Economy In Recession, Nobody Knows

Consumer spending bolsters U.S. second-quarter growth | Reuters:

BO has gotten very unhappy with his horrible economic numbers -- the economy shrank the first quarters of both 2014 and 2014 and barely eked out something below 2% total growth both years. Small wonder that BO, whose economic numbers have been worse than W who started from a very high economic base after the internet bubble (that crashed right after W took office) W  1.7%, BO 1.6%.

As that Forbes article said at the end ...

President Obama “inherited” (another favorite word of the president’s enablers) a low GDP base and did terribly with it, well worse in comparison to his much-maligned predecessor. He inherited a high government spending base and still managed to increase that number at a rate 50% above general growth. In a rational world, we’d stifle such a failure from still having access to the controls.

But then we know we don't live in a rational world, so in this one BO is still in office, and we let him cook the books! The nation has LOTS of time for "deflategate", too little pressure in NFL footballs, but NO TIME at all  for our economic numbers being

Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.3 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. First-quarter GDP, previously reported to have shrunk at a 0.2 percent pace, was revised up to show it rising at a 0.6 percent rate.

The estimate of the effects of the "new accounting" for GDP was +3%, so the ACTUAL number to be used for comparison would be a .7% LOSS in GDP, putting us in the BO Recession! (Two quarters of negative GDP growth!). The column never mentions that this is now done under the new way of reporting GDP which I discussed here ... as a bonus, they blithely adjusted the first quarter up from -.2 to +.6! Erasing a recession! (they had actually revised the decline to .7% after initial reporting, but since it is now obvious these numbers are just being cooked as desired, "What does it matter now?")

So BO would have officially had a recession on his hands -- but now it looks like a quarter of REALLY tepid growth (.6%) and one that is STELLAR by BO standards ... 2.3%.  Pretty impressive, taking two successive quarters of -.7 which would be a RECESSION, and turning into what the Democrats and media will hail as "solid growth".

If you like your economy, you can elect a putz like BO and it will still all go OK!

When the WH and the media are working together, it takes a little more work to figure out what is actually happening! It isn't going so well ...

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"Escaping" Our God Given or Random Advantage

I tried to escape my privilege with low-wage work. Instead I came face to face with it. - The Washington Post:

The author of the column definitely successfully escaped any advantage he had as a writer -- or probably he just never had any natural advantage (talent) in that area. Either God created a system in which those with advantages flourish, or such a system arose out of the chaos of randomness for unknown reasons. In any case, advancement, and even survival demands that advantage be discerned from disadvantage and the advantages be utilized toward what those with working advantages deem proper  -- either to follow the will of God, or to just thumb our noses in the face of a cold and random cosmos.

There must however be a "human lemming" switch built in somewhere that forces a human culture, once it has achieved sufficient (clearly temporary in the US case) dominance, to declare itself "unfit / unworthy" and go the suicide way. Let me "escape" any advantage I have -- certainly my "privilege".

Somehow I can't see a cheetah cursing it's speed and deciding to wear weights on its ankles because it has "a speed privilege it can't escape". It is absolutely clear that Vladimir Putin is not soon going to wash his hands of health, wealth and a strong character just because he feels bad for what a weak fool BO is. ISIS is likewise not going to be giving up any of their advantages just because BO thought they were "JVs", but now says "it will take a wider and longer approach" to defeat them. Apparently the US has REALLY been successful in giving up any military advantage we might have had -- we are now locked in a long term undefined struggle with the "JV team"!

I'm quite certain our "friends" the Iranians will sort out the mideast to whatever form they feel to be their advantage once they successfully have the bomb -- with nary even a first thought, let alone a second, of if they are justified in using their nuclear privilege, so generously bequeathed by their benefactor BO!

The race goes to the swiftest, the strongest, the smartest, or sometimes just to those that wait for fools to hand over the advantages they have with no thought that tomorrow's "privileged" may not be so inclined to benevolence.

In fact, one needent read much Islam to KNOW for certain that our options are "convert or die" -- they are more than fine with either choice.

Hope and Change indeed.

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Tom Crean Book, South Pole Pub

Tom Crean: Unsung Hero of the Scott and Shackleton Antarctic Expeditions: Michael Smith: 9780898868708: Amazon.com: Books:

I finished the linked book and enjoyed it very much.

