Funding The Climate Church

Unearthing America's Deep Network of Climate Change Deniers - Bloomberg Business:

Here we have a lot of attention being paid to how scientists that look at climate and weather as an area of legitimate scientific research are funded. ( not accepting that climate is "settled" is labeled as being a "denier" by the Climate Church).

We already know how the high priests of the Climate Church are funded -- through the State, like the Church of England, Church of Norway, etc. ... we don't need to study that, we know how linkage of Church and State works. There used to be a country in N America that had stamped out having a State Church until the Climate Church came along, but I forget it's name. "Obamination" I think.

State Churches tend to have Inquisitions to hunt down and prosecute Heretics that refuse to submit to the authority of the State Church -- which is one in the same as the State, and enjoys the power and the funding of the State.

The State Religion and the State work together to hunt down and remove any opposition -- the purpose of the "research" cited in the linked column is just that. Pointing out that that there are still guys actng like Copernicus out there trying to claim that the Earth goes around the Sun -- rounding them up and maybe burning them at the stake is the sort of thing that State Churches are quite good at.

Money that comes from the State is holy ... money that comes from the private sector is SINFUL! Thus saith the State and it's Church!

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Due Process of Insanity, Convertibles

Obama: It's 'Insane' That People On A No-Fly List Can Legally Buy A Gun In The U.S.:

"That is insane. If you’re too dangerous to board a plane, you’re too dangerous, by definition, to buy a gun." 

So this is being said by the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, a man SWORN to uphold the Constitution of the United States. He even claims to be a "constitutional scholar"!!

Therefore, **HE** has got to be INSANE to utter those words!!!!!

There is ABSOLUTELY NO DUE PROCESS AT ALL to get on the "No Fly List" ... I had a friend on it that grew up in Austin MN, went to the UofM and worked at IBM for nearly 30 years. At the time he was on the list he didn't even own a gun. He didn't even know he was on it until they started delaying him at every flight!

The Huffington Post covered how easy / random / etc it is to get on the list. It's a bureaucratic CYA list, there is NO PROCESS ... "due" or otherwise.

Are we REALLY so Constitutionally illiterate as a people that we don't realize that "Due Process" as specified in the 5th and 14th has been stretched to include "rights" to busing, affirmative action, equal access for the handicapped, gay rights including "marriage", voting with no ID and through the vaunted "penumbra" (legal term for "made up"), abortion.

We have the President of the US asserting that an enumerated right, the 2nd Amendment, SHOULD be denied to people on a list that has no due process relative to one being added to it! Btw, not only no process to get ON it, but no process to GET OFF IT either!

Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard is on the list, as are 72 DHS employees !!

We actually might be able fire anyone from DHS that is on the list, however, I suspect that THAT might well run afoul of some "due process right" relative to equal treatment as a Federal Employee.

How can a sitting president POSSIBLY make such a claim for restricting an actual Constitutional right?? If he is THAT incompetent, then he certainly can't fulfill the oath of his job. If he does understand what he just said, he must be IMPEACHED -- because he completely broke his oath of office on TV!

But we live in an insane world, and we as a people are clearly no longer capable of even having an IDEA of what America at least USED to be!

Naturally, in the real world, the San Bernardino shooters were not on the No Fly List.

So why is this being proffered as a solution after San Bernardino? Simple, because we no longer live a world that is real or sane.

I am reminded of a friend (a different one) who tends to buy cars without a lot of rational justification. Showing up with an expensive sports coupe, and being accused of "purchasing on a whim", he got a bit flustered and exclaimed; "But I've always wanted a convertible"!

To which the reply was, "But that's not a convertable".

It was however a "car", so we are talking rationality FAR greater than that used by BO on TV last night!

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Marco Rubio Drinks Water

Marco Rubio's 'water thing' - POLITICO:



It's a useless read, seriously, it's ALL about him drinking WATER while speaking!



Just to give one example of how important this rather longish column on DRINKING WATER is!

