Thursday, September 25, 2014

The Mystery Decoys of Lake Koshkonong, Wisconsin

Joe Engers over at DECOY Magazine sent a link to this video, which I hadn't seen before. It amplifies a post I did some time back on a mystery decoy from Lake Koshkonong which walked into the Edgerton decoy show years ago.

My favorite is on the second shelf from the top, far left: I tried to buy it, to no avail. It has wonderful lines, and a great head. Above it is another favorite.



For those interested in Koshonong decoys, there is a Facebook page. Little by little, more information shall come out.

My guess is that almost none of the surviving early Koshkonong decoys were made elsewhere, but were modeled on Upper Chesapeake Bay and Susquehanna River decoys brought out by early sport hunters. Else wise, why don't decoys by the same carvers show up on the Chesapeake? While they are very similar, they are not the same, and some of the Koshkonong pieces, like my two favorites, are far finer. It's a shame there aren't scores more of them.

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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

IRS Targeted Those Teaching About The US Constitution

Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranzin the Washington Post:
It is now well known that the IRS targeted tea party organizations. What is less well known, but perhaps even more scandalous, is that the IRS also targeted those who would educate their fellow citizens about the United States Constitution.

According to the inspector general’s report (pp. 30 & 38), this particular IRS targeting commenced on Jan. 25, 2012 — the beginning of the election year for President Obama’s second campaign. On that date: “the BOLO [‘be on the lookout’] criteria were again updated.” The revised criteria included “political action type organizations involved in … educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

...the IRS was “on the lookout,” not for those who preach unlimited executive power, but for those who would teach about constitutional constraints.”
Tar and feathers may be too good for these people, but they will likely end up guzzling champagne and brie.

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Monday, September 22, 2014

The New Civility = The New Totalitarianism

Robert F. Kennedy Jr thinks climate change "deniers" should be imprisoned. Others of his persuasion apparently think the Internet should be nationalized to deny those who disagree with them any chance of speaking to the proles.

That sounds pretty Kennedyesque to me. In fact, it seems downright Democratic.

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Update On The American Police State

The New York Times has an update on the story about the Navy searching "all" computers in the State of Washington:
The federal appeals panel expressed its views in unusually harsh terms, at some points describing the investigative service as monitoring “all the civilian computers” in a state, although, according to court documents, the searches that led N.C.I.S. to Mr. Dreyer were apparently limited to computers linked to targeted file-sharing networks.

The naval investigative service’s role in the case “amounts to the military acting as a national police force to investigate civilian law violations by civilians,” Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in a concurring opinion.
So, it may be that only the members of a particular file sharing network which "sometimes" were used by child pornographers were targeted, not "all" civilian computers in the state. It would be useful to know if "sometimes" was used to protect the Times from libel suits, or if 'sometimes' means it was only now and then used by a small minority of the members.
Charles J. Dunlap Jr., an expert on national security law at Duke University and a former Air Force general, said that the Posse Comitatus Act had been aimed at the threat the armed forces might present to democracy, and that civilian employees, like those in the naval investigative service, “simply do not pose the same kind of concerns.”
If that argument was accepted, what is there to keep the Navy or any other military branch from simply hiring civilian contractors to search our computers for thought crimes against the state?

Fortunately:
The appeals court noted that evidence has rarely been excluded in past cases for violations of Posse Comitatus-related rules. But it said that the evidence of repeated violations, and the government’s insistence it had done nothing wrong, warranted sending a strong message.
If the program isn't slapped down, it will expand.

Just ask Lois Lerner.

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