Voyager
At least one of us is having a good time…
Disclaimer
It’s been a while since I made my usual disclaimer. Though it may not seem so, I’m a bit sheepish when I post my thoughts on politics or religion. I know that’s taboo in our culture. I just can’t keep it bottled up.
I make no claim of special righteousness. In fact, I think that if I got anything good in my life it’s a testament to God’s goodness and grace. I don’t think I’m particularly deserving of the heavenly life I have. I’ve got the same sorts of challenges as humanity in general.
Pastry Chef and a Sniper
Today it was ultra-focus on terrain. The goal is to have it all ready to paint tomorrow, and on the board by Thursday.
We are working on the following major sets for the studio:
Starport
Trenchworks
Ork Shantytown
Stalingrad-esque Cities of Death in Winter
We are working on the following display boards:
Tyranids
Orks
Bretonnians
I am wiped out. Terrain-making is pretty taxing work.
I’ve also got some prep work done on a new round of Mesa Nids:
60x Hormagaunts
10x Genestealers
5x Raveners
Mesa Nids in the City
Got to play a game today, 1000 pts vs Joseph’s Space Marines. A very short Notrep is going up for that.
As usual I hosed myself down from the get-go, deploying a Tervigon and two units of Hormagaunts both on opposite sides of the board. Joseph seized the initiative and hosed down one unit making it flee. Why did I not keep in synapse range?
I spawned seven Termagants on turn 01 with a roll of 3+2+2 so that was pathetic. The Trygon Prime popped up and got shot down in one turn, so he did nothing. Nine snipers hit eight times and did four rends. I am surprised so far at how easily T6 W6 creatures just bite the dust. They get vaporized.
It can’t be the codex. Tyranids are more awesome than ever. I’m just not orchestrating this incredibly complex army properly.
I ran two swarms each of twenty Hormagaunts. I am really liking them. They are savage little insects and a huge unit can really take a beating. They can also make it across the board quite handily. They have Move Through Cover (3d6 for difficult terrain) and Bounding Leap (best of 3d6 for Fleet) which give them a 10-11″ move even through cover. It’s quite astounding.
I think the strength of the list lay with masses of gribblies combined with the medium-sized creatures. Venomthropes I think are the way to go. I haven’t tried Tyranid Warriors or Shrikes.
Children of Heaven
If you hold your thumbnail up to an empty patch of night sky, you are covering up thousands of galaxies. It’s called the ultra deep field. A galaxy might have a billion stars. There are more stars than there ever were or are humans on this planet. There is an Almighty God who is the Creator of all this.
If you look up at the night sky and see a blank and cold place where man is alone in a vast dark sea, you really have no reason to read any further. Or perhaps you have a desperate need to do so When I look up at the night sky, I see a place of stunning beauty, full of worlds made perfect, full of harmonious human civilization. The cosmos is inhabited; the Society of God Himself. There are layers to it. There is no shortage of material resources. God is the God of Abundance. And there are laws on which the universe revolves. Some of them are counter-intuitive. For example: if you give you will get back more than you gave.
Here’s another one: 38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them thatfhate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
– Matthew 5
– Matthew 5
This means that if you do this supra-human thing (do something nice for someone who has done something terrible to you) you will tap into a deeper law. Being a “child of your Father in Heaven” means that you are acting like Him, punching through human judgment and into the cosmos itself. I have heard erroneously before that someone who gave up on revenge/justice was being weak; that this was a law designed for someone to lose their power. The opposite is true. There is a distance between an evil deed done to me and the good thing that I do back, on the one hand a scale going into negative numbers for the despicableness of the deed and into the positive numbers for the reaction to that deed. The difference between the two is the spiritual power that I receive. It can be a small thing: a man cuts you off on the freeway, and you say “God bless you brother!” All the way up to abuse of police power.
I am reminded of a quote from the movie Ghandi: “I am asking you to fight! To fight against their anger, not to provoke it. We will not strike a blow, but we will receive them. And through our pain we will make them see their injustice, and it will hurt — as all fighting hurts. But we cannot lose. We cannot. They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then, they will have my dead body — not my obedience.”
Here is a rather large audio file with the whole speech (note this is from a movie!)
While this principle applies generally as to the appropriate response when someone screws you over, I have found it especially helpful in working out the injustice done to my workers through the income tax.
There are only two places in the Gospels, to my knowledge, where there is reference to taxes. The first is well-known:
Matthew 22
17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
24 And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute?
25 He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers?
27 Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.
