Dear Starbucks

My recent email to the head honchoes at Starbucks, sent via a hoplophobe website:

Dear Starbucks,

Thank you for allowing private civilians to exercise the right to own and carry weapons for self-defense in your locations. Because of this, I will go to Starbucks whenever possible over your competition.

Your support for the Second Amendment IS appreciated.

Again, thank you.

Here's the link, for those wanting to send their own:

http://action.momsdemandaction.org/page/speakout/dear-starbucks

H/T Jospeh L. Roberts

This is almost as good as when I sent Jeff Bingaman a check for ∅1 back in 1994 – he's been sending me holiday-season cards ever since.

---

NOTES

1. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal blogs and micro-blogs – Facebook / Google Plus / Tumblr / Twitter / Wordpress / Xanga
      
      
   2. The Weekly Sedition – Facebook / Twitter / Wordpress

---

Copyright © 2013 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepad++.

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My gotoquiz Political Ideology Test Results

Take the test yourself – What is your political ideology?

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NOTES

1. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal blogs and micro-blogs – Facebook / Google Plus / Tumblr / Twitter / Wordpress / Xanga

---

Copyright © 2013 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepad++.

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In case Xanga 2.0 doesn't pan out . . .

I'm already on Wordpress and Blogspot – see for yourself:

http://mikewb1971.wordpress.com

http://mikewb1971.blogspot.com

I'm also a member of the Xangaville Facebook group:

http://facebook.com/groups/116326698428600/

---

NOTES

1. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal blogs and micro-blogs – Facebook / Google Plus / Tumblr / Twitter / Wordpress / Xanga

---

Copyright © 2013 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepad++.

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Book Review -- Learning the World, by Ken MacLeod

Learning the World by Ken MacLeod

1st mass-market Tor edition (October 2006) – softcover, 364 pages

Learning the World won Ken MacLeod the Prometheus Award in 2006^[1]. Should it have won? Considering that it was up against Vin Suprynowicz's The Black Arrow, I don't know. Still, Learning the World was a really good book.

Here's the plot summary from the back cover:

Humanity has spread to every star within five hundred light-years, coloring the sky with a haze of habitats. But the universe has, so far, been empty of intelligent life.

Now the ancient starship But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky! is entering a promising new system after a four-hundred-year journey. To their immense surprise, they detect patterned signals from the system's Earth-like world.

Meanwhile, on Ground, second world from the sun, a young astronomer searches for his system's outermost planet. A moving point of light thrills, then disappoints him. It's only a comet. But something is very odd about that comet's path . . . .

For the inhabitants of the starship and of Ground alike, the world has changed. "We are not living in the universe we thought we lived in yesterday. We have to start learning the world all over again."

Basically, humanity has become somewhat posthuman (or transhuman) to varying degrees – the people on board But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky! have genetically-inheritable virtual-communication systems. Think of surfing the web, reading emails, posting to Facebook, whatever, all in your head, and you're born with that capability. Among other things – some of those on board are so adapted to the microgravity life that living on a planetary surface would be extremely inconvenient, at best.

And then there's the aliens, who also think of themselves as "human." They seem to be evolved from bat-like creatures in the same sort of way that humans here evolved from primates. Their architecture reflects this, as well as the comment some of them make that "if the gods wanted us to build flying machines, they wouldn't have given us wings." Wings they do have, and not the vestigal, atrophied kind that ostriches have – the "humans" of Ground are perfectly capable of flight.

Of course, the "comet" that Darvin discovers behaving in a peculiar manner is But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky! (a miles-long and miles-wide generation ship) entering the star system, decelerating as it goes. Since when do comets slow down?

Anyway, the "humans" of Ground are closer to us present-day humans in terms of technology and social development than the humans of Learning the World – they're about where were in the early Twentieth Century (discovering radio transmission and heavier-than-air powered flight), where the humans of the book have been going about settling various star systems for 15,000 years, albeit limited to 0.01c^[2].

As the story progresses, the "humans" of Ground and those on board But the Sky, My Lady! The Sky! provide plenty of intrigue to keep the reader engaged and guessing.

OK – enough spoilers – if you want more, you'll have to read it for yourself.

---

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

1. MacLeod's blog site – The Early Days of a Better Nation
   
   
2. March 2006 interview with SFRevu
   
   
3. Wikipedia pages – Ken MacLeod, Learning the World, Prometheus Award

NOTES

1. Here's the full list of Prometheus Award finalists in 2006.
   
   
2. The lower-case letter c stands for the speed of light – 299,792,458 meters per second (186,282.39 miles per second, or 670,760,005.47 miles per hour) in a vacuum. Light goes 9,460,730,472,580,800 (9.46 x 10¹⁵ in the short form) meters (5,878,625,373,183,607.73 miles) in one year, hence the term light-year.
   