“Huckabee didn’t need water,” said an event organizer, who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld and the event not be made identifiable. “It was the first time that glassware entered into one of these events.”

This is a story? When the current occupant of the WH needs a teleprompter to get through a press conference?



If this is what it takes to come up with some "dirt" on Rubio, the guy is TOO clean!



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Vegans Mentally Impaired?

The Scary Mental Health Risks of Going Meatless | Women's Health:



My tongue is a bit in my cheek, but seriously it seems that there is a correlation -- and like all correlations, it may well not be that meat CAUSES the issues. It could be that folks that go vegan are more prone to the issues.

"Even the pros find the stats confounding in a chicken-or-egg way. "We don't know if a vegetarian diet causes depression and anxiety, or if people who are predisposed to those mental conditions gravitate toward vegetarianism," says Emily Deans, M.D., a Boston psychiatrist who studies the link between food and mood."

On the other hand ...

Without meat, we'd never have matured beyond the mental capacity of herbivores like gorillas

They didn't call them HUNTER gatherers for nothing.  The evolution people have lots of theories about how it was maybe to coordinate hunting in groups that was one of the major reasons for the  growth of the human brain, language, etc. ...



In any case, even the major "truth" that vegans are so ANXIOUS to tell you, that veganism is DEFINITELY a healthier diet, may only be true if you don't need your head for anything beyond a hat-rack



They maybe SO ANXIOUS to tell you BECAUSE they are vegan and their brain is impaired ... which is pretty much poetic irony.



HUMOR ... Question: How do you tell if someone is a vegan?



ANS: "They F**ing TELL YOU!!!"

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Hail Mary, Hail Christmas At Luther

Being on the positive side of a game ending like Thursday night in Detroit puts a smile on your face that tends to stay for awhile.

My smile  got a big boost last night as we were privileged and blessed to be gifted with amazing seats to participate in "Christmas At Luther: Saviour of the Nations Come!".  It was an experience like nothing I ever really imagined, and one which I know will stay with me the rest of my days.

Raised in a Baptist church in the day when elaborate musical programs were considered "worldly", and were done by Catholics (considered to be the "Whore of Babylon" in fundamentalist theology of the sixties at least), and Lutherans -- considered to be another of the apostate churches by that particular Baptist sect, my exposure to such worship was non-existent.

Add to this the fact that my musical talent would generously class as "minimal", and my background in any sort of classical music or understanding is woefully barren, and we have the proverbial beggar approaching the banquet. Oh, while we are at it, such a feast of spirit is properly preceded by a feast of a Norwegian buffet -- lefse, lutefisk, meatballs, brussels sprouts (which a like) and heavenly rutabaga mashed potatoes. It was definitely the best lutefisk which I have ever given a game try -- for some reason my Swedish blood apparently just can't quite get by the quiver though! We Swedes crushed the Norwegians potatoes and dumped lye on their fish, and the resourceful Norse consider them delicacies!

I'm not equipped to make intelligent comment on the program. Rapt amazement, awe and joy are the operative terms that come to me. SIX HUNDRED FIFTY young vocalists with symphony orchestra, handbell choir,  heavenly organ  in an incredible setting and really for the first time in my life I considered that angelic choirs and instruments praising God really could be something to look forward to in Heaven ... although I'm not giving up on shore lunch with Jesus.

I'm not sure two hours have ever passed faster! I was somewhat surprised, but very gratified to see that this was DEFINITELY an unabashed and unapologetic CHRISTIAN  CHRISTMAS celebration, . It included some of the manadary modern nods to "diversity", but they were not a distraction. I did reflect a bit on "why"? The crowd and the student body were certainly conspicuously caucasian with only sprinkling of others, but we were after all in Decorah IA, deep in the midwest.

In some ways the evening was coming "full circle". It was interaction with Luther graduates at IBM that provided the example that eventually led me to the Lutheran Church. I felt as if I was privileged to glimpse a special bit of that rich spiritual heritage that eventually drew me to the Lutheran Church. (a bit on that if interested)

What a miraculous complex creation we are gifted with. A little Norwegian-American school named after "Luther", a somewhat brooding German's German. Germany, where much later a madman idolized the Valkyries and a vision of "Aryan" that looked positively Norse, yet he himself looked nothing like the ideal. Enjoying the celebration of a Jewish child born in the mideast over 2,000 years ago with many aspects of the actual holiday translated by a Roman Church from pagan winter solstice rituals -- a Roman Church that the German Luther stood up to in The Reformation, 500 years ago in 2017.

Somehow though, when the candles are lit and the strains of the "First Noel" are coursing through the night and our gathered spirits, it is all simple.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Merry Christmas ... er wait, "Happy Advent" ... I'm a Lutheran now!

Thanks to the wonder of the internet, here it is https://vimeo.com/248192944.

No Right Is Safe, Or Real, "Privacy Clause"

The NY Times is all for extensive regulation of one enumerated right in the Constitution, the Second Amendment.

It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

A nation where there is such a thing as law must bow to reason if it is not to descend into violence, and reason requires CONSISTENCY, something certainly flown from our nation's discourse.  How would the NY Times react to their own statement if you put "abortion" rather than "guns" in as that "no right"?

Abortion is a "right" that is not found in any wording in the Constitution at all -- "peculiar" or otherwise. It is said to be based on "the privacy clause" of the 14th Amendment, but alas, "privacy" is not mentioned there either. You can link off to a few pages of legalese here  that define which batwing and eye of newt was thrown into the conjuring pot to find "privacy",  but it real base is in the "penumbra" of the Constitution -- meaning "rights that can be inferred".

To put it in common terms -- rights that are not present in the Constitution, so they were MADE UP to suit liberal justices!

If we were reasonably law-abiding people that understood the logical and rational requirements of freedom, we would have had a Constitutional Amendment to attempt to define ACTUAL RIGHTS -- like "privacy", or "abortion", or "gay "marriage"". If they passed, we could point to what those new rights included -- and did NOT include. But we are no longer that kind of people.

In fact, we are a people so supremely inconsistent that a paper like the NY Times can do a column like this relative to the 2nd Amendment, while at the same time holding the position that no state may regulate abortion in any manner at all, and in fact, it may not even restrict FUNDING of abortion! (The fact there is a 2nd Amendment would require that you pay for my guns if the 2nd was treated like abortion!)

They can favor the killing of 60 million babies for mere convenience, yet claim that those that believe in law, reason and consistency, lack "decency" -- which after law, reason and consistency have been removed is merely "power", "popularity", or "mob rule".

Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for civilian ownership. It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and, yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give them up for the good of their fellow citizens.

What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?

As Nietzsche stated so well, once God is gone, "decency" is only a matter of WILL! Whomever can impose their will can define "decency".

The NY Times, BO and "The Party" DEFINITELY want to IMPOSE THEIR WILL, and the 2nd Amendment is an obstacle in their way.

As is covered extremely well in the video of this post, OUR MURDER PROBLEM IS CULTURAL, and it was created post 1960!!!

If you factor out our large violent cities, our murder rate is like SWITZERLAND! Our large cities have 3rd world murder rates, and our little Plano Texas like towns have murder rates like Switzerland. What is more, our crime rate precipitously went up, then down, now up again since the 1960s, and as the NY Times laments, our GUN POLICIES DIDN'T SIGNIFICANTLY CHANGE!

We broke the murder rate, we can fix it, but the big problem is that what broke it is "The Party", and they have no desire that people realize that, let alone that they change their policies to save lives -- if they did, we would never have had Roe v Wade, nor the government programs that encourage single female head of household, and consign young black males to shooting each other in the streets.

Good Buddy Weisser

Teen named Bud Weisser arrested at Budweiser Brewery:

Truth can be stranger than fiction.

NBC Nineteen-year-old Bud Weisser was arrested Thursday evening for trespassing at a brewery of uncanny similarity to his own name in downtown St. Louis, police said.

Made me think of George Thorogood "Just me and good buddy Weiser, That's all I ever need" , and a lyric that always brings a wry smirk to my face "You know when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself ...".

Ah, the "wisdom" of rock with a really wise guy bad attitude!

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Prayer Goes The Way of "Merry Christmas"

Prayer-shaming isn’t about attacking prayer. It’s about calling out empty platitudes.:

Until now, “thoughts and prayers” has been a bipartisan cliché, and a harmless one. Going forward, it seems the phrase will become a politically inflected dog whistle in some quarters in the vein of Chik-fil-A and “Merry Christmas.” That’s a loss. But it’s nothing compared to the losses we endured this week, and last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that.

They don't really mean it is a "loss" -- to them it is a GAIN. They also have no trouble with killing innocents -- see abortion. What they want is POWER and guns in the hands of people are a problem on that front, as is prayer, so they want them both gone! The god of government is a VERY jealous god, and it demands direct and ACTIVE control over ALL of life. Certainly including anything said, but to the extent possible, even "thoughts and prayers".

In the Totalitarian States of America (TSA ... good acronym), behavior formerly private, like sexual preferences, MUST now be public and celebrated! Behavior formerly public, and explicitly protected like religion, MUST be closeted "in the bedroom", and ANY use of language associated with religious belief must be suppressed ... with the current focus toward moving "prayer" into the same closet as "Merry Christmas".

The idea of ANY power beyond government, or even the idea of things beyond human power -- say life and death for example, is an idea that a jealous government god seeks to suppress and hopefully remove from the mind.  The State wants its minions to believe that through the State, ALL things are possible. It jealously seeks to remove all competition in the hearts and minds of those under its dominion.

Government can't give life, but it certainly can take it away, or allow it to be taken away by the many 100's of millions in the case of abortion and war. Leviathan however would like to hide the "little" secret that for all it's supposed power, it is unable to prevent the death of even a single human. It works constantly to focus the minds of all under its sway on temporal existence being "all there is" and seeks to promise as much earthly pleasure as it can to those that worship it.

Those that bow at the altar of government have a fervent belief that DOING **SOMETHING** ... ANYTHING! is certain to "help". Evidence of the fact of many past "actions" being counter productive, costing much more in lives and treasure than the original problem, having all sorts of negative side effects, etc does nothing to cool the fervor of the confirmed government congregant. MORE controls, more laws, more programs ... more, more more must be sacrificed on the altar of government, and the tentacles of the state must be extended to the very language we use!

For those still able to think independently. The 2nd amendment is not new, nor is broad gun ownership in the US. Our murder rate per 100K is also middling in the world, even very low if one factors out our lawless heavily gun controlled major cities. What has changed? Well, as the article happily points out we have become WAY more Pagan. We also have WAY more broken homes than we had prior to becoming way more Pagan, and the Pagan god of government has grown in intruded with ever more increasing vigor into every aspect of our lives. Naturally, to the government believer, government is ONLY good, and EVERYTHING can ONLY be solved by more government. Let those that can still think pay attention!

Controlling language is as close to thought control as the government can get, so it is completely unsurprising that government and its acolytes seek to control the words we use. Many of our most rational thoughts are in terms of words -- make the word "prayer" into a word that elicits "mental care" relative to its use, and a major beachhead in the installation of government as the "one true god" has been accomplished.

Our pagan nation is in severe need of fervent prayer!

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BO Just Doesn't Happen In Other Countries ... (From Paris)

Fact check: Obama claim that ‘I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings; this just doesn’t happen in other countries.’ - The Washington Post:

Hmm ... well, he HAS been saying that a lot of times LATELY, but he didn't used to, so that part isn't true.

But the mass shootings DO happen in other countries ... including France / Paris where he said this from ... famously with Hebdo and 3 weeks ago, in the same city he making the statement from.

As the WaPo article linked calls out Mali, Kenya, Mexico, ... the US is like middle of the pack.

