Gay Victory, The Next Frontier

It Begins: Pedophiles Call for Same Rights as Homosexuals « Pat Dollard:

"Progress" can never stop for "progressives". If the perfect world that they promise ever became a reality, then they would become "conservatives" -- and we know THAT isn't going to happen!

"Conservatism" is "sustainable" -- because it does not rule out "change" or ACTUAL "progress", it is a BIAS toward the tried and true over the latest and greatest. It prefers the devil we know to the one we don't on the assumption that all things human are flawed, and the "latest and greatest" will prove to have a whole bunch of negatives than what currently have and know to be working at some level. Conservatism is a slow selection between imperfect alternatives.

My summary is that conservatism has enough wisdom to prefer 20 year old Scotch to the most recent hootch to drip out of the still. Only the very young or the very stupid REALLY believe that the latest is the greatest -- no matter what they might say to attempt to impress those around them.

So now that being "gay" is completely as normal as being heterosexual, there MUST be a new frontier! The linked article asserts that one of the pushes will be pedophilia -- which it may well be, but is is certainly not a "new" idea. Very old ... like homosexuality itself in fact. Many primitive tribes, the Greeks, the Romans -- this is both very old and VERY "natural".

The idea of normalizing it here is also not new -- this article from 1993 was one of the reasons I cancelled my over a decade old subscription to "Time" back then. The article pointed out how "small minded" one would have to be to think that a gay teacher that was an active member of "NAMBLA" (North American Man-Boy Love Association) might be a threat to young boys he was teaching. From the article even then it was clear that only some sort of backward prude would question the advantages of gay men having sexual relationships with young boys.

As they say in the linked article:

B4U-Act calls pedophiles “minor-attracted people.” The organization’s website states its purpose is to, “help mental health professionals learn more about attraction to minors and to consider the effects of stereotyping, stigma and fear.” 

In 1998 The APA issued a report claiming “that the ‘negative potential’ of adult sex with children was ‘overstated’ and that ‘the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from childhood sexual abuse experiences.”

You may think to yourself "that is unthinkable, crazy, can't happen!" -- but then try to think back to 2000 -- or even 2008 when BO stated that he was not in favor of gay "marriage"! The idea that gay "marriage" would be legal ANYWHERE in the US in 2000 was no more "thinkable or sane" than the idea that pedophilia could be legal today.

What "progressives" call the process by which they make that happen is "progress".

What it is in reality though is regression to primitive chaos and depravity.


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The US Is Not Norway

Why Norwegian-Style Socialism Will Never Work in the US - The Last Resistance:

Reasonable people might ask why the hell I think posting this is remotely needed. If you think that, you have not been paying attention for a LONG time -- and certainly not in the last couple of weeks. This country is NOT being run by "reasonable people", and judging from a lot of what I see and hear, "reasonable people" are an endangered species in the US!

The whole article is worth reading, but the bottom line is that Norway is a tiny country with a VERY homogenous population and a HUGE amount of yearly oil revenues -- in fact, everyone that lives there is a millionaire in shared oil wealth! This can be contrasted to the US where each man woman and child is $56K in shared debt, growing every day.

The article is worth a read if your reason is failing these days -- and whose isn't? These are NOT "reasonable times"! The bottom line is that in Norway, almost any "system" would work, even socialism!

If you are a tiny country with 3.5% unemployment, almost no immigration, an extremely tiny population of people under the poverty line, little to no diversity of opinion and lifestyle, and a publicly-held oil trust that makes each of your citizens millionaires… Well, I think socialism might just be able to work for you. The system itself is not really working. Because systems are measured by the problems they can overcome, not by the favorable conditions over which they are able to preside. In Norway, there is almost no system that wouldn’t work.

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Age and Sentiment, Kipling

Aging and sentimentality in judges | Power Line:



As we age our energy level drops, we are less combative and more willing to avoid a fight -- the urge to "go along to get along" rises.



William F. Buckley once said that his magazine, National Review, "Stood athwart history yelling STOP!". People of a certain age tend not to stand at all, never to stand over much of anything, and they generally don't shout.



As the country slides deeper and deeper in the leftward ditch, add simple age to the forces pulling down the nation more and more rapidly.



The country was founded as a center-right nation -- and since it came complete with a written constitution, three branches of government purposely set at odds with each other, and the vast bulk of rights reserved to the individuals and STATES before the feds even had jurisdiction, it was wired to be conservative. As people got older, almost all of them became more conservative -- conservatism was the "default choice" ... it was learning to swim WITH the tide!



But now the default choice is very left wing state-ism, bent on destruction of any value that is remotely conservative. So being conservative involves constantly swimming against the cultural current -- making waves, standing out. Increasingly, with more and more bribery of the old -- FICA, Medicare, housing, etc, where once elderly depended on some combination of lifetime thrift and the success / good graces of their children, now Uncle Sam is the all-purpose caregiver. To still stand for God, Freedom and some shred of moral propriety is to bite the hand that feeds not only you, but all the people around you in your age cohort.



The article talks of the specific case of SCOTUS justices -- but anyone over 50 feels some level of the beginning fatigue of standing increasingly alone as the leftward slide gathers pace. Why bother? Just shut up, give up, and let it all careen into oblivion -- it is essentially there already anyway and it becomes more and more obvious that not only is any sort of individual resolve to hang onto some minor semblance of anything righteous and decent increasingly futile, it's a damned lonely and energy draining activity to boot!



So we should not be surprised when voices like Kennedy give up the fight and slide softly into the waiting arms of the tyrants of the left. The darkness is oppressive and powerful -- it takes the utmost in courage, resolve and most of all God's Grace to keep faith when all around are losing theirs.



The words of Kipling are very appropriate to aging conservative Christians today:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

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The Rule of Five, Dropping The Torch

A Question For Those Who Celebrate the Gay Marriage Decision | Power Line:

When there is no remaining Constitution, there can no longer be any surprise at any usurpation of power by any branch of government. The SCOTUS has long ago given up it's standing as the interpreter of the written rule of law. Their legitimate power flowed from the Constitution -- now they have destroyed that document -- the total conjuring of a "right" to any form of marriage being just the latest example.

We have no Constitution, so there is very little reason to have a SCOTUS at all -- and as the leftward slide continues at greater and greater speed, we are nearly certain to see them totally ignored by a "progressive" president, rather than just attacked during a SOTU address as they were in 2010.

The linked article asks the simple question: "If you like the current ruling on gay "marriage", what if they had decided the opposite 5-4? (that gay "marriage" was UNconstitutional)?

Since there is no "right", nor prohibition to any kind of marriage in the Constitution, the country that used to be America would have worked it out on a state by state basis democratically -- as it was doing. The court could have just as easily ruled that gay "marriage" was not Constitutional and stopped it everywhere. Would these people putting up rainbow colors all over be as happy then?

When you give your power away, you give it away! It is GONE -- for some reason people don't realize that when they see the sovereign acting in concert with their "happy idea of the day". They stand and cheer that the state by state democratic process has been usurped. Confident that things will always go their way as "law" becomes a distant to non-existent idea. Where there is no law, there is no predictability of life -- when I was married 30 years ago, the idea of gay "marriage" was as far off as the idea of marrying your sister, parent or dog is today. Given the absence of written law, there is no reason to expect that anything on that list, nor things not imagined today would be a "right" 30 years hence.