On our trip to the Dingle peninsula in Ireland we visited the South Pole Pub in Annascaul where I had a pint of Crean's Irish Lager and bought the glass.

Crean made three voyages to Antarctica.

1. The Discovery with both Scott and Shackleton. 
2. The Terra Nova voyage with Scott in which Scott lost the race to the South Pole to the Norwegian, Amundsen and then lost his life on the return from the pole along with his team of four. 
3. The Endurance with Shackleton, where the ship was crushed in the ice of the Weddell Sea and through many feats of great risk, skill and luck, all hands returned! 

The book "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" is in my opinion the greatest true adventure tale ever told. It is in one of the two greatest "successful failures" in history, the other being Apollo 13. Although on the human endurance front, the length of time, the isolation, and the self-reliance to get out on their own, Endurance stands alone. The ship was named with such foresight it defies belief! 

If you are only going to read one book about the golden age of arctic exploration, read Endurance, but if you are reading two, this one has a lot to suggest it (especially if you have any plans to go to Ireland!). It gives you an overview of that time when people thought of exploring the poles in the same way as we thought of exploring the Moon in the '60s. It gives you an overview of the British being stuck to the "man hauling" technique while the Norwegians used dogs and skis and accomplished much more with much less loss of life. 

The item I enjoyed the most that I think I had heard hinted at somewhere, but I don't recall being covered in "Endurance", relates to the crossing of South Georgia Island by Shackleton, Crean, and Frank Worsley (the greatest navigator in the history of the world). The route that they took was not crossed again until 1955 by a group of explorers with full gear over a week of time. Given the fact that Shackleton, Crean and Worsley had no tents, so were forced to do it before they fell asleep and died of exposure, comparisons are questionable.

The highly interesting aspect of the crossing is that each of the men, interviewed separately in later years with no communication with each other, each said that "there was something odd about the journey ... multiple times I was certain there were four of us". For the believer, an explanation is pretty easy -- it is very hard to imagine everyone surviving the Endurance voyage without divine intervention. But as always, it COULD be explained by "skill, luck, great personal strength and will, ... or possibly space aliens". Those that are certain there is no divine intervention tend to find space aliens more likely.

That was my FAVORITE part -- it is far from the only great part. Crean has a number of exploits including a solo 18 hour 35 mile hike when food had run out and the men could no longer move that saved the lives of Edward Evans and Bill Lashly. Evans went on to become an Admiral in the Royal Navy and never forgot Tom Crean.

The best way to get some perspective on these guys is to think of them as the astronauts of the day. Humans always had heroes for 1000s of years -- real heroes. Soldiers, explorers, musicians, artists, etc.  The polar explorers were major heroes of 100 years ago. Those of us alive in the '60s knew what it was to have special heroes in the astronauts.

Given a lot of the response to "American Sniper" perhaps at least in N America and Europe, the astronauts  might be the last heroes before we "progress" to a world of "equality of result"?

Tom Crean had very few if any equals in polar exploration. I rather enjoy a world of actual diversity -- of gifts, skill, result, thought and a million more aspects. Perhaps I was born too late. 

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Left vs Right, 47 and Servers, Worldview

G.O.P. Letter by Republican Senators Is Evidence of ‘Decline,’ Iranian Says - NYTimes.com:

The past few weeks a number of issues have yet again fanned the flames between those that see the world from the left hand and those that see it from the right. The 47 Senators Letter and Hillary's e-mail server getting the most attention, but shootings in Ferguson,  Walker being asked to comment on BO's Christianity, the ongoing "Global Warming" are also present. The animosity and sometimes downright hatred and craziness is always burning between Americans on the left and right, and it seems more often to be blazing of late again.

I'm about 1/2 through a re-read of "A Conflict of Visions"(Thomas Sowell), my favorite book on the topic, and about 3/4 way through "Suicide of the West" -- a good summary of "liberalism" and it's effects circa 1964. No doubt I'll comment more on both to come. Anytime I take up this topic, I also like to mention "The Righteous Mind".

When we are faced with issues like the 47 Senator letter or Hillary's e-mails, we see how profoundly our world views vary between husband/wife, family members, friends, etc. We see the "facts" in TOTALLY different ways, and most of us are at a loss to understand WHY?? We ask; "How can "they" possibly see the same things so differently???"

