Quote of the Day

The international gun control movement keeps working on gun grabbing with an eye to eventually killing off the 2nd amendment. It’s a King Canute enterprise because the technology for distributed manufacturing is coming and guns are inevitably going to be on the list of things to build right along every other tool. Once every man can be a gunsmith simply by hitting print on a computer, the foolishness of control efforts via law instead of via personal responsibility will have been fully exposed.

T.M. Lutas

John Robb has related, more generalized, thoughts on resilient communities.

Anti-Quote of the Day

Thomas PM Barnett:

“Bottom line: mature democracies trust populists more, while authoritarian states like fellow rightists.”

I like Barnett, and many of his ideas.    However,  quotes like this that make me think that he belongs in a cloistered think tank deep in the beltway, where his thoughts would probably have less impact than they currently do.

Quotes of the Day

America must get to work producing more energy. The Republican program for solving economic problems is based on growth and productivity.
 
Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched, because the present administration seems to believe the American people would rather see more regulation, more taxes and more controls than more energy.
 
Coal offers great potential. So does nuclear energy produced under rigorous safety standards. It could supply electricity for thousands of industries and millions of jobs and homes. It must not be thwarted by a tiny minority opposed to economic growth which often finds friendly ears in regulatory agencies for its obstructionist campaigns.
 
Make no mistake. We will not permit the safety of our people or our environment heritage to be jeopardized, but we are going to reaffirm that the economic prosperity of our people is a fundamental part of our environment.

Ronald Reagan, via Larry Kudlow. I miss Reagan. How come no one talks like this? How the Hell hard is it?

And I have to ask lawmakers in Washington, DC, who have prohibited this drilling in ANWR if they’re doing all they can to secure the United States. When you consider, too, the geology that we’re talking about here, and the physical space that’s even needed to drill now, about a 2,000 acre plot, because of directional drilling and new technology, allowing such a small footprint to even be placed upon the tundra up north, it’s about 2,000 acres, which is smaller than the size of LAX and other big-city airports, that we would need to drill, and allow these resources to finally be tapped and to flow into hungry markets, and make us more secure. I think it’s so short-sighted.

Sarah Palin, quoted here.

I like Palin. I hope we see her as McCain’s VP. We need something to arrest the downward trend, though I really see no way McCain can win. But Palin for VP would help, and would position the GOP to have a conservative woman run in 2112. That might be enough to drive BHO out after one term.

UPDATE: Instapundit links to a Gallup poll supposedly showing McCain and Obama tied at 45%. But Intrade shows them 31 points apart. Hmmm, indeed. Which is more reliable, a crowd of people with money on the table, or a bunch of people answering a pollster’s questions?

Quote of the Day, a/k/a Interesting Times

Muslim leaders are well-advised to remain on good terms with Benedict XVI. Worse things await them. There are 100 million new Chinese Christians, and some of them speak of marching to Jerusalem – from the East. A website entitled Back to Jerusalem proclaims, “From the Great Wall of China through Central Asia along the silk roads, the Chinese house churches are called to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ all the way back to Jerusalem.”

Spengler, The Pope, the President and Politics of Faith. As always with Spengler: RTWT.

Interesting if true. Spengler’s link to “Back to Jerusalem” does not work. Does anyone know about it?

UPDATE: Thanks to Eric Anondson for the correct link to the Back to Jerusalem site.