Arkanabar's Whopping Huge Page of Eclectic Links

Hoax Debunking Sites

The Urban Legends Reference Pages at Snopes are a great place to start when checking out anything where you have doubts about its accuracy.
Junk Science is another great place; they specialize in taking agenda-driven "expert opinions" to pieces.
The Computer Internet Advisory Commission is the actual source for all government advisories on viruses, worms, trojans, and all other malicious code advisories. Any "warning" saying it originates from the FCC is a hoax.
The miningco Urban Legends and Folklore Site is also a very good place to check the validity of that virus warning spam that urges you to forward it to everyone you know.
Truth About Computer Virus Myths & Hoaxes -- formerly the Kumite Computer Virus Myths site.
The Hoaxkill Service
F-Secure Virus Hoax list. F-Secure is the former Datafellows corporation, and claims to be the industry standard for virus info.
Symantec AntiVirus Research Center

News Sites

Commercial Sites

Living Room Games is home to Earthdawn™, the system and setting where I, Arkanabar, originated. Go there, buy the books, play the game, and have fun. If the system confuses you, just email me, (arkanabar at lycos dot com) and I'll see if I can explain it to you.
RedBrick Limiited has revived the "Classic" Earthdawn™ line, which has combined FASA's bazillion sourcebooks into just two. All their books are available through Print On Demand.
Steve Jackson Games is the home of GURPS and Toon. They bear the distinction of being raided by the Feds for their "GURPS Cyberpunk" game. GURPS is an excellent resource for modifying other games, even if you never plan to play GURPS because of the amazingly picayune rules it offers.
Wizards of the Coast publishes Magic: The Gathering™ and Dungeons & Dragons™, neither of which I am particularly fond of. But lots of other people are, so I link to them. I do appreciate the way they've cribbed the Free Software Foundation's ideals for their Open Game License.
White Wolf Games is the other giant of the game publishing industry, and home to the World of Depression. And no, I don't like their games either. But I can't just ignore them, when they've had such an impact on gaming.
Palladium Books publishes a whole bunch of games that all run on the same system, more or less. Kevin Siembieda loves his work, and has managed to create some fantastic settings and great sourcebooks (the weapons compendia are exhaustive). However, in my experience the system is very klunky and kludged-up, even more so than original AD&D™. Further, if you let your munchkin combine the rules for all these settings, the orgasm may just kill him.

Advice Sites

Uncle Figgy's Realm is home to Uncle Figgy's Guides. In the Guides, he explains the difference between role-playing and roll-playing. The former involves remaining In Character; the latter is fantasy one-on-one or small-unit wargaming. Like Uncle Figgy, I am a role playing snob, though not quite so much the Mad Gamer as he is. I mirror Uncle Figgy's Guide to Good Roleplaying, Uncle Figgy's Guide to Good Game Mastering, and Uncle Figgy's Guide to Roleplaying for Non Roleplayers here because Uncle Figgy gets more visitors than AOHell he used to have will provide bandwidth for.
Johnn Four's Role Playing Tips is, like GURPS, an excellent resource for any game master hoping to improve his craft.
The Burning Void is a site with lots of great information by Heather Grove. Very highly reccommended.
The Christian Gamer's Guild is an excellent resource for those who are troubled by fantasy gaming because of its apparent conflicts with the Bible. I especially recommend the The Chaplain's Corner.
The Escapist is a more secular (and far more hilarious) advocacy /apologist site.
You can find a number of forum boards at RPGHost. I make no claims about the quality of advice you might find, merely the breadth of it.
There are forum boards for Dungeons and Dragons, White Wolf, and GURPS at RPGJunction.com. I haven't even tried to read them; the forums came up bright orange on beige, which is really hard to read. I could probably customize that if I registered, but I haven't, as I'm so rarely online any more.
Freeplayers is the Ad Lib Role Playing Site. Advice for unprepared game masters.
The Big List of Plots by S. John Ross, part of the Cumberland Games site.

