Detroit, Chicago, Venezuela

More Detroit Schools Closed; Mayor to Tour Some Buildings - ABC News:

"All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." (Burke) A corollary from the position of evil is that good men  must be kept from the truth! -- which is what this post is about. If the follies of Socialism were kept in front of the people, Bernie Sanders would never have been elected dog catcher -- as it is, he is neck and neck in IA and hugely ahead in New Hampshire of all ironic places! (Live Free or Die -- guess they are ready to die!) Perhaps another of Burke's quotes comes to bear in these times

... "The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."

Detroit should be kept in front of our minds at all times as "the wages of socialism" ... you can go to the top linked article and see the schools are in shambles, deep in debt, under state control and the union teachers have lots of demands, including raises. Greed is self limiting -- people can only work so hard, build so much, etc and they get "satisfied, tired, bored, etc". Not so with Envy! People can ALWAYS demand to be given more! About half of Detroit's schools were closed yesterday as a "sick out" is in progress by the teachers, a similar number are closed today.

We can go to that shining star of left wing policies, Chicago, with some of the strictest gun laws in the land. "Common Sense" anyone? Remember, our supposed "leader" hails from this cesspool, and his own ex chief of staff is the current sitting mayor -- until he is indicted at least.

As of Monday morning, at least 19 people have been killed in gun violence in Chicago this year and at least 101 more have been wounded, according to data compiled by the Tribune. This time last year, nine people had been killed and another 31 wounded, according to statistics kept by the Chicago Tribune.

Venezuela is a world example of socialism in action -- waiting in line for food is now the major occupation there. A decade ago, Hugo Chavez was hugely popular with the left in this country -- he said bad things about W, which was VERY popular with our media in those days! We pretty much all knew how "great" things were going in Venezuela, and how impressive a "man of the people" Chavez was. Now you can go and read a series of articles from a guy there for the NY Times about what a basket case it is. The Socialists are finally out of power, but the nation is a shambles.

We hear about the evils of "income inequality" nearly every day, yet the amount of bread lines in this country are pretty limited. Detroit is proof that it CAN happen here!, and Chicago is well on the way. DC, St Louis, Atlanta, New Orleans ... the majority of the large cities operated by TP are in very bad shape. The nation is in bad shape and sinking fast -- it may well be beyond hope already.

Destroy the drive of people to MAKE and convince them what is better is to TAKE, and pretty soon everyone is out on a "sickout" making demands on what they "ought" to be given.

We used to be able to look at East vs West Germany, Hong Kong vs China -- we can still look at North vs South Korea if we care, but NEVER expect TP controlled media in this country to help show the obvious.

SOCIALISM FAILS! One more Burke quote to end this lesson ...

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

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Go With The Fun!

The Fun Indicator | Power Line:



If you follow the link, you can read about a fun little anecdote about Nancy Reagan rolling an orange down the aisle on the Reagan campaign plane, and also realize that Trump is BY FAR having the most fun this campaign season. No matter how we might feel about it, at least somewhat often, the campaign having the most fun WINS! (can you imagine life (or their facsimile of such) on the Hillary or Bernie campaign? ... eek!)



I think that is often true for football teams as well. Seattle tends to have a lot of fun playing -- it doesn't mean they ALWAYS win (see Superbowl), but as the Vikings and Green Bay can testify, it means they pull some big games out where things just "go their way".



Green Bay decided to go into "avoiding losing" last year ... which led to them managing to NOT WIN! The 2nd half of the NFC championship OUGHT to have been FUN for the Packers and Packer Fans -- and I think it WOULD have been, had they only kept playing like it was a FUN GAME!



Miracle of miracles, the fun magically returned to the Packer offense after an 11 yard output 1st quarter that included a SAFETY. If it stays, I think we have a "punchers chance" in AZ -- they CAN be beaten, see their last game against Seahawks! (36-6, Seattle)



There is a lot of truth to this in life as well, with the important caveat that it won't ALWAYS be fun! The best projects / teams in my career always had some solid fun aspects involved. Yes, yes ... there are hard slogs involved, stuff that NOBODY wants to do, etc ... but when it is working, there is also some fun!



There is a lot of "big picture wisdom" in this little observation. The things we often believe (or are told) OUGHT to be FUN, rarely are. Partying, "laying on the beach", throwing away the "rules", etc ... they can be fun at times, but they tend to get stale pretty quickly as overindulgence, disorder, disarray, etc take their inevitable toll.



Is there really any group in America or Europe that is "having fun" right now? Maybe Islamists I guess ... they have a goal (world domination), and a reason to live (Allah and expanding his domination). Putin? The current whack job version of the "Kim Jong" inbreeding?



While "liberalism" is very dominant, it never seems "fun" no matter how much it "wins" -- the environment is too polluted, things are never equal enough, some group or another is "disadvantaged",  too much evil around -- corporations, the Koch brothers, Christians, white people, police, etc. Huge requirements for more government, more regulation, more laws, more taxes, more CONTROL! They may eventually FORCE us to have fun!



Maybe the "1%"?  ... they are busy at least, but as we see over and over in hollywood, sports, etc, that version of MORE, MORE, MORE! tends to be very self defeating. We are TOLD they have it "really good", but I'm not all that certain that many really believe it.



We do see that in the modern value free world, many still fervently hope for money to make them happy, thus the craze over the lottery that nobody seems to be able to win, now over $1 BILLION dollars!



I do think that we have more than ample examples that "building / doing stuff" has a lot more going for it than "taking / regulating stuff". My biggest opposition to us becoming a nation of takers vs makers outside of the fact that it doesn't work is that it is NO FUN to be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It is MUCH more fun to BUILD IT!!!!



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Crossing Einstein and Life

Einstein Cross - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Do I find these images to be "compelling evidence of God giving us a sign"?

No, I find them to be little hints that stir the soul -- like the little chrome or paint touch on a custom motorcycle, the "Easter Egg" in the game or other computer program or movie ... maybe. As always, God is a both a VERY showy God and a VERY subtle God. He BOTH lavishly stacks the deck to show he is there, yet he leaves enough room so that those who are determined to deny him are not absolutely forced (in this life) to admit the "obvious answer".  (Although, the more we learn, the harder atheism becomes ...)

But such visuals are fun ... and beautiful, and they give that little shiver of recognition of the work of the ultimate creative artist.

The top picture is the Einstein Cross and link takes you to more detail about it if you are interested. It is a visual of gravitational lensing predicted by the general theory of relativity.

The bottom is laminin protein molecule that literally "holds life together".

Both have been become somewhat popular in various Christian circles, but in general I find such things to be a danger if they are taken TOO seriously. The Bible is the Word of God -- it certainly tells us that God created us and holds us together physically, but much more importantly, spiritually and eternally. The creation will all pass away -- only the spirit is eternal.

But while we are here, God has blessed us with little "shivers of eternal awareness" to help light our way home to him.

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Understanding Islam, Rape as Reward

Cologne’s Rape Jihad: Muslim Migrants Crash Europe’s Fantasy Islam:

I've lost my ability to continue to try to understand how the leftist mind of "The Party" (TP-D) operates. On one hand, young women should be so protected that "ogling" is a crime no matter what they are wearing, "unwanted kissing" can be classified as "rape", and there is no such thing as "consensual sex" unless they sign the appropriate consent form -- all be it still difficult to discern if they have had anything to drink.

OTOH, when it comes to large groups of Islamic men forming circles and brutally raping women in the center as the police are blocked off -- well, then, women REALLY need to pay a LOT attention to what they wear (have they considered a hijab?),

Truth being the first casualty of war, it was left to Henriette Reker, the fantasy Islam–drenched mayor of Cologne, to blame the victims for their ordeal. Such assaults could be prevented, she declaimed, if German women adopted a “code of conduct” tailored to the Islamic culture, they could prevent future attacks. 

To even mention that such actions are occurring and rapidly expanding is suppressed by the western media.  We can't appear "unwelcoming" or be "profiling" after all ... but for those of you willing to risk your public standing by reading "subversive news":

The Muslim men used a tactic that has escaped the notice of fantasy Islam devotees but is well known to those of us who’ve followed the scant reports on the rape jihad as it has proceeded from Tahrir Square to Malmö to Rotherham: A group of men encircles the targeted woman or girl, trapping her while walling off police and other would-be rescuers. Knowing they are a protected class, the Muslim men have no fear of the cops — “You can’t do anything to me,” and “Mrs. Merkel invited me here,” are just some of the reported taunts. By the time “help” reaches one victim, the assailants have moved on to the next.

