Everyone Must Reject Giulianis Comment:
A rather longish but important discussion about the current Giuliani "loves America" flap and how such things affect our selections of appropriate and inappropriate thinking. The article fails to point out that BO himself questioned W's "patriotism" when W was trying to raise the debt limit. It also doesn't mention that calling W "liar", "torturer", "idiot", etc when he was in office by Democrats at all levels was rampant. Nobody really cared.
The main points made by the article is that these things are "staged" -- first it is demanded that the person that spoke apologize, then it is demanded that people who are "on the same side" as the person "distance themselves" from his comment, and then there is a demand that ALL of the "opposition" sign up to apologize for this "affront".
When we used to have "decent Christian people", we used to be able to say that "all decent Christians need to come out against X". Since "decency"and "Christians" have become rare, we are now into approving and denouncing statements based on our willingness to accept or reject the ideological rules of TP (The Party - D). When W was in office, any disparaging statement was completely legitimate -- no apologies required.
We know there is nothing "decent" or "patriotic" or "honorable" here -- BO himself effectively called patriotic Americans "bitter clingers". As the article discusses, "patriotism" itself is considered a tiny step from jingoism and something that any intelligent intellectual would only allow themselves to be associated with at arms length at best!
What we have is thought control -- a power play as to what you may or may not say about a TP leader in power. Any level of fighting back against throught control -- even just recognizing it is progress, but the fact that TP believes that a power play for thought control can work in their favor shows we have a long way to go.
Take the time to slog through the article, it IS worth the time!
via Blog this'
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Iraqi WMDs Continue to Leak
C.I.A. Is Said to Have Bought and Destroyed Iraqi Chemical Weapons - NYTimes.com:
The main point of this article is the fact of a single cache of 400 sarin munitions that would have been lethal if used being bought by CIA.
I chronicle it only because the story that has been burned into the American mind is "Bush lied, people died" -- by literally THOUSANDS of repetitions.
For 80-90% of the people, it CAN'T be changed -- it is part of TP controlling the media and what I consider to be a lack of combativeness on the part of W and company. They were however at war -- as we still are, and W's concern was after 9-11-2001 focused primarily on keeping America safe.
He made the (probably correct) determination that given the level of media bias and attack mode, putting out information about what was being found would not have helped -- it would have not been covered, and if it was, it would have been covered as somehow "not valid weapons" -- too old, not enough, etc.
Enough time has now passed that as this information comes it the media covers enough of it so that if we get hit with a weapon from Iraq it can be firmly identified as a "failure of the W administration to find the weapons".
Much like the end of the USSR -- the idea of which was firmly considered a "dangerous Reagan fantasy" in the early '80s, suddenly became a fait accompli know by all, impeded by Reagan and brought to completion by Gorby. All those pronouncements from the early '80s? Down the memory hole!
'via Blog this'
The main point of this article is the fact of a single cache of 400 sarin munitions that would have been lethal if used being bought by CIA.
I chronicle it only because the story that has been burned into the American mind is "Bush lied, people died" -- by literally THOUSANDS of repetitions.
For 80-90% of the people, it CAN'T be changed -- it is part of TP controlling the media and what I consider to be a lack of combativeness on the part of W and company. They were however at war -- as we still are, and W's concern was after 9-11-2001 focused primarily on keeping America safe.
He made the (probably correct) determination that given the level of media bias and attack mode, putting out information about what was being found would not have helped -- it would have not been covered, and if it was, it would have been covered as somehow "not valid weapons" -- too old, not enough, etc.
Enough time has now passed that as this information comes it the media covers enough of it so that if we get hit with a weapon from Iraq it can be firmly identified as a "failure of the W administration to find the weapons".
Much like the end of the USSR -- the idea of which was firmly considered a "dangerous Reagan fantasy" in the early '80s, suddenly became a fait accompli know by all, impeded by Reagan and brought to completion by Gorby. All those pronouncements from the early '80s? Down the memory hole!
'via Blog this'
Cholesterol, Connections, Causality
Big Fat Surprise
I got to hear the linked story on MPR yesterday and the host, Kerry Miller -- if you go out and listen to it, it is at about 4min that Kerry gets worried about "science denialism" because it seems that although "science" told us that they KNEW what we ought to eat, it turns out that they were WRONG!
The attempted response of dietary science being "fragile science" with some prevarication about "prestigious schools like Harvard" is kind of fun to listen to. "It is hard to find causality" -- yes, now there is something we can agree on!
Say your computer crashes "some of the time" when you are browsing the web -- or just "randomly". You can meticulously keep track of when it does it, what you are doing, keep charts, etc, etc. You (unless you are a programmer / maintenance person) build up a lot of information ABOUT the problem, but it takes someone that can "look behind the curtain" to find the causality and FIX IT. Causality is HARD -- and that is in domain where we KNOW everything in your computer was designed and constructed by human minds / hands.
For the human body, most food, and the climate, NOTHING was constructed by human hands -- we can only postulate an ultimate causality of "God" or "random chance", and if we want it to be somehow "predictable", we better lean pretty hard to the side of "something with "order" created a reliable order around us that we can count on and find rules / patterns / etc.
Unsurprisingly -- for those that have some contact with what thought means , Kerry has stumbled into an epistemological problem -- what can/do we know and how do we know it? (a link to some cliff notes on that).
Hmm, and another link that might help on the issue.
Kerry seeks to BELIEVE in science -- so she is very concerned that what she sees as an "error" in science will spread and encourage "science deniers". But science is a PROCESS, and in fact an inductive process which means that no matter how many times your experiment was repeated, that is NOT "proof" that it will not fail the next time.
I call the induction problem the Thanksgiving turkey problem -- the little turkey develops a hypothesis that humans are benevolent creatures that feed and take care of turkeys. Each day of it's life this theory is "inductively proven". On the day the turkey has the greatest certainly of the correctness of it's theory, (having had the most successful tests), it is Thanksgiving. The turkey has discovered induction -- and epistemology.
We don't know what we don't know. The set of what we don't know is INFINITE!
"Progressives" believe in the Whig theory of history -- the latest knowledge is better, and generally believe in "logical atomism" -- each event can be studied in isolation to gain meaningful knowledge.
Another mistake Kerry made is to drift toward a holistic view -- that things are related. For a moment the SHOCKING thought crossed her mind that if one kind of science could have an error, then how could she know in her heart that other science was not less than holy and true? She has been carefully taught that "it's all particles and progress", and each event is separate -- but something in her soul is wondering about that.
Progressive thought is founded on "the latest is greatest" and "believe the experts, not your own stupid mind". Plato, Christianity, Burke essentially claim the opposite -- there is a transcendent grand plan and everything is related to that plan.
Kerry is a transcendent, purposeful, related universe "denier" -- intellectually. She wants to isolate nutrition science from climate science. She wants to raise cigarette taxes to curtail smoking, but doesn't see raising income taxes as reducing income. She wants the universe to work in the way she wants it to work, with no reference to the "I AM".