Other Gaming Resources

Evil Overlord, Inc. is a marvelous resource for those gamemasters who do (or do not) want their villains to be stupid.
Access Denied hosts a gamer database. Herein you will find people across the US if not the world, who enjoy and play your favorite game.
The Window is a stripped down RPG for advanced role players and storytellers. The Three Precepts can be applied to all role playing games.
Museum Replicas Limited is home to all sorts of beautiful period stuff, including weapons, armor, tools, jewelry, clothing, footwear, and other accessories.
Lord's Armory is a site recently discovered with many gorgeous things; they own
Swords 'n' Stuff which, like MRL, is home to many kinds of period and fantasy weapons and armor.
The Society for Creative Anachornism is famous for being one of the most immersed and in-depth group of amateur historians known to man. Lots of nifty info. And they are alternately known by some roleplayers as "The Society for Compulsive Authenticity." There are many cases where you can use their in depth research instead of doing it yourself.

Liberty Organizations and outreach

Libertarianism.com is chock full of basic information on libertarianism--its history, what it means, and what it hopes to accomplish. It is a project of
The Advocates for Self-Government, one of the best outreach sites for libertarian (also known as Classical Liberal) thinking. Go and take the World's Smallest Political Quiz.
The Libertarian Party homepage. This is where they post their party platform, amongst other things.
DownsizeDC.org is a watchdog group. They provide information on the good and bad laws, and ask that we all send messages to Congress to support and pass the good laws and oppose and stop the bad ones. Two of my favorites are laws requiring Congress to read every bill before voting on it, and preventing them from giving Administration bureaucrats the power to write laws or act as judges.
The Freedom Activist Network has only been up a couple of years. They have huge lists of links on an amazing variety of subjects having to do with liberty. Naturally, some of the stuff they link to will support things I oppose, but I am not willing to outlaw or put lesser legally imposed limits upon those things.
The Institute for Justice is a public interest law firm run by a bunch of strict constitutionalists for people who want their rights defended, not their government-granted privileges, and who want market solutions, not governmental ones.
The International Society for Individual Liberty website is a resource for libertarian outreach worldwide.
The Future of Freedom Foundation has not yet been fully explored, but they have articles by people I respect.
The Fully Informed Jury Association is the sole remaining proponent of the doctrine of jury nullification in the US. Basically, they say you can decide not to convict because you think the law is unjust, even if you DO think the guy did it. And walking in for jury duty with a bunch of FIJA literature is a really good way to get the prosecutor to expel you from the jury pool in malum prohibitum cases.
LewRockwell.com bills itself as "The Premier Anti-State/Pro-Market Site on the Net."
F.E.A.R. stands for "Forfeiture Endangers American Rights." This organization is opposed specifically to the idea that your property can be taken from you because IT (not you) was involved in a crime -- even though you didn't know about it.
The Separation of School and State organization has a very good idea; let people choose everything about their children's education. And if you let the government pay for it, they'll insist on choosing for you.
86 The Incumbents is not a libertarian group. However, their goal of getting rid of incumbents must be achieved to get a free society. Alas that incumbents are allowed to write election laws, which allows them to fortify their incumbencies against challenges -- by now it's like trying to cross minefields, trenches with breastworks, past bunkers and machine gun nests, with nothing but a .38 special revolver.

Liberty Booksellers

Dr. Mary Ruwart has written a book about libertarian thinking, entitled "Saving Our World." It is the first book I reccommend to those who want to know more about libertarianism. You can download the first edition for free or buy a paperback of the updated version here.
Laissez Faire Books is my favorite seller of books on liberty. They guarantee a better price than Amazon.com.
Loompanics Unlimited sells all the books that those who know what's best for you say should be banned. /|;^) Read them anyway. You have the right. And check out their articles and features, which are always thought-provoking.
Paladin Press has the sort of books that ... well, if you visit, and the Feds happen to notice, they may add you to the list of terrorist suspects, just for exercizing your First Amendment rights. I just love the Patriot Act, don't you? And like the site owners say, the information in their books is not to be used for criminal purposes.

Libertarian Economics

"Economics? What does that have to do with liberty?" Well, the American Revolution was fought because we didn't have economic self-determination -- taxation without representation. What it comes down to is if you can't do what you want to create wealth, and do what you want with your wealth, you're not free. One of the best popular books on the subject is Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson.

