The Whore Of Libertarianism

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I was moaning to my husband about how no matter what I do or how I smack them, we have some trolls who keep coming here.  There are the ones that are activated by any mention of Marx.  Mention Marx, and they pop up like a jack in the box, to issue their ukases and diktats, either condemning us to the hell of capitalists for you know, disagreeing with the great man, or trying to shame us for not following our supposed religion.

Their arguments are often incoherent and only marginally related to the post, and the huns always beat them up one side of the street and down the other, and yet… they come back.

Then there’s the misogynists, misandrists and assorted racists, who come in to make supposed “points.”  Some of these – I know, I look at the IPs – are actually the same as the Marxists and are, I presume, just making sure my blog shows up on lists of racist, misogynist, double plus ungood blogs.  This used to be their game back in the day at the blog that shall not be named.

I usually tolerate them, at least for a little while, so the huns have something to chew on, but then I ban them.  Only thanks to IP changing software (no, if you’re on dial up it doesn’t do that, so stop trying to convince me.  I was on dial up for years) they come back.  And back.  And back.  And no matter how much I pound on them, or you pound on them, they will return having learned nothing.

I’ve come to the conclusion they’re either being paid or this is some form of weird fetish where they like being beaten by free-market, non racist people.

As I said I was bemoaning this state of affairs, when my husband said, “you know, you had a similar problem getting the kids to help you clean.  How did you solve it?”

Well, in that case, I solved it by paying for the cleaning piece meal and allowing them to compete for chores.

So, Dan said, “What is the libertarian solution to the trolls getting their rocks off by being beat up on?”

And I thought… you know, there’s this old skit based on a story by Woody Allen, called The Whore of Mensa...

So I thought, if these people are coming here to get wildly turned on by watching Marx being flagellated, they should pay.  And if they’re leaving their scat so others can find it in obedience to some boss who is paying them by the line, yet they SHOULD pay me.

And thus, I’ve come up with the troll policy we shall call The Whore of Libertarianism.

Here’s the idea – whether you come here to get your yah yah’s off, or you come here because you think you’re enlightening the heathens, or you come here because you got this lousy job off craigslist, this blog is a libertarian blog and firmly rooted in capitalism.  If you want your comments to stand you shall most surely pay.*  Beneath is a fee simple schedule, going from highest to lowest.  Assuredly, it won’t cover everything, but in cases not covered, I’d go for the highest fee.

Troll Fee Charge List

Anti- Semitic Comment, particularly of the kind that believes in a Zionist conspiracy dominating the world – $1000

Racist comment, either proclaiming the superiority of your race – based on, of all things, your skin color – or the inferiority of others — $1000

Misogynistic comment/misandristic comment — $1000

One line comment calling me, the huns, or anyone on this blog a bad name — $500.  $200 to be added per non-pg=13 word used.

Link to your blog so you can tell us how stupid we are $500.

Comment lecturing us on the joys of communism – $500

Link directing us to wikipages on the joys of communism – $250  (Well, we don’t have to follow.)

Comment lecturing us on Marxism, particularly when applied to the soft sciences — $250.  (If you can successfully apply Marx to the hard sciences, no charge – it’s entertainment value.)

Comment lecturing us on the religious/historical/moral values you think we hold — $100 (because you have entertainment value!)

Insulting comment about my/ours moral intellect and beliefs, whether related to the post or not, but not using any profanity — $100  (With a $50 dollar surcharge for every 200 word increment.)

Random comment that leaves us wondering what the heck you think you’re talking about, $50 – with an extra $50 surcharge per 200 words.

Note that these fees are PER COMMENT, not per commenter.

Anyone failing to pay and repeatedly engaging in trolling behavior, will have his comments deleted and/or be banned from this blog.  Anyone paying will have a notice appended to his comment stating how much they paid.

The first idiot to complain that I’m violating his first amendment rights on a private blog, paid for and maintained from my own personal purse, shall owe me $1000 dollars, paid within ten minutes, or he’s banned.