To put it in the words of Mannheim:
There is either a God and a purpose so that everything is part of an ordered and related plan, or it is is "a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing".
Kerry clearly WANTS to believe in SOMETHING, and nutrition science has just been show to have feet of clay
Either it all makes sense ... or it doesn't, and that is a matter of faith!
'via Blog this'
I got to hear the linked story on MPR yesterday and the host, Kerry Miller -- if you go out and listen to it, it is at about 4min that Kerry gets worried about "science denialism" because it seems that although "science" told us that they KNEW what we ought to eat, it turns out that they were WRONG!
The attempted response of dietary science being "fragile science" with some prevarication about "prestigious schools like Harvard" is kind of fun to listen to. "It is hard to find causality" -- yes, now there is something we can agree on!
Say your computer crashes "some of the time" when you are browsing the web -- or just "randomly". You can meticulously keep track of when it does it, what you are doing, keep charts, etc, etc. You (unless you are a programmer / maintenance person) build up a lot of information ABOUT the problem, but it takes someone that can "look behind the curtain" to find the causality and FIX IT. Causality is HARD -- and that is in domain where we KNOW everything in your computer was designed and constructed by human minds / hands.
For the human body, most food, and the climate, NOTHING was constructed by human hands -- we can only postulate an ultimate causality of "God" or "random chance", and if we want it to be somehow "predictable", we better lean pretty hard to the side of "something with "order" created a reliable order around us that we can count on and find rules / patterns / etc.
Unsurprisingly -- for those that have some contact with what thought means , Kerry has stumbled into an epistemological problem -- what can/do we know and how do we know it? (a link to some cliff notes on that).
Hmm, and another link that might help on the issue.
Kerry seeks to BELIEVE in science -- so she is very concerned that what she sees as an "error" in science will spread and encourage "science deniers". But science is a PROCESS, and in fact an inductive process which means that no matter how many times your experiment was repeated, that is NOT "proof" that it will not fail the next time.
I call the induction problem the Thanksgiving turkey problem -- the little turkey develops a hypothesis that humans are benevolent creatures that feed and take care of turkeys. Each day of it's life this theory is "inductively proven". On the day the turkey has the greatest certainly of the correctness of it's theory, (having had the most successful tests), it is Thanksgiving. The turkey has discovered induction -- and epistemology.
We don't know what we don't know. The set of what we don't know is INFINITE!
"Progressives" believe in the Whig theory of history -- the latest knowledge is better, and generally believe in "logical atomism" -- each event can be studied in isolation to gain meaningful knowledge.
Another mistake Kerry made is to drift toward a holistic view -- that things are related. For a moment the SHOCKING thought crossed her mind that if one kind of science could have an error, then how could she know in her heart that other science was not less than holy and true? She has been carefully taught that "it's all particles and progress", and each event is separate -- but something in her soul is wondering about that.
Progressive thought is founded on "the latest is greatest" and "believe the experts, not your own stupid mind". Plato, Christianity, Burke essentially claim the opposite -- there is a transcendent grand plan and everything is related to that plan.
Kerry is a transcendent, purposeful, related universe "denier" -- intellectually. She wants to isolate nutrition science from climate science. She wants to raise cigarette taxes to curtail smoking, but doesn't see raising income taxes as reducing income. She wants the universe to work in the way she wants it to work, with no reference to the "I AM".
To put it in the words of Mannheim:
"One must make one's choice between two views: on the one hand that there is a reason working in and through men's minds which can lay hold of a timeless structure of things: on the other, that thinking is a series of temporal events determined, like all other events, non-rationally"
There is either a God and a purpose so that everything is part of an ordered and related plan, or it is is "a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing".
Kerry clearly WANTS to believe in SOMETHING, and nutrition science has just been show to have feet of clay
Either it all makes sense ... or it doesn't, and that is a matter of faith!
'via Blog this'
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Women Make 75% What Men Do
The Gender Pay Gap is a Complete Myth - CBS News:
As a regular listener to NPR, the "fact" in the headline is well known. In fact, we are one of the WORST of the developed nations in that area. They cover the story (a very apt word) quite frequently.
This "fact" needs to be drilled in -- like racism, a lot of the strength of TP (The Party-D) depends on it! It is a great spur to use in "The War on Women". Who wouldn't be angry about getting 25% less pay than someone else for the same work! It's like some groups were taxed 25% more than others ...
Oh wait, the top bracket DOES take home 25% less than a married person making $74K -- but there are less of them, so we don't care how they are affected. Never mind.
The "fact" of the women pay gap is a myth. The whole linked article is short and worth the read, but the following us the punchline:
As a regular listener to NPR, the "fact" in the headline is well known. In fact, we are one of the WORST of the developed nations in that area. They cover the story (a very apt word) quite frequently.
This "fact" needs to be drilled in -- like racism, a lot of the strength of TP (The Party-D) depends on it! It is a great spur to use in "The War on Women". Who wouldn't be angry about getting 25% less pay than someone else for the same work! It's like some groups were taxed 25% more than others ...
Oh wait, the top bracket DOES take home 25% less than a married person making $74K -- but there are less of them, so we don't care how they are affected. Never mind.
The "fact" of the women pay gap is a myth. The whole linked article is short and worth the read, but the following us the punchline:
Despite all of the above, unmarried women who've never had a child actually earn more than unmarried men, according to Nemko and data compiled from the Census Bureau.'via Blog this'
Women business owners make less than half of what male business owners make, which, since they have no boss, means it's independent of discrimination. The reason for the disparity, according to a Rochester Institute of Technology study, is that money is the primary motivator for 76% of men versus only 29% of women. Women place a higher premium on shorter work weeks, proximity to home, fulfillment, autonomy, and safety, according to Nemko.
Monday, February 23, 2015
GOP Frontrunner Easy to Find!
Scott Walker is officially the GOP frontrunner, and the media is out for blood « Hot Air:
It reminds me of a bitch (female dog) being in heat in the country neighborhood when I was a kid -- every male dog within a couple miles was around for a visit, often with one dragging a chain that was supposed to keep them home.
The usual drill in '11 was as a new face hit the top we heard about their husband maybe being gay (Bachmann), the old divorce re-marriage with wife (Mitch Daniels), the racist rock (Rick Perry) ... Herman Cain women, Romney was a "bully" -- like I said, "bitch in heat".
One thing about having an R next to your name, the media LOVES to do opposition "research" on you! Only problem is that they already went berserk on Walker in the recall and then again in the last election, and even after shaking down friends and associates so hard they ended up getting court orders against them, they really didn't find anything.
So we are on "he didn't graduate from college", "he was in a room when somebody said something uncomplimentary about BO" and "you, can we ask you if you think BO is a Christian?".
Seriously, in the media mind is somebody being a Christian good or bad???
The predictability of the MSM gives banal a bad name!
'via Blog this'
It reminds me of a bitch (female dog) being in heat in the country neighborhood when I was a kid -- every male dog within a couple miles was around for a visit, often with one dragging a chain that was supposed to keep them home.
