Here is the bill: https://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h308/show

This link will take you to a website where you can quickly and easily email your Senators, Congressmen and the President: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/mail/?alertid=61046526&type=ML

I just sent the letter below to President Barack Obama (D), Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), and Representative John Carter (R-TX).

I’m writing out of a deep concern regarding the upcoming bill to be introduced by Congresswoman DeGette that will ban firearm magazines larger than 10 rounds. My wife and I are law-abiding citizens with military training and we each legally carry pistols for self defense. Every single weapon we own holds more than 10 rounds in the standard-capacity magazine that comes with the pistol. Even my subcompact pistols hold at least 13 rounds. I cannot help but believe that the framers of this bill are oblivious to the fact that many, many handguns come standard with magazines holding almost twenty rounds and many rifles have standard magazines that carry even more - there is nothing “high capacity” about these devices. This law will effectively cripple my constitutionally protected right to carry by banning every single standard magazine on the market for all of the firearms I own. Please, do the research and you will see that this bill does nothing to deter violent crime while making it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves. Vote against it.

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” -J. R. R. Tolkien

A lot of great quotes coming out of the woodwork at TheTruthAboutGuns.com today.

What’s the difference between wanting something and needing something?

Mark 12:44 is the best example I can find from the Bible. It’s Jesus' conclusion about the poor widow who put two meager coins into the offering box. He says that she has given more than all the wealthy with their lavish gifts,

“for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”

So, I didn’t know this, and I’ve been installing TrueCrypt from source every time I update my system, but via a comment on this guide page I found out that RealCrypt is a rebranded version of TrueCrypt that’s available in the RPMFusion repository. Hello, encrypted files (with no compiling required).

Just thought I’d share the knowledge since it’s Data Privacy Day.

Just opened my iGoogle page and the “Quotes Of The Day” widget had two very insightful quotes… so here they are!

To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.

- Aleister Crowley

He was right… but nowdays, the newspapers are failing due to their failure to adapt to the ubiquity of the internet… but I’m sure Aleister Crowley would say the same about ninety-nine percent of the 3.6 zetabytes of data consumed daily in the United States: “canned chatter” at best.

Everyone else has already seen this I’m sure, but I may as well put it here too. Bill O’Reilly, Brit Hume, Tiger Woods, and Christ.

A friend just sent me a link to a great essay written by a major in the US Army about his perceptions on the conflict in Afghanistan. If you have any interest in the situation in that country, or the condition of the United States-led effort there, it will be of interest to you.

This is my new favorite Christmas video… although I’m not sure what it has to do with Christmas. Anyway, these guys are awesome.

Is connecting to an unsecured wireless hotspot wrong?

I’ll admit, I’ve done it, and I always secure my own wireless networks as much as possible, but there are some pretty good points made here about the idea that while illegal in many places, it might not be wrong. What do you think? I’m divided.

Tried this idea today.
I found it on Lifehacker; the idea is to brew tea and use that to make hot chocolate rather than plain water. I used Constant Comment tea and Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate mix. Tasted great!

Fantastic post from Stuff Christians Like today - if you haven’t visited that site, you should.

I’m not even sure if this is real, but it’s HILARIOUS. Vladimir Putin rules in the shadow of… is that a mouse? Maybe a hamster?

Study Reveals Most Children Are Unrepentant Psychopaths!

VOTE ARMY.

Get it now!

“We’ve made piracy a community activity!”

Why The Prosperity Gospel Just Ain’t Right.

Did it really matter?

A great open letter to the U.S. government.

Laser cannons on fighter jets… we’re only one step away from the guys below, plus sharks with lasers on their heads.

I really wish I had a (better) picture for this post.

So this buddy of mine (whose name was Sunshine) had a great shirt. It was kind of an ugly yellow color, and it had three things on the front, which I’ve attempted to re-create below.

Now, of course upon seeing the Nike Swoosh, the first three words that pop into any American’s mind are “Just Do It.” These words are followed by a strong desire to go watch the Chicago Bulls play basketball until one remembers that Michael Jordan is now (for the last time) retired. That’s not important, though; what’s important is those three words. Just do it.

Q would be impressed.

When I see things like this, I wonder first why I don’t have time to do things like this.

Then I wonder why I don’t have the motivation.

“I believe in the United States of America, as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.”
– William Tyler Page

Iraq Swears By Dowsing Rod Bomb Detector

Today our pastor likened Christian life to flying a helicopter.