How DOES the mind of a person of the left operate? If they picture their own wife or daughter in the center of such a circle of taunting Muslim men, does it cause any protective emotion to rise, or are their brains so totally aligned with the "Word of TP" that such emotions are sublimated to "we feel only what we are told to feel"?  We live in a world where the "red and blue tribes" are so fully separated that the age old admonition to attempt to "see it from the other side" has become impossible for me.

There must be some place the mind goes where the baby in the womb, the thousands of young black men shooting each other each year, the lives of the police, and apparently now the young western woman being repeatedly raped by a circle of taunting entitled Muslim men, simply cease to matter. Once that happens, one can apparently feel morally superior and "good" as they look in the mirror in that they know they are aligned with TP and TP is always right!?  I assume they somehow see "the greater good of TP,  praise be to TP!!" but it is here that my ability to "put myself in their frame" is totally inadequate.

This is not isolated. No, it is completely KNOWN, written down, and STATED from many quarters that sexually taking women and children by force is a part of the Islamic plan of conquest:

As I’ve previously explained, when Muslims are seeking conquest, Islamic scripture endorses sexual assault as a weapon to establish their dominance. “O Prophet,” Allah is said to have announced (in the Koran’s sura 33:50), “We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou has paid their dowers, and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the captives of war whom Allah has assigned to thee.”

Once consistency is no longer an issue, it becomes a requirement that INconsistency be pushed to points previously unimaginable. In one context, "kissing is rape", in another, brutal multiple actual penetrative rapes are to be ignored and blamed on the victim.  To hold BOTH these views in the mind concurrently and claim that you are "in support" of both is what it now means to walk around as a supposedly sane supporter of TP!

Can anyone NOT now understand how Germans could gas Jews by day and go home to wife and family in the evening and feel like a "good man"? We now see that millions of people walking among us hold the opinion on rape outlined above at least implicitly. It is the official position of OUR government and that of the governments in Europe!

Without rational and CONSISTENT thought, there are NO LIMITS on what humans can do and believe they are "in the right"! What part of NO LIMITS is it that we fail to grasp?

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Worst Stock Market Opening Week EVER

Stocks close out week with worst start to year ever:

Hey, BO gets another "first" to add to his list!

He ought to be in big favor of this -- one of the best ways to decrease the scourge of "income inequality" is to take the Dow to zero! Ah, the utopian BO dream where the 99% are all fighting over rats to eat and he is golfing with Trump and Slick Willie laughing about the chumps that let him fix all that "inequality"!

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Promises, The Political Currency

A Republican Cure for Liberal Failures on Poverty - WSJ:

A good column by Speaker Ryan.

President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in 1964. Since then politicians have won votes by creating new federal programs, without bothering to check whether they work—because in the political market the currency is promises, not results. The federal government now runs more than 80 different antipoverty programs at a cost of about $750 billion a year. Yet 46 million Americans are poor today, and the poverty rate has barely budged: from 19% in 1965 to 14.8% in 2014. If you were raised poor, you’re as likely to stay poor as you were 50 years ago.

It's worth the read ... not very long. How many times have we heard some inflated figure on how much the Iraq war cost us and how it "bankrupted the nation"? Try 50 years of poverty programs that managed to lock tens of millions into a cycle of poverty,  despair, and violence while wasting something like $40 TRILLION inflation adjusted dollars over that period.

Oh, I know, GREAT deal for Democrats! Second biggest vote buying program in history -- with FICA/Medicare taking the TOP spot!

We have reached the point where we deserve the government we have because the government bought all our votes!

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Warming? CA Methane Leak, 6 Million Coal Cars?

A natural gas leak with seemingly no end | Marketplace.org:

I'd barely heard about this, but low and behold, "Climate Cast" on NPR talked of it yesterday.

On the show, and in this quote from here, they discussed it as being like "six coal fired power plants" -- one wonders if that is LIFETIME or one year? Six power plants each burning over a million cars of a coal in a year sounds WAY off to me, so it almost has to be lifetime.

O'Connor, of the Environmental Defense Fund said the gas gushing from Aliso Canyon is roughly equal to that emitted by six coal-fired power plants or 7 million extra cars. "I think we have found a regulatory gap," he said.

So one would think that if you were a warmist, this would be right up there with Exxon Valdez or BP and Deepwater Horizon in the gulf. Lots of people are being evacuated, planes re-directed, the governor has declared a state of emergency, it is going to be going on for at least MONTHS more and the end is uncertain! How can this NOT be a top news story??!!  I mean, come on, "Climate Change" is the "Greatest Challenge Facing our Generation"!

So I checked just a bit of "follow the money" just cuz I figure there has to be SOME explanation,  and "amazingly", governor Browns sister is involved with the owning company, AND, they have been very generous in donations to Brown.

Kathleen Brown was paid $183,000 last year as the director of Sempra Energy, according to a Wednesday report in the Boston Environmental Policy Examiner. She also managed to score $400,000 in stock in the much-maligned energy company, according to financial statements. 

Worse still, critics say, is the fact Gov. Brown owes a debt of gratitude to Sempra, as the governor has received more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from his sister’s company.

I'm guessing we could find even more connections ... BO maybe? Who knows.

The beauty of environmental law, IRS audits, "coordination" under Citizens United, hate speech, sexual harassment and a whole lot of the other current "left wing causes/laws" is that they invert the old "innocent until proven guilty" idea and rules of evidence at that same time. They are like weapons that ONLY KILL YOUR ENEMIES! They are the very best sort of "smart weapon" in that they are "ideologically based".

It is rather ingenious really. Harming the environment is a BIG DEAL when it is made to be a big deal because it fits the left narrative or the "cause" is someone that hasn't greased the proper palms to the proper amount. But it is selective -- if you are the "right folks", or "pay appropriately", you get to avoid the issue. Getting your mind right and being on the "right side" (meaning left) has it's perks!

When you live in a single political party controlled totalitarian state, it is ALL about politics. When something bad happens, the FIRST question that is asked is: Which Tribe? Red or Blue. If red, go for the jugular ... if blue, then no matter how HUGE it is, sweep it under the rug.

It makes the "rules" a lot easier to understand!

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Liberal Theology, The Problem of Evil

The Liberal Theology of Gun Control - WSJ:

I'm getting pretty sick of this latest round of the endless gun control debate, but the linked article does a good job of pointing out how liberal theology makes sense -- to liberals. In the bigger context of how liberals think, this really does make sense.

First, liberals don't believe that there are evil people:

Put simply, today’s liberalism cannot deal with the reality of evil. So liberals inveigh against the instruments the evil use rather than the evil that motivates them.

Not criminals, not terrorists, not even the USSR in the cold war was evil. No doubt anyone who "seems evil" (with the exception of conservatives) had bad childhoods, people treated them unfairly, or they just lacked "the proper education". Liberals are CERTAIN that with just a wee bit more "education", they can fix ANYTHING! The following paragraph is in reference to liberal views on Reagan as he tried to end the USSR rather than do what the left wanted ... sign another fake "arms control" agreement:

Two things especially irked them: He’d called the U.S.S.R. the Evil Empire, and he was skeptical about arms control for the sake of arms control.

Liberals are fine with communism, crime, or even (amazingly) islamic extremism. They LOVE to "do things" though -- and "arms control" and "gun control" are the kind of thing they LOVE to do. They are things that tend to be counterproductive, but that is more than fine with liberals!

Bad regimes are like bad guys in this respect. They’ll take a deal they know has no teeth. But they will accept a genuine arms reduction only when the good guys put them in a position where they have little or no choice. 

This helps explain why, for example, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi turned over his entire nuclear program to George W. Bush—and why the Iranians happily agreed to a deal with President Obama that puts them on the path to a bomb. 

Meanwhile, we’ve just endured what may be the first successful ISIS-inspired attack on the homeland. And like her former boss, Hillary Clinton is demanding the government “take action now” on guns.

It isn't like those of us with a memory don't recall other "nuke deals" that we were told were just peachy and ended up going "boom" ... like BIG BOOM as in H-bomb! Here is old Slick talking like a true Clinton in '94 ... why is it that we conservatives are skeptics on what liberals say???