The usual drill in '11 was as a new face hit the top we heard about their husband maybe being gay (Bachmann), the old divorce re-marriage with wife (Mitch Daniels), the racist rock (Rick Perry) ... Herman Cain women, Romney was a "bully" -- like I said, "bitch in heat".
One thing about having an R next to your name, the media LOVES to do opposition "research" on you! Only problem is that they already went berserk on Walker in the recall and then again in the last election, and even after shaking down friends and associates so hard they ended up getting court orders against them, they really didn't find anything.
So we are on "he didn't graduate from college", "he was in a room when somebody said something uncomplimentary about BO" and "you, can we ask you if you think BO is a Christian?".
Seriously, in the media mind is somebody being a Christian good or bad???
The predictability of the MSM gives banal a bad name!
'via Blog this'
Al Gore and Michael Mann Penniless
Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher - NYTimes.com:
'via Blog this'
I'm often struck by the "denier researcher got paid"! articles. The people that push the warming agenda don't get paid? Are Al Gore and Michael Mann street people? Are government, university endowments and other foundations, grants, etc provided by wealthy donors, the UN, etc somehow "not money"? Is a Nobel Prize for taking a certain position not an award?
We all need to maintain awareness of bias on every front -- the very way our senses and brains work is a giant "fish studying wetness" bias that goes with us every second of every day. To be human is be motivated by money, influence, status, intellectual validation, security, popularity, and a whole host of other subtle and not so subtle items.
As we age and experience the myriad motivations and biases of people, at least many of us learn to at least be a LITTLE careful of the "hey, the other guy is BREATHING over there"! sort of little kid taunt. Does the NYTs really not realize that ALL sides of EVERY issue have at least many of the same motivations? For people with a TINY level of intellectual maturity that are not complete zealots on an issue, it would seem completely incredible that they could not realize that, and in fact not realize that BILLIONS of dollars around the planet are being spent, granted, tax incentivized, etc on wind, solar, batteries, etc on the hypothesis that the planet is warming due to human causes.
Or are they actually aware of that reality and are consciously attempting to smear the "other side" for having the very same motivations.
How many times have you seen the "hockey stick" chart or some other version showing "massive warming" ... along with predictions of "many feet of sea rise in 100 years", "droughts, storms, heat waves", etc, etc
How often have you seen this chart of what temperature has been doing for the last 10K years? The far right of the chart is where we are -- it indeed might be warming.
If you REALLY want to worry, notice how much shorter the warming periods are getting and how much longer the Little Ice Age was than the previous cooling periods! Hmmm ...
If you REALLY want to worry, notice how much shorter the warming periods are getting and how much longer the Little Ice Age was than the previous cooling periods! Hmmm ...
'via Blog this'
Sunday, February 22, 2015
No Religion Supports Terror
Obama refuses to acknowledge ‘Muslim terrorists’ at summit | New York Post:
In the linked article, BO confidently asserts "No religion is responsible for terrorism, people are responsible for terrorism".
That must mean that people are NOT motivated by what is in their heads nor hearts, since religion certainly involves both. This is the inverse of the truth -- IDEAS motivate people, and religion is certainly at least in part a powerful idea.
Is it not strange that BO is confident that guns, an inanimate object, DO cause violence, but that religion, does NOT!
Remember that BO is a confirmed Statist -- he believes in the advance of state power which ultimately means the subjugation of people by FORCE. What does or does not motivate people really matters not once they have no property, no means to defend themselves (right to bear arms), or no method to speak out. Statists don't believe in motivation, they believe in CONTROL!
The other fact to remember is that Statism **IS** a religion -- it is just godless. The godless religions of communism and socialism killed over 100 million in the 20th century -- THAT is certainly a religion that kills!
The use of words by a Statist are purely a means to power -- as are all their political activities. See Orwell or Hayek books like "Road to Serfdom" to understand this in more detail. Always look with much suspicion at any label choices of a "liberal" or "progressive" -- the words are quoted because even the names they call themselves are lies and misinformation.
The commonly used (stolen) name "liberal" is a complete lie -- Statists are bent on having controlling power over others and false naming is one of the weapons they use to gain control. After which they use violence, imprisonment and death. In their desire to gain control, Statists are fine with aligning with any other totalitarian form of ideology -- no matter how evil.
BO and the MSM find themselves drawn to defend Islamic killers because they find common cause with at least the ultimate totalitarian control aspect of the Islamic State, if not total agreement with specific methods like beheading and immolation in cages. Does it ever seem the least bit odd that the people who make the CLAIM that they are "liberal" find no problem with a religion that treats women as personal property, kills homosexuals as well as women who have sex outside marriage? Perhaps the libertine nature of it's founder in "marrying" a 9 year old "wife" (Aisha) is what impresses them?
Violence has and likely always will be a tenet of Islam, because the founder was a warrior that approved of using force to gain converts and land and wrote violent action against any holders / attackers of "Islamic Lands" into his "holy book", the Koran as a guaranteed ticket to eternal sexual favors. It is the ultimate "works righteousness" for angry young men.
Statists have no problem naming their friends and enemies in ways that suit their cause. They really never did find a "Racist Tea Partier" although they sure tried -- making up a "spitting incident" in DC as well as others. "Tea Party = Racist" was an excellent association. Back in the late '80s-'90s, "Religious Right" was a favorite label. "Right Wing Militia", "Christian Right", "The 1%" ... the Statists always have their enemies, and they completely enjoy applying negative labels to them with extreme frequency. In fact, the BO administration ranks "Right Wing Extremists" as a major terrorist threat!
Note how they totally avoid applying ANYTHING negative to their friends in ISIS -- the ones that cut off heads! Getting "terrorist" in the same sentence with "Islamic" causes their tongues to freeze. Statists ultimately seek raw centralized power and they seek it by ANY MEANS. Which is why it can be confusing as to how they choose friends vs enemies, UNLESS you realize that "Left" means CONTROL, and "right" means CHAOS (it's a Get Smart World). The US was founded as a CENTER RIGHT nation and we have consistently drifted leftward.
The USSR, National Socialist Germany (Nazi) and Sharia Law were/are all based on highly centralized control with "motivation" being at the point of a gun. People tend to defend those that agree on their most basic values, thus BO defends Islam.
In the linked article, BO confidently asserts "No religion is responsible for terrorism, people are responsible for terrorism".
That must mean that people are NOT motivated by what is in their heads nor hearts, since religion certainly involves both. This is the inverse of the truth -- IDEAS motivate people, and religion is certainly at least in part a powerful idea.
Is it not strange that BO is confident that guns, an inanimate object, DO cause violence, but that religion, does NOT!
Remember that BO is a confirmed Statist -- he believes in the advance of state power which ultimately means the subjugation of people by FORCE. What does or does not motivate people really matters not once they have no property, no means to defend themselves (right to bear arms), or no method to speak out. Statists don't believe in motivation, they believe in CONTROL!
