The Catcher In the Rye, JD Salinger

I'm not much of a reader of fiction, nor very interested in teenage angst. The book however ended up lying around the house, so I finally read it. It is famous enough that pretty much everyone kind of thinks they read it in HS or "sometime", but I'm guessing less have read it than think they have.

Everyone knowns "Holden Caulfield" the 16 year old protagonist from whose perspective the book is told from. He is in the process of being kicked out of his 3rd prep academy (Pencey). He has an older brother "DB" who is a writer in Hollywood, a younger sister "old Phoebe", and a deceased younger brother "Allie" that died at 11 from leukemia when Holden was 13 -- Holden damaged his hand "breaking every window in the garage" in anger over the death. This incident provides almost enough sympathy for the protagonist for the reader to care what happens to him.

"The Catcher in the Rye" refers to a fantasy  entertained by Holden loosely based on a misquote of a Robert Burns poem, where Holden prevents children playing in a large field of rye from falling over a cliff which symbolizes "loss of innocence". The fantasy is in no way major to the actual content of the book -- it may be an attempt to assert that the book ITSELF carries out the fantasy -- it glorifies teen angst and encourages navel gazing self absorption with no sense of any reason to ever "grow up".

The cynical conservative in me summarizes the work as "Peter Pan with smokes, drinks, sex (or at least leering), a prostitute, suicide, and a possible near homosexual encounter". The suicide is "James Castle" -- who is wearing Holden's borrowed sweater when he dies, leapt from a window because a group of guys did something "unspeakable" to him, and his body is picked up by the suspected homosexual. We could easily mine that for symbolism, but I'll spare you.

Lot's of "goddam", everything is "phony", a little series of "fuck you" being written all over, possibly as an allusion to the corruption of innocence as the young move to adulthood since Holden (the imaginary "catcher in the rye") is trying to rub the words out so his sister will not see.

At the end we find out that the book is being written from some institution or sanitarium where Holden is staying until he returns to schooling the following fall. The entire book itself covers 3-4 days before Christmas as Holden is moving toward home to deal with the fact that he has been thrown out of another school. (all stories are really about going home)

My thoughts on the book:

• the adults are presented in very negative lights -- "old", "phony", ugly, either vaguely or actually corrupt, heavy drinkers or drunks, etc 
• the book is bereft of any religious or philosophical values -- Holden's admittedly juvenile perspective of all the things he "can't stand" or "drive him crazy" is a "stand in" for such lofty concepts. His younger sister Phoebe is "virtue" -- and "virtue and innocence" are essentially the same thing. There is no "mature virtue" presented. 
• While only 16, Holden is tall and has "gray hair on one side", so he is able to pose as being older "early 20's" -- sometimes, other times he is seen through immediately. The "imposter" theme is woven through the book ("phony"), relative to actors, women, etc. 
• The portrayal of women is highly sexist / adolescent. If "ugly" they are worthless, if attractive, they "drive him crazy, they really do". 

My sense is that published as it was in the 1950's, it was "shocking" and therefore  got the "cool, forbidden, sophisticated" aura. It's "message" is a purposeless meandering for potential "pleasure" that never materializes, with no overarching meaning or morality. While some teens may have at some point felt SOMETHING like Holden Caulfield, it seems unlikely that many would want to BE Holden. The only potential "virtue" he portrays is the very thin imaginary one of preventing children from growing up. He doesn't even have a good time. 

At it's simplest, "liberalism" or "progressivism" is a life of adolescence extended to death. Responsibility is always avoided and in the hands of others, things are "unfair" due to "others", the individual is convinced of their own goodness or possibly even greatness at some fantasy level, but that is vague and remote -- the immediate motive is always the next smoke, next drink, next sexual conquest, next entertainment, etc. 

Perhaps Holden Caulfield is the prototype for the modern life of the perpetual adolescent. I find the idea of giving this book to anyone under the age of 21 to be the spiritual equivalent of handing an 8 year old a .45 and a box of shells and telling them "have a good time".  

As an adult, the fact that the book is as famous as it is provides strong evidence that our educational system has failed us -- we REALLY need to understand classic literature, and then realize that this work isn't it. 

Minnesota, Below Average

Do Liberal Policies Produce Economic Growth? No | Power Line:

As an avid listener of MPR, MN is definitely "above average", like ALL the children in Lake Woebegone.

That is certainly the constantly drummed in "perception" -- "Blue" policies are universally helpful and have no downsides -- one would have to be some sort of a "red state neanderthal" to not understand that left wing politics are always beneficial to all groups, health, goodness, general welfare, solvency, good looks, fun and well, EVERYTHING!

Certainly, only the evil or the terminally uninformed would ever consider doing anything as tawdry as an actual comparison. Go and look at the column, but as our long term plan includes leaving the perfect environs of old MN, I found the following chart to be especially appropriate.

What a lovely trend line -- losing high income people to the toon of a billion dollars in a two year period. Why, you would think that people with higher incomes have more choices and they vote with their feet -- but MPR assures us, that CAN'T be true!

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Culture, Smugness, Results

The Culture Of The Smug White Liberal:

A column with a lot of words, but the author at least seems to begin to grasp that the problems suffered by blacks are a bit deeper than the popular labels "racism" and "discrimination", and the "solution" is unlikely to be electing more Democrats .

For so long, as a Black American, I have been told that the problem is Conservative Republicans. While I’ll admit they may have done little to try to improve African-American lives, they also don’t promise to every election season like the liberal elites. Instead we have given our loyalty and votes to Democrats, who paternalistically tell us they want to help us, but we have little to show for it since blacks started voting Democrat back in the 1960’s. I have never lived in a city as an adult that was run by Conservatives or Republicans, but I live in the biggest poor city in the country, Philadelphia. A city, for decades, run by liberal insiders.

Seems like we have a case of a left wing black reaching the same conclusion as Trump in the middle of a left wing media column.

"The problem" here is that "culture" and "policies" matter. Broken homes, failing to graduate from high school, drugs, alcohol and crime do not a successful "culture" make, and that is just as true if you are brown, black, white, yellow or purple. As I've pointed out, as whites have succumbed to "the Democrat way of life", they are suffering as well. Yes, "cultural AIDs" hit blacks first, but it is tearing through the white community now and having the same devastating results.

Thinking like a liberal is fine if you are intelligent, come from a good background, have a great support system of family and community, etc, etc -- it is like "safety first when starting fires with gasoline". The intellectual elite has always been able to thumb their nose at morality, religion, propriety, etc and generally get away with it on a percentage basis.

It is the "average and below average" that it is positively deadly for -- and that is a color blind statement, with predictably color blind results.

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Convincing "Morons" to Vote Hildebeast

The Moron’s Case For Hillary Clinton…because some of you really are that stupid. « The Contrarian Blog:

I have a rule that the only "morons" in existence are those who use the word to name others. If you had any knowledge of the art of persuasion, would you really call those that you ostensively claim to be persuading "morons" as a way to convince them?  My case rests.

The long list of supposed qualifications reminds me of a person I once knew that had a LONG list of supposed "qualifications" at the end of their e-mails -- this and that certification, this and that position, which included "Notary Public". The longer the list, the less impressive.

If a "qualification" as anything to do with "Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, or any of the bottom 20 states, it isn't a "qualification" for a national position  -- if anything, it is a mark against you. You are small time -- not because you may have hailed from the small and insignificant, but because you you have failed to realize that nobody likes long boring lists and you don't list Aaron Rodgers pee wee league football honors at his Hall of Fame induction. Everyone came from the minor leagues, but nobody cares what you did there.

Long lists are BAD, long lists that are done chronologically rather than by importance of accomplishment are REALLY bad. "Commencement speaker"? SERIOUSLY? Tell me how important the commencement speech at your High School or College was to your life. Giving a commencement speech is a qualification for nothing -- listing it tells says "unqualified person" for ANY job, let alone a high one.

Everyone knows the only "accomplishment" that counts. She is a woman, and a woman that was to assist in establishing that personal character is no longer a requirement for a president. Had she not played a major  in establishing this, both she and her opponent would be disqualified. It is "historical" I guess, she was the major player in making it possible for us to end up having the choice between her and Trump. Had she said "as a woman, I can not continue to be married to a serial abuser of my sisters, I am divorcing him and calling for his impeachment", we would live in another country. As it is, she can be looked at as the "Founding Mutha" of BOistan.

She also ran the first (that we know of) Pay for Play State Department where access and favors were traded for cash to the "Clinton Fund" (Funds, for Clintons) under the first president with no experience or other qualifications to be president. BO established that your list of applicable experience can be "nada" and you can still be president. It turns out, not of the US, but of BOistan, but at this point that is all we have left.