The core reason boils down to "Worldview" -- the filter / colored glasses / model that we see the world through. It is to some degree wired into our brains (as Haidt covers),  and largely developed through a life of family, education,  church, reading, thinking, etc (also in opposition to those inputs) The facts of the variance in the worldview are well documented by Sowell in "Visions".

To grossly simplify the two world views in the US today, we have:

1. "Liberal" -- The dominant US view. Most of the media, education, etc. Democrat. "Man is born free but is everywhere in chains "(Rousseau) Tradition is suspect, often considered wrong. People are born as good. Education, laws, government, experts, etc can solve any problem. RIGHTS, Change, Justice are big liberal words.
   
2. "Conservative" -- “Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.”(Burke) The opposition, Republican. Man is born sinful, "redemption" is required, normally by religion, in addition, self control,  rewards and punishments (sanctions) and lots of individual work are needed. Responsibility, Tradition, Freedom are big words. 

These positions should be seen on a "range" -- nobody is entirely in one camp or the other, and there have and always will be disagreements between them. But why so vehement now? 

Up until the 20th century, and even through at least the 60's, Americans had a couple big elements of a SHARED worldview -- heavily built around Christianity and the Constitution. People could disagree on many things, but over 90% mostly agreed that both Christianity and the Constitution were "sacred" -- they were "above the fray".  "All decent people" could agree on the "basic tenets" ... God as creator, Christ as Savior, Separation of Powers, Limits on Federal Government, etc.

We are far more divided by worldview now than ever before in our history. Even during the Civil War, we were divided on the ISSUE of Slavery, but reverence for Christianity and the Constitution was much more generally present in the country that in is now. 

But we no longer have those points of agreement. The Constitution may state that an agreement with a foreign power has to be ratified by the Senate to be binding, but there are a lot of people that don't care and are completely angered when it is brought up. One might point to MANY times that congressmen and senators ACTUALLY "negotiated with a foreign power" rather than sent a letter quoting the facts of the Constitution. It makes no difference. "They have a right to their own OPINION" ... and as even the NYTs has discovered, pretty much anything but 2+2 is just "opinion" these days, and in the absence of a higher standard, "all opinions are valid".

John Adams called the situation perfectly when he said:
"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other,".   Indeed. 

In order to hold truths to be "self evident" and consider man as "endowed by his creator with unalienable rights",  a people MUST believe in a "creator" and that there is such a thing as "truth". Take the sacred away,  thus making "man the measure of all things" and we are reduced to that measure being the ballot box or the bullet. We are left with no common worldview on which "all decent people" agree and can therefore discuss things rationally from a shared perspective. 

What we have are increasingly divergent world views that can be "settled" only temporarily and intermittently at the ballot box, but increasingly are UNsettled with unrest up to and including violence as we have just seen in Ferguson, and earlier in NYC with the two police being murdered. 

As we ignore the Constitution, even elections become meaningless -- an executive and decree that immigrants are legal, the Internet must be regulated, agreements are treaties, or effectively ANYTHING since he is no longer bound by an oath to uphold that once sacred document. When one party decides that the only thing sacred is political power, then there is no remaining foundation on which to base a country. 

So as tribes prior to the recognition of one God above all, and the subsequent march from Christ though the rise of Western Civilization, we fight. We fight "as the flies of summer" (Burke) -- alienated from God, our own history, and morality beyond "our side must win"!  For the present,  we go on feeding on the carcass of the once great civilization we were bequeathed, but with little remaining understanding of the founding principles needed for it's continued operation.

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No Religion Supports Terror

Obama refuses to acknowledge ‘Muslim terrorists’ at summit | New York Post:

In the linked article, BO confidently asserts "No religion is responsible for terrorism, people are responsible for terrorism".

That must mean that people are NOT motivated by what is in their heads nor hearts, since religion certainly involves both. This is the inverse of the truth -- IDEAS motivate people, and religion is certainly at least in part a powerful idea.

Is it not strange that BO is confident that guns, an inanimate object, DO cause violence, but that religion, does NOT!

Remember that BO is a confirmed Statist -- he believes in the advance of state power which ultimately means the subjugation of people by FORCE. What does or does not motivate people really matters not once they have no property, no means to defend themselves (right to bear arms), or no method to speak out. Statists don't believe in motivation, they believe in CONTROL!

The other fact to remember is that Statism **IS** a religion -- it is just godless. The godless religions of communism and socialism killed over 100 million in the 20th century -- THAT is certainly a religion that kills!

