Shameless Prejudice and Bigotry

Lawmakers: Time to cool the political fury - CNN.com

Certainly "prejudice and bigotry" are bad, but to equate them with 'political rhetoric" and somehow attempt to link a guy that believes in some form of mind control from the government as somehow being related to the Tea Party or any other sort of political movement that might want a smaller government is just one more sign of how common prejudice and bigotry are.

I remember well when Ronald Reagan was shot. I personally knew multiple people that were convinced that Reagan was going to "get us all nuked", and all sorts of crazy articles about his "Dangerous Cowboy attitude" and "Nobody builds a bunch of nuclear weapons unless they plan to use them" sorts of gibberish were being spewed. Even by 1985, the left was at least claiming to STILL be extremely afraid of nuclear war, and not at all above heated rhetoric and dramatizations that claimed that the policies being followed were going to get us all killed. Last I checked, we are still here and the USSR isn't exactly in the ascendancy. Apparently Hinkley was actually in love with a movie actress and trying to impress her when he shot Reagan, but I didn't hear much concern for movies contributing to insanity at that point either.

During the Bush Administration, we had "Fahrenheit 9-11" and "The Assassination of George Bush", along with regular marches and protests about the two wars still going on and Gitmo. The two wars are still in progress and Gitmo is still open, so I think it is pretty safe to say that all the heated rhetoric on those subjects was very much about politics and a prejudice much more against Bush than the supposed targets.

Were one actually anxious to "cool the political fury" rather than to shamelessly use a tragic action by an obviously mentally unstable individual to further expose your prejudice and bigotry against political views that might disagree with yours, this would be a GREAT time to leave politics out of it and just mourn the victims and maybe say a little prayer for the mentally ill young man and his family as well.

Mascots

Mascot Politics - Thomas Sowell - Townhall Conservative

I need to go over and read the longer article, but this one is well worth the couple minutes it takes. Right now the MSM could care less about the homeless or the poor in any sort of situation -- that only comes out when there is a Republican president. Welcome to France -- how long before people start torching cars for a good time on weekends?

Bias In Action

The Northeast Snowstorms: One More Sign of Climate Change - TIME

But while piles of snow blocking your driveway hardly conjure images of a dangerously warming world, it doesn't mean that climate change is a myth. The World Meteorological Organization recently reported that 2010 is almost certainly going to be one of the three warmest years on record, while 2001 to 2010 is already the hottest decade in recorded history. Indeed, according to some scientists, all of these events may actually be connected.

Read that again a bit more closely and think a little harder. The article is pointing out that "weather isn't climate". OK, but then why would it be remotely interesting that 2010 is or isn't one of the hottest years on record? or that even a decade was very hot? A SCIENTIFIC view would be to "define climate", and in EITHER case, warming or cooling, point out that "it isn't weather".

"Climate" must be longer than hundreds of years, because the Medieval Warming Period, from like 800-1300 when GREENland got it's name as being a nice place for Vikings to farm and live, nor the "Little Ice Age" from 1300-1850, when there were "years with no summers" in major parts of Europe and the US, don't count as "climate". We will need to get warm enough so crops can successfully grown on Greenland in order to even get back to the Medieval Warming Period -- but even if we do, THAT will not be proof of "climate change", because not even those swings in the past count as "Climate Change" according to current definitions.

A purely politically biased view says that it is foolish to look at current cool conditions as having anything to say about warming, but it is perfectly reasonable to look at current warm conditions as being proof of warming. It seems absolutely clear that the political biased view is largely all we hear from the MSM -- "proof" of a change of "Climate" will involve warming going on for 100's of years ... like half a millennium or more as it it did in the Medieval Warming Period, and followed by a less long and cool cooling period than the Little Ice Age following it.

Sometime about 3000 AD, our climate science ought to be getting close to being more scientific and less political.

BO Regressivism

Obama and the State of Progressivism, 2011 | Hoover Institution

A rather long but worthy discussion on the past and current thinking in "progressivism" -- or as I like to refer to it, "regressivism". If allowed to proceed, the "progressive" agenda will make us Serfs as before the enlightenment, only this time it will be to a set of Harvard elites and their Union Boss cronies. It is definitely worth breaking out the firearms before kneeling to the modern would-be "rulers"!

This little quote from an older progressive (Croly) pretty much sums up the folks who Thomas Sowell calls "The Annointed":

“the average American individual is morally and intellectually inadequate to a serious and consistent conception of his responsibilities as a democrat”

Got that? Democracy would be great, but the people are too stupid! Therefore, we have to use the courts and subterfuge to FORCE them to do what they really would do if they could just be as smart as the elite! We poor gun clinging religious red state country bumpkins need the likes of his most brilliant eminece, the ever pungent BO to light our way!!

Empire

"The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power" by Nial Ferguson.

Dr Ferguson remains one of my current favorite living historians and this book does not disappoint -- me at least. I suspect that many would find it "a bit dry".

I was very interested in the question of "why Britain"? relative to the creation of the huge empire. The key answers seem to be:

• A flexible rule of law -- The big picture principles of freedom and civil society were followed and bequeathed in the main, but significant detours, up to effectively condoning piracy early on, were important to success. "Do the right thing as quickly as you can" might be a reasonable motto for the Empire. 
• The willingness to colonize -- which meant that a reasonable number of English pulled up roots and left home, often forever, in order to be the backbone of a world wide civil service.
• Timing -- Spain had pretty much sewed up the "plums", England got stuck with some "poorer colonies", North America at that point being particularly bad. Therefore, rather than just move in and plunder, the English needed to make something out of what they found -- which involved colonization, application of technology, management, global finance, trade, etc. They got rather good at it -- the Spanish just got good at walking in and taking anything that looked like gold. 

The devastating effects of the Maxim automatic weapons on African tribesman and Mideast Dervishes was something that I was not aware of. I think Ferguson does an excellent job of telling the truth, but is very careful to put things in context -- sudden and younger death from many causes including violent ones was a much more common situation then. Does this "excuse the slaughter"? No, but it didn't happen in a vacum either. It is quite interesting to me how the name "Rhodes" as in "Rhodes Scholar" is still considered positively, yet Cecil Rhodes was about as ruthless as anyone could be in the killing of native peoples and the taking of land, diamond and gold mines, and anything else that suited his fancy. He was "an imperialists imperialist", but there is little attempt to besmirch his name AFAIK unlike say "The Robber Barons" on the US, which did MUCH less damage (and far more good)  at about the same time in history.

In talking about the good effects on world GDP, advancement of countries and rule of law, this little list of positive elements for growth and development could bear reading by many folks in our own government:

1. Secure rights of private property (encourage saving and investment)
2. Secure rights of personal liberty (against tyranny, crime and corruption)
3. Enforce contract rights.
4. Stable Government (publicly known in advance rules --- HELLOOOOO ???)
5. Responsive Government
6. Honest Government (no rents for favor or position ... again??? BO???) 
7. Moderate, efficient, non-greedy government (hold taxes down, reduce governments claim on surplus)

Many interesting personalities and events are discussed during the course of the book, but one of the things I like about Nial is his capacity to link the elements together into a unified whole that is more understandable having read the book.

Basically, Britain created the first case of "globalization" through Empire. While it had problems, it was a civilizing factor on the globe and made the world better for many many people, not just the British. WWI and WWII destroyed that version of globalization and Britain essentially traded her Empire in order to fight the tyrannical Empire building attempts of Germany and Japan.

Today the US is the sole remaining superpower, but we don't really do "Empire" -- what this means is that without colonization or some other form that replaces it in securing investment in the undeveloped world, the gap between the haves and have nots gets bigger and the risks of conflict between the "integrated" and "non-integrated" gets larger, as in 9-11.

A very worthy, but somewhat difficult read.

The Conservative Scrooge Myth

Liberals Give 'Til It Hurts (You) - Ann Coulter - Townhall Conservative

Liberals hate Ann Coulter, but she is kinder and gentler than Al Franken (she never called anyone a "butt boy"), and she has the good grace to not be a US Senator.

Anyone with a sense of humor is really going to like this column -- but since a sense of humor involves being able to not take yourself too seriously, I've never met a liberal that had one. The column points out the obvious that has been covered in study after study and would be very easy for the MSM to cover if they wished, since many candidates have to make their tax records public. The MSM loves any hint of hypocrisy from any Christian, but if your religion is liberalism? Go ahead and just transfer OTHER peoples money to your favorite voting blocks and call that "caring" while personally making Scrooge seem like a philanthropist!

My favorite teaser quote ... but there are a number of good ones:

In 2005, Vice President Cheney gave 77 percent of his income to charity. He also shot a lawyer in the face, which I think should count for something.

2010 Political Meaning

RealClearPolitics - The Year That Humbled the DC Establishment

 

Good short read, good set of links to predictions from the MSM that fell on hard times.

 

Ishmael, By Daniel Quinn

Another of the many attempts to come up with some sort of new mythology that replaces thousands of years of western spiritual and philosophical life with a pagan pseudo-religious view of the universe and mans place in it.

In this story a man answers an ad in a newspaper by a "teacher" looking for a "student" that has a desire to "change the world". It turns out the teacher is a telepathic gorilla named "Ishmael", and the "lesson" is that "Mother Culture" (Western Culture) was created by "the takers" and is a planet and life destroying disaster. 

The world is divided into two; those that divide the world in two, and those who don't (little joke). "Leavers" ... essentially "hunter gatherers" and all the other animal species on the planet, and "Takers", farmers and the entire culture that was created because of people living in a fixed place, raising surplus crops so time could be spent on thought and technology.

Some of the random thoughts from the book:

• The planet is being "destroyed", but maybe the end result will just be that man will be destroyed. The point is "we have no choice" -- getting rid of these "takers" is an emergency!
• There ARE some sort of "rules" ... the book postulates "gods" that set them up. The pinnacle of "success" according to these "rules" is held out as the American Indian. 
• Leavers / Hunter Gathers good ... Takers / Farmers bad ... and of course the "mark of Cain" is the "maggot colored white man". 
• Man has no "original sin", it is the "taker culture" that is responsible for all ill. Yet another version of the "Noble Savage" myth.
• "We all live in a prison" -- returning to some version of "leaver culture" will repair all ills. Our "culture" creates the "fish not knowing about being wet" problem  (I suspect a little time spent in the woods with a loincloth eating grubs might make the "leaver culture" slightly less desirable) 
• Naturally, the distribution of wealth and power in "the prison" is unjust in the extreme ... and again, the problem is those nasty white males. 

That covers most of the main points.

What amazes me about books like this is how completely common they are and how much their basic world views are IDENTICAL ( here is a Thom Hartman ... anything by him is about the same). The view is essentially:

1. Some version of a "Nobel Savage" myth ... "return to nature and all is good". 
2. No need for God -- either this is all there is, or the next life is cool with whatever you do here ... maybe unless you like work hard and create things or something evil like that. 
3. Everything is currently screwed up, but it is "the fault" of "western culture, white men, corporations, money, technology or ... "something"". It can be "fixed" by throwing away pretty much all of current culture, taking off our clothes and having some sort of back to nature free love thing. 
4. "Somehow" ... if we just tear down what is, things will get really really good -- "trust us". 

BO actually summarized it pretty well -- "Hope and Change" don't ya know!

What is clear to me is that man has a "Christ shaped hole", and once Christ is rejected he is prone to believe in just about anything -- however it always ends up having a "shape" that pretty much looks like Lucifer for some reason -- maybe in an ape suit, maybe a cute lass with some minimal fern trim, or maybe just looking like a snake peddling an apple.

The road to Hell has never been hard to find!

BO Death Panel of Liberty

Charles Krauthammer - Government by regulation. Shhh.: "Sign"

Having the MSM on your side remains remarkably helpful -- BO will now feign a move toward centrism to secure re-election in 2102, meanwhile the liberty and economy killing lurch of unpredictable regulation by fiat will grind inexorably onward in the depths of the massive federal bureaucracy to the very quiet cheers of the MSM.

"Net Neutralization" ought to be added to to this sorry litany.

Good outing by Charles.

Freezing Due to Warming

Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming - NYTimes.com

I'd long predicted it, but in case you were not a believer, here it is. To a Global Warming (GW) true believer, you can be out freezing in record cold and snows -- and the problem is STILL GW! Not just for a year mind you -- for the better part of a decade.

How can we reconcile this? The not-so-obvious short answer is that the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes. Last winter, too, was exceptionally snowy and cold across the Eastern United States and Eurasia, as were seven of the previous nine winters.

Got that? Not just THIS years really cold and snowy weather, but 7 of the previous nine winters! Do you suspect at all that if 7 of the last 9 winters had been very WARM that the MSM would be showing similar restraint and being careful to point out that "7 of 9" is insufficient for climate change?

What we heard for a number of years -- "it's one of the warmest years ever". Which is no doubt true via some data and some assumptions on measurement. We also hear that "weather is not climate". Yes, again, very very true -- neither is a few decades of temperature, or arguably close to 1000 years. The "Little Ice Age (LIA)" is generally recognized to be from 1250-1850, or about 600 years, but that is not called "climate change", merely "cold weather". It is also not talked of much at all in GW circles, since it was preceded by the "Medieval Warm Period (MWP)" of 950-1250 that among other things was the period when the Vikings lived comfortably in GREENland -- successfully raising crops.

Those especially nasty independent thinkers might notice another slight problem -- if the MWP was 300 years and the LIA was 600 years, we could well have entered another "3-6 HUNDRED year warming period post LIA, which would mean that we might until say "2150" before we settled back into some version of a LIA. Since the LAST MWP was warm enough to make some decent hunks of Greenland suitable for farming, I'm certain that while flying around in their jets, some of the Change Gurus will have no doubt purchased some great Greenland farmland, since given GW, it will certainly get warmer there than last time, and we can only expect that the warm period will be longer.

The article takes a nice turn to explain all these current temps away due to "more snow in Siberia". What I especially enjoyed is the following:

That is why the Eastern United States, Northern Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinarily snowy and cold winters since the turn of this century. Most forecasts have failed to predict these colder winters, however, because the primary drivers in their models are the oceans, which have been warming even as winters have grown chillier. They have ignored the snow in Siberia.

There you have it -- the WEATHER Models are wrong! Oh, but the CLIMATE Models??? Clearly, not a snowballs chance in hell that those could be wrong according to the "Climate Change" industry!

Short "looking back" supplement to those interested. This quote is from the 2001 Time magazine that had a frying egg on the cover and a major section devoted to the "truth" of GW and a good deal of W Bush bashing. They say that "science" is about "predictions" -- take note that the IPCC "fixed their models" and said that "GW should accelerate" -- as late as Katrina, they were CERTAIN that we would see "more and higher severity hurricanes in the US" ... we have not, Katrina was the last big one to hit the US.

That is one reason the latest IPCC predictions for temperature increase are higher than they were five years ago. Back in the mid-1990s, climate models didn't include the effects of the El Chichon and Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruptions, which threw enough dust into the air to block out some sunlight and slow down the rate of warming. That effect has dissipated, and the heating should start to accelerate. Moreover, the IPCC noted, many countries have begun to reduce their emissions of sulfur dioxide in order to fight acid rain. But sulfur dioxide particles, too, reflect sunlight; without this shield, temperatures should go up even faster.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,999630-3,00.html#ixzz19MOtc37J

Killing the American Dream

Who Killed the Disneyland Dream? - NYTimes.com

Rich is happily hammering nails in the coffin of the American Dream, all the time say "who dunit", and then snidely pointing to "the rich". It is just too funny that his last name is "Rich".

