Apparently I haven't kept my goal of updating more often... oh well... things on the site seem to be picking up a little big, we're gearing up for annother summer season (it was last april that we broke our forum record, 26 members online at one time.) maybe we can do it again this year, who knows, we've got a month.

I'm typing this from a brand new computer (Well, got it for christmas) and it had windows 7 installed, which i immediatly partitioned off into a big chunk for storage and annother smaller chunk to maintain Ubuntu on. the only reason i'm on windows is because of some server issues playing Unreal Tournament 3. bought it over a year ago (probably to the day) and only played it once on the old computer, which just couldn't handle it. Got an itch for some over the top fragging and decided to install it. at first i pretty much gave up on the idea of installing on ubuntu and plugged it into windows, which ran like a dream and satisfied my cravings for a headshot or two. (even got my Frag-Monkey, so even after several years out of the tournament, i've still got the chops damn it.)

Ress wanted to play so we began the process of installing through linux. Lemme tell you, not an easy thing to do in the slightest, BUT it can be done. lots of hair pulling and screaming fits later, we can play. just not together.

Yeah for some reason or annother, Linux, running Wine, emulating Windows, running Unreal Tournament 3, hads issues with connecting via lan. so i restart here in windows land, fire it up, and Ress can connect to the server. that'll work.

Let me tell you, window's is a nightare now. at this exact moment, IE8 is having a problem with scrolling this very textbox that i'm typing in. go figure.

It makes me overwelmingly happy to realize how bug nutty windows is. fresh out of the box, Ubuntu can beat this system hands down left and right. starting up doesnt take forever, coming up out of hibernation doesnt take days and multiple mouse clicks, and WOW does windows seem SLOW on this machine. And this being the brand new OS that everyone is talking about!? you mean people paid money for this? Ubuntu doesn't automatically make this text box scroll, screw up my typing and promise a headache if i keep this up much longer...

Ubuntu linux is free, can be installed on any hardware, and while it's not backed by big money, it's backed by people like me and you. we are the living bug checkers, the beta testers, the programmers and fans. Ubuntu works because there are thousands of people like me that dig it and want to pass it on. What would you do with a new OS that comes to you free and apparently works better straight out of the box than the latest product Microsoft is trying to sell to you? what would you do with an OS that has a dedicated group of people that love to solve problems, that will listen to you and advise you even when there is no money changing hands. i dont know about you, but the last time i tried to get official help from Microsoft, as a paying customer, i got nothing out of it other than a headache and apathy. i paid for that tech support. i get better for free. Not only do the developers help and listen to your problems, they'll actually take it and fix it for everyone else if they can.

I can't type in this crap OS anymore, i'm done playing games, i'm going back to linux and trying again on UT3's networking. anything's better than this. and free...

Well, the site has seen little traffic the past couple months, but we're trying to turn that around. I'm doing my part, after the unfortunate loss of Ebony as our Character Sheet Stormtrooper, I've taken up the mantle of doing character sheet updates, but I'm lousy with formatting so i will not be approving or standardizing any character sheets. least not yet, maybe when the Wiki is finished there will be a permanent and set way of posting a character sheet to absolute standard specs... so i don't have to. I prefer to avoid thankless jobs.

I mentioned the Wiki up there didn't I... Well, thats a major work in progress, Dash is a little to hyperlink happy, and i prefer something a little more spartan of links and information rich. It's not publicly up yet and it will probably end up replacing this blog as the entrance page. (like we're so active in posting here...)

That said, I've got every intention of posting here more often, not necessarily on subject, but at least 2-3 times a week if only to make sure I'm checking in on the site.

Several ideas have come to mind that would assist in driving traffic to the site, I'm certain that none of them will come to bear fruit, but I'll let people know if one of them comes around...

I now return you to your regularly scheduled day..

Well, the carpet is in. The unpacking has commenced, and im already missing 2 really important books *hangs head* oi.

But, aside from that, everything is rolling along according to schedule for once, gonna be picking up some more bookcases and some plastic tubs for the big metal racks and things to hold things so we can organize all the junk we've packed along (heaven forbid the junk that i've got stashed with my folks in the basement) and then we'll get the computers unpacked and hooked up... and then, i promise, ill start up a campaign. lots of other projects to be worked on as well, but the site has been pretty damn dead lately (and i'm gonna be loosing the AFS domain shortly if i don't use it) and i at least want to get the ball rolling before 2010... wow... 2010.. think about that folks...

Alright, back to work!

Well, it's been two and a half months now since we moved, two and a half months that we have been living out of a small bedroom with all of our belongings packed off in 4 different locations. we could have had a really nice and spacious "apartment" by now if it weren't for one thing: a fucking flake of a carpet layer. 1 man has held us up for 2 fucking months now, and I'm sure I'll find a way to say fucking at least 3 times in this entry.. there.

