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11/4/2002
EAR PLUGS
Our Halloween report is half done, we just lack photos from our
party. But we do have full-on reports of the Doll Squad Burlesque
Show at 9 lives, and Greasepaint at the Star Bar. I apologize to
those of you who, like us, can't afford high speed connections but
the pages are packed with purty pictures so it may take some time to
download. And I'm warning those of you who, like us, work in
conservative cube villages but the pages are packed with half-nekkid
purty girls so you might want to wait until you get home.
Things start off here:
http://www.degeneratepress.com/earplugs/archive/halloween_2002.html
FILM FLAM
Saturday was the Mexican Dia del Muertos, Day of the Dead, so we
headed to Woodruff Arts Center for the Atlanta Mexican Center's
version of the festival. I'd been to their fest when they had it at
the old center's location near Briarcliffe and had a lot of fun, but
the Arts Center location is too far from the Mexican side of town -
the fest was half empty and all the volunteers looked like high
school girls from the Highlands, so it lacked the hardcore Hispanic
flair it had at it's previous location.
We beat a hasty retreat and caught Frida, the Frida Kahlo film with
Salma Hayek. It's a moving story and a well-done film, focusing on
her life more than her art, which gives you a lot of the inspiration
and reason for her art in the first place. It has a few imaginative
sequences where the paintings literally come to life to help tell the
tale. The acting was a tiny bit flat - sometimes the characters'
reactions didn't seem as intense as they could have been in some of
the very intense situations, but I'm a sucker for Salma in any role
and I'm glad she was able to get this picture produced after many
other actresses were considered for the project.
WILD WILD WEB
Degenerate SW sent us this link last week:
http://doody36.home.attbi.com/liberty.htm
It's just a nifty little piece of technology, for entertainment purposes only.
BLASPHEMY
Since it's election time again, we whipped out a large caliber weapon
in the form of Michael Moore last episode. Now degenerate SR fires
back:
All right, you cage-rattler you, you got me going on this one...
Michael Moore strikes again, with a fresh and particularly fragrant
load of utter bullshit. Nice try on his part with the crime anecdotes
we supposedly "didn't hear about" because of Sniper-Mania, certainly
more stylish than presenting facts connected by logic. But then,
that's the essence of Moore's career, besides the exploiting other
people's grief for his own personal aggrandizement part.
Speaking of things "you didn't hear about," FSU criminologist Gary
Kleck compiled years of data from the early 90s and showed that
firearms are used to PREVENT violent crimes at least 2.5 million
times a year in this country. Why the "at least"? Well, to borrow
Moore's phrase, most of the incidents are just "not newsworthy
because they happen in all of those old boring ways" -- boring in the
way of how, many times everyday, the mere act of pointing a gun at an
intruder/potential rapist, robber or murderer sends them fleeing, an
outcome far more common than shooting their skulls or balls off.
Ho-hum... boring... not quite Man Bites Dog.
We've all heard the cherished line that a gun in your home is "43
times more likely" to be used in killing or maiming a family member
than in successful self-defense. Again: Total bullshit. The number
comes from a 1993 "study" by a guy named Dr. Arthur Kellerman. He
based his research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine,
on stats from a small selection of King County, WA crime scenes.
He cooked his stats in a number of ways, not the least of which was
neglecting to mention that 37 of every 43 firearm deaths in his
sample were suicides, a whopping 86% of the "accidents." Nationally,
the average is 54%, but this is Seattle he was studying (draw your
own conclusions).
Kellerman also only counted crimes in which criminals left the scene
with their bodies ballistically enhanced by the gun-owning residents,
severely misrepresenting the defensive role of firearms in any random
but similar incidents. In some industries this would simply be called
"fraud."
Closer to home, Dr. Edgar Suter addressed Kellerman's scam in the
Journal Of The Medical Association Of Georgia, saying, "The true
measure of the protective benefits of guns are the lives saved, the
injuries prevented, the medical costs saved, and the property
protected—not the burglar or rapist body count. Since only 0.1% to
0.2% of defensive gun usage involves the death of the criminal, any
study, such as this, that counts criminal deaths as the only measure
of the protective benefits of guns will expectedly underestimate the
benefits of firearms by a factor of 500 to 1,000."
Apologies to Mike if I'm being too boring with all these facts.
But anyway, now to his delusions about ballistic "fingerprinting":
stupid metaphor, stupider idea. He says, "...Every one of their
deaths could have probably been prevented had we had a national
ballistics fingerprinting data base." I have to step back for a
moment and take a breath just to get a grasp on the surpassing idiocy
of this statement. To be fair, he remains clever enough to cover his
ass with words like "probably."
For anyone who doesn't understand the concept, bullets get scratched
up when they travel down gun barrels. This gives them the so-called
"fingerprint," as each gun leaves its own unique microscopic markings
on the slug. Problem 1, among many: Gun ballistics are easy to alter,
and thereby change the "fingerprint."
Hell, you don't even need to go that far. Just score a bullet with a
car key before you load and fire it, and you'll very likely render it
untraceable, especially after it's bounced off a few bones or
concrete, assuming it's ever found at all.
This "national database" is a bit of a problem also, as there are
already 200 million lawfully owned firearms in this county alone.