The Foundation for Economic Education publishes Ideas On Liberty, which they used to call the Freeman before that got hijacked by some rather extremist and violent groups. They started me on my path to economic self-determination.
The Cato Institute is a right-libertarian think tank. They want small government because they think it will promote their right wing values better than big government.
The Political Economy Research Center is a group I wish I had known about LONG ago, because they are Libertarian Environmentalists! They show how a free economy based on property rights leads to a clean environment.
ecoNOT, on the other hand, presents a moral refutation of the basic premises of the Environmentalist movement, particularly in regards to human activity causing global disaster.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute is home to some pretty dense and esoteric writings on liberty and economics. But there's a lot of it and it's good stuff if you've the desire to read it.
Free To Choose features (for sale) a magnificent television series by Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman by the same name. There are other bits and pieces of his thought scattered about the site as well.

Taxes

Taxes are theft and enslavement. They are the primary means by which government takes what is yours, and the results of your work, and gives them to others. No people who pay more than 5% or so of gross domestic production in taxes is very much free.

The Freedom Page
Save A Patriot Fellowship
ICE stands for "Investigating Curious Evidence."

Libertarian writers and homepages

Thomas Sowell is one of the very best conservative minds and commentators in the world today. His site includes a his speeches, a link to his columns, and links to his books.
Walter Williams is every bit as devoted to liberty as Thomas Sowell; perhaps even more so. Try them both; if one doesn't appeal to you, the other might.
Sarah Thompson is The Righter. This is an archive of her columns. One of the more interesting ones deals with Guns and Bigotry.
Claire Wolfe's Lodge is no longer up. However, much of her work is archived at The Claire Files.
The Ornery American is Orson Scott Card's politics and philosophy page, which draws on a number of writers. I'm told Card is a left-leaning centrist, but he upholds the rule of law, which ANY just society must respect.

Privacy

Yes, privacy is vital to liberty. Privacy is you, controlling access to something you own -- information about yourself. The less snooping the government does, the less it can control you, and the less it tries.

The Grassroots Granny is campaigning against the National ID. The fact that it is more or less in place with the passage of the Patriot Act does not mean, however, that it cannot be repealed. She has a lot of good links, as do many of the sites she links to.
This page on TCPA and Palladium is some scary stuff. It details how Microsoft, Intel, and the RIAA plan to control your hard drive.
Linux is going to be how you escape TCPA, Palladium, and Microsoft's Planned Obsolescense of Bloatware software design strategy, if you can stand to give up all the whiz-bang games that are only really published for Windows and you don't own a Mac. It IS getting easier to install, particularly when you stay one or two generations of technology behind cutting edge. And it's inherently much more hack-resistant than any of the FAT-based versions of Windows. Mandrake is for pentiums and up, and they seek ease of installation. SuSE is a distribution out of Germany, with ease of use as a design goal. Red Hat is the most popular distribution in the US, used by IBM on their latest file server products. Slackware aims to provide the most UNIX-like version of Linux. And Debian is devoted to software freedom; they and their thousands of developers will not charge for code, and you can copy, sell, modify, or do whatever you like with their code -- as long as you give permission to do that to anyone else who gets a copy.
The Privacy Activist Network's Links Page has far more links than I do, and many of the links which I do.
The ACLU Privacy page ... Ya know, if the ACLU was actually about rights instead of expediency and socialism, I'd be much happier with them.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Privacy Concerns Electronic Newsletter
The Center for Democracy and Technology
The Postal Watch Home Page
CASPIAN, which stands for Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion And Numbering, has taken up two of the newer and thus less-regarded forms of privacy invasion: those discount cards that let stores track EVERYTHING about your shopping habits, and widespread use of tiny, inexpensive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips.
The Anonymizer allows you to surf privately to any URL you can type for free. You may even want to buy some of their other, more powerful products!

