On a mailing list I frequent, list owner Mike Lorrey took an unfair swipe at an old friend of mine, libertarian science fiction novelist L. Neil Smith. I forward the message in its entirety, and Neil took the time to respond to Mike in an essay released today, "Under False Colors."
Mike has quickly responded by taking the argument to his own blog, in a post counter-titled "Under Honest Colors."
This looks good: Las Vegas hotel magnate Robert Bigelow is building space habitats based on designs that were apparently too cost-effective for NASA. Expect the first to be on orbit by 2010.
How much time have you spent in the Western US?
Have you ever tried to buy a semi-automatic rifle in Canada?
Have you ever tried to order an "unapproved" video from Loompanics in Canada?
Have you ever tried to tell a Mountie to "Get a Warrant"?
None of these things work very well in Canada.
When Canada is as free as, say Montana, where a man stopped by a state traffic cop for driving 80 mph, with a beer in one hand, and pistol on his hip, can ask the cop "What the hell do you want?", and have the cop eventually just give up and walk off, then you can discuss with us how "free" Canada is.
As for the "we're doomed" crowd here ... The US is the healthiest patient in the World's tyranny cancer ward. If we don't win here, things are going to get very ugly.
Kristopher Barrett
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give 'em ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and, what the hell, we're not using it anymore.
Tom Skinner
Happy Chinese New Year to y'all. I've got a couple of midterms coming up, so blogging has been light of late.
Wondering if this displays properly in most browsers:
新年快樂
Just saw this a few minutes ago on a SuperBowl TV commercial: Richard Branson & Volvo team up in a contest to give away a suborbital flight on Virgin Galactic.
Dale Seago reviews the Nightstalker Tartan from Stillwater Kilts in a post on Sword Forum International:
...over the last few years I've become fairly experienced with the old-style feileadh mor or belted plaid; the feileadh beag; 1790s-style early box-pleated kilt; modern "tailored" wool kilt; and canvas casual kilts. I regard the kilt as clothing rather than costume, and wear one pretty often. In fact, a Bujinkan black belt from Ireland who trained in my dojo here for about a year until he picked up another job back home once commented to me that, having been to Scotland several times, he'd noticed over there that there always seemed to be something special or a bit "in your face" in the way Scots wear their kilts -- in other words, it always seemed to be "making a statement" of some sort -- but that with me the "feeling" he got was that it was "just clothing".