It’s not much of a stretch, and it’s not all that amazing a metaphor - probably a couple hundred people have used it before. However, one thing that did seem really insightful to me was that the pastor correlated all the people in the back of that helicopter to my Christian life.

So here’s the basic metaphor: can you fly a helicopter? (For all you pilots out there, hush up.) So if you can’t fly a helicopter, would you climb up front, during a flight, and tell the pilot to scram, that you’re taking over? For the pilots, would you tolerate some passenger climbing up front (or even just getting on the intercom) and telling you to move aside, they can do a better job?

Google’s Android Goes Military

Why do we use the word “Hadji?”

Seth Godin gives good reasons to turn off the TV…

These guys are awesome!

I have just become aware, via Slashdot, that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The BBC has this to say:

In awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian committee is honouring his intentions more than his achievements.

For comparison, here’s a list of my intentions:

• I intend to cure cancer (all forms), HIV/AIDS, and every other disease. Looks like they better give me the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.
• I intend to end world hunger and poverty. I smell a Nobel Peace Prize!
• It is among my long-term goals to discover, in a flash of brilliance, the Theory of Everything. Definitely an intention worthy of a Nobel Prize for Physics, no?
• Also, I’m going to write a book which every person in the world will read and it will instantly become their favorite. Sounds like a Nobel Prize for Literature is coming my way!

I guess they can keep the prize for Chemistry, but I definitely deserve the other four for my achievements intentions, don’t you think?

Just a quick blurb of good reading today in honor of Cyber Securityhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif Awareness month (via the Official Google Blog)….

• First, update all your software. Seriously. Run updates on everything.
• If you’re using IE, stop right now and go get a better browser. I use Firefox (since Chrome Just Doesn’t Work™ on Fedora yet… actually, I just found this article that says it does, so I’ll be trying this), and Mozilla has a pretty nifty little utility to make sure your plugins are updated as well.
• Mac users, ya’ll aren’t immune. (No, I don’t know what you should do about it, I just wanted to make sure you knew.)
• And neither are us Linux geeks. If you’re a “sloppy Linux admin,” you’re leaving yourself (and your people) at risk.
• If you really want to be secure, here’s a set of guides from the NSA for securing a lot of common operating systems.
• Last thing - remember, there are other ways of having your security compromised that don’t involve having your computer hacked. People can find out a lot from Facebook.

I recently rediscovered Carl Sagan’s Cosmos when the video below was posted to Slashdot. I had forgotten how awesome the Cosmos series was. One of the best lines in Cosmos, I think, is in the very beginning of this video….

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

It reminds me of God’s words to Job in Job 38:4-11.

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding,
Who set its measurements? Since you know.
Or who stretched the line on it?
On what were its bases sunk?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Or who enclosed the sea with doors
When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb;
When I made a cloud its garment
And thick darkness its swaddling band,
And I placed boundaries on it
And set a bolt and doors,
And I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther;
And here shall your proud waves stop’?

That’s right, me ’earties, ’tis come again: International Talk Like A Pirate Day! And a good mornin’ to yer, scallywag!

This post was spawned by this article from Time Magazine, wherein a 15-year-old is allowed to use a computer on standardized test, since his handwriting is so bad. I say fail him. If he can’t read and write, then he doesn’t meet the standard. Especially considering that the reason he can’t write is that he likes the attention of being “that kid with really bad handwriting.”

An open letter to that kid’s mom: Child-whacking sticks are on sale wherever wooden spoons are sold.

Someone at work showed me this video yesterday and I think it’s hilarious. Definitely a cop-out post so I don’t have to write anything and I get to say I posted!

I support citizenship tests for members of Congress.

My wife sent me this article last night, after the two of us and a couple of our friends had a pretty long discussion of personal responsibility.

The article is about a woman who’s suing her college because she can’t find a job. A woman who graduated with a 2.7. A woman whose job search has lasted only three months. A woman whose excuse is, “It doesn’t make any sense: They went to school for four years, and then they come out working at McDonald’s and Payless. That’s not what they planned.”

Here’s a great article my wife Twittered @me today from Time Magazine. One good line: “A lasting marriage is the reward, usually, of hard work and self-sacrifice.” Now, that’s certainly not to say it isn’t worth it. But it’s like anything else: a good marriage doesn’t come from a microwave. Is there hope for the American Marriage?

Wow. I own an aluminum MacBook, and it’s pretty tough, but this Panasonic Toughbook is ridiculous. Wish I could pull the video over, but Forbes’ website doesn’t allow it, so you’ll have to click through to see the ridiculousness.