The idea that the American Dream is dead is as old as liberalism -- my family certainly preached that gospel as I was growing up in the 60's and early 70's and going off to college in the late '70s. "Gotta have connections, the big guys are all in cahoots, no way for a little guy to get ahead ....". The preaching of hopelessness and free passes from personal responsibility due to "race, creed, class, connections, geography ... what have you" is as old as the hills.

What happened since the '50's? Guys like Rich have gotten a lot more airplay and a lot more followers, so more people have been lulled into thinking "I don't have a shot at improving my lot in life". I really don't feel like going and hunting down the stat, but I have a very hard time believing that a much larger percentage of Americans can afford a trip to Disney today than could afford it in the 50's.

If that is true, does it REALLY matter what % of the income the top 400 or top 1% or top 10% or whatever gets? If everyone is better off, when what is REALLY the concern here?

Why "Bipartisanship" is Stupid for Republicans

Obama And The 111th Congress: Not So Lame After All | The New Republic

The American people speak about as clearly as they possibly can in an off-year election, and then what do the Republicans do? Hand the momentum right to BO and the Democrats -- who are justifiably quick to crow about how great they and BO are.

Is there any credit to Republicans in the media for this capitulation!! NO, of course not!! but they would have to be complete idiots to expect any. Let me recap:

-- Democrat that crosses party lines ala Lieberman? Turncoat, insane, pariah -- a couple of curses his way and he disappears.

-- Republican that crosses lines? ala McCain at times, Susan Collins, Olympia Snow, Murkowski,etc? They are PERSONALLY given a TON of credit in this for being "smart, correct, wise, etc", BUT, that is short lived, and as we saw with McCain, those accolades are ONLY while you are doing the bidding of the MSM and the Dems -- all the long term credit goes to the Democrats, and of course to BO, for being "a leader".

The Democrats are obviously completely thrilled, and they ought to be. The Tea Party sorts will now be more energized than ever agains the Republican establishment, which could well sow the seeds of more direct challenges to Republican candidates from the right in 2012. Meanwhile, the Democrat base is heartened -- big stimulus $$, a plum for gays, a piece of political theatre in the case of the 9-11 responders that the Democrats clearly set up the Republicans so they could beat them with it when they wanted to do tax policy.

Raising taxes in a recession is plain dumb, and Americans understood that -- as did BO, he was going to deal. The Republicans OUGHT to have gotten a MUCH better deal than they got, and then very loudly said "Merry Christmas" !!! Instead, they got completely stupid and rejuvinaed a BO whose stench was starting to become slightly more muted -- the pungency is back, thanks a lot Republicans!

Marxist Neutrality

John Fund: The Net Neutrality Coup - WSJ.com

In case the idea of "Net Neutrality" is somewhat vague to you and you wonder why folks like Al Franken are wildly in favor of it, read the next paragraph and then read the linked column. As I've said more than a few times, we are STILL in grave danger from BO -- it is a stench that will not be covered up with one election!

A year earlier, Mr. McChesney wrote in the Marxist journal Monthly Review that "any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself." Mr. McChesney told me in an interview that some of his comments have been "taken out of context." He acknowledged that he is a socialist and said he was "hesitant to say I'm not a Marxist."

The Purpose of Debate

Reflections on the Passing Scene - Thomas Sowell - Townhall Conservative

I was struck by the wisdom of this particular comment in the column:

More disturbing than any of the issues of our time are the many people who debate those issues as contests in talking points, rather than as attempts to get at the truth. Too many people debate as if the point is to show who is smarter, rather than which conclusion is correct.

I think Sowell is on to something here. The purpose of NFL football games is to entertain -- and that is gained by the teams doing what it takes to win, which ALWAYS involves pushing at the edges of the rules and using them to your advantage. As an offensive lineman, you are taught how to "hold correctly" with your hands on the jersey or pads inside and your elbows outside. Receivers regularly discreetly push off, the edges of the field are used with amazing gymnastic moves to put the ball where only your receiver can catch it -- and get two feet down. The list could go on and on -- it's a game, and it is meant to be entertaining, and I for one find that it usually is.

