Postmodern Deconstructionist Rape

A Bad Week for Rape Culture | Power Line:

For those fortunate souls spared from the concepts of postmodernism, and deconstructionism, I'll be very brief ... you can look up Michael Foucault and Jacques Derrida on your own and attempt to arrive at a definition of these schools of "thought" (and the quotes are VERY appropriate) that were largely created to question all of the underpinnings of at least western, if not all thought. Essentially, they say that "truth" is all a matter of perspective, mostly defined by "power" and "privilege". So morals, law and even science become targets of "literary criticism" ... the ad hominem attack being as good as any and the straw-man argument being the equivalent of mathematical proof by their logic.

I'm not going to dwell on these definitions other than to say that folks like Foucault and Derrida wound my spirit. While there is no question that Middle Ages Christendom was corrupted by a bad series of Popes (see Borgia popes if you want your stomach turned), it has been quite clear since at least the middle of the 20th century that Secular Humanism has been corrupted to an even greater degree and part of the fruits of that are things like Postmodernism and Deconstructionism.

I believe that you have to be careful when exposing yourself to poison, and I find that very much exposure to things like Postmodernism and Deconstructionism have the effect of poison on my spirit. These concepts have however had a very large effect on our culture.

For those that have been involved in corporate life post '90s, at least the males are aware that "Sexual Harassment" is defined by "how the person reporting it FEELS".  In the case I was personally involved with, the "feeling" had to do with some mixture of discomfort in finding out that office mates who had helped care for a young lady when she had a broken leg by getting her lunch, water, etc also harbored "conservative political views".

 To make matters worse, they planned a Bachelor Party for a younger male co-worker, and they were supposedly "decent guys with wives that had kids and everything" ... a Bachelor Party! How could they! This would have been late '80s, it was my first experience of a "snowflake" experiencing the "horror" of the world not being exactly like she felt it SHOULD be!  If you have never experienced this, it may sound hard to believe, but it is a fact -- that charge is a LEGITIMATE charge of "Sexual Harassment" in our current USA corporate environs. Males can and do lose their jobs over things like this.

Fast forward to "rape" ... now sometimes asserted to be "unwanted kissing", and then sprinkle in "the truth is what you say or feel it is", "there is no objective truth", "western culture is a rape culture" and a witches brew of other bright ideas, and you get things like Leah Dunham and the University of Virginia referenced in the link.

We live in a society where at least all our elites are well versed in all manner of relativism, supposed noxious effects of power and privilege, as well as a strong desire to "be on the right ("The Party") side" and WELL aware of both the prizes of being on the "good" side (see Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy and thousands of others we never hear about) and the penalties for being on the "bad" side (eg. Bill Cosby, Clarence Thomas, Bob Packwood, and a cast of thousands having lost their jobs, promotions, etc.

In the words from Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate". Those of us on the "bad" side from the perspective of "The Party" need to be VERY careful, or better yet, "get our minds right".  While in SOME (very few) cases as in the linked article, the forces of "the truth is what I feel it is" will go so far out on a limb that the elites can't quite strain credulity far enough to accommodate them, but it won't be often, and it certainly won't be for lack of trying!

The historical end of this is that reality finally becomes too great for the masses to ignore  and there is a revival -- of Christianity at least, if not some form of conservative republican government, ala the original founding of the US or Burke's England. But it usually takes starvation, killing and lots more badness before that comes to pass.

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Reason and Analysis, Brand Blanshard

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=aps&linkCode=ur2&tag=gm050-20&keywords=reason%20and%20analysis%20blanshard

After having this rather expensive "real practicing philosopher" book on my shelf for a long time partially read, I have finally finished the rather herculean task of completing it, although it is doubtful I will ever reach the ennobled state of claiming significant understanding of it in this mortal coil. The complexity, arcane technicalities of lexical analysis and obscurantism of thought that philosophy is drawn to never ceases to amaze me.

Let me TRY to make this somewhat simple.

The purpose of the book is to cover the various "assaults on reason" from the start of philosophy up to the present.  One can validly call that "assaults on transcendence", which in it's easiest to understand form is "God" ... and especially the particularly rational form of God introduced in the canon of Western Christianity.

To give the form of the problem, I think Mannheim does a good job:

"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" 

In other words, reason vs positivism. Reason (in it's most productive historical use) says roughly  "there is a grand plan, and it is discoverable because our minds happen to be made to relate to that grand plan". Positivism says there is no plan, only a pile of "events" with no "privileged frame of reference", certainly including our concepts of "reason", "meaning", etc.

Naturally, Mannheim liked the non-transcendent view, but wanted to make it privileged  ... which of course is immediately self-refuting as is all relativism, since there IS NO PRIVILEGED (eg "right", "better", etc) POINT OF VIEW ... if there aren't any universals, absolutes, etc, there can't be.

Or to put it another way in roughly the terms of Heidegger:

"As the existentialist contemplated this world, his feeling was one of nausea. Was there anything in this nightmare that he could tie to? One thing only - his own existence. Certain of nothing else, he could be certain at least that he existed, and that he was somehow fashioning his own fate. And in doing so, his safety lay in the depth of his disillusionment. He was weak; he was a pilgrim and stranger in a world not of his making; he would be defeated shortly by death; there were no principles that he could adhere to; his life therefore was to be one of anxiety and care. But for Heidegger, "deliverance from illusion is to be achieved by the man, who, opening himself to anguish, resolutely faces nothingness in anticipation of his own extinction"". 

Hard to beat that as an upbeat recruitment paragraph for  "Life without God, The Nietzschean way".

As is pointed out in the rest of the book in number of places, most philosophers in attacking reason, causality, universals, etc and attempting to replace them with mathematics, logical atomism, category differences, and a host of other chimeras, are actually unable to practice what they preach in order to even make the attempt. They are forced to use reason, causality, universals, etc in order to even get a running start at their attack.

"I attack the principle of solid ground while standing here on .... er, never mind". Only they fail to realize their predicament.

Needless to say, it gets quite hard to keep an open mind about the usefulness of all this after the first 10 or so attempts that always must be arrogantly and loudly launched -- after all, if one is to rush as Quixote to the windmill of all of human thought for thousands of years, as well as the day to day existence experienced by ones own self and all those of one's shared existence to date, one must have a quite high opinion of their own logic -- er "series of temporal brain events".

And so it goes. The vast vast majority of even all somewhat deep thinkers either fail to, or more likely refuse to, consider the difficulty factor of doing away with little basics like a rational repeatable universe that is understandable to themselves and others in the same manner taken as a "universal a priori fact". What they see as a "problem" is of course that such a universal a priori fact is hard to accept without some cause beyond "shit happens", and is perilously close to "God".

Much as in Mannheim's choice "You have to face the fact that there is a God, or there isn't", many like to jump to "there isn't" in hopes of being freed from moral stricture and eventual judgement, but like Mannheim, completely ignore the existential consequence of the no god, no order, no universals, no reason for there to be reason, meaning, etc. The abyss of despair.

The previous paragraph is the reason that I think having some understanding of how philosophy, or at least epistemology works is important and a major area of lack in modern western education.

Ideas do indeed have consequences.

I'm For Obama, I'm Against His Assassination

20 Hypocritical Republican Senators Voted to Fund Obama's Executive Amnesty - For America : For America:



One of the MANY reasons that Government needs to be smaller is that it is completely and easily identifiable as insane.



To the extent that there is anything remotely sane behind this nonsense article it is that these Republicans didn't join Ted Cruz in a stunt that could never pass in the current Senate under Harry Reid and would only gum of the works in getting the obscene but no-choice "CRomnibus" (Continuing Resolution omnibus) bill passed.



"Therefore" ...



The authors of this column want you to think that being against Cruz's stunt is being "FOR BO's Royal Amnesty Decree". A perfectly awful hash of Senate procedural obscurity with insane clown posse political muckraking.



There was really no choice but to do another obscene continuing resolution because of the involatile rule of government that has been established since Bush 1. "When the government shuts down due to a fiscal disagreement it is ALWAYS the fault of Republicans". This was proven by:



a) HW Bush, Democrat Congress demanded he sign a budget raising taxes, he demurred, government shut down was declared by media to be his fault, he eventually capitulated.

b). When Clinton failed to sign a budget passed by Republicans in both houses, it was declared to be  the fault of the Republicans,  they eventually capitulated with great credit given to Clinton.

c). Last year when BO and Harry Reid declared "we will not negotiate on the budget", the problem was declared to be the Republicans, who eventually backed down again.