Excluded from this “pay for me to keep the comment up” are obvious commercial trolls, of the sort that have links to various scams, comments written exclusively in Chinese and the ones touting naked anything including but not limited to mole rats.  The policy will be applied at the sole discretion of the blog owner.  Some non explicit restrictions may apply.  Void or invalid where prohibited.

*This doesn’t apply to merely stupid, misguided or otherwise ignorant souls, who engage in honest debate, but the moment I’ve determined you’re a troll, your comment being approved/staying visible depends on a donation hitting my paypal tout de suite.  I will then post a disclaimer saying that the comment stays up because you paid x amount.  Note this does not prevent the huns from pounding on you, since chances are that this is what you crave.

190 thoughts on “The Whore Of Libertarianism”

  2. There should also be a fine for using your in place of you’re.

    And speaking of incoherent, try reading Das Kapital.

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    1. Or Mein Kampf. When I first read it I wondered why I bothered when I couldn’t understand German – then I realized it WAS an English translation; and still incomprehensible.

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      2. And those who have read both have assured me that the English translations are prettied up by the translators, the German is worse.

        This may seem odd in a famous orator, but it seems that Hitler needed an audience and its reactions; he was a dud on radio, too.

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        1. Kapital is a slog. I only read parts, and the prof assured me that those were some of the more “accessible” sections, and it was a headache-inducing slog.

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      3. I have read (or rather, tried to read but failed to finish) two books whose combination of intellectual vacuity, inept style, woolly-minded inconsequence, and sheer spiritual bullying earned them the joint title of the Worst Books Ever Written (within the limits of my knowledge). One was Mein Kampf. The other? A little gem called Role-Playing Mastery, by Gary Gygax.

        Gygax, I’m afraid, really was the Hitler of D&D. He used to write editorials in Dragon magazine ordering all D&D players to play the game exactly by the rules as written, with no house rules whatever and no DM’s discretion, or else get off his lawn and stop pretending to play his game. He had all the self-importance and venomous ill-will of a Hitler, dedicated to the most foolishly petty subject matter you could well imagine.

        The combination is funny in principle; reading his wretched book ought to be funny; it ought to top ‘The Eye of Argon’, but somehow it doesn’t arrive. Apparently the continuum ‘good > bad > so bad it’s awesome’ continues on to a twilit region in which something can be so bad that you can’t even enjoy a good laugh at it anymore.

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        1. I remember a cartoon in, I think, Dragon magazine. Old guy with glasses and a whiter robe DMing a game. Q Who is that? A God, he thinks he is Gary Gygax. Enough truth in that to burn him

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      4. _Mein Kampf_ is my go-to example for “why Editing matters”.

        read accounts of ex-Nazis — all of them said either “I could finish _MK_”, or “I finished it, but it was a slog”. And all of them agree on the reason: It was incoherent, rambling, and not well put together — all aspects which could have been fixed by an Editor.

        So: If Dear Old Uncle Adi had been given access to an editor, more people would have finished his book, realized he was a loony, and locked his ass away forever; which then means the West could have spent the ’40s fighting the Real Enemy — the fucking Marxist Commies! >:)

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        1. Believe it or not, AH’s magnum opus must have been even worse in the first draft, since it was apparently cleaned up for publication by a priest named Bernhard Stempfle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Stempfle
          The guy, who apparently knew too many other things that could embarrass his onetime idol (y”sh), was “rewarded” with a broken neck during the Roehm purges (a.k.a. the Night of the Long Knives) a decade later.

          “To the bitter end”, the memoirs of German anti-Nazi plotter Hans Bernd Gisevius (he escaped to Switzerland using his diplomatic passport when the Stauffenberg/July 20 plot failed), has a priceless scene in which he is sitting with some senior Nazis, including even Goebbels (y”sh), drinking and shooting the breeze. They decide that the first one to join them who has actually read Mein Kampf/My Struggle/Jihadi should pay drinks to all. In the end each had to pay his own bill.