By the "BO standard", BOTH Hildebeast and Donald are eminently qualified to be president. She has run a large money laundering organization and he has been a CEO -- that beats "Junior Senator Seat gained by using legal system to unseal opponents private divorce records against BOTH the wishes of the candidate and his ex-wife". (Jack Ryan would have beaten him if they didn't destroy him)

You really ought to go over and take the time to read the list, it is a HOOT ... a sad one, but funny just the same.

"Successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health."

World leaders quake in anticipation of working with such a specimen!

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Does BOistan Have A Flag?

Kaepernick refuses “to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people” | ProFootballTalk:

Multi-millionaire soon to be out of football for lack of skill Collin Kaepernick will not stand for the old Star Spangled Banner and Stars and Stripes. "America is racist". (I'm sure he means America WAS)

So what the hell does that have to do with life in BOistan? BOistan needs a new flag and a new anthem, because it CERTAINLY isn't a nation "under God", nor would it fight for it's existence with "bombs bursting in air".  It also isn't the "land of the free and the home of the brave".

Perhaps a flag of a used tampon to show our enlightened feminist nature and bold embrace of the more gritty truth of our existence? Hildebeast would be the perfect leader to institute this as ostensively the first "female" president (if you interpret that term permissively).

The "rainbow flag" -- showing that we are unsure our sexuality and gender, but seriously proud, even though we want to be fully defended from "triggers" and "hate speech".

I like the idea of the white flag indicating surrender -- to whomever shows up. Because we abhor violence and have total faith in the morality of all mankind. After destroying the old racist, sexist, violent nation that was America, BOistan is happy to accommodate anything.

America was bad, we are good, what more can we say? We are environmentally friendly, non-competitive, amoral, unsure of all knowledge. We have no culture -- we are but vessels awaiting the brilliance of bold new myth-makers to give us purpose and meaning for our tired existence.

I think Kaepernick is on to something. Why is that that we are actually still flying the flag of a dead nation and dead ideals over BOistan?





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Truth and Lost Reality

Articles: Why the Modern Liberal is Out of Touch With Reality:

The title drew me in, but I'm not very impressed with the article in general. The problem isn't just "liberals", it is ALL OF US!

Human nature is to believe that we are ALL "above average" ... drivers, intelligence, goodness, spouses, friends, parents, etc.  Basic statistics would tell us that isn't reality, but we FEEL like it is, and in general, feeling that way is actually good for our mental health! If you don't feel that way at least most of the time, you are nearly certain to be depressed.

The old concept of "culture" involved a "higher power". Usually God, but stand-ins included the king, duke, earl, etc.. You could be "above average" for your class, rank, etc, but in the overall scheme of things, you "knew your place". That is a dirty concept in todays supposedly classless society where having equal OPPORTUNITY has been confused with equal RESULT. A quick glance NFL QB's, Olympic athletes, supermodels and even the checkout line at WalMart shows the fallacy of "we are all equal", but the force of coercion to lie about what we see is STRONG in BOistan.

Equal in the sight of God, but not equal in the sight of each other, and CERTAINLY not in the sight of the IRS "progressive" income tax!

The key to the current subjugation of BOistan is that everyone is at least fully AWARE of what reality they are SUPPOSED to subscribe to. As per the article, those that are not "liberals in good standing" are at least totally aware of what they are SUPPOSED to think. "Liberals"  are pretty much covered by the following ...

“Imagine the average day for liberals,” political columnist John Hawkins says. “They get up and read their local newspaper. It has a liberal viewpoint. They take their kids to school, where the teachers are liberal. Then they go to work, listen to NPR which has a liberal viewpoint on the way home, and then turn on the nightly news which also skews leftward.” It’s a terrifying reality that we now live in a society where only one side of the political spectrum is allowed to speak without being attacked. 

As Hawkins notes, “Unless liberals actively seek out conservative viewpoints, which is unlikely, the only conservative arguments they're probably going to hear are going to be through the heavily distorted, poorly translated, deeply skeptical lens of other liberals.” And it’s all rooted in a hatred of free speech."

It's really much worse than that. Asking a typical liberal to understand the viewpoint of a conservative is like asking a fish to explain "dryness". Conservatives are so used to being "attacked", the column author mistakes that for how discussion ought to occur in a free society. "We should ATTACK each other more"!

Humans, ALL OF US, are extremely poor at handling "reality" or "the truth".  That starts with death, pain and the instant fragility of life. All we know and love can be physically gone in the next instant. Beyond this, without God, what existence we have has been adjudged meaningless by pretty much all philosophers -- some, like Nietzsche think we ought to set up "supermen" to provide us with "new myths" to provide that meaning, but like Hitler, and Jack below, such "supermen" have a remarkable tendency to be psychopathic.

Given our condition, the godless choice is submission to state power or war-- a position very well stated by Islam, whose name means "submission", which is the only godless way to peace, as is found in socialism, communism and all forms of statism. The godless choice is "control vs chaos", left vs right.

"Peace" is gained by destroying your adversaries or at least forcing them to shut up if there are no transcendent values -- which is what the "left" (Satan) is always busy doing. The MEANS of achieving control is unimportant, as long as control is achieved -- violence is common, but sometimes people can be made to submit by mere propaganda, or even by making the act of "submission" seem like a "religion".

Western Civilization, and eventually the old United States was founded on the Christian difference, where Christ, and his Grace, Love and Forgiveness transcended the human condition and allowed a nation where both freedom and peace could be maintained as long as the nation predominately followed Christ.

John 8:31-32  So He said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. 32 Then you will know truth, and the truth will set you free."

Truth, Freedom and Peace -- not PERFECT truth, freedom and peace in this world, but pretty amazing never the less. Standards of living undreamed of for thousands of years of human history, life expectancies doubled and tripled, travel, rapid communication, literacy being common -- we went to the MOON!

However, "the cost" of the "old order" was the acceptance that "man was not the measure of all things". God, history, love, truth, etc were all part of that "bargain", and it was more than the left could stand. For them, "utopia" was entirely measured in human terms, which they were CERTAIN were the way to unlimited good, since their faith decreed that man had been created by randomness to be "good" (an abstract concept their science had no definition for beyond "works as specified")

Any case, what he was was "unlimited" -- "freedom" was "the absence of limits", so we began our brave new world founded on science where each man's "truth" is as good as all others and all are declared to be "equal" -- as long as they follow the rules that the dominant political party decrees.

Following these rules is "freedom", since these rules are made by man for man, they MUST be "good".

We abandoned THE TRUTH which is Christ, and arrived at "the truth of The Party" -- TP (D).

and TP saith it is good.

Sex and Science

Liberal Views on Sexuality Debunked | National Review:



A well written column that covers the facts of sexuality and gender very succinctly and accurately based on the latest science. To refresh what has been covered in this blog many times:

• Non-breeding sexual deviations are not adaptive. If it doesn't breed, it doesn't lead to a future in the world of biology. (apparently a lot of the modern left missed that class in HS biology)
• Lots of things have "genetic roots" ... alcoholism, obesity, anxiety, depression, pedophilia, cancer, intelligence, athletic ability -- and on and on. In every case but sexuality, the assumption is that parenting, education, training, medicine, behavior modification, etc, etc can have an impact to channel the innate characteristic in a positive way. Except for sexual preference and gender according to the sexual preference and gender lobby.  
• A stable marriage and solid family life show up as cornerstones of a healthy life in every statistic in existence -- happiness, longevity, health, wealth and meaning in life. That is why the left attempts at every point to destroy marriage and family -- broken people are more likely to seek the assistance of the state and begin a permanent cycle of despair and dependency, which plays directl into the hands of the ruling political party (The Party-TP D) 

Just read the column, it is WELL worth it.



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The South Rises For Blacks

The problem with Trump’s question to black voters, ‘What the hell do you have to lose?’ - The Washington Post: 

WaPo attempts to make the case that the Democratic Plantation has been very good for blacks ... so Trump's "what the hell do you have to lose" doesn't make sense. Tears would seem to be the right response to charts that show white males average income DROPPING from $56K to $52K since 1974, and black men (who have jobs) "improving" from $38K to $41K. White men lost $4K in 40 years and black men gained $3K -- so why isn't everyone HAPPY! 

Oh, the "gains" were all in the '80s, it has been pretty much flatline since them! 

But wait, some blacks ARE happier! In the SOUTH! 

"Stevenson and Wolfers found that the improvement was greatest in the South, where African Americans now report being no less happy, on average, than their white neighbors."

Uh, wain a minute. The SOUTH is all nasty "red country", home of the Republican "southern strategy". You mean to say that blacks are doing BETTER in the states that are slogging along under regressive REPUBLICAN rule?

Yup, that is what they say ... only they don't say it. They want to claim it is due to ...

Aggressive federal enforcement of civil-rights laws in that part of the country might have contributed to the shift for black Southerners.