The Constitution declares that the House of Representatives sets the budget -- they own the purse strings, but we no longer live under the Constitution, we live under control of "The Party" (D) and it's media arm, so Constitution be damned ... it is what TP says it is.

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Orwellian Word Torture

Cheney unchained | Power Line:

Watching things like this Meet The Press segment I'm reminded of how our technically and socially cocooned western "Disney existence" makes us extremely vulnerable to thinking that problems like "long lines at Space Mountain" might constitute something with some relation to "discomfort" in the real world.

In 1984 and in Animal Farm, Orwell gave us a solid background in the relative ease with which a generalized media environment can totally change the perceived meaning of words for people living in the bubble of the influence.

So we see words like "racism" once about slavery, lynching, bull whips and Jim Crow (back when it was Democrats that ran "Animal Farm") now becomes "not supporting BOcare", or not running around saying "Hands up, don't shoot" after a convenience store robbing thug that attacked a police officer ends up shot dead during his assault of the officer.

So too "torture". What was once known and recognized as being treatment that went on for months and years and often brought death or permanent injuries carried for life, is now reduced largely to "waterboarding".

So we get insanity like Todd asking Cheney "if Iranians waterboarded a US soldier in the future, might we not want to see them tried for war crimes"? Indeed ... as Cheney responds (with less detail), such methods being used by folks that have no trouble twisting joints out of sockets, cutting off various appendages, gouging out eyes, blowing up intestines with air, etc, etc are not all that likely to go with waterboarding as a method.

In the insane "hypothetical world" that we live in however, I find it very easy to believe that if as far as Todd knew, the US had never used waterboarding on a prisoner and the hypothetical Iranian incident happened, he and all sorts of US (as well as international) media and government folks would be standing up and defending Iran saying "The US waterboards it's own soldiers as part of SERE training! How can it POSSIBLY seek to call Iranians "war criminals" for using a technique it uses on it's own soldiers!!!". Of course, it could not ... they would actually be right!

Then we have the case of hundreds of Vietnam era veterans covered in the linked article that actually WERE tortured at the hands of the North Vietnamese. Outrage from American press or elites? Nada ... in fact, they typically side with the North Vietnamese as being the aggrieved party.

One of the veterans actually tortured is quoted in this paragraph that I find to be useful:

Our world is not completely good or evil. To proclaim we will never use any form of enhanced interrogations causes our friends to think we are naive and eases our enemies’ recruitment of radical terrorists to plot attacks on innocent kids, men and women – or any infidel. If I were to catch a “mad bomber” running away from an explosive I would not hesitate a second to use “enhanced interrogation,” including waterboarding, if it would save lives of innocent people.

The rub is that it seems obvious that not only are good and evil both in presence, the positioning of which is which is often not what one might expect. It doesn't take very long to realize that in the eyes of Senator Feinstein or Chuck Todd, Cheney, W, etc are the "evil". The various terrorists (another word that BO and the media is really loathe to use) that might call themselves "Islamic", but our president assures us are not, are sometimes "misguided", or "over zealous" in the eyes of Feinstein, BO, or media elites, but they are clearly not "evil" in the sense of W, Cheney, or even old Dick Nixon.

Nixon and the US military were formerly juxtaposed with the zealous and at least mostly justified N Vietnamese. They may not have treated their US captives "perfectly", but one would need to understand "their culture" and centuries of slights or perceived slights by the west before having anything at all to say about their methods -- and even then, anything smacking of "judgement" would be presumptuous coming from a nation that once had slaves and mistreated Indians!

So too the long suffering Arab culture. If they seem to be "violent" to the less well educated, well, there were the Crusades,  the colonial era, the creation of Israel, and of course the corruption of western corporations and money in the grubby oil business. All the potentially problematic behavior of "the group that describes itself as the Islamic State" is to be viewed from some value free perspective of high minded consideration for all of the ills imparted by Western civilization, with no potential thought that 1400 years of Islam may have been less than perfect all on it's own.

We know that Cheney and W are evil. We don't even know what to call ISIL -- or ISIS. Our media elites have not fully succeeded in alchemy of turning ISIL into "good" as they did with the PLO, the Nicaraguan rebels, N Vietnam and the USSR, but they are well on their way -- we don't even clearly know what they are called, but it would certainly be unsophisticated to call them "evil" -- or (horror) "Islamic"!

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Conscience of a Conservative (Goldwater)

http://www.amazon.com/Conscience-Conservative-Barry-Goldwater/dp/1481978292/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418238472&sr=8-1&keywords=conscience+of+a+conservative

For a good long time I have been guilty of failing to read this work which many conservatives consider to be a cornerstone of conservative thought. I plead that some of the later utterances of Goldwater in his waning years led me to question his veracity as a conservative, but relative to this work, the proponents were right, it is first class.

It concisely covers the basics of conservative thought including how conservatism considers man as more than flesh and blood, having an eternal soul. "The root difference between Conservatives and the Liberals of today is that Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look at only the material side of man's nature".

Various pleas for limited government and clear delineation of the powers of the federal government and what are reserved for the states are included. "Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man's liberty."

His two chapter discussion of States Rights is an excellent defense of against the idea that they are obsolete since the fight against Jim Crow in the South. "States Rights mean that the States have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit in the areas reserved to them." Worth a read in the age of BOcare.

He covers the attack of "progressive" taxation on Equal Protection and Property Rights under the Constitution as well as giving us an accurate preview of the what the unfettered expansion of the Federal Government has come to mean from the perspective of 1960.

My biggest surprise in reading the book was how accurately he predicted and largely provided the architecture for Reagan's victory over the USSR.

"Our enemies have understood the nature of the conflict and we have not. They are determined to win the conflict, we are not".

The closing paragraph of the book makes one glad yet again that we were privileged to have Ronald Reagan as President"

The future as I see it, will unfold along one of two paths. Either the Communists will retain the offensive, will lay down one challenge after another will invite us local crisis after local crises to choose between all out war and limited retreat; and will force us ultimately to surrender or accept war under the most disadvantageous of circumstances. Or we will summon the will and the means for taking the initiative, and wage a war of attrition against them---and hope, thereby to bring about the internal disintegration of the communist empire. One course runs the risk of war, and leads in any case, to probably defeat. The other runs the risk of war, and holds forth the promise of victory. For Americans who cherish their lives, but their freedom more, the choice cannot be difficult. 

Goldwater had the right architecture, Reagan implemented it, and the wall came tumbling down.

A quite short and well written summary of the basics of conservative thought. I ought to have read it sooner.

Forgiveness for $40M

The Torture Report Reminds Us of What America Was - NYTimes.com:



http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/12/feinsteins-war-on-the-cia-what-purpose-does-it-serve.php



The top link is to a writing by a former Abu Ghraib interrogator now a college professor that proudly proclaims that "he can't be forgiven". His level of hubris is palpable, the need for Christ is rarely screamed as loudly.



"What America WAS"? What a sad joke -- the propensity of government agencies to abuse their powers is eternal. To not see the constant reality and threat of all forms of abuse by all forms of government is to show willful disregard for known and oft proven reality.



The second link is to some coverage of "the torture report" with what I consider to be the main reason for the report -- Feinstein and other Democrats in congress signed off on "enhanced interrogation", and they now want to do the Pontius Pilate symbolic washing of the hands.

For Feinstein, $40 million, long-term damage to the CIA, and the potential for deadly attacks on Americans overseas apparently are a small price to pay for this satisfaction.

 The insanity of our elites navel gazing about what was or wasn't done by one government agency or another in the months and years after 9-11, while we continue to do battle with a ruthless enemy that has no qualms about public beheading nor any forms of real torture (that leave lasting physical marks) is comedy. Which often gives way to tragedy.



Government agencies have always been and always will be capable to ANY form of abuse or torture imaginable. If the 20th century made anything at all clear, it ought to have been that. Ultimately, THAT is the reason that GOVERNMENT MUST BE LIMITED! Leave it un-limited and it is as predictable as aging that the eventual recipients of the most egregious possible tortures will be the thoroughly  demonized and scapegoated "opposition".  (See German gas chambers and Soviet Gulag)



Man has known from the time of his first consciousness of mortality that he is in dire need of forgiveness. All manner of sacrifice, penance, and sundry contrition has been attempted, but only God taking on the form of man and dying for the sins of all as made forgiveness a reality for billions.