Constitution and Government Information

The Constitution Society has all the founding documents, and many supporting ones as well. Start here.
The House of Representatives is the crew that must, by law, start all new federal tax laws.
The Senate was originally supposed to represent the interests of the State governments that elected them, and thus be another check on the federal government. However, this has not been the case since the ratification of the 17th amendment in 1913, which put selection of Senators into the hands of the voters instead of the state governments. I'd rather it was the state governments that selected Senators; then they might have a smidgen of incentive to not pass so many federal laws, particularly unfunded mandates.
THOMAS is a genuinely useful thing from the government; a database that lets you search for legislation introduced in Congress. Unfortunately, we need it, because Congress is always finding more things to force us to do or not to do.
Operation Just Cause Visit to adopt a U. S. serviceman who has not returned from Viet Nam. Not a government site, precisely, but they want to clean up one of our government's messes. And the men left behind did not deserve to be.

Yes, guns are very important to free people as well. After all, the first three battles of the American Revolution were Colonials resisting orders to give up their arms.

Great information on the benefits of an armed society. Go check it out, especially their references, which are rock solid.
John Lott has written many peer reviewed articles on the effects of gun ownership on crime. I leave that sort of statistical argument to him, since he's so much better at it than anyone else. The most famous of these is "More Guns, Less Crime." The updated study that the book was based on is here.
The Gun Owners of America is different from the National Rifle Association in that, if a compromise bill is offered that is the lesser of two evils, but still takes away your Second Amendment rights, the GOA will NOT support it, while the NRA has a history of doing just that.
The Gun Owners Alliance is very much like the Gun Owners of America, likewise being a no-compromise organization. Their mission is to reform the NRA, and get rid of the compromise advocates at the top of that organization. They have a more religious bent than the Gun Owners of America. Go ahead & check out their website.
Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership is here to contest the Center for Disease Control's antigun agenda. Bear in mind that the costs and benefits of gun ownership are best studied by economists (such as John Lott) and criminologists (like Gary Kleck).
The RKBA Webring index page The RKBA webring has over 200 active sites, and I don't have time to review them all. But still, you never know what good stuff you'll find here.
Second Amendment Defenders Webring Hub and Dale Towert's Stopping Power charts have disappeared from the internet. But you can buy the books they were compiled from at Evan Marshall's Stopping Power Network.
The Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership is a Bill of Rights activist group; their belief is that the Second Amendment is the guarantor of all rights, and that gun freedom is the only way to prevent genocide.
Rich's Firearms Page seems to have all the firearms links in the world, just about.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms organization has tons of gun right links, as well as anti-gun links.
The Blue Press Archive is something I just found. I wanted to do this myself! It's an archive of the articles and editorials published in The Blue Press, which is Dillon Precision's catalog of reloading supplies and gun accessories.
Varmint Al has more links on guns than anybody. Go and see for yourself. He may be brainwashed by the right-wing elite, but I have never seen so comprehensive a list of links. I have no idea how he keeps track of which ones are still any good and which ones are duplicates.
Firearms and Liberty

Pens are mightier than swords because ideas are transmitted with pens, not swords. Granted, they are now also transmitted through cables, radio, telly, computers, and so on ... but the written word has powers that spoken words do not. And even if you use a keyboard to write now, you first learned to write using a pen. Much of my content was composed with pen and paper.

Enthusiasts

Most of these enthusiasts are also traders, and more than happy to buy or sell pens. Their collections are in constant flux. I expect them to be your primary source for vintage pens.

The Fountain Pen Network is a forum board community, full of ink reviews, pen opinions and information, and one board devoted to the pens members offer each other for sale. You can learn quite a bit about modern, classic, vintage, and antique pens, inks, and ephemera here.
Richard Binder is an enthusiast, restorer, and provides bucketloads of info on the workings of all kinds of obscure fountain pens, not to mention nib customization.
The Pen Den is maintained by Dennis Lively, top authority on Wearever pens, and source for videos on pen repair.
Tryphon provides pen repair tools and literature for sale, at prices I think are truly amazing.
John Mottishaw is one of the most respected nib customizers I know of. He also sells pens, books, nibs, and ink.
The Ink Sampler home page has lots of information about inks. I suggest buying a copy of the Ink Sampler to anyone who is dissatisfied with their ink.
Pen Central should have links to just about everything you're looking for when it comes to pens. You might have to jump as many as three domains to reach all of it....
Penoply is another great enthusiast site.
The Pen Collectors of America are a bunch of pen historians, collectors, repairers, and traders. G'wan and join.
Jim Gaston has lots of great links and some good information. With all that in mind, the man is far from being a good web designer.