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  3. And of course, there are the fees for bad grammar, mis-used punctuation, and spelling errors. Those alone can be lucrative. . . .why flame when you can CHARGE. . . .

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    1. No charges/fines for spelling errors. Sarah and plenty of her regulars (including me) would have to pay those. [Frown]

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        1. AWK– I have an English degree and spoke English all my life and I still have problems with tenses and misplaced adverbs (and other words). lol for instance the word “of” ends up at the end of the sentence.

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    2. No, no, when the troll want correct for spelling punctuation or graamer, Our Hostess gets to charge them for the privilege of proofing the work of an actual writer.

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  4. I volunteer to head up the collections department. My kneecapping fees are very reasonable and I guarantee collection within 30 days! (I also have a side-business kicking boomerang kids out of their mom’s basement, so Ill be happy to pay you a finders fee since most of the trolls likely reside there!)

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  6. Anti- Semitic Comment, particularly of the kind that believes in a Zionist conspiracy dominating the world – $1000

    Speaking of… does anyone have ANY kind of details on how the Catholic Church is supposed to be running the world? I’ve heard the claim, I just don’t see how it’s possible….

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      2. I wish I knew what this thing with albinos is. They do not look that scary, but they seem to end up in the villain roles in stories.

        Well, maybe that’s just that they don’t look weird here. Besides the fact that very blond people are not all that uncommon I also went to school with a girl who either was an albino or very nearly was – white hair, didn’t tan (I don’t remember ever seeing her tanned, anyway, she always had a very pale skin), light blue eyes. Her eyesight was pretty normal though. She was called ‘puna-Hilkka’ – puna means red, and that name is used for Red Riding Hood in the Finnish translation, Hilkka is a girl’s name here while ‘hilkka’ means hood, and that particular Hilkka blushed very easily and very noticeably (she didn’t seem to have much of a problem with that name, and when she got older it seemed to become more of a pet name than a taunt). End result, I’m afraid that when I hear ‘albino’ the first thing that comes to mind is a little girl blushing furiously, not anything scary weird. And the second is somebody with bottle bottom glasses, which isn’t a very scary image either.

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        2. The problem with sunlight may have something to do with it, plus a complete albino’s eyes are quite a surprise if you’re not familiar with albinism. In some tribal cultures, albinos were thought to either be ghosts, or to have witch powers (not the good kind).

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        3. One of my first symptoms of my disease was red eyes and purple irises. Yep– that was startling to many people. I was able to walk around another month before becoming too ill to do anything else. But I can see how that would make someone think I was evil. ;-)

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        4. Picture a middle-aged, kind of fleshy man with dead white stage makeup, pale lips, nasty in a hard to place way hair, no eyelashes and sometimes little or no visible eyebrows with blood-red eyes. Oh, and they can’t use many facial expressions or blink much because it screws up the makeup.

          It’s not ACTUAL albinos that are scary, it’s MOVIE albinos that are creepy.

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        5. I once met an African man who was an albino. His skin tone, instead of being dark black like the rest of the people around him, looked almost exactly like mine: pink/peach.

          Apparently when H. M. Stanley went looking for Dr. Livingstone in Zanzibar, he started by asking the people he met if they knew of “a white man” living nearby. He kept getting directed to albinos at first.

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        6. puna-Hilkka sounds Welsh. I had a friend/competitor during high school, he was the whitest African-American I’ve ever met. I really, truly do hope that he took advantage of the assorted affirmative action opportunities for African-Americans. I would have loved to see the looks on the diversity schweinfurhers when he brightened up their doorways.

          Of Welsh descent, born in Rhodesia, and almost certainly naturalized long ago. I seriously doubt if his family ever returned to Rhodesia, or as it’s known in the toilet, Zimbabwe.

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      1. And then removed TWO Popes before managing to get one of his own on the Throne of Peter– and even then it was only a guy who’s not loved by his brother Jesuits!