Sure it did! Blacks are dying in droves in the big northern cities that are all under total Democrat control. I'm sure thousands of young black men shooting each other in the streets is a sign of their "happiness". Why, maybe even "Black Lives Matter" is a testament to the "progressive" policies in all these fully Democrat controlled African American utopias?

If you believe something like that, you must be a Democrat.

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Hildebeast Is #2

Who Wore It Better: Hillary Clinton Or This Sofa?:

I've commented before that if Hildebeast is actually a human female, she would NEVER dress as she does. There are only two possible explanations that I can see:

1). She is NOT a human female.
2). She is showing us that she is not only above the law, she is above all sense of humanity and femaleness -- she is "Herself", a new creation, steeped in corruption who will do WHATEVER she wants WHENEVER she wants and we better bow down and worship whatever she is or does!

I tend to go with #2, and in fact I really think that is her designation ... we have had BO, now we are due to ruled by "#2"!

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Aiding and Abedin

Aiding and Abedin | The Weekly Standard:

Primarily I'm jealous of the title ... Hillary's right hand acolyte is Huma Abedin, a practicing Muslim, so therefore a believer in Shariah Law as the proper law for all to live under to be at "peace" (submission).

Her name sounds very much like "abetting", ( "abettin") thus the play on words.

Any sentient person knows that the purpose of the "Clinton Fund" is political prostitution -- buying access and favors by "pay for play". They don't even really try to hide it, which is part of their power play. They are above the law, they have proven they are above the law, now all that remains is for the rest of us to agree with that or SHUT UP!

The article gives a lot of evidence, but once someone is established as a prostitute, it is very tiresome to go into the details of each of her many "tricks". I'll leave you with this:

Many of these recent revelations have come despite efforts by Clinton defenders to keep them from the public. The FBI last week turned over to the State Department nearly 15,000 emails it recovered during its investigation of Clinton's private server. Many of them—"thousands," according to FBI director James Comey—were "work-related" emails that Clinton claimed she had turned over to the State Department. On August 8, 2015, Clinton signed a declaration submitted to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., swearing "under penalty of perjury" that she'd directed all emails that "were or potentially were" work-related turned over to the State Department.

We now know they were not, but nobody is prosecuting her for perjury because SHE IS ABOVE THE LAW!

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Stealing Wheelbarrows, Funds -- For Clintons

Hillary Clinton's E-mails Reveal Special Favors & Meetings for Clinton Foundation Donors | National Review:

For years a factory worker pushes a wheelbarrow full of straw past a security guard on his way out. Suspicious that the guy is stealing something, the guard looks in the straw but can’t find anything. Finally, when the worker is retiring, the guard asks, “I know you’ve been stealing something — can you tell me what it is? The guy smiles and says, “Wheelbarrows.”

The joke is actually misleading, the Clinton Foundation is WAY more obvious than the guy stealing wheelbarrows -- at least the idea there MIGHT be something in the wheelbarrow is some indirection. With the Clinton Foundation there is none -- it is totally in the open!

Does ANYONE think that people are going to hand millions and tens of millions of dollars to the Clintons "just because they are nice people"? Their "Foundation" is set up to be purposely vague --- as one of the charity rating groups said  "The Clinton Foundation has multiple legal entities, and then also multiple disparate programs, which makes it impossible for us to rate in the actual format that we do ratings today,"  NOBODY would go out out and decide to donate to the Clinton Foundation because it was "a great charity"!

But even when they DO get "good ratings", these are people who can have sex with employees at work and treat top secret documents with "extreme carelessness" and get off. Anything can be bought in a corrupt society  -- and the Clintons are proof of that! Their "foundation" is proof that the corruption is so great they don't even have to pretend to hide it!

I'm reminded of a Seinfeld where George has a fake charity, "The Human Fund -- Money, for people".

Why not just call it "The Clinton Fund" -- Funds, for Clintons? Everyone certainly knows this to be the case, but at the level of corruption the US is at, apparently close to half the people simply don't care. They assume that Hildebeast will punish the "other tribe" (Republicans, the productive, Christians, etc) and reward their tribe, and in a corrupt tribal culture like BOistan, the only "value" is "just win baby". Take from the other tribe, look out for #1.

I can't believe that anyone with an IQ over 100 actually in any way "believes" the Clintons at this point. How much howling have we heard about "Citizens United" and the evils of money in politics from the left, and now their candidate is the doyen of the "Clinton Fund"? "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".  In BOistan, the good have to avert their eyes from the level of insane corruption that is in operation in plain view. Evil has completely triumphed.

OF COURSE they are selling influence!!! -- and anything else they can sell including the scraps left of America, and no doubt future claims on our children and grandchildren.

BO was a tragedy, Hildebeast is a farce.

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EpiPen, Is There A Politician In The House?

EpiPen -- Hillary Clinton Harasses Mylan for Selling a Life-Saving Product | National Review:

Listening to a politician complain about the price of anything isn't on my list of things to do. Has anyone ever  been in any sort of actual distress and asked "is there a politician in the house"? Of course not.

There was a time when we had a Constitution, Separation of Powers and LIMITED government when there were actually such things as "public servants". No more -- it is just a question of how deep the corruption.

Public Enemy No. 1 in Democratic circles today is Heather Bresch, CEO of the company that makes the EpiPen, a super-convenient epinephrine auto-injection device used to treat anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction that can be caused by anything from a bee sting to a bag of peanuts. At its worst, anaphylaxis is bad news of the kill-you-dead variety, which makes having an EpiPen or two around very handy indeed. Bresch’s company, Mylan, recently raised prices on the EpiPen and several other treatments they sell. An EpiPen dose might cost as much as $600, which is . . . about half of what the typical American family spends on cable TV in a year. Yeah, sure, little Bobby’s face is swelling up like a North Korean dictator’s and his kidneys are about to fail — but there’s two episodes left on Game of Thrones this season! And Daenerys is naked in both of them!

Spare me.

Why is it that cable TV, cell phones, restaurant meals, travel, movie tickets and certainly ANYTHING related to medicine in any way at all rises like a rocket (insurance, deductibles, co-pays, etc.

So why IS it that an EpiPen ought to cost less than six months of cable tv? My last pair of GLASSES cost $500! I tried hearing aids that cost $6K for the pair.

Thought experiment: Your child is dying. Who do you go to for help? Sanders? Clinton? Or one of the research scientists who made the EpiPen possible?

Yes, Mylan raised the price of an EpiPen. You know who else raised the price on EpiPens? Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, that’s who, and Joe Manchin, too. You thought Obamacare meant free goodies for you paid for by wicked rich people and evil corporations, right, Sunshine? Remember that medical-device tax? An EpiPen is a medical device. You think the politicians don’t have any self-interest there?

We are already rationing drugs and kids are dying because of it. SOCIALIZED MEDICINE IS HERE! Socialism = shortages ... and cronyism, and price gouging. We had LIMITED GOVERNMENT for a reason!

I have no idea if the cost of EpiPen is reasonable, inflated by the company, inflated by the cost of lawsuits and government regulation, purely for the profit of Mylan, if the government is looking the other way because Joe Manchin is a member in good standing of "The Party" - D, etc, etc.

The point is, unlike the emanations from Sanders, Hidebeast, etc, the EpiPen HAS VALUE -- it saves lives. Even six months of cable tv has some value -- I don't happen to have it, but there is a market for it and plenty of people DO have it.

Do some companies "gouge"? Certainly -- but unless the market is so regulated and controlled that competition can't enter it (and it may be in this case), then "gouging" is certain to bring competitors and the price will drop.

We need to find a way to get rid of the vermin we have in the political class today and bring back some "public servants". I see no way that can happen without LOTS of work making sure that government and the power of those that are supposed to SERVE returns to being LIMITED!



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Secret Iranian High Speed Intercept

Iranian vessels come within 300 yards of US destroyer - CNNPolitics.com:



Perhaps Iran is looking for a few more pallets of cash.



Couple of their high speed military boats came within 300 yards of a BOistan destroyer in international waters. As amazing as it seems, in the old days of the US, there was once a point that it's military had some respect in the world and incidents like this were rare and tended to have repercussions.



It seems questionable if BOistan needs to a navy -- unless it is to be used to show subservience to more powerful nations.



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Rosie O'Donnell Moment, Trump

Dilbert Explains Donald Trump - WSJ:

As you know, I've been on the Scott Adams discussion of Trump for some time. The whole column is worth the read, but this is especially true ... "rationalIZING not rational!". (I've maybe repeated that a few times too many).

"The central insight of these disciplines, Mr. Adams says, is that “people are never rational. They rationalize. So after the fact they tell you why they did something. And there’s plenty of science to support that. Now we can show that people actually make their decision before they come up with their reasons. . . . That was the perspective that I took when I saw Trump.”"

The title is about this ...