"Liberal" is about ending things like "the Constitutions" and replacing them with a totalitarian central government. That government may be communist, criminal, or even Islamic ... "liberals" are actually VERY LIBERAL on that issue! It is the POWER that they demand -- how it gets in their hands is "just mechanism".

In the meantime, they are fine with North Korea and Iran having nukes as well as terrorists and criminals having guns. They really aren't stupid, they are aware that terrorists and criminals don't follow laws, and bad regimes don't honor "agreements". Taking YOUR guns and de-stabilizing the nation and world plays into their hands, so they are all for it, and they will use any propaganda they feel will work to reach their goals. They never claimed to believe in anything other than power -- certainly not "truth" which is defined to be "whatever they say it is".

They do FIRMLY believe the last vestiges of the US and western civilization must be destroyed by ANY MEANS, because they are CERTAIN that once they start all over, they will definitely build utopia!

Utopia, "heaven on earth" is the end that justifies all means.

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Slick Willie Rape, Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

The rape allegation against Bill Clinton, explained - Vox:

A rather longish article from the progressive site Vox that essentially ends up at the obvious -- if you are going to take rape accusers seriously as Hillary and others have said, you would be FORCED to take Juanita Broadderick seriously.

But whatever the merits of that view, adopting it would be a big pivot for Hillary Clinton, given that just a couple of months ago she was tweeting, "Every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard, believed, and supported." There's no easy way to reconcile that view with her allies' dismissal of Broaddrick's allegations.

Such a thing must be like "intellectual rape" for "The Party" (TP-D), because they are the ones that USE force ... not the ones who are forced to face any truth, reality or reason! They are the definers of what we ought all think, and what they demand that we think includes massive inconsistency by design. They want it that way, and we all need to remember the immortal words from "Animal Farm" since their meaning is now regularly and obviously on display here in what used to be America.

"All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others!".

Obviously, Slick Willie is a "more equal animal" -- than say, Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby was ONCE in the same class as Slick Willie ... he was a famous black who was assumed to be liberal, so whatever his sins may have been, they were to be ignored -- and were.

But he fell from grace -- in pain over the massive killings of young black men and the wanton looting and lawlessness of those of his race in riots and violence, he raised his voice. He demanded that blacks take responsibility for their actions, and in the left religion, that is grievous SIN! Blacks are to be slaves on TP Plantation -- it is their role! For some uppity black like Cosby to have the gall to question the ruling of TP is a sin that must be punished!

Those on the right may be accused by "anonymous sources" and that is considered a "serious matter".  On the left, the aggreived can come forward, be known, submit testimony, and it is STILL ignored as "not important".

Some animals are more equal than others.

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Vox Explained

National Review Online:

I've seen Vox show up a few times on FB and other places now, and since I'm about to use a link from them in another post, I thought I'd check them out a bit.

Ezra Klein is the editor in chief of Vox. He is a PROGRESSIVE writer / blogger that worked for the WaPO doing "Wonkblog". He was an associate editor at American Prospect (progressive) and a contributor to MSBC and Bloomberg news ... if you follow the link in his name above you will to go the Wikipedia entry for him. He is VERY left wing.

The NRO article is quite long and exhaustive -- the basic purpose of Vox is "in depth reporting" kind of like National Public Radio. I suppose in their universe, both consider themselves "unbiased" in that they make the sound of one left hand clapping. As I like to say of NPR, "They cover both the left and the far left"!

After the linked article goes through a citiqueing a few Vox stories both positive and negative, it ends up with the following, which I agree with -- since we know their biases, we can likely glean quite a few unintended facts from them even with the bias, and it is ALWAYS good to have a reasonably deep understanding of the other sides arguments!

If you’re going to tell someone what they should think about something under the guise of “here’s what you need to know about” something, it really ought to include . . . everything you need to know about something. That’s nearly impossible, of course, which is why most people trying to persuade you are a little more upfront about it. This new venture isn’t going to do that, but that doesn’t mean it can’t sometimes be a useful resource and a helpful corrective.

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Loss and "Closure"

Link to WSJ Article

Ran into what I found to be a fairly short description of dealing with death and loss on WSJ that seems very worth of consideration for those of us forced to deal with this topic -- which is ALL of us until we exit this mortal coil.

Every person and every loss is unique. Some may want to have some sort of "closure" (no matter what the article says) ... possibly for "always", or they may change their mind on the topic in the same night ... both directions. Emotion, grief, loss, death -- these are not topics that lend themselves to pat answers or "one size fits all" templates for how they "should" proceed.

Be there for those that have lost that are grieving and try to support them in what they are going through as best you can understand what they need  -- and pray that there will be someone that does the same when it happens to you!

NEVER make statements like "You OUGHT to ..." Ought, should, so and so did, etc relative to someone dealing with loss are minefields. Just avoid walking into them.

OTOH, when it is you that is in grief, TRY to forgive those that are trying to help even if they are doing it horribly.  Even perfect support can at times fail miserably because ... well, because things like logic, rules, guidelines, reason, common sense, etc really don't count for much when facing the permanent (for this life) loss of part of one's very soul.

I liked the following paragraph even though I think it as well can be wrong in some cases. The article is worth the short read.

The reality is that closure is a myth. My personal and professional experience with those who have lost friends and family, including children, has taught me that going on with life is not the same as gaining closure. The wound of loss is a part of each person’s life forever. We continue to think about those dear to us, though perhaps not every day or with the same intensity. Recollection is sometimes provoked by a date on the calendar or, less predictably, by a sight, sound, aroma, melody or place that evokes the missing person.

Dunning-Kruger Effect Revisited

Revisiting why incompetents think they’re awesome | Ars Technica:

I ran into this and remembered that I had covered this in the past at this link. Since nobody read that one, I did some editing and am going to include what I wrote in this post. The basic idea is that in many areas people are "unconsciously incompetent", or basically "too stupid to know how stupid they are, so they assume they are intelligent".

As Darwin put it, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge". The Dunning-Kruger (DK) study seems to prove it and shows the following:

1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

It seems obvious in looking at those that narcissists would be an extreme case -- and also not very likely to be trainable. Obama is pretty much the poster child. A quote from the linked article:

Dunning believes there are two key issues: first, critical thinking skills, applied to your own knowledge, as well as everything else, are vital. But, importantly, if you don't exercise critical thinking skills, they will fade, leaving you with a false impression of your own abilities.

Naturally, the Moose is immune to DK effects because the Moose is AVERAGE, and the problem with DK begins because people (as opposed to mooses) believe they are above average!

I maintain that the BIG problem with DK is "The Party (TP-D) Standard Knowledge". No need to think if you agree with "the 97%" as one recent supposed "expert" did before congress.  The left often likes to assert that such loss of critical thinking happens to "conservatives" with the "FAUX News Effect", but considering that most every other outlet plus the universities tend to lean left, they for some reason are never worried that their own "critical thinking" might have a small chance to atrophy.

We see a bit of that atrophy in the author of the column where he says:

That said, spotting an expert outside of one’s field is a task one can become better at. And that’s important, given just how much information, good and bad, is not available to people. For example, is the expert associated with a university (a good sign) or some 'think tank' (a bad sign)?" Again, though, this takes experience and expertise. Groups like think tanks try to give themselves the trappings of expertise in a move specifically designed to fool us into trusting their statements.

So why pray tell does grant money from a government or some very possibly biased other source going to a researcher at a university have less effect on what kind of research they do or the conclusions that they might come to than funding at a "think tank"? As I pointed out in the FAUX link above about "Media Matters", their whole schtick is looking for "conservative" bias. It would be a rare university indeed where you find any of THAT!

In any case, the following is copied from the 09 post that nobody read -- so I cheated!

We **ALL** fall prey to DK, since we are all OFTEN incompetent!  In fact, for ALL of us, our areas of incompetence VASTLY exceed those areas where we are competent, and the worst problem tends to be those areas where we are "unconsciously incompetent". We are too stupid to know that we don't know!

If you are more intelligent than the average person, you can commonly "make something up" that will sound plausible to all but the more intelligent or the better trained in some area that you happen to drift into. Even worse, if you couple high intelligence with argumentative ability, you are likely to intimidate even those who really DO know from pointing it out since you will STILL be hard to argue with / convince. (If you are REALLY bad, you will just call them "racist" if they point out where you are wrong!)

