The idea for going back into the time machine, purchasing, and rereading this book was precipitated by the need to get my own contract for cryogenic interment up to date. Shortly after my brother died at the tender age of 56 in May this year, I was contacted by Ben Best of the Cryonics Institute (CI), and encouraged to sit down and draw up the contract, like, now. Continue reading
Ryan Bingham: How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.
Unbelievable for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is this is the second trial for the same alleged offense. The first trial ended with a hung jury, which the judge decided to call a mistrial rather than an acquittal. [How in the world does that happen? Maybe I’m naive, but we were always told in civics 101 that you cannot be tried for the same offense twice. Who thinks we have grounds for a petition to a judge to form a grand jury to investigate Federal Judge Nancy Edmunds (Eastern District, Michigan) and bring rapid indictments for gross judicial misconduct? Until that happens, we’re going to have to ride out the misconduct and we hope secure a second jury acquittal.]
We need everyone who can possibly find time to attend the trial to make plans for visiting the courtroom and standing in her corner as a group of outraged citizens who will never back down in support of the rule of law:
The essence of Leaving the Sandbox (LTS) strategy; everyone who can becomes a friendly leader in the community, creates the empowered, nonaggression way.
Recall the phrase I’ve coined for the new Libertarian Party strategy: (Citizen) Empowerment and (Government) Accountability. The Good Neighbor Libertarian (GNL (‘Genial’)) is my idealization of a person who helps crystallize the former. Rummaging around for clip art, I’m afraid I couldn’t find anything that fits my image of the GNL person (whom I conceive of as a man),[1] so I settled on Mr. Sunshine for this edition. Whether male or female, our GNL is the kind of person who opens doors to a bright new day. Continue reading
Francois Pienaar: I was thinking how a man could spend thirty years in prison, and come out and forgive the men who did it to him…
… and just in time for the Oscars. [I’m wondering whether the Academy Awards or the other various award ceremonies have some rules regarding release of movies by a particular director or studio at end of year. For example, “For Oscar consideration a given director/studio is limited to two November/December releases in a five-year period.” I don’t think Eastwood or Malpaso calculate that sort of thing, but I’ll bet a lot of others do. Heck, an Academy Award nomination, let alone a victory, is major ducats in the bank for everyone associated with a film. …random thoughts there.] Continue reading
This is a letter written by a freedom-fighter, Free State Early Mover Matt Simon, to his friends and family back in West Virginia, explaining the importance of the cause for liberty and the progress we’re making in New Hampshire. [Editor’s note: Mr. Simon wrote this during his first year in the Free State. Matt is now perhaps the leading and most effective voice in New Hampshire for Compassion (when it comes to medical marijuana and other personal freedoms the runaway statists would just as soon crush with their jackboots). I shared a house in Amherst with him in those early days of the Early Movers.]July 4, 2006
As Libertarians we stand for something. The organization becomes informed on all major issues of the day, testifies, resolves, and educates. We never shut up!Back in the old days of the LP of Michigan, we may not have been successful in the general candidate-running business, but at our central committee meetings we always made a point of issuing a resolution about some public issue or affair and getting it to the media. Such as:
