09 Apr 2009
Marketize!

Just an excellent essay on so-called "privatization" of State assets by Marcel Votlucka. And an interesting set of observations on our own Hoosier toll road shitstorm. Go read this thing...

The idea that you can somehow run government like a business and get the best of both worlds is absurd because the incentives and economic calculation just aren’t there. Public-private partnerships reek of the Original Sin of State privilege, monopoly and exploitation, and they can never escape that legacy. Even the very language of privatization alienates so many people already that when libertarians talk about replacing government services with market-based ones, folks assume we’re shilling for corrupt things like Halliburton or Blackwater or wimpy school vouchers. Instead of merely privatizing the management of existing monopoly government infrastructure, let’s focus on augmenting and replacing it outside the statist complex, through marketization.

(link) [Strike the Root!]

via LeftLibertarian

22:16 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

The Fiber Event at Greencastle 2009

is coming up tomorrow and Saturday. We'll be there, in an outside booth between the main indoor areas and the sheep barns. If you're in the neighborhood be sure to stop by and say "Hi!".

This should be a major sales weekend for us in fiber and craft materials. We'll be taking ~15 raw fleeces with us, which is all we have left from last years shearing. Not to mention a bucket of horns, including some really nice ram horns. And some leftover peacock feathers. And some sheep-shaped refrigerator magnets that Lorraine hand painted.

We're in for as very busy couple of days. So don't be surprised if I disappear from the keyboard for a while. Like Ahhhh-nold, I'll be back.

21:35 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link