A near certain sign of a vast level of ignorance and high level of the DK  effect is the belief  that "Someone that was "smart" could explain this to me SIMPLY (meaning "simple" to the person that wants the explanation)". Often this comes with the corollary that "If it can't be explained (to the person) "simply", NOBODY  understands it very well and all views (certainly MINE!) are pretty much "equal"".  The simple answer to this is Quantum Physics -- geniuses like Feynman knew that if you weren't confused, you REALLY didn't understand it!

The core of this idea is viewing ones self as the center of the universe to an extraordinary degree -- why is it that all phenomena ought to be easily explainable to YOU (if indeed to ANYONE)? It is a piece of unfounded faith that shows extreme ignorance coupled with hubris, but remember, it is very possible to couple extreme ignorance with high intelligence. Narcissists are often exactly this case -- convinced they are the only one that really matters, and their special knowledge, opinion and perspective is really the only one that counts! Obama may be the greatest example of this in history!

High Dunning-Kruger and great communication skills is especially dangerous. "See Obama". Note, Reagan had great communications skills, but very low DK -- he clearly knew what he didn't know and acted accordingly. Bush had poor communications skills, and I'd argue a low DK problem as well -- he also was willing to bring in expertise that he knew exceeded his and support them. BO has no clue about economics, mideast history, running car companies, what it takes to win against terrorists, or apparently even Constitutional Law, which was SUPPOSED to be his specialty!  -- but no matter. He is absolutely convinced he can do all of them because he has a law degree from Harvard and worked as a Community Organizer for awhile!

Very much thought about this and the term "chilling" doesn't really do it justice!

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Sowell, BO's Theater, Gun Marker

Showman-in-Chief - Thomas Sowell - Page full:

For an EXHAUSTIVE view on the studies, surveys, research, etc relative to guns, and the huge difficulty of making any sense out of it statistically, I recommend this.

The Second Amendment was plain and clear in the US Constitution for over 200 years, but by 2008, our nation was so screwed up that the Supreme Court had to get involved to "interpret" the plain text of the Constitution lest it be taken to mean "our soldiers can carry guns". Even then, it was 5 to 4 -- when a nation goes dim, it seems to go very dim very fast!

The president used to be sworn to uphold that Constitution, especially after the SCOTUS has recently ruled, but BO doesn't care about anything in that old document -- separation of powers, limited powers, rights of citizens, etc ... BO is certain he is THE supreme authority, and since "The Party" (D) is not going to stand up for their oaths of office either, the lawless regime slithers on.

TP is not going to rest until the guns in private hands are rounded up, one way or another, because their power will never be total until that happens, and they are not going to stop short of TOTAL POWER!

However, this is WAY past "statistics". As Jefferson said; "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms". Without the rule of law, we are down to the bitter end of the freedoms that our founders bequeathed us. They understood that freedom is NEVER free, and unfortunately, either the last ember left here will finally die, or it will be "refreshed with the blood of patriots".

In the meantime, the Sowell article is excellent reading -- oh if only Sowell could have been our first Black President, we would be a great nation once more!

Those who have been marveling at Donald Trump's political showmanship were given a reminder of who is the top showman of them all, when President Barack Obama went on television to make a pitch for his unilateral actions to restrict gun sales and make a more general case for tighter gun control laws. 

It was beautifully choreographed, like a great ballet, and performed with consummate skill and understated eloquence. First of all, the scene was set with a room full of people who had lost loved ones to gun violence. A father whose son had been gunned down made a long introduction before the president showed up, walked down the aisle and up on to the stage to growing applause. 

As political theater, it put Donald Trump's rantings in the shade.

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Auto-Brewery, Gut Induced .40 BAC

New Yorker Beats DUI Charge With Auto-Brewery Syndrome Defense:



I did a LITTLE bit of checking. I'm not ready to completely sign up for this one, but it does appear that there really may be a rare condition documented where people spontaneously brew ethanol in their guts! Stranger still, at least some of these people can apparently regularly walk around with Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) like .40 that would make most of us comatose or DEAD!

I’m in touch with about 30 people who believe they have this same syndrome, about 10 of them are diagnosed with it (…) They can function at alcohol levels such as 0.30 and 0.40 when the average person would be comatose or dying. Part of the mystery of this syndrome is how they can have these extremely high levels and still be walking around and talking. 

Definitely a case of completely USELESS news, but given how strange the supposed "real news" is these days,  even I like a bit of "news of the weird".



I'm not very a very credulous person ... my guess is that in the vast majority of these cases (maybe all), the root is a really crafty closet long term alcoholic that can REALLY hide their booze.





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Fragility, Hope, Blame, Packers

Green Bay Packers- Is it Time to Blame Rodgers? | isportsweb:

The BIGGEST message I take from the Packers regular season is that having a top flight football team is UNBELIEVABLY hard and whenever you have one, it is FRAGILE!

The Pack had not been swept by the division at home since 1968! I was FLOORED ... we had a number of teams during the '70s and '80s that lost to St Norbert's School for Blind Girls by more than two touchdowns in exhibition games! Yes, yes, we always give thanks for the Motor City Kitties, and how hard it is for them to play when their paws are cold, but wow. 1968!

It ought to be clear by now that NOBODY has a clue as to what all went wrong with the offense, but the fact is that early in the year Rodgers was playing GREAT and he got a tremendous amount of credit for that (too much), so it is really only fair that now he is starting to get some blame:

At the end of the day, the buck stops with the quarterback. Every game, Rodgers is missing open receivers and making plays no Packers fan expected to see this season. In Week 17, he had two opportunities to put together a drive to tie the game with his team down by 7 points in the fourth quarter. During the first possession, Rodgers called a crucial timeout because he was unable to get his offense ready to snap the ball on time. Without calling that timeout, the Packers would have had an extra 40 seconds on their last possession. 

On the next play, Rodgers threw an ugly interception in the end zone when it looked like James Jones made a strong break towards the pylon and had a chance to catch the ball in the end zone. Instead the ball was thrown softly and far behind Jones, giving him no opportunity to make the catch. The final drive ended in a Hail Mary due to the wasted time out, and the Packers did not end up as lucky as they were in Detroit earlier in this season. The result: second place in the NFC North.

One of my theories is that given the Packers situation now, Rodgers extreme hatred of interceptions is working against him. He's losing fumbles for TDs trying to "safely make something happen". Favre would have slung it in there come hell or high water. NOTE, I've OFTEN lamented that Favre was WAY too much over on the "sling it" side, but I'm afraid that given the tattered line and the receivers that aren't going to get the separation that Arod wants to see, he needs to err a bit more on the "gun it" side if we want to win a playoff game.

Reason says that we lose to the Redskins somewhat pitifully -- amazingly, if you take the 2nd half of the season, Kirk Cousins is high seed QB and Rodgers is low seed!

Of course, my hope never dies, especially after the end of the Detroit game. The true optimist says. the last time we lost the NFC N, we won the Superbowl!

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Shoot Y'all Qaeda, Occupy Whatever

Dwight and Steven Hammond, the Oregon Standoff, and the Problems with Mandatory Minimums - The Atlantic:

I have a good deal of sympathy with the plight of 73 year old Dwight Hammond and his middle aged son Steven going back to prison. My understanding is that they wanted to lie low and were not all that thrilled with the demonstrations for them, and are completely not on board with the "occupation". I doubt hardly anyone other than the Bundys support the "occupation".

The middle east is burning down, N Korea is testing H-bombs, and his BOness is making law by fiat in direct opposition to the Constitution. Do we really care if some nuts took over some remote outhouse in the middle of the winter?

Oh, yeah, they are "right wing", so therefore "terrorists" -- this is a MUCH bigger problem than non-Islamic acts of direct violence carried out by people who happen to follow the Muslim religion which has NOTHING to do with the acts of violence ... did I mention it would be HORRIBLE to call acts by such people "Islamic", it might lead to a BACKLASH!

Did you hear that there are **ARMED** RIGHT WING TERRORISTS OCCUPYING A FEDERAL BUILDING!!! OMG! ... There was a MILITIA involved (in the march, not the occupation)! Can we call in the Army, Navy, Marines, NSA, CIA ... hell, call in the entire ALPHABET!

The linked article makes the obvious point that why the hell is the left not realizing that the Hammonds are victims of MANDATORY SENTENCING ... which the left is supposed to HATE!

But sadly, the Atlantic left wing itself, so doesn't understand that consistency is not an issue! Mandatory sentencing is bad for BLACKS, but the Bundy folks are WHITE, and did you know they are RIGHT WING! No sentences for Blacks, shoot the damned right wing whites! Why not?

“While federal management of public lands is legitimate and occupying a federal facility is unjustified,” a left-leaning publication might have editorialized, “it’s easy to see why the Hammond case struck some observers as unjust. The notion that judges are there to exercise discretion based on context––that it’s odious to force them to give severe sentences even when they judge them to be ‘grossly disproportionate’––is exactly what criminal-justice reformers have long argued. There have been bipartisan reforms on this issue before. Let’s abolish all mandatory minimums for good through the civic process, not counterproductive armed protests.”

The linked column also introduces something that makes sense -- "Red Tribe" and "Blue Tribe". After electing a man who claims his main identity is as a "Luo Tribesman", is it any wonder that our nation has descended from a being a Republic of Laws rater than men to a couple of warring tribes?

The blogger Scott Alexander once argued with more detail than I can quote here that “if you’re part of the Blue Tribe, then your outgroup isn’t al-Qaeda, or Muslims, or blacks, or gays, or transpeople, or Jews, or atheists—it’s the Red Tribe.”

We live in a nation where the federal government charges a 73 year old guy with TERRORISM for burning a few acres of land that nobody cares about for reasons that are at least sane. Not only that, he goes to trial, gets convicted, but the judge makes his sentence short in view of the "crime" .... BUT, the government has to have it's full pound of flesh, so they send him back to prison for 5 years, and that brings in some nutcases that are ticked off.

The fact they are ticked off is pretty understandable -- the fact that they decided to occupy a remote building is what makes them nutcases -- but nutcases that are causing WAY less of an issue than Black Lives Matter folks shooting, blocking interstates, occupying precinct houses, rioting, looting, etc.

Like WAY LESS problem!

I don't agree with the occupation, but the majority of this nation seems to be every bit as insane as the guys out in the boonies in the outhouse!

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British Doctor Strike, Private vs Public

Britain set for first mass strike by doctors in 40 years | Reuters:

Nothing like a Doctor strike to kick off a new year on a good foot:

Ninety-eight percent of more than 37,000 junior doctors had voted to take part in industrial action, including strikes, in protest against the new employment contract proposed by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

 I'm not in the mood to a waste too much time lamenting the rapid decline in the US health system -- anybody that paid any attention, knew it would happen, and it has -- it will continue! But time for a few words I guess.

If you look through this article you will see that Britain has a Public Health System and a Private Health System, and that the Public System is "very popular". At first, this may seem hard to understand, but one needs to ask the question; "Are there more sick people or healthy people"? Fortunately, for a large part of people's lives, their health insurance is like their car insurance -- they don't use it very often, and when they DO it is for smaller claims.

As long as all you need the healthcare service for is "standard stuff", "Post Office Medicine" is just fine (when they aren't striking), and thankfully, for the bulk of the population during most of their lives, that will be all they need. Since half of the people make the median income or below, and they tend to not be taxed very much, they get "free healthcare", it is all that they need, and they don't have to worry about it! So at least half the population LOVES IT -- and no doubt at least 10-20% above that like it too.

So how in the world can a private system continue to work and even expand in the same country if Public Healthcare is so good?

Well, because people get sick -- and sometimes, chronically sick for long periods of time. A woman from England worked in Rochester for years because her mother had emphysema and had watched way to many people die because they could not breath in the public health ward with 5-10 beds in a large room, and not enough staff to cover. We also had people working here that came from Canada for treatment, and it is not unusual at all to see a Canadian license plate when you do through a clinic parking lot.

British life expectancy for males is 79. It is hard to get good data for "white, no criminal record, etc" life expectancy in the US, but this chart shows that for even the top half of the income level in the US, you were looking at 85 to even pushing 90 at the very top. US stats (gun deaths for example) are HEAVILY biased by our largely Democrat controlled big city cesspools of crime and depravity. For "rural / suburban, some college, middle income and over, stable family, etc", our numbers are quite a bit better than we are often led to believe.

But this is changing. The top 10% here, in Canada, in England, in Saudi Arabia, etc **WILL** get the "top care in the world" wherever that ends up being. It MAY stay here -- Mayo is certainly gamely TRYING to be a "Destination Medical Center" -- sometimes it is ALL we hear about here in Rochester, and BILLIONS are being spent on that effort.

However, that is ONLY for the top 10%, and even moving to be just the top 1%. The rest of us are now getting used to DECLINING life expectancies. For those of us in the upper 50% of the income grid we already have declining quality of care at HUGELY higher costs, to the tune of many thousands of $$$$ more each year ... not some whimpy "10-20% rise" as there used to be complaints about. No, now we are into the paying $5-10 THOUSAND vs a few hundred in the pre-BOcare rape times.

Our lives will be shorter, but at least most will enjoy them less, so we can take some solace in that. BO seems to have ushered in the "Suicide Generation" with the rates of middle aged white guys killing themselves at levels that were headline news when the guys dying were gays with AIDs. People really cared about AIDs.

Middle aged white guys with no meaning left in their lives? Let's be honest, nobody even wants to hear about it!

The USSR was a great place for "equality" -- everyone was poor! We also know that it wasn't really "everyone" "The Party" is "more equal than others". The Party Chairman can even just get up on national TV and declare new laws because he feels strongly about it. As one time, Americans would have been outraged -- now, we trudge along with our heads down like so many sheep.

Perhaps North Korea or Iran will settle it for us, but I have a strong feeling that our well deserved exit is going to be longer and excruciatingly painful to watch.

BTW. If you do go off and look at the top linked article, they will mention "anti-social hours", you can Learn about anti-social hours in this link. The short version is "it's hours outside of "8-5" weekdays in England.

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Assortive Marriage

The Marriages of Power Couples Reinforce Income Inequality - The New York Times:

Marriage is a giant problem for the left since it is adaptive -- meaning "it works" to create better health, greater happiness, better outcomes for children, better societies and communities, and yes, higher incomes and wealth. I've covered this in more detail before.

It is also exceedingly old news that the biggest determinants of wealth and poverty in the US are:

1. Delaying having children until after marriage
2. Finishing High School
3. Staying married to the same spouse

The left doesn't much like to talk about these facts because their idea is that people have no responsibility for outcomes in their lives and the job of government is to randomize incentives and disincentives so people end up in the same economic state no matter what choices they make.

Naturally, like all ideas of the left, reality continues to cause them problems. It turns out that when it comes to marriage, once you have created a whole bunch of highly educated career women, they have a nasty tendency to marry some guy that is similar to them in education and income! Who could have imagined such a thing! They call this phenomenon "Assortive Marriage"

The numbers show that assortative mating really matters. One studyindicated that combined family decisions on assortative mating, divorce and female labor supply accounted for about one-third of the increase in income inequality from 1960 to 2005. That result is from the economist Jeremy Greenwood, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and other co-authors.

This is startling news to "liberals". It "creates inequality", DAMN!

They don't indicate what they want to try to DO about this ... for fairly obvious reasons. Arranged marriages maybe? 100% tax rate on one partner working over a certain income level? Since they WANT higher income women, perhaps they will declare that the husband of a woman that makes over say "$50 or $100K" can't work -- or just gets taxed at 100%?

No doubt their fertile minds are hard at work to make all equally miserable!


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Rahm, Blue City Canary

Why the Rahm Story Matters - The American Interest:

A good one from Walter Russel Mead.

The biggest problem with Democrat policies is that they don't work for anything but buying votes. They run cities, states and nations into bankruptcy, destroy families, create rampant crime, violence and corruption and destroy productivity -- but other than that, oh, did I mention they are good at buying votes?

The whole article is worth a read, but the closing is right on target.

The increasing fragility of blue cities and states is the biggest problem the Democratic coalition faces. Those who hope that demographic change will create a “permanent Democratic majority” need to think about arithmetic as well as demography. The numbers don’t add up for blue cities. The governing model doesn’t produce the revenue that can sustain it long-term. Making cities work—enabling them to provide necessary services at sustainable cost levels while achieving economic development that rebuilds the urban middle class—is the biggest challenge the Democratic Party faces. As Mayor Emmanuel is learning, that is a daunting task.

