Interesting little bit (after a brief explanation)

We had a brutal storm last night. Power was out for over twelve hours. More storms are gathering. I'm busy with calming spooked critters, picking up downed tree limbs (it's strange to be using a chainsaw the way it was intended to be used and not in a hotel room somewhere in the midwest), trying to arrange a time with my neighbor whose fence went down and is now wondering where his various sheep, goats and horses might be for a group of us to go out into the hills nearby to see about coaxing them home. I'm also battening down for what appears to be three more days of unpredictable rain, wind and lightening. So, for the immediate future expect light postings.

I have been reading John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience and highly reccomend it to all. I'm halfway through chapter two and must say that I admire Mr. Dean in a way that I never thought was possible. I must confess that I had my knee-jerk disdain of snitches when it came to him. Reading his thoughts I must confess I misjudged a decent, honorable man.

He does a great deal of groundwork lining out where people fall on the political spectrum. In the footnotes of page 36 he provides two websites that give you a touchstone to see where you fall on the whole Freedom-Order-Equality spectrum. I wasn't surprised at all to find myself falling in the left-leaning-libertarian camp. I'm concerned with issues like fairness, tolerance, opportunity, equality for gender and race issues. I'd rather have the least amount of government possible, but I'm not heartless enough to permit things like starving kids or the sick to go untreated when there are proven, efficient ways to deliver that food and health care through government. I oppose privatisation of Social Security because I expect that Wall Street assholes would simply take the money and run. I want a well ordered militia handy if only to hunt those bastards down.

The first site is a tutorial followed by the test and can be found here.

The second site is a much quicker self test

Again, Conservatives Without Conscience is a well written, well thought piece of work. So far anyway.

I gots work ta do.

UPDATE:

After several hours of flailing away with a chainsaw at only one of several piles of fallen limbs in 105° heat with 77% humidity I stepped back and asked myself "Who the fuck do you think you are, George Bush?" I bowed to the inevitable and called in a professional who is now happily and efficiently sawing and stacking my fallen timber. Some of my neighbor's critters came a wandering home on their own. Several have been spotted in a draw about two miles away. We are planning to go with trailers for the ones that will allow themselves to be loaded and food for the skittish who elect to stay behind. The clouds are ominous and gathering for tonight's round. We shall see what's next.