“The moment I realized there was something special was during the first debate,” he tells me over coffee in the kitchen of his spacious suburban home. “It was the Rosie O’Donnell moment.” Moderator Megyn Kelly had confronted Mr. Trump with the key premise of what Mr. Adams calls “a gotcha question of the highest order”: “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ ”

“I asked myself: How would anybody else have answered?” Mr. Adams recalls. “If you denied it, it would look weak. If you embraced it—you really couldn’t. There was nothing you could say. He was completely painted into a corner by his past comments. No one could get out of that. And then he did what no one could do—he got out of it. He said: ‘Only Rosie O’Donnell.’ ”

"Only Rosie O'Donnell" -- a very unattractive person that has said ALL sorts of nasty things about any number of people. One can see him with his cherub smile, shoulder shrug, palms out -- the theatre is reminciedt of the left's favorite rapist, Slick Willie.

Slick Willie was once president. BO is president now. ANYONE can be president -- isn't it wonderful?


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Most Dangerous Six Months

Donald Trump: An Unexpected Opportunity | National Review: 

The linked article isn't bad, but on the long side -- the obvious conclusion, Trump still has a chance and he would certainly be better than Hildebeast. 

What struck me however is the following paragraph. If I had been a general in the USSR in 1980 -- godless, amoral, patriotic, etc,  I would have launched 10 nukes or so into the US and rolled the tanks into Europe. Given Jimmuh a call on the phone and said:

 "It's over -- there is no advantage for you to end the world and kill 100's of millions of people ... Communism is simply the better system!

NY,  DC, LA, Pearl Harbor, Chicago and your major military bases are gone. If you unleash your submarine missiles, we will have our ICBMs in the air when they clear the surface. Both our nations will be utterly destroyed. As it is, your casualties are in the low 10's of millions, Europe will be ours inside a week, and the world will go on. Our system was inevitable anyway -- it just happened sooner than you expected." 

My reading of Carter is that he would have stood down. Apparently there was enough doubt in the Soviet high command that they let us survive that disaster of a president -- and it was their undoing.  

Now this. 

"Many of us have been saying for a year now that the last six months of the Obama administration will likely be the most dangerous interlude since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 or the Carter meltdown of 1980. Restive aggressors abroad have long concluded that Obama is conflicted about American morality, power, and responsibility. After his faux deadlines, redlines, and step-over lines, his apologies, his mythographical speeches, and his deer-in-the-headlights reactions to overseas challenges, he appears to foreign opportunists to be indifferent to the consequences of American laxity and lead-from-behind withdrawal. "

The wild card for me with BO that never existed with Carter is that BO has declared that ending "the colonial powers" is his "dream" that he inherited from his father and grandfather.

Perhaps the "Iran deal" is deeper than we might otherwise imagine? I could easily imagine BO making a deal with pretty much any foreign power that would take him and his family to a safe and regal life. He has stated that "he is a citizen of the world", and his most emotional attachment is to his identity as a "Luo tribesman".

Say $100 Billion in payment, and his guarantee that no missile launch will be forthcoming from  BOistan -- perhaps the attack could even be covered as "terrorist". Again, 5-10 or even less nukes, with the added potential of a couple high EMP bursts that took out the whole electrical and communications system of BOistan for MONTHS (at a minimum). Pretty much nobody in the US would know what had happened or that we had surrendered until months after the fact.

By then, BO and family would be safely ensconced where they desired and a "New World Order" would be operational.

Do I "expect it"? No, but it is WAY more likely than a lot of the crazy ideas about "dangerous Donald".

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Moral Outrage, Parenting, Progress

Why Do We Judge Parents For Putting Kids At Perceived — But Unreal — Risk? : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR:

Those of us that grew up in era of Neanderthal parenting with spankings, no bicycle helmets, no seat belts even existing in cars, no child car seats,  free range kids, federally unapproved toys, etc probably have a bit different reaction to this. Oh, but our parents DID love us, we know because they dutifully made us wait an hour after eating before swimming so we didn't get "cramps".  That was "settled science" in those days.

We have all witnessed, or maybe even felt "moral outrage" at parents that let their kids run around unsupervised, failed to use a car seat, or gave a kid a swat -- these days we even have LAWS to FORCE people to follow the "modern ideals of parenting". Why, giving a kid a swat is CHILD ABUSE!

I always love how some animal exhibiting homosexual behavior is "proof" that it is "natural" and therefore good -- but watching a mother cat or dog deal with pups of kittens gives no clue as to the "naturalness" of giving them a swat!

The article authors seem to be mystified that just as everyone believes in something, everyone is going to judge something. When I was growing up, we actually had "real morals" -- like the money the rich guy down the street has isn't yours to take even if you can get the government to do it, don't sleep around, don't take drugs, don't gamble, etc, etc. We gave up all those old morals -- now theft by government is a virtue, sex with anything or anyone is wonderful, and the government is in charge of running the numbers (lottery), but has outsourced craps, slots, etc to the Indians. These days in more states every year, one can light up a joint, sit back and wait for prostitution and heroin to be legal -- heck, they may even force the rich guy down the street to buy them for you!

Either God or randomness gave us a moral compass, and it WILL get used. We are moral beings. For the previous thousands of years, those morals were "attached" to things that were considered by those old "non-progressive fools" to either actually be "good or bad", or were somehow "adaptive" if you think it is all an "accident". BUT we are MUCH smarter now, so we have a moral compass that has no "true north" to point at -- no matter, it works just fine anyway, but it confuses the NPR and psychologist folks.

The more surprising result was that perceptions of risk followed precisely the same pattern. Although the details of the cases were otherwise the same — that is, the age of the child, the duration and location of the unattended period, and so on — participants thought children were in significantly greater danger when the parent left to meet a lover than when the child was left alone unintentionally. The ratings for the other cases, once again, fell in between. In other words, participants' factual judgments of how much danger the child was in while the parent was away varied according to the extent of their moral outrage concerning the parent's reason for leaving.

Strangely (from the POV of brilliant progressives), people have a "moral sense", Now it may seem completely insane to apply it to things that only arrived in the last 50 years like seat belts, car seats, Pokemon games, bike helmets, etc -- but apply it we do, and SHOCKINGLY, we yet again don't have an "innate understanding of statistics".  Damn, whaz up wid dat?

Holy crap, people FEEL that "something bad is more likely to happen" if you are off cheating on your spouse and leaving junior to fend for himself, than if you have charged across the street to save the neighbors baby from a house fire! The psychologists are SHOCKED, shocked I tell you! that people don't come to the rational conclusion that "the odds of bad things happening" are  dependent on the age of the child and the time left, NOT on the activity that the abandoning parent is off to.

The left will continue to work hard to remove any innate sense of morality -- their usual technique is to exterminate those people who retain such a feeling in hopes that it will create a "more perfect society" (see Stalin, Mao, Hitler, etc) after the only remaining people are able to reach suitably leftist conclusions on the basis of hard statistical evidence! If you are the sort that feels some pang of "injustice" that such clearly defective humans would be slaughtered, you are also likely the kind of reactionary that fails to see the justice of murdering 60 million babies for convenience.

Don't worry, such obviously non-adaptive thought is being weeded out -- the brave new world is visible now. Soon "moral outrage" will be a thing of the past and life will be much more rational!

One of the big benefits is that NPR and leftist psychologists will no longer be confused.

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Less Christians, Less Republicans, Less Blessing

The rise of irreligion is the GOP’s real demographic crisis - Salon.com: 

Sometimes Satan's cackle is plain to hear.

"The trend away from faith is only bound to increase with time. According to Pew, about 36 percent of adults under the age of 50 have opted out of religion. At present, claiming no faith is the fastest growing “religion” in the United States. Between 2007 and 2012, the number of people claiming “nothing in particular” increased by 2.3 percent, those saying they were agnostics increased by 1.2 percent and those claiming to be atheists increased by 0.8 percent. No actual religious group has experienced anywhere near such growth during this time period. "

What a wonderful statement of faith -- "the trend is only bound to increase in time".  Satan himself could have written this article -- perhaps the similarity between "Salon" and "Satan" is no accident. If he did write it,  the "bound to increase with time" is just another lie -- Old Scratch is well aware after thousands of years that his "victory" is far from certain, and is in fact a guaranteed loss.

The US was a Christian nation (and a great one). BOistan is a tribal mess in rapid decline. God gave us free will, the nation chose to follow Satan, and it is in rapid decline -- no mystery there. "The Party" (TP-D) is proudly the party of Satan ... it may not seek to be, but man always serves, when he doesn't serve God, Satan is his master. As imperfect as it is, the Republican party is, it was the party of Christ while the US survived.

The power of God is also not a mystery -- world wide, Christianity is rapidly growing.

The global religious wildcard is China. Even today, demographers estimate that more Christian believers are found worshipping in China on any given Sunday than in the United States. Future trends, while difficult to predict because so much is below the religious radar, could dramatically drive down the world’s religious “nones.”