The children are made free because they lay claim on a deeper law, the law of the Society of God Himself. Don’t worry about paying your taxes. Do it with a glad heart. If it so be that the government is corrupt then God will deal with them, and will also take care of you. To the man who freaks out and goes off the deep end, he only answers a negative number with a negative number, and there is no power in that, no difference.
And I mean this in the most literal way. If the tax man bleeds you dry, God will fill you up. I have found this to be the case in my own life.
Or as our mothers taught us, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
It is tempting for a mortal to take up the swift sword of Justice and give a man what he’s got coming to him. But oh so rarely does a mortal have the full facts of the matter. The sword is just way too sharp to start waving it around. You don’t know who might get cut. I call this “stray bullets”.
On the other hand, the importance might be in the struggle, the reaction, rather than actually righting a wrong. Does it strengthen the soul?
If this life is all there is, then any injustice must be met with extreme response. The clock is ticking to set it right. But I say that this life is the smaller portion, a mere knot in the string of eternity. Each human in this world was sired in the galactic core by the Supreme Creator, and held as an infant child in the loving arms of celestial parents on a world with twenty suns. This is the pre-existence.
And after this life, after a short eighty year life-span, there is an interim journey through a deeper world. It is a world where the justices and injustices of earth life are sorted out. That’s a whole lot of therapy! I’ve spoken on this topic in a previous post.
And that’s why I pay my taxes. With a smile on my face.
Hearty Meal
As readers of this Blog well know, I consider radio and TV to be poor sources for information on politics and economics. These are mass IVs for the masses, to keep them sedated and create only the illusion of debate. It’s like eating only doughnuts for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Want a real meal? Read a book! Read multiple books including those with views you find uncomfortable. Be omnivorous.
The great thing about a book is that the author has you for ten hours to really expound his or her viewpoint thoroughly.
I have recently just finished “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein. While I do not think her conclusions are completely right, I have a profound human respect for this author. I have a sense that I have concluded course 104. I have read, carefully and multiple times in some cases, at least a stack three feet thick of books on society, economics, monetary policy, and foreign policy.
Here is a list of books, that if you read them all, I would consider you well-versed. Some of these titles may make you uncomfortable. Good.
Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
Meltdown by Tom Woods
The Revolution by Ron Paul (and End the Fed)
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
Leave Us Alone by Grover Norquist
And if you’re up for a really depressing read: Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano.
I don’t necessarily agree with all of these viewpoints. I am just saying they give a better understanding. They each give a greater and deeper context for the other.
Ron Paul Fix
Warning! This turns into a quite a shambling ramble!
Who benefits? With constitutionally-minded men who want to limit the power of the government in power the common man wins. Giant corporations lose– they cannot maintain their power without the strong arm of the Federal Government to back them. Monopolies cannot be maintained without Federal level laws to drive out competition in all fifty states. The States win– smaller groups of people gain greater influence over their own affairs.
People don’t like being meddled with. Taking a man’s money, even for Utopian visions, even for his own good, is still taking his life. You don’t have a say in how 20% of your life force is expended. Your employer quietly funnels it to a distant capital. Those that claim to be wiser get to decide how it’s spent.
A man has a right to self-determination. In short, a right to his life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It is an inalienable right. It can’t be taken away. Any government that says “at my will I can take away your life and liberty” is no less than a King-Tyrant who is no more fit to govern a Free People than was King George! It is the old chafing yoke under a new name.
I delight in the idea of State’s Rights. It means that a group of like-minded people can voluntarily create their own Utopia and not have it forced upon them. One size does not fit all. And with fifty states, why that’s like fifty little countries to choose from. Which one do you like best? I don’t hate the Federal Government. I think it is mostly useless, mostly pathetic and the States are much more suited to securing the liberty and happiness of its citizens. I want the Feds to stick to a few basic functions and leave the rest to the States or even better to the Individual.
I live in a close-knit Mormon community where everyone knows everyone else in a two-block radius. It’s called a “ward”. There are 110 families. About 80 of those families are actively involved. It is a voluntary association of like-minded individuals. A group this size can handle almost every emergency. I believe that if even half of our federal taxes where left in our own community that we could even handle big stuff like brain surgery and paving the roads. We have a Bishop (like a pastor or village elder) who maintains a storehouse of goods for use by the community if one should falter. The assistance is immediate, local, responsive and is limited to the exact amount needed. It works, I know it works, I am living it. Freedom works. When left to themselves people can voluntarily create useful societies that take care of practical needs. It doesn’t need to be a huge central government doing it.
