The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on July 22, 2006

Previous post was here. I've been busy with the wedding, reloading, reading how my new GPS works, reading how the RockBox firmware works (my Rio Karma finally died, so Liz is buying me an iPod Nano as a wedding present, and I'm going to toss the RockBox firmware on it so that I can play useful formats, like Ogg. I'll let you know how I make out).

Both added to and removed from the stack in the intervening time:
The Global War on Your Guns, Wayne LaPierre

Mini Review:
This had very little surprises, and most chapters were variants on the themes of:

1. The UN is a bureaucracy which cannot act rapidly, hence why it is very bad at stopping genocide.
2. The UN is corrupt.
3. The UN is comprised of member countries which think that the needs of society trump those of the individual, and it is perfectly acceptable to sacrifice individual liberties upon the altar of social engineering.
4. The UN wants to remove private ownership of firearms because it removes the threat of people being able to resist their social engineering by force of arms.

The one surprise was a chapter on UN designs to limit our first amendment protections as well. The case is made that this is why they want UN control of the internet: as long as the US has control (via a US-based nonprofit organization, ICANN), our ideals of free speech will be promoted, and all attempts to limit that will be resisted. This is not good for despotic regimes.

Another interesting point is the statistic that the US owns 1/3 of worldwide small arms. This is too little! I want to see us to own HALF the world arms in my lifetime.

Nothing in this book was surprising, but that is because it is basically preaching to the choir. I'm not a big fan of the UN anyway, and this just kind of lays it all out.

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Currently reading:
People's History of the United States : 1492 to Present, Howard Zinn

Added to the stack since my last book post:
Nothing, except the stuff that was added and removed. mentioned at the top.

Currently on the stack:
We Were Soldiers Once… and Young, Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway
Great Issues in American History, Volume II – From the Revolution to the Civil War, 1765-1865, Richard Hofstadter.
Great Issues in American History, Volume III – From Reconstruction to the Present Day, 1864-1981, Richard Hofstadter and Beatrice K. Hofstadter
Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower, Stephen King
SAS Survival Handbook, John “Lofty” Wiseman
The Underground History of American Education, John Taylor Gatto
On Killing : The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Dave Grossman
On Combat, Dave Grossman
Serenity: The Official Visual Companion, Joss Whedon; Paperback
Serenity Role Playing Game, Jamie Chambers

Category: LJ Import
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