The use of words by a Statist are purely a means to power -- as are all their political activities. See Orwell or Hayek books like "Road to Serfdom" to understand this in more detail. Always look with much suspicion at any label choices of a "liberal" or "progressive" -- the words are quoted because even the names they call themselves are lies and misinformation.

The commonly used (stolen) name "liberal" is a complete lie -- Statists are bent on having controlling power over others and false naming is one of the weapons they use to gain control. After which they use violence, imprisonment and death. In their desire to gain control, Statists are fine with aligning with any other totalitarian form of ideology -- no matter how evil.

BO and the MSM find themselves drawn to defend Islamic killers because they find common cause with at least the ultimate totalitarian control aspect of the Islamic State, if not total agreement with specific methods like beheading and immolation in cages. Does it ever seem the least bit odd that the people who make the CLAIM that they are "liberal" find no problem with a religion that treats women as personal property, kills homosexuals as well as women who have sex outside marriage? Perhaps the libertine nature of it's founder in "marrying" a 9 year old "wife" (Aisha) is what impresses them?

Violence has and likely always will be a tenet of Islam, because the founder was a warrior that approved of using force to gain converts and land and wrote violent action against any holders / attackers of "Islamic Lands" into his "holy book", the Koran as a guaranteed ticket to eternal sexual favors. It is the ultimate "works righteousness" for angry young men.

Statists have no problem naming their friends and enemies in ways that suit their cause. They really never did find a "Racist Tea Partier" although they sure tried -- making up a "spitting incident" in DC as well as others. "Tea Party = Racist" was an excellent association. Back in the late '80s-'90s, "Religious Right" was a favorite label. "Right Wing Militia", "Christian Right", "The 1%" ... the Statists always have their enemies, and they completely enjoy applying negative labels to them with extreme frequency. In fact, the BO administration ranks "Right Wing Extremists" as a major terrorist threat!

Note how they totally avoid applying ANYTHING negative to their friends in ISIS -- the ones that cut off heads! Getting "terrorist" in the same sentence with "Islamic" causes their tongues to freeze. Statists ultimately seek raw centralized power and they seek it by ANY MEANS. Which is why it can be confusing as to how they choose friends vs enemies, UNLESS you realize that "Left" means CONTROL, and "right" means CHAOS (it's a Get Smart World). The US was founded as a CENTER RIGHT nation and we have consistently drifted leftward.

The USSR, National Socialist Germany (Nazi) and Sharia Law were/are all based on highly centralized control with "motivation" being at the point of a gun. People tend to defend those that agree on their most basic values, thus BO defends Islam.

The Williams Standard, Galaxy Quest

Rather symmetrical | Power Line:

John Kerry spent Christmas in Cambodia in '68 ... when Nixon was President . Oh, but Nixon wasn't president in '68, Kerry was never in Cambodia, and Christmas isn't much of a holiday there anyway.

Hillary Clinton breathlessly reported she was under sniper fire in Bosnia ... only she wasn't.

Joe Biden's helicopter was "forced down in the super highway of terror" ... by a snowstorm. The John Kerry quote from that is pretty good ..."We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to do it." he said. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."  ... let's face it. No sane person takes Biden seriously, BO insured the Republicans would never impeach him when he picked him as VP -- it is his best policy decision.

What Brian Williams has done mostly is make us ALL confront our "stories" -- some of us, for just a second to say "Nope, we are NOTHING like that"! Maybe more of us to say -- "well, if I really was a big war correspondent, what would my stories be THEN"?

I'm reminded of "Galaxy Quest", the space spoof of "Star Trek" where a set of smart but not very swashbuckling aliens builds the star ship from the show, kidnaps the actors, and expects them to fight a real enemy with it -- they are crestfallen when they figure out that the whole show is actually "made up".

Don't worry, it's a human STORY -- it gets better from there. As something well north of 100 million people in just the past century have learned from Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pol, abortion, banning DDT, etc, etc, it is more our PRETEND stories that have happy endings.

Our airwaves and internet pipes are bulging with stories -- most of them completely fabricated with little connection to any reality other than imagination.