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Open Carry TX

Armed Texans Celebrate State’s New Open-Carry Status - The New York Times:

The article fails to address the main reason to have open carry on the books. If you don't, a concealed carrier that inadvertently exposes their weapon can often be charged with "display" or even "brandishing" by an anti-gunner, or just a nervous citizen that happens to see the gun.

Very few people will actually open carry other than in isolated cases to "make a statement". Not a very smart statement in my opinion, but freedoms never really were about "protecting the popular".

The best way to carry is concealed. Let the bad guys worry that nearly everyone is carrying concealed, and they don't have any target to go for if they want to take your gun, often the problem that police face because their guns are right there in the open.

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Occupy Oregon Wilderness Headlines

Militia members occupy federal building in Oregon after protest:

Occupy "Federal Building"? They are apparently in the Visitors Center of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in VERY remote Oregon. How about "Protestors Occupy Remote Visitors Center"? Accurate, but not the narrative the MSM is trying to active.

Why does the headline say "Federal Building"? My guess is that it is an attempt to get people's minds to link back to the Oklahoma City Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah FEDERAL BUILDING by Timothy McVeigh. The media went to extraordinary lengths to link the bombing to "right wing militias", and most likely with a lot of the standard MSM listening sheeple and least somewhat succeeded.

Anyone remember "Occupy Wall Street"? Notice any difference in the kind of  emotional context the MSM wants to bring out in this case vs that? Consider the occupation of the State Capitol in Madison as Walker sought to reduce collusion between government unions and Democrats, Ferguson Missouri, various college campuses and even the 4th Precinct in Minneapolis this past November.

Some will say "These people are ARMED!". Sure, probably, this is WAY RURAL Oregon. Many of the people occupying the previously mentioned things in previous paragraph may have well been armed as well. MN, WI, MO at least are Concealed Carry states. We DO have a 2nd Amendment right to be armed, it is SHOOTING INNOCENTS that is illegal!

Anyone want to bet that if this remote facility was being "occupied" by Indians the story would be a whole lot less prevalent and cast in a WAY different light? Even up in the Minneapolis, many on the left suggested that they should just leave the precinct occupied! Right in downtown Minneapolis. You suppose that holding a remote building in remote Oregon in January is something that authorities could just "wait out" if such was a good idea in downtown Minneapolis?

I wouldn't really recommend going off and reading this ... long, not well edited at all, etc but the bottom line is that for at least decades, the Hammond family has been battling the government who is trying to move them off their land and eminent domain it for "wildlife" (even though the wildlife seems to actually prefer the private land over the federal land). This came to a head with some charges that appear to be EXTREMELY specious relative to some burning done on private lands years ago, which the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) escalated to "terrorism".

The jailing of a couple men from the Hammond family is what brought in the Bundy family who are of some fame from their fight with the BLM in Nevada. Apparently there were some "Militia Members" in a march in Burns OR,  a "city" of 2,700 near the wildlife refuge, but the "occupiers" are just some Bundy people and possibly a couple others. The Hammond family has nothing to do with the Bundys ... they just showed up.

Seriously? This is HEADLINE NEWS in a nation of 300 million people? While Saudi Arabia and Iran have dropped diplomatic relations and are at each others throats partially because of our feckless "agreement" with Iran???

 I keep thinking at SOME point even a large percentage of the sheep will see some of this stuff and go "WTF"????

Apparently not.

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Executive Action Ends Pursuit, Achieves Happiness

At a town meeting this week, Barack Obama announced a comprehensive program on happiness that will begin immediately. The program, called "BOhappy!",  a play on "Be Happy",  is far more comprehensive and far more intelligent than any previous program. The announcement received wide support from Democrats and all media that broadcast the speech. Fox news and a number of AM stations inexplicably were suffering technical difficulties, as well as selective internet sources. We were unable to find any politicians to comment in opposition to the program -- it seemed that a great many of them were still out of town from the holidays.

The text of the speech:

My fellow Americans.

We have succeeded completely in changing this nation to be more hopeful in the last seven years through my many "Smart Changes"(tm). In my last year of office, I'm finishing the job and insuring that Hope remains unshaken, and there are no future attempts to undo the Change that I have provided you through my unprecedented intelligence and leadership ability.

Today, the greatest number of people in our nations history are pursuing their dreams of watching TV and playing internet games rather than wasting their time on worthless college degrees or low paying jobs. We are increasingly a happy and contented nation. Abroad, foreign leaders are so confused they are supporting Donald Trump.

But I'm not satisfied, and it is clear that many of you are not as well. I can't in good conscience leave office with my task not fully finished.

Effective immediately, all people over the age of five will be given mandatory wrist bands similar to the FitBit(tm) to be worn at all times.  Every hour in which the wearer is awake (detected by attitude/motion), the band will buzz, and if the wearer is happy, they will push the "Happy Button" (tm).

Anyone who is not happy over 50% of the time will be immediately enrolled in Free and Mandatory(tm) happiness training. In the event the person is not able to attend the training or the training is ineffective, they will be introduced to one of a series of "Happiness Camps" in remote areas of the country. Here, away from negative stimuli, all the capabilities of modern science and technology can be brought to bear on the cause of this unfortunate condition,

Typically, in a few months, or at most a year, the unhappy person will be returned as a fully happy and supportive citizen. In some cases though, often after a number of failed attempts, it will be clear that this person can really only be happy by permanently remaining in these wonderful facilities dedicated to the happiness of all. I know that we all want our loved ones to be happy, and now we can rest assured that their happiness is certain!

Make no mistake. As has happened so many times, I'm certain there are racist and reactionary elements in the Congress and at Fox News that will seek to undermine this program, or even make specious claims that it is somehow outside the scope of my office to see to it that Americans are happy! These people are our shared enemy, nearly as dangerous as Climate Change! I remind these ideologically driven relics of the past, that the efficacy of this program is scientifically proven! 97% of scientists currently agree that this program will be 100% effective -- and my advisors assure me that the other 3% will be in agreement in less than a month!

Everyone has sought happiness for millennia. It would be wrong to not insure that even my opponents attain a state of bliss, so earlier today I instructed the Secret Service, Homeland Security and the Capitol Police to immediately transport both Houses of Congress, the SCOTUS, and key State Officials from States that we are able to discern have been unable to achieve the happiness we desired for them in the past seven years, to a specialized Accelerated Happiness (AH ... tm) facility in far Northern Saskatchewan. I have reached agreement with Prime Minister Trudeau that extreme isolation is needed to achieve the results we all desire in as short a time as possible. As I speak to you, your representatives and Supreme Court Judges are already well on the way to lives of total happiness!

Polls tell me that intelligent and reasonable Americans have had more than enough of the constant bickering and discord in Washington DC, as certainly have I. Those days are now in the past. The National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Medical Association (AMA), and the National Security Administration (NSA) have assured me that we have the knowledge, methods, technology and information to absolutely insure complete happiness and support from all three branches of government in less than six months.

We have entered a new era where we WILL all finally be in complete and HAPPY agreement! The old idea of "pursuit of happiness" is another false idea from the past, shrouded in superstition and racism. Through my guidance and leadership we have finally reached the greatest day in the history of our nation!

Tonight, I can sign off KNOWING that well before this time next year, 100% of Americans will be completely happy! It goes without saying that I am deservedly proud of my many accomplishments, but tonight I leave you on the threshold of what people of the past, their minds clouded by superstition, racism and waiting fervently for the advent of my leadership, were only able to dream of!

We no longer "wish" or "pursue". Tonight, we KNOW that we WILL have a Happy New Year! I have again exceeded even the highest expectations of those who supported me in creating an America that my wife Michelle and I could  finally take pride in.

Good Night, Happy New Year, and I fully and deservedly accept your thanks for this, my greatest achievement so far!

Sapiens, A Brief History of Humanity

http://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451706273&sr=1-1&keywords=sapiens

"Sapiens" by Yuval Harari, is a bit more thoughtful than standard atheist rendering of the ascent of man, with even some small refreshing hints of humility. It is broad in scope, proposing to cover the story of man from pre-history up through the Cognitive Explosion, agriculture, civilizations, religion, the "Enlightenment" and on through modern times to conjectures of the possibility that our species will pass through a "Singularity" driven by genetic engineering, nanotech, cybernetics or AI that creates a "new species" more "god" than man.