As an aside,  "libertarians" applauding 5 people in robes ability to shut down the democratic process in states makes one question both the sanity and basic intelligence of such people. How can any sentient person call themselves a "libertarian" and call it "liberty" when 5 people in robes take the right to democratic action away from 330 million?

Scalia said it best “Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court.”

We are no longer a "united" states -- when the rule of law is abandoned, then power is all that counts. We need a new nation -- perhaps the Red States can form such. The old nation is now something else than America -- the "Socialist States" or "Progressive States".

The torch of liberty has been dropped.

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George Will On BOcare Ruling

On Obamacare, John Roberts helps overthrow the Constitution - The Washington Post:

George Will provides a more in-depth discussion on the end of the Constitution than I touched on yesterday.  

Thursday’s decision demonstrates how easily, indeed inevitably, judicial deference becomes judicial dereliction, with anticonstitutional consequences. We are, says William R. Maurer of the Institute for Justice, becoming “a country in which all the branches of government work in tandem to achieve policy outcomes, instead of checking one another to protect individual rights. Besides violating the separation of powers, this approach raises serious issues about whether litigants before the courts are receiving the process that is due to them under the Constitution.”

As great nations decline, there are many milestones on the descent. One day the freedoms will be completely gone and some will wonder how it all happened.

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Saving Your Enemies

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/06/have-republicans-saved-the-obama-administration.php

One can look at the results of today and draw the conclusion that Republicans care more about avoiding short term pain than they do about saving the nation.

BO is happy, the MSM is happy, so we know that America just took a couple big torpedos amidships.

That BOcare survives is bad enough. What is worse is that congress can now write ANYTHING in a "law", and wait until it is passed, put in practice however the bureaucrats see fit, and there is no need to even go back and see what the law actually said. Republicans  may well pass something in the future that says "thou shalt not provide Social Security benefits to Illegals", and when the Democrat operated union bureaucracies get through with it, they do precisely what the law said NOT to do -- but given the "leeway" now provided on BOcare, the vast bureaucratic system as carte blanche to do whatever they want.

Law is dead, long live the bureaucrat!

The R's happily handed BO fast track authority -- and got NOTHING! He will treat them like the doormats he always has, and why not? If no respect is demanded, none is given by the left -- so the doormats have proven to be worthy of the name and his treatment of same.

The article is worth a read. Read it and weep.

History and Hillary, Sowell

Thomas Sowell: History and Hillary Clinton | New Hampshire:

Well written, concise, entirely factual and well reasoned -- and sad. Sowell does it again.

The saddest point he makes is at the end.

A President of the United States — any President — has the lives of more than 300 million Americans in his or her hands, and the future of Western civilization. If the debacles and disasters of the Obama administration have still not demonstrated the irresponsibility of choosing a President on the basis of demographic characteristics, it is hard to imagine what could. 

With our enemies around the world arming while we are disarming, such self-indulgent choices for President can leave our children and grandchildren a future that will be grim, if not catastrophic. 

Putting another disaster in the WH after the disaster that is BO seems unthinkable, but then BO seemed unthinkable TWICE!

Like all once great nations, the decline phase seems to become inevitable. If we hang around long enough we watch our parents, friends and even children age and die, and ourselves as well. For at least the greatness of nations, the same seems inevitable -- Greece, Rome, England and now the US in turn, rise -- then fall. Maybe the nation still exists, but it is the nation in name only.

The greatness is gone -- like BO in the wind!





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Pope Excommunicates Christ

Pope Francis Says Arms Manufacturers Can’t Call Themselves Christian | TIME:

I grew up in a very fundamentalist church and have been exposed to others in my life. I decided somewhere along the line that I would never be a member of a church that was too restrictive to allow Christ on the pulpit -- like you must not have a beard or long hair to take the pulpit, you must be married, you must wear a suit and tie, etc. It seems like a very good simple rule -- if your church has somehow gotten too high and mighty for the Lord of all, it seems me a given that you have taken a wrong turn.

So the pope has declared that a person that makes weapons can't be whatever he thinks "Christian" is. Let's quote a few words of Christ.

Luke 22:36 He said to them, But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.

Christ also used a whip to drive money lenders out of the temple as well (a weapon), and when John the Baptist was asked by a soldier how to reach heaven.

Luke 3:14 "What should we do?" asked some soldiers. John replied, "Don't extort money or make false accusations. And be content with your pay."

So one can be a soldier and still be a Christian according to the Bible -- Apparently the pope has not decided to excommunicate soldiers yet, but a weaponless soldier is a dead soldier, so maybe the same thing. It seems we have a clear case of the "Vicar of Christ" being nuts -- The pope is guarded by a lot of armed guards -- whose existence for the benefit of his own person would not be possible except through the efforts of a vocation he now calls non-Christian.

I won't be joining the Catholic church under the pontificate of this pope! I'm actually shocked -- I really didn't think such idiocy would ever come from the mouth of a pontiff. I thought they had controls to shut a pope that had lost it away quietly these days -- but apparently not. Sad thing to see.

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Voltaire Burning The Confederate Flag

Senate Rejects Flag Desecration Amendment:

I'm fine with SC putting the confederate flag in a museum -- Jeb Bush did that in FL, not that the media gives him any credit for it. It is a state issue, let them take care of it.

There was once an American principle called "Freedom of Speech". The ACLU defended the right of Nazis to march in Skokie. Caustic comics like Lenny Bruce and others were staunchly defended from especially the left, but in general, "free speech" -- definitely including very derogatory, racist, obscene, incendiary, etc speech was considered a cornerstone of America. In general, we agreed with Voltaire : "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

Liberty was a big thing in that country -- we even had a statue to celebrate it. "Give me liberty or give me death" was a famous quote of that nation.

As you can see from the linked article, as recently as 2006 you could not get an amendment to prevent burning the US Flag through the US Senate. Burning the US Flag was deemed important enough speech that even though clearly incendiary "speech" in more ways than one, it was important that you be allowed to burn the symbol that over a million soldiers have died to preserve over the course of our history.

Then came "hate speech". It can't be defined in advance -- for example just this past weekend, BO said "the N-word", but in his case it isn't defined as "hate speech", so it is OK. He also read from his own book "Dreams From My Father", where his use of the word is much less "presidential".

"Hate Speech" is like "taxes", "sexual harassment", "racism", or a whole host of other concepts now that are weapons used by the dominant party (Democrat) to destroy the opposition when and as desired. It is about POWER, not law.

Since the nation no longer has shared values that ALL parties observe EQUALLY, like "free speech", everything becomes a matter of pure political calculation. So if the confederate flag is considered objectionable, it is an instant wedge issue to be used for political gain with no discussion of freedom of speech.

Next week the same people could turn around an defend burning a US Flag, because the ONLY issue in a nation without rule of law is POLITICS! "Law" is whatever is the "political winner" -- and in fact becomes a malleable weapon -- today one person or politician can use the N-word and be fine, tomorrow another can say "niggardly" and be taken down as an insensitive racist.

The key to survival in a totalitarian nation is "watching the winds of power blow". While Republicans had absolutely no reason to run for cover in SC, it was obvious that the media storm was blowing their direction, so they quickly acted as scared rabbits to see how quickly they could get out of the way to try to minimize their damage.

BO however has catbird power -- he can say the N-word with impunity. No outcry, off the news as fast as it shows up, no storm -- power prerogative. The masses know power and are impressed by it -- the media and TP ability to successfully pin a flag raised by Democrats on Republicans and having the Republicans portrayed as little boys caught with their pants down as they try to deal with the storm is an impressive show that resonates with the common man. The rank and file sheeple don't really know how they are being manipulated, and it is sad to see what BO refers to as the "bitter clingers" jerking about as marionettes in the hands of spastic masters.

Voltaire and the French put too much faith in the common man. Our founders understood that and gave us a written Constitution, rule of law, and made us a Republic, not a "democracy" (mobocracy). Watching the machinations of TP this week shows how easily the vast vast majority of this nation can now be manipulated in our state of totalitarian political power.

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Democrats Don't Trust BO -- Why Do Republicans?

Senate Hands a Victory to Obama on Trade Pact - The New York Times:



Republicans have a VERY nasty habit of caring more about the actual country than they do politics! They have this weird thought that "right is right" no matter who is in power, and that "doing the right thing", even if it gives power to a president that REGULARLY calls you all manner of names including "racists", because it is "good for the country".



In the past -- when government was limited and we had a Constitution that both sides believes in, one could hold up such ideals as reasonable. Right now though, this is like negotiating with terrorists. Even if you DON'T give BO this authority he is likely to act as if he has it anyway!



BO sees this as personal POWER -- I believe the Republican faith in his goodwill and assurances he will use this for what the Republicans expect is extremely likely to come back to haunt them.



I fail to understand why Boehner and McConnell can't simply say "We are in complete agreement with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who don't trust this president with trade authority. We don't trust him either, bipartisanship has been reached!"



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Gravity and Economics Still Work

Why the Recovery Still Limps Along - WSJ:

News at 11 -- no surprises here, I've covered it before, but the media and BO keep lying about it anyway and unfortunately not everyone is required to read my blog!

The states with the most business friendly climate -- right to work laws, lower taxes, lower minimum wages, etc have looked the best since the recession. People generally move to those states because (thankfully) there are still a good number of people that want to have work!

The deeper the hit was to employment when the recession hit, in general the more rapid the recovery has been post recession. This has been true at the state level, and it has been true of every US recession prior to now -- BO is (as usual) lying about the slowness being due to the depth of the recession. The tepid to non-existent recovery is due to his policies. Remember the easy test of BO lying -- his lips moved.

Throw a ball in the air, it still comes down. Force business to be less competitive (closed shops, higher minimum wages), make it more expensive to do business -- higher taxes, more regulations, and business goes down.

Same old same old -- no reason at all to have BO and the media version of 3 card monte confuse you. Be especially watchful as they change the whole game by modification of GDP reporting as of July.

Now faking the numbers -- THAT is a policy that I have faith in BO to execute on!

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The Myth of Republican Racism

The Myth of Republican Racism | National Review Online:



I've covered most all this in this blog at some time or another, but the linked article is a very good and concise summary and worth the read.



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Democrat Media Confederacy

GOP Candidates Get 3rd Degree Over Confederate Flag, But Check Out Billary’s History With It:

To look at the news one would really think that the Democrat States of of the North, led by Democrat Abraham Lincoln defeated the Republican States of the South, led by Republican Jefferson Davis, in the Civil War, followed by an unbroken racist Republican rule of the south through Jim Crow until now.

Only it isn't the case -- in fact, it was DEMOCRATS that put all those confederate flags all over -- AND!!, as recently as Clinton - Gore running for office were PROUD to use confederate flags as part of their campaign!

Billy C even signed legislation stating that the star above the A on the Arkansas flag "commemorates the confederate states of America" as is copied in the attached article.

Yet again we see the MSM showing it's true nature as a propaganda arm of the Democrat party. Thousands of young black men shoot each other every year and the MSM nor Democrats care not one whit -- because they don't see the issue as a political winner for them.

Crazy white guy shoots blacks and has a confederate flag somewhere? To hell with history, to hell with any semblance of reality reporting "Confederate = Republican = Racist ---> **GO**!!!"

So they run out and treat the whole confederate flag issue as a "Republican problem" -- which, to the extent that Republicans are left with the task of cleaning it up, it is -- even Jeb Bush (who I DO NOT support), who removed the offending flag to a museum in FL gets tagged as somehow "treading carefully" on this supposed "Republican issue".

This is propaganda pure and simple -- this is how the masses become convinced of things that are just not true, but they are so widely believed that great crowds can be gathered to chant "Sig Heil" or whatever the chant of the day is with great passion, but no grounding in reality.

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Even Those Only Worth $100M Can Play

http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/c/34656/f/636635/s/47369371/sc/7/l/0M0Swashingtonpost0N0Cpolitics0Cdemocracy0Enot0Ejust0Efor0Ebillionaires0Ehillary0Eclinton0Etells0Ecrowd0Ein0Eny0C20A150C0A60C130C346e33180E11fb0E11e50Ea0Afe0Edccfea4653ee0Istory0Bhtml0Dwprss0Frss0Inational/story01.htm

“Prosperity can’t be just for CEOs and hedge-fund managers,” Clinton said in an address on Roosevelt Island, with Wall Street visible over her shoulder. “Democracy can’t be just for billionaires and corporations. Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain, too. You brought our country back. Now it’s time — your time — to secure the gains and move ahead.”

What a lovely article. When you have a "D" next to your name, chutzpah is really really cheap -- in fact, nary a word on how poor little Hillary, "flat broke" when her and her husband left the WH in 2001 managed to get there without being "billionaires", nor how they managed to spend 10's of millions since and amass a net worth of about $100M -- certainly lots of both prosperity and power.

Apparently she MEANT to say "Prosperity can't just be for lying, cheating and corrupt political bystanders like me, CEOs, and hedge-fund managers"  -- but then, if a Clinton said something honest, they wouldn't be a Clinton -- would they?

"Take your country back" -- from who? BO has been in the WH over six long years now, and if it wasn't for adjusting the way we report GDP we would likely officially be in a recession after that 2nd quarter GDP report.  Take your country back from Democrats? Darned good idea, but I doubt that was what she had in mind.

It appears that men can "identify" as women, whites can "identify" as black, and people worth $100M can "identify" as populists.

Oh ... and if we don't like our shrinking economy or our cooling temps? Just change the way we figure the numbers!

Just believe what the media tells you ...  I need to learn to say Baaah rather than BAH!

I Identify as Grandpa

We are born tiny and vulnerable like our new little granddaughter that I held for the first time last Monday on our 30th Anniversary. We are still the children of two parents, a man and a woman, and no matter what horrors science may imagine, the product of many miraculous processes that those of us with faith believe to be wrought by a benevolent God with a purpose in all, especially for us -- because it is a rare human that actually believes they are are not a unique special creation with a purpose.

For my granddaughter, that is true to infinity and beyond!

Our ancestry reaches back through generations of specific grandparents, great grandparents, and onward. If we just take the time since Christ, we have a bit over 2000 years divided by 20 (the usual "generation" number) -- so 100 x 2 for both ancestors. Each of our whole individual ancestry since Christ could sit in a typical church sanctuary or large college lecture hall.

That is reality as we know it -- we are products of an imperfectly known biology that includes DNA mixing over generations according to some rules of dominant and recessive along with random inputs over time -- and a lot of "unknown magic" or divine direction. We don't "identify as" what is in those genes, we ARE what was in them. It is called being. Some of us also believe that a unique and eternal spirit indwells this earthy body -- for some, "it's just stuff".

Only really being a grandparent gives the meaning to the blessing of Psalm 128:6 "May you live to see your children's children". With age also comes perspective.

One of the surprises of my life was how emotional it was to first hold our newborn children -- tears of joy came on suddenly and surprisingly. I didn't expect it -- possibly partially because the previous generations of males had largely been complete restricted from delivery rooms. Mine was the generation that it became MANDATORY. While I very much enjoyed the experience, it was one of those things that shaped me on "progress".

For having children, we "progressed" from no male that wasn't a doctor being allowed in the delivery room, to it being totally mandatory for the father to be there -- weak stomach, worried about blood, not going to deal well with your wife in pain? FORGET IT! ... you WILL be there! I grew up in a fundamentalist church -- there is absolutely no question that the "fundamentalist impulse", where if an idea is "good", it must be mandatory and if it is "bad" it must be prohibited, is totally active in all humans all the time.

Having a grandchild has convinced me yet again that whether it is divine or just "natural", it is no accident that we are strongly wired to emotionally react to being a parent/grandparent at levels that we are likely farther from really understanding psychologically and socially than we are from understanding "what is life?" biologically. The problem of our human conceit to believe that; "society/culture is "built by man", so therefore we understand it" is covered well in "The Fatal Conceit". Short answer -- a fish describing "wet" has some of the problem.

So our culture has been killing marriage, the stable family, having children and families staying together so the birth grandparents know the birth offspring for so long that we have lost touch with what is really "divinely/naturally the way of life".  In or efforts to "make it better" have we again managed to obscure one of the greatest joys of life, much more available to most than other "peak experiences"?

We have celebrated the single parent, the blended family, etc so much for so long that we have somewhat  lost sight of what is the true / good / best / normal / spiritual  that life can offer. It as if seeing a video of mountains or the ocean became the standard of REALLY seeing them because "not EVERYONE gets to REALLY see the mountains or the ocean, so it ISN'T FAIR to celebrate actually seeing them!".

Only it **IS FAIR**! In fact, denying the joy of real mountains, oceans, sunsets, redwoods, glaciers, etc, etc doesn't make it better for those that are unable to experience them first hand, it makes it WORSE for all! None of us can experience everything possible first hand -- nor would we want to -- say skydiving, free climbing, handling poisonous  snakes, swimming with sharks, etc. When we see the "downside" in something, we are rather happy to have "The Crocodile Hunter" tell us all about it, but ALL of our experience is limited, not just the stuff we are scared of.

One only has to be a grandparent for a little bit and "the club" opens up -- it is one of those "circles of life". You have to "know to know". All the feelings and stories come tumbling out of the other grandparents because "now it is OK to share" -- otherwise it would have  been "bragging". It is as if mountains were kept nearly secret because discussing how cool they are would be somehow wrong.

We deal with all manner of limitations -- some of us can't have kids, for some of us, life doesn't work out so it can happen. Some of us are in wheelchairs, some of us are blind, some of us just have next to no athletic ability (me), YET, for some reason we are all very willing to celebrate Curry, James, Rodgers, etc. Their experience INCREASES our experience -- as it should.

Certainly, we should ALSO celebrate whatever adjustments can be made -- wheel chair Olympics, eyeglasses, adoption, blended families, etc, but we ought never make color blindness "normal". That doesn't make anyone's life better, but rather diminishes us all. Seek the purest and best blessings and celebrate them -- and always be thankful for even the paintings of mountains as well.

May you see real mountains, real oceans, and may you live to see your children's children!

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The Virtuous Cycle of Poverty For The Party

Suburbs and the New American Poverty - The Atlantic:

I learned something new while doing a little research on projections for future traffic on the outskirts of the city of Rochester. American suburbs are becoming much poorer!

This really isn't hard to understand with some thought -- "poverty" has become a lot less "poor" from a material standpoint as this article points out . To be poor in America today often includes materially a car, owning your own home, air conditioning. cable or satellite tv, a DVR, the internet, etc. It stands to reason that it would also begin to include that former symbol of "middle class", living in the suburbs!

As I've pointed out before, we declared "war" on poverty which was in rapid decline in the early 60's and have since stopped that decline, and through $22T in subsidy, managed to it back on the increase! Who says that government doesn't work! It is all about perspective.

Most of the poor vote for The Party (TP -- Democrat), so the most important thing that our TP controlled government wants is MORE VOTES! "Poverty" -- which today could really be called "policies for the destruction of the two parent family" creates a virtuous cycle for TP. The more poor there are, the more TP votes there are. The policies which TP puts in place tend to reduce the work ethic across the country by penalizing the productive and subsidizing the non-productive. WIN WIN!

As people are less and less well off, the number of TP voters rises! Exporting this phenomenon to the suburbs is clearly right in line with the TP prime directive ( MORE VOTES!). Besides, due to the same policies, more people in the suburbs are sliding into poverty -- sauce for the goose! Soon whole new cadres of formerly "inner city" poverty pimps will need to be added in the suburbs to manage this new set of vote slaves. Hello "Community Organizer" ?!

Sure, there is a little "collateral damage" -- drugs, despair, violence, etc, but if you want total equality (nobody has anything), then clearly this is the right policy!

This also works in government itself -- government workers all vote TP, so adding more government adds more government workers that increases the number of TP voters, so a huge win for TP!

It really isn't hard at all to understand what is happening with just a little thought and focus! Heil TP!

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President of Spokane NAACP Transracial

'Black' NAACP leader outed as white woman: "
"
This article makes an interesting read in the vein of the modern "liberal" -- "you are who you say you are" and "the truth is what you conceive it to be".

Apparently both of this woman's biological parents are white. She has courageously self-identified as black for quite a while now and has made enough appearance changes so that she appeared black to others. No doubt she was always black inside, and now she is a whole person.

She has been the victim of all sorts of racial threats and intimidation over the years, as well as some bizarre postal accidents -- such as a package being delivered without a postmark!

These things are all easily explainable.

Dolezal told officers that most of these types of incidents were caused by people affiliated with right wing groups in our area.

Damn those "right wing groups" -- they are some shifty suckahs!

I have to admit that I am SHOCKED by Atlanta media and their headline. This seems even worse than calling "Caitlyn" Jenner "Bruce", does it not? If she feels black, she is BLACK! Right?

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Rubio's Boat vs.John Kerry's Boat

Marco Rubio's Boat vs. John Kerry's Boat | Ricochet:



No doubt there will be HUNDREDS of articles like the recent NYTs attack on Rubio. It is so ridiculously easy to compare these attacks with the complete softball treatment of BO, Hilly, Kerry, or anyone else  of the D persuasion that happens to run, that it hardly bears doing a search



If you want a little funny comparison the Kerry boat vs the Rubio boat is cute ... I liked the one comment I saw:  "Core Clinton donors use boats bigger than Rubio’s just to transport underage girls from the dock to the main yacht."