What makes us "better" than our enemies? Nothing at all intrinsically -- we are all sinful humans.



To the extent we are "better" is to the extent we recognize the authority of Christ and retain increasingly small vestiges of being  a "Christian Nation". Much as surgery will always be painful, war will likewise always be painful. Attempting to put controls on the carnage is reasonable, but having illusions as to just how effective such controls can be given the doubly de-humanizing aspects of government bureaucracy (CIA, military, etc) and war itself,  is always going to be a recipe for disappointment.



We need controls, but we also need to be FAR more forgiving of the men and women in the front lines of the messy business of war than of the preening pretenders to royalty like Feinstein. Let's face it, they signed off on enhanced interrogation because they were afraid for themselves and their political careers, and now they want to "un-sign" for their own political skins and personal sanctimony no matter the cost.



We are rarely treated to such a clear example of total fecklessness.



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American Royalty, Hillary

Plans for UCLA visit give rare glimpse into Hillary Clinton’s paid speaking career - The Washington Post:

She is the wife of a womanizing ex-president. She led a failed effort to nationalize healthcare. She is a failed presidential candidate, a failed Secretary of State, and an exceedingly lackluster one and a third term Senator. She is American Royalty.

Her "reduced speaking rate" for universities is $300K. Between her and her husband since leaving office, they have amassed wealth of $100 million dollars. In 2012, Bill alone rolled in $17M in speaking fees.

The nice thing for the Clintons is that articles like the WaPo above are rare. Reagan did a couple high price speeches after leaving office and media was all over it as "inappropriate". Slick and Hilly pull in over $100 million and it is really no big deal.

The standard is clear ... if you are in The Party, Democrat, you are part of the "royal line" ... as long as you follow that line you can amass fortunes, avoid taxation (see Sharpton $4.7 Million in tax debt), womanize (contrast Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby), and who knows what else ... it is the TRUE "noblesse obilige" because TP is royalty.

Tea Party: Angriest, Most Hateful People On Earth

Anne Lamott: “Look at the Tea Party: Some of the angriest, most hateful people on earth, and they’re backed by what they think is Scripture” - Salon.com:

I know, it is Salon -- but sadly, Salon is a real entity. There are a significant number of people that read this and I think more than we actually know think it is quite true.

It is hard to read through something like this because it exposes so well the shallows of so much of modern life -- concern over how good the next woman looks, concern over wealth status, concern over how smart your kid is, etc ... and then the summary line:

I really believe that earth is forgiveness school – I really believe that’s why they brought us here, and then left us without any owner’s manual. I think we’re here to learn forgiveness.

This of course we juxtapose with the title line -- a summary judgement of a group of people along with a reference to "scripture" ... and then she gets up on her throne of wisdom and gives us this:

All wisdom traditions have at their root three basic ideas: To take care of the poor, to cultivate a sense of presence or union with a power much greater than ourselves, and to soften the heart.

Christianity is the acceptance of healing Grace through Christ's blood by Grace alone through Faith alone, followed by a life of attempting to follow Christ through the Holy Sacraments, Holy Preaching and Holy Scripture. There is "wisdom" in that, but the Old Testament / Judaism is more the "wisdom tradition". It boggles the mind to conceive of what Anne Lamont conceives of as "wisdom".

First she judges a group of people with VERY little of a specific agenda beyond "smaller government" as "hateful", then she claims "scripture" is 180 degrees opposed. Actually, Scripture is silent beyond "render unto Caesar" on government -- it is up to us. Christ never specifically inveighed against Rome, the death penalty, or even slavery. He was pretty clear where his kingdom was at and that earthy concerns were extremely minor when compared against the eternal.

I point this rather sorry example out for two reasons. First, because for a very large number of people that primarily get their news from mainline outlets, would tell you a statement like the title statement is a correct summary of the Tea Party. Those of us that have sympathy with something other than continued growth of government need to be aware of that ... the calculus is as simple as "government is great and benevolent, to seek to slow or Gasp!, reduce it is hateful, evil, etc".

The second point is that the BEGINNING of wisdom is the fear of God -- the actual recognition of our mortality, insignificance in time and space, but significance to God, of our very limited selves. In actual "wisdom traditions", humility is the start of wisdom. We as a people have lost so much that most have never read any "scripture" beyond some fluffy gauzy shards that convince many that whatever anyone thinks that isn't somehow conservative, traditional or actually religious in nature (as in they believe it and follow it) is all the same ... and my (Anne's) view is as good (and really better) than anyone's! ... past, present or future, so let me just tell you what is trump -- today we are all angry!

A short reading of actual wisdom tradition would quickly point out that such a position is the position of the fool claiming to be wise -- but today it gets published as wisdom, showing that much of our culture is about glorification of the fool. Wisdom is clear on the outcome of that.

Matt 7:26, 27

Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell-- and great was its fall.

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Return From The Plague, Thanksgiving

What a great way to spend a holiday -- 102 degree fever T-day, 101 Friday, finally broke Sat ... now just hacky chest cough, back to like "90% capability" and working out again since yesterday. I do believe that I notice that I don't bounce back quite as quickly at 58 as I once did -- nah, must be my imagination!

When I worked, I might have said "at least it happened while I was off so I'm not behind at work". The vast majority of my IBM career was like that -- 100ish e-mails a day, documents to review by dates, plans, schedules, status, architecture, presentations, approvals, issues .... Yes, in the early years there was actual code and testing, ah for the good old days.

I'd say I look forward to holidays more now -- chance to get together with people. I don't exactly lack  for human contact, but not so much the overload that one experienced when leading teams of 20+ and at times as many as 60 people ... and of course interacting with lots of others in various capacities. People invigorate me, there are days now that I can miss that a little.

Not a lot one can do about scheduling flu. I've gotten the flu shot for over decade, didn't get it before that. Think the only previous time I had flu this severe and long lasting was just after finals in one of my college years when I was down for close to a week. I'm sure it is an odds game -- supposedly they pick the "most likely" viruses, so statistics say that it "improves your odds" ... lots like various other things, when the sample is YOU, statistics don't really mean a lot!

It is a good chance to reflect on how bad it can feel to be human, and how little we actually control, though some of us love to fancy it otherwise. Good time for a little prayer that I avoid having a longer term illness as debilitating or worse, and the chance to appreciate how hard life can be for those who do.

Naturally, the little I felt like it during a lot of it, but more as I perked up, I read. Somewhere -- my brain wasn't on it's full correlation / recall mode, I hit "the 3 things needed for happiness". According to whatever I was reading it was 1) Meaning 2) Purpose 3) Hope.

Not a bad trio ... I can tell you that with a 102 fever, all three were pretty much a "don't care", but Hope! Reading that reminded me of a favorite passage though, I Corinthians 13: 12-13

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face;
Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.
But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Even when we are feeling superb by our earthly standards, we are extremely sick by heavenly standards. Even when we think we have locked some piece of knowledge, technology or skill down cold, we are but barely dimly aware from a Godlike view. For me, the promise that I will FINALLY "know fully" is especially precious.

For today, I'm very thankful for the small measure of health and mental clarity allowed in this vale of tears! 

Happy belated Thanksgiving. 

Earth's Most Abundant Mineral Finally Sampled

Scientists Have Finally Sampled the Most Abundant Material on Earth | Motherboard:



Huh, how can it be most abundant and yet not sampled yet. Well, the answer is DEEP man, REALLY DEEP ... as in like 660mi deep.



The article is not all that interesting, "bridgemanite" is the new stuff.  The ringwoodite found in the Brazilian diamond and the speculation about an ocean larger than all of those on the surface "down there somewhere" is more interesting to me.



Perspective and humility -- there is A LOT that we don't know and have a heck of a time trying to even begin to figure out how we can know. ( have any ideas on how to drill a 660 mile deep well? )



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TP Runs an Exercise, Riots at 8

More than 40 arrested in Oakland as protesters block freeway, set fires after Ferguson cop not indicted - San Jose Mercury News:

It is very hard to imagine that the announcement last night being SCHEDULED for 8PM and then still delayed was not intended to cause rioting. The old rule is "never assume malfeasance when stupidity can explain it", but Federal, State and Local, AFTER they had taken previous actions to try to clear the streets after dark? It goes beyond credulity.

Those of us that have thoughts of riding out the final takeover by "The Party" (TP - Democrat) need to watch incidents like Ferguson closely. They are the model that TP intends to use as they take final control, and while one hopes it is early, this could even be it. This was a test run, a dress rehearsal -- the time of the announcement lets us know that.