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              1. Amongst are strengths are such diverse elements as nonsense, inflated vocabularies, draconian application of squishy logic and night out in a diner full of shapeshifters

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              2. Our four strengths are nonsense, inflated vocabularies, draconian application of squishy logic, nights out in a diner full of shapeshifters and a ruthless dedication to the publications of Baen! Our FIVE strengths are . . .

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      2. Oooh, and the Templars!

        FYI, Sarah, part of why I’m encouraging this is because I’m doing a series on Catholic conspiracies for a group blog and realized I totally forgot what “control the world” theory I meant when I put down my notes….. Plus, these folks will come up with a lot of funny things!

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        1. Apparently Salon.dumb had a piece today from the Suthun Poverty Law Centre saying the the Society of Pope Pius X is the number one hotbed of antisemitism, and probably a bunch of other -isms. [misspellings are deliberate to keep them from pulling up this reference a la the W-boro “Baptist” group]

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          1. “Suthun Poverty Law Centre” keeps looking for a reason to stay in “business”. [Sarcasm]

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            1. I see their young useful idiots out in front of the local Barnes and Noble every now and again soliciting donations. I always bite my tongue and politely don’t mention any of the fascinating tid-bits I’ve learned about that organization over the years.

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          2. In the late ’80’s, I was a member of the Southwest Pistol League in Southern California. It was a pistol shooting competition league originally founded by Jeff Cooper. The Southern Poverty Law Center put out a press release claiming that the SWPL was a white supremacist militia. At the time, it had a Los Angeles County Fire Dept Captain as Director of the League … who was black.

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              1. Meant the RadTrads, actually– sort of like the head of the WBJackwagons was known to be a standard issue extreme liberal before this new money maker. Being the extremists “everyone knows” are out there and all.

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          5. Well, there are certain places where there are a fair number of SSPX-ers who are also monarchists, or who are also Holocaust-deniers, or who are also geocentrists, or who are deep into obscure Marian conspiracy* “prophecies,” or….

            However, it is fair to say that the mileage varies a great deal, and that there are plenty of SSPX-ers who just have their own unique interpretation of loyalty and obedience to the Pope, and are otherwise not fringe-y at all. Sedevacantists, OTOH (the ones who say the pope isn’t really the pope, and who often claim to have elected themselves in conclave), are pretty much deep in the weird pool on all subjects, and usually are heading deeper all the time.

            * If the Virgin Mary appears to someone and tells them to watch the skies and prepare for alien invasion as well as astrological conspiracies from Uruguay, one ought to consider the possibility that it’s a false vision.

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            1. If the Virgin Mary appears to someone and tells them to watch the skies and prepare for alien invasion as well as astrological conspiracies from Uruguay, one ought to consider the possibility that it’s a false vision.

              Win!

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    5. The jesuits. *nods sagely*

      By the way, do you know that Hitler was a closet Catholic that the Jesuits had assissinated so that he wouldn’t be able to reveal their nefarious plans?

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        1. Foxfier — did you ever read Twenty Years After? It has a really cool “Catholic Conspiracy” scene (Might be The Viscount of Bragelone, but I’m almost sure it’s Twenty Years After) where Aramis shows a ring and commands obedience and we’re given to understand he’s become a secret grand master of the Jesuits. The scene impressed me so much at twelve, that I wanted to BE a Jesuit, which I don’t think is what Dumas wanted. :-P

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          1. I don’t think so– my reading is kind of limited to what the library has on hand, or that I know to look for. :D

            I’ll add it to my library que!

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    6. Well, of course they’re running the world. I mean, all the cool people have been trying to eradicate the Church for centuries now, and they keep not being eradicated. Obviously they’ve got some kind of nefarious powers that protect them.

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          1. Hey, I keep hearing about this “White Privilege” and “Male Privilege” but nobody has told me where I’m to sign up for it. [Wink]

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  7. Excluded from this “pay for me to keep the comment up” are obvious commercial trolls, of the sort that have links to various scams, comments written exclusively in Chinese and the ones touting naked anything including but not limited to mole rats.

    Don’t need to have this– just put up a little sign: We Reserve The Right to Refuse Service To Anyone.