But in order to live, govern ourselves, have families, reality IS important, so we very much need to have a "metaphysical dream/story/myth" that is MORE true than "this vale of tears". "God created the earth and us, he loves us, he sent his Son to save us, and we will live with him forever when we die". I personally believe that story -- but even if I didn't, I like it MUCH better than "There is no God, no truth, no meaning. We are alone in a harsh universe, and whatever happens is utterly without any shred of meaning".

Brian Williams no doubt has to go. His business is credibility, and he has shown that he is not credible.

I have way less problem with him -- or Kerry, Biden or Hillary for that matter on the "tall tales topic" than Rather.  They are fabricating a tale with some basis in reality and enhancing the importance of their role in it -- making themselves "heroes", something that we all do to some degree in our own minds. Even when we don't admit it even to ourselves.

Rather, on the other hand,  took his ideological position of power in news and used it to fabricate and purvey a story about someone else -- someone who did not share is ideology, and whom he likely felt a lot of malice for.

That is far worse in my book.

By Grabthar's Hammer, You shall be avenged!

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Slick Willie and The Lolita Express

Bill Clinton identified in lawsuit against pedophile Jeffrey Epstein | Daily Mail Online:

This story is pretty well known around the world, and has surfaced in a few more right wing news outlets here in the US.

The facts seem to be:

• Jeffrey Epstein is a CONVICTED abuser of underage girls
• He is also a billionaire and big Democrat supporter / donor
• He and Slick Willie at least "have" been friends, Slick is documented as having used his aircraft, sometimes called "The Lolita Express" as well as being a guest on his island, where some of the underage sex was documented. 

It is pretty easy to see why this is NOT a big story in the Land of TP! 

I've read BO's book, "Dreams", it's content might as well be Top Secret in this country.  I personally believe that a lot of things could be true about the Clinton/Epstein story and it will never come out. Let's face it, it is pretty darned likely that Slick Willie raped Juanita Broaddrick, but nobody really cares. We live in a fishbowl where TP provides both the information and what to think about it for about 80% of the people. 

We are the point of the fall of the US -- you can compare it with the fall of Rome, or the fall of Great Britain, or no doubt the fall of a lot of other lesser countries, corporations and organizations. Things have been too good for too long and the vast majority of people now assume that either that will continue or "there is nothing they could do that would make any difference" -- so they are just here for the ride. Typically, the end of the ride doesn't go all that well.

When "greatness" falls, moral collapse seems to always be one of the attendant factors. It is most likely more of a symptom than a cause -- like jaundice and liver problems, but ignoring symptoms is rarely wise. 

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Saint Augustine, The City of God

The biggest reason that I took on the immense challenge of making it through this work is "perspective".  Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410, Augustine began this work 3 years later in 413 and did not complete it until 426.

Rome had BEEN "civilization" for a thousand years prior, and naturally in 410, St Augustine and his peers believed they were living in "modern times", all be it a time of great change and disruption at the ending of a thousand year reign which they had assumed would last forever.

The work is remarkably lengthy and wordy (867 rather small type pages in my copy) and decidedly NOT an "easy read". I must say though that the sheer volume and many asides and references to other scholars of the day give an insight into the intellectual life of the very very elite of that day that "feels" important in a way that is hard to express. Perhaps the difference between walking across the US vs flying over it in a jet?

 I will include this one rather lengthy quote as an example of the style and the fact of "every age believes they are modern" ... and highly superior to those that have gone before. Note the reference to "less educated ages", but interestingly the perspective of "only 600 years"! How much more arrogant we have become in our day -- we are nearing the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, yet it is hard to imagine someone asserting ONLY 500 years! 

It is most worthy of remark in Romulus, that other men who are said to have become gods lived in less educated ages, when there was a greater propensity to the fabulous, and when the uninstructed were easily persuaded to believe anything. But the age of Romulus was barely six hundred years ago, and already literature and science had dispelled the beliefs that attach to an uncultured age. And a little after he says of the same Romulus words to this effect: From this we may perceive that Homer had flourished long before Romulus, and that there was now so much learning in individuals, and so generally diffused an enlightenment, that scarcely any room was left for fable. For antiquity admitted fables, and sometimes even very clumsy ones; but this age [of Romulus] was sufficiently enlightened to reject whatever had not the air of truth. Thus one of the most learned men, and certainly the most eloquent, M. Tullius Cicero, says that it is surprising that the divinity of Romulus was believed in, because the times were already so enlightened that they would not accept a fabulous fiction. But who believed that Romulus was a god except Rome, which was itself small and in its infancy

The work starts with a lengthy defense of Christianity against the charge made by many in that day that failure to pray to the "gods" of Rome due to the conversion to Christianity was the cause of the city being sacked. It then discusses the "City of God" -- the Church, vs "The City of Man" -- earthly government ... lots on angels, demons, prophecy, sin, heaven, hell -- all in MUCH detail, with references to Plato and other Greek thought which start The Church on a path of melding Greek Philosophy (especially Plato) and reason into Christian theology. This "Hellenization" of Christianity is the major historical effect of this work.