I'm cheating here -- my guess is that on the timeline we selected, China becomes a Christian Nation and is blessed, but it may well be one or more nations in Africa or South America where Christianity, the religion of blessing, has and is growing. We have free will, but I also believe that God has his finger on the scale -- he gave the US extended grace, we as a nation made a clear choice to die, as did Europe.

We could also seek repentance, although "Salon/Satan" would be highly disappointed and their faith would be shaken. Everyone has faith, the only question is "in what"?

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Hildebeast: "Colin Powell Did It"

Hillary Clinton’s ‘Colin Powell did it’ defense of her email practices is just plain wrong - The Washington Post:

Dear God, are we in grade school? Our level of personal responsibility is "somebody else did it"?

Only ... even the defenders of the leftist soul, WaPO can't quite stomach this level of mendacity.

1. First, he doesn't recall ever telling her that
2. The rules for email (unsurprisingly) became more strict since he was in office anyway. Just because a Democrat could be a member of the KKK in the '50s as Robert Byrd was, doesn't necessarily mean they could get away with it today -- well, unless they were a Clinton! 
3. He didn't use ONLY a private email server stored in his own home as Hildebeast did. 

The bottom line, however is that the Clintons lie ALL THE TIME ... but they get away with it, because, well, they are the Clintons and they lie, break the law and get away with it and it is OLD NEWS! 

When you live in BOistan, that is just the way it is! 

'via Blog this'

Peter Thiel

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439157/gawker-hulk-hogan-lawsuit-press-isnt-exempt-privacy-laws?utm_source=facebook+&utm_medium=nr&utm_campaign=august19goldberg

The wild card in human history is PEOPLE. An example seems to be Peter Thiel, whose excellent "Zero to One" book I blogged on here.  Seems he is showing up a few places ...

Many media critics look down their noses at Gawker’s style, but they were enraged by the revelation that Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel helped bankroll Hogan’s lawsuit. A free press is an important institution in a democracy, but journalists don’t have any rights the rest of us don’t.

Not only did Thiel allegedly have an axe to grind – Gawker had outed him as gay in 2007 — but Thiel’s politics are unsavory in the eyes of many on the left; He’s a libertarian who’s supporting Donald Trump. (I suppose I should also disclose that he’s been a supporter of National Review, where I am a senior editor, though his support hasn’t stopped National Review from being a vocal critic of Thiel’s preferred candidate.)

The left is always interesting to watch on "privacy". Slick Willie can mash interns and rape wives of donors as long as he is in good standing with "The Party" (TP-D) -- it's "a private matter", and looking into it is "peering in others bedroom windows".

Is it really anyone's business if Thiel wants to have his sexual preference as a "private matter"? Well yes, certainly! He is apparently GAY ... which he ought to be completely happy to shout from the mountaintops! Especially since he is a libertarian -- no "hypocrisy", since they are fine with one being gay, drug addicted, or "whatever", but the idea that he would want his sexual preference PRIVATE is something that the left really can't abide in a gay person!

But what TP wants isn't exactly "free press", it is PROTECTED LIBERAL PRESS.

It’s certainly fair to argue against the merits of the verdict. But no one is above the law. Not even journalists, never mind corporations in the journalism business.

Ah TP is above the law! In fact, it is above ALL law, it IS the law!  Did you miss the Clinton FBI discussion? TP MUST be above the law -- it follows no law but it's own, and no truth but it's own. It's lies are to be holy writ to those of us unwashed masses that refuse to bow before power of TP. How else are they eventually going to prosecute, imprison and execute us so BOistan can be a "more civil place"?

Guys like Thiel are the "outliers" ... the "iconoclasts" that TP didn't count on and wants to DESTROY! As long as a few of those are alive, there is still hope -- they are the Solzhenitsyns shining in the dark archipelago of BOistan.

What a wonderful thing to see!

Who Am I To Dis A Brie?

In case you lost this earworm ... a booster shot!

Not Yours To Think About

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/nation-now/2016/08/15/estate-tax-clinton-trump-death-irs-detroit-speech-spending-waste-mitch-albom/88721950/

In one of her emanations, the Hildebeast coveted the wealth of Trump for "us" (which usually means "The Clinton Foundation" for her). Mich Albon, author of "Tuesday's With Morrie" (yet another book that I read but never blogged on)  had this to say:

“If you believe that he’s as wealthy as he says,” she said, killing the tax “would save the Trump family $4 billion. ... “Just think about what we could do with those $4 billion.”

I wish my mother were still alive. Just so she could say, “It’s not yours to think about.”

It's a good little short article that has that wistful sense of the time when we were America rather than BOistan and things like "what mother said", "wrong", and old tired ideas like "thrift" still resonated with most of the population.

This is dangerous and incendiary stuff. If we start getting excited about dead people’s money, it won’t stop at an artificial cutoff. Besides, it’s just wrong. It’s not ours to spend. It’s been through the tax ringer.

Albon chooses to not cover the main reason that I am against the estate tax. The GOOD of "inheritance".

America was a country where it was considered GOOD to amass wealth over multiple generations. It made things like "thrift" -- being "a good steward" an advantage to families that could raise children that "carried on the family tradition" which included growing wealth. It created the VERY real prospect that "your children would have it better than you" -- something lost in BOistan.

Everyone knows that BOistan is spending not only vast sums of current wealth, but even greater sums of what we know to be dwindling future wealth. America never had a president that failed to have even a single quarter of over 3% growth, it is no surprise that the first leader of BOistan has a hard time having 1% growth even after cooking the books!

BOistan is a nation of takers, not makers and it has no concept at all of "it isn't yours". You can't be a taker if you aren't willing to take! It is the chief qualification for a citizen or leader of BOistan!

Clintons As Role Models, Legal Corruption

How Hillary And Bill Clinton Became Millionaires : NPR:

This article made me think of a trip I made to White Plains with IBM in '84. At that time, the PC business was going gangbusters as was every other business IBM was in, from Mainframes, to S/38 to S/36, to Token Ring, to SNA (IBM's version of what TCP/IP ought to have been). At the meeting, we were treated to the litany "Only 20% of people graduate from College. IBM only hires from the top 10% of those graduates, and only the top 1% of IBMers get to come to a session like this -- you are "the best of the best""

I didn't say anything, but thought "Well, with the possible exception of me, the whole class would get their asses kicked in an average Northern WI bar, there HAS to be SOMETHING really wrong with that analysis".

There was ... IBM had a near death experience in the early '90s, and nobody finds much of anything special about IBM today.

The article assumes that "The Party" (TP-D) is going to continue to rule BOistan, and that the biggest problem they have is to recruit more bright young folks to be top level bureaucrats and maybe even "Presidential calibre" like the Clintons.

Maybe so.

It of course assumes what Slick and Hildebeast have done is legal ...

"The Clintons have always been very careful to walk about two inches inside the line," said Michael Johnston, a professor emeritus at Colgate University who is researching public perceptions of legal and illegal corruption."

There you have it -- according to the government funded media, you too could walk "two inches inside the line" and deal entirely in "legal corruption" and end up rich and in power like the modern TP heroes, Slick and Hildebeast.

I enjoyed this one ...

Hillary had better advice and more success with commodities trading. Her guide was James Blair, a close family friend and a Little Rock lawyer whose corporate clients sometimes dealt with government agencies. He helped her turn a $1,000 investment into a return of nearly $100,000.

Isn't that nice? Find "good advice" and you too can turn 1K into 100K with "legal corruption" just like our heroes the Clintons!

"Legal corruption" ... perhaps the cornerstone of BOistan politics.


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The Face Of God -- The Gifford Lectures, by Roger Scruton

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15782118-face-of-god

I finished the EXCELLENT subject book  and had one of my "vast oversimplification aha moments". Let's call the book FoG (Face Of God).

The "Aha" is that Science is psychopathic! It has been staring me in the face for years, but this book finally brought it to the surface.

The psychopath and those high on the autism scale fail to see the conscious entity behind the face in other humans. They are to varying degrees "consciousness blind". Because they are such, they tend to varying degrees to lack any sense of morality -- remorse, shame, etc. They tend to lack a CONSCIENCE ... which is very much linked with human consciousness.

The whole FoG book focuses on subjects vs objects and the "I -You" relation which recognizes that we are all "subjects" (conscious BEings) Objects are not conscious in the human sense. Subjects are US ... or God. We have BEING ... we are little "i am's" ... God is **I AM**! (consider us the eternal dog food version). I suspect that God really enjoyed the joke of Dog being God backward! How funny, considering that we are the dogs!

The book concentrates on the idea of "the face", and how it is a portal for the consciousness behind it.

"My face is a boundary, a threshold, a place where I appear as the monarch appears on the balcony of the palace" ... or the Pope appears to the faithful in St Peter's square. It isn't "I", but if you are not a psychopath or autistic, you can "see"(detect)  the "I" from my face.