Debate is also played as a game in High School and I assume college -- not so much for entertainment, but under strict rules of evidence and time, and judged by a known set of criteria. It is an excellent mechanism for the debaters to understand the topic, because they must have arguments set up so they can debate either side (one could only wish for this to be more common for Americans). The purpose isn't necessarily to get to "a right answer", but to understand the formation of rational arguments.

Shout show cable, and really all of our news media are "shows to make money" -- with more in common with football than debate. Some of the media folks of all stripes are seeking to win converts for a given political position, but the coin of the realm is ratings and money -- the very best, most reasonable, well thought out, well delivered arguments for a point are completely useless if they don't bring people to the set, the radio, the web page, the newspaper or what have you.

None of this is about truth. The vast majority of people look for evidence that supports the world view they already have, and the big change in the modern information buffet is how much it is to do just that. There are a number of great arguments that can be made for things that are widely accepted to be false -- people go through life with all sorts of "stories" for northern lights, "heat lightning", inflation, unemployment, dry skin, terrorism, the price of stocks, gold, oil, coffee, snoring ... the list is infinite, and often what is being searched for is not "the truth" per say, but a "reasonable story" that "feels right" and fits well with whatever set of other stories make up our world view.

My view is that most people DON'T debate -- they want to share their stories and they mostly want others to listen to them and generally agree. If the other person has a similar story, they might like listening so they can improve their story, but the incidence of actual debate, where new information might enter in and stories could be changed is VERY rare.

"Should" it be different? I might personally enjoy it if it was, but I've been around long enough to know that view is very rare. My belief is that the best way to change the general mind is through "improved story quality", and finding ways to increase the factual content of stories while still having them be palatable to a broad set of people. It is something much more excelled at by the more "liberal" in our world, and it is an area that those that want to preserve liberty will need to much improve in order to save the remaining liberty we have.

Samuel Johnson, A Life, By David Nokes

I've been going to read more about Johnson for some time. The standard text to read on him is "The Life of Samuel Johnson" by James Boswell, sometimes called the most famous biographical work written in English, which I will no doubt have to get to. Why exactly I picked this book up, I can't entirely recall, but Johnson is a large enough topic for a couple of views.

His "Dictionary of the English Language", published in 1755 was the standard for over 150 years, and that alone gives him enormous standing in the English speaking world. The book however is more attuned to the attempt of understanding what Johnson's life and thoughts were really about, and he was quite an interesting person.

Born sickly, possibly with Tourette syndrome, to a father deeply in debt for most of his life, Samuel's life had many difficulties. He was large and apparently quite homely, but also when not depressed or ill, quite vigorous. He was a devout man, but like all mankind, subject to temptations of sloth, excess and lust. Since he was a man of letters, diaries, written prayers as well as pamphlets books and plays as well as the subject of a number of biographies, we have a good deal of insight into his private life.

There seems little doubt that he was a genius of literature, able to read, comprehend, editorialize, and maybe most famously, produce the short pithy quotation:

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

One could go on forever with such quotes, he was a master of insight and language.

In 1763, he formed "a Club", a social group that included his friends Reynolds, Burke, Garrick, Goldsmith and eventually Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon. They met Mondays at a pub called the Turk's Head in Soho ... a most august group of men of the era, and a testament to the intellectual standing of Johnson.

While brilliant, given his infirmities and difficulties with love and money, his life was a more or less constant challenge -- but to some degree, it does the heart good to listen to all his difficulty and realize he still lived to a ripe old age, and accomplished a good deal in that life.

Knowledge of Samuel Johnson is pretty much a requirement for a person minimally educated in English literature -- I'm not learned enough to say if this work is a decent competitor to "The Life", but I found it well done, and Mr Nokes reputation precedes him.