Ignoring the inherently fascist overtones of such a proposal, the
labor, time and money required to accomplish merely the laboratory
ballistics testing of every one of these weapons are about as likely
to materialize as... I don't know, maybe a four-lane suspension
bridge to Europe.
But for the sake of argument, let's say this system were in place.
I'll even throw in a "gimme" -- we'll assume also that all violent
criminals, ranging from gangbangers to goodfellas and troubled loners
too, have all dutifully brought their guns in for fingerprinting. So
what about firearms that have been sold since their fingerprinting
(not to mention stolen)? The government -- I stress, the GOVERNMENT
-- is going to keep accurate, well-maintained records so as to
prevent mistakes of grave consequence?
As well, I'm sure such records would never, ever be used in less than
honorable ways by those intrepid cops and prosecutors who are our
last and best defense against the savage perils of anarchy, God bless
them all. What planet are we talking about again?
Since we're discussing gun ownership, I started writing a couple
paragraphs addressing the Second Amendment. It is, of course, part of
The Bill Of Rights, that section of the Constitution specifically
intended to protect the people from their own government, the United
States Government, that is. I was going to tackle issues like
Sovereignty of the State vs. Sovereignty of the Individual, how the
Constitution was written fresh on the heels of a blood-soaked
tax-revolt, how little those who wrote it trusted any concentration
of political power, that kind of stuff. But then I realized: BORING...
So instead, how about a selection of gun-related quotes from a few
folks whose views regarding The State's Right To Kill were nothing if
not forthright and documented:
"Every good Communist should know that political power grows out of
the barrel of a gun. The Communist party must control the guns."
-- Mao Tse Tung
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned
from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow
the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors
who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared
their own downfall by so doing."
-- Adolph Hitler
"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the
people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by
violent and sudden usurpations."
-- James Madison
"A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny
gun ownership to the bourgeoisie."
-- Vladimir Lenin
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they
be properly armed."
-- Alexander Hamilton
...and one last one with a big bow on it, just for Mr. Moore:
"All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual
level to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards
whom it intends to direct itself."
-- Adolf Hitler
True to that form, Moore concludes his screed with, "(Bush)'s already
seen to it that his cronies in big business have wiped out your 401
(K), and they are doing their best to see that you are left with no
pension at all."
Mike ol' buddy, I know you've never held any sort of career-oriented
job before, but nevertheless I must ask: What exactly do you think a
401(K) is?
Something like... long-term, institutionally managed investment, on
behalf of individuals, in stocks of publicly traded companies? In
other words: loaning money to corporations in order to help them earn
profits and increase their net worth, making it possible to later
sell their stock for profit and increase one's own net worth?
Yeah Mike, that makes total sense, wiping those 401(K)s out-- just
what "big business" needs, now and tomorrow.
Wanna really torch individual investment accounts? This looks like a
job for government. Start by taxing corporations until their
profitability is destroyed, sending their stock values into
nose-dives, making investors and fund managers avoid or sell their
stocks off in panic, eventually dragging the entire market down into
depression. (Guess who steps in and saves the day then?)
No one else has yet found a more effective means for destroying
retirement nest-eggs than your average Democrat. But why, pray tell,
would they want to do this to hard-working Americans, the common
folk, the little guy? Well, what person gives one flying fuck about
Social Security checks when they've already prepared their finances
for retirement?
Honestly-- which group of politicians tries to scare the hell out of
the public about retirement, telling them they will need government
support just to remain alive, but that their political enemies want
to take all this away from them because they are greedy and evil?
And what motivates such a scorched-earth approach to politics? Votes,
maybe? Yes, votes: keys that unlock the doors to Power, still the raw
currency of statecraft, after all these years. Vote for us, and your
future is safe and secure. Vote for them... (cue scary music)... and
you'll DIE, grandma, DIEEEE!!!
At least they're honest with the jackass mascot.
Bringing it full circle, some day such scare-mongering might not even
be necessary: When you control all the bullets, you can count all the
ballots however you see fit. I'll leave it at that.
Real quick though, on another front you mention-- supporting drug
legalization is hardly a "left-wing" position. You might find that
the further right you look, the more disdain for the War On Drugs
you'll encounter. Check in with your Buckleys and Boortzes on that
one; it may horrify you.
Sorry I missed the party, hope it was fun.
I appreciate the opportunity to contribute, as always,
Degenerate SR
Thanks for the heads-up on the LWV website for voter information. In
my search to find specific information for my particular districts, I
found this website to be also extremely helpful:
http://www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml
You can enter your zip + 4 code and get all the offices and
candidates information for your location.
FYI!!
Thankee
degenerate RH
And in other news, we got this from degenerate AH:
Amina Lawal, a 30 year-old Muslim woman, was sentenced to stoning to death
by a Shari'ah court at Bakori in Katsina State in northern Nigeria. Amina
allegedly confessed to having had a child while divorced. Pregnancy outside
of marriage constitutes sufficient evidence for a woman to be convicted of
adultery according to the new Shari'ah-based penal code for Muslims,
introduced in Katsina State.
Amnesty International has organized a campaign in an attempt to prevent this
sentence. To participate in this campaign, go to http://www.amnestyusa.org/
& click on "Help save Amina Lawal."
It really does only take a few clicks - a matter of moments. perhaps a
waste of time, an very unfortunate reality, but worth the risk i think.
thanks.
Take me to Degenerate Press' home page!
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