Gold Is Cheap

A memory of my little solo rafting exploits at the weekend...


The plan is to go back out onto the water one morning when the sun is out strong; by using a raft, I'll be able to take pictures from angles no one else has taken e.g. from the south-east looking north with the sunlight hitting the dam from behind me. The paddling is good exercise for my lower back too, and if I'm lucky I might get some better shots of that Osprey.

Where & Why I Divaricate With Conservatives

I am working on other things at the moment, but I want to get this out of my system...

"Why is it we can’t put into our bodies whatever we want?

The simple, straightforward answer is that some substances make one a danger to everyone else."

No. The reason you can't put into your body whatever you want is because so-called "conservatives", for all their pious paeans to freedom, dislocate the point at which positive liberty divaricates with negative liberty: that point is the act of transgression itself, not any preceding propensity.

Example: traffic accidents are caused by bad driving, which, irrespective of whatever ancilliary liabilities may apply (e.g. alcohol consumption, fatigue, poor road training etc) necessarily reflects either moral and/or intellectual failure.

Correctly formed, the ethical question is why you can't put into your body whatever you want whenever you want. But there is a powerful auxiliary to this correction: if you cannot prevent some people from violating or endangering the rights of others by rational persuasion, then you cannot prevent them from doing so by threat of legal punishment.

The criminalization of substance-ingestion is therefore unnecessary for those people who can be persuaded to be mindful of the rights of other people, and an ineffective deterrant against those who do not care about the rights of other people.

Here is the way out, if indeed there is a way out at all: the power of law ought to be brought to bear upon actual crimes (that is, actual infringements of negative liberty), but the task of rationally discouraging the preceding propensities is a task for self-governing citizens; it is most emphatically not a task for law itself.

"... we should take Ron Paul and the radical libertarians at their word..."

To take the conservatives at their word, their infernal "War On Drugs" must be conceived with the appropriate imagery; it is an Ephel Dúath of externalities - towering cartels of professional criminals - behind which the quietly determined accretion of power by Leviathan takes on another, all too often unseen aspect.

The conservatives are responsible for this - not the Left - and for that they should be ashamed. The "debate" about drugs ought to be recognized by conservatives for its great moral and strategic importance in the fight against the Left, but look at them in the comments to that Ricochet post: they can barely bring themselves to do little more than crack jokes about libertarians being "potheads".

You stupid fucking idiots.

"A Pint Of An Osprey In Flight For The Bar..."

This title, which sounds a bit like a Captain Beefheart lyric, was the result of a funny typo in a text message I sent this afternoon. I was on my way back from Wushantou reservoir where I had earlier snapped this image of an Osprey...


Unfortunately, this motion-blurred shot was the best I could manage at the time; whenever the bird came into sight, either I was stuck with the 18mm or the bird was usually to the west of my position in front of the sun. I will get a better opportunity eventually.

I did however, manage to take this shot...


Hell yes: another crested serpent eagle.

Both of these shots were taken with limited opportunities - I was paddling around furiously on a makeshift raft at the time, so when the birds came into view, I had to stop and move around gingerly lest I tip the thing over.

"Darkest Of Night, With The Moon Shining Bright..."

Trying to put over a lot of writing in the next few weeks. I completely forgot that yesterday was Valentine's day; that's what happens when you spend your time hanging out with eagles.

Preceptor

Much better pictures today - the blue sky background makes all the difference. Not as sharp as I would like, but as good as I was going to get with my 250mm. The following three images are of one of a pair of crested serpent eagles that own Nanhua Reservoir.



Notice the clipped left wing in this next image below: there might be four or five feathers missing there, presumably the result of a fight or possibly from some sort of accident in bad weather...

2nd GE Prototype

"...as the EM Railgun program prepares for delivery of a second prototype launcher built by General Atomics."

Against the background noise of defense cuts, that's good to hear; surely somebody at Chungshan must have given some thought to an unguided, short range system for point defense against cruise and ballistic missiles.

蛇鷹

I was out at Nanhua reservoir today taking more pictures for my reservoir essays, and whilst walking back to the road from the dam itself, I caught sight of a very large bird out the corner of my eye: I must have disturbed her because she re-settled in a brisbane tree just a short distance away. My guess would be that either she was just taking a time out from hunting, or she has a nest very close to that spot (which would make sense, since very few people would ever approach the dam structure itself from the western side). Hurrying out the long lens and creeping up as far as I dared go (lest she take off and I lose the opportunity), I took a host of hurried shots whilst holding my breath and trying to keep the lens steady. Then she turned to face me and just lept off the branch - my attempted composure went to shit as I wheeled the camera frantically shooting as much as I could.

However, the images are good enough to allow almost certain identification: she was a crested serpent eagle. Here's another area where I need to work on my camera skills - the images are atrociously blurred, but you can clearly see what a great moment this was...