Al Sharpton is a TP lieutenant now focused entirely on coordinating and fomenting racial violence. His $4.5 million in unpaid back taxes  is a badge showing the privilege of TP -- he had to make something like $8 M to owe that much, and we KNOW he is a TP member in very good standing to be walking around on the street when he owes that much. Those of us that are non-TP would be in the slammer if we were "behind' a couple K!

Al is just one of the lieutenants, playing a role to create the final "need for order" -- one or more of those may actually be martyrs to the cause as "order is re-established", but they won't know it going in.

When totalitarianism makes it's final move, it needs some "shock troops" to create the firestorm that the uses  "dear leader" finally uses as the excuse to take official dictatorial power "for the good of all".

BO's immigration decree is a superb preliminary. It gets people used to the idea that the other two branches are toothless and the executive is the position of ACTION! "Crisis" demands action! The choreography is impeccable:

First, the election -- seemingly a "big loss" for TP, BUT, his highness BO declares that all the people that didn't vote were the true "mandate"!

Then, BO seizes the "mandate". Takes ACTION to increase the size of TPs assumed vast majority.

Now coordinated unrest across the nation -- the kind of situation in which people look for leadership to step in and create order.

Again, I don't think this is "it", but it is a very transparent dress rehearsal. French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Nazi Revolution, etc, etc ... this is the script. We are watching the actors here in the US hitting their marks and gaining experience for the big event.

If there is unrest near where you are, then you are in the wrong area. Look to move ASAP.



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Rodgers Grape Crush

Aaron Rodgers 'crushes' Minnesota Vikings with post-game drink - JSOnline:



First of all, the Pack did not "crush" the Vikes -- damned lucky to get out of there with a W.



This gives just a TINY indication of how hard it is to be a public figure. Apparently, Rodgers always drinks Grape Crush -- but that doesn't mean that it couldn't cause a tempest. In some other context --- something completely innocent like "watermelon", or "Chop Suey" ... or really anything, can be pulled out of context and be "insensitive", "a slight", etc.



OTOH, we have all been treated to some dreadlocked, tattooed,  pierced specimen with a profanity filled rant and been told "it's just cultural, you gotta be a racist to even comment".



It's the world we live in.



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Franken's Courageous Support for Net Neutrality

Time Warner Donates to Net Neutrality Advocate Al Franken:



I understand capitalism. It really isn't hard to understand Franken's motivations ... just his morality.



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Law, Morality, Flat Tax

BO's unilateral action creates a precedent. In the SCOTUS, conservative judges have tended to be very reticent to undo precedent -- seeing it as only slightly more egregious that that original usurpation of the Constitution that created the precedent. Roe V Wade being the standard example.

The expected conservative opinion on BO's action would be that a conservative president ought not do the same thing -- wrong is wrong, and two wrongs don't make a right. However, I think we can all agree that BO has created a template here that WILL be re-used by left leaning presidents. After a midterm election, with a lame duck congress, decree some major action and have two years for it to become the de-facto law of the land before anyone really has a shot at changing it.

I'd argue, as I think many conservative / libertarians would, that our existing "progressive" tax system is one of the greatest abuses of freedom to date in the US. Private property is the cornerstone of freedom, and while to the founders, that primarily meant land, in the modern world it is investment and income. ANY suspension of equal protection is noxious to freedom, the equal protection attack on private property, has been and continues to be devastating.

So conservatives have a dilemma. The evil genie of monarchical decree, once released, is certain to be used again and again by the freedom destroying forces of collectivism and "progressivism"  as a powerful nuclear tool doing maximum damage to the fabric of the nation. Do we unilaterally disarm, or make use of this force to attempt good?

Imagine a Flat Tax, of say "25%" that replaced all other taxes including FICA. Income tax forms would be on a post card. ALL people would pay the same rate on ALL income.  If put in place in the same way that BO has just done, there would be a FULL THREE YEARS (providing the president made it retroactive when he decreed it), since even after the next election, the new president / congress would not take office until it was too late to enact anything for the subsequent election year taxes. By that time, the unholy alliance between accountants / lawyers / tax preparers and the IRS would have been broken -- those folks would have been forced to find new work. Their legions of tax code svengalis adding and modifying loopholes like demons in Dante's Hell would have moved on.

Yes, such change is likely to cause havoc in the economy, but make no mistake, since the genie is now released, we all have to expect changes as egregious and worse after every midterm election. In fact, taking the bull by the horns and going big fairly early may allow conservatives a chance to tilt the table in the favor of the nation.

We owe it to the future of America to give this serious thought. It is one of the few remaining ways I can see that we can turn the tide before the last wisps of inadequate restraint on Leviathan are fully released.

Anticipation, Black and White

Ferguson: A city on edge and waiting - CNN.com:

I believe everyone is pretty much in agreement on what is being anticipated:

1. No indictment or "insufficient indictment" -- Massive riots, destruction of property, violence against police and potentially others. 
2. Indictment -- Some columns written by "right wingers", maybe a couple of strongly worded letters to the editor. 

From the boarded up buildings in Ferguson and the National Guard at the ready, this basic dichotomy seems impossible to argue with.

Is it "prejudice"? Certainly it is -- we have a lot of prejudice. If we see a giant explosion, we expect a "boom", if we drop a glass on a tile floor we expect it to break and if the Packers play the Vikings, we expect the Vikings to lose -- well, those of us that are sane at least.

Prejudice is a deeply wired expectation of events, scenarios, people, etc. It is "what we expect" -- and while it CAN  be wrong, it is very often right -- that is why we develop it in general, it is adaptive.  Humans are wired to have prejudice -- it allows us to react quickly with limited time for thought and is passed down from an adaptive history of reacting to the lion without taking the time to admire it's natural beauty. Those that lacked prejudice proved to be lunch.

So we are all sitting around with pretty much the same prejudice relative to Ferguson, and for some reason -- apparently because it is so widely shared by both blacks and whites, and because there is near universal belief in it being accurate, it is completely OK and even CNN can be open about it.

Day to day however, we are expected to act as if the dichotomy between actions one and two does not exist. In fact, if a black man like Cosby comments on the fact of it, he needs to be destroyed.

Those that don't believe we live in a crazy world are really not paying attention.

*** NOTE!!! Neither I or Cosby claimed that the current situation relative to 1 and 2 is immutable/innate -only that it is a reality TODAY. In fact, Cosby's "sin" is the declaration that it is NOT immutable, so it could therefore and in fact should be CHANGED ... however, if it WERE changed, then blacks might no longer be largely wards of TP, which is NOT allowed!

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Pulling the Curtain, The Great and Powerful BO

E-mails show White House tried to muzzle Sharyl Attkisson « Hot Air:

Slightly long but worth the read. Normally we only see the RESULT of the MSM being pro-TP  (The Party-D) and can only make some basic guesses at how the relationship works (cozy). Here we get a glimpse behind the curtain of what happens when some reporter for an MSM outlet leaves the fold and needs to be reined in. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"  Oh for the innocence of Toto to arrive and expose the "Great and powerful BO"!

TP has well demonized Fox, and has been largely successful in isolating them -- for TP folks in good standing, they NEVER listen to Fox, and anyone that does is an idiot, "brainwashed", etc. We all know that "brainwashing" is synonymous with having any thoughts not in direct line with TP! Being smart means only listening to one side on any issue!

The "common wisdom" on things like Fox, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS scandal, etc has been drummed in by TP and while everyone certainly has heard it, the KEY is that you MUST BELIEVE it! If you so much as give a hint of knowing anything of the "other side" of these issues the sheep devoted to the MSM react with some combination of fear, confusion, shock, disdain or anger. (I tend to love the angry reactions -- but they tend not to last through the first calm response before they turn into some mixture of shock, fear and confusion).

The masses are well taught by TP. On all the scandal stories "old news, unimportant, already covered, nothing there, just trumped up ...". Then, out of the the blue on any given day, anyone that listens to NPR will get a "retrospective" on Watergate, Iran Contra, or some other "important lesson giving scandal of the past that we need to remember".

Indeed.

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Cosby Toast, Clinton Toast of Town

Bill Cosby Gets Warm Welcome At Florida Show:

We don't know if Cosby is guilty of any of the 40+ year old charges.