Tesla Motors, which produces the all-electric Tesla Roadster, is one of my favorite companies to watch. I saw a review in Road and Track magazine that gives very good marks to the Roadster, and noticed something I’d missed - Tesla now makes a sedan! A quick look at the company’s website shows the sedan does 0-60 in 5.6 seconds, seats seven, and goes 240 miles on a 45 minute charge. With gas averaging $2.548 a gallon nationally, the Tesla Model S sedan’s starting price of $49,900 doesn’t look so bad!

I meant to post this video a couple of months ago when it first came out and I found it in my “stuff to blog” pile, so here it is. How much cooler does it get than cooperative flying robotic penguins? Am I the only one that thinks this is AWESOME?!

This post is a response to the 30 Days To A Better Man project, Day 12: Create Your Bucket List. I read through the challenge yesterday and I’ve had a lot of real trouble coming up with anything. I’m not a huge thrill-seeker, so jumping out of airplanes or cliff diving or whatever sounds cool but I’m not going to have an unfulfilled life if I never get to do those things. There was a post a while back on Art Of Manliness about every man needing adventure… Turns out I’ve already done lots of things on that list, like

Found this article via Slashdot the other day, thought I’d share it. Not that I recommend downloading music illegally, just that I think some of the things that the music and motion picture industry says and does to “protect their business” and “protect the artists” are ridiculous.

I found this article in Time magazine as I perused a copy while waiting in line to get my hair cut last week. The article is about the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona; what makes them special is the “Thunderbird Oath Of Honor.” While they don’t require graduates to take the oath, it’s recommended and included in the graduation ceremony.

I will strive to act with honesty and integrity. I will respect the rights and dignity of all people. I will strive to create sustainable prosperity worldwide. I will oppose all forms of corruption and exploitation. And I will take responsibility for my actions. As I hold true to these principles, it is my hope that I may enjoy an honorable reputation and peace of conscience.

A couple of days back, Seth Godin posted a thought-provoking question. He asks, “Where are you?” on a spectrum of “greed/joy/work/good” in your current job, and in your current spending. Where am I? He mentions a few extremes, and I think it’s interesting to see who his saints are. First one is, “[Y]ou donate all your belongings and income to the poorest and sickest in the slums and ghettos.” Then, “Would you take a 10% pay cut to market a product you truly love and believe in?”

This month’s issue of Metropolitan Home (which I subscribed to for free) has a very interesting article about a very cool house.

It’s 25 feet square - 575 square feet.

My current apartment feels cozy, and it’s 1019 square feet - almost twice the size of the house in the article. But I can’t help wondering how cool it would be to get rid of all the clutter that having so much space generates. Maybe I wouldn’t go quite as extreme as 575 square feet

I’ve decided to get on board with Art of Manliness’ 30 Days To A Better Man project, on condition that anything they end up including in the project doesn’t violate my own sense of manliness.

This post is a response to the 30 Days To A Better Man project, Day 1: Define your (five) core values.

Five core values. At some level it seems ridiculous to categorize myself by five finite words, but here goes. You can click each value to read a detailed explanation.

This quote popped up in the Quotes of the Day widget on my iGoogle start page… it goes very well with my post from yesterday .

“Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.” -Edith Sitwell

My roommate’s New Yorker from a couple of weeks back has a great article on using the full court press in basketball. It also mentions Lawrence of Arabia and King David’s younger years.

What do all these things have in common? Incredible success, due to incredibly unconventional tactics. While I’m inclined to dismiss claims that doing things differently from everyone else will always work out perfectly, I think it’s great to examine every single thing you do and ask if there’s really a good reason to do it the way you’re doing it, or even to do it at all! Romans 12:2 says 1) don’t be like everyone else just because they expect it, and 2) transform yourself through the renewing of your mind. So why are you doing what you’re doing? Why are you doing it the way you’re doing it?

And a little bit scary: this article, emailed to me by a friend, details a San Diego couple who are being told that they will be subject to fines if they continue to hold a regular Bible study in their homes without a “major use permit.” The article is watery on legal details, but I assume the law in San Diego County differentiates between primarily residential and primarily commercial properties, and that churches provide income to the county because they must be zoned as commercial properties. But this is the couple’s home! There is no basis for the prosecution of anyone holding a gathering in their home save that the gathered persons participate in some illegal activity; last I checked, Bible study was still (thankfully) legal in this nation. Anyone want to read the first amendment?

I’m all for getting things done as efficiently and thoroughly as possible, so when I saw this post on Lifehacker, I immediately installed the Wolfram Alpha Google extension in Firefox. It’s a great idea - two very different and very useful search engines, with the results on one page. One slight concern is that the Wolfram Alpha results take forever to load, but I can live with it.

