Bad Magic: Human Freedom vs Abject Dependence on Government

The Magical President doesn’t exist: What the left must really do to defeat the wingnuts - Salon.com:

Let’s be clear: There is neither a Democratic nor a progressive consensus on what is to be done there. All we have is a profound skepticism, and I’ll take that over a cynical Cheneyesque certainty, built on lies to the American people. Disagreement, even deadlock, is preferable.

You mean to say that the folks of "Hope and CHANGE!", "We are the ones we have been waiting for!", Faux Grecian columns, "this is when the oceans stopped rising",  Russian Reset, winning a Nobel prize for winning an election and a host other highly confident items claim that all they ever had was "profound skepticism" and "gridlock is preferable"? Wow, color me skeptical.

BO was popular in '08, but I don't think even "the one" broached the kind of 80%+ certainty that the American people had about going to war in Iraq. Oh sure, it was "a lie", but a "lie" also supported by nearly the entire Democrat leadership -- with the exception of BO and Wellstone reporting in from Uranus (or their anus). Of course BO needed a lot of time to even figure out that he is really opposed to ISIS. Yes, Cheney is the only one that has ever been "certain" when viewed from the far left edge of the universe with your head suffering a cranial rectal inversion. 

This political season opens against a backdrop of profound pessimism, captured in an August Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that found that 71 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. The president’s approval rating is at an all-time low, but so is that of congressional Republicans. Even worse, the two big stories dominating the end-of-summer headlines – the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. and the rise of ISIL – only deepen the political gloom, because they reflect two enormous American problems that are coming to seem almost unsolvable: profound and persistent racial injustice, and the shape-shifting chaos that is Iraq.

I'll be damned, how did we POSSIBLY get here? Why in '08 it wasn't just the subscribers to the recently minted "Magical President theory", but the giddy mood of the whole MSM and broad swaths of the electorate that had elected a savior -- Washington, Lincoln or FDR -- it was hard to pick which one to compare BO with, and many thought he was far better than any of them. Maybe than ALL of them rolled together!  


But now? Well now:

Democrats have two months to make sure this election doesn’t turn out like 2010 did. It’s not about the president right now, and we shouldn’t wait until 2016 for a new magical president. The kind of thoroughgoing change we need won’t happen in eight years, or even 80. It’s an eternal battle, the constant effort to expand the realm of human freedom to everyone, against the constant crusade by the wealthy to ensure that the trappings of human dignity – education, leisure, family life, childhood itself – are reserved for those who can afford to pay for them. The Kochs and their allies are trying to repeal the 20th century. Progressives can’t just suit up for that battle every four years.

Got that?  "It's not about the president"!  Strange that in '06, there was no shortage of articles on "Bush Referendum". 

Note that  "It" won't happen in eight years or even 80! It's an "eternal battle" -- the battle for government to squeeze the last bit of individual motivation and thought out of the last of the masses. Oh, they will tell you it is "the wealthy" that want to prevent "human dignity" ... you know, education, family life, childhood itself", but are we really that foolish? "The Wealthy" ARE The Party! How many Kerry's, Edwards, Dayton's, Kennedys, etc, etc do we need to see before the man in the street understands it?

Who is it that wants to decree what families may and may not do with their children? Who is it that increasingly demands 12-16 years and more of PUBLIC "education" that is much more about state indoctrination than it is about "teaching" anything, especially how to be a free person in a free society? "Childhood itself"? Now there is somewhat of a mystery -- in one way, the left seeks to extend childhood for the entire life -- never leaving the state teat, being regulated and monitored in every movement and action. OTOH, it is THEIR version of "childhood" -- from state mandated and controlled "head start" to state sponsored and controlled daycare, after school programs, summer programs and Youth Corps. Their stated (and directly advertised) battle is to create a nation of "Julia's" or "Pajama Boys" ... perpetual adolescent dependence as the model for a nation. 

I find this column to be highly pessimistic from the "progressive" POV. They are so far down the road on their "battle" already -- they own education, the government bureaucracy, law, medicine (BOcare), nearly all of the media -- and as evidenced by their vote on the 1st Amendment, they seek to completely control all political speech 100%. Losing the Senate in '14 would have no effect on their agenda -- BO will rule by executive order as he does now and we are certainly not talking about a veto override capable majority! This is a rather hollow call to lefty arms. 

Yes, the polls don't look good right now for the BO state, and I'm sure that is a concern to the ministry of information / education / propaganda  ... Herr Goebbels likes to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, but really, the guys over at Salon shouldn't let a few poor poll numbers from the unwashed masses get them so bent out of shape. There is no prospect at all of the evil forces of conservatism being able to make one iota of progress in getting America moving in the next two years.

The BO magic veto pen will insure that the US crawls on on in the left ditch, with not a hint of even a glance toward the roadway far to the right -- no matter what the results of the election.  The "eternal battle" isn't even visible from here -- we would have to have a basic understanding that "human freedom" and "abject dependence on a bankrupt government" are not equivalent terms to even begin such a battle. 

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Something We All Agree On

Glenn Beck Shares Never-Before-Told Story of Personal Abuse After Janay Rice Defends Her Husband | Video | TheBlaze.com:

I graduated in '74, so got basically the standard "Little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice" childhood where girls were to be treated specially up until sometime in High School when the "not only are they special, they are absolutely equal in every way" gospel was pounded in as ERA and other efforts gathered steam. Note, I didn't even question it in those days -- my conservatism was ALL post Carter Malaise. Besides, they seemed pretty nice to me anyway, and it was easy to believe they were AT LEAST equal, if not superior since it could be hard to carry on witty conversation with them without the occasional unexplained brain freeze.

It seems that Glenn Beck and virtually all liberals and feminists are in absolute agreement on Ray and Janay Rice, and that in itself is enough to give me pause. What seems to be absolute truth is that punching a woman in your company -- even if she is pushing and punching, is very high on the list of moral sins. Certainly badder than pushing a convenience store clerk around to steal cigars, or even breaking the eye socket of a police officer -- which have been adjudicated in the high court of public opinion as "minding your own business" ... at least while black.

Even further, females that are willing to marry "guys like this" (unlike other crimes, violence against women is not a "behavior", it is like being gay, it is "who you are")  are mentally damaged -- they have no public standing in their opinion. They are far from "equal" -- they are 2nd class to no class citizens -- and in similar fashion to the abusers, their willingness to be around these guys defines them, it is an existential condition, not a choice.

If Rice was gay and dating a slightly built male, maybe even engaged to same, would the public court arrive at the same verdict? I have a very strong suspicion the answer would be "no", which leads me to believe that violence against a woman in your company is a final remaining bastion of allowed feminine inferiority. Women are to be treated specially in this case.

As an aside, this does at least break a stereotype that I once learned from a black friend, which went something like "You think black dudes are tough? Ha, tell any brother that his woman is looking for him and is going to give him what for and you will see one scared black dude! Black women are scary fighters!" Goes to show that you can't believe everything a black guy tells you -- but then I guess BO already covered that!

My mind wanders a bit in wondering if the store clerk in Ferguson had been female, would that have made a difference? Even more tantalizing is the idea of the officer having been female -- even if white.

The idea of the "scapegoat" is as old as man himself -- take a perfect goat, kick it, whip it, spit on it, swear at it, and let it go out to the desert to die -- taking "the bad" of the community with it. Christ is the ultimate scapegoat -- taking the sins of the world, yet unlike the symbolic sort, being able to bear and forgive them.  Some of us used to say that the most important position on any software project at IBM was the scapegoat -- someone was going to have to be blamed for the inevitable bugs,  schedule slips, function forced to be cut, etc -- and one might as well name them in advance so there would be no issues with CYA and blame being ducked.

Humanity has to have scapegoats, and  tarring and feathering to run out of the NFL (town) on a rail has a rich American history. Violence against women is bad, doing it on cameral is really bad -- otherwise the outcry would have been in February, we knew he knocked her out. I'm fine with that,  I guess we have found something that left and right actually agree on.

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Income Inequality, Working Poor, Wealthy, The Party

This is a topic that I run into in my personal life, and one which I see articles on that claim to be causes, but are actually effects. "Jobs moved overseas" is a great example -- companies don't move jobs overseas because they somehow "hate American workers", they move them there because American workers have become non-competitive due to policies of the government or decisions that the workers have made.

I suspect this topic will take more than one blog post, and I'll be looking for articles in support, but I'd like to get a start at the big picture framework -- my order or precedence may well change as I move through the topic (sometimes I change my blog posts after they have been posted).

My top level simple summary is that we have vast income inequality and working poor because runaway consumption fueled by debt and orchestrated by politicians seeking to buy votes from an ever larger dependent class creates few winners and many losers. 

Those that provide the consumables, the credit (usually backed and/or aided by the government in one way or another) and orchestrate the politically favored wealth transfers become wealthy, while those that borrow and consume become poor -- so poor that even though they typically have a house, a car, smartphones, flat screen TV, internet, eat out regularly, gamble, etc, they are so cash strapped that they have to resort to payday loans, food pantries, etc to cover the most basic of needs at times.

They are marketed and sold a lifestyle that they are supposed to be "entitled to", taught nothing of delayed gratification and thrift, then further lied to with assurances that their problems are due to "the wealthy", "the 1%", etc. and will be "solved" by some version of government transfer payments.

That is the simple sound-bite answer, now for a tiny bit more depth on specifically how we got here.

1. The Consumer Society -- During the latter half of the 20th century, America became a country based on CONSUMPTION. There are lots of things a country can be focused on -- excellence, personal responsibility, independence, learning, beauty, cleanliness, godliness, future generations, thrift, competitiveness ... the list is endless, but the US managed to make a very clear choice, and with the advent of radio, TV and finally the internet, this choice became so ubiquitous that most Americans are like fish in water relative to it -- not aware they are wet. We used to be a nation of fiercely independent hard workers with pride in quality output, now we are a nation of "consumers".
   
   Entertainment is part of that consumption. Americans have next to zero attention span these days, which makes any sort of understanding of any issue by any significant number of them to be nearly impossible. The vast bulk of people have arrived at the state where life involves constant entertainment -- sports, music, TV, web surfing, smart phones, etc, all of which is laced with sophisticated advertising telling them to buy, buy, buy. "Work" if they do it, is a nasty necessity where many of them want to stay plugged in to at least music, if not continued web surfing or other distractions while they bide their time at a job that they see as a "necessary evil". Working is seen as an obstacle to constant entertainment and consumption.
   
   Our nation is focused on a vicious cycle of advertising laced entertainment encouraging more buying that consumes more of the life of the "consumer" -- Americans have largely been converted to 24x7 consuming devices rather than people.


2. Credit -- Shakespeare says "Neither a borrower or a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry". America is sad proof of that maxim, and our knowledge of "husbandry", or wise use of resources, is so dull as to be non-existent. Not only have we been told to consume, consume, consume, but the primary means for that consumption is borrow, borrow, borrow -- as individuals and as a nation we are awash in debt and show no signs of any ability to extricate ourselves.
   
   Indeed, given the consumptive base of the economy, it is hard for most to even visualize an alternative. Mortgage, auto, consumer debt always flirt with new all-time highs, and Americans borrowing and spending more is considered "good news". Local, state and federal government run up ever more massive debt in numbers too big to even really fathom -- hundreds of billions a year, trillions a year, 17 trillion in debt, 60 trillion in unfunded liabilities for FICA, Medicare, and now BOcare. The total red ink hemorrhages to levels where it makes us sick to even consider it -- so we don't, and "nobody can explain" why we have "income inequality" and "working poor".
   
   The most basic reason is because the folks providing the consumables and the credit to the "consumers" build wealth,  while the consumers get "stuff" (soon worthless) and debt. Anyone who consumes all they make are effectively "the working poor", those that consume MORE than they make (debt) are even poorer. No matter how high the income, they are a paycheck away from financial disaster, and no matter how big their home, shiny their car, large their TV, etc, they are actually poor. The typical dual income "good job" US family is a microcosm  of how our government operates -- over extended with ever ballooning payments due.
   
   
3. Government -- The big daddy in all this is bloated government at all levels. Government is an EXPENSE. It produces nothing on it's own, and right now the layers of government in the US are taking something around 40% of our GDP and rising. Most of our population has consumed itself into being working poor, and the government that is somehow supposed to "fix this" is poor as well.
   
   Ah you say, the government is the "only friend of the average American". Well, yes if you consider the pimp, the pusher and the loan shark to be "friends" of those that believe themselves in "need"  of those services. In fact, when I was watching TV as a child in the '60s Dragnet, Streets of San Francisco and such often arrested guys "running the numbers" -- today, the states "run the numbers" in lotteries as one more way to fleece their citizens.
   
   The primary business of government in the US today is the transfer of payments from the pockets of one set of people (mostly the young) to another set of people (mostly the old) -- entitlements are 75%+ of current US government "spending" -- which is essentially calling what Jessie James and Billy the Kid did "spending" rather than stealing. Stealing is taking money from one person by force and allowing another person to decide what to do with it. The purpose of government transfers is to buy votes for the ruling party (TP "The Party, Democrat), so the allocation of the funds is random to completely adverse to actual productivity. Productivity which would build capital, lower prices and provide the hope of an actually better future is replaced by an economy of buying more power for TP.
   
   The price of everything purchased is increased by government -- regulations, fees, taxes, licenses, permits ... each is a cost and each is added to the cost of the product. One of the larger lies of government is the constant direct or indirect promise of a "free lunch" -- as in raising the minimum wage. When the wage is increased, the price of the product goes up, labor is reduced by automation or less service, or the production moves offshore ... most likely some combination of all three.
   
   What about the businessman making less profit? Very unlikely -- most small businesses are largely based on the idea of building up equity in a going concern. The dream that they can work hard, not take much income out, plow profits back into improving the business and build a better future. Government is certainly fine with killing that dream and putting another entrepreneur out of business ('you didn't build that"), but for those that had the gumption to go into business in the first place, it is a hard dream to kill -- they will try to raise the prices or increase efficiency.
   
   It works no better for the large business. Increase the cost of production in the US, tax profit, etc and first the jobs leave the US, and eventually the entire business (see Burger King moving to Canada, Medtronic and many others). The government policies make the US a poor place to invest, so the business goes elsewhere and the US has less jobs. Another win for TP since DEPENDENCE ON GOVERNMENT is what the TP agenda is all about!
   
    Prior to FDR, a common view of financial life for a person in the US was "work hard, spend less than you make, and invest the difference in something that goes up in value". Such a view is likely to create largely successful people and a largely successful nation over time, which makes it a hated view for TP.  TP grows in power by the creation of ever more dependence and resentment in a greater and greater percentage of the population. That is their bread and butter in building their majority and power.
   
   Replacing "work hard, control spending and invest wisely" with "join a union, spend everything you make, and the government will take care of you when you are old" was and is the core brilliance of TP in gaining power. As unions and government priced the American worker out of the world market with ever higher wages, more benefits and more restrictive work rules, TP faced a challenge. Their solution has been brilliant -- ever increasing unemployment benefits, re-training payments, "disability" payments and out and out income support for less and less output (Earned Income Credit). Over 50% of our population is now receiving a government payment of one sort or another -- the TP voting bloc is ever more secure.