At it's simplest, it is the story of the City of man -- selfish, mistaking means with ends, worshiping the temporal, attempting to glorify the profane physical human. The story of war, death, destruction and eventually eternal pain.

And of the City of God -- selfless and caring, realizing that the end is pre-ordained and guaranteed by the blood of Christ (the 2nd Adam) to be perfect. Glorifying only God. The story of Grace, Peace, Faith, Love slowly traveling in a path known only to God to perfect union, Love and bliss for all Eternity.

It is not a book that I would necessarily recommend for most  -- it is CERTAINLY not "efficient", and one would be well served by skimming and focusing on key chapters -- say "books" 14, 19 and 22.If you desire a worthy challenge however, and want to be rather humbled by perspective, I do believe that you will find yourself rewarded!

Orwellian Word Torture

Cheney unchained | Power Line:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Hawaiian Shirt Of Enlightenment, Hillary Nutcracker

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

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

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

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

And also small signs -- like the shirt.

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

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

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

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

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Soul vs Demographics As Destiny (Election results)

The shrinkage of the Obama majority | WashingtonExaminer.com:

TP (The Party-D) is always claiming that they are the party of the future because of demographics -- race, age, gender, etc.

TP is actually the party of soulless animals of which common humans are not even their preferred cohort, and they regularly state it directly.  (TP elite is of course "special" -- they deserve all honor, laud and worship in their minds)

TP is willing, anxious even,  to slaughter human babies by the millions, but will endanger human lives and livelihood rather than to risk potential harm to owls, snail darters or polar bears. TP demands that claims to an eternal soul or any "special status" of humans be completely dismissed and suppressed, while loudly screaming that extreme special status must be granted to demographic groups they see as "supporters"-- blacks, hispanics (especially the illegal ones), women, gays, transgender, etc.

So TP doesn't just forget, it out-right and loudly denies that humans are unique in our God-given soul, free will and reason. Thus, they mistake demographics -- race, age, gender, sexual preference, etc for destiny. Or so they say. In reality, as BO so smugly claimed in his press conference yesterday, TP "hears" the 2/3rds of the "voters" who didn't vote.

As with all single party control oriented ideologies of the left (communism, fascism, socialism, dictatorship, etc), voting is at best a temporary and easily ignored nuisance, and the goal is monolithic rule by whatever means it takes. No matter the facts in the linked article -- the drive to a total takeover will continue by ALL means -- fraud, using tax dollars to buy votes, attacks on opposition through the IRS, legal, regulatory and government surveillance apparatus ...

The linked article is well worth reading in total, but this is the core:

(2) In seriously contested races Republican candidates were generally younger, more vigorous, more sunny and optimistic than Democrats. The contrast was sharpest in Colorado and Iowa, which voted twice for President Obama. Cory Gardner and Joni Ernst seemed to be looking forward to the future. Their opponents grimly championed the stale causes of feminists and trial lawyers of the past.

Democrats see themselves as the party of the future. But their policies are antique. The federal minimum wage dates to 1938, equal pay for women to 1963, access to contraceptives to 1965. Raising these issues now is campaign gimmickry, not serious policymaking.

Democratic leading lights have been around a long time. The party’s two congressional leaders are in their 70s. The governors of the two largest Democratic states are sons of former governors who won their first statewide elections in 1950 and 1978.

"Conservative" means continuation of and even reverence for PRINCIPLES that are timeless. Recognition of the position of man as eternally (and obviously to any that have eyes that see) special in creation, and recognition that it IS creation -- ordered, comprehensible, purposeful, meaningful. The acceptance and joy of being part of an ultimate purposeful existence passed down in a chain of civilization thousands of years old, with an INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY to act as a link in that divinely blessed chain of history.