   
3. Approximate reading level – 9.4
   
   
4. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal blogs, micro-blogs, etc. – Facebook / Google Plus / Medium / MeetMe / Tumblr / Twitter / Wordpress / Xanga

---

Copyright © 2013 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepad++.

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One Reason Why I Will NEVER Convert to Baha'ism

Here are the gory details, straight from the Bahais themselves.

Abstract:

Whether Baha'is may practice self-defense in times of danger, and whether American Baha'is should purchase firearms.

From the texts you already have available it is clear that Bahá'u'lláh has stated that it is preferable to be killed in the path of God's service than to kill, and that organized religious attack against Bahá'ís should never turn into any kind of warfare, as this is strictly prohibited in our Writings.

So a Bahá'í is expected to "take one for the team" in the name of the faith? If a group of whacko Islamofascists were to set upon a Bahá'í temple with physical violence in mind, the Bahá'ís are supposed to simply stand by and let it happen?

A hitherto untranslated Tablet from 'Abdu'l-Bahá, however, points out that in the case of attack by robbers and highwaymen, a Bahá'í should not surrender himself, but should try, as far as circumstances permit, to defend himself, and later on lodge a complaint with the government authorities. In a letter written on behalf of the Guardian, he also indicates that in an emergency when there is no legal force at hand to appeal to, a Bahá'í is justified in defending his life. In another letter the Guardian has further point out that the assault of an irresponsible assailant upon a Bahá'í should be resisted by the Bahá'í, who would be justified, under such circumstances, in protecting his life.

How exactly is a Bahá'í (or anyone else, for that matter) to tell if the assailant is a responsible one versus an irresponsible one?

If the assailant is a responsible attacker, is then the Bahá'í adherent supposed to refrain from resisting?

What if the Bahá'í deems the attacker to be irresponsible, and later it's determined that the thug was indeed a responsible thug?

The House of Justice does not wish at the present time to go beyond the guidelines given in the above-mentioned statements. The question is basically a matter of conscience, and in each case the Bahá'í involved must use his judgment in determining when to stop in self-defense lest his action deteriorate into retaliation.

Oh no, the horrors of retaliation!

Of course the above principles apply also in cases when a Bahá'í finds himself involved in situations of civil disorder. We have, however, advised the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States that under the present circumstances in that country it is preferable that Bahá'ís do not buy nor own arms for their protection or the protection of their families.

Here we have it – an explicit proclamation from Bahá'í officialdom that firearms ownership is discouraged.

With that, I can safely say that I am not joining and will not join the Bahá'í faith.

---

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE

1. Self-Defense, Guidance on by Universal House of Justice, first written or published 1969-05-26

NOTES

1. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal blogs, micro-blogs, etc. – Facebook / Google Plus / Twitter / Wordpress / Xanga
      
      
   2. The Weekly Sedition – Facebook / Twitter / Wordpress / Yahoo!
      
      
   3. Tea Party Nation

---

Copyright © 2013 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepad++.

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upublic.tv Introductory Survey

Recently I decided that it's time to resurrect The Weekly Sedition as a video series or radio show or podcast or whatever – something besides a simple blog.

Since I last produced a show at Channel 27, the station has switched hands, from Quote Unquote to uPublic TV. So recently I stopped by the uPublic offices to see what the signup procedures are – I was told to go to the site, which redirected me to the uPublic meetup.com group. There I had to fill out an introductory survey to join the group. Here are my answers:

Write a short bio

I was a producer at Channel 27 for a few years and am looking to get back into the game. More information is available upon request.

Please answer these questions completely. How did you find out about his group?

UPublic -- From the web and another producer.

This meetup -- I talked to someone at the 3rd St NW office. He told me to sign up at http://upublicans.com, which redirected to here.

Why do you want to join this group?

To learn how to develop content for Channel 27 and other media outlets, and to "get back in the game."

How much television program production experience do you have?

About 12 years on Channel 27 through Quote Unquote.

Do you understand that you are required to attend two mandatory classes before getting access to any other resources?

Yes. Quote Unquote has a similar requirement. Most organizations are like that, and the ones that aren't are asking for trouble.

Besides the two mandatory classes, what other classes would you like to attend?

What's available, and what are the requirements (costs, prerequisites, etc.) ?

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NOTES

1. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal blogs and micro-blogs – Wordpress / Xanga

---

Copyright © 2013 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepad++.

A Question about Abortion and Homosexuality

If the biotech and medical fields were to devise some sort of prenatal test, accurate to 99 percent, that could determine whether the baby-to-be was going to be heterosexual or homosexual, would it then be acceptable to abort that baby if it turned out to be homosexual?