I see those three legs of the stool of dependence, debt, poverty and eventual economic collapse as being the main aspects that need to be understood in approximately that order -- one could argue that government is #1, and that 1 and 2 are EFFECTS of the designs of TP as well, I'm not really that concerned about the order, because all three legs have to be basically repudiated for the nation to move forward, and they are all very much linked ... and largely unknown to the average constantly entertained "consumer", more and more afraid and "bitterly clinging" to the supposed safety promised by their keepers -- TP, and it's wealthy elite. 

Who and where are "the wealthy" in all of this? The favorite bogymen of TP? In general, they are quite happy members of TP -- unless you are a VERY brave wealthy person, you nearly have to be lest the IRS, Environmental Protection Agency, OSHA, one of the myriad of anti-discrimination agencies, or some other in the alphabet soup of TP enforcers takes you down -- HARD! So the Gates, Buffets, lawyers, finance and entertainment types play the TP game -- let "the marks", the consumer debtors believe that TP is somehow "hard on the rich" if it makes them feel better. There are only 1% of them anyway ... they have control of education, the media and largely the political discourse except for FOX news, talk radio and some renegade bloggers, so it is very easy to control the story line that the typical low information voter is indoctrinated with.

The way out of this morass is simple, however the hole that has been dug is massive. As individuals and as a nation we need to work hard, consume less than we make and invest the difference in things that go up in value. At a basic level, I believe we all know this -- it is one of the reasons that the constant distraction of the media machine is so critical to the continued power of TP.

TP and it's supporters will naturally scream "well, EVERYONE CAN'T do this" ... Indeed. Much as the old joke of the two folks facing a bear when one guy starts putting on tennis shoes. The other says "You don't really think you can outrun that bear do you?" The guy with the tennis shoes says "I don't have to outrun the bear, only you!"

How cruel you say. Indeed, it is a joke of course, but the message is that winners and losers are inevitable. Right now TP and the 1% are the ever increasing winners and the 99% are being eaten by the bear. Break the stranglehold of TP, consumption and debt, and something like 80-90% of the population and the nation as a whole become far wealthier, the future begins to look like prospects of ever increasing wealth, and the US becomes ever more competitive against "the bears" on the world stage. The BIG loser is TP and the current 1% -- who will be replaced by a different set of 1, 10, 20, 30%ers with far more wealth than the current concentration enjoys.

Ah, but what about "the bottom"? As Jesus said "the poor will always be with us", BUT, rather than 40, 50% and much more of the population living from hand to mouth and demanding help from TP and it's minions, 10 or 20% will still be at food pantries and needing support -- there will just be a lot more REAL resources (not borrowed) to provide them with true basics -- not continued consumption and dulling mindless entertainment to be "consumed".

Much like what it used to mean to "grow up", being an adult in a non-TP America would mean focusing on responsibilities vs "rights".  We have lost our way, but the way out is actually far more meaningful and conducive to human happiness and growth than the false narrative that has been sold to most of us by TP in it's drive to destroy the fabric of America to be replaced with their own raw power. 

Leaning Harley

Marla and I went out for 130 great miles today -- Hwy 1, Hwy 19, Hwy 30, Rushford, Hwy 16, Lanesboro with a little BBQ snack, Fountain, Wykoff, Spring Valley, Hwy 1, then home. Beers on the deck bar in beautiful sun, light breeze after the ride.

This summer I've switched back and forth between the Wing and the Ultra on a very regular basis. Mostly riding the Ultra to the Health Club each day because it really is a joy around town and in parking lot tight spaces -- but have switched to the Wing a lot too. The Ultra went on the 200mi Ronald McDonald ride up the WI side of the Mississippi to Treasure Island and back on some MN twisties through places like Welsh and Mazeppa to Rochester. The Wing made the trip to Indianola IA for the balloon viewing, and a 230mi higher speed jaunt over to WI to "BuckKnuckles" on 88 NE of Fountain with a bunch of twists.

Right now if a gun was held to my head and I HAD to drop to one bike, I'd keep the Wing because:

1. Safety -- the brakes on the Ultra are easy to lock and not good at all compared to the Wing. Longer stopping distances is not a good thing. Linked brakes on a big bike are really important -- Harley now agrees. 
2. Long distance ride / comfort -- I still haven't given up on the idea of long solo rides entirely. If I want to ride over 500mi a day, or really even over 300, then the Wing wins hands down. 

But if I had to pick, I'd REALLY miss the Harley.

1. The sound and engine feel continues to grow on me. 
2. Riding through a little town at slow speed with the torque and the easy low speed handling is pure joy. 
3. On 30mph corners or less, any time you need to do a little gravel, odd steep entrances to places, tight quarters, U-turns, etc, it makes you feel like a professional. Sure, after a lot of practice and suspension tweaking, I CAN do all those things on the Wing now and feel "comfortable", but I don't feel "smug". The Ultra makes me feel smug, and let's face it, there is a reason that liberals love being liberals -- and smug is the reason.

If we were not negotiating on building a "shed condo" in IA right now, I'm pretty sure I'd be headed out to Rochester Harley and dealing on a new Road Glide with ABS / linked brakes. Pretty much solve the #1 safety issue, and from what I've been able to glean, come much closer to the Wing on comfort while doing just as well or better on all the Ultra wins. The Wing would go on the sales block (sob, sob), and I'd move forward as a one bike guy.

But, we ARE in the building deal, and until things are more settled, sitting tight on the bike picture is probably the right answer. I've also not COMPLETELY put the Indian dream to bed ... the Roadmaster  is the right answer there, but the issue of on the road and even local service is a drawback -- going up to St Paul to service the bike is not appealing.

So I'll soldier on into pumping season in IA with a lot of 12 hour days in the tractor with a little time to ponder the way to motorcycle Nirvana. Such are the burdens of the Moose!

Whatever the future brings, rides like today are experiences that can't be priced. One has to just be very thankful to have been alive to be able to enjoy the moments!

Rochester Police Racist

After 41 encounters with police, Rochester man wakes up behind b - KTTC Rochester, Austin, Mason City News, Weather and Sports:



We know that the ONLY reason that there are a high percentage of blacks arrested is racism -- the MSM covers it constantly, it is as settled as human caused Global Warming!



Read through the article -- seems obvious this guy just another law abiding citizen. Are there any films of him stealing cigars and pushing someone around? Did anyone get their eye socket shattered?



Come on RPD, haven't you heard the new standard of behavior that counts as "innocently minding your own business while black"?



Shame on you.



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Fauxahontis Warren, Shakespeare

Elizabeth Warren: The market is broken - Sep. 5, 2014:

Fauxahontis speaketh. (Pho-ca-hon-tis -- fake Native American princess whose real ancestors drove the real Cherokee on the trail of tears)

To a virus, disease is a simple matter of natural reproduction. Our pain is collateral damage from the virus perspective.

Warren believes that markets can be regulated, controlled, modified toward "improvement" and maybe even "replaced" through human ingenuity with something "better". Strange, without even looking, I can bet with nearly 100% certainly that she is opposed to GMO crops -- no doubt because she "lacks faith" in man's ability to modify nature, so is concerned about some "rouge strain" or "hidden threat" to humans. Even more strange, since in the early 20th century, eugenics along with Fascism and Communism was "just another good human idea" that the "progressives" firmly embraced -- no chance of "rogue strains" breaking out in THEIR "better ideas"! After 100's millions dead from the 20th century "isms", along with trillions spent keeping them from turning the planet into the ultimate "progressive" hell, viruses like Warren just see it as "evolving the strain".

"Progressivism" boils down to the belief  that "new ideas" (most them are actually not new) that they happen to stumble on are "better", and "progress". If one looks not very closely, the biggest piece of "better" to the "progressive" is that the new idea gans power for them against whatever structure currently is dominant -- which they label as conservative, or often "reactionary". Thus, as an example, the idea of scarcity, older than Malthus, which "demands" that government power control the use of resources, MUST arise in each generation --  control of air quality, natural resources, food, farmland, etc previously, "Global Warming" now. It never stops -- they are sure that if we only cede control to them, things will be "better".

Capitalism and markets are natural developments of groups of people interacting -- as are families, tribes and governance in general. The natural forces, many of which we dimly understand that operate on them are always operating and we can't stop them from operating. Competition is one of the mechanisms that we do have some understanding of, and as Warren unwittingly points out, it continues to operate no matter how centralized and controlled the market becomes -- what the "control" does is reduce the number of natural control inputs, increases the stakes for the remaining control inputs, and vastly reduces the efficiency of the market (or destroys it) ... hello virus.

So the "mouse type" she bemoans is a result of the powerful lawyer virus -- 70% of the politicians being lawyers, and leading sources of money for the politicians, competing successfully and getting their "pound of flesh" as they have since Shylock. The greater control applied to the markets, the greater the share that the lawyers get -- the US leads the world in lawyers per capita, Warren wants MORE control on markets, yet she laments "mouse type" -- the virus laments diarrhea, a result of the virus itself!

I love her analogy of "traffic works better with lights" -- welcome to the Elizabeth Warren Interstate System -- traffic lights every 5 feet, the more you add, the better it works!  The virus speaks! People and businesses are easier to control when they are hobbled,  sick and slow (even easier when dead!). America's economy was once the greatest economic super highway in the world, it is is now an over-regulated mess that looks like downtown traffic in a major city at rush hour -- with packs of government bureaucrat rats running out to streak your windows and demand payment under threat of damage to your business or person should you demur.

Certainly the system is RIGGED! It is RIGGED for THE PARTY (Democrat) and viruses like Warren -- preying on the weak, but as they gain strength, chasing the strong off to other habitat (eg. Burger King to Canada) and now more frequently catching a healthy business and taking it down as well.

The Financial Industry was the leading contributor to BO in '08, and by '12, Finance, Government, Universities and Law were all pouring lucre into the coffers of the virus in chief. No surprise that Finance was generously bailed out on the dime of the common man, university tuition and loans continue to skyrocket, and expensive regulation of all types continue to explode like traffic lights in city controlled by a mad idiot  that believes that more lights improve traffic flow!

America is sick and dying. Our healthy are starting to flee in the form of successful businesses and individuals leaving the country. Viruses like Warren, BO and Hillary don't give up just because their host is dying. The now less than 50% of the nation that is not sucking the the last of the life out of the dying body MUST figure out a way to turn this tide if the last dim hope of survival is not to be lost.

Sunlight and common sense. Expel the viruses, start running and removing stoplights, run over a few of the window streakers at the intersections and follow Billy's advice, "Kill all the lawyers, kill them tonight".

(originally Shakespeare, but the line is really from "Get Over It" by the Eagles, a favorite of mine) Get Over It Youtube

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Warming in Centrury, Cold Next Week, 1.3 Billion Without Power

Matt Ridley: Whatever Happened to Global Warming? - WSJ:

Good article that gives a rundown on the lack of warming for 16, 19 or 26 years depending on what model you want to pick. When it was 7 years worth, the Warmist Community wanted to hide it as a blip "Hide the Decline", but in their secret outed e-mails, predicted the game would be up if it went 15 years or more. Looks like they were pessimists, the hard liners are still believing along with 63% of Americans after 20 years.

In more immediate news, there is expected to be an early Polar Vortex the end of next week -- highs in the upper 50's here in MN, with temps as much as 30 degrees colder than normal west of the rockies. Predictions are looking like an earlier, colder and snowier winter than normal, possibly rivaling last winter. Oh, don't worry, USA Today assures us that the coming vortex is DUE to Global Warming ... so much for the Warmist worries that they would lose people if the temp didn't go up for 15 years!

Why do you think they re-branded to "Climate Change" from "Global Warming"?

I liked the last paragraph from the Ridley article. Think about all the hand wringing about oceans rising and possible weather effects around the earth, and how heartless you are if you don't care about the people that will suffer a century in the future.

If you compare the 1.3 B people with no electricity today with the prophesied damage from GW 100 years in the future, how would you square that calculation?? Compare how YOU would feel if it was say 2 degrees warmer today with how you would feel if you had no electricity today -- or any prospect for any in the foreseeable future.

Putting the icing on the cake of good news, Xianyao Chen and Ka-Kit Tung think the Atlantic Ocean may continue to prevent any warming for the next two decades. So in their quest to explain the pause, scientists have made the future sound even less alarming than before. Let's hope that the United Nations admits as much on day one of its coming jamboree and asks the delegates to pack up, go home and concentrate on more pressing global problems like war, terror, disease, poverty, habitat loss and the 1.3 billion people with no electricity.

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Hope is Theological, Not Political

CRB: On the slaughter bench of history | Power Line:



This is the second time in less than a month that I've run into Hegel's term "The Slaughter Bench of History" I'm concerned that events both domestic and foreign may make that a trend.



Maybe this will be the winter when I finally buckle down and read both the 3 volume biography of Churchill acquired from my father and some of his key works. He was part of and wrote of the tragedy that was WWI and it's even more horrible doppelganger, WWII, which destroyed much of the fabric of civilization that had gone before.  My reason for desiring to study this time is to try to understand how much of the godless nihilism operating in the tatters of Western Civilization today finds it's roots in the horror of the World Wars, and especially how we slipped from a time of relative goodness to a time of near total evil so quickly.



I found this quote from the linked article especially beguiling:

It wasn’t just lives that were destroyed: the very foundations of civilized life were splintered. Valiunas chronicles this in some of the best of the writers who experienced the carnage: “Many writers saw that men ground down by this combat of unprecedented savagery often ceased to care about their solemn vows to duty, honor, and country that had propelled them eager and heedless into war. These soldiers felt the pull of a new nihilism.” Convinced of the pointlessness of their sufferings, the writers “laid the foundation for a wholesale rejection of political life: men were no longer morally obligated to fight for the nations of their birth, or indeed to profess any loyalty whatsoever to these discredited relics.”

"The very foundations" -- in this I read the spirit, the "theological core" that was at the center of man and civilization for thousands of years, but has been corrupted by the idea that the political can replace the theological -- The State can take the place of God. The following gives the lie to BO's pronouncement of "Hope" -- hope if it comes at all, comes not from man, and certainly not from the state -- it comes from God, or we are indeed hopeless.

 "Too many remained unconvinced. For most the supreme value was now life itself, splendid peaceful life, preserved at all costs, never again to be sacrificed to the Moloch of national pride or the Baal of individual vainglory. The civilized world averted its eyes as in Germany the worst of the immemorial passions revived and assumed a demonic intensity never seen before. Men of good will could only hope that the evil would not touch them; but hope is a theological virtue, not a political one. The supreme tragedy of the Great War is that it neutered the multitudes of decent men who ought to have prevented the rise of the foulest regime ever, and the eruption of another war so devastating that the evils of the erstwhile Great War came to seem acceptable by comparison. Never such innocence again, but with a violent turn of the screw: not the innocence of 1914 but that of 1918 and some years following, the innocence of believing that a war of attrition conducted by incompetents is the worst that men can do.​"

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Suicide Beats Out War and Natural Disaster Combined

More People Die from Suicide Than From Wars, Natural Disasters Combined:

It isn't just a western epidemic. As Robin Williams should show us, the wolf is always at the door.

The biggest known factor in reducing suicide on a general population scale is religious practice that is just one link, but we pretty much all know that as religious practice has decreased in the US, suicide has gone up. Or course, "correlation is STILL not causality" ... however in this case we can go look up a number of studies on church attendance, life having a purpose and meaning beyond our personal happiness, connection to something specific that is larger than ourselves, etc and make a pretty decent case.

The standard media position in the US is that Christianity could go away tomorrow with no negative effects -- focus on C02 reduction and income inequality reduction and we have a bright future to look forward to! Seems amazing that the event and the religion that gave us BC and AD has lost nearly all positive effect if you listen to the MSM ... oh, other than some pedophile Catholic Priests and Westboro Baptist, we need to hear more about them for sure!

Lots of people concerned about guns, lots of people concerned about police shooting black youth and TONS of concern over Ebola.

Suicide? Seems like the official position is to not talk about it and it may go away. Doesn't really seem to be happening does it?

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A Thousand Years of Darkness

A word from Ronald Reagan | Power Line:



One of those videos that ought to be watched every year or so. Burke said it well, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." 

Or maybe for feckless men to say "if we can get an international coalition we can shrink evil to a manageable problem". 

Each chain in the link of freedom is forged with a lot of blood, sweat and tears, but the step into darkness is an easy one. 

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Fox, Confirmation Bias, Nobody I Know Voted for Reagan

How Stupid Happens | National Review Online:

The human search for truth is immensely marred by selection and confirmation bias. The people we know are NOT a "random sampling" -- they were selected. Because of the schools went to, places we work, churches we did or did not attend, organizations we are or are not involved in -- PLUS, the fact that we at least get along with them well enough to remember that we know them.

In one of Bernard Goldberg's "Bias" books he talked about a dinner party in NYC of mostly CBS journalists, where "Nobody knew anybody that had voted for Reagan, how could he have won by a landslide"  -- thus showing that journalists are not generally very savvy on statistics, demography and certainly not selection bias.

The column does a good job of covering how statements like: “Fact-Checking Site Finds Fox News Only Tells the Truth 18 Percent of the Time,” “Analysis: Over Half of ALL Statements Made On Fox News Are False,” and “Fox News wins battle for most-false cable network.” happen.
Essentially, it is exactly the same way as "95% of scientists believe in Global Warming" -- first, select your scientists -- in the GW case, those that had published papers on Global Warming, then survey them -- wala! This case, select your "facts", then check them -- naturally with all your biases present at the "check".
In the Fox case, pick stories that you find to be "controversial" (selection bias), then go look at what you believe about the story, and where Fox is "wrong", (from the perspective of you and those that agree with you) they are "lying"!
Then there is plain old bias -- in case you don't get enough examples from this Blog: 

The deeper problem with PunditFact is the bias in how it evaluates statements. Consider two structurally identical questions: In the first, it considered Chris Wallace’s claim that Hillary Clinton had “defended Syria’s President Assad as a possible reformer at the start of that country’s civil war.” 

That statement, the editors decided, was only half-true, because that was “not expressly her opinion.” Rather, she had said that members of Congress of both parties who had visited Syria had suggested that Assad was a possible reformer. (Never mind that Mrs. Clinton’s claim is itself untrue, a three-Pinocchio offender in the Washington Post’s judgment.)

In the second instance, PunditFact considered a claim from Bill O’Reilly, made during an interview with President Barack Obama, that he had not accused the administration of obscuring the motive behind the Benghazi attack for political reasons. O’Reilly had in fact interviewed people who said that, but he himself had not made that claim. 

PunditFact nonetheless rates it “mostly false,” because O’Reilly had, in its view, “nurtured suspicion.” Mr. O’Reilly and Mrs. Clinton were engaged in precisely the same rhetorical strategy: the time-honored Washington dodge of using others to suggest indirectly what you think or suspect yourself, e.g. “it’s a serious charge,” “some have said,” “it has been suggested that,” etc. In both cases, the statement was made on Fox News, but Mrs. Clinton gets a pass (“not expressly her opinion”) while Mr. O’Reilly gets labeled a liar — for precisely the same thing. This is what simple bias looks like.

It's football season. Every week there will be calls seen differently by opposing teams and fans of opposing teams, and THAT assumes unbiased referees. As evidenced by the above, one can make no such assumption when it comes to "fact checking".

In general, very worth the read -- entertaining and generally informative.


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The Fading Memory of Christianity, The Giver

The Fading Memory of Christianity | RealClearReligion:



Very well written and SHORT article explaining how the film "The Giver" represents the loss to society of the Incarnation "God with us" and the descent into yet another dystopia.

And now we see that what makes the society in The Giver most like contemporary Europe is precisely the forgetfulness of Christianity. What the story suggests, quite rightly, is that suppression of the good news of the Incarnation is in fact what conduces to dysfunctional and dangerous totalitarianism. The source of the greatest suffering throughout human history is the attempt to deal with original sin on our own, through our political, economic, military, or cultural efforts. When we try to eliminate conflict and sin through social reform, we inevitably make matters worse. As Pascal said long ago, "He who would turn himself into an angel, turns himself into a beast.

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Moderate Islam, Multiculturalism Misspelled

Sultan Knish: Moderate Islam is Our New Religion:



There is no such thing as Moderate Islam. only the fervent liberal western wish that there must be.