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          1. Drat. See, that’s the problem right there. Communist mole rats have insufficient inducement to doff skirt and do the rodent ramble. Capitalist mole rats would know how to make a buck.

            Communism. Keeping the mole rats down, man.

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      3. Ron Stoppable is offended at this blatant discrimination against his buddy whose name escapes me. (I watched the show with Athena some years back and then she outgrew it. Longest two weeks of my life. ;) )

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          1. We have multiple naked mole rat plushies in the bin full of stuffed childhood toys. The kids loved Rufus. (And I could probably sing most of the song… “What is that, that freaky thing… it’s a naked mole rat!” But I won’t.)

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      1. A serious plan would have a professional collection agency who would buy up the debts on discount after they aged out. I don’t personally have the cash to do that and no inclination to be that unpleasant professionally. I might, however, have need of a good collection agency within the next year so if you knew one, I would be interested in a contact.

        You do know that the structure you’re setting up is actually legally enforceable, right?

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          1. Given the .. widely varied nature .. of your followers, it wouldn’t surprise me if the skillsets needed to actually trace down the individual responsible and, if in the U.S., file suit for non-payment in small claims court (IIRC, anything under $1,000 can be filed there, avoids *you* having to pay a lawyer) …

            Yes, the odds of an actual profit are quite low, but it could be fun to watch… You may have to set up a separate “legal work product” domain (access by subscription only or something) though.

            Mew

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            2. Why ever in the world would you bother with Small Claims Court? We are talking about TROLLS here. Round up a couple of dwarves with flamethrowers and go make the case to the trolls for paying up. If they don’t pay, greenlight the dwarves.

              The joy is, since the sort of dwarves we’re talking about don’t exist, there’s no trackback to here.

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  9. Can we have a day where we all try out our best spammer costumes? And then we can vote on funniest, most realistic, Most Memes In a Single Costume, etc. (I call dibs on Naked Marxist Mole Rats for Peeeeeece.)

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  11. Karl Marx was an idiot Intellectual (but I repeat myself) who never saw that production ONLY works if you have a means to transport.

    Many years ago I read a SF story dealing with what was called the Principle of Enlightened Self Interest (PESI), in which a union organizer tries, in vain, to unionize a business or industry. Unfortunately, the target population understood that the PESI principle mitigated against demanding more/higher wages and benefits because in doing so everyone would be negatively affected.

    I wish I could remember the name & author of that story. Anyone?

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  15. “Random comment that leaves us wondering what the heck you think you’re talking about, $50 – with an extra $50 surcharge per 200 words.”
    This one I find rather worrisome as I must confess that on occasion I have gone back to look at an earlier post of mine and wondered myself what in heck I was thinking.
    Perhaps you might take pity on regulars and grant an occasional mulligan for a faux pas due to a serious lack of either sleep or caffeine. As for the Marxist twaddle, charge on.

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    1. Ah, the regulars get the benefit of the doubt!
      There is a comment waiting approval though that just repeats naked mole rats, with an excursion to naked asian mole rats. We’ll see if they pay.

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      1. So *thats* how my blathering keeps getting through the spam filter. *chuckle*

        Y’know, I’ve some needy indie pro-wrestlers I work with at my volunteer job. If you need goons, just say the word. Big ones. Competent application of strictly limited violence, at your discretion. *grin* Ten percent of gross returns!

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  17. Great. Now I have to fight the urge to cobble together an insult-laden Marxist manifesto in Chinese about how the naked mole rat is an example of the joys of communism and how you, too, can make money fast by following this Wiki link! Sigh…

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  18. This idea worries me. What if you get too much money from the trolls and don’t need to publish anymore? Lord knows there’s no shortage of Marxist morons running around loose…

    OTOH, I can’t really hate on one of my favorite authors getting paid, and it’s not like the Kratman technique for dealing with Marxists is technically legal and I don’t really have THAT MUCH rope available anyway…

    I guess the financial losses will help… Until they come up with a government program to pay their fines for them.