We DO know that Slick Willie was guilty of at least Paula Jones (he admitted it as part of plea deal) and Lewinsky . Defenders will say "Lewinsky was consensual". Anyone that has been in any supervisory position in a US business knows that there is NO SUCH THING between any sort of supervisor and a lower status female. Such relationships are banned by US sexual harassment law.

We don't "know" about the other relationships ... Kathleen Wiley and Juanita Broderick come to mind, with Broderick being an actual rape charge. Horse apiece with Cosby.

We  do have a completely clear example of how the ideal of freedom of speech and thought actually operates in a society that has abandoned transcendence.

It seems highly likely to me that a society is ALWAYS somewhat in this state.  We can observe the treatment of things like gay sexual relations, interracial marriage, support of communism, support of blacks (especially in the Democrat Jim Crow south), anti-Christian beliefs (now somewhat similarly, Christian beliefs or anti-Muslim belief), women smoking (pretty similarly now, anyone smoking), etc, over time. It is a long list.

So social strictures are part of society -- nobody really enjoys a stinky fart in public.

The DIFFERENCE is what is the level and how specifically proscribed or protected are various opinions and actions.

It is likely true that at one time a white male, married, "one of the boys" was probably protected from squeezing breasts and butt "at some level" relative to lower status females -- waitresses, secretaries, etc. The protection was without regard to political or religious beliefs beyond "not being some weird religion", but was probably for white males only.

Today we see that we have "evolved", so that for at least very high ranking member of TP ( Slick Willie, Teddy Kennedy,  John Edwards (for a good while), Al Gore ("massage gate" barely reported) ...) females may be similarly treated up to and likely including rape and quite possibly murder (chappaquiddick)  with impunity.

OTOH, if you are a black male that does not 100% maintain the TOTAL TP party line and  is so much as accused of ANY level of "impropriety" ... in the case of Clarence Thomas, the "charges" being allegedly mentioning an X-rated movie in one case and making reference to a possible pubic hair on a can of coke in another ...  TP and it's media arm will make every possible attempt to destroy you both personally and professionally without statute of limitations.

Given human nature, any expectation of the absence of social strictures is misplaced and very likely not even mildly to be desired. There WILL be social norms and strictures, and they will have sanction. For those with some level of memory, the rather curious phenomenon of a fickle social pendulum becomes obvious.

"Gay" goes from there being fairly mild sanctions against, to being celebrated in the public square, and those that fail to join the party, bowing down to the new gay order -- actual Christians being the most prominent example with Muslims strangely exempted,  now receive more stringent sanction that the Gays originally received ... eg. boycotts, loss of employment (if you say your are not in support of "gay marriage" at IBM you will lose your job), fines (as in wedding chapel operators, cake makers, etc),  and public admonishment / shunning.

Apparently the human wiring for sanctity/degradation  ("The Righteous Mind" covers all this) is immutable. We are stuck with it, so we will always have rewards and sanctions, and for most of the general public, the specifics of these will be invisible. The vast majority of people will simply "know" that Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby are different cases and find the iconoclast view (mine) to be very uncomfortable to deal with.

"Why can't you know enough to follow what is RIGHT? Do you WANT to be treated like Bill Cosby or something? !!"

To which I respond that the only way to transcend human nature is to believe in the transcendent, which I believe to be ultimately Christ Alone. Human attempts at same will only move the pendulum between which groups are rewarded and sanctioned and can never approach the still far shot of Heaven, earthy potential for universal love and redemption for all.


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The Reagan Did It First Lie

http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/20/no-reagan-did-not-offer-an-amnesty-by-lawless-executive-order/

The media arm of TP decided they ought to make up a cover lie for Emperor of Stench,  BO -- so it somewhat standard TP nursery school moral reasoning we have "Reagan did it first!".

The moral argument that "X did it first" has severe shortcomings. Hitler did a number of things first. Even otherwise "good" men have done disastrous  things -- FDRs internment of Japanese, Churchill's Gallipoli debacle ... one hesitates to even begin. The list is long and horrid and the infantile moral reasoning of "X did it first" is nothing but an embarrassment as to the depths of TP fatuity.

Given TP media normal treatment of Reagan, you REALLY know they are up to something if they are trying to use him as a GOOD example!

Then we have the stupid factor. If "Reagan had done the same thing", those of us that were alive at the time know we would have witnessed a media firestorm on par with Watergate and likely beyond -- "Constitutional Crisis", IMPEACHMENT! would have been being shouted from every paper day after day! Dan Rostenkowski, in his pre "orange is the new suit of House Ways and Means chairs from IL" guise would have shut down all funding and WON!

It gets to be embarrassing to even think how stupid TP media thinks we are!

But of course, as the linked article explains not nearly as simply as they could, it had NOTHING to do with ANYTHING even REMOTELY like what BO has just done!

In the '80s, CONGRESS passed an amnesty law that failed to take the children of those being granted amnesty into consideration.  So  the executive branch contacted congress and AGREED that the children of those granted amnesty should not be deported! That is that! HW Bush granted more time in an extension of the same AGREEMENT -- which congress still agreed with.

How can it be that we have slipped so very far that

Cosby Takedown, How About Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, etc

In Re: Bill Cosby | Power Line:



I covered the dichotomy with Slick Willie and Cosby here.



PL does a good job over covering it and adds in the aspect of other Hollywood types that were rapists in one form or another but were not sanctioned in their careers in the way that Cosby now is since he was courageous enough to express his beliefs on the need for black personal responsibility



Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Michael Jackson, Aaron Copeland ... those are just the two from PL and a couple off the top of my head. In general, unless you sin against TP, the media treats even grossly illegal personal behaviour as "personal" and totally separate from "art".







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BO Leaves the Presidency

Go down, Barry | Power Line:

The Presidency is a Constitutional position -- no Constitution, no President. Having a Constitution meant that we had a nation bound by rule of law. We no longer have that.

Last night was a watershed night for the area of land between the countries of Mexico and Canada. The status of the area formerly known as "The United States" had been moving away from rule of law since the Civil War ... destruction of equal protection by the "progressive" income tax, forced participation in socialist schemes like FICA and recently BOcare,  plus a host of "administrative law" regulations with de facto force of law not passed by congress to name just a few of the more egregious parts of the slide.

Last night a man occupying the former office of President, one of the three formerly co-equal branches of the government of the old nation, directly usurped the Constitution and took naked dictatorial power. Last night the nation formerly known as the US officially became subjects of BO -- ruled by power, not law.  Any opposed to BO now have the natural and moral right to deodorize by any and all means. There is no operative rule of law save might being right.

The content of his utterance is meaningless -- It could have been "I decree ice cream to be good". Free men care not for the decrees of tyrants, especially those already well proved mendacious.

Where we go from here is completely unknown. The other two branches of the old government, Congress -- formerly the law MAKERS, and SCOTUS formerly the law INTERPRETERS hold the responsibility to remove the self-proclaimed "law giver", a position not recognized by free men except from their Creator.  The military should also no longer obey the tyrant. If We the People still understood the gift that had formerly been bequeathed by creator, founders and previous generations, the Secret Service would immediately leave their posts. They are bound to protect the occupant of an office that no longer exists.

All free men are now sacredly charged to end this tyranny and form a new nation under the rule of law! Pray for justice!

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Six Canons of Conservative Thought

The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk is one of the books that I'm going over again and this is one that is going to take more than a few blogs to cover.

His six canons of conservative thought from early in the book:

1. Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. 
2. Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems. 
3. Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a "classless society". Belief in order. 
4. Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from from private possession and Leviathan  becomes master of all. Economic leveling is not economic progress. 
5. Faith in prescription and distrust of "sophists, calculators and economists" who would reconstruct society on abstract designs. Custom, convention and old prescription checks both upon man's anarchic impulse and on the innovators lust for power. 
6. Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration rather than the torch of progress. 

These are set against 4 common means of attack used by the forces collectivism, utilitarianism, positivism, and the other "isms" ... socialism, communism and fascism since 1790:

1. The perfectibility of man and the limitless progress of society: meliorism (belief in the positive direction of "progress" and human ability to make it so)  Radicals believe that education, positive legislation and alteration of environment can produce men like gods. They deny that humanity has a natural proclivity for violence and sin. 
2. Contempt for tradition. Reason, impulse and materialistic determinism are preferred as guides to social welfare, more trusted than the wisdom of the ages. Formal religion is rejected and various ideologies are presented as alternatives. 
3. Political leveling. Order and privilege are condemned; total democracy, as direct as practicable is the professed radical ideal. An eagerness for centralization and consolidation. 
4. Economic leveling. The ancient right of property is attacked by nearly all radicals and attempts are made to collectivize it. 