In THIS case, even BO **SAYING** this actually DOES happen in other countries! He was saying it from France, that is another country.

So the rating is just "Mostly False"? Is that like a BO golf handicap? He is ALWAYS LYING, so even when he is lying in MANY ways in one single statement he still avoids the "Liar Liar Pants on Fire" designation??

Is he insane? In some ways, that would be easier to understand.

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Hmm, Syed Farook? Move Along, NOT TERRORISM!

San Bernardino shooting - LA Times:



Crazy white guy that might have said "no more baby parts"? Yeah, that sounds like a shooting to focus on a good deal. Clear Domestic Terrorism ... probably "right wing"! Have all them angry Christian zealots that don't like PP making a decent living off "tissue" shut up yet? It's clearly their fault dammit!



Syed Farook? Hard to say what that dude was up to -- too bad about the collaterals, but "whatever" ... move along here. Not fitting the narrative ...  DEFINITELY NOT TERRORISM!



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Laughing At AIDs and Abortion

Reagan press secretary laughs about gay people dying of AIDS.:

The Reagan Derangement Syndrome at Slate is definitely clinical ... they need to get back on their meds! The headline is naturally completely wrong (as is pretty much everything at Slate) ... nobody is "laughing at people dying" of ANYTHING in that link!  They don't happen to know what AIDs is, and "Gay Plague" sounds almost Biblical. (and the guy asking is using that designation, not Speakes)

 It is hard for people to imagine today, but I was FAR from the only person that graduated from HS prior to '75 that thankfully didn't even know what "gay" was, and it is completely unsurprising that in '82 somebody bringing up "gay" and "plague" out of the blue at a press conference would elicit uncomfortable laughter. Most of the people laughing were THE PRESS, and in fact the guy that raised the issue in the first place started laughing as well.

And NOBODY laughed at anyone DYING!!

Contrast that with abortion. It isn't hard at all to find "Abortion Humor".  I can guarantee you that **ALL** the victims of abortion are totally innocent.

The victims of AIDs, other than the hemophiliacs or women that discovered too late that their sexual partner either had sex with men or was an intravenous drug user, all made lifestyle choices that turned out poorly. It happens, often tragically -- consider driving drunk.

Perhaps the editors of Salon could just SLIGHTLY understand how people that care about babies in their mother's womb and view life as a gift from God as opposed to a meaningless party in the flesh, feel about abortion ... let alone abortion "humor".  To the extent that the writers of Salon have any grasp of reality at all, EVERY abortion is intended to result in someone dying!  The TOTAL number of AIDs deaths in the US for the LIFE of the disease -- which counts everyone HIV positive that has died of AIDs for ALL CAUSES since it showed up is less than  ONE million.

The deaths from Abortion in the US alone are over FIFTY MILLION, 1.2 million per year -- each year more than  the TOTAL  deaths from AIDs.  People are living with AIDs today, but other than a very few abortion survivors,  every abortion results in a dead victim.

No doubt the hatred of the Salon writers for an abortion survivor knows very few bounds -- the existence of survivors gives the lie to any mythology that it is "not a human life" that is being ended ... Gianna Jessen looks VERY human!

Why don't we get along in this country these days? Because of the kind of extreme dichotomy we see here. Prior to Roe V Wade in '73 (not that much before '82) people had freedom in states to protect the lives of the child in the womb, or to allow them to be slaughtered -- and those that approved of the slaughter could go to a state where it was allowed and kill their infant.

Those who believe that the right of slaughter is "basic" would likely be nearly as unhappy as those who believe in life today if Roe v Wade had declared that abortion was not allowed in ANY state. Perhaps they would have been angry enough and determined enough to get a Constitutional Amendment decreeing abortion as a basic right like the right to bear arms or to free speech -- but the evidence is otherwise.