For those that think the Clinton comment is a "joke", sadly, it isn't. ...


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Dayton Wins, Nobody Happy

http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2015/06/what-mark-dayton-getting-out-special-session

http://www.startribune.com/budget-deal-at-the-capitol-yes-but/306777401/

I've included links to a couple of versions of how the Medicated Governor (Dayton) has come out in the special session for those that want to read up. In short, he didn't get much -- like for example, he didn't the money for his early childhood education that he said caused the veto. From my perspective, he ought to have gotten NOTHING -- as one of the articles said, he didn't have a strong position going in and made it weaker by stating that he would avoid a shutdown.

I especially liked this Dayton quote from the second one. "The sign of a true compromise is that no one is happy with it."  -- one might call that the essence of non-totalitarian government. At least in totalitarian government, the folks in charge are happy -- and usually they force everyone else to SAY they are happy, lest they or their families end up incarcerated or dead! 

Small wonder that God gave us Capitalism -- the free exchange of goods and services in which the decision to make the transaction is freely made so BOTH parties believe that they are better off than they were without the transaction. The "seller" got a profit that they were willing to take and the "buyer" got the good or service at a rate that they were willing to pay. The absolute inverse of Dayton's world -- "no deal unless EVERYONE is happy" vs "no deal unless NOBODY is happy".  Is it REALLY that hard to choose between the two? 

Sadly, it is, because all sides go into politics like people go into Social Security -- believing unsoundly that "everyone will get out more than they put in".  As Reagan put it:
“It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.” Our founders understood that government was OVERHEAD, like insurance -- so you wanted to carry the MINIMUM of it that you could handle, lest it consume you. Neither party is even close to that understanding today -- something like 80% of our population are really "liberals" by action. 

It is remarkable how well the left leaning MN press can hold their tongues. A governor known to be mentally ill but medicated, a multiple time lapsed alcoholic who is at present often barely coherent vetoed a BI-PARTISAN budget over a pet project on early childhood education. risking a government shutdown. Were Dayton a Republican (it could NEVER happen with his baggage), the outcry would reach levels of apocalyptic insanity as it did when Pawlenty vetoed a budget with actual reason -- 

Very few harsh words are heard from his compliant friends in the press -- I understand that the Republicans kept near silence because that same press was just waiting on a hair trigger for **ANY** even tiny soudbite that they could use to "blame it all on the Republicans", but it still amazes. 

Without a TINY bit of actual free thinking in the press, we are treated to the sort of ridiculous Kabuki that this Dayton veto has resulted in. When a state is as far left as MN, sane people very nearly need to be drugged in order to believe what passes for sanity in this Woebegone Asylum!

Seinfeld and "Progressive" Preppy Comedy

An Open Letter to Jerry Seinfeld from a 'Politically Correct' College Student | Anthony Berteaux:

This little column is an exercise in smug.

We need to talk about the role that provocative comedy holds today in a progressive world.

See, on college campuses, and largely in the western nations, "progressives" have won -- which means it is now all about power and violence rather than rule of law and freedom of speech.

Mr Anthony Berteaux (column author) is sitting in what he sees as the catbirds seat, and he is pretty damned smug about it. He is certain that he has the power -- and is happy to lord it over in this case, Jerry Seinfeld.

But, he or course doesn't have the power. He no doubt would not want to see a comedian make fun of Muslims on his campus -- that could result in bombings, beheadings and all sorts of violence. Nope, Muslims are off limits --  he just fails to mention them because he is forgetful and wants to be smug.

He makes it plain later with a crass quote -- but he doesn't do a list:

Offend the right fucking people. 

But I will ... Christians, Conservatives, Republicans  would be a good start. Darned near all those people are non-violent, law abiding (because they have something to lose) and they are definitely the right people to offend -- from Mr Preppy's POV.

In the right context, white males are good too -- all be it not in a Biker Bar no doubt, nor likely even in the right kind of a mostly blue collar sports bar -- there Mr Preppy would find his overdog courage tinkling down his leg if he thought of anything "offensive" to say. Power isn't always portable, rule of law, more so -- but we gave that up. It is great to "offend the right people" when you have the power.

In a free society with freedom of speech, all speech -- ESPECIALLY unpopular speech is protected, and the mark of a free people is to understand that words are only words ESPECIALLY in comedy. Being offended was considered immature and shameful among free men. Mr Preppy is clearly not one of those.

But we don't live in that kind of society anymore, so now people need to either be willing to do violence to protect against speech they don't like -- like Muslims, or most likely Bikers at least on their turf. The rest of us have to worry about the State putting us away if we don't talk nice -- because not many of us would worry about Mr Preppy without a few jack booted thugs to back him up.

Thus, we have "progressed" (regressed) back to the medieval times when what you were free to say was determined by the mood of the King -- no freedom of speech. Only today, rather than Royalty -- with all the commensurate responsibilities they bore along with their power, we have Mr Preppy - snotty, crass, juvenile and smug. Very smug.

And that is what is called "progress".

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Transgenderism, Homosexuality, Science

Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme | Public Discourse:

The linked article is a rather scholarly takedown of the idea of "transgenderism". As anyone with an ounce of common sense knows, the problem is psychological, not physical. "Startlingly", the same thing is true of homosexuality ... people are not born "gay", they for one reason or another go down that path -- and often "come back" to normal heterosexuality as they age. "News at 11".

If "transgenderism" was a horrible burden causing severe mental issues genetically passed on, it would have worked it's way out of the gene pool long ago along with other certainly non-adaptive things like homosexuality.  A generation that forgets the absolute bedrock fact of life that the future belongs to those that are born, unsurprisingly has a very poor grasp on how characteristics breed over hundreds of thousands and millions of years. Don't want to have sex with the opposite sex? Your genes were a bad experiment.  Can't figure out what your sex is? Genetically, it isn't a very long goodbye.

But we won't be seeing any of this published or talked about extensively. While both of the PHDs behind these studies have extensive credentials -- the transgender one being former distinguished professor of Psychiatry and then head of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, this is not information our ruling elites want to have people aware of. It just doesn't fit their narrative.

As the Johns Hopkins PHD says "gird your loins if you would confront this matter. Hell hath no fury like vested interest masquerading as a moral principle". Or a vested interest masquerading as "science" for that matter (see "Global Warming"). So it won't be confronted -- it will be propagandized.

In yet another example of "lives that don't matter" -- along with the 6 thousand or so young black men who kill each other each year while nobody cares, we get thousands of gender and orientation confused youth presented as sacrifices to a "moral cause" vs being treated by a caring psychological community that might look to help them adjust to the reality of the world rather than to treat them as the vested interest of the day desires. Not going to happen.

So the modern left wing pseudo sexual circus continues to parade through society as if it were real. Like the majority of what passes as "news / fact / science" today, it is none of the above -- it is fiction, designed to make masses so compliant that they will credulously fall for literally ANYTHING! In some ways, the more bizarre, obscene, unnatural and irrational the better.

When believing bold faced obvious lies has become so natural that nothing causes suspicion to rise in the masses of the sheep, then the nation is absolutely ripe for the easiest of picking.

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Marriage No Longer Exists

When Bisexual People Get Left Out of Marriage | Advocate.com:

Occasionally someone will bring up the "Why do you care about marriage equality -- it doesn't affect you"?

In order to have an intelligible shared reality, we need to agree on the meaning of words. We no longer have an agreed definition of marriage.

Every claim to "marriage equality" is labeled "GLBT" ... Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgender.

As the article claims, that is **WAY** too restrictive. Facebook now has 58 (and rising) gender options. 

The article definitely says -- as do most of the new "laws" on the books on "marriage equality" that the B and the T are included in this brave to world of "marriage".

So what IS a bi-sexual "marriage"??? Three people? Four people? More? The article carefully avoids defining it, though makes it clear that "gay" or "same sex" are definitely NOT the right terms!How about if you take the 58 types of "gender" that FB has and try to arrive at what a "marriage" between any ??? 2? 5? ?? do numbers matter?

It very much appears that we "needed to pass these marriage laws so we will know what is in them" --- which means that we no longer know what the word marriage means. So yes, destroying the definition of what was formerly one of the most basic relationships in human society matters very much to me.

If it doesn't matter to you, then words having meaning doesn't matter -- which used to be one of the signs of insanity, but in an insane world, is now accepted without thought.How can you possibly "disagree"? What does "disagree" mean? It means precisely what the dominant party (THE Party) says it means -- no more, no less.

Welcome to 1984.
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No Dinosaurs Harmed In Jurrasic Park

Pro-Obama Writer Who Called Conservatives “Idiots” Thinks Spielberg Killed Dinosaurs to Make Jurassic Park:



An entertaining but shallow little column. There are plenty of stupid conservatives -- on most topics I'm one of them, but then there isn't any good reason not to be entertained by our self-declared political "betters".



I loved the little argument in the column about someone "towing the party line", it is SO much like standard conversation with liberals ...

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Escape Mass Delusion, Love and Laughter

How To Escape The Age Of Mass Delusion:

A very important article that I suspect points to an important book, "The Rape of Mind" by Joost Meerloo.

Meerloo testified to this feeling of disorientation: “Many victims of totalitarianism have told me in interviews that the most upsetting experience they faced in the concentration camps was the feeling of loss of logic, the state of confusion in which they had been brought – the state in which nothing had any validity.” 

That’s because in the mass centralized state, “peaceful exchange of thoughts in free conversation will disturb the conditioned reflexes and is therefore taboo.” On a hopeful note, Meerloo writes that “love and laughter break through all rigid conditioning.”

I bring up "Man's Search for Meaning" a bit too often -- but it also makes that point, that it is REAL MEANING that is what ultimately makes life worth living. It is much more FUN with more people sharing the same meaning, but if you lose the meaning, you have lost life.  I find the following hits far too close to home:

As more people succumb to PC conditioning and cede their freedom of thought, it becomes more difficult for the rest of us to maintain integrity of mind. Our audience shrinks. As we encounter more and more drone-like personalities in daily life, the world seems to sink into surrealism, like so many in Rod Serling’s old “Twilight Zone” episodes.

 The line that anyone that is still not under the spell of the totalitarian state probably finds most sad is: "That’s because in the mass centralized state, peaceful exchange of thoughts in free conversation will disturb the conditioned reflexes and is therefore taboo.” Few things are more sad at the end of freedom and culture than this somber truth.

We see it happen to friends and family members one by one. They lose the old meaning of life, the ability to "peaceful exchange of thoughts in free conversation", because they MUST follow the absolute strict dictates of the State, or lose what they have now taken to be meaning -- the advancement of state power over all aspects of life and their relations with others of that belief.

There is no way for them to maintain faith in God, love of family, tradition, history, personal responsibility, character and certainly not truth under that onslaught. Any step away from complete State orthodoxy on gays, warming, gender, taxation, choice of media outlets, God, or values brings the glazed eyes, and the end of conversation.

Like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"  they one by one succumb to the new popular mob acceptance -- they are "proud of Jenner's courage", they "don't see why Indiana can't love everyone" ... and then they are lost to any real conversation and contact. Conversation with them becomes a minefield with an ever increasing set of items that are off-limits -- "the peaceful exchange of thoughts in conversation" has died. All that remains is extremely bland talk, if any contact can be maintained at all. The effect to a still free-thinking religious traditional American is as if the former friend or loved one had "joined a cult".

But the minority and the "cult" is clearly those of us who retain even the thought that the weather is just the weather, or now that boys are boys and girls are girls. Such ideas mean that we are now "not of the liberal body", and therefore not worthy of being truly accepted by those who ARE of the liberal body. The pressure to remove all references to anything not in alignment with the state grows larger with each day as the purview of "safe speech" gets smaller -- along with the knowledge  that "hiding out" is not really an option.

Maybe it is your kids lecturing on gay "marriage", or Jenner's "courage"-- or some friend that you "thought was still reasonable" doing the same  -- but at some point, you at least wrestle with the idea that maintaining your connection with God, tradition, country, self-respect, truth, etc is becoming too expensive.

Then the first steps are taken. Mostly first, just silence -- "if I don't speak up maybe they won't notice". Then the tacit little "yes, I agree ... with something".  The "something" may be "many definitions of courage", "we can never know how someone else feels", "there are lots of views on that" ... but certainly there is no defense of "God created us male and female, some things are not man's to change". We start by failing to stand, then we fall. Each step is small, and they become easier.

You feel you MUST "get along with the people in the majority" -- after all, they were your friends and still are your family, although relations with them have become strained and distant. So with each small step the change becomes more "natural" -- soon you find yourself saying things like "I can understand how it must have been difficult for Jenner" -- and feeling a lot less concern or understanding of  the runner up for the "courage award", a tri-athlete who lost an arm and leg in combat. We all have gender -- and have sometime wondered what the other gender feels like. Very few of have lost multiple legs in combat -- the "Mass Delusion" is so much more ... "accessible".

It is indeed VERY "accessible" -- in fact EFFORTLESS! It takes no courage at all to follow whatever whim rises up from the cesspool of the human heart and have your picture draped on the cover of a magazine. Any idiot knows you **MUST** want that, or your picture would not be there! The Mass would like to convince you differently, or that someone that is willing to risk violence to show pictures of Muhammad must "want to be beheaded". The Mass LIVES by getting it's followers to acceed, even violently, to things that they know to be false.

The supposed happiness of the mob is never real. Our souls aren't made to worship the mob, and the mob has ZERO real interest in our souls (or their own -- they gave their souls up to join!). Screw up relative to the mob and there is no "forgiveness" or consideration of "I will stand by him, I've known him for years", or even "that is my mom or dad". No, when you buy the meaning of the Mob, you buy **ALL** the meaning -- which means no honor save compliance, no independence (you say what the mob says), no freedom (you follow the mob), no true emotion (your emotions are what the mob tells you). And no love.

You certainly can't be a Christian and declare gender changes to be "courageous", nor stand up for gay "marriage", nor abortion. God is nothing if not wise. You CAN'T serve "God and mammon" -- the Mob and it's sin is what he wants to save you from!

So as our family, friends and even children turn to the Mob, what they most need is for us to continue to stand as an alternative. While the Mob will never repent, INDIVIDUALS can repent -- they can turn from serving mammon and return to actual love and laughter. BUT, there has to be somebody that hasn't given in to the Mob.

John 4 verses 7 and 8:
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love

A person not of the Mob but of Christ can (and WILL) painfully continue to love those who have left Christ and joined with the Mob. The Mob will love nobody -- ever.

I use the Bible and Christian images because that is who I am. One could use the Constitution, the writings of Hayek, Orwell or Burke. Even of Solzhenitsyn.  Find SOMETHING!

Most of all ... "Never, never, never give up!" (Winston Churchill)

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A Little Climate Sausage

No Pause in Global Warming - Scientific American:

The famous quote " Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made" certainly applies here -- as it really does everywhere relative to the works of man. Once we know the trick, the magic is gone. When you solo in an aircraft, some of the magic is gone, and after 30 year career I'm sure it is very much "a job". Only the works of God -- the birth of a baby, life in general, consciousness, etc retain their respect, because as much as we try, they are still miracles -- we can't duplicate them.

I suspect a lot of folks in the Climate Industry are more than a little put out by this study -- the IPCC has already said that they disagree with the analysis, it is easy to see why!

The study was inspired by some new metadata, the data behind the data, that provided clues that scientists weren't properly accounting for certain types of measurements. Specifically, there have been a proliferation of buoys over the past 40 years and the survival of an antiquated measurement technique used by ships. 

Buoys have increased global coverage of the oceans by up to 15 percent since the 1970s, but they have a known cold bias compared to measurements taken from ships.

Darned shame that those buoys have a "cold bias" compared to data from ships! I've read a few other articles on this, but the basic deal is that they decided that the ship data during the day PRIOR to the '90s was WARM BIASED -- like sailors pulled in a canvas bag during sunny days, set it on the deck and put a thermometer in it. The climatologists guessed that the sun warmed the water, **SOOOO** they threw out the daytime measurements and went with NIGHT! Wala ... the data prior to the "pause" was COOLER, thus the "pause" went away!

More warming -- by starting from a different base, the very essence of the whole Global Warming scam ( 1860 was VERY cold, end of Little Ice Age, we HAD to warm unless we were slipping into a real ice age).

The "sausage making problem" is many sided --  making use of regular old ships that kept track of inlet water for their cooling systems is suspect beyond belief! First of all, what is the calibration on your typical ship inlet temp gauge? -- hint, it ain't 10ths of a degree! Second, even if the gauge was PERFECT, can you imagine the accuracy of seaman 3rd class "Juan" reading the gauge and writing down the temp? Anything within 5 degrees is certainly "close enough"! This is true for gauges, bags, or whatever.

What measurement do suppose gets written down in the midst of an ice storm at sea with 40' waves 20 degree temps? Does Juan gamely run out on deck with his bucket and thermometer, or does he write down "yesterday minus a degree or two"? The cooling system isn't likely being taxed very much in these conditions!

Secondly, SURFACE TEMPERATURE???? ! Anyone that has done any more or less modern fishing as a surface temp readout on their boat. The surface temperature varies by at least 5 degrees depending on a lot of factors -- wind, currents, sun, what the boat is doing (if you are backing up, your outwater goes right by the probe), etc. It's a "general relative idea" ... if water temps are in the 50's, it is cold ... if they get in the 60's things are looking up. Readings from 45 - 55 degrees in the same day, morning to evening with the next day being 48 - 53? Very likely -- "temp is around 50!" ...

Cold bias on buoys? LOTS of ways to explain this -- one would expect ships to pay a lot more attention to higher surface temps than low ones, they need the water for cooling. If it is a hot day, captain or chief engineer almost certainly demands a good reading -- cold day, whatever.

Ships move around a lot, buoys don't. Ships tend to go into ports which are shallower / warmer sections of water -- in fact, they spend a good deal of their time around sea lanes and populated areas. HOPEFULLY buoys were placed with some sort of a random pattern. The discovery of a "cold bias" is totally understandable if so.

The belief in the "Settled Science of Global Warming" demands that the public believe the conclusions, agree when they are told that "the pause doesn't matter" (when it is reported at all), and get excited about the latest shocking new revelation in the media -- "New Ice Shelf Found to be Melting"!!!!

Reports of "No Pause in Global Warming" are disconcerting to the sheep  after the experts said there was -- it is like "Cholesterol No Longer Bad" ... or "Oatmeal Not as Beneficial as Thought", "Alcohol Good for Your Heart"! ... oh wait, "Coffee Better for Heart than Alcohol" ... and on and on.

The sheep WANT to believe, so it is hard on them when their masters can't get their stories straight. No doubt meeting some of the "experts" in person would be enough for many "just plain folks" to ask the question -- "How in the hell do these people survive from day to day in the real world"?????

To the extent that more people can figure out that our modern "emperors" of government, media, science and education are generally completely naked intellectually, the better off we will be!

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Some Women Just Want To Be Beheaded ...

CNN's Erin Burnett to Pam Geller: Do You 'Relish' Being Targeted for Beheading?:

It is hard to believe the hatred on the left for those that don't bow to Muslim demands because of the threat of violence. "Do you relish being targeted for beheading?".

Hmm ... how about rape? Do women that dress provocatively "ask for it"?

So if Christians took the same attitude as Muslims relative to gay "marriage", would that earn them the same sort of respect now given Muslims? After some Christian  violence against a gay "marriage" supporter, would the reporter be asking a gay "marriage" proponent: "Do you relish being targeted for violence?"

Let's see. Changing your sex is "courageous". Speaking up for what you believe is "relishing being a target for beheading".

Yup, that is where we live!

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U.S. Productivity Falls 3.1% In First Quarter - WSJ

U.S. Productivity Falls 3.1% In First Quarter - WSJ:



BO says the economy is great, the nuke deal with Iraq is great, BOcare is great, and of course he is ABSOLUTELY GREAT!!!



Here is what the current Fed Chair says about productivity:

“The most important factor determining living standards is productivity growth, defined as increases in how much can be produced in an hour of work,” Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen said in a speech last month. “Over time, sustained increases in productivity are necessary to support rising incomes.”

Is that really hard to understand? On average, the less you have to work to create a unit of output, the better your life. It is like horsepower -- it gives you alternatives. You can work less and have more time for leisure, family, education, etc. OR, you can work the same and get more.

Productivity data since the recession has been “disappointing,” Ms. Yellen said, though the cause is open to debate. One possible factor may be the recession, which pushed firms to slash spending on equipment, and research and development.

Or ... it could be that since the US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world, increasingly regulation heavy and hostile to business, investment in US worker productivity is not taking place under the BO administration ... nah, can't be that, or I'm sure our media would be all over it. Right?

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Hemingway Biography, By Jeffrey Meyers

http://www.amazon.com/Hemingway-A-Biography-Jeffrey-Meyers/dp/0306808900

Finished up the subject Ernest Hemingway biography. Well written book that gives a lot of insight into Hemingway the man, the image and the writer. He is indeed the model for the Dos Equis "World's Most Interesting Man". I found Churchill far more interesting, but Churchill did not have movie star looks and movie star sexual appetites as Hemingway did. 