It is difficult to pin radicals down because much of what they propose is based on current impulse and tends to look to the future even if current progress on a stated goal is questionable (eg. the 18 year "pause" in AGW, the "glitches" in the BOcare system). 

Since the main article of faith is that the present is better than the past and the future will be better still, there is not a lot of reason for deep thought on causes, effects and such. A book that covers this well is "A Conflict of Visions". 

The vision of the future tends to be "clear in the abstract" -- it will be "free", "just", "happy", "needs will be met" ... but as to specifics, the vision tends to be extremely weak. 

The primary way to recognize the radical is their love of "change" ... the more nonspecific the change desired, the more certain you may be that you are talking to a radical. 

Is It The QB or the Receiver?

Greg Jennings Fantasy Stats | RotoWire Fantasy Football:



I'm terrible with names and even worse with keeping track of players after they leave my beloved Packers -- however, when they go to the Vikes ... I know Jennings is not the only example in the last 20 years of excellent QBs at GB, but he is the one that just popped up.



So here we have Jennings stats with the Vikes. Once he was at least as good as Jordy Nelson, suddenly he is CLEARLY not ...



My opinion is that the difference wears number 12.



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Obstructionist on Keystone and Business

Who’s Obstructionist? | Power Line:



We often hear Republicans referred to as "obstructionist" by the media,  senators or the president. Typically, it is just a word -- they just say "obstructionist", they don't say what specific program they are trying to put forward and why it is that passing it would be helpful or even popular with the American people. It is just assumed to be good and being obstructed without reason.



Sometimes it was immigration -- but again, we didn't hear what the Democrat or presidents specific proposal actually was -- outside of "reform". Much like "hope and change", Democrats pretty much live off from general terms waved around like talismen -- "reform", "jobs", "the environment", "fairness" ... usually with no detail at as to what the actual ements of the legislation are.



Often, as we have found out relative to BOcare, the content of the legislation is not well defined ("We have to pass it to know what's in it"), or it is purposely written to be obscure as we have learned explicitly from Jonathan Gruber.



This week we yet again saw the Keystone XL Pipeline go down, this time on the basis of a single vote of obstruction. A specific private sector physical asset with significant jobs and energy effects and no negative environmental effects since the oil is being pumped and burned anyway -- the question is just here or China.



Similarly, the issue of "Tax Inversions" -- as we saw with Burger King, Medtronic, and a host of other companies; HQ are moved overseas due to US tax policy and trillions of dollars are spent overseas rather than repatriated to the US to build jobs here, yet the democrats obstruct specific efforts to fix this problem.



As the linked article questions, why? It is very hard to see why this would be so save for gross incompetence or out and out anti-American sentiment -- much the same as we often saw in the Cold War.



That is in fact where I have settled -- many Democrats see the US as having been too successful and carry some sort of "survivors guilt", feeling that it is "someone elses turn". During the years of the Cold War, one could hear giddy NPR reporting from Cuba or the USSR over some supposed triumph of the communist system. When the wall came down, there was shock and dismay -- their favored system had somehow failed, it was unbelievable to them.



So their only answer seems to be  suicide for the US and the West. One of our own political parties sees our system as "corrupt, unfair, harmful to the planet, damaging to human dignity, etc", so they are doing their best to get the shotgun in Uncle Sam's mouth and end the US.



They continue to do a hell of a job.



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The Hawaiian Shirt Of Enlightenment, Hillary Nutcracker

How to Turn a Cool Moment Into a #ShirtStorm | TIME:

"The Enlightenment" is a time in the late 1700's when mankind supposedly turned from "absolutes" (like God) to "reason, empiricism, science, liberty, democracy" and was thus "enlightened.

Man became "the measure of all things" -- good and evil could be decided by physical measurement, experience, trial and error,  or a simple vote.  "Man" forgot that designation would now include "woman" with the feminizing "virtues" being applied at levels beyond sleeping on the couch. Exit the age of "mighty men", knights, poets, sages, wizards and the like -- enter the age of trashy romance novels and "the sensitive guy".

We seem clearly past the pinnacle of what was once a bold new direction. Large signs -- 100's of millions dead from the Godless "isms" of the 20th century, vast hordes of drugged, drunk, distracted masses completely purposeless, drifting to the next hit/high/distraction and horribly suicide / overdose prone. Governments mired in massive debt, corruption and pseudo-science like AGW.

And also small signs -- like the shirt.

Man was once supposedly about great things -- an eternal soul, the image of God, bravery, chivalry, romance, glory, wisdom --- but no longer. An accomplished scientist, scion of the "enlightenment" is brought to tears because he wore a shirt his girl friend made for him. He chose poorly -- in wardrobe.

We know little of the back-story of this but anyone that has went through our education system, corporate system, or pretty much any organization in the modern world knows that "respect for the individual" has become "respect for the resource" -- and let's face it, the net of that is often a solid knee-lift to the balls from some mid-level bureaucrat with the personal honor and competence of a slug, but the full weight and power of the modern "enlightened" system behind them.

No doubt the poor sap in the shirt was faced with the loss of his job/career/mission or his manhood , so he knelt and whimpered. Hail, the "enlightened man"!

I believe that the shirt leads us to potentially the  penultimate symbol of the "enlightenment" -- perhaps we might re-think the loss of transcendent truth just a wee bit?

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"Fair Share", By Quintile -- Killing Success

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/11/203641-2-chart-new-definition-fair-share-20-americans-pay-almost-100-everything/

As of 2011, the quintiles for US income were:
0  -  $20K
$20K - $38K
$38K - $62K
$62K  - $102K
$102K and up

"Quintile" means divide the population up into 5 equal sized groups using a variable -- in this case income. The same number of Americans are in each of those 5 groups, roughly 64 million people each.

This chart makes the decline of America extremely easy to understand. Want to place any bets on how "sustainable" this is?

On average, if you make much over $100K, you pay something just below $50K into the FEDERAL government. What the chart doesn't show is that you ALSO pay something close to 10% of your income into the STATE if you live in a blue or purple state.  If you don't feel like a tax slave, you need to look at the chart a while longer.

Any one having trouble understanding why our workforce participation rate is the lowest since the '70s? People pull that train for a few years and they figure out that the cars behind are a lot more comfortable than the providing pedal power for engine.

Other small fact -- notice that "The Party" (TP-D)  doesn't throw the most money to the bottom -- the votes are in the 2nd and 3rd quintiles! The folks at the very bottom are often too old or too unmotivated to even do the handed to them mail in vote, so the money goes to those that make from $20-$62K ... the fact that more per capita goes to the $38K-$62K group than to the 0-$20K group would be especially galling to anyone that cared about "the poor" more than votes!

I case you are reading this and saying "but I pay income taxes", remember that this is NET -- if you get FICA, housing assistance, BOcare, Earned Income Credit, etc, that is deducted from what you "pay".

The linked article has one more fact worth repeating --- 40% of US households now get more than HALF of their income from transfer payments! 

Chelsea Clinton's Felon In Law

snopes.com: Ed Mezvinsky - Father of the Groom:

The level of bias in the US media still finds a way to shock me!

Chelsea's FiL is an ex congressman, convicted felon -- pretty much the flower of TP so I'd expect that the in-laws ought to get along superbly. Two sets of feckless felons! The sordid linkages and the character of Mezvinsky are worth reading the Snopes link -- we already know the Clinton's character, and that it is officially "not an issue" according to the TP controlled media.

I'm sure they would treat it just the same if one of W's daughters got married to an ex-congressman Felon! (every day needs some humor)

The problem here is that the MSM would cover this if a Republican offspring was being similarly wed -- because Republicans would react with shock and horror and it would be a big smudge on even the girls parents. The DIFFERENCE is that the very business of TP is criminally defrauding the american people! They just typically have enough power to prevent prosecution -- but even when they are found out, it is considered to just be "an occupational hazard".

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TP In Action: Keystone Fail Mary

Senate rejects Keystone bill - POLITICO:



Since TP controls the media, the facts are usually to be found only with the difficulty of following the ball on a 3 card monte game. The TP story on congress for 4 years now has been "the Republicans are obstructionist", when the fact was that hundreds of bills were stopped in the TP controlled Senate with no reporting.