The Simple Dollar had an article a few weeks back where Trent explained each item in his messenger bag (and Lifehacker has several such articles), so here’s my response. Trent wrote about the frugality behind each item in his bag; my bag is about convenience and readiness. I think that a man should be able to respond to his situation when necessary; part of that readiness is knowledge, and part of it is tools and equipment. It would be ridiculous to carry around enough gear to respond to every situation, but a minimal amount of gear can account for most of the likely situations I encounter.

Here’s how. It’s called OneBag, found via Unclutterer. I grew up as a Boy Scout, and while “Be Prepared” is a great motto, it does lend itself to taking too much stuff everywhere you go. At this point, I would argue that manliness is completely unrelated to the stuff you have with you (except perhaps a knife), and dependent on the physical readiness and skills you posses which will allow you to deal with whatever situations you encounter.

Seth Godin has a great post today about the difference between luxury goods and premium goods. His insight into luxury goods - “Luxury goods are organized waste,” is spot on. Luxury goods are when you pay more for a designer’s logo. I don’t buy luxury goods. Premium goods, he writes, are “Pay more, get more.” I own a $200 Benchmade knife. While it probably didn’t need to cost that much, it is very high quality. I wanted a premium knife when I bought it. There were plenty of $500+ luxury knives on the Benchmade website, but none of them would have performed any better than mine.

1. Because God said so (Matthew 5:28).
2. Because it makes you less of a man.

I thought it was great that a blog like Art of Manliness posted what they did about pornography. While the author would not agree with reason number 1 above - he writes, “it transforms porn into an even more desirable forbidden fruit… and prevents men from being honest in their need for help” - he does present a lot of good arguments and he’s certainly on the mark in his conclusion, if slightly indecisive - “I don’t think porn is good in any setting.”

GO ARMY.

I found this on Slashdot this week… it’s an article about how hard it is to fire teachers in California. I think that it says a lot about personal responsibility. The article notes that even when commissions found that a school district had reason to terminate teachers, they weren’t allowed to do so. One example reads, “The district wanted to fire a high school teacher who kept a stash of pornography, marijuana and vials with cocaine residue at school, but a commission balked, suggesting that firing was too harsh.” Isn’t marijuana ILLEGAL? And we wonder why some Californians are so screwed up! President Obama had this to say: “I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences.” Bravo. Now let’s see you fire some people who have no business working with children!

“To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.” -Shakespeare

Psalm 15:1-2 tells us that a man who walks with integrity will abide with the LORD. The Art of Manliness has an article this week on doing just that - and it’s one of the best articles I’ve read there yet. If you want a rock-solid explanation of integrity, read the article.

I read an article in the Birmingham Weekly a few weeks ago that really struck me, and I just found the page I’d clipped as I was wading through the deep piles of stuff on my desk. While the article is about other things, one paragraph near the end is worth noting for the on-the-money comments about real service in our culture.

“That’s where we’ve relegated service in our culture. We’ve made it something for the young to do instead of getting drunk … on a beach in Mexico,” writes the author. “But if you’ve reached that threshold tax bracket, don’t life a finger unless it’s tax deductible.”

Great article over at The Art Of Manliness on the men in the Battle of the Alamo. I think the three section headings say it all:

• Never compromise your values. (I Corinthians 16:13, Ephesians 6:11, 13-14)
• A great man keeps company with great men. (Psalm 111:1, I Corinthians 15:33)
• Great men are courageous in the face of adversity. (Deuteronomy 31:6, John 16:33)

If anyone has an original source on this story, please let me know - it’s hilarious!

The Art of Manliness blog has a good article today that’s just a list of “Unclassified Laws of Etiquette,” from a very, very old etiquette book. Here are a few of the best ones on the list:

• Never fail to tell the truth. If truthful, you get your reward. You will get your punishment if you deceive. (Proverbs 11:3)
• Never borrow money and neglect to pay. If you do, you will soon be known as a person of no business integrity. (Proverbs 6:1-5)
• Never fail to say kind and encouraging words to those whom you meet in distress. Your kindness may lift them out of their despair. (Proverbs 19:17)
• Never refuse to receive an apology. You may not receive friendship, but courtesy will require, when a apology is offered, that you accept it. (Matthew 18:21-22)
• Never give all your pleasant words and smile to strangers. The kindest words and the sweetest smiles should be reserved for home. Home should be our heaven. (I Peter 3:7)

Etiquette can be ridiculous when it moves beyond common sense and courtesy, but rules like these are a great application of Christian life and being a real man.