"It [the face] shows the incarnate in the object, embraced by it's own mortality, and present like death on the unknowable edge of things".

"... the individual is revealed not only in the life that shines from the face, but in the death growing in the folds and wrinkles ...:".

Scruton prefers "I-You" as the standard human relation, but I would call it "I to I" with the obvious play on words. The whole essence of human life is RELATIONSHIPS between sentient BEings that have human consciousness. Everything else is just mechanism.

He ends the book with this ...

"Our disenchanted life is, to use the Socratic idiom, "not a life for a human being". By remaking human beings and their habitat as objects to consume rather than subjects to revere, we invite the degradation of both. Postmodern people will deny that their disquiet at these things has a religious meaning, but I hope that my argument has gone some way to showing that they are wrong."

For me, his argument is a pearl of great price in a mechanical world.

Science is in the business of "disenchantment", but like some sorcerer's apprentice, it takes pride in the fact that it has NO MORAL SENSE, nor "sense" at all. It doesn't "engender the Terminator" (SkyNet from the Terminator movies), it **IS** the "Terminator" ... of humanity, of morality, of meaning, of life, of love, of "god" ... only GOD is very much it's master, it is just that due to Free Will, our choice of science over God has crushed our sacred *I* (subjectness).

By definition, science totally lacks any recognition of ALL **I ams** ... to science, there are no subjects, only objects. Objects that can be reduced to component parts, classified, ordered and disposed of with "efficiency". "Morality" and "meaning" simply do not compute -- they can't be measured, therefore they are not.

We have released science from the slave status which a TOOL that refuses to recognize the most basic element of humanity needs to be confined to. The fact that we are SUBJECTS, not objects ought to always be conceded by any sentient human who understands the nature of at least man, if not having the beginnings of understanding the nature of God and the universe (the beginning of wisdom).

I can't recommend this book too highly. My review COMPLETELY fails to do it justice. It is quite reachable, yet it is a profound statement on the human condition, and our profound peril in a modern world that has lost the  understanding of what it means to be human.

No Human ALIVE Has Seen Hotter July!

July 2016 was the hottest July on record.:

No human ALIVE ... meaning hottest July since, well  .... 1890, MAYBE.  The chart shows the temperature DEVIATION plotted against the BASELINE, which is the average temperature from 1981-2010 (the 0.0 line). Why is that the average temperature for the whole planet? Well, because the international climate industry has declared it to be so.

One interpretation of this chart is "hottest ever", another interpretation would be that we have "returned to the mean" ... like .1 above the mean, but MUCH better than .6 BELOW the mean where we were in 1890.

So

If we look at temperatures of the last 10K years, we are REALLY cold in comparison.

But anyone that presents data from prior to say "1860" is some sort of a "denier".

I grew up in a fundamentalist church. The mark of fundamentalism is WE WILL NOT DISCUSS THIS! The saddest element of the modern climate religion is that it is a fundamentalist religion, so ALL must either agree with it or be cut off from fellowship.

In the fundamentalist church I grew up in "the end times were here" -- and so it is in the climate religion. Those that refuse to believe are downright dangerous! Humans have been drawn to "eschatology" FOREVER ... it has ALWAYS been "the end times". "Ye will be judged"!

The difference is that now the secular world as opposed to the Church has decided "this is it", and "if you are not with us, you are against us" ... and it has gone so far we are going to prosecute you if you fail to agree with us "thus sayeth climate science"!

The secularists destroyed religion so the Catholics and the Protestants could get along -- now we are in the business of criminalizing disagreement on the weather and calling that "progress".

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BOistan Divided, Drowning vs Abortion

DIVIDED AMERICA: Global warming polarizes more than abortion - The Washington Post:

The more people connect on a human level, the more people can “overcome these tribal attitudes,” Anna Jane Joyner says. “We really do have a lot more in common than we think.”

I read an article like this and wonder how the author would answer the following question;

Do you think the natural state of human society is:
A. Tribes
B. Plato's Republic
C. Marxist Communism or Socialism
D. Some yet unknown scientifically based advanced culture?

I'm assuming he thinks "D", but then HOW does one get there? Force?

We once overcame tribalism by believing in a set of transcendent truths that we called "Western Civilization" which was largely rooted in Christian values. Justice, equality of opportunity, individual responsibility, freedom, etc ... that kind of trash.

Science is like engineering on the starship Enterprise .... it lets you go fast, blow things up and make the doors go "whoosh"! It tells you NOTHING about what you "should" do. Annihilate the aliens or go down and see if you can have sex with them like Kirk and Riker might prefer -- those are NOT scientific questions!

On  a "human level", we are all tribalists. On a scientific level, we apparently take a lot of surveys and marvel that we are tribalists -- but somehow believe that if we all get together on a "human level", we will reach a decision that killing off the next generation is better than them drowning in the rising oceans. Or something.

Is the "fastest growing segment" of the population "young earth warmists" that believe that man arrived in the last 10K years after the most recent ice age, thus missing the last warming period equivalent to now 120K years ago, or the previous three other comparable periods in the past 500K years? Will appropriate surveys make the last 500K of geologic and climate history go away?

Science is WHOLLY unable to produce the "myths" on which to base a human society. It may well help a reasonable society, or even "tribes", have more "stuff", move around more, kill each other more efficiently, or distract themselves more completely, but that is ALL it is capably of doing.

No matter how many surveys you send out!

'via Blog this'

Trump Is Right on Voter Fraud

Donald Trump Voter Fraud Warning: He’s Right & Media Are Wrong to Dismiss It | National Review:

Not a very long read, but a very worthy one. Voter fraud is WELL documented in A LOT of places, if it looks like a Democrat is going to lose, or if they DO lose, we even hear quite a lot about it all of a sudden. Remember Diebold?

Even Democrats admit it is common when they get careless ...

Chris Matthews, the liberal MSNBC host who comes from Pennsylvania, vehemently opposes requiring ID at polling places. But he agrees that voter fraud is a Philadelphia tradition. In 2011, on his show Hardball, he explained a common scheme:

People call up, see if you voted or you’re not going to vote. Then all of a sudden somebody does come and vote for you. This is an old strategy in big-city politics. . . . I know all about it in North Philly — it’s what went on, and I believe it still goes on.

Pretty much everyone else in the world that votes requires an ID to vote. Democrats are well on the way to making that unconstitutional here. This isn't really a very hard position to understand if you care to. The author of the column, John Fund, wrote a good book on the subject a good while back "Stealing Elections" ... you really don't want to look into it if you agree with BO that Trump is crazy to suggest such a thing.

'via Blog this'

Hedge Fund Vote, $48M Clinton, $19K Trump

http://www.wsj.com/articles/hedge-fund-money-48-5-million-for-hillary-clinton-19-000-for-donald-trump-1469784601

Hedge funds are playing a far bigger role in 2016 than in past elections—and Hillary Clinton has been the single biggest beneficiary.

Much as with Brexit, "the smart money" likes the rigged economy. "Follow the money" is often the refrain of the left, but this time they seem to like "the sounds of silence" on that front.

Will the common folk vote against their jailers in the BOistan? It remains to be seen, but at least we know who the jailers like!

Absalom Oh Absalom, Perspective

The past month has not been the best for daily scripture, but some progress has been made. This AM this is where I was at:

2 Samuel 18:33 (NIV) The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!”

I can  remember thinking as a young man that King David must have been INSANE to still care about a son that had taken his kingdom and was doing his very best to kill him!

I've only begun to understood Psalm 128:6 "May you live to see your children's children" for the past 14 months, but I'm sure I'll understand it much deeper as time unravels.

"Honor your father and your mother" is the 4th commandment, after "no other Gods", "Don't take the Lord's name in vain" and "honor the sabbath". First you honor God in heaven alone (the BEGINNING of wiadom), then you honor him with your "word", then you honor his Church, and then you honor the humans that were his chosen means to give you life.

The only way a young man can understand the reaction of King David is by FAITH, and I clearly was not that young man.  I could also not understand the reality of Psalm 128:6 without experience -- my faith hasn't grown with age as much as I would like. Every parent of a grown child understands King David -- no doubt Kind David bounced Absalom on his knee and expected him to be a God loving righteous man. But he loved him still even when he wanted to kill him.

So maybe an earthly parent can BEGIN to understand the love of God for humans that hate him with all their hearts and all their souls. Atheism is a strange faith -- you hate that which you claim does not exist. Perhaps Muslims killing Christians to gain their spot in paradise approach the hatred that seethes from the atheist -- but I'm not so certain. I've read both "God Delusion" and "Letter To A Christian Nation", and while the ability of man to love without God may still be in question, it is very clear that godlessness helps mightily with hatred! The atheist credo is a barely concealed "give hate a chance".