But in a shameless case of naked political opportunism, TP wanted to give Mary Landrieu's run-off bid a boost by putting her name in front of getting the Keystone XL through the Senate. Keystone is hugely popular in Louisiana as well as 65% approval across the US.



They did get it to a vote, but they could not pass it! In what is one of the landmark cases of political incompetence, they attempted to put a feather in their candidates cap, but even with Republican help were unable to get the job done!



Corrupt and Incompetent -- the cornerstones of TP and government in general.







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BO "Lies In" On Grubergate

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/11/18/bret_baier_transparency_issues_plagued_obamacare_from_the_start.html

So HHS is paying Gruber $400K, yet it and the Democrats persist in quoting him ad nauseum as an "independent source". It gives criminal corruption a bad name -- mob bosses were far far more honorable than this.

There really are no words. "I just learned about this a few minutes ago" ... Arrogance, narcissism, complete lack of even a hint of truth,  and utter disdain for America and it's people.

The nation voted itself into the abyss and there is clearly no bottom.

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It's Below Freezing in Every State, Imagine a Similar Heat Event

Cold weather grips most of U.S.; heavy snow in North - CNN.com:



Just try to imagine the kind of coverage this would be getting if it was a heat event of similar proportions. It boggles the mind -- there would be nothing else on.



We have been getting a fairly steady diet of reporting on the completely meaningless "agreement" on carbon that BO signed with China as well as the "debate" over the Keystone Pipeline, here is a recent Hot Air article that is a good summary of the state of the "discussion" relative to the other side of the topic -- the side you can't get in the MSM.



Most of the MSM suppresses any contrary evidence -- they are done with it, they want to control carbon and that is that. Anyone that doesn't see it their way is "fool, denier, oil company stooge, etc"  -- pay no attention to record cold winters, Novembers, springs, late ice outs on Lake Superior, 18 year pause in warming, etc, etc ... the list goes on, just follow the link and read up on the basics.



One more topic where any hint of sanity has completely left the building.



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Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton

Woman accuses Bill Cosby of sexual assault in the 1960s - CNN.com:

Woman Accuses Bill Clinton of sexual assault in the 1970's

I see that 40+ year old rape charges against Bill Cosby have been in the news lately. I scanned one of the articles in amazement and could not help think of the Juanita Broaddrick charges against Bill Clinton that I linked to above, that were barely covered at the time they came out.

Bill Cosby has run afoul of TP ("The Party", Democrat) and it's media arm as a black man that believes that blacks need to live and act responsibly if they want to move forward. TP is of the opinion that blacks need to remain as wards on the happy TP voter plantation, rioting, doing drugs, and feeling outraged.

If one wastes the time to scan the kinds of charges, the similarities are rather striking -- dates and details are often smudged and what you most pick up are women telling you in some way that their trust was broken, they were outraged, they were afraid and they were under some "spell" in that they didn't report it at the time.

One can only feel sorry for these women no matter what actually happened in either case, but why oh why would such accusations be national news against Bill Cosby? Clinton OTOH was in the presidency with CURRENT accusations at the level that made one wonder if any women would be able to come forward and say " I was NOT sexually molested by the president"! Certainly any woman that had been attacked by him in the past, OR was just the kind of suggestable woman that might have trouble with reality was likely to come forward. The media of course did all it could to tamp down accusations in that case, and Juanita Broaddrick barely saw the light of day.

I can't see any reason that the Cosby accusations are  national news beyond yet another example being made of a black man that has had the courage to step off the TP thought plantation just a TINY bit. He is even on record not very long ago with a solid rant against "racist Republicans", but apparently that isn't enough to keep him in good standing!

ANY suggestion of blacks being able to take responsibility for themselves and break their chains of fealty to TP must be met with attacks. Here is an article where Cosby's call for blacks to break the violence in their community is mentioned. Ironically, the article is written by Juan Williams, himself banished from NPR for "insufficient blackness".

Thou shalt not question the authority of TP or you will be punished! Cleave on to TP and thy sins will be covered. Thus saith TP.

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Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver

https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Have-Consequences-Richard-Weaver/dp/022609006X

This book was first published in 1948 and it is scary to see how far we have tumbled down the predicted cliff toward the ultimate demise of Western Civilization since then.

Weaver points out that without first principles, there is no way to know where we went astray or why, and he is very clear and simple on the causes.

"This was a change that overtook the dominant philosophical thinking of the West in the fourteenth century, when the reality of transcendentals was first seriously challenged."

Since man moved away from the idea of transcendentals to the idea that "man is the measure of all things", the Whig theory of history quickly developed -- "the belief that the most advanced point in time represents the point of highest development".  Today this banner is carried by "progressives" -- the firm belief that the last drop of  hootch to be excreted from the still today is better than 40 year old Scotch.

"For four centuries every man has been not only his own priest, but his own professor of ethics, and the consequence is an anarchy which threatens even that minimum consensus of value necessary to the political state." 

At least he isn't always his own bartender! Weaver links transcendentals primarily back to Plato, although the connection with religion obviously seeps through. For the common man, the doctrine of Christianity is what would be infinitely more beneficial to both the eternal soul and temporal existence here on earth than the worship of the relativist pagan state.

"The issue ultimately involved is whether there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of man; and the answer to the question is decisive for one's view of nature and the destiny of humankind.  The practical result of nominalist philosophy is to banish the reality which is perceived by the intellect and and to posit as reality that which is perceived by the senses."

"The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably -- though ways are found to hedge on this -- the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of man is the measure of all things .... The witches spoke with the habitual equivocation of oracles when they told man that by this easy choice he might realize himself more fully, for they were actually initiating a course which cuts one off from reality. Thus began the "abomination of desolation" appearing today as a feeling of alienation from all fixed truth". 

"Nominalist" meaning denying that things that transcend the physical universe exist. ("matter" is all there is) Not simply however "god" -- since our own abstract thoughts and to some degree language stretch the old meaning of "physical".

It is a book I could go on and on quoting from, but that breaks my promise to explain what the book means to me and encourage others to read it.

Ideas set humans apart and make us what we are. When we are focused at the highest levels of our brain --- reason, abstraction, ultimates, patterns, relations, connections, etc, we are most human in the sense of unique from animals -- with an eternal soul, a soul that wants those transcendentals. It drives us to look for ultimate and eternal causes, the explanation for WHY things are as they are.

When I was in college, a favorite professor described the difference between the university and the vocational school up the hill as basically "Down here we learn WHY the computer works as it does, up the hill they learn only HOW to operate or program following a specific path, not the reason why that path may be optimal, easy, efficient or what alternatives there are to the specifics being taught".

The reference is at about 7:30 in if you don't like the lead up ...

When there are no transcendentals (ultimate reasons "why"), then one way is hard to defend one view from another and we arrive at "my truth and your truth". It is all relative -- it is todays sense data that counts,  because it is assumed that is all there is. The physical shared reality (although that is less certain than it once was). We may be able to do a lot of "technology", but as is also covered in the book, much of it will only do more to distract us from that which is of ultimate value.

"Ideas" is a critical book about first principles to understand the universe, our place in it, and how to reach for "the good life", as in the spiritual life that has eternal meaning (although it is not a "religious" book).

"Ideas" is a cornerstone of what I'm re-reading and attempting to weave together as my personal "Canon of Christian Conservatism" at this point in my life -- the basis of what I have come to believe about life, the universe and everything! It was previously discussed here, as well as here.

At its base "Ideas"  is "God" (transcendence), Yes or No, and what is likely to happen to both you and your civilization depending on how you choose!

Shivers of Eternal Awareness

WATCH: After His Owner Died, Everyone Was Shocked By What This Dog Did. I Have Goosebumps. [VIDEO]:

I'm re-reading one of my favorite books on how to think about meaning / the universe, "Ideas Have Consequences". I'll do a review on it here in a few days, but the basic element is that how we live personally and even more importantly, as a society/culture, is defined by how we answer the question: "Is man the measure of all things, or are there "universals", "transcendentals" that provide the ultimate forms of our existence?".

The layman version of that is "God, yes or no"?

One of the questions that I have is if all people actually feel a shiver of extra awareness when they see the light hit the dog in the linked video, or if it is only some of us? Christians? Other? My belief is that it is universal and that some either deny or have managed to suppress / alter the natural "shiver of awareness" over the course of life to suppress that feeling or convert it to anger, hurt, derision, etc as they declare "it is just some trick", "it is an accident", etc.. They have "killed the shiver" and now it is a negative that makes them want to strike back and what they are convinced is "fake".