Now, we've finally gotten the bastard to START laying the carpet, and what he has done so far looks great, but because he hasn't finished the god damned job, we still have to wait another week (on top of those 2 months) for him to come back and finish gluing (at least) a 4 foot by 10 foot section, the exact section of the room that we had planned on unpacking roughly half of our belongings into... yeah.. the half of the space that he has finished we wanted to be left as a living room/ theater, couches and screen and instead, we've begun piling up all of the stuff that's been spread out for so damn long and hurry up to keep waiting.

Why am i bitching to you guys? because i need to vent. there is so much hate and rage that i might double in size and turn green if i don't either scream or kill, and everyone around here HAS to be sick of hearing it.

What does this all mean to everyone here? its gonna be a while before i can get active on the site again. honestly, i cannot sit on someone else's computer and work or play. hopefully this wont take another month, but the way shit goes around here, it might be winter before i can get even my own fucking computer back. GAAAHH... this is supposed to calm me, help me vent and all its doing is working me into a tighter ball of rage... i think blood would make a fantastic natural glue... or just let him finish the job and then bury the fucker out back... 4.

Picked up Aces'n'Eights. its a western RPG with a brilliant concept, modular rules and various mini-games for the western life. its been around a couple of years now and the sticker shock has kept me away from it for that time (its hard to pay $40 for any book, even if i KNOW it'll be a good one.) but i finally did and let me be the first to tell you: This might be the best RPG i have seen in a very long time. look into it, I'd really like to run this once in a while, or at least something similar, which is so strange: I don't like westerns. with few exceptions (Tombstone, Quick and the Dead, 3:10 to Yuma (the recent remake, though the original was.. well, classic.) and now that i look at it with the right angle, i really like what it stands for, what that life must have been like, it wasn't post-apocalypse, it was prospective, it was pioneering, it was the beginning where there was nothing before. A clean slate... well, a dusty slate, Tabula Rasa. Its a theme that i want to pursue.. I'd almost like to start a RPG campaign in rifts, like... P.A. 1. Rebuilding.

It kinda parallels this move.. except our slate was covered in coal dust, had to be gutted.. and as i said, wait 2 months for a fucking useless chud drunken moron to glue the fucking carpet in...

From William Rawle's 1825 A View of the Constitution of the United States of America.

The corollary, from the first position, is, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if by any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.

From 1833 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, written by Joseph Story
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic, since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

From 1840 Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, written by Joseph Story
The next amendment is, "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offence to keep arms, and by substituting a regular army in the stead of a resort to the militia. The friends of a free government cannot be too watchful, to overcome the dangerous tendency of the public mind to sacrifice, for the sake of mere private convenience, this powerful check upon the designs of ambitious men.

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and it will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well-regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our National Bill of Rights.

Justice Joseph Story
President Madison appointed Joseph Story to the Supreme Court in 1811; at age 32, he was the youngest man ever nominated. He served on the United States Supreme Court until 1845. After John Marshall, no Justice of the early Court is considered more influential on Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Dred Scott

(Compiler’s Note: Referring to giving freed blacks citizenship in the united states. Statements are negative toward black equality, but define that equality. Because a later amendment to the constitution (section one of the Fourteenth Amendment) established a law contrary to the previous statements, this is not a often sited law. (Compiler’s opinion: This overturn by Amendment infers that all people regardless of color or creed who are citizens of the US are granted these rights.))

"the full liberty of speech in public and private upon all subjects upon which its [a state's] own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

From The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, written by Lysander Spooner
(Compiler’s note: this is to give example that both pro- and anti-slavery movements considered the right to bear arms a basic and fundamental right)

This right "to keep and bear arms," implies the right to use them--as much as a provision securing to the people the right to buy and keep food, would imply their right also to eat it. But this implied right to use arms, is only a right to use them in a manner consistent with natural rights--as, for example, in defense of life, liberty, chastity, &c. . . . If the courts could go beyond the innocent and necessary meaning of the words, and imply or infer from them an authority for anything contrary to natural right, they could imply a constitutional authority in the people to use arms, not merely for the just and innocent purposes of defense, but also . . . robbery, or any other acts of wrong to which arms are capable of being applied. The mere verbal implication would as much authorize the people to use arms for unjust, as for just, purposes. But the legal implication gives only an authority for their innocent use

(Compiler’s Note: From a second section, illustrating a pro-gun stance as abolishment of slavery)

These provisions obviously recognize the natural right of all men "to keep and bear arms" for their personal defense; and prohibit both Congress and the State governments from infringing the right of "the people"--that is, of any of the people--to do so; and more especially of any whom Congress have power to include in their militia. The right of a man "to keep and bear arms," is a right palpably inconsistent with the idea of his being a slave. Yet the right is secured as effectually to those whom the States presume to call slaves, as to any whom the States condescend to acknowledge free.
Under this provision any man has a right either to give or sell arms to those persons whom the States call slaves; and there is no constitutional power, in either the national or State governments, that can punish him for so doing; or that can take those arms from the slaves; or that can make it criminal for the slaves to use them, if, from the inefficiency of the laws, it should become necessary for them to do so, in defense of their own lives or liberties; for this constitutional right to keep arms implies the constitutional right to use them, if need be, for the defense of one's liberty or life.