We don't get along because we are lawless, and conflict is the state of lawless nature, trending life to become "poor, nasty, brutish and short" in the words of Hobbes. (the Constitution is the base of our law, ignoring it and failing to amend it in order to make change means we have no law at base)

For the aborted, it is VERY short, but it is certainly becoming poorer, nastier, etc for the rest of us, and increasingly short for broad groups of people like whites of high school education .

One might have a bit of a gallows chuckle at that last link. The article linked there says this is the worst "death bump" since AIDs (ha, ha, irony ...). So how much does the left enjoy laughing over "Red State Republicans", "Bitter Clingers", etc. ?? Certainly there were those that felt that gays and drug users "got what they deserved", but they were FAR from the dominant!  Does ANYONE on the TP side care AT ALL about high school educated whites dying earlier?

No, "The Party" (TP-D) has reached the level of power where laughter and derision of the poor rubes that are against abortion, or red state white voters is completely in the open and completely acceptable in media, entertainment, politics and even on campuses that are "safe spaces" for the left version of thought.

America aborted itself -- and most of the country fails to get the joke.

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Paris, Religion, Money and Temperature

Why Scientists Disagree about Global Warming | Watts Up With That?:

The linked article is to a new book by three PHDs that points out what the disagreement on AGW (Anthropogenic ("Human Caused") Global Warming) is and why. In summary:

The authors point to four reasons why scientists disagree about global warming: a conflict among scientists in different and often competing disciplines; fundamental scientific uncertainties concerning how the global climate responds to the human presence; failure of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide objective guidance to the complex science; and bias among researchers.

To a normal person, saddled with the burdens of reason and common sense, such conclusions appear obvious, inescapable even. To AGW believers however, the existence of such a book is immediate cause for anger, and quite possibly criminal proceedings to be taken up against the authors. AGW is a religion ... a very dogmatic and jealous one (thou shalt serve no god but government and AGW is it's holy word!).  It proves it's religious vs scientific credentials by falsely (and constantly) asserting the provably bogus religious claim that "97% of scientists agree". (science doesn't make "x% of people" claims, because it relies on experiment not opinion)

The main argument against the book from AGW will no doubt be that it is funded by "The Heartland Institute", a think tank dedicated to finding and implementing free market solutions to problems. Just their mission statement is enough for "The Party" (TP-D) and their media minions to break out the torches and pitchforks for a good witchhunt! Such groups are EVIL first because of the apostasy of claiming that a market might be better than central planning and control for achieving results!  Much like AGW, this has been PROVEN wrong! (see, N Korea is more successful than S Korea, and E Germany was WAY better than W Germany prior to the wall coming down -- oh, and the USSR was so darn successful that ... well, you have to BELIEVE to understand it! )

On top of this, Heartland is FUNDED BY CORPORATIONS! See The New York Times, CBS, NBC, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, etc, might actually BE corporations, have documents that claim they are corporations, etc, but they are just, moral, pure and most of all "Wholly Approved by TP!". They are "good guys" ... white hats, halos, etc.

Heartland is an evil NGO, meaning NON Government Organization! See, the billions of dollars that flow from GOVERNMENTS are like mothers milk ... pure, wholesome completely immune to causing any "bias" on the part of those that receive it! The taking of money by force from evil corporations, "the rich", or printing it on the holy government printing press (counterfeiting)  has the effect of sanctifying it (making it pure, or "laundering" it in coarser terms).

Once sanctified, this holy government money (Batman)! ... has no influence on those that receive it! So they remain completely pure in their "science", having no motivation whatsoever to arrive at conclusions that support increased government funding or adding power to the climate change industry! Note, there are many "corporations" in that industry (Solyndra comes to mind) as well, but just as the left wing media, they too have received the miracle of government sanctification!

This week, the college of climate cardinals is meeting in Paris to decree a new encyclical on temperature. As we know, his Stenchfulness BO has decreed that warming is "THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FACING THE PLANET!" ... yea verily, hubba hubba.