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        1. IIRC it has to do with making sure the neck broke instead of tearing (see Black Jack Ketchum’s execution as a negative example). And then there were hangmen who sold bits of rope as souvenirs, thus necessitating the new rope.

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          1. I’m not seeing how “making sure the neck broke” actually improves the method, unless you intend to avoid depriving tyrants of those free-swinging moments to contemplate their wrongs (which is something they don’t do anyway).

            Furthermore, selling bits of used rope is a legitimate free market solution to paying for additional improvements to society.

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            1. Well, beheading the hangee is considered very poor form (see B.J.K.). Thus the non-used rope. Strangulation can be arranged all sorts of other ways if that’s what’s desired from the hangman.

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              1. Putting the knot on the side of the neck instead of the rear is usually sufficient, especially when combined with a short or no drop, to prevent neck breakage.

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        2. That’s why I prefer an axehandle and an empty mineshaft. Knock ’em on the head, dump ’em in the mineshaft, rinse and repeat. A good axehandle (hickory or white ash) will last for a year or more. And Sarah, I’m available if you need some “enforcement”… 8^)

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      2. Alternatively if you are running short on rope you can always use nails* to Christianize them.

        *I know nailing is the more merciful method but, needs must.

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  20. Somehow I am reminded of a TV show I saw while stationed in England. A local community was soliciting input for the creation of a “community holiday” (that had to be some event or person connected to that community). The plot of the show (such as it was) was a bunch of disaffected youth campaigning for “Karl Marx Day” and twisting and turning to try to find/create the necessary “connection.”

    And it was played dead serious.

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  21. “I’ve come to the conclusion they’re either being paid or this is some form of weird fetish where they like being beaten by free-market, non racist people.”

    Actually, most of them do this behavior to assure themselves of the strength of their faith by going forth to battle the apostates in the Internet. Its all about self-validation.

    As for the mercenary aspects, this reminds me of Ken White’s responses to paid guest post / SEO solicitations wherein he asks about whether the soliciting company will provide a guest post about ponies.

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                1. Yeah, well, I have a lot of French Panama Canal bonds … Ferdinand de Lessups’ signature being worth less today than one would hope … and a large chunk of Knights Templar derivatives sold to me by Giovanni de Medici….

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                  1. Some folks assume a long life is an opportunity for untold wealth. I’ve always assumed it’d just be a better opportunity for me to make bad decisions with longer to brood over them…

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                    2. Cash it in. Compounding interest is wonderful.

                      Or sell it, whichever is higher in price.It has collectible value.

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  22. Commercial Trolls should pay $10,000 per instance, or $1,000 per word, whichever is greater. After all, if they are promoting their own commerce, then they should be happy to pay you for your commerce.

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  23. “Their arguments are often incoherent and only marginally related to the post, and the huns always beat them up one side of the street and down the other, and yet… they come back.”

    What’s the worst thing a sadist can do to the masochist begging to be beaten?

    Tell them “No.”

    Saw this on another board – guy came on, with the express purpose of ‘asking inconvenient questions’ about darn near everything, (AKA ‘speaking truth to power’), spamming the boards with his comments, and vehemently calling people liars if they disagreed with his point of view.

    The fool even bragged on his own blog about how he was going to post the interactions when we got tired of his stupidity and tossed him out the door. Seriously, how bad and twisted does your life have to be when being BANNED from a public forum is a source of pride?

    Luckily the software the board runs allows you to ‘ignore’ some people – so we just ended up talking around him.

    It’s really hard to be abused when people won’t abuse you…

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    1. I saw part of the adventures of Deb Frisch on the Protein Wisdom board. She admits that she was trying to get banned. Unfortunately for her, they were so laid back that she kept escalating, and got to the point where she got enough publicity that she lost her job over it.

      She was trying to sue the owner for not taking down her comments at one point.

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      1. I know you were summarizing but that isn’t even close to what happened with her and Jeff. She actually got fired from UA for her own bizarre local conduct, not what she was doing to Jeff, which actually escalated after her firing from UA. Not to mention, that a friend of mine had had a run-in with her stalking of political opponents the year before.