So what is an earthly or heavenly father to do? Science certainly can't help you -- it's claim to fame is that it's truths are still true without humans existing at all. God's truths are always true as well -- even if he decides that science doesn't exist. He defines existence. He has however created us and made us eternal -- so we will go on existing, and for that same eternity (this one), science will have nothing to say about "the good", love, truth (other than mechanical truth) or beauty.

What I now have relative to Absalom and my children's children is the BEGINNING of wisdom. But someday I shall know.

1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

We stole the chance to decide our fate when we stole a bite from the tree ... we can know pure love, or we can know pure malevolence and hatred -- we have to work to get the malevolence and hatred with a lifetime of rejection like Absolom. If we are willing to experience love, we can let Grace take us home. 

The Face Of God, Preview

I'm enjoying this book by Roger Scruton and ran into this:

"Take away religion, however; take away philosophy, take away the higher forms of art, and you deprive ordinary people of the ways in which they can represent their apartness. Human nature, once something to live up to, becomes something to live down to instead. Biological reductionism nurtures this "living down", which is why people so readily fall for it. It makes cynicism respectable and degeneracy chic. It abolishes our kind, and with it our kindness."

Humans are a mass of paradox. We want to be unique, yet an intimate part of a community of "people like us". We want others to see us as US ... unique and special, yet loved, respected and desired as friend, lover, family member, team member, etc. If I have no faith or philosophy, perhaps a tattoo or body piercing will substitute?

When we are reduced to mere animals like any other beast, we are abolished as human -- and our "kindness" goes with it. Human life becomes a "race to the bottom". "Culture" and "Country" become a series of broken primitive tribes. All is injustice, victimhood, alienation, privilege, degeneracy (often demanded to be celebrated!), etc.

In a world where "sin" has supposed to have been abolished by the death of god, it strangely rushes back in as in the "America's original sin", or "the sin of ... police killings".

Humans are quite good at both seeing and committing sin, wholly without god. What they are completely unable to do is to repent, forgive and BE forgiven without God -- as Truth, another word for Christ!

Never Trump, Building The Gallows

Never Trump Republicans Help Hillary Clinton | National Review:



First of all,  "eponymous" is getting a well deserved return to general speech. "Named after the person", as in Trump's eponymous tower.

Even when a flawed candidate promises to practice most of what the Right has preached for decades, and even as these desperately needed solutions enjoy a fighting chance of being signed into law by a President Trump, Crooked Hillary’s conservative comrades reject Trump – the only candidate who can stop Hillary. Instead, they are building the gallows on which the Left’s Lady High Executioner will hang their ideas until dead.

I love the line, but my point the last year is that those ideas are effectively dead already.  Education in the US became a godless socialist/communist/statist indoctrination camp 50 years ago, dedicated to prevent any independent thought at all, did the vast bulk of the execution, aided by a massive bureaucracy to stamp out incentives for innovation, hard work and risk taking. BO basically just pulled the lever to drop the trap-door on the gallows. 

Certainly Hildebeast will enjoy further desecration of the rotting body of Christianity, conservative thought, the family, individual responsibility, work and just any remaining stench of decency which she and "The Party" (TP-D) find to be such a horror. 

So the author falls into the trap of believing there is something worthy of saving yet in BOistan, when really the question is just if the cathedrals will have to be hung with the rotting bodies of Christian martyrs and sprayed with excrement to stand as monuments to the power of TP, or if they can just be quietly bulldozed and buried and the tiny remnant of believers ushered off to some prairie compound to to be "re-educated". 

Maybe the Trump slogan ]ought to be "give decency an honorable burial, don't let Hildebeast desecrate it with a coven of witches". 

The article is a worthy read -- Trump has done a good deal to make himself at least sound good to an actual conservative. Do I believe him -- no, but I'd like to.

I actually DO believe Hildebeast, as I believed BO and believe Satan's stated purpose. Just because you may be the father of lies or worship him, does not mean your purpose is obscure. As her and BO's mentor Saul Alinsky before them, they hate any remnant of "America" and such things as "morals" or "values", and will work tireless to see that they are destroyed by all means possible and further more, made as abhorrent as possible to the easily influenced minds of a set of young very nearly wholly corrupted by TP. 

I see Never Trump as the corrupt establishment wing of "conservative". They have fed at the shared trough too long and the LAST thing they want to see is that trough to be upset. 

Oh, if only decency still had a living body in this forsaken territory of BOistan to be hung! 

Trump does remind me of a few undertakers I've seen -- right down to the orange skin. 

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Handicapped Permit, Heartless For Humans

I understand that many on the left have a firm belief that "government cares". Many on the left also believe that there is no God, or if there is, he doesn't care. Those of us that are Christians know and accept that we DO love ourselves, and it is HARD to love your neighbor -- or even your brother, as yourself.

Case in point, yesterday, I rush around in the AM as it is Marla's release day from the hospital after 5 weeks. Have a scant hour to "spare", rush up to the license place with the Dr signed form for a handicapped mirror hanger.

REJECTED!!!

The doctor had put the diagnosis on the wrong line and crossed it out. (he filled it in correctly below). There were a couple of other small things -- like he didn't include the ADDRESS for Mayo Clinic. Heck, can't expect the license place in Rochester to have heard of THAT place! and he didn't list the exact date when we don't need it any more ... he checked "6-12 months", we would have only gotten six. That would have been fine with me, I have a large hope my life will be less hectic in 6 months than on her discharge date after 5 weeks in hospital!

So I go back down for an afternoon of therapy assistance at Mayo, and they BEND OVER BACKWARD to get another form done correctly. This time, Marla is able to sign it, so she does and I return to supplicate myself at the feet of the royal license bureau.

"This doesn't look like a real signature, it looks like it was done by a machine" the potentate of handicapped stickers intones.

"Do you see the diagnosis line? My wife has a spinal injury, was PARALYZED 5 weeks ago, this is her signature".  I reply.

"Are you CERTAIN? This signature doesn't look like there was any pressure used to write it".

My voice rose just a little ... "Do you understand what paralysis is? My wife has very little strength and had to work HARD to do THAT"

The Queen of the blue mirror hangers relented at that point and took my $5 as a token of my subjugation, thus allowing me to leave with my proof of fealty.

It is too bad she didn't avail herself of the next step I was going to offer -- a chance to come out to the car, see the difference in grip strength in left vs right on someone with a spinal injury, and then I would demonstrate for her what "average grip strength" was for an uninjured elderly male.

The human condition "is what it is". We all know we are fallen, even those that refuse to admit it  -- we see it in ourselves and others every day. One might think that we would also know that taking a government job, being part of a union, having strong protections against losing your job, and having no incentive to perform well because your raises and promotions are based entirely on "time in grade" would not do much to improve the ability of a human being to care.

Are there "good and caring government workers"?  Certainly ... but pretty much all of us at the DMV, license bureau, post office, city clerk's office, etc have seen that those are FAR from "the rule". Handing responsibility for "caring" over to the government is not the solution -- deep down, we all know that as well as we know that ALL of us fall FAR short of even minimal standards of human caring ... on our best days, many of us do decently, but there are many days that fall far short of our best.

We "wish" for "life to be fair", "people to be nice", "security", etc, etc ... so many of us have become willing to hand the responsibility of making those wishes come true over to politicians that are willing to stand up and say that a few more trillions of dollars and millions of workers poured into a massive bureaucracy WILL make it happen ... in fact it is the ONLY way that it CAN happen and anyone that dares to disagree is "a roadblock to progress".

Look back on your life. Do you REALLY see that watching total government spending as a percentage of GDP go from under 20% in the 1950's to nearly 40% today has made our lives "nicer", "more friendly", "more secure", more decent, more meaningful? More ANYTHING positive at all?

Government is certainly "Great" as in GREAT BIG, but is it good? how often do you feel "blessed" by government? Perhaps, we were far better off living under God, with government being OUR servant, rather than allowing government to take the place of god and force us to increasingly live under it's yoke.

Let's face it ... It never bothered to promise that "it's yoke was easy and it's burden light".

$575K Vacation Bern, Our Revolution, A Failure To Believe In

Bernie Sanders buys a $575,000 vacation home and the Internet cries hypocrisy - The Washington Post:

Sometimes the left needs to do a little housekeeping to be certain their sheep understand that when you are a shill for "The Party" (TP-D), there is NO SUCH THING AS HYPOCRISY!

Once you have slipped the surly bonds of "values" and "truth", your choice to use some of the lucre that has stuck to your fingers for your 3rd home, and having it chime in at well over half a million is a privilege of being part of TP! You stole that money "with the best intentions"!

WaPo reports this one mostly straight up, but you can tell they are concerned that not all the more left wing TP members in good standing fully understand that rules just don't apply and a pass must be given! Party on Bernie!