If a huge central government has the power to create Utopia, then it also has the power to create a Monster.
Old wrinkly so-called Republicans cry out “You’re splitting the Party! We’ll lose power!” No, it is you traitor that must hang (metaphorically speaking). It is you who split from your foundation and now you must sink in the rot of your own mire. We will tear you from your horse, like peasants with sharpened pitchforks, and we will put up just and principled men in your place. Men who will obey and honor the spirit of the Constitution of the United States!
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
–The Declaration of Independence
I thank God Almighty that He has provided a foundation to which we can look, and a peaceful manner in which we can change our affairs without the shedding of blood. See you at the ballot boxes in 2010!
And don’t forget to get principled and fiscally conservative men and women on the ballot in your state’s Primary!
Final note: I am a believer in people. I like people. I think that the Creator of Mankind looks down on His children with delight and loves them. He has given us our freedom to choose for ourselves. What a wonderful thing! Left to themselves I think that people are generally very peaceful and it takes extraordinary means to make us war with each other and abuse one another. God looks on us with paternal regard and loving-kindness. He interferes the minimum amount needed, gently, humbly and without a lot of fanfare. He notices the individual.
Tervigon Beta
Here’s another Tervigon (type Beta). You can get this type if you want. I like it, it’s very evocative. Much like an insect. What do you think?
Still some open slots in March. Still running Hive Mind. Re-download Tyranids spreadsheet as some prices have come down as we’ve done prototypes and nailed down actual costs.
We have a lot of good mostly permanent specials. Visit the Candy Shop to check those out.
In other news: on top of the car issues the furnace went out. On Friday late afternoon. That means no heat until Monday, if that. Blargh.
Doling Out the Charm
Tonight, while gathered as a family just before bedtime, my four-year-old son G. swallowed a penny. He was quite distraught and there were some pretty frenetic antics as we tried to extricate it. He was not choking on it fortunately but it was “penny going down rough”. I rushed him to the local Urgent Care where I paid a reasonable amount in cash for services with no waiting and no appointment.
They took an X-Ray of his torso to be sure the penny had not lodged in his esophagus. He was so brave on that cold table in the dark. He turned his angelic little face to me and said “I love you Daddy” and softly clutched my hand.
He got a balloon and a little toy.
The penny had moved to his stomach. We just have to monitor for anything unusual but it should pass in his stool. G. turned to me quizzically on this point. Pass in my what? They mean your poop dear. Oh.
I’m making plans for a quite different type of Beastmen army.
1x Gorthor on Razorgor chariot
2x Heroes on Razorgor chariots
(see where this is going yet?)
40x Ungor Raiders
20x Chaos Hounds
4x Razorgor Chariots (these are going to be huge creatures with howdahs– great modelling possibilities here)
2x Jabberslythes
This easily clears the 2000 point mark and I think makes goodly headway to 2500 pts. This is already in process. I have all the materials needed except the Razorgors themselves (for which I will probably us an alternate model).
I have made good progress on The Shock Doctrine. It’s a hard read but also a real page-turner. Not just a hard read because of the dense text but also because of subject matter. There’s a lot on the history of torture and other forms of “shock”. It’s got a happy ending, though, since I read the end first! It’s not conspiracy theory. It’s well-documented with a mammoth fifty pages of solid citations. I don’t think it’s some kind of bible, it simply illuminates from a unique direction.
I’m quickly becoming a fan of Naomi Klein. So poised and well-versed! Num-tastic. She actually has some things in common with Ron Paul, oddly, eg., Corporatism = bad.
People don’t want to be meddled with. They should be free to live their lives without interference and without being robbed; without being forced by someone else.
I don’t want anyone to have the One Ring. I want to cast it into the pit of Mount Doom. Saruman thinks he’s going to use it for good. But it’s Galadriel who had it right: no one can be trusted with it, even with the most angelic of intentions. “I have passed the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.”
Does she say that in the books?
Also, another type of Tervigon came out of the assembly room today. I plan on making a vid of that. It’s a tie for best one I’ve seen (the other being the type I have in my mesa nids army).
Also, I’m now booking projects for March.
Assembly Only
We are now offering Assembly Only projects. This is where we assemble your figures but do not paint them.
Cost is as per our standard pricing. We also offer an Expert Level assembly at 1.5x rate. This means a lot of pinning, puttying, and cleaning.
You can also get your models at 20% off if you want us to order them for you.
There is a minimum order of $200.