"Loophole" Identified in UK Gun Bans

I'm thinking if the South China Sea is as lawless, pirate-filled, and empty as the pirate threads make mention of..... it might be a place where a container ship full of several thousand TFLers armed to the teeth and supplied with the best homesteading gear 21st century America could make could make a go of it....

Of course, having (a) sanitsed the place of pirate activity, (b) made the islands suitable for human habitation (c) set up desalination plants, irrugation, produce farms et al (d) installed Broadband, then there's bound to be SOMEONE who'll claim that the island was part of their historical stomping ground and attempt to wrest the whole thing by force.

Cue Butch and Sundance Moment for TFL Colony 1.

Pardon my glum outlook, it's probably just the 'flu speaking.
 
Colonies?

Well, I hear they're making great strides in terraforming.

And why only last week they found a slew of new moons around Jupiter...
 
I'm thinking if the South China Sea is as lawless, pirate-filled, and empty as the pirate threads make mention of..... it might be a place where a container ship full of several thousand TFLers armed to the teeth and supplied with the best homesteading gear 21st century America could make could make a go of it....

That sounds lovely, Kaylee. :D Hubby and I are game!
 
Longeyes, about moons and such...

*wistful sigh*

T'would be so delightful if we freedom-loving, dignity-cherishing folk - wherever our original stomping ground may be - could have a *whole world* of our own....

(where's the wistful looking icon? ;) )
 
Ah, to hollow out an asteroid, just to call it "home".

And to sell the unwanted ores back to Earth at a magnificent mark-up, of course. And anything else that happenned to be floating around out there.
 
T'would be so delightful if we freedom-loving, dignity-cherishing folk - wherever our original stomping ground may be - could have a *whole world* of our own....

Try this on for size....

1 -- start aforementioned south sea colony
2 -- lure Microsoft, whoever else will come with a promise of 2% tax ceiling, always and forever, written into the Constitution.
3 -- use said 2% of the big boys that get lured across to fun a Consitutionally-mandated space development program. Lure the Hawkings of the world there with promises of cushy jobs... as long as they produce working designs instead of pop-science books.

By the time the island colony collapses under its own bureaucratic weight in 200-some years, as the US is going.... your great great grandkids have already hoofed it off planet and started the Diaspora.

Hey, if you're gonna dream, dream big. :D

-K
 
I'd just like to award Kaylee the Heinlein Prize for using the word "Diaspora" in a serious conversation.

Uh-ruh!

Aside from that.... why not take the cheap route? Instead of pratting around with Microsloth, who is they had any interest in scientific development et al would have a decent space based operation going already, and just use said islands to export what the world really wants and needs: bandwidth.

Find someplace that'd make a good base of operations to service and maintain the transatlantic comms cables. Offer support to the cable layers and maintainance vessels. Good steady income there.

Flatten a piece of ground, use the proceeds to buy up some old Russian nuclear missile bodies, lob comsats into orbit on the cheap. Sell comm bandwidth. Good fat-cat income from that.

Work it as a commercial concern first, worry about funding pure research once the money's coming in.
 
Somebody's been flipping through forbidden literature, eh? Cryptonomicon, maybe? Or perhaps Kings of the High Frontier? Two of my faves...

Bog, for some interesting reading, do a Google search on "Belize Project." The critical factor, as always, is money. Such a project requires a flippin' huge infusion of capital up front, with no guarentee of any return. Know any eccentric rich libertarians?

- Chris

Edit: Jesucristo, Ian! Not again!
 
Cryptonomicon, Hacker Crackdown, Mr. Stephenson's Big Treatise On Bandwidth: All required reading for today's world.

For those in need of a quick primer:

http://www.spack.org/words/commandline.html
And...
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive//4.12/ffglass.html?person=neal_stephenson&topic_set=wiredpeople

edited addendum:
Bog, for some interesting reading, do a Google search on "Belize Project." The critical factor, as always, is money. Such a project requires a flippin' huge infusion of capital up front, with no guarentee of any return. Know any eccentric rich libertarians?
Nope, but I'm working towards being one myself ;) Seriously though, apart from loving the bejaysus out of my work, at least half the reason I'm in the graphics schtick is that it's a pretty good way of staying solvent, and has potential for being Really Lucrative. To use the polite term.
 
Uh, before I go to Belize, how big are the insects down there...?

And good thing I'm into polymer, what with the humidity.
 
According to various HM Forces friends of mine, if you're going to Belieze, forget the insect repellent and go for a Phalanx mount.

But Longeyes? Next time leave the fetish stuff out of it, OK? I'm in the UK here, it's been fifteen years since I've even seen a bare ankle.
 
I think you could move to just about any part of California from Britain and be pretty comfortable. California is very bad in spots, but it's nothing like Britain.
 
As for gun laws in the US, California is the "best of the worst"

NYC, Chicago, DC - all much worse.

If you move here, you will NOT be able to own a battle rife other than the Ruger Mini-14/30 or Springfield M-1A. It sucks, but at least you can still own those.

You can own plenty of handguns as long as they are "on the list" and you wait a month per and starting next year, you jump through hoops.

CCW is spotty - if its important to you, you can usually find an area that will hook you up.

Gun sales are down and some ranges are closing as mentioned in other threads, but you can still own lots of guns, shoot and them at targets, animals and people under the right conditions.
 
Well, according to what I did on the range (like, make Mr. X show daylight on round number three) all I need is a nineteen-eleven.

After all, how many half-inch wide holes do I need to make in a bad guy? Really?

So, as long as I can carry the old Browning, I'm happy. That, and do my work.

Selah, and g'night, m'dears.
 
Bless you, Pendragon. And you, Tamara. Kaylee, Lendringser, Calamity, and all you other lovely people who've made me feel a part of the community here, emasculated though I may be. Please feel free to read this post either in small type, or in a high pitch, whichever floats your boat.

Suffice it to say that wheresoever I go, be it Blighty or the the United States, disjointed though that union may be, there'll be a little bit of free-thinking going on in a noticable radius.

Selah, and I love you all.

Mark.

(Addled with 'flu, so possibly a little emotional.... darlings... *cough*)
 
as a "uk liberal" i should point out that the Sun is a rather right-wing newspaper; and the article is from 1997.

To us your right wing is actually moderate left. UK so called right wing still sponsor a welfare state. UK right make the right look bad.
 
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