The other fact to remember is that Statism **IS** a religion -- it is just godless. The godless religions of communism and socialism killed over 100 million in the 20th century -- THAT is certainly a religion that kills!
The use of words by a Statist are purely a means to power -- as are all their political activities. See Orwell or Hayek books like "Road to Serfdom" to understand this in more detail. Always look with much suspicion at any label choices of a "liberal" or "progressive" -- the words are quoted because even the names they call themselves are lies and misinformation.
The commonly used (stolen) name "liberal" is a complete lie -- Statists are bent on having controlling power over others and false naming is one of the weapons they use to gain control. After which they use violence, imprisonment and death. In their desire to gain control, Statists are fine with aligning with any other totalitarian form of ideology -- no matter how evil.
BO and the MSM find themselves drawn to defend Islamic killers because they find common cause with at least the ultimate totalitarian control aspect of the Islamic State, if not total agreement with specific methods like beheading and immolation in cages. Does it ever seem the least bit odd that the people who make the CLAIM that they are "liberal" find no problem with a religion that treats women as personal property, kills homosexuals as well as women who have sex outside marriage? Perhaps the libertine nature of it's founder in "marrying" a 9 year old "wife" (Aisha) is what impresses them?
Violence has and likely always will be a tenet of Islam, because the founder was a warrior that approved of using force to gain converts and land and wrote violent action against any holders / attackers of "Islamic Lands" into his "holy book", the Koran as a guaranteed ticket to eternal sexual favors. It is the ultimate "works righteousness" for angry young men.
Statists have no problem naming their friends and enemies in ways that suit their cause. They really never did find a "Racist Tea Partier" although they sure tried -- making up a "spitting incident" in DC as well as others. "Tea Party = Racist" was an excellent association. Back in the late '80s-'90s, "Religious Right" was a favorite label. "Right Wing Militia", "Christian Right", "The 1%" ... the Statists always have their enemies, and they completely enjoy applying negative labels to them with extreme frequency. In fact, the BO administration ranks "Right Wing Extremists" as a major terrorist threat!
Note how they totally avoid applying ANYTHING negative to their friends in ISIS -- the ones that cut off heads! Getting "terrorist" in the same sentence with "Islamic" causes their tongues to freeze. Statists ultimately seek raw centralized power and they seek it by ANY MEANS. Which is why it can be confusing as to how they choose friends vs enemies, UNLESS you realize that "Left" means CONTROL, and "right" means CHAOS (it's a Get Smart World). The US was founded as a CENTER RIGHT nation and we have consistently drifted leftward.
The USSR, National Socialist Germany (Nazi) and Sharia Law were/are all based on highly centralized control with "motivation" being at the point of a gun. People tend to defend those that agree on their most basic values, thus BO defends Islam.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Walker, The Coward In the Room
Scott Walker’s cowardice should disqualify him - The Washington Post:
Somehow I really don't think that Dana Milbank EVER considered Scott Walker to be REMOTELY qualified for the presidency. Thank, goodness -- if Milbank had thought such, then I certainly would NOT want to consider Walker for president either!
So Walker was IN THE ROOM when Giuliani, the former New York mayor, said “I do not believe that the president loves America.”
Not defending Obama makes Walker a "COWARD"! ... and worth a full WaPO column!
Somehow I really don't think that Dana Milbank EVER considered Scott Walker to be REMOTELY qualified for the presidency. Thank, goodness -- if Milbank had thought such, then I certainly would NOT want to consider Walker for president either!
So Walker was IN THE ROOM when Giuliani, the former New York mayor, said “I do not believe that the president loves America.”
Not defending Obama makes Walker a "COWARD"! ... and worth a full WaPO column!
I'm going to waste any time going out and trying to find the likely 100's of cases where lefty politicians were in the room when far far nastier things were said about W or some other Republican president. We know that Milbank would not even notice, since to him they would be FACTUAL statements, and 90% of the MSM would feel the same way.
One can know of someone's character and potential by their enemies. The amazing early level of hatred for Scott Walker from the left shows that he is likely someone that has great prospects as both candidate and president.
We can point out Obama saying that W was unpatriotic and maligning a W record on deficits that BO would take a sefie of himself with were he to come within a few TRILLION of doing as well!
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Thou Shalt Worship Green
Holman Jenkins: Oregon Is Greener Than Thou - WSJ:
I grew up in a fundamentalist church where someone could always find a way to be just a bit more righteous -- no TV, movies, rock music, dancing, Christmas ornaments -- and of course no smoking, drinking, gambling. Skirts could always be a bit longer, dresses a little drabber ... less jewelry, no makeup. The many manners of reaching total self righteousness shift a lot, but they have been endemic to the human condition since well before the scribes and the pharisees.
It matters not what religion we are, your natural desire is toward self righteousness by the manner of the creed that we choose or fall into.
The environmental "church O the Green" (no doubt with Irish heritage), in this case, the Oregon Diocese (to have just a bit of word fun) is profiled a bit in the linked article.
As was covered in the article linked from another blog post not so long ago, today most parents care not what religion their offspring marry into (or none), but increasingly they shudder in horror at the prospect that their beloved children would marry someone from a different political party. My guess is that with 70% of Republicans being religious, the reason their concern is higher is because the child going TP would likely indicate a loss of faith as well, so thus a double whammy if you are not of the TP religion!
There is no more perfect measure that the national religion today is Statism -- with it's stations of the anti-cross: environmentalism, abortion, "gay" marriage, redistribution, free sex (love has gone out of fashion), and sundry other sects and cults.
Guess what, Islam has not had it's "reformation" either, and an even bigger problem is that while your most likely really fundamental Christian is something like the Amish, or at least in really dark suits trying to be very loving and forgiving, the fundamentalist Islamic is looking to kill or convert you -- and the is about all the freedom they think you need.
As of now, the fundamentalist TPer is just looking to convert you -- they may fine you, audit your taxes, fire you, sue you for "hate speech" if you don't worship one of their tenets like "gay marriage", but at least as of the moment they aren't in the killing business, or even generally in the incarceration business unless you get really crotchety. But these things have a way of only going one direction UNLESS you have some tenets like "love your neighbor", "first shall be last", "he who would be first must be a servant", etc, and even THEN, the Reformation was far from civil.
Thou shalt worship -- the issue is really only what.
'via Blog this'
I grew up in a fundamentalist church where someone could always find a way to be just a bit more righteous -- no TV, movies, rock music, dancing, Christmas ornaments -- and of course no smoking, drinking, gambling. Skirts could always be a bit longer, dresses a little drabber ... less jewelry, no makeup. The many manners of reaching total self righteousness shift a lot, but they have been endemic to the human condition since well before the scribes and the pharisees.
It matters not what religion we are, your natural desire is toward self righteousness by the manner of the creed that we choose or fall into.
The environmental "church O the Green" (no doubt with Irish heritage), in this case, the Oregon Diocese (to have just a bit of word fun) is profiled a bit in the linked article.