Why? Well, he summarizes the tragedy of that quite well at one point (p 391):

Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if the planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about it's business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence, any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion. The other-worldly meaning medieval people found in their lives was no more deluded than the modern humanist, nationalist, and capitalist meanings of modern people's beliefs. 

The last line of the book,  ending with some trepidation of the potential amoral terror of meaningless power unleashed  is:

Is there anything more dangerous than irresponsible and dissatisfied gods who don't know what they want?

A fitting ending, but my opinion is that he does perform a useful function in pointing out that from the atheist scientific viewpoint, ALL of the religions and ideologies in world history are "imaginary" -- they have to be. This is the lament of Nietzsche as he said "God is dead" -- so Nietzsche suggested that SOMEBODY had better get down to business and form some "new myths", because the old "god myth" in his mind was dead. Fortunately, Nietzsche (and his soulmate, Hitler)  is definitely dead, so his pronouncements are at best "hollow".

I've been over this ground a few times, but it is fairly complex ground, so the fact that humans CAN'T OPERATE beyond "family, clan, tribe" exceeding orders of say 250 people tops UNLESS they have some shared believed order (he calls it "imagined order"). Religion, money, capitalism, democracy, liberalism, communism, human rights, corporations, animal rights (he likes that one, you can tell), nationalism -- they are ALL imagined (at least if you are an atheist, they HAVE to be!). This whole issue is covered well in "Dawin's Cathedral".

He asks a wonderful question on p176:

Was the late Neil Armstrong, whose footprint remains intact on the windless moon, happier than the nameless hunter-gatherer who 10K years ago left her handprint on the wall in Chauvet Cave? If not, what was the point of developing agriculture, cities, writing, writing, coinage, empires, science and industry? 

To which I'd put my tongue in cheek and add Scotch and ZZ Top. He does take the time to stumble around through the problems with "happiness" or "pleasure" as the meaning of life.

If happiness is based on feeling pleasant sensations, then in order to be happier we need to re-engineer our biochemical system. If happiness is based on feeling life is meaningful, then we need to delude ourselves more effectively. Is there a third alternative?

Both the above views share the assumption that happiness is some sort of subjective feeling (of either pleasure or meaning) and that in order to judge people's happiness, all we have to do is ask them how they feel. To many of us that seems logical because the dominant religion of our age is liberalism. Liberalism sanctifies the subjective feelings of individuals. It views these feelings as the supreme source of authority. 

He realizes the fact that "Liberalism" is the dominant religion, and he then points out the fallacy of liberalism. It will be interesting to see if he is spared from some sort of punishment from the liberal hierarchy, or if the fact that he espouses no specific alternative to the state religion gains him clemency. In one specific line he observes,  "Like Satan (who he does NOT believe in), DNA (which he does, and believes to be meaningless) uses fleeting pleasures to tempt people to place them in it's power."  For a non-sentient non-entity DNA, "uses" seems wrong ... "employs"? "infuses"? killing teleology (purpose) is much harder than killing "god", but without God, humans are the only teleological source available ... and so far, we haven't modified our DNA.

He recognizes that there is NO CHOICE but to throw the REQUIRED baby of the ability of humans to cooperate on scales much larger than 250 people out with the "bathwater" of god when you decide that "god is a myth" because certainly that means that EVERYTHING other than hard science is a "myth" (and that is at best an "inductive myth about mechanism ONLY"). It is this intellectual honesty that I find the best feature of the book. He realizes we have to have "myths" that nobody questions -- but he doesn't have any idea how that would be maintained in a truly "advanced" society that in his definition would be "pure science".

I don't completely agree with him that science is exempt from being pitched as well -- it requires a belief in universal order that is only falsifiable according to Popper, so it's "basic truth" is as fragile as the next experiment. Let's not even go into it being "imagined" just like everything else from a human consciousness that is a total mystery, and human perceptions which we are completely unable to check against some "other perception" (whatever that might be!).

He also realizes that science is completely value free -- it has no "right or wrong", it only has "correct / incorrect", "works / doesn't work".  Nuclear bombs or nuclear power are "just technology that works" -- science can say naught about which is "the good / better". It's methods explicitly deny such questions.

He does a good job in "The Prison Walls" (p112) of discussing how "The Imagined Order" is currently maintained ...  it's embedded in the material world (statues, buildings, etc), it shapes our desires (we buy into fabrications like "individualism" and they are so real we can't imagine an alternative, but most of all, it's "intersubjective") ... which he defines as follows:

Objective --  a truth that is OUT THERE" -- like gravity or radiation. Not ignorable by man. It would be there just the same if man ceased to exist.

Subjective -- meaning a truth that exists in the beliefs of one person (a child's imaginary friend)

Intersubjective -- a subjective truth shared by a group of people (money, christianity, human rights, progressivism,  communism,  global warming, ...)

So there you have it -- we are a species possibly on the brink of making ourselves into "superhuman gods", and we have no ideas of meaning, purpose, good/evil, etc beyond "myths" -- none of which the author finds to be apparently worthy of allegiance or even compelling.

He DOES come VERY close to one of my conjectures at one point, but he misses it by a smidgen (p 221), and there is a bit of irony in his pronouncement here considering his last line. Does he realize that he postulates the unleashing on the universe of something much akin to the belief that he finds "logical" about god (evil), but that nobody up to now has had the stomach for?

So monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism (Devil) explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: there is a single omnipotent god who has created the universe, and he is evil! But nobody in history has had a stomach for such a belief. 

No, there is at least another (and probably many) logical answers -- there are MANY universes and free will is at least one of the engines that causes them to "fork". God created a perfect universe with free will. If we would have followed Gods will, there would be no evil. Evil is simply using free will to do other than what God intended  -- his perfect universe still exists, and he has even sent his Son to allow our now mostly evil one to be saved, which I believe it will be, but unfortunately at the cost of those who reject that option, again using their free will. They will exist for eternity with the result of their own choice (a choice they freely made against God's will).

It's a good read -- it is ultimately depressing if you accept his view that there is no meaning and we are eventually going to be transformed into some new species of angry, confused, capricious "gods", but it does do a better job of covering the challenge of "what is the good" than many books of this type, even though it ultimately gives no answer.

Perhaps it is meant to be the story of unleashing an evil god on the universe -- the one nobody has been willing to stomach.

15 Lefty Narrative Killing Pieces of Reality

15 Stats That Destroy Liberal Narratives - John Hawkins - Page full:





This is the synapsis, more detail in the article as well as links even MORE detail!

1. Muslims are five thousand times more likely to commit a terrorist act than non-Muslims. 
2. It's very hard to support charges that America is "racist" with statistics. 
3. BOcare is expensive and it reduces quality of care
4. BOcare only increased coverage by 2.7%
5. Sanders thinks you can fund $18B in new programs from "the rich" -- you can't 
6. In '10 38K died from drug overdoses while 30K died in car accidents, 13K were murdered and 700 died in gun accidents. 
7. Since '79 our cost on poverty programs has gone of 6x, but the poverty numbers have barely budged
8. In the last 4 years, 121 illegals released by ICE have committed murder. 
9. Since 2000, SNAP (food stamps) has grown from $20B to $80B ... 46.5 million are on it. 
10. Drug offenders make up 16% of state prison population and only 7% of Federal ... Let them ALL out and 84% of state offenders stay and 93% of Federal. 
11. Undocumented Democrats paid $39B in taxes in 2011and used $94B in services. 
12. WaPO thinks there have been 355 "mass shootings" this year. Mother Jones (supposedly FAR left) thinks 4 this year, 73 since '82. 
13. We didn't really bring in Muslims until after 1965
14. Homosexuality is not genetic, and that is WAY more "settled" than Global Warming! 
15. only 4 in 10 of the young entering the workforce last year found jobs

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The "We're Not Worthy" Civilization

Seeing the West as worse - The Orange County Register:

A society that no longer believes in its core beliefs cannot prevail against rivals who, although less wealthy and far less technologically advanced, embrace their core ideals. A West that rejects (and sometimes is unaware of) its own heritage cannot overcome those who, for religious or national reasons, have a powerful belief in theirs.

Seems pretty obvious does it not? What is it that we are supposed to believe in here in "middle north america?". Global Warming and Republicans are the greatest threat to our "civilization"? You mean the baby killing gender confused cult of shopping? THAT "civilization"?

As the great 15th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun observed, societies that get rich also tend to get soft, both in the physical sense and in the head. Over the past two centuries, Western societies, propelled by the twin forces of technology and capitalist “animal spirits,” have created a diffusion of wealth unprecedented in world history.