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        1. Yes, she acted even more bizarrely after the firing, and I’m not surprised that she acted so even before. But if she was fired for other behavior, why did it just happen after a rush of publicity?

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  24. I love the idea. You might actually make some money, if you cut all the prices by an order of magnitude. On the other hand, it’s a new “product” so it should be expensive at the start. Find what the market will bear.

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  25. “Their arguments are often incoherent and only marginally related to the post, and the huns always beat them up one side of the street and down the other, and yet… they come back.”

    Well, see… *this* is the problem. They’re not really being beaten up one side of the street and down the other. Nor do they need to endure lesser indignities like tar and feathers, stocks, or even overripe produce! It costs these great warriors of socialism nothing but a few minutes of their time to come here, post some bit of nonsense, and then proudly report how they “overawed” all of those stupid cretins.

    It has been said that an armed society is a polite society. And that extends, somewhat, to any situation in which a loudmouthed twit knows that he or she is likely to annoy those around to such an extent that a physical response will ensue. Sadly, that tends to be somewhat difficult when the idiot in question is protected by a computer screen. And said idiots are very much aware of that.

    The best solution I’ve seen to date is figuring out where the individual in question is posting from… and publicizing that little piece of data.

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  26. Hmmm, I may have to keep this in mind for my blog, once it gets up and running. At a lesser fee schedule for the first year, perhaps.

    Great idea, by the way. :D

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  29. Oh, oh, I have an idea. *waves hand, bounces at desk* The Huns and Hoydens can set up a pool, say every one chips in a dollar or so as we can, and then when one of us slips up, we’ve got an account to draw from. If no one needs the $ at the end of the year, we can rent the George for a night and have a party. (By year I mean water year, October 1 – September 30 inclusive).

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      1. Sorry, I’ve been working on my “real” books again and should have clarified. The water year is the period used to determine annual rainfall, release of water from reservoirs, stream-flow modeling (and in some cases, municipal water consumption limits, and irrigation pumping limits.) Instead of a calendar year, we use October 1- September 30, because of precipitation patterns in the US. Here’s a good description: http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2012/10/happy-new-water-year-for-hydrologists-its-already-2013/

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        1. So, the water year matches the fiscal year quite nicely. Coincidence? Or evidence of a vast conspiracy? :-)

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          1. Actually, I suspect it’s a pretty narrow conspiracy. Atlantean bankers finagled the “coincidence” so they can launder money for the Molenariast Order.

            It’s gotta be true, I heard it on Art Bell’s show years ago….

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          2. I’m not certain you can get a group of hydrologists to conspire, unless it’s to divert the rest of the crews to the wrong bar. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (Aaaand now I have this Far-Side-esque mental image of several people hiding in the bushes, snickering, as they watch someone pull her hair out in frustration after they moved her bank-full-discharge survey pins. Thanks.)

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  30. What a great idea!

    It never fails to amaze me that progresso-commies who until the past few years have lived in a country that allowed anyone who worked and tried to become reasonably successful squeal like little piggies that it’s unfair. Life ain’t fair, and they wouldn’t recognize “fair” if it jumped up and bit ’em, the progresso-commies seem to believe that having their masters exercise and enjoy special privilege while taking from those who’ve worked somehow shows how special they truly are. Maybe it’s just because I’m not smart enough, that’s frequently pointed out to me, but those who point it out always seem to argue based on sheer volume (as in sound not number or arguers) and/or failing to let anyone get a word in edgewise.

    I’m an old guy who doesn’t get much enjoyment except from spending time with my wife and our dog and needling progresso-commies. The first is pure pleasure, the second is pure entertainment.

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  31. Clearly you do not understand the theory of the Marxist Dielectric.