Speech in Congress, May 19, 1856, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner
(Compiler’s Note: In response to South Carolina Senator A.P. Butler’s alleged comment that the people of Kansas should be disarmed of their Sharps rifles.(Compiler‘s opinion: the ‘fanatics of slavery‘ comment rings as a reminder to protect all of a citizen’s rights against infringement.))

Really, sir, has it come to this? The rifle has ever been the companion of the pioneer and, under God, his tutelary protector against the red man and the beast of the forest. Never was this efficient weapon more needed in just self-defense, than now in Kansas, and at least one article in our National Constitution must be blotted out, before the complete right to it can in any way be impeached. And yet such is the madness of the hour, that, in defiance of the solemn guaranty, embodied in the Amendments to the Constitution, that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," the people of Kansas have been arraigned for keeping and bearing them, and the Senator from South Carolina has had the face to say openly, on this floor, that they should be disarmed--of course, that the fanatics of Slavery, his allies and constituents, may meet no impediment. Sir, the Senator is venerable . . . but neither his years, nor his position, past or present, can give respectability to the demand he has made, or save him from indignant condemnation, when, to compass the wretched purposes of a wretched cause, he thus proposes to trample on one of the plainest provisions of constitutional liberty.


Debate on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Kansas Senator Samuel Pomeroy

And what are the safeguards of liberty under our form of Government? There are at least, under our Constitution, three which are indispensable--
1. Every man should have a homestead, that is, the right to acquire and hold one, and the right to be safe and protected in that citadel of his love. . . .
2. He should have the right to bear arms for the defense of himself and family and his homestead. And if the cabin door of the freedman is broken open and the intruder enters for purposes as vile as were known to slavery, then should a well-loaded musket be in the hand of the occupant to send the polluted wretch to another world, where his wretchedness will forever remain complete; and
3. He should have the ballot . . . .

Cruikshank

(Compiler’s Note: Under the authority of the new civil rights laws, federal prosecutors brought many cases against white defendants who, had violated the civil rights of freedmen. These defendants were frequently charged with violating the Second Amendment rights of freedmen by taking their firearms.
Eventually, the federal prosecutions made their way to the Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank. Cruikshank involved the aftermath of the 1872 elections in Louisiana. Following the elections, two separate governments--one Unionist and one racist--declared themselves the winner and the official government of the state. In the town of Colfax, armed blacks occupied the courthouse and the surrounding district to assert the legitimacy of their side's control of the local government. Atrocities had been committed on both sides; a rioting band of white farmers attacked the courthouse, burned it to the ground, and murdered blacks who tried to escape the flames. Klansman William Cruikshank and other leaders of the riot were tried in federal district court for violating federal civil rights laws. By the terms of the Enforcement Acts,(361) the trial court found Cruikshank guilty of conspiring to deprive the blacks of their Constitutional rights, including the right to assemble peaceably and the right to bear arms. (Opinion: Although no longer good law, the case clearly approaches the Second Amendment from an "individual right" perspective.))

The right of the people peaceably to assemble for lawful purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In fact, it is, and always has been, one of the attributes of citizenship under a free government. It "derives its source," to use the language of Chief Justice Marshall, in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 211, "from those laws whose authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world." It is found wherever civilization exists. It was not, therefore, a right granted to the people by the Constitution. The government of the United States when established found it in existence, with the obligation on the part of the States to afford it protection.

(Compiler’s Note: Expanding on the Right to bear arms as a basic human right)

The right . . . of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose" . . . is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this . . . means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress . . . leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called . . . the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation . . . ."

(Compiler’s Opinion: If individuals have a right to own a gun, then individuals can ask local governments to protect them against "fellow-citizens" who attempt to disarm them. In contrast, if the Second Amendment right belongs to the state governments as protection against federal interference, then mere "fellow-citizens" could never infringe that right by disarming mere individuals without interfering with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, thereby triggering an instance of legal use for the weapon.)

From a 1993 article in The Public Interest, written by attorney Jeffrey Snyder:

Those who call for the repeal of the Second Amendment so that we can really begin controlling firearms betray a serious misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights to the people, such that its repeal would legitimately confer upon government the powers otherwise proscribed. . . .
. . . The repeal of the Second Amendment would no more render the outlawing of firearms legitimate than the repeal of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment would authorize the government to imprison and kill people at will. A government that abrogates any of the Bill of Rights, with or without majoritarian approval, forever acts illegitimately, becomes tyrannical, and loses the moral right to govern.
This is the uncompromising understanding reflected in the warning that America's gun owners will not go gently into that good, utopian night: "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands." While liberals take this statement as evidence of the retrograde, violent nature of gun owners, we gun owners hope that liberals hold equally strong sentiments about their printing presses, word processors, and television cameras. The republic depends upon fervent devotion to all our fundamental rights