Manufacturers

Omas makes piston action, bottle fill only pens with very nicely flexible nibs. I love these pens. There's a couple of them that I want. Incidentally, this is a Flash site; even so, it loads pretty quickly on my miserable, shared, dialup connection.
Pelikan is my current pen of choice, mainly because I was able to find affordable Pelikans long before I found any affordable Omases. They are also piston-action flexible-nib pens of impeccable reputation.
Sheaffer is now, like Waterman, a division of BIC USA. That does not prevent the Balance II from being one of the pens I would most like to have. Another big flash site.
Namiki is Pilot's line of fine pens, made in Japan. They make the only fountain pen in the world with a nib that retracts for carry. Like most Asian makers, their nibs are about 1/2 size smaller than Western equivalents.
Cross is most famous for their Century ballpoints, annoying narrow twist-action things that have been gracing executive desk sets across America for thirty years. And while I wouldn't have any of their fountain pens, they do make some good stuff.
Sensa makes what is purported to be the most comfortable ballpoint pen in the world. It uses the excellent Fisher Space Pen refill, and it is comfortable, for a brass pen. They also make rollerballs, pencils, and PDA styluses.
The Fisher Space Pen is quite possibly the very best ball point refill in the world. It's often sold with adapters so they'll fit the same pens as Parker refills. Guess what goes into my Reflex ballpoint next?
Lamy is a German company, kind enough to have an english version of their site, which is what I link to here. They make very nice, very lightweight pens with flexible nibs and very modern designs.
Sanford Corporation is now apparently home to Parker, Rotring, and Waterman. BIC USA claims ownership of Waterman, as far as I know, so don't ask me why the official site is maintained by one of their competitors.
This Waterman Pens site is actually maintained by a retailer. BIC USA doesn't seem to feel the need to have a site for Waterman, the way they do for Sheaffer.
MontBlanc is the brand I love to hate. Were it not for MahBlah's status as power jewelry for executives (thanks to such people as Rush Limbaugh) fountain pens might still be essentially unavailable in America. But when I went into a MahBlah boutique and tried all their different Meisterstucks, I came out with four different colors of ink on my hands. Incidentally, I've had trouble navigating this site.

Retailers

Joon of New York has THE best pictures, period. I have yet to see anyone come closer to capturing the beauty of fine pens, on the web or in print, be they manufacturers, enthusiasts, or retailers.
Levenger was the first group to send me their pen catalog, but these days, they concentrate on their furniture and stationery, which are decidedly upscale. With perhaps a couple of exceptions, the only fountain pens or bottled ink they sell are their own.
The Colorado Pen Company sold me my first Pelikan, an M200 that I hope to own and use till the day I die. They are positioned just above Levenger in price. Their retail outlets go by the name of Paradise Pens.
Fahrney's Pens was lucky enough to get a link to their site from www.fahrney.com; they have good stuff, but neither their catalog layout nor their site is as slick as Levenger's.
World Pen is aaight. They favor the extremely upscale buyer, and they don't seem to think their customers care whether a pen is bottle, cartridge, or converter fill.
Pendemonium sells not just pens, but a huge variety of inks, including Noodler's bulletproof inks that are completely water soluble but form a permanent chemical bond with the cellulose in paper. They also sell sample sized vials of ink for a mere $2.95 each.
The Writing Desk is perhaps the best site on the web for browsing for inks. You can select by color or manufuacturer. And they're preparing a pen sale section. Alas, that I'd have to pay international rates to get my ink from the UK....
Crane's sells far more in the way of fine paper than fine pens (though I've found Omases at their retail outlets [slobber, drool]). But good paper and good pens combine to make a better writing experience.
Penbid is a pens-only auction site. The usual caveats about the quality of sellers that apply to any online auction site apply here as well. Yet some of these sellers have perfect repuations with over a thousand transactions.
His Nibs sells pens in a variety of price ranges, including inexpensive fountain pens made in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China, which nevertheless seem to be rather good pens.
I Sell Pens also has many pens in all price ranges.
Chartpak is the US distributor for Pelikan.