Take Islam, turn it inside out and you have moderate Islam. Take a Muslim who hasn’t been inside a mosque in a year, who can name the entire starting lineup of the San Diego Chargers, but can’t name Mohammed’s companions and you have a moderate Muslim. Or more accurately, a secular Muslim.

Take someone raised a Christian that no longer believes in God, maybe goes to church once a year to please the family, and you have a secular Christian -- which is to say non-christian, just like the "Moderate Muslim". 



Fairly well written Blog -- little long but generally worth the time. 

Moderate Islam is a difficult faith. To believe in it you have to disregard over a thousand years of recorded history, theology, demographics and just about everything that predates 1965. You have to ignore the bearded men chopping off heads because they don’t represent the majority of Muslims. 

Neither does Mohammed, who did his own fair share of headchopping. 

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Welcome to Home Care America

Obama rallies the nation after second beheading: ‘Shrink’ ISIS until it’s a ‘manageable problem’ « Hot Air:

A good article, contrasting some words from former times with the much more advanced, intelligent "Citizen of the World" currently occupying the WH.

 "The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” (FDR) 

"We will bury the USSR in the Ash Heap of History" (Reagan)

“It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,” (W) 

And finally, "The One", the greatest orator in the history of the world, Nobel Peacemaker ... BO!!! 

"We know that if we are joined by the international community, we can continue to shrink ISIL’s sphere of influence, its effectiveness, its financing, its military capabilities to the point where it is a manageable problem,”

The majesty!

I suspect it feels lot like being made aware that you need county assistance because you are now broke, and someone will be out to help make dealing with your new catheter "manageable".

Welcome to home care America.

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Liberals Discover They May Be Human

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-frimer/liberals-conservatives-conformity_b_5697849.html

We begin with a liberal hypothesis of why conservatives "are the way they are":

The way I saw it, this slavish obedience to authority and tradition on the part of conservatives was the true source of the culture war between liberals and conservatives over foreign war, abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control, and racial inequality. They way I saw it, conservatives clung to old, near-sighted ways of thinking and fell in line with the dictates of the "man in charge." If only conservatives would think for themselves -- like liberals do -- the war would be over and we could get on with life, governance, and progress. Or so I thought.

Liberals do a lot of studies trying to prove that conservatives are somehow "inferior" -- not able to understand the facts, not able to question authority, fearful, etc. The list is long. When you are CERTAIN that you are right and in fact superior, but know that you are an extremely nice and caring person, then there MUST be some explanation for why the people you hate are so bad!!

The conservative view is really that BOTH (and all) sides are made up of inferior humans, and understanding that -- especially in relation to God, is the beginning of wisdom, a pearl of far greater price than intelligence, knowledge, or any other human characteristic like beauty or charisma.

Perhaps we have the merest inking of the beginning of liberal wisdom (oxymoron?) here:

If the two sides equally support obedience to their own authorities, how had I come to believe that conservatives are the ones that favor obedience to authority? We wondered if the asymmetry lay not in attitudes toward obedience, but in the nature of authority. Perhaps authorities tend to be conservative, and people know it.

This is what we found in a subsequent study. Americans completed a survey in which they named authorities (e.g., police officer) then indicated whether they suspected the authority figure was liberal, moderate, or conservative. People perceived authorities to be conservative. Bosses tend to vote Republican -- or at least most people suspect they do. My suspicion is that the stereotype is accurate: authorities really tend to be conservative.

I wonder if this is because conservatives are especially good at or motivated to gain positions of authority. Or perhaps gaining authority over others changes our ideology, making the boss conservative. 

We see that being wrong about the "conservatives can't think for themselves and are slaves to authority" stereotype didn't make the author any less confident in liberal stereotypes, and quickly ready to jump to the "authorities really tend to be conservative" view.

A short reading of Hayek "The Fatal Conceit" would clue her in that the smarter and better educated one is the greater their tendency to believe that "man is the measure of all things", "man is infinitely perfectible", "humans create human systems like capitalism, socialism, etc through reason", etc. In other words, the more likely they are to be "liberal" -- so the real world is the opposite of her stereotype. But, as in her original stereotype, that has never given an intelligent liberal a moments pause in being less certain of their next stereotype!

Humans are superb creators of all manner of stereotypes, narratives, models and myths to make "sense" of an infinite, complex and significantly unpredictable universe. "In general" (like all human rules, NOT 100%), the smarter you are, the greater your tendency to hubris and narcissism, with RELIGION, especially Christianity, being the great wild card transcendent model in history.

When super intelligent people have faith in an infinitely more intelligent God, especially if that God has died for them, it tends to engender some level of HUMILITY. Again, they are still human, so it is at best imperfect, but it adds another level that needs to be checked before "I'm SURE that I understand it all THIS time"!

She has mostly figured out that conservatives are likely not sub-human, but she has still not figured out that "Ideas Have Consequences" (another excellent book) ... the models we choose (or choose us), our "World View", has a profound effect on all we do, and when groups select an inferior World View, especially nation sized groups, the results are almost always disastrous.

Modern Western civilization was largely built because for a brief time (200 years), the majority of leaders were God believing to at least the Deist level, and generally Christians -- so they had a lot more understanding of the transcendent concept of wisdom, therefore taking a much more humble and reasonable view of what was possible and thus succeeding!