For his part, Sanders has yet to respond to the criticism and calls for donor refunds. He’s probably too busy writing his forthcoming book. “Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In” is set to hit bookshelves on Nov. 15.

What a SUPER title for his book ... "Our Revolution, A Failure to Believe IN!" ... remember, the Bern is not a sellout, he is a DEMOCRATIC sellout!

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Crazy Trump a Plant? , 2nd Amendment Hints

Why Gun Owners Should Reject Trump’s Call to “Second Amendment People” - The New Yorker:

Remember when that crazy Trump said  "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."? Oh, oops, that was that crazy Thomas Jefferson.

Trump is ALWAYS talking violently. Remember when he talked about "bringing a gun to a knife fight"? Oh, wait, that was BO in 2008. 

See Michael Hayden, the director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005 who says that the WMD assessment was all the intelligence agencies fault -- Bush never lied! says Trump is DANGEROUS! The left suddenly finds Hayden a very believable guy saying Trump is a "clear and present danger". "Clear and Present Danger" is a legal definition under which the 1st Amendment can be suspended because the danger outweighs speech rights. In national security circles, a "Clear And Present Danger" is one that literally MUST be "neutralized" ... "terminated". So what are articles that call Trump a "Clear And Present Danger" saying?  Obviously nothing that would encourage anyone to take violent action against Trump, we have seen NONE of that, right?

We live in such a fun house now that no sane person has any idea WHAT to believe about our national government, political process, etc. I attempt to maintain SOME minimal sense of "logic / reason / truth / etc", but given what is happening in BOistan, such is really no longer possible.

Hillary once voted to go into Iraq, then she said it was a mistake and said that "Bush lied" and talked about General Petraeus as "General Betray Us" ... Hayden was head of the CIA at the time of the surge. Now, Hildebeast is back to claiming that W's original decision was reasonable because Trump is saying it wasn't. Does she even have any "real positions" other than  she wants power and money?

Hayden? Who the hell knows -- he is obviously closely connected with the Bush family and the Bush family is at the CORE of the Republican Establishment which obviously hates Trump. I'm convinced that the corruption in in BOTH parties is WELL beyond my ability to comprehend it.

I have no idea what is happening, but in an insane world, you have to start thinking "insanity".

The degree to which the Republican Party lap-dogged it with BO and the degree to which the establishment Republicans have gone raving lunatic against Trump leads me to a few not necessarily mutually exclusive scenarios.

• "The Party" (TP-D) has already totally won on all but collecting the guns. The IRS is being used to reward their friends and punish their enemies. The NSA, FBI, or other intelligence agencies has enough "goods" on EVERYONE that are either real or manufactured to execute blackmail on a massive scale. (How hard do you think it would be for the NSA to provide "proof" that you trafficked in child porn?) In the virtual electronic world you can be set up as a trader in slaves, drugs, weapons ... an embezzler, etc, etc. The temptation to power just became too great, and TP has total control of the Federal Bureaucracy, so it all just "tipped over" and anybody that talks is dead or dishonored. I cover that a bit here.
  
• Trump is either a TP or pure Clinton Foundation plant. There are plenty of photos of the two couples together at weddings and other events, their daughters are best buds. The meeting is easy to envision:
  
• Slick ... Don, the Foundation is doing north of $200 mil a year REPORTED, and DECLARING < 10% going to "charity" (wink, wink, nod, nod) ... we are REPORTING that and getting away with it with no significant public concern! Of course the reality is we are taking 10x that and "giving" 1/10th what is reported. There are BIG investors that have BANKED on Hillary taking over from Barry. We need to insure this election, it is the best thing for everyone.
  
• Don ... I understand, what do you want me to do and what is in it for me?
  
• Slick ... We always play both the top and bottom of the deck, on the bottom, you don't want to be prosecuted on any of items that we have. They are not all factual, but they are all guaranteed to stick -- we own the judges. But I hate to be unfriendly, the upside here is INSANE for you. We know you want to move up the billionaire list, and we can guarantee it. Look at Warren ... just stopping the pipeline alone poured billions into his railroad! I can guarantee you move up the Forbes list from 120 to the top 10 ... Donald Trump, the genius that went from $4.5 Billion to $45 Billion in 4 short years!
  
• (D) So I'm supposed to?
  
• (S) Win the Republican nomination for President.
  
• (D) ... sound of choking, laughter .... that is a good one!
  
• (S) No, we are completely serious. The media will aid you early on -- you will hint that you might go 3rd party and they will be like Pavlov's dogs salivating over the crazy Ross Perot stunt we pulled in '92.  We have enough boughten folks in the Republican Party that will start a #NeverTrump movement and create a civil war in the party. They are a shell anyway after BO did enough deals to pay off the guys at the top to screw the folks that honestly believe in crap like "God, Country, Truth, Honor and shit".
  
• (D) My God, I can't imagine campaigning, it will bore me silly!
  
• (S) You WON'T campaign ... you will entertain! It is "reality politics". Hell, the "average white conservative voter" has been ground down so much they are mostly a bunch of drug addicts and drunks ready to kill themselves! To them, you will look like "Hope and Spare Change" ... hey, you could even make "America" great again! ... not that there IS any America left, but lots of the folks are too stupid to understand we took it from them and sold it to the highest bidder!
  
  You know a lot of people don't like "the beast" (Hillary) ... and hell, I can't say I blame them, but having you out there throwing bombs and crazy shit all over will get PLENTY of votes with the long list of stiffs running. My God, "JEB!" ... they would reject him as a cadaver!
  
  Besides, I like you Don ... I don't want to see you locked up or dead.
  
• (D) $45 B for throwing an election, or I'm a dead man. ... doesn't seem like there is a lot of "art" to this deal, I hope it is at least some fun.
  
• (S) Hell Don, it will be a HOOT, and if you can manage to deliver the House and Senate to TP, we will be talking BONUS ... Warren is old, sanctimonious and not all that bright. I can see you as our "richest man" -- telling everyone that you are all for big tax increases while putting your money in a foundation so none of it is ever touched. I have ALWAYS admired your taste in the ladies!
  
• (D) I appreciate that Bill, pleasure doing business with you ...
  
• Or maybe Trump looked around one day and realized that he knows the game is rigged, he is one of the riggers, but he was NEVER going to be "top dog" because, well, the game is rigged! So he decided that he was going to "change the game" -- he actually COULD run for President and WIN! He understood how he could make the media dance to his tune exactly how he wanted them to, and they would be powerless to figure out that they were going WAY too far and that voters love the rich, the famous, the outlandish, especially when they are UNDERDOGS ... a lone champion fighting a rigged system run by Wall Street and two massively corrupt political parties. He may not have much of an idea what to do with it if he wins, but he understands that winning would change the game in unpredictable ways, and he finds that more interesting.
  
• He may just be having fun. He likes being rich, famous, getting attention, being talked about, being outlandish, jerking people's chains, etc, and he is having A BLAST! He well knows that if Slick Willie and BO can be president, ANYONE can be president -- certainly a guy that runs companies worth billions of dollars rather than a hick that ran a poor southern state, or a failed community organizer that never ran a lemonade stand. He is running for the hell of it -- BOistan is a shambles anyway, the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz would be better than Hildebeast (sans brain). 

So does the New Yorker really think that anyone that remotely knows what the 2nd amendment is cares about their opinion?

For anyone who cares about the future of American politics, the comment represents a dwindling commitment to politics itself, to the notion that, through rhetoric and competition, we might find a common way as a people. Instead, the Republican candidate made a casual nod to the final force of arms. At this stage, so little that Trump says shocks us, but, now and then, it is worth stepping back and regarding the full damage of it all: the wounds to our fading global image of openness and generosity; the stomping on our admiration for intelligence, eloquence, or honesty; and now the blithe contempt for safe and civil government.

 I understand that the New Yorker thinks that BOistan is a super great place, but do they REALLY think that anyone else in the world has a SHRED of respect for BOistan? Red Lines? Ransom Money? Chinese islands, Putin, Syria, ISIS, ... we are a laughing stock. BO defeated us, he succeeded in destroying the colonial powers.

 I can't imagine that the author of that paragraph actually believes any of what he is writing. "through rhetoric and competition we might find a common way" ?? We actually had a CONSTITUTION once and shared values that were supposedly "endowed by a creator". So I assume we can interpret "competition" as POWER and "rhetoric" as false advertising or essentially LIES.

Yes, BOistan is based on POWER AND LIES ... what else would one base tribal corruption on? "Shocked"? It is obvious that both parties and the media are shocked that there seems to be some shred of resistance to the power of the elite, and they are VERY excited to get it stamped out ASAP by ANY MEANS POSSIBLE ... they absolutely DO see Trump as "a clear and present danger", and I hope he DOES have some inside dope on some people in high places as well as some VERY capable people guarding his life. **IF** he is not a plant, he is in GRAVE danger!

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