We WERE a nation that was completely in touch with that sacred history -- take a few minutes to look at and consider the list of the 23 law givers in the chamber of the US House . We still knew our identity as late as 1949!

TP wants to replace the reverence of divinity, ideas and principles with reverence for POLICIES. Replacing God, classical literature, and history with the worship of minimum wage, equal pay for women, abortion, unisex bathrooms, condoms, welfare, government health care ... etc. NOTE, I did not say that in all cases everything about these policies is bad, what I said is that like ALL human enacted policy it is AT BEST temporal and often flawed, even in the extreme.

Principles are timeless, policies are temporal -- unless totalitarians win and they are embalmed like Lenin.  The reason that capitalism and democracy tempered by a constitution worked is because of the ability for CHANGE BOUNDED BY PRINCIPAL -- "creative destruction" is the engine of capitalism, supply and demand, profit and loss are merely feedback mechanism! Private property is a bound that insures the destruction / reconstruction and next cycles of feedback will be moderated.

My personal project of reading the Classics and key works of modern political thought is now nearly 40 years old -- roughly a 1979 beginning. I'm thankful to Jimmy Carter for being hapless and hopeless enough to spur me to start down the path that began with William F Buckley (SUPERB initials!) and National Review, led through Ayn Rand, and then an avalanche of books ... "Road to Serfdom", "Closing of the American Mind", "Ideas Have Consequences", "Wealth of Nations", "Theory of Moral Sentiments", "The Conservative Mind", "The Liberal Mind", "God and Man at Yale" .... and the list goes on and on.

Ultimately God will win temporally as he has already spiritually through Jesus Christ, but for now, it is a story with the end yet unwritten. HIS story, but we get to play a little part. I strongly encourage finding the time to read whatever puny part of the script each of us is able to manage!

It's OK to bask a BIT in Tuesday's results, but we are still in very grave danger.

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Bad Magic: Human Freedom vs Abject Dependence on Government

The Magical President doesn’t exist: What the left must really do to defeat the wingnuts - Salon.com:

Let’s be clear: There is neither a Democratic nor a progressive consensus on what is to be done there. All we have is a profound skepticism, and I’ll take that over a cynical Cheneyesque certainty, built on lies to the American people. Disagreement, even deadlock, is preferable.

You mean to say that the folks of "Hope and CHANGE!", "We are the ones we have been waiting for!", Faux Grecian columns, "this is when the oceans stopped rising",  Russian Reset, winning a Nobel prize for winning an election and a host other highly confident items claim that all they ever had was "profound skepticism" and "gridlock is preferable"? Wow, color me skeptical.

BO was popular in '08, but I don't think even "the one" broached the kind of 80%+ certainty that the American people had about going to war in Iraq. Oh sure, it was "a lie", but a "lie" also supported by nearly the entire Democrat leadership -- with the exception of BO and Wellstone reporting in from Uranus (or their anus). Of course BO needed a lot of time to even figure out that he is really opposed to ISIS. Yes, Cheney is the only one that has ever been "certain" when viewed from the far left edge of the universe with your head suffering a cranial rectal inversion. 

This political season opens against a backdrop of profound pessimism, captured in an August Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that found that 71 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. The president’s approval rating is at an all-time low, but so is that of congressional Republicans. Even worse, the two big stories dominating the end-of-summer headlines – the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. and the rise of ISIL – only deepen the political gloom, because they reflect two enormous American problems that are coming to seem almost unsolvable: profound and persistent racial injustice, and the shape-shifting chaos that is Iraq.

I'll be damned, how did we POSSIBLY get here? Why in '08 it wasn't just the subscribers to the recently minted "Magical President theory", but the giddy mood of the whole MSM and broad swaths of the electorate that had elected a savior -- Washington, Lincoln or FDR -- it was hard to pick which one to compare BO with, and many thought he was far better than any of them. Maybe than ALL of them rolled together!  


But now? Well now:

Democrats have two months to make sure this election doesn’t turn out like 2010 did. It’s not about the president right now, and we shouldn’t wait until 2016 for a new magical president. The kind of thoroughgoing change we need won’t happen in eight years, or even 80. It’s an eternal battle, the constant effort to expand the realm of human freedom to everyone, against the constant crusade by the wealthy to ensure that the trappings of human dignity – education, leisure, family life, childhood itself – are reserved for those who can afford to pay for them. The Kochs and their allies are trying to repeal the 20