A thought…

Generated by that horrible kerfuffle now taking place in Georgia.

When you do battle, even if you are winning, if you continue a long time it will dull your forces and blunt your edge; if you besiege a citadel, your strength will be exhausted. If you keep your armies out in the field a long time, your supplies will be insufficient.

When your forces are dulled, your edge is blunted, your strength is exhausted, and your supplies are gone, then others will take advantage of your debility and rise up. Then even if you have wise advisors you cannot make things turn out well in the end.

Therefore I have heard of military operations that were clumsy and swift, but I have never seen one that lasted a long time. It is never beneficial to a nation to have a military operation continue for a long time.

Therefore, those who are not thoroughly aware of the disadvantages of the use of arms cannot be thoroughly aware of the advantages of the use of arms.

Sun Tzu - The Art Of War, Chapter 2: Doing Battle

My opinion is that the West, especially the U.S., have been caught by just the circumstances Sun Tzu spoke of here. By wasting time and energy is a place unrelated to their true strategic interests, i.e. Iraq, they have exhausted themselves and made it very difficult to act in crises. Even one's as minor as this.

So sad. A general 2,400 years ago laid out all the basic principals of warfare. And we still do not use them.

My $0.02. Carry on.

A little political philosophy today

And I'm going to talk about what I regard as one of the most successful rebrandings in modern history. That of libertarianism.

Now, from what I've seen, libertarians mostly seem to be against any form of social power. They especially hate governments, which they frequently conflate as 'socialism'. They're not fond of corporations or any other sort of group dynamic. "I do what I want, when I want and no one can say otherwise" seems to be the thrust of libertarians.

So, to me, they sound a lot like anarchists.

But, let's face it, anarchism has a bad rep. An anarchist isn't thought well of by most people. Organizations really don't like anarchists as anarchy is a danger to their power.

So, libertarianism was born.

By separating themselves from anarchy, the libertarians lost that negative cachet attached to anarchy.

Most importantly by using the word liberty in their label the libertarians automatically place any dissent from their views firmly on the side of evil. To oppose them is to oppose the very concept of liberty, freedom.

I don't care much for their philosophy whether it's called anarchy or libertarianism. Either promises a vicious world where only the nastiest sort of people can thrive, or even survive.

But the rebranding was a brilliant move.

My $0.02. Carry on.

I'm hoping…

To have the energy to make today a busy day.

Want to make a big dent in the yard work.

Must go to hardware store. I've found that CFLs and dimmer switches don't like one another so rather than saving money I'm spending more when the CFLs burn out even faster than incandescents.

While I'm there I think I'll pick up the paint stick I was talking about. And some rope and safety shears. ;)

Wish me luck.

Insomnia sucks

Sigh. I've been up since 3:30. And got to bed late.

A low pressure front moved in and those make me jumpy.

Plus I was at a BDSM workshop last night. The host taught those who attended rope work. Plus he showed off his equipment. I got a lot of interesting for things that are available at your local hardware store. For example a plastic paint stick (about a buck) makes a very nice slapper. *evil grin*

He also had an electric fly swatter that gave a nice, stinging jolt. Five bucks, tops.

I think I'll be making a trip to a hardware store today.

Hmmm.

I wonder why it is that every day around four o'clock my internet connection slows down, sometimes a lot.

I've got DSL, which means my data from a phone line. But my ISP in not the phone company.

Are these two facts related or is my incipient paranoia acting up again? ;)

Once again…

I have to clean up after a roommate.

One of my roommates was evicted last week. I heard him grumbling about it. He had no idea why.

Perhaps the endless stream of crack heads, petty thugs and street people coming in had something to do with it?

Anyway, he loved to cook. But hated cleaning up after himself.

So I'm off to clean the kitchen.

Damn it!

I'm going to take a big step

I've been writing and researching BDSM for a couple of years now. Thanks to all this I've discovered I'm very dominant.

I wasn't always happy with that. Like the narrator in my story Discovery I was afraid that allowing that facet of me to the surface would make me like the people I grew up hating; bullies, irresponsible authority figures and that sort of person. And there's still a bit of that 'BDSM is sick' idea still inside me.

But I'm even less happy at hiding the person I really am. And when I'm writing BDSM I really enjoy it.

So, next month I'm going to a play party. I'm hoping to let out my dominant side with people who can support me as I start down this new path.

I bought some equipment a few months ago; a blindfold, a flogger and some really serious nipple clamps. Before I go to the party I'm getting a proper crop and some good cuffs. I need a back T-shirt as well.

This should be interesting.