It IS very interesting though how both Churchill and Hemingway were extremely drawn to war, violence and risk, as well of course a lot of hard drink. Churchill drank a LOT for MUCH longer -- Hemingway being a hard drinker that eventually succumbed to alcoholism in his 40's to 50's ... drinking as much as a large bottle of hard liquor a day or more, and it being a major part of his massive decline in health along with his accidents. 

I especially enjoyed reading of his Key West years, having visited Sloppy Joes and his home in Key West. I'd like to spend some more time there -- it is an easy place for the mind to wander to during a MN winter. The book didn't pay enough attention to his cats ... only one good "kitty porn" picture, and gave the author away as definitely NOT being a cat person, referring to Earnest's "dirty cats". A dirty cat is a VERY sick nearly dead cat! If you tour his place in Key West, you will likely meet some of his 6-toed cats. He used the lighthouse next to his home to help him navigate home from Sloppy Joes after "a few drinks". 

Very hard for a Rochester MN resident to ignore this quote: 

"Rochester is a depressing town, where the modern dance of death goes on in expensive hospitals. All visitors are either sick themselves or related to the sick. A grotesque spectacle of illness appears in the corridors and the streets as the modern pilgrims seek salvation in technology rather than in faith." 

At the very end of his life Hemingway received electro shock treatments at Mayo which were not effective, destroyed his memory, and likely contributed heavily to his suicide.

Hemingway's life is full of excitement and interest -- the outdoor life in Michigan as a young man, wounded in WWI, running with the bulls and bullfighting, African Safaris, lots of hunting in the western US (Montana and Idaho), deep sea fishing, a succession of beautiful wives and mistresses, pals with James Joyce, F Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound ... soldiers, adventurers, hunters, fishermen ... and of course drinkers.

None of us knows what makes any of us tick -- including ourselves. We may think we know, sometimes especially about ourselves, and then find out we are surprised. Therefore, I take this epitaph from Norman Mailer with more than a grain of salt -- I suspect that Hemingway would call it shit (that is how he talked).

"It is not likely that Hemingway was a brave man that sought danger for the sake of the sensations it provided him. What is more likely the truth of his own odyssey is that he struggled with his cowardice and against a secret lust to suicide all his life, that his inner landscape was a nightmare, and he spent his nights wrestling with the gods. It may even be that the final judgment on his work may come to the notion that what he failed to do was tragic, but what he accomplished was heroic, for it is possible that he carried a weight of anxiety with him which would have suffocated any man smaller than himself"

I was struck by how often he worried about the "corruption" of wealth and fame -- but yet "Old Man and The Sea" was done after he had a achieved much wealth and fame. I believe he instinctively understood the danger of wealth and fame, yet he was driven to write -- without writing there was no life, and the fact that in his mind, the electro shock had killed his writing muse meant that for him life was over.

He showed the characteristic that I believe all imaginative people show to some degree -- a difficulty in separating the imaginary from the real. What he read, thought and wrote, melded somewhat seamlessly with reality -- so at one level, he was indeed a great liar, as all writers are. However, as in "myth", sometimes the "not factually true" is more true to what some of us believe is a universe more real than that which we can measure. I believe that Hemingway sensed that truth -- but failed to really connect with it. His hints of the "more that what we see" was enough to create some of the greatest art of the 20th century, and his grasping (in the wrong paths I think) created one of the more interesting lives of the 20th century.

Adventures In Mind Control, Modern Political "Science"

How a Grad Student Uncovered a Huge Fraud -- Science of Us:

This article is about how a grad student discovered that an oft quoted study covered in the NYTs as
Gay Advocates Can Shift Same-Sex Marriage Views was a hoax, but that is not really what I'm interested in.

Yes, yes it is interesting that a whole bunch of people can be taken in by what turns out to be a relatively obvious hoax, and that the act of debunking it was fraught with peril because questioning methodology in modern "political science" (as in "climate science") is not encouraged. We pretty much knew that. 

What I wasn't really thinking about -- although it is pretty obvious once you think about it, is that our modern university Political Science departments are more like some Goebbelesque genetically mutated bastard child of marketing and psychology. 

The 2014 election also helped focus Broockman and Kalla’s research agenda. They were convinced canvassing worked — at least to a point — and that politicians weren’t capitalizing on this fact nearly enough. After the election, they co-authored a November 2014 piece in Vox arguing as much. The pair wrote that “research has consistently found that authentic interpersonal exchanges usually have sizable impacts,” linking to a positive preelection Bloomberg Politics cover story about LaCour and Green’s research.

See, why just STUDY how people think politically when you can take action to CHANGE how they think politically! Obviously to your own inherently superior "progressive" agenda!

One can't be too "careful" ... thus we have this little $585K grant to the University of Michigan to study the "social media use of RIGHT WING organizations"! They didn't say if "right wing organization" in these days and times was going to be the Republican Party or just the Blue Dog Democrats, but one has to keep a close eye on such crazy thinkers!

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Is Rand Paul Insane? Has He Heard of IRS?

The real Rand Paul stands up | Power Line:

Rand Paul and the Patriot Act are back in the news.

First observation -- People LOVE to talk of closing the barn door LONG after the horse has escaped.

Rnad is worried about the government looking at PHONE RECORDS??? !!!!!

Has he ever heard of a little agency called the IRS????? All our bank statements, all donations, the checks used for medical, optical, dental, etc. If you paid a housekeeper, the kid next door, etc, etc.

Paul is worried about THIS ????

determine your religion 85 percent of the time, who your physician is most of the time, what medicines you have. They can even tell when you go to the doctor, by interference, maybe what kind of procedures you’re having at your doctor’s office.

If you pay taxes in the US there is a ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CHANCE that the IRS knows your church, who your healthcare provider is, when you go to the doctor, specifically what kinds of procedures you had, what drugs you are taking and MUCH MUCH MORE!!

We have BOcare for goodness sake ... plus Medicare. The government has forms filled out on top of forms. If they want to look, they have all the data on your medical life a few times over!

For people that are concerned about the NSA I have one simple suggestion. Get on to abolishing of the IRS and instituting a FLAT TAX ASAP! Until the IRS is abolished, "privacy" in the US is a TOTALLY DEAD ISSUE. In order to determine what parts of your income/spending is taxable / deductible, and in order to determine it  for every other person, business and tax exempt entity in the country, the IRS as total access to your financial life -- which is a very large hunk of your total life!

AFTER we realize that income tax is UNCONSTITUTIONAL because it violates the Equal Protection Clause, THEN we can start to get serious about reclaiming more obscure forms of privacy.

Until then, it is completely insane to be concerned about NSA phone records!

As PL points out, the ONLY reason for Rand to be running is if Republicans want to go farther back to isolationism. Prior to air power and nuclear weapons, one could almost believe that isolationism for the US was an option. With space (controlled by China and Russia), the Internet and total global trade, there are no rational isolationists left.

So Rand is barking up the wrong tree -- the D party is the party of the irrational. If you believe in isolationism, or that 2nd guessing decisions of over a decade ago (invading Iraq) are useful, then you ought to be running as a D!!!

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