In the end, the Kitzhaber-Hayes conflict-of-interest scandal may prove small potatoes (organic), but a general point needs to be made. In our republican system of government, we don’t assume virtue. We insist on checks and balances. We require competitive bidding and similarly transparent procedures to reduce discretion and the chances of corruption. We subject regulations to cost-benefit analysis to make sure the public is really being served.We don't assume virtue? They must mean our FOUNDERS didn't assume virtue and ATTEMPTED to have checks and balances! The Statists from TP (The Party-D) have totally taken over and the virtue of their ilk is assumed at every front. The IRS is run entirely by TP union hacks, as is the media, legal system, education and vast swaths of industry. Of course they assume virtue -- of their own, and naturally assume malfeasance from those not of their flock.
As was covered in the article linked from another blog post not so long ago, today most parents care not what religion their offspring marry into (or none), but increasingly they shudder in horror at the prospect that their beloved children would marry someone from a different political party. My guess is that with 70% of Republicans being religious, the reason their concern is higher is because the child going TP would likely indicate a loss of faith as well, so thus a double whammy if you are not of the TP religion!
There is no more perfect measure that the national religion today is Statism -- with it's stations of the anti-cross: environmentalism, abortion, "gay" marriage, redistribution, free sex (love has gone out of fashion), and sundry other sects and cults.
Don’t get us started on Google and its callow “don’t be evil” sloganeering. When it comes to proving Mr. Obama’s prayer breakfast point, however, give the prize to Putin's alleged funding of Western green groups to lobby against fracking.Environmentalism, alas, is a church with its reformation nowhere in sight. Jesus provided his followers the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector to guard against sanctimony. The greenies will have to admit corruption is possible before they can do anything about it.
Guess what, Islam has not had it's "reformation" either, and an even bigger problem is that while your most likely really fundamental Christian is something like the Amish, or at least in really dark suits trying to be very loving and forgiving, the fundamentalist Islamic is looking to kill or convert you -- and the is about all the freedom they think you need.
As of now, the fundamentalist TPer is just looking to convert you -- they may fine you, audit your taxes, fire you, sue you for "hate speech" if you don't worship one of their tenets like "gay marriage", but at least as of the moment they aren't in the killing business, or even generally in the incarceration business unless you get really crotchety. But these things have a way of only going one direction UNLESS you have some tenets like "love your neighbor", "first shall be last", "he who would be first must be a servant", etc, and even THEN, the Reformation was far from civil.
Thou shalt worship -- the issue is really only what.
'via Blog this'
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Solar Climate
Blog: Bad news for warmists: Sun has entered 'weakest solar cycle in a century':
As readers of this blog know, what I see from many data sources with time scales a lot longer than "warmest since 1880"... periods of many hundreds, or even better, hundreds of thousands of years are a better benchmark for "climate" in my book.
The attached article is a good summary of some of what we know of solar climate -- we have actually been looking to some extent at solar activity since at least the 1600s ... this is a good chart from a site that the Australian government maintains that lets you look at the cycles in some detail and gives you some ideas of how much variation there is ...
Solar Cycles are quite interesting -- the article touches on the "Maunder and Dalton Minimums" and the "Little Ice Age" from about 1550 - 1850. The fact that we warmed from the "1880 on" is not very surprising if you show a temperature chart from say 10K years rather than "100 or so". Somehow the Mann / Gore "hockey stick" just isn't so interesting on THAT scale !
The current popular "settled science theory" is that CO2 created by humans largely drives the planets climate -- or at least has swamped all other effects since 1880. A short glance at a longer term chart will really make you wonder about Roman and Medieval Co2 production, and if you are not a fully "settled" warmist may even make you look at a few of those spikes and ponder if there isn't just possibly SOMETHING else out there that might account for such variations.
Then, maybe at noon some day on the beach, you look up and go EUREKA! THE SUN!!! OMG, the **SUN** affects temperature on earth!!! ... but then, if you are a "smart person" and want to stay recognized by your peers as such, you take a deep drink of cocktail and say "never mind ...
'via Blog this'
As readers of this blog know, what I see from many data sources with time scales a lot longer than "warmest since 1880"... periods of many hundreds, or even better, hundreds of thousands of years are a better benchmark for "climate" in my book.
The attached article is a good summary of some of what we know of solar climate -- we have actually been looking to some extent at solar activity since at least the 1600s ... this is a good chart from a site that the Australian government maintains that lets you look at the cycles in some detail and gives you some ideas of how much variation there is ...
Solar Cycles are quite interesting -- the article touches on the "Maunder and Dalton Minimums" and the "Little Ice Age" from about 1550 - 1850. The fact that we warmed from the "1880 on" is not very surprising if you show a temperature chart from say 10K years rather than "100 or so". Somehow the Mann / Gore "hockey stick" just isn't so interesting on THAT scale !
The current popular "settled science theory" is that CO2 created by humans largely drives the planets climate -- or at least has swamped all other effects since 1880. A short glance at a longer term chart will really make you wonder about Roman and Medieval Co2 production, and if you are not a fully "settled" warmist may even make you look at a few of those spikes and ponder if there isn't just possibly SOMETHING else out there that might account for such variations.
Then, maybe at noon some day on the beach, you look up and go EUREKA! THE SUN!!! OMG, the **SUN** affects temperature on earth!!! ... but then, if you are a "smart person" and want to stay recognized by your peers as such, you take a deep drink of cocktail and say "never mind ...
'via Blog this'
Look Before You GIVE!!!
The Right Wing Scam Machine | National Review Online:
Conservatives generally give about 30% more of their income to various sources and I have a strong suspicion that they are both too trusting, AND that watchdog agencies are WAY less likely to do any investigations if someone is sucking money out of conservatives.
IN GENERAL:
The bottom line is BE SUSPICIOUS -- even if it has the name of a person you like / trust, It's a nasty world out there!
'via Blog this'
Conservatives generally give about 30% more of their income to various sources and I have a strong suspicion that they are both too trusting, AND that watchdog agencies are WAY less likely to do any investigations if someone is sucking money out of conservatives.
IN GENERAL:
- Don't give ANY money to organizations that call over the phone unless you REALLY know about them. A huge percentage of such fundraisers are just "using a name", and a TINY percentage of what they raise actually goes to the organization!
- NEVER given any money to the "National Republican" anything -- figure out what candidates you like and give it to THEM!
- Make sure you vet any places you want to give money and find out what percentage goes to the actual "cause / candidate / etc"
The bottom line is BE SUSPICIOUS -- even if it has the name of a person you like / trust, It's a nasty world out there!
'via Blog this'
Monday, February 16, 2015
Applauding What You Oppose, 99 Quads of Energy on the Wall
The High Cost of Energy Illiteracy | Power Line:
Burlington Vermont is powered by "100% renewable energy" -- oops, the ELECTRICITY is all renewable, BUT that is because it is HYDROELECTRIC -- as in DAMS, which in environmentalist speak are DAMNED BAD! -- or to play on words, "Dam Bad".
So why are they applauding? Because they are liberals and they don't know the difference between electricity and energy, and also because ... well, they really don't like to think that much about much of anything.
The US uses about 100 "Quads" of energy a year. As in quadrillion BTUs -- ONE "quad" is 6 BILLION gallons of diesel! Try to pay that bill even at lower prices!
This article has a nice chart that shows how much is solar and wind. Drum roll !! Wind and solar combined are TWO QUADS .... as in 2% !!!
Hydro and Nuke combined are 10% -- but environmentalists want to SHRINK those!
The linked PL article is excellent. Asking environmentalists or NPR to tell you anything about energy is embarrassing -- and scary when you realize how much stuff these people are in charge of!
via Blog this'
Burlington Vermont is powered by "100% renewable energy" -- oops, the ELECTRICITY is all renewable, BUT that is because it is HYDROELECTRIC -- as in DAMS, which in environmentalist speak are DAMNED BAD! -- or to play on words, "Dam Bad".
So why are they applauding? Because they are liberals and they don't know the difference between electricity and energy, and also because ... well, they really don't like to think that much about much of anything.
The US uses about 100 "Quads" of energy a year. As in quadrillion BTUs -- ONE "quad" is 6 BILLION gallons of diesel! Try to pay that bill even at lower prices!
This article has a nice chart that shows how much is solar and wind. Drum roll !! Wind and solar combined are TWO QUADS .... as in 2% !!!
Hydro and Nuke combined are 10% -- but environmentalists want to SHRINK those!
The linked PL article is excellent. Asking environmentalists or NPR to tell you anything about energy is embarrassing -- and scary when you realize how much stuff these people are in charge of!
via Blog this'
Cigarette Taxes WORK!!
Tax hike cuts tobacco consumption – USATODAY.com:
This graphic shows up out on Facebook from time to time -- it makes me wonder if velociraptors are smarter than humans.
The linked article shows that raising cigarette taxes works to reduce smoking, especially in lower income people -- the people who pay the highest percentage part of their income to smoke.
Income works the same. The marginal utility of the first dollar is high and then goes down as income goes up -- the next $10K of income for a person making $40K is high, for someone making $400K, it is quite low -- the "marginal utility" of the first burger you eat can be quite high if you are hungry, if you were forced to eat a half dozen of them, the last few would be a lot less. If you make $400K, the amount of time/hassle it takes to make another $10K may well not be worth what you could do with that time on your own. NOT even considering the tax effects!
You can of course use "infinite money" better than infinite hamburgers, but you can bet a $100 bribe or a $100 fine is going to have a lot less effect on Bill Gates than on someone making $10K a year. The relative nature of utility still holds.
The simple rule "If you want less of something, tax it, and if you want less of it, subsidize it" still works, and we consciously use the first half of it with cigarette taxes, yet, try to ignore the effect for income.
But you might say "you HAVE to have income, you don't have to have cigarettes". Due to the wonders of subsidy, not even this is true -- the government subsidizes sloth through all sorts of programs, and your standard liberal/socialist believes that everyone ought to have their "basic needs" covered by the government. There is some argument about what those needs are, but food, shelter, clothing, medical care, education are almost always included -- and now usually some level of "entertainment". Cell phone, internet, tv, etc.
A major objective of "liberal/socialist" thinking is that income ought to be "basically level", so they subsidize the low end, trying to remove the "need" to work. On the high end, there is no limit to the amount of taxation they want to put on ... 100% taxes for incomes over a given amount have been suggested many times from the left.
Especially with all it's income leveling desires though, the government really does NEED money. The rational solution would be to have a flat tax on ALL purchases (sales tax) that covered federal, state and local governments. Right now that would be about 35%, because that is the percentage of GDP in total government spending! Going off to that link shows "the march to socialism" as the percentage spent by the government continually rises.
What the chart can't show is the effects that income taxes working the same as cigarette taxes have long term on our economy so it's overall output is reduced. The TOTAL GDP is reduced because of the disincentives to higher income earners in the same way as cigarette taxes reduce smoking. A tax is a tax and the effects are the same -- for good and ill.
The ultimate result of socialism has to be slave labor (or revolution/freedom) -- those that would be likely to earn higher incomes start writing books, blogs and rabble rousing rather than creating wealth for the elite to distribute, and the elite gets really TICKED! First they start with little efforts -- use the IRS against groups they don't like, do a little "harassment" with extra regulations / etc on those that make too much money and can't shut up. Eventually though, it's always the Gulag for those that have too much gumption and don't want to go over to the socialist side.
'via Blog this'
This graphic shows up out on Facebook from time to time -- it makes me wonder if velociraptors are smarter than humans.
The linked article shows that raising cigarette taxes works to reduce smoking, especially in lower income people -- the people who pay the highest percentage part of their income to smoke.
Taxes are the sledge hammer of anti-smoking efforts. The federal tax hike helped push tobacco use down to 18.9% in 2011, the lowest level on record, according to the CDCsurveys. Even smokers who don't quit light up less. In the 1990s, one of every 20 high school students smoked 10 or more cigarettes a day. Today, one out of 71 students smoke that much.This ought not be surprising -- when prices on something rise, consumption of it goes down -- "how much" is a function of how "elastic" the demand curve for it is. Raise the price for something, people buy less of it, lower the price and they buy more -- to a point, at which the market is "saturated". The "marginal utility" is no longer deemed to be worth the marginal cost.
Income works the same. The marginal utility of the first dollar is high and then goes down as income goes up -- the next $10K of income for a person making $40K is high, for someone making $400K, it is quite low -- the "marginal utility" of the first burger you eat can be quite high if you are hungry, if you were forced to eat a half dozen of them, the last few would be a lot less. If you make $400K, the amount of time/hassle it takes to make another $10K may well not be worth what you could do with that time on your own. NOT even considering the tax effects!
You can of course use "infinite money" better than infinite hamburgers, but you can bet a $100 bribe or a $100 fine is going to have a lot less effect on Bill Gates than on someone making $10K a year. The relative nature of utility still holds.
The simple rule "If you want less of something, tax it, and if you want less of it, subsidize it" still works, and we consciously use the first half of it with cigarette taxes, yet, try to ignore the effect for income.
But you might say "you HAVE to have income, you don't have to have cigarettes". Due to the wonders of subsidy, not even this is true -- the government subsidizes sloth through all sorts of programs, and your standard liberal/socialist believes that everyone ought to have their "basic needs" covered by the government. There is some argument about what those needs are, but food, shelter, clothing, medical care, education are almost always included -- and now usually some level of "entertainment". Cell phone, internet, tv, etc.
A major objective of "liberal/socialist" thinking is that income ought to be "basically level", so they subsidize the low end, trying to remove the "need" to work. On the high end, there is no limit to the amount of taxation they want to put on ... 100% taxes for incomes over a given amount have been suggested many times from the left.
Especially with all it's income leveling desires though, the government really does NEED money. The rational solution would be to have a flat tax on ALL purchases (sales tax) that covered federal, state and local governments. Right now that would be about 35%, because that is the percentage of GDP in total government spending! Going off to that link shows "the march to socialism" as the percentage spent by the government continually rises.
What the chart can't show is the effects that income taxes working the same as cigarette taxes have long term on our economy so it's overall output is reduced. The TOTAL GDP is reduced because of the disincentives to higher income earners in the same way as cigarette taxes reduce smoking. A tax is a tax and the effects are the same -- for good and ill.
The ultimate result of socialism has to be slave labor (or revolution/freedom) -- those that would be likely to earn higher incomes start writing books, blogs and rabble rousing rather than creating wealth for the elite to distribute, and the elite gets really TICKED! First they start with little efforts -- use the IRS against groups they don't like, do a little "harassment" with extra regulations / etc on those that make too much money and can't shut up. Eventually though, it's always the Gulag for those that have too much gumption and don't want to go over to the socialist side.
'via Blog this'
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Liberal, Conservative, Humor, Jon Stewart
Why There's No Conservative Jon Stewart - The Atlantic:
I love articles like this. A couple underlying "liberal" assumptions come through quickly:
1). I'm a liberal, therefore I'm "better" -- smarter, more in tune, "in the know", etc, etc.
2). I'm very modern -- and the latest information is ALWAYS best (therefore, there is no such thing as "truth", because tomorrow's truth will always trump todays!
A good working definition of Philosophy is "footnotes to Plato" ... something that a "liberal" can't subscribe to because of their underlying assumptions -- it's more modern now, Plato MUST be wrong!
But again, Plato calls the ball perfectly and they even quote it in the article!
Political humor, in particular, might have an inherently liberal bias. Alison Dagnes spent years looking into this question for her 2012 book. It does have a liberal bias, but she didn't get it. If she had managed to understand Plato, she would understand that people want to FEEL superior to SOME group. Feeling is definitely not related to any objective reality, and it is irrespective of your actual power state. Satire makes fun of a group you CONSIDER yourself superior to, there is no requirement at all for you to actually be more powerful than that group in any objective way.
I'm pretty sure the British made fun of the Americans during the Revolutionary war, soldiers make fun of officers, prisoners make fun of jail keepers, southern whites made fun of southern blacks prior to "1968", and as evidenced by Jon Stewart, the dominant political and media evidenced by "The Party (D)" makes fun of conservatives today. Americans were objectively FAR less powerful than Britain during the revolution (they quit because we weren't worth the fight), certainly blacks in the south were less powerful that whites, ditto conservatives in the US today. Humor is an equal opportunity thing -- it depends on perspective, but ALL people like to feel superior!
Seinfeld apparently understood Plato, as have many black comedians -- people LOVE to laugh at groups that they feel superior to -- down through time, Jews, Italians, Blacks, etc. When you are REALLY dominant, as whites were in the south, or liberals are today, you get to make fun of the other group, rather than having to BE one of the less powerful groups to be allowed to make the jokes, as blacks are today in comedy. In this wonderful Seinfeld sketch about a guy that converted to Judaism so he could do Jewish jokes, Jerry isn't offended as a Jew, he is offended as a COMEDIAN!
Certainly, if you are "with your own folks", one can make fun of the allegedly more powerful -- again, it is about FEELING superior, not any actual reality.
Anyone watching Colbert KNOWS that he is making fun of conservatives, that is the role he plays on the show! There is no "ambiguity" there at all -- to claim it exists is incredible. When people do not clearly "get the joke", they are not amused -- they are confused! Conservatives, don't laugh for the inverse of the reason that liberals laugh -- conservatives know EXACTLY what he is saying/being.
He is playing the part of a "stupid obnoxious conservative" -- and the Colbert CHARACTER is "joking" -- AS a conservative. He poking fun AS a conservative (character)!
Real conservatives who are skeptical about Global Warming DO use the "won't warmer weather be grand" line, typically during unseasonably cold weather. Liberals HATE that -- and they consider it to be a sign of stupidity. No matter how cold it is, or how long a "pause" there is in warming, they must believe -- and feel superior to the conservative using the line. So they laugh at the Colbert character -- either naturally because they are real warmist believers, or they laugh because they know they are supposed to. To not laugh would not be appropriate to maintain standing in their belief system.
Conservatives have yet a further reaction -- they know that humans in reality DO prefer warmer weather! Given a choice between it being 2 degrees warmer in a winter 100 years from now and it being two degrees colder, humans ACTUALLY prefer the warmer. BUT, liberals find themselves in a situation similar to people forcing themselves to not laugh at a racial joke, even though everything in the "humor program" of their brain might be firing.
Strangely, "suppressing the natural" is a major part of "liberal" behavior -- most liberals find gay sex disgusting too, it is naturally wired into our brains to react that way -- but they are forced to act like they don't to stay in good graces with their peers.
Conservatives know that the liberals are actually lying -- they are still human, they actually DO prefer slightly warmer to slightly colder temperatures. The scary part is that conservatives also know that "liberals" MUST NOT admit that they actually prefer warmth in order to stay in their group! They are forced to do their best to laugh "heartily and naturally" even though their very being is in disagreement with the position they espouse to stay in the dominant group!
This is where this fairly simple thing gets more than a little spooky and conjures images of religious zealotry, Nazism, ethnic hatred, etc. -- covered in a lot more detail in "The Righteous Mind". I won't go to ground on this here -- it comes up quite a bit in this blog. Human nature has a whole set of elements that all have "light and dark" sides -- say "greed / envy". Capitalism works to use greed to achieve good things, socialism uses envy to try to make things "equal".
Part of "civilization" is the channeling of our basic drives and weaknesses -- lust to monogamous marriage, competitiveness to sports, material comparison, wars, ... the list is long. For a couple thousand years, in the West, the Christian religion was the overarching set of morals / values that gave a broad agreement on many of these. We accepted human nature as fixed and imperfect, needing to be moulded by the Holy Spirit on the right hand, and by the state from the left.
That balance is now gone. The State, and it's party -- TP, seek to cow the masses into following ONLY the authority of TP. THOU SHALT bow before Global Warming, "Gay Marriage", "Government Healthcare", "Government Education" ... and ultimately GOVERNMENT!! Making fun of people that don't agree with that might lead eventually to some "mirrorish" image of what happened to Blacks::
free --> slave -> oppressed minority -> kept minority voting bloc --> ??? free someday ???
Productive free working Christian majority --> productive working Christian minority --> regulated Christian voting bloc --> oppressed minority --> slaves ????
In case you need a laugh after all that seriousness, here is some fairly equal opportunity political satire that at least OUGHT to be funny to both sides! (but likely isn't)
'via Blog this'
I love articles like this. A couple underlying "liberal" assumptions come through quickly:
1). I'm a liberal, therefore I'm "better" -- smarter, more in tune, "in the know", etc, etc.
2). I'm very modern -- and the latest information is ALWAYS best (therefore, there is no such thing as "truth", because tomorrow's truth will always trump todays!
A good working definition of Philosophy is "footnotes to Plato" ... something that a "liberal" can't subscribe to because of their underlying assumptions -- it's more modern now, Plato MUST be wrong!
But again, Plato calls the ball perfectly and they even quote it in the article!
Theorists have been trying to explain humor as far back as Plato. The ancient Greek philosopher said humor got its power from the pleasure people get when they feel superior over others, laughing at their foibles and flaws."Search your heart Luke, you know it to be true!" So given the assumptions of liberals that I just listed above, and Plato's words, it is easy to understand why "liberals" are a better market for political humor!
Political humor, in particular, might have an inherently liberal bias. Alison Dagnes spent years looking into this question for her 2012 book. It does have a liberal bias, but she didn't get it. If she had managed to understand Plato, she would understand that people want to FEEL superior to SOME group. Feeling is definitely not related to any objective reality, and it is irrespective of your actual power state. Satire makes fun of a group you CONSIDER yourself superior to, there is no requirement at all for you to actually be more powerful than that group in any objective way.
I'm pretty sure the British made fun of the Americans during the Revolutionary war, soldiers make fun of officers, prisoners make fun of jail keepers, southern whites made fun of southern blacks prior to "1968", and as evidenced by Jon Stewart, the dominant political and media evidenced by "The Party (D)" makes fun of conservatives today. Americans were objectively FAR less powerful than Britain during the revolution (they quit because we weren't worth the fight), certainly blacks in the south were less powerful that whites, ditto conservatives in the US today. Humor is an equal opportunity thing -- it depends on perspective, but ALL people like to feel superior!
Seinfeld apparently understood Plato, as have many black comedians -- people LOVE to laugh at groups that they feel superior to -- down through time, Jews, Italians, Blacks, etc. When you are REALLY dominant, as whites were in the south, or liberals are today, you get to make fun of the other group, rather than having to BE one of the less powerful groups to be allowed to make the jokes, as blacks are today in comedy. In this wonderful Seinfeld sketch about a guy that converted to Judaism so he could do Jewish jokes, Jerry isn't offended as a Jew, he is offended as a COMEDIAN!
Certainly, if you are "with your own folks", one can make fun of the allegedly more powerful -- again, it is about FEELING superior, not any actual reality.
Young began to wonder whether this might explain why liberals were attracted in greater numbers to TV shows that employ irony. Stephen Colbert, for example, may say that he’s looking forward to the sunny weather that global warming will bring, and the audience members know this isn’t what he really means. But they have to wonder: Is he making fun of the kind of conservative who would say something so egregious? Or is he making fun of arrogant liberals who think that conservatives hold such extreme views? As Young noticed, this is a kind of ambiguity that liberals tend to find more satisfying and culturally familiar than conservatives do. In fact, a study out of Ohio State University found that a surprising number of conservatives who were shown Colbert clips were oblivious to the fact that he was joking."Irony" and "ambiguity" are in the eye of the beholder -- or maybe in this case, they are just uncomfortable cover for the truth. When audiences felt inherently and securely superior to Blacks or Jews and that was allowable, the jokes were funny to them. When that superiority started to be called into question, the laughs became uncomfortable, then disappeared, and then the jokes became hate speech.
Anyone watching Colbert KNOWS that he is making fun of conservatives, that is the role he plays on the show! There is no "ambiguity" there at all -- to claim it exists is incredible. When people do not clearly "get the joke", they are not amused -- they are confused! Conservatives, don't laugh for the inverse of the reason that liberals laugh -- conservatives know EXACTLY what he is saying/being.
He is playing the part of a "stupid obnoxious conservative" -- and the Colbert CHARACTER is "joking" -- AS a conservative. He poking fun AS a conservative (character)!
Real conservatives who are skeptical about Global Warming DO use the "won't warmer weather be grand" line, typically during unseasonably cold weather. Liberals HATE that -- and they consider it to be a sign of stupidity. No matter how cold it is, or how long a "pause" there is in warming, they must believe -- and feel superior to the conservative using the line. So they laugh at the Colbert character -- either naturally because they are real warmist believers, or they laugh because they know they are supposed to. To not laugh would not be appropriate to maintain standing in their belief system.
Conservatives have yet a further reaction -- they know that humans in reality DO prefer warmer weather! Given a choice between it being 2 degrees warmer in a winter 100 years from now and it being two degrees colder, humans ACTUALLY prefer the warmer. BUT, liberals find themselves in a situation similar to people forcing themselves to not laugh at a racial joke, even though everything in the "humor program" of their brain might be firing.
Strangely, "suppressing the natural" is a major part of "liberal" behavior -- most liberals find gay sex disgusting too, it is naturally wired into our brains to react that way -- but they are forced to act like they don't to stay in good graces with their peers.
Conservatives know that the liberals are actually lying -- they are still human, they actually DO prefer slightly warmer to slightly colder temperatures. The scary part is that conservatives also know that "liberals" MUST NOT admit that they actually prefer warmth in order to stay in their group! They are forced to do their best to laugh "heartily and naturally" even though their very being is in disagreement with the position they espouse to stay in the dominant group!
This is where this fairly simple thing gets more than a little spooky and conjures images of religious zealotry, Nazism, ethnic hatred, etc. -- covered in a lot more detail in "The Righteous Mind". I won't go to ground on this here -- it comes up quite a bit in this blog. Human nature has a whole set of elements that all have "light and dark" sides -- say "greed / envy". Capitalism works to use greed to achieve good things, socialism uses envy to try to make things "equal".
Part of "civilization" is the channeling of our basic drives and weaknesses -- lust to monogamous marriage, competitiveness to sports, material comparison, wars, ... the list is long. For a couple thousand years, in the West, the Christian religion was the overarching set of morals / values that gave a broad agreement on many of these. We accepted human nature as fixed and imperfect, needing to be moulded by the Holy Spirit on the right hand, and by the state from the left.
That balance is now gone. The State, and it's party -- TP, seek to cow the masses into following ONLY the authority of TP. THOU SHALT bow before Global Warming, "Gay Marriage", "Government Healthcare", "Government Education" ... and ultimately GOVERNMENT!! Making fun of people that don't agree with that might lead eventually to some "mirrorish" image of what happened to Blacks::
free --> slave -> oppressed minority -> kept minority voting bloc --> ??? free someday ???
Productive free working Christian majority --> productive working Christian minority --> regulated Christian voting bloc --> oppressed minority --> slaves ????
In case you need a laugh after all that seriousness, here is some fairly equal opportunity political satire that at least OUGHT to be funny to both sides! (but likely isn't)
'via Blog this'
Friday, February 13, 2015
The Linen Closet of Democracy
Crusaders and appeasers - The Washington Post:
A great one from Charles, just read it.
Obama channels Neville Chamberlain -- "Moral relativism in our time" is my quip contribution, but "linen closet of democracy" is better.
'via Blog this'
A great one from Charles, just read it.
Obama channels Neville Chamberlain -- "Moral relativism in our time" is my quip contribution, but "linen closet of democracy" is better.
'via Blog this'
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