Soft in body and soul -- the current essence (such as it is) of the tattered remnant of a once great civilization. The linked article could have been trimmed a good deal in my opinion, but it is generally well done. It closes as follows ...

Ultimately, we can only confront the challenge from authoritarian forces – whether in the Middle East, China or Russia – when we once again embrace our cultural values as important and worthy of protection. Our opponents – and that’s what they are – may be fundamentally weaker than us, but can count on the advantage of belief in their destiny. To save ours, Western culture needs to stay, not be put away.

For those that don't understand the title reference, a bit of comic relief ... because when you have a ringside seat for the end of Western civilization, a little laughter is REQUIRED!

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Truth To Pussies

Back when W Bush was regularly being insulted in every way imaginable by comedians, democrats and the media in this country, the media often used the phrase; "Truth to Power".  Where did that go?

Well, you have to have some "power" if you want to give it some "truth", and after the foggy stench of BO, there is neither. So, the media didn't report it very much a few weeks ago when a retired Lt Colonel referred to our golfer in chief has a "Total Pussy".  It would be an insult if it weren't so true -- as it is, it is just another reminder of how far this once great nation has fallen in just 7 short years. Since we clearly don't have any "Power" in the WH, this is what the guy had to say in a case of total truth to a total pussy:

Mr. President, we're not afraid, we're angry. We're pissed off, we're furious. We want you to react, we want you to do something. He's afraid. He's a total pussy, it's stunning.

We, the American people, who he does not know in any intimate sort of manner, we want action. We want action against Islamic State. 

This is a president who doesn’t want to hurt our enemies. 

This is a president who cares more about thugs in Guantanamo or thugs in Ferguson, MO, than he does about law-abiding American citizens and their right to live in safety and peace.

Back in the days of W, while the media, the democrats and the comedy elite liked nothing better than to poke nasty fun at him,  Iran halted their nuke program for awhile, and Libya gave up their WMD program because they and our own media understood that W had POWER -- they hated it,  but they tacitly admitted it all the time as they spoke of "Truth to Power".

The problem with being a powerless pussy is that nations kick sand in your face -- or not just sand, sometimes they use missiles.

Nothing grabs the attention of the American military like a member of the “axis of evil” firing rockets close to a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the biggest stick in the Pentagon’s massive arsenal. 

That’s just what Iran did Saturday, shooting several unguided rockets about 1,500 yards from the USS Harry S. Truman and a pair of smaller U.S. and French warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

 It takes power, guts, backbone, character, strength, leadership and a bunch of other things BO lacks to make our supposed "big stick" credible. W was credible, and the media unwittingly admitted it, as they now unwittingly admit that BO is not.

The fact that NOBODY uses the "Truth to Power" phrase these days shows us the actual truth.

Governed By Idealistic Idiots

The Reason I’m Anti-Anti-Trump:



The entire column is worth a read -- the bottom line is that the "Empty Chair" that is BO has begat Trump. A sample paragraph ...

"Our government may choose to do many things, such as giving poor children Head Starts, but the much smaller list of things any government must do includes defending the nation’s borders and sovereignty, protecting its citizens, and intimidating its enemies. That 21st-century American government seems neither particularly good at these tasks, nor particularly abashed by its failures, bolsters the Trump campaign’s central message, as distilled by the Atlantic’s David Frum: “We are governed by idiots.” "

I also like his conclusion. The entire column contains a lot of the particular BO follies of the past year that I've covered elsewhere in the blog.

Demagoguery flourishes when democracy falters. A disreputable, irresponsible figure like Donald Trump gets a hearing when the reputable, responsible people in charge of things turn out to be self-satisfied and self-deluded. The best way to fortify Trump’s presidential campaign is to insist his followers’ grievances are simply illegitimate, bigoted, and ignorant. The best way to defeat it is to argue that their justified demands for competent, serious governance deserve a statesman, not a showman.

Hear hear!


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Must Stop New Years From Coming

The time from very late Tuesday the 22nd until the 31st was the shortest and best eight days of my life as we had a wondrous holiday with our little granddaughter, her parents and our youngest son here from Denver. I knew it would be a special Christmas, but was shocked to experience one of the most rare of things in my over intellectualized, overly anxious, and tending to the darker emotions, life. I was treated to the most joyous of surprises as to just how wonderful Christmas could be. I generally dislike surprises -- and often feel concerned even when they are pleasant ones, because I feel I must not have thought adequately to realize this good thing could happen!

Oh, I still managed to "what if" some -- grandpa did a lot of the most careful driving he has ever done, however, unlike falling in love, marriage, having kids, milestones in their life, etc, the wonder and magic of a perfect little granddaughter is such an unalloyed gift that reminds me that God may always have "just one more surprise" in his plans for his children. Even for those who are very much the least deserving of all, which would be me. There are a number of times over the past seven years where I wished that my life had ended earlier because of bad things happening.  I was very wrong ... I would not have been around for those completely undeserved eight days! 

One of the many highlights of the time was the Baptism of our granddaughter, and so the embedded  "Borning Cry" which has become dear to me since becoming a Lutheran. Baptism is a completely undeserved gift, depending on none but Christ -- as is our life, made eternal through the gift of participating in God's Grace. 

It was 2008 before I understood the Lutheran phrase used at death -- "They have left this Vale of Tears".  Sudden younger death holds few advantages, but one is the likely avoidance of learning the impact of what that phrase means. Grandparents, aunts or uncles, pets, etc dying are an introduction to death, but they often fit into "the circle of life" -- the "proper order". "They had a good life" ... "they are at peace now", etc. Such phrases often bring comfort, but not always ... 

Life is even more precious when the "vale of tears" has been experienced. When the rest of your family gets into the car to head to the cities to fly back to Denver with your wife driving, you realize how vulnerable we all are to losses that are all the worse in that they actually are VERY imaginable. 

Some people like to claim that "religion is imaginary",  that there is "no evidence for it". In order to reach that conclusion they must of course not consider how unlikely our existence is, historical evidence for things like the resurrection, etc, but lets just say, OK, it's "imaginary". 

We KNOW that money is all dreamed up by man. Is that real? Capitalism? Communism? Human Rights? Which parts of your important life experience aren't "all in your head"? 

Well, my best Christmas ever is now "all in my head". Will it remain the best that I ever experience? Will tragedy strike and I will again fall prey to wishing it was my last? Will it be my last? Such is the essence of our lives -- poignant, ironic, capricious, indefinite, ethereal, ineffable  ... I'm not about to give up my best Christmas just because it is all in my head -- in fact, it is very very dear to me there -- like my Christianity (if the doubters are right). Sure, the fact that my best Christmas was very much "shared" and is in others heads as well is critical to it being "real" ... same with my Christianity. Same with money ... take a look at times in history when people lose their shared faith in it. Confederate currency anyone? 

So now life goes on with that bittersweet hole in the heart, but also much gratitude to God for allowing me to live to experience that joy. We were able to take her up to see my 89 year old father and get a four generation picture -- considering he was 30 when I was born and I was 31 when my son was born, there is a lot of grace in evidence there! 

Oh how my mom would have loved to hold her! Gods ways are not our ways.  I pray that heaven will wait 100 years at least for that meeting -- and  it will be a great one!

So "New Years Eve came, just the same" (like "The Grinch")  ... and now 2016 has come. 2015 was a year that started in terrible tragedy for us, but from 6/14 on contained a lot of indescribable joy,  and it now slips it's way into being all in our heads (and hearts). 

In childhood, the feeling of "Christmas is over" (and at that time, the INTERMINABLE amount of time until next year!) was a hollow difficult feeling. My parents said "you will grow out of it!" ... and I did, but at the price of Christmas not being as magic and dear as it once was. I was too "grown up" for such childish feelings. 

As my career moved along, there was a similar feeling in going back to work after the holiday break ... that left with the end of working. Then last year was the first year with no kids able to make it home -- a different sense of the holiday that made the loss of my mother touch my heart more as well. Last year was the Christmas of the missing. 

Now I've come full circle for at least one year, to have not "grown out of it" after all! My soul feels that there is a major message of life there -- to know great joy is to know great sadness, there are no peaks without valleys. To enter Heaven we must be "as a little child" -- it seems that God has given me a great lesson in understanding that truth!