Just like our schools do!

Hooray, Johnny, you’ve come to school for 13 years and not killed anyone! Here’s your diploma! Hooray, Billy, you didn’t actually even come to school very much the last three years and you’ve been busted six times for marijuana possession, but you’re going to some Division I school on a basketball scholarship, so here’s your diploma!

No wonder our nation is failing… our workforce believes that they are entitled to all the benefits and none of the work - they’re told over and over in school that they’re special and good and perfect and, wonder of wonders, they actually believe it. While every person is created with some inalienable rights, a high-paying job isn’t one of them; that’s something you have to work for. And no, I don’t have one. Talent, motivation, and guidance are all necessary for results in any enterprise, but time is a critical element, and the discipline to work through that time. I think schools should teach kids discipline; I know that the business sector doesn’t generally care about a bachelor’s degree, and if all you have is a high school diploma, you may as well not apply, unless you intend to work as a janitor. Why? Because it doesn’t take anything to get a high school diploma today. All it takes to get a bachelor’s degree is a set of student loans and a few all-night study sessions to catch up after the debauchery of spring break.

I was listening to NPR today in the car and I heard a blurb about East Brunswick, NJ high school football coach Marcus Borden. I was surprised to learn that the US Supreme Court had declined to hear his case after he was barred from even bowing his head and taking a knee while his players prayed before games. The argument was that he had previously (for 23 years) led his players in prayer before games and that to allow him to bow his head showed that if a player didn’t pray he might not play, causing religious discrimination. I think it’s ridiculous and causes religious discrimination against the coach!

http://www.piday.org/
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19952.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10194354-38.html

I know, I’m getting married. But we all get carried away sometimes by marketing hype… what office worker can resist an Embody Chair? I think the next big step for me in living a frugal lifestyle and building wealth is to ditch the marketing. It’s amazing to me that I somehow still fall for marketing, since I browse ad-free, I don’t watch television, and most of the ads on Hulu (where I watch Bones with my fiancé) aren’t even for purchased products - they’re for stuff like Feed The Pig, which, ironically enough, is a website devoted to saving! So how do I get caught up in marketing hype? Somehow it happens.

Read This Article. Just do it.

This weekend I found, by way of Get Rich Slowly, a post from Coleman Unlimited that intrigued me about the usefulness of credit cards. The post’s basic point, lost on me when I made my New Years’ resolutions, is that some credit cards do, in fact, pay you money!

Upon checking my account online, I found that my credit card has earned between 0.35 and one percent cash back on all my purchases. My debit card, for comparison, earns half a percent.

Found a great article in GQ today (no, I don’t get the magazine, no, I’ve never picked it up before, I was waiting as my fiancée got her hair cut) on a great man, GEN David Petraeus. The whole article is available online, for which I give props to GQ. One of the recurring events in the article is a question GEN Petraeus poses to soldiers serving under him. “What have you learned?,” he queries them. It’s a great question for any man to focus on at day’s end; how have I made myself better today? What have I learned? Did I get stronger, physically, mentally, morally, somehow? The article is a remarkable portrait of a committed man.

While it does poke fun at the Christian religion (which is different from following Christ), this comparison of religions to programming languages made me laugh this morning. Aegisub: If programming languages were religions…

A friend of mine brought this article to my attention yesterday: 10 years later, school still sugar free and proud. It notes the surprising story of Browns-Mill Elementary School, and the principal who, according to the article, single-handedly removed soda and junk food from her school and got kids asking for broccoli. I think it’s terrific. Someone saw a problem, and, instead of complaining to the federal government for more money or new laws, went out and fixed it. Now, we can debate soy milk as a health food or the benefits of exercise for the brain all day long, but there’s no doubt that something positive happened at Browns-Mill, and there’s even less doubt that the federal, state, or even local government was necessary to pull it off. While I do support some level of funding from those levels of goverment to the nation’s schools, along with a baseline standard to which students should be held to receive a diploma, I think that it should be as hands-off as possible, so that parents can influence their childrens’ educations to the greatest extent. I have no idea how best to do it, but I applaud people like principal Dr. Yvonne Sanders-Butler who just do it anyway.

Yes, I have a degree in computer science. Yes, I own my own domain(s). No, I don’t host my own website.

It’s fantastic.

Lifehacker, one of my favorite websites, ran an article on hosting a domain with free tools. I’m all about free stuff. So here it is.