In song, my prayer for myself and those I love on this subject is well embodied in this song -- which I think hints at accepting and believing in the shiver -- if even some of them turned out to be "fake".

Naturally, it COULD all a be a big accident, and we no longer have to feel small beside the ocean  -- the transcendent does not force belief, yet ignoring it can be exceedingly hard I think. Hard enough to turn hopeful loving people into insolent haters -- because maybe there was something about Gods purity that made them feel smaller than they wanted to.

Our days on this rock have a number of  "light on the dog" or "stand beside the ocean" kinds of moments  -- all clearly explainable by coincidence, random chance, good wine or a momentary chill maybe. Phenomena like humor, music, love, consciousness, etc are all  "explainable" by "random selection" -- or  just "accidental artifacts, side-effects" ... nothing to see here, move along. Don't give faith a chance -- but really, it is just THAT faith that links us to the eternal that "the other" is going to work hard to get you to deny.

Our very existence remains a matter of faith. That the universe that we live in is teleological (goal directed/has a purpose), is rational, predictable and can be understood by reason/experience  are ALWAYS matters of faith! Those matters are not provable by experience -- induction can falsify, but it can never prove. We can ALWAYS deny -- 3 times, hundreds of times maybe, but no matter how angry that shiver may make some, does it ever really really go away?

Accepting the existence of God is called a "leap of faith". I personally find atheism, the ultimate faith in the non-existence of God to be a MUCH greater "LEAP of faith" since as Nietzsche explained when he lamented "God is dead", it is known by thinkers to be a lamentable decision. A leap and a tumble into the the abyss. No God, no center, no meaning, no purpose, no direction ... the faith of nullification. Indeed the HOPE of instant annihilation. But can even rejection really kill the shiver? I don't know, I certainly don't want to walk that dark path, but my sense tells me no -- the shiver will keep calling, keep trying to bring you home. At least I pray it does!

No doubt I will have to read the book discussed here, but the link is worth following for the "8 explanations of the universe" which I'll cover another time. The book is prompted by the fact that there are numerous features of our universe that must be "just so" (like the porridge in Goldilocks)  ... some of those values are:

• N (ratio of strength of gravity to electromagnetism), 
• Epsilon (force binding nucleons into nuclei), 
• Omega (ratio of universe mass density to critical mass density), 
• Cosmological Constant (starts being significant at 10 to -122), 
• D (number of spatial dimensions in spacetime) ... etc

Our scientists believe many of these were "set" during the Big Bang, and were they set to tiny different values we would not exist. But ALL of them were set "just right".  Again ... as the 8 ways to deal with that indicate, it COULD all be an accident ... in fact, the discovery of the precision of anthropic "setting" is one of the larger reasons that the "Multiverse Theory", where there are gigantic number of UNIVERSES -- like 10 to the 400 or so has gained consideration primarily because many scientists and atheists realized that something like that HAD to be true if their position of no God was to remain tenable.

Murdering the shiver can take a lot of ammo!

Do we all feel the "shiver of awareness"? I  believe we do -- for Christ came for ALL. I believe we all have both the "shiver" and free will -- thus the opportunity to make THE choice of eternal significance in all things, those as mundane as a dog in a picture or as immense as the cosmos itself.

Still just a small thing next to the power of God.

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SR-71 Cockpit Virtual Tour, Plane Geek Heaven

http://allthingsaero.com/military-aviation/museums-military-history/gallery-virtual-cockpit-tour-of-the-amazing-sr-71-blackbird

BOcare, Wealth Transfer And Lies

Jonathan Gruber’s ‘Stupid’ Budget Tricks - WSJ - WSJ:

A Republican President that had a single attempted program that benefited say business, or families, or energy, or hard work, or thrift -- any of the horrors of existence that the left rails against, and was somehow exposed as having knowingly used subterfuge to accomplish it would have been removed from office within a year of the discovery.

We know this. We witnessed the level of media outrage over W's supposed shortcomings as a fighter pilot 30 years prior to taking office, the absolute meta-falsehood of "Bush lied, people died" where at worst he merely took action on information at the time, and has since been proved correct, and even the complete farce of Valerie Plame -- the "secret agent" who drove to work each day at CIA HQ ("Deep Cover")!

As I've said, none of this is new -- it's been exposed since before the bill was passed. It is absolutely clear that Americans were lied to big time by BO, the MSM and Democrats in general, but what is new? I can only assume that most Americans are OK with that -- although they may not like actually having their elite "experts" call them stupid to their face. Anyone that doesn't realize that the lefty elites think of them that way is either willfully not paying attention, simply doesn't care, or is actually stupid. "Bitter Clingers" anyone?

“this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.”

Yes, BOcare was always and still is a massive tax increase largely on the middle class and young to transfer dollars to those that failed to insure in the past and are now stuck with no insurance and existing conditions.

So it is all old news, but is there actually a limit to how much voters will put up with? The first mistake that folks like myself and likely readers of this blog make is that something like a "majority" of voters are actually aware of this -- I doubt it is covered on Jon Stewart, I've not heard it on MPR (I don't listen 24x7, but a casual listener certainly could have missed their coverage), and I'm certain it is sparse to non-existent on MSNBC, Huffpo, etc. I suppose some of their folks take the Pelosi dodge of "he didn't write it, I never knew him" ... followed by, OOOPS, big praise for him!

Such admissions aren’t revelations, since the truth has long been obvious to anyone curious enough to look. We and other critics wrote about ObamaCare’s budget gimmicks during the debate, and Rep. Paul Ryan exposed them at the 2010 “health summit.” President Obama changed the subject. 

But rarely are liberal intellectuals as full frontal as Mr. Gruber about the accounting fraud ingrained in ObamaCare. Also notable are his do-what-you-gotta-do apologetics: “I’d rather have this law than not,” he says.

Yes, BOcare is nothing but a gigantic wealth transfer fraud perpetrated on the American people, but will a DIRECT ADMISSION made by one of their own have any effect on the discussion?

So they used a decade of taxes to fund merely six years of insurance subsidies. They made-believe that Medicare payments to hospitals will some day fall below Medicaid rates. A since-repealed program for long-term care front-loaded taxes but back-loaded spending, meant to gradually go broke by design. Remember the spectacle of Democrats waiting for the white smoke to come up from CBO and deliver the holy scripture verdict.

The "savings"? A lie! The cost control?  Also a lie!

Then again, Mr. Gruber told a Holy Cross audience in 2010 that although ObamaCare “is 90% health insurance coverage and 10% about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control. How it’s going to lower the cost of health care, that’s all they talk about. Why? Because that’s what people want to hear about because a majority of Americans care about health-care costs.”

It's 90% wealth transfer, but people want to hear "lower costs", so they faked the numbers and lied about the particulars of the bill so that the MSM would make claims that BOcare "controlled costs".

The only way it "controls costs" is by putting middle class people like myself that formerly had good coverage into high deductible Vegas Style HSA plans so we use less healthcare!

We certainly made a horrible choice to allow BOcare to pass -- was it because of not paying attention, being lied to, or being stupid? I suspect there are plenty of each in the mix.

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W Is a WAY Better Ex-President Too

Jimmy Carter Now Pimps For Tyrants, So Of Course Jon Stewart Loves Him:



But don't expect to hear it in the media! Good column that covers the fact that Carter really isn't a successful ex-president either, even if you give him HUGE credit for some Habitat for Humanity work.



W OTOH ... well documented in the linked article if you care. I've heard the AIDs stuff quite a bit and I like this Bono / Jon Stewart interaction:

Bono discussed Bush’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. He said, “We’re hoping very much that President Obama is going to follow through on what President Bush did.” Stewart cringed and Bono patted his hand and said, “I know that’s hard for you to accept.” He added, “It is amazing. People like John Kerry worked for this. Hillary Clinton, and eventually President Clinton did some extraordinary stuff renegotiating the prices of these very expensive drugs down. But George Bush kind of knocked it out of the park.”

Bono is at the very least a strong Christian Sympathiser if not actually a Christian himself, WAY more talented than Jon Stewart, and wise enough to be very worthy to pat Jon's hand or head. Wisdom and class vs the spoiled adolescent.



Carter and Stewart have a lot in common (as they do with BO), as it seems that Bono and Bush do was well.



W was and is a good, decent, competent man. The country was lucky to have him as President 9-11-2001 and one really doesn't need to look at BO hard at all to see what a horrible mistake followed W in office.





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