This of course assumes that sexual orientation is a genetically-determined trait – something that has yet to be scientifically proven.

== ++ == ++ == ++ == ++ == ++ == ++ == ++ == ++ == ++ ==

Comments posted to the original article on Xanga

• Even before reading this, my mind went there when I read your title, bcause pro-abortion folks have said it's okay to abort due to possible birth defects or illnesses, or even because the "fetus" (read baby) is not the biological sex of male or female that they would prefer. Swear to any higher power you want, I have been meaning to post this very question.
  4/5/2013 3:30 AM lonelywanderer2
  
  
• I would also ask the reverse question. What if you wanted your child to be homosexual? Would it be acceptable to abort a heterosexual fetus?
  4/5/2013 3:32 AM lonelywanderer2
  
  
• Would it be a hate crime to abort a fetus that will grow up to be gay?
  4/5/2013 5:40 AM wordwarrior39
  
  
• This entire gay hoax is about Democrat Party power. So asking "intelligent" questions and trying to get the terminally stupid to see the light is a waste of time.
  
  And just as the Democrat Party couldn't care less about the sick, the downtrodden, the elderly, the poor, the children, the environment, they couldn't give a rat's rear end about gays.
  
  All the Democrat Party wants from gays is their votes and their campaign cash.
  4/5/2013 6:31 AM ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove
  
  
• The real question is not, "Isn't homosexuality genetically/hormonally determined?" The proper question, from the sceintific perspective is, "How much is genetic, how much is hormonal, how much is intrauterine, how much is extrauterine, how much is other factors?" Biology cannot determine complex human interactions, environment, family/social environment, and many more factors. Your question is biase inducing, and is impossible to answer. you'll simply have to frame the question to one which science can answer.
  4/5/2013 6:36 AM  Such_are_you
  
  
• It's legal to abort a baby simply because it's inconvenient.
  4/5/2013 8:10 AM blonde_apocalypse
  
  
• sure. i'm pro-choice, no exception. a woman has a right to abort for whatever reason.
  4/5/2013 10:03 AM flapper_femme_fatale
  
  
• It would seem to me that the mentallity that accepts aborting a fetus because of it's sexual preferance would also think it was fine to terminate an adults life based upon the same judgement of it's sexual perferance.
  4/6/2013 7:45 AM SacredChao
  
  
• I think that a woman's right to control what does and does not go on inside her body should not be infringed for any reason, although I frown on late-term abortion.
  4/7/2013 10:39 AM Facetiouseloquence
  
  
• Hmm – No idea here
  4/9/2013 1:54 PM BoulderChristina
  
  
• That’s a great question!! I am anti abortion and also anti homosexuality; since I will not by force cause homosexuals to give up that life style, I will not force women to give up their choice. I heard a comedian say one day, the Republicans want to stop abortions and not give free contraceptives and then resist paying for all the children that are born undesired. The entire system is broke; one can never stop a dandelion by removing just the flower. It will prevent passer bys from seeing them, but they are still there.
  4/17/2013 10:44 AM Lewis1122

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NOTES

1. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal blogs and micro-blogs – Wordpress / Xanga

---

Copyright © 2013 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepad++.

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What It's All About in the End

Shared a picture on Facebook –

Ain't that the truth.

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Copyright © 2013 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises.
This blog entry created with Notepad++.

Gun Owners are the True 99 % -- BOTE Math on American Gun-Related Deaths

Current mood: irate

For the uninitiated, "BOTE" stands for "back of the envelope" – cocktail napkins rip and tear too much to used for anything other than as napkins.

32,000 – annual number of firearms-related deaths in America (source: CDC)

270,000,000 – number of guns in America's private sector (BATFE estimate – other estimates double or triple this number)

Now we simply divide the first number (32,000) by the second number (270,000,000) to get a guesstimate of the number of guns involved in fatal incidents in America. Granted, this is rather inaccurate in that it assumes that each fatality involved a separate gun – the recent spree killers in Aurora, Colorado and Newton, Connecticut that Senator Feinstein is gleefully using to justify her latest victim disarmament scheme used the same firearms to kill multiple people. The fact is, that VD movement was rather stagnant here in the States after the year 2000 – this is just what the Senator needed to kick-start it back to life. As the adage goes, "never let a crisis go to waste."

(32,000) / (270,000,000) = 0.0001185185 – that's 0.0118518519 % of American guns are the ones that "kill people in America" (guns don't kill people – when was the last time you saw one fly around on its own, load itself, point itself at anyone and pull its own trigger? But try telling that to an advocate of victim disarmament.)

So to comply with the Senator's demands, allegedly to prevent spree killers like Lanza and Horton, the other 99.9881481481 percent of American gun owners simply must give up their liberty and property. Never mind that the 99% here never engaged in such evil, nor have any desire to do so.

Never mind that the 1994 "assault weapon" ban signed by Waco Willie Clinton was a dismal failure in stopping such massacres (or any other sort of crime) – the 101 California Street shootings were carried out using two pistols that the State of California had declared illegal six years before (the crappy Intratec TEC-9). What Feinstein wants, Feinstein is determined to get, and to Hell with the truth, or the consequences.

Calculations done with Libre Office Calc

Here's some more from the international scene:

Figure 1 – Gun-related deaths vs guns per capita, by country
The data used to make the above graph [PDF]

Sources for the above graph

List of countries by firearm-related death rate, Number of guns per capita by country

Graph made using Gnumeric

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NOTES

1. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal micro-blogs – Facebook / Google Plus / Twitter / Xanga
   2. Personal blogs – Wordpress / Xanga
   3. The Weekly Sedition – Facebook / Wordpress

---

Copyright © 2012 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.

Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises. Webmaster Mike Blessing.

This blog entry created with Notepad++.

Guns aren't the problem, and never really were

Current mood: irate, pissed

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fwd: Guns aren't the problem, and never really were
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 22:16:38
From: Mike Blessing
To: LPNM Discussion list @ Yahoo!, My Public Email Archive, The Weekly Sedition @ Yahoo!, New Mexicans for Liberty
BCC: [80 individuals]

Re: Gun Arguments Die in Latest Massacre

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Guns aren't the problem, and never really were
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 01:51:55
From: Libertarian Party of New Mexico <lpnm.chair@gmail.com>
To: <llinthicum@abqjournal.com>, <opinion@abqjournal.com>

"And it’s time for Americans to stop talking about our individual rights and start accepting our collective responsibilities."

With that one sentence, Ms. Linthicum disavows the one thing that separates America from the rest of the world – the United States is the only country with the notion of individual rights written into its core documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

She says "I don’t want to hear that it’s not guns that are the problem, people are." Well, she's going to, and not just from me, from what I see on the Journal's website. Because it's the truth. Inanimate objects such as guns, knives and baseball bats don't cause violent crime, as she alleges. That's like saying cars cause drunk driving.

Then she says she doesn't want to hear about how an armed teacher could have prevented the tragedy. Again, she doesn't want to hear the truth. She's got an agenda to promote and doesn't want anything to get in the way.

Fact is, Linthicum's pet cause of victim disarmament legislation has been a stagnant one since the year 2000. Twenty dead kids in a public school is just what she needed to bring it back to life.

Why hasn't she asked any questions about Adam Lanza's psychiatric state at the time of the tragedy? Was he doped up on Ritalin, Prozac or any other anti-depressant?

And about the shootings themselves:

Why is it that not many (if any) people shoot up private schools or religious schools like this? What makes the public schools so special in this regard?

Why is it that there's never any coverage of these sort of incidents happening with homeschooling families? After all, quite a few of those in the homeschooling movement are also supporters and exercisers of the right to own and carry weapons.

Why is it that these sorts of shootings never seem to happen at gun shows, at gun stores or at shooting ranges? After all, by Linthicum's brand of thinking, these are the places that they should happen the most at – lots of guns present, lots of ammo present.

Anyway, Linthicum wants us to put our inalienable Constitutional, civil, God-given human rights aside for her notion of "collective responsibility." Well, what happens when her side loses an election, and she becomes subordinate to someone else's notion of "collective responsibility" – a version that she doesn't particularly care for? Maybe then she'll learn to appreciate that "outdated" notion of individual rights?

I can only hope so.

_______________________________________________________________________

Mike Blessing / Phone – 505-249-1248
State Chair, Libertarian Party of New Mexico

Who owns you? Who runs your life? Who should – you or someone else?
Freedom is the answer – what's the question?

"If you wanna live long on your own terms
You gotta be willing to crash and burn"– Motley Crue, "Primal Scream"

---

NOTES

1. Links to this post
   
   
2. Reposted –
   
   
   1. Personal micro-blogs – Facebook / Google Plus / Twitter / Xanga
      
      
   2. Personal blogs – Wordpress / Xanga / Yahoo!
      
      
   3. LPUSA / LPNM – LPNM Blog / LPNM Official Facebook group / New Mexico Libertarians Facebook group / [LPNM-discuss] Yahoo! group
      
      
   4. The Weekly Sedition – Facebook / Wordpress / Yahoo!
      
      
   5. Duke City Fix / NMPolitics.org / Tea Party Nation
      
      

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Copyright © 2012 Libertarian Party of New Mexico and Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.

Produced by KCUF Media, a division of Extropy Enterprises. Webmaster Mike Blessing.

This blog entry created with Notepad++.