The National Marketing Survey for Government

Soja is on a roll about the Censless:

Instead of selling “representation” in service to the ideals of liberty and justice, the government is now wholly invested in selling buses, trains, hospitals, schools, job training centers, senior centers, and emergency services, among other things, to its various factions….Is there a privately owned bus system in the world that can’t tell on a daily, or even hourly basis, whether it is meeting customer demand or disastrously overestimating it?

A comparison of two militia leaders

Mr. Stone, obviously beset with a worldview less capacious than one hopes to see in the average man, worries me about 1% as much as Eric Holder does. He’s also a man beset with a worldview less capacious than one hopes to see in the average man.

Hutaree raid

Just a few random thoughts on this..if you want detail, Vanderbeogh is your man.

1. “Christian” militia. If I hear this one more time, I’m going to puke. I’m not a pacifist, and don’t see my faith as being incompatible with military service. But “Christian militia” necessarily implies “militia fighting to impose Christianity”, and that is statist, heretical, and an embarrassment to Christianity. This is before we get into their actual belief system…which I’ve seen very little on, but which seems to involve really creative reading of the Book of Revelation. And where does “Hutaree” come from or mean anyway? It sounds a lot like “Hutterite”…who are absolute pacifists.

2. Cops are a bad target. Police have a useful role to play in society, but unfortunately most have sold their consciences for a job. They work for government, but they haven’t made FedGov what it is. They are people we want on our side. It would make as much sense to kill newsboys because they distribute the lying mainstream media. It would make much more sense to kill Welfare case workers. I think Mike is right that this was an agent-provocateur attempt to split police from the military part of the Threeper movement.

3. The system worked. The feds didn’t cowboy anyone, the militias didn’t march, everyone knew these guys were a-holes. Was it a deliberate and well-timed setup by the Feds? Eh ya you betcha. But some people were flakes, and other people kept their heads on strainght.

Back again

In spite of having wifi at camp, I did very little on the Net. I kept up with email, and news somewhat, but there was little time for blogging, and when there was, there was usually a shawm or two blaring behind me…not conductive to concentration. But a good time was had by all. I was taught how to use a reed knife (and how to sharpen one even) so that I can fearlessly destroy cane. One project along those lines will be to learn how many kinds of sound I can get from my shawms. Bob and Joan are into a very controlled, dark sound. There were lots of folks playing “ciaramelli d’amore” (C/F shawms, A440) by Joel Robinson. They’re good axes, and the other parts don’t have to transpose to suit them. But coming home, I was listening to  Les Haulz et las Bas, and realized that their bright full sound was what I fell in love with. A good player should be able to produce any sound possible from his instrument, but a lot of it is reed and setup, and I need to get full control of that.

I came home to no running water… we’d had a plumbing failure, and Rusty had fixed it, but the glue needed time to dry before we put pressure on it. And I had a shipment of trees that I won’t have time to plant until Fri or Sat., so I had to heel them into the garden in the last glimmers of dusk. And we’d had a goat injury, but it’s getting better.

Early Music in Motion double-reed workshop, day 1

After passing through much rain and the picturesque hamlet of Gnaw Bone IN, here I am at the CYO camp in Nashville IN. All is well…the food and accomodations are excellent, as is the instruction and my fellow students. One disappointment: my bud Laura whom I expected to be here is in France. It’s a lot of playing..right now we have a break. And I’m not really getting to play shawm, which I need more help on than the dulcian. reed-adjusting teaching starts tomorrow.

Possible silence ahead

Tomorrow I leave for an early music event, and I won’t be back until late Monday night. It’s being held at a youth camp, and I have no idea if I’ll have access to internet.  So if I don’t post, it does not mean that I’ve been disappeared by the government, or dead, or anything else nefarious. If I don’t post by next Weds., then yes, maybe you can worry.

Panama scores first blood in War Against Piracy

NAIROBI, Kenya – In the first killing of its kind, private security contractors shot dead a Somali pirate in a clash that left two skiffs riddled with bullet holes, officials said Wednesday.

The killing raises questions over who has jurisdiction over a growing army of armed guards on merchant ships flying flags from many nations.

There’s currently no regulation of private security on board ships, no guidelines about who is responsible in case of an attack, and no industrywide standards, said piracy expert Roger Middleton from the British think tank Chatham House.

“There’s no guarantee of the quality of individuals you are going to get,” said Middleton. “If you’re a shipping company, that could be legally concerning. It’s also concerning to everyone if you have individuals with guns and not much oversight out on the seas.”

Wine whine moan moan. I’m no expert in maritime law, but it would seem to me that if you’re in international waters and a ship is attacked, the laws that apply would be those of the country whose flag the ship is flying. And civilized countries (i.e., not Britain) allow one to defend oneself with proportionate force if attacked. It sounds like these guys did what they were paid to do, and the only tragedy is that the body count wasn’t higher.

The quiz

For all Tea-Partiers and alleged freedom fighters:

There is someone in front of you asking for help, and you have plenty of money.  Do you have the moral right to say no?

His need is genuine.   Do you still have the moral right to say no?

It’s not his fault.  Do you still have the moral right to say no?

It’s a very pressing need.  Do you still have the moral right to say no?

It’s a child.   Do you still have the moral right to say no?

If you do not answer “Yes” all the way down the line — if you do not assert your individual moral sovereignty, if you do not assert your right to choose as being morally prior to anyone’s need –

– than SHUT UP and get out of the way.  You are not morally equipped to partake in this battle, let alone win it, and you are wasting your time.

Betrayus for President

The pseudonymous Mr. Vandam alerts us to Presidential talk swirling around General Petraeus.

The key problem here is not that he’s a Rockefeller Republican or a lifelong feeder at the government trough — problematic as those are. Rather, it’s the tendency of the electorate to worship the Man (or woman, in Palin’s case) In White Armor. Anyone who is made Savior of the Nation (including THE Savior, who has already turned down the kingdoms of this world), no matter how right they are, will inevitably get caught up in public adulation and lose their way. Even Ron Paul. Even Billy Beck. Though I imagine Billy would pull a Lyndon Johnson on steriods: “If nominated, I will kill those who nominated me. If elected, my first and last official act will be to issue an executive order abolishing the government.” After which the Princes of This World would doubtless abolish Wm. J. Beck III.

“Don’t hand me any Novembers…”

You knew Billy would check in this morning:

The Republicans have not had a single morally probative principle under them in all of the fifty-three years that I have been alive. They have been passively complicit in this whole disaster every step of the way, in their spineless stupidity, and I wouldn’t care if they ended up painting Nancy Pelosi’s toenails and feeding her bon-bons for the rest of their worthless lives.

When even John Effing McCain is talking about repeal, you know it’s empty sound and fury. I’m perfectly willing to use the Republicans against the Democrats, and to clean Republican house as I can, but your typical Republican (like, say my Dad) is way too much of a squish to create a fundamental realignment. We’d be better off giving politicians the social opprobrium that we now give child molesters. I’m tired of smiling sweetly at my pinko colleagues and “not getting political”. They’re thieves and whores, all of them.