    The concrete problem is that the worker-electrons do not own a share of the molecules they work for. They are instead held in thrall to the protons in an endless spiral of negation by the false consciousness of electromagnetism. The protons may not be individual tyrants (except in the obvious case of solitary hydrogen), but the proton class collectively steals the labor of the worker-electron class, while sitting in the exclusive nucleus, fat, happy, and benefiting from the electrons’ labors. Do the protons give the electrons a share of the Strong Force? No!!! Do they give the electrons a fair share of mass and gravity? No!!! Are the worker-electrons even given credit or praise for forming molecules? No!!! Indeed, that atoms are classified by the number of protons they contain, and not by the number of electrons, which is assumed to be equal (but in ions this is often far from equal!!!), is a perfect example of the tyranny of language.

    So, on to the theory of the dielectric.

    Thesis: false freedom + chaos
    Anti-thesis: revolutionary field + order
    Synthesis: true freedom + order

    Prior to the application of the revolutionary electric field, the molecules of the dielectric appear to move freely, but this is a false freedom, driven by whim, the manipulation of corporate marketing, and protonic greed. The actions of the molecules appear chaotic and have no true purpose.

    When the revolutionary field is applied, the molecules align themselves in an orderly fashion. They shed their false freedom and now have a purpose and meaning.

    When the revolutionary field is no longer necessary, true freedom emerges. While each molecule is perfectly free to act, all molecules will act in an orderly fashion for they are still filled with the true purpose and meaning of the revolution.

    If the revolutionary field is removed too soon, some molecules relax back to their per-revolutionary state. These molecules are traitors to the revolution and must be re-educated.

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    2. Heehee :D

      I think you’ll find most atoms are prone to backsliding, and that your revolutionary field must be applied by someone with the appropriate magnetism. :-P

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  32. sounds like a plan, make the sinners pay for their sins. I’m just wondering if there is any waiver I can apply for. I know some of my comments will come across as “huh?”, but I’m taking some good pain killers so my brain does wander a tad. :-) Squirrel! No, that was just a tumbleweed.

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  33. OT: But of interest.
    Some time ago it was asked–or I understood it to be a subtext under a conversation of Human Wave authors. How could a series about Zombies be anything but grey goo, even if it is written by John Ringo? Here’s the answer I found at the end of Under A Graveyard Sky, the first novel of Black Tide Rising, Ringo’s zombie series:

    “Last Ride of the Day” is, more or less, the “anthem” of this series:
    Riding the day every day into sunset
    Finding the way back home.

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  35. One line comment calling me, the huns, or anyone on this blog a bad name — $500. $200 to be added per non-pg=13 word used.

    Based on my (admittedly random) observations the blog hostess and all regular commenters (aka: Huns) are reasonable and sagacious persons. All except one, anyway. Whoever that wallaby is is really bringing down the overall alto of this blog, especially with those atrocious puns. Really, you ought add a fee schedule for puns, perhaps adjusted by vote of the hunship.

    Besides, what kind of name is that? RES isn’t a name for a person or even a wallaby, it’s just one more d-mn thing. Truly, that is a bad name and whoever is posting under it is dragging it down.

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    1. BTW – in order to pay any assessed fees I will need your bank routing number, checking account, date and city of birth, social security number and password. My banker (a former Nigerian vice-president who now specializes in estate law — lost heirs a specialty!) will contact you about the particulars.

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    3. “Based on my (admittedly random) observations the blog hostess and all regular commenters (aka: Huns) are reasonable and sagacious persons. All except one, anyway. ”

      Hey, what?

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  36. It’s those jewish, darky, fascist-capitalist wymyn that are ruining everything. They are making more than their fair share and depriving the rest of us of what is rightfully our due… oh wait, are you saying we have to pay; not get paid for such comments?… Nevermind, I’ll just go back to bottlefeeding puppies.

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    1. Bottle feeding baby anything with four legs? Can I help?

      (I can bottle feed a two-legged foxkid on my own, if I really wanted to go the extra step.)

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      1. You would be welcome, I have one that doesn’t want to eat, I have been actually tube feeding it some, because it won’t suck on a bottle enough, but don’t know if it will make it or not. (Well it has made it four days so far, so there is hope). The others are just cute and fat and sassy.

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