Choose ye which religion you follow, but know thee that no matter how much the oceans rise (or don't) in a century or millennium, the AGW religion will be of no import to you whatsoever when those days come to pass! Even the malodorousness of BO will no longer pollute this mortal plane in those days. Praise be to God!

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Nativists -- Strangers In A Strange Land

http://www.wsj.com/articles/stranger-than-fiction-1448303912

The linked article dissects this article, which attempts to make the case that Trump is "all about nativism", people that feel that they are "strangers in their own country", BECAUSE, they are racist Republicans.

The main linked article from "Best of the Web" at WSJ gives the lie to that right off, as any of us could using various people writing that "they felt like strangers in their own country" when Republicans took over the House in '94, when we invaded Iraq, when a mother that lost a son in Iraq is faced with someone who is against the war and thinks it is a "failure" to lose a son in Iraq. We could go on ... plenty of folks felt like this was no longer "their country" when  Reagan was elected and re-elected, same with W.

So,  it MIGHT be that Republicans feel more alienated because there is a hyper partisan far left wing guy in the White House that is CONSTANTLY maligning anyone who disagrees with him in as noxious a manner as he can ... the example from the article:

Inasmuch as such sentiments have political content, it’s hardly surprising that Republicans would feel them more keenly right now, when an especially partisan Democrat occupies the White House. Headline from the Hill yesterday: “Obama Says GOP Doing the Terrorists’ Work for Them.” When the president accuses you of being in league with America’s enemies, you might feel like a stranger in your own country for reasons having nothing to do with immigration.

Ya think?

The point here is that Trump is certainly appealing to the DISAFFECTED -- and there is no shortage of those. Sure, some of them may be racist, but the polling of the article BoW takes apart here certainly doesn't give any evidence of it!

Why do **I** feel I'm a stranger in this area of N America that used to be my country?

• No more "American Dream" or even any thought of what such a thing would even be. What is it that is "special" (let alone "exceptional")  about this area of N America today?
• America is no longer "#1" in anything (other than debt) ... and is sinking rapidly in everything. 
• No space program, can't put a man in space anymore ... big deal to me. 
• gay "marriage", BOcare, stagnant bad economy for 7 years
• "Black Lives Matter" ... but police lives, unborn lives, Christian Lives, White Lives, etc do NOT! 

We could keep going, but I'm not so sure there even is any "country" to believe that you are part of anymore. 

The Regensburg Lecture, Benedict / Schall, Book

http://www.amazon.com/The-Regensburg-Lecture-James-Schall/dp/1587316951

I first read this book in February of 2013 and read it again in the face of attempts by Muslims, media, Obama and others to claim that "Islamic terrorism is not Islamic" after Paris.

Such claims of course fly directly in the face of history, the Koran, Islamic tradition, and numerous events and discussions, including the response to Pope Benedict's Regensburg lecture covered in this book, which I consider to be extremely important for the trinity of faith, reason, and truth in our time -- both relative to Islam and secular attacks on that holy trinity of meaning.

The proximate reason that the political left and Islam reacted to the speech was Benedict's use of a QUOTE from a 14th century dialogue between Byzantine Christian emperor Manuel II Paleologus and a Persian scholar relative to violence in Islam which reads:

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,”

That was a QUOTE, used to point out that violence being associated with Islam is very old -- as old as Islam actually, and that there are many verses in Islamic texts, especially LATER ones that indicate that use of violence against "infidels" is actually commanded by Islam in a number of cases. The "religion of peace" only becomes operative when the entire world is unified in an Islamic Caliphate under Sharia Law in the most recent Islamic texts .... some of the oldest ones are less violent, because at that time Mohammad was powerless to act militarily.

As is often the case -- as in the Charlie Hebdo killings, the Danish Cartoon killings, etc, ... after the Pope's lecture, churches in the West Bank were attacked, an Italian nun was killed in Somalia and a priest was beheaded in Iraq. "Moderate Muslims" claimed to be terribly offended (with the Pope, not the violence), and many on the left were offended as well -- as Kerry intimated after Paris, even he -- and Obama who declared that "the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet", find such attacks and certainly "outrage" to be as Kerry put it "legitimate".

The alignment of the left and Islam is not accidental from the point of view of the book.

Moreover it is a difficult thing to understand, state, and accept the truth, however much these efforts constitute the real purpose of our minds. We can see both in our revelational and in our philosophic traditions that truth is not always or even often accepted and kept. But truth is never rejected without proposing a counter-theory or proof that would justify this rejection. That is, we can ironically not be "unreasonable" without, at the same time, being reasonable, without giving reasons for our deviation from reason. Such counter theories in the form of ideologies or myths, become themselves aspects of understanding the whole truth about something. To understand truth, it is necessary to understand the plausible errors surrounding it and arguments against it. 

As Benedict pointed out in the lecture, Islam teaches that God is not bound by rationality ... unlike the Christian God, the God of Islam is NOT a "God of order". So Islam, like much modern thought rejects reason in favor of "other means" -- whatever those may be!

“God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.”

This is much the same as modern leftist liberal thought -- "post modern", "deconstructivist" which find the idea of "truth" to be no longer operative -- the truth is VERY relative, and in fact can be pretty much whatever the left decides it to be. Clearly, without truth, there is no reason -- and there is no consistency, and THAT is exactly the kind of universe that the Islamic god rules over -- and strangely, where the modern US left lives in as well!

The lecture points out, what Socrates said to Phaedo on the loss of truth --  "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being -- but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and suffer great loss".

The lecture itself is not very long, but it is very deep. The essence of the Catholic Faith the synthesis of the Greek Mind with Christian Revelation, through Augustine and Aquinas.  The assertion is that has been happening since the Enlightenment and Reformation is the "de-Hellenization" of faith -- which Benedict argues is destroying the university and civilization with it. This de-Hellenization  is in danger of converting Protestant Christianity to being "irrational", as the secular and Islamic worlds are forced to be since they lack the "logos" (Christ ... logic, reason).

We are vulnerable to the illogic of Islam because we have lost our spiritual Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and our intellectual trinity "Faith (revelation/insight), Reason and Truth".

It is a VERY worthy read -- and re-read a few times. The whole book is only 160 pages, and the lecture itself is only SIXTEEN! They are however "a bit high octane" -- maybe like trading in your glass of beer for a glass of 190 proof Everclear!

Minneapolis -- Met All Demands, Still Demanding

Hodges, Ellison call for an end to 4th Precinct protests:

Used to do a lot of phone calls with a woman that quieted down here little dog by giving it a treat when it started barking when she was on the phone. Guess what. The dog started barking every time she was on the phone! Imagine that

So Mayor Betsy Hodges up in Minneapolis has met all the Black Lives Matter protesters demands -- but guess what, they still have more demands and continue to occupy the 4th Precinct! Imagine that! Give them everything they want and they want more.

She went on to say the city has met all the demands the group has made -- even as they continue to be posed. 

A federal investigation was launched into the death of 24-year-old Jamar Clark, who was shot and killed by police, the identities of the officers involved in the shooting were released, grief counseling was made available to witnesses of the shooting and an investigation has been called into any civil rights issues that may have occurred. 

"Many people have done a great deal to be responsive to the requests and the demands that are on the table," she said. "Even so, we know there's more to be done."
Hodges said she does not have a deadline for protesters to leave.

Met all the demands ... would really like the protesters to stop occupying the 4th Precinct, but doesn't have a deadline. Must be leadership school from BO ... doesn't like ISIS but has no strategy to deal with them, wants Assad to leave, but has no deadline or strategy there either. Met all Iran's demands, not sure why they seem to keep arming terrorists and saying "Death to America".

I may just be unlucky, but every time I've put MPR on the last couple weeks it is all Minneapolis shooting / protesters / NAACP all the time.

Wow, we gave them everything they wanted and they just want more and don't want to do anything we want them to do!

For the liberal brain, this is all so confusing!
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