On the Second Day…

I have maintained for some time, that an attack on Iran would be a very foolish thing. Iran is not unprotected and the US is not invincible.

Douglas Herman gets it…

By the second day, the message became clearer: Iran was no longer the pushover of years past. The combined effect of Sunburn, Exocet and Yakhonts missiles striking several US Navy ships fleeing the fishbowl of the Persian Gulf was an unforgettable sight. So unforgettable that CNN and Fox chose not to show them.

According to Mark Gaffney: “At the time of the Falklands war the Argentine air force possessed only five Exocets, yet managed to sink two ships. With enough of them, the Argentineans might have sunk the entire British fleet, and won the war.”

By contrast, the Iranians, cognizant of their defeat at the hands of the Iraqi and US forces in 1987-88, aware of the twin threat from Israel and the US, had focused heavily on defensive weaponry, supplied to them by Russian and Chinese manufacturers.

“The Russian SS-N-22.Sunburn (Moskit), which technical journals and experts have termed the most effective and lethal anti-ship weapon extant, is far cheaper to produce than a fighter plane or a missile destroyer, cruiser or aircraft carrier,” wrote Gaffney before the war. To make matters worse for US Navymen, the Russians provided the SS-NX-26 Yakhonts anti-ship missiles to Iran, reported to possess Mach 2.9 speed and a range of 180 miles.

The width of the Persian Gulf? 100-180 miles.

The immediate closure of the Persian Gulf to oil tankers from six nations provided a huge boost to peace advocates. By the second day of the war with Iran, with US Navy ships ablaze and sinking, with dire forecasts of worldwide fuel shortages, with gas prices spiking at $10 a gallon in some places, with increasing calls for impeachment appearing in the mainstream media, with environmentalist decrying the spread of radiation from the bomb blasted atomic sites in Iran, suddenly the neocon-sponsored war with Iran no longer seemed like such a good idea.

More here…

“I see,… and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power… It is but too evident that the three ruling branches of [the Federal government] are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic.” — Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1825. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, ME 16:146

Fathoming Anarchism…

From Thomas Van Wyk at Strike-The-Root…

It is not so much “vulgar,” strictly speaking, to consider oneself a socially conservative anarchist as it is indicative of intellectual sloppiness. (Indeed, Hans Hoppe has argued quite convincingly that consistent social conservatism really requires nothing less than a radical rejection of the State; so, being a “conservative anarchist” is not necessarily a contradiction in terms.)

However, when an anarchist says, “I’m socially conservative, but I’m an anarchist,” and leaves it at that, such an argument is incomplete and, I daresay, quite lazy. The problem lies in the fact that such a statement, when not carefully qualified, is simply not quite good enough for showing the true heart and soul of anarchism as a comprehensive social outlook.

That is, there is a broad gulf between what anarchists consider society and the choking pall of the statist culture that in reality surrounds the few of us. It is absolutely imperative that anarchists doggedly level critiques of Middle America’s culture of statism. If anarchists do this part of the “job” well, then we will quickly and persistently be labeled as “counter-cultural,” “libertine,” or worse. (It should go without saying that an anarchist who isn’t fully prepared to be ruthlessly and dishonestly labeled, smeared, and challenged with incessant straw-man “arguments” isn’t really ready to be an anarchist!)

More here…

I have pretty much given up on the Libertarian Party and the libertarian designation. I now simply refer to my philosophy as straight anarchy or abolishionist (of the State).

Thomas Jefferson said it best in the Declaration of Independence…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,…”

Time to abolish this abomination of a government…

“The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” – Thomas Jefferson

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Worth Repeating…

From grabbe: Via Bill St. Clair (Thanks Bill!)

“The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.”

Robert Anton Wilson, Right where you are sitting now: Further tales of the Illuminati, 1982

The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites. — Thomas Jefferson (1743- 1826)

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Firefox and WordPress Updates…

Thanks to Jomama, I have discovered the cool add-on of Performancing Firefox, which allows direct on-screen blogging in a split browser screen. It is compatible with all kinds of blog servers and software. Check it out, especially if you blog alot.

WordPress was testing a Snap mod during the New Years holidays and has now added it by default, to all WordPress users. If you scroll your mouse pointer over a link on a WordPress page, it will bring up a preview of the page that is linked to. Pretty cool, huh? It can be disabled by the viewers under the otpions tab, in Snap, or by the WordPress site owner under “Presentation” > “Extras”.

Enjoy.

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