ovo

Trevor Blake: Vibrotifer. Silent, color, 31 seconds. Battery holder, motor, screws, toothbrushes, on/off button. Also called vibrobot, bristlebot, skitterbot. March 2010.

Trevor Blake. Portland, Oregon USA. 1 March 2010.

Cheesy robot pilots battle for the planet and disco nightlife. You have seen these pilots massed outside travel agents – you know they move when you’re not watching – here the awful truth is revealed at last in high definition. First made in 2004 in standard 4:3, now regenerated at great personal cost from the original source files, extra string and leeches. Special note – the last version had a different president. The choice of current president is simply a matter of accuracy and pilots have no political bias – they hate everybody equally.

Another video that has me thinking of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick.

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

American Family Association, Bible Ignored, Trainer Dies:

[The AFA calls for the death by stoning of a whale and the whale's owners] But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn’t kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, “the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:29)

NCR Hanelsblad, More Priests’ Abuse Victims Speak Out:

Over the last few days, 15 men have come forward to share stories of abuse at the hands of Dutch Salesian priests in the 1960s. One of the accused is now one of the most powerful in the order.

BBC, Voodoo Religion’s Role in Helping Haiti’s Quake Victims:

“Some Christian communities do not want to give food to voodoo followers.”

The Guardian, Gay Activists Attack Ugandan Preacher’s Porn Slideshow:

Martin Ssempa, one of the main backers of a bill that would impose the death penalty for some offenders, aired the explicit slideshow to several hundred people during a church service in Kampala yesterday. Explaining his decision to display the images, the evangelical preacher said it was necessary to educate people “about what homosexuals do”.

The Guardian, Malawi Police Launch Operation Against High-Profile Gay and Lesbian People:

Fears of backlash across Africa as US evangelists accused of spreading religious zeal behind homophobic campaigns. Okware Romano, a protester, said: “I have a verse in the bible in Leviticus 20 verse 13. It says that homosexuals should be put to death … yes.”

Miami Herald, Adoption ‘Lawyer’ Tied to Child Sex Case:

The man providing legal advice to American church workers charged with trying to take children out of Haiti did jail time in the United States for bank fraud years before emerging as the key suspect in a child prostitution ring in El Salvador, according records and interviews.

Political Insider, Georgia’s Christian Right Comes Out Against Bill Aimed at Child Prostitution:

The weight of the state’s Christian right movement just came down in opposition to a pair of bills that would steer young girls under the age of 16 into diversionary programs instead of arresting them on charges of prostitution.

The Local, Jesuit School Sex Abuse Scandal Spreads Through Germany:

The scope of a child sex abuse scandal that was uncovered at an elite Berlin Catholic school last week has spread to other parts of Germany and beyond, the provincial superior for the country’s Jesuit order Stefan Dartmann has revealed.

Sky News, Russian Orthodox Believers Hospitalised After Drinking Holy Water:

Those affected, including 48 children, are being treated in hospital for acute intestinal pain after drinking water from wells around a local church last week.

National Organization of Women, NOW Denounces Justifiable Terrorism Defense in Wichita Murder Trial:

Roeder has admitted shooting Dr. Tiller in the head as the physician ushered at Sunday morning church service. But Roeder and his lawyers say this heinous act wasn’t murder because he was driven by his religious fervor to save unborn children. Under Kansas law, voluntary manslaughter is the “unreasonable but honest belief” that the use of force was justified.

CBS News, Ex Mistress Vanessa Bulls Says Preacher Killed Wife:

Reverend Matt Baker drugged his wife, handcuffed her to the bed under the guise of spicing up their marriage, then smothered her with a pillow until she died in 2006.

Part of a series that never ends [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] and etc.  The American Family Association should be subject to federal investigation for the call to murder based on religion.  The sex laws in Uganda are horrid, but not as horrid as they’ve been portrayed. Based on the amount of sexual abuse of children among Christian clergy, perhaps the State of Georgia is protecting a monopoly in standing against child prostitution laws.

I’ve been told more than once and more than twice that without religion (preferably the religion of the person talking to me) there is no moral guidance and people will act as beasts.  Here are people who had religion, many acting as leaders and experts in their religion, who are acting like beasts.  Was the breakdown in their religion or in the individuals?  If the breakdown is in the religion, then the religion is in need of improvement or being abandoned.  If the breakdown is in the individual, what was broken in the religion that put these people in charge?  I can find examples of people acting as beasts in the name of atheism, particularly in The Terror.  Hundreds of men and women have been killed by atheists because these men and women were religious.  Why, then, are there billions upon billions of men and women killed for their religion by other religious people?  In a straight body count, atheism is less murderous than any religion or all religions.  The fine blog Dwindling in Unbelief has a handy score card of those killed by God in the Bible compared to those killed by Satan in the Bible.  Guess who stands tall on the more majestic mountain of corpses?

Moral behavior demands choice.  If I’m forced to help someone or forced to hurt someone I am not making a moral choice.  Where there is an omnipotent and all-powerful God who has decided for me what I am to be and do, I have no choice.  Where there is religion, there is no morality.  Moral behavior is limiting the harm we cause by learning from our mistakes.  Over time we can become less immoral, even if we never become all-moral.

On 2 March 1982, author Philip K. Dick died.  It was in 1982 that a friend recommended I read Valis, which I enjoyed enough to read all the rest of PKD’s books.  Eventually I collected around 70 titles by and about PKD.  This was after the film Blade Runner but before Total Recall, which started a wave of interest in his work.  Most of the PKD books I had were first editions I’d bought for next to nothing.

Among the books was Divine Invasions, a biography by Lawrence Sutin.  I read Divine Invasions around 1994.  A detail in this book (confirmed by Search for Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982 by Anne Dick) inspired me to box up all my PKD books and sell them at a loss just to get them out of my house.  PKD loved to get married but didn’t like staying married.  To get one of his wives out of the way, he drugged her then had her committed to a mental hospital.  That freed him up for the next marriage.  This fact overshadowed all the enjoyment I had taken from his books.

This fact hasn’t lost its impact for me, but in 2010 I can also remember my enjoyment of his books.  What puzzles me is something that puzzles me about author H. P. Lovecraft.  Why is PKD forgiven for acts that other authors would not be forgiven for?  It isn’t hidden that PKD did this – why are forward-thinking fans accommodating to him for this while being up in arms over much less from other authors?  Readers (especially those on the left) will rail night and day against an author that uses certain words, or was once a member of a certain group, but who harmed no one.  PKD harmed someone, but, well, he’s so cosmic!

Previously published in OVO 11 CONTROL (September 1991).

THE STATE CREATES ITS OWN ENEMIES

Goulishly capitalizing on the tragedy of a mass murder, the anti-gun forces are surging forward with their plans for total gun confiscation. If law-abiding private citizens were disarmed, they claim, criminals and crazies would be unable to kill and maim. That’s an obvious lie–criminals, by definition, disobey laws, and madmen can kill with knives, cars, or champagne bottles as easily and as senselessly as they can with guns. The not-so-secret agenda of the State and its apologists is clear: disarm peaceful citizens to render them powerless. Turn law-abiding Americans into criminals with the stroke of a legislative pen. Anyone who refuses to surrender his or her weapons would become an Enemy Of The State, much the same as any armed citizen is right now in the Soviet Union, or Communist China, or Socialist Nicaragua, or Fascist El Salvador, or Monarchist Great Britain. Gun confiscation is non-partisan–it is always and forever aimed at anyone disliked by the current gang in power.

GUN SEIZURE SPARKED 1776 REVOLUTION

The American Revolution began in a dispute over gun control when British Redcoats marched toward Lexington and Concord to disarm farmers there. London claimed to be the “legitimate” government ruling America, just as Washington or Sacremento or Albany claims to be today. And their attempt to disarm us, stems from the same power lust that drove King George. We must, therefore, hold onto our guns–legally or illegally–for the very same reason the colonists did.

THE TRUTH ABOUT GUN OWNERSHIP

The anti-gunners, certain that the role of government is to grant privileges and dictate behavior, shout that citizens have no reason to be “allowed” to own assault rifles, which have “no legitimate sporting use.” The Constitution, though, says nothing about “a well-regulated sporting club” being necessary. We do not own handguns, assault rifles, shotguns, and other powerful weapons because we are hunters or plinkers or collectors. We do not even own guns because the Constitution “allows” us to. The Constitution does not “grant” rights. It recognizes rights already and irrevocably held forever by the people themselves (individuals), and forbids government from trampling on them. We have a right to keep and bear arms regardless of whether the Second Amendment exists or not! All Article Two guarantees is that we shouldn’t have to defend that right against “our” federal government. We’ve seen that simple guarantee erode, though, haven’t we?

The real reason for gun ownership is to protect the individual from the State, whether it be an invading State from accross the seas or a domestic State grown tyrannical and oppressive. The goal of total, repressive confiscation is clear in the subtle, shifting arguments of the anti-gun forces. When handguns were the target, they clamored prohibition because handguns were not militia-type weapons protected by the Second Amendment. Now they cry for assault rifle bans because “mere citizens” have no business possessing “military-style” weapons!

These eager confiscators rightly point out that assault rifles, handguns, and indeed all “weapons” have only one purpose: to kill. Again they speak a truth, but only partially. The unasked question is, “To kill whom? And under what circumstances?” The answer is, “To kill any who attempt to rob, maim, rape, or kill us.” Even that answer, though, does not fully express the most important reason for gun ownership. Only a small number of people are actually touched by criminal violence. The State, though, touches each and every one of us every hour of every day. People in government seek to tax our earnings to pay for their whims, to draft our children to fight in wars they start, to regulate and interfere with our lives out of pure love of power and their desire to wield it. They have become as tyrannical as any Tory redcoat, Soviet Commissar, or Nazi Gestapo. And they are coming to steal your last line of defense against them. Will you meekly obey?

GUN CONTROL ENFORCED AT GUNPOINT

When any law against guns is passed, how is it backed up? How will the State remove banned weapons from private hands? How will agents of the State disarm the citizenry? Why, by the use of guns, of course! This contradiction has never bothered statists. Why are handguns and assault rifles evil and wicked in the hands of private citizens, yet perfectly fine in the hands of employees of the State? If this is truly “government by the people” why do we see the servants disarming their masters by force? What do they fear from us, if theirs is a legitimate, benevolent government? If the State does not seek to control us, why does it want us disarmed?

The usual answer–stripped of equivocation–is that “mere citizens” are like half-witted children, incapable of safely handling “dangerous” commodities such as weapons or explosives or medicines or information. And only when some half-witted children pass a civil service exam or are elected by other halfwits to work for the wise and benevolent State do they magically become smart and honest and trustworthy enough to carry weapons and decide whom shall be “allowed” to possess guns and what sort of design, shape, or weight such weapons shall be.

Sounds pretty condescending and paternalistic, doesn’t it? That’s how they view us. Sheep for the shearing at tax time, cannon fodder during war time, and dangerous idiots the rest of the time.

And they dare ask us to obey their decrees?

GOVERNMENT CREATES CRIME

What many gun owners refuse to face, usually by saying “it can’t happen in America,” is that the government can and does create new classes of criminals with the mere stroke of a pen. In 1919, Prohibition turns millions of people overnight from sociable drinkers to Enemies Of The State. The victimless crime of ingesting alcohol turned neighborly, peaceful people into fair game for imprisonment, fines, and seizure of property. Some fought back, often with simple shotguns against “revenooers” armed with assault rifles (the Thompson sub-machine gun) in a modern version of the Whiskey Rebellion. The Prohibition amendment created crime by definition. If, tommorow, smoking or drinking coffee or owning a book were declared illegal, the State would suddenly point to a new “criminal underworld” of massive proportions. In the eyes of the State they would become “a new breed of criminal” to be weeded out of society and thrown into prisons. So it is with any prohibition of popular activities, including gun ownership.

GUN PROHIBITION DISARMS THE POOR

Let’s face it–police respond faster to calls from Beverly Hills than they do to calls from Watts. And the rich can afford armed guards, to boot! When so-called Saturday Night Specials are banned, does it affect those who can spend hundreds on a fine pistol? No. Does it prevent criminals from stealing whatever weapon they want or buying it on the black market? No. The only people harmed by a “cheap handgun” ban are the honest poor who have hardly enough money to feed their children, let alone defend them from inner-city marauders. Any form of gun control disarms those least able to defend themselves. And what good is a 15 day waiting period to someone who is threatened by an armed criminal coming by tonight? When one perceives a threat, one should be able to aquire protection immediately.

GUN PROHIBITION IS RACIST

The Gun Control Act of 1968 was rammed down the throats of the American public, blatantly exploiting then-current fears of gun-toting black rioters by implying that the law would help to disarm American Blacks, other minorities, and all dissenters at a time of civil upheaval. to paraphrase a popular slogan, “If the government does not trust minorities with guns, minorities cannot trust government.” Ask any Native American.

In a mirror image case 20 years later, assault rifle bans are being ramrodded through legislatures by appealing to fears that gun-toting white racists are on the loose.

The real and only purpose of gun control is to disarm the innocent and the peaceful, of whatever race, creed, or social status.

GUN PROHIBITION IS SEXIST

The same goes for women. Police and purported feminists urge women to resist rape with fists, fingernails, keyrings, and screams. But why should any woman allow an assailant to get within arms length of her? Why don’t Women’s Rights activists in or out of government reveal the most effective way for a woman to defend herself: to buy a gun and learn to use it? The truth is, they want women to feel weak and perpetually threatened so that they will beg the State for protection. A woman standing proud, armed, and fearless is the last thing most self-proclaimed “feminists” want (since that would undercut their perverse longing for a huge paternalistic government!)

GOVERNMENTS KILL MORE THAN ANY MASS-MURDERER

How can people who work for or worship the State–statists–point to the murder of five children in a schoolyard or twenty people in a restaurant and claim that as sufficient reason to disarm tens of millions of Americans? Are they so presumptuous as to suggest that we are capable of such violent madness? Perhaps there is a degree of psychological projection going on here: statists feel within themselves the urge to kill and project it onto the people they fear the most–us, the victims of the State. For while tens of millions of people own guns, only a minuscule fraction ever use those guns to aggress against others. Every State, however has guns and even more powerful and terrifying weapons in its clutches and every State has used them, will use them, and are using them to murder hundreds, thousands, and millions of innocent, unarmed people.

How can the insane mind of a Patrick Purdy ever dream of matching the death toll of the most minor skirmish in the smallest of wars or “police actions?” The murder of five innocent children is heart-rendingly tragic, but how many thousands of innocent children were roasted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How many unarmed, peaceful, young people were slaughtered in Tienanamen Square? How many women, children, and old people have been shot by the bullets of “their own” government in Vietnam, Cambodia, Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, India, Israel, Afghanistan, Tibet, Argentina, Libya, Ireland, Russia, South Africa, Chile, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Iran, and on and on and on for every State you can name, even “our” United States. For statists to use the “mass murder” of a few people as an excuse to disarm Americans when the State is the largest, bloodiest, longest-lived institution of mass-murder in all of history is appallingly hypocritical. Do we owe allegiance to the apologists for such atrocities? NEVER!

Private ownership of weaponry is the last defense against all tyranny, foreign and domestic. The thought that there might come a time when peaceable gun owners (even members of the patriotic NRA) must take arms against an American Li Peng commanding the local police and the US military is anathema to nearly everyone. The possibility, however, must be faced. A lot of American colonists were horrified at the thought of defending themselves against “their” king’s army, too.

CIVILIAN-BASED DEFENSE PREFERED TO STANDING ARMY

Some say that the Constitution “granted” the right to keep and bear arms to provide for a “well-regulated militia.” Since we have a standing army, the argument goes, civilians no longer need to own guns. Yet that amendment was written precisely because the British used that exact argument in their attempts (from 1768 to 1777) to disarm the colonists. Americans detested the standing armies of the British government and knew that civilian-based defense was the ultimate, perhaps the only protection against any threat to liberty, whether from London, Moscow, or Washington, D.C.

DEFYING UNJUST LAWS IS RIGHT AND PROPER!

When the day comes (and it will, if we don’t raise our voices in protest now) that the Imperial State commands its subjects (that’s how they view you and me, regardless of what they say) to turn in our weapons, what will we do? Make no mistake–if people refuse to surrender or destroy their weapons, they will be dealt with by heavily armed police; they will be imprisoned, fined, perhaps even shot if they try to defend their Constitutional–nay, their human–rights.

Of whom should we be more wary–invading troops whose rule we would never sanction, or “our own” government, to which most of us grant some legitimacy and which is right here, right now, all around us? Perhaps paraphrasing a parent’s question will help provide an answer: If the State passed a law telling you to jump off a cliff, would you? No fair answering that “good, pure, sober, honest politicians wouldn’t let that happen.” With guns, it is happening right now.

And when that friendly cop on the beat (whom most gun owners exalt as a good man just doing his job and who may even be a fellow NRA member!) comes around to your house, he will come armed with “good government” handguns and assault rifles. “Sorry pal,” he’ll say, “but the law is the law.”

That possibility is something many gun owners–staunch defenders of law and order and supporters of local police–refuse to face. They blank out the fact that even–perhaps especially–in America, they may have to choose between owning their guns and facing the full implication of the Declaration of Independence,

“…that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it…”

Some would rather surrender meekly to the State, giving up their last shred of defense against tyranny, rather than face that choice. But if they do surrender their firepower, the choice will have been made. And it won’t matter whether our new masters speak Russian, Chinese, Japanese, English, or American Bureaucratese. They will be our masters nonetheless.

WHAT TO DO

First of all, keep your guns! Do not turn them in just because some law is passed ordering you to do so. That’s just what they want–sheeplike compliance. you are not a criminal. Don’t let the State treat you like one. The colonists who turned in their weapons to their Tory town governments soon learned the folly of their actions. Any government that outlaws gun ownership is an outlaw government! It is no more necessary to obey an oppressive, tyrannical State than it is to obey any thief who demands that you turn over your property under threat of death. We know the free person’s answer to such a demand. So does the State. That is why statists seek to browbeat us into disarming without a fight. They need the sanction of the victim. They cannot hope to disarm us by force. That would tip their hand and guarantee a revolution. But by stealth, instilled guilt, and appeals to our peaceful, law-abiding natures will they attempt to expropriate our only defense against their continued and increasing predations.

Resist the urge to obey the edicts of self-proclaimed rulers. Don’t walk timidly into a concentration camp filled with once-free men and women. Decry with every fiber of your being this trampling of our fundamental human rights!

THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS A CIVIL RIGHT, WITHOUT WHICH ALL OTHER CIVIL RIGHTS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEND.

THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS THE RIGHT TO OWN–AND PROTECT–YOUR BODY AND YOUR PROPERTY.

THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS THE RIGHT TO RESIST TYRANNY.

ANY WHO SEIZE GUNS ARE THIEVES OR TYRANTS.

Every law restricting free, immediate access to firearms is a direct attack on individual freedom. The course of action is up to you. Demand the repeal of all such laws or ignore them with impunity. But never accept them as legitimate restraints upon your liberty. Nothing legitimate can issue from the pen of tyrants.

Editor-in-Chief Tøger Seidenfaden of the newspaper Politiken has issued an apology to the descendants of Mohammed for the publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed. Muslim riots after the publication of these cartoons resulted in over one hundred deaths.  Don’t offend the Muslims.

The Ministry of Children, Equality, and Social Inclusion (Norway) has awarded Imam Mahdi Hassan of Tynset with the title Role Model of the Year.  “Mahdi Hassan is such a role model. He is visible, he has knowledge and a strong sense of commitment and makes use of these things to create a better day-to-day life for young people in Tynset.” Mr. Hassan told the newspaper Arbeidets Rett that he wants a ban on homosexuality: Homosexuality is prohibited in the Koran, and I believe in my religion.”  Regarding the death penalty for homosexuals, as prescribed in the Koran, Mr. Hassan said: “That must be up to each individual country to decide.  For myself I think that people must do what they want, and that people shouldn’t be punished for it.”  Don’t offend the Muslims.

United Kingdom Minister of Education Ed Balls has banned corporal punishment in schools, except for Muslim schools.  Don’t offend the Muslims.

A 23-year-old British woman told Dubai police she had been raped.  She was tested for drunkenness, charged with having illegal sex and faces up to six years in prison.  Don’t offend the Muslims.

Today the group Abu Sayyaf killed 11 people (ten civilians, one a baby girl, and a soldier) in the Philippines. Today a car bomb killed 18 people near two guesthouses in Kabul. The attack appears to have targeted non-natives who worked at the Indira Gandhi Child Health Institute. Today Qamar David was sentenced to life in prison in Kaarachi “for outraging religious feelings of Muslims” by sending a text message. Don’t offend the Muslims.

Don’t offend the Muslims.

Don’t offend the Muslims.

Don’t offend the Muslims.

This video is why director Michel Gondry should be the one to adapt The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Phillip K. Dick to film.

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.