frenzied applause and cheers from the crowd, part make believe hand to hand combat, part concert atmosphere, part scripted storylines, part eye candy and mostly misdirection, Houdini style.

The top of the chart has been removed altogether, there is very little talk of Authoritarian vs Libertarian (or Anarchy (which for those who study etymologies, comes from the greek word, meaning NO RULER)) there is only Left Authoritarian vs Right Authoritarian. With the "authoritarian" removed as it is a common denominator between every right and left government movement out there. Government, by its growth involves the crushing of any freedom or liberty out there.

I see this on slashdot, I see this everywhere, even in the so called "land of the free, home of the brave". I guess it takes a lot of bravery to exercise the freedom to shout slogans of someone else's making, and to worship victim cultures. Many who are "victims" today or "descendants of slaves" don't realize that those debts were paid back in blood, in fact they were overpaid.

I even see this out west, where "freedom" was supposed to shine (USA and Canada's western regions alike). But it didn't. Because the land was "tamed" by the "right" and "center" "libertarians" fleeing the "authoritarian" East Coast, and building homes on the land going westward (lower case L), when it was tough, forming relatively peaceful coexistence with the natives (for the most part). It was not to be, as they were closely followed by the "right authoritarians" (who came with the usual genocidal mindsets attributed to modern "right wingers" who are truly "right authoritarians") who settled into positions of power of the government's creation as soon as it got easier to live out there (mostly by the efforts of the natives and the liberty lovers), who then built "power structures" (Def 1) and the rest is history, the collectivists ("left authoritarians") moved in, ensuring collective shared loss of so called "capital" (whether human, environmental and resource).

In fact, since ancient history, this process has consistently repeated itself wherever people made a move for freedom. The only way to preserve freedom would have been for them to ally themselves with the local natives and form guerrilla resistance or auxiliary citizen militia units and trained constantly in their spare "baseball" time to keep the east coast power structure OUT... something they did not, and we are still paying for it today.

Today, by my studies, the option of "guerrilla resistance" is pretty much out, when every societal unit is infested by easy going socialists who vote for their income and profits, and who want to govern others through their votes, when they recognize that they are unworthy of governing their own selves, and when the weapons have evolved to the point where guerrilla resistance is no longer a "viable" option, except for the misguided suicidal youth, as all who studied warfare through history know that NO resistance movement, with the exception of (possibly) Haiti, has ever won their freedom without outside help. And even after winning freedom, most places, like the 13 colonies and later the French Colony of Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, North/South Vietnam), gave it up willingly to their next set of tyrants, under the guise of "freeing *We The People*"... Haiti was later suppressed and has not recovered yet.

This brings me back to today's mindsets. Many of the slashdotters (not all) I've read from and conversed with, online and offline, share a fear of "losing their rights" especially the vaunted "right of free speech". However, a small but vociferous group also seems to harbor the desire to control society for the usually acclaimed "benefit of everyone". I have lived in such societies, and even when the "benefit everyone" mindsets were prevalent, "benefit everyone" meant "the way I want it to be done". And of course, nobody ever mentions the problem of "share everything" which is, of course, rationing... where I have lived in the past, there was "enough for everyone", except when the proponents of the scam found out that they'd have to eat less, drink less, own less, control less and soon enough breathe less (if the Clintonite carbon tax goes into play in its full glory)...

I must ask, is it possible that every slashdotter, and in fact every SUBJECT (Def 2) of a modern monarchy (Def 3) thinks he or she is free, but only because the national media says so to them, and because everything from religion to atheism (a religion also by many opinions) teaches slavish obedience to a central authority figure, whether it be the screaming demagogue or preacher at the pulpit, or the crown wearing popes or bishops in the golden palatial structures known as churches or mosques. Why teach slavish obedience when claiming that "freedom" is the desired outcome?

Every group of people who is afraid of losing their "rights" screams for the Constitution or the Magna Carta, or for their various Bibles and Torahs and Q'urans or whatnot. They always ask outside entities to "protect" their freedoms. How can anyone, especially "geeks" to whom "logic" is supposed to be a "natural ability" fail to see that asking someone else for any "right" or "freedom" means that you by the nature of your request, make that entity a "grantor" of you rights, and as all religionists know "what God giveth, God taketh". Rights are rights because they are yours alone, and if you surrender them by asking for permission, you've already violated the nature of those rights by turning them into "permits". When a permit is required for an action to be "allowed", you have already claimed the status of property, YOU are now that entity's property... a slave, if that is the victim status you desire. As a great religionist once told me "it is not the fool that asks, it is the fool that gives"... and that is exactly what every man who wants Congress, the President, the Police, the Judiciary or any other entity to "protect" or "guarantee" their rights. Until you yourself acknowledge you HAVE rights, you will clamor for slavery, even if unknowingly, every time you demand that someone "vote for freedom" or "vote for civil rights" or whatever scam you're buying into. You can "get a permit" and then march all day long, but until you choose to live free (try holding a march without a permit and see how many "supporters" show up at that point)... you are still asking for permission, and willingly granting jurisdiction of your rights to those from whom you request permission. When you choose to do something, ask, "whom will this hurt"... if you cannot come up with a single INDIVIDUAL, saying "society at large" is mere cowardice. Only when you might hurt that individual, should you ask permission... otherwise since your action has no victims and you're not directly aggressing against a group (you're not putting poison into the water are you?) there is no reason to ask permission.

Why, must I now ask, clamor for slavery, when this has been the status of the world, and the only entities that have ever approached any kind of freedom were rovers, woodsmen, rogues, privateers and mountain men? Why then were such individuals demonized by the "mainstream" of every age as "pirates", "bandits", "loners", "hermits". Why were they accused of ridiculous "crimes" such as "flying false colors" (their own flag as sovereign individuals) or "impersonating" some official or other and other such terms, when all they were doing was living their lives as they chose without flying the colors of various corporate interests, known as nations "under the Crown" (of whatever potentate, whom was never identified in any proceedings, only referred to by the incorporated title of "the Crown", thus removing the liability of any wrongdoing from that individual and passing it onto the anonymous title of "the Crown"). Why is "flying your own flag" or "living your life as you see fit" given fearful meanings by everything from media to religion and government, when those men who were accused of "piracy" and "brigandry" in one court very often operated with full sanction of their respective governments (thus technically making them deputized groups?) In fact, those questioning my comments in this paragraph may look up the origins of modern "piracy" of the last 200 years or so in the Lettres du Marque of France and their English, Dutch, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese counterpart documents. England also employed corsair ships as did Spain for the same purposes in some very famous encounters/naval battles.

Back to our story and my observations about our "free society"... I believe this entire "paradigm" we live in is one we've created by choice out of our acquiescence to our own fears, fear of defeat, fear of lack, fear of death, fear of deceit, fear of loss, fear of God, fear of living our lives, fear of damn well everything. Even the lack of ability (as some see it) to acknowledge this fear, IS based on fear, whether fear of being "caught in the wrong" or fear of "being lesser" or fear of speaking the truth... or any other fear I've missed. The "masters" (name them what you will) have done nothing without the collective consensus behind them, they are guilty of nothing more than manipulation, but the masses, the "people" are guilty of playing along and putting their fingers into their ears every time someone utters anything close to resembling the truth. Again, the lack of ability of the people to say "yes, it is my fault for participating, and because of that I will stop my participation as of this very moment", is the reason why this thing keeps going. Every time a problem occurs, the fear of trying something new (living on your own two feet and by your own two hands and mind, instead of by the force of tyrants you pretend to "elect" or "serve") is the reason that no matter who or WHAT is in charge, nothing ever changes, and nothing ever has because the wrong person is "in charge" and would be in charge even if "an incorruptible master (a computer acting on binary if then else decision trees, choosing the best course for the individual and society)" oxymoronic? "who acts like an advisor" (a definition of action rendered oxymoronic by the following section) "were to give permission for freedom to do good, and declare criminal anything not so permitted"... (this concept was paraphrased from my discussions with Marxist Hacker 42 of Slashdot fame, and he is not alone in "let the computer decide").

Sacrificing the individual's freedom on the altar of the many is no different than the individual sacrificing someone on his own altar for his own desires. The difference is only that the individual acts of his own accord, with his own consequences being acceptable to him or her (Def 4), whereas those acting under the cover of "bureaucracy" or "the law says so" are merely cowards externalizing the consequences of their actions upon another entity altogether (Def 5)...

To all of these men and women, the only common denominator is the fear of the consequences and the externalization thereof. Are you among those? Or will you choose to live free without having to beg for your rights from an external entity that pretends it will serve you, or society, or anything other than itself?

------------------------------

DEFINITIONS:
(1)"Power Structures" are also known as states/counties/cities/villages/communes/communities.
(2)Those who accept or desire to be ruled by other entities, or men or even machines.
(3)Modern Monarchy refers to rulership through guile, by the few or one entity (entities) known as "democracy" "free nation" "socialist or democratic republic" "communist republic" or any name I've missed that refers to a group of many trying to assert rule over the few, or of few trying to assert rule over the many, both situations still refer to tyranny, modernized to be acceptable to a populous that now enslaves itself at the behest of near or faraway masters they are lead to believe are of their own choosing.
(4)Examples: bandits, pirates, rogues, acted knowing that their actions would result in consequences sooner or later, when the victims, not the so called "opposing" "authorities" would take action and clean house.
(5)Examples: socialists, corporatists, religionists, communists, tyrants, cops, soldiers of every nation, prison camp wardens and guards, gun control advocates (also known as rape and crime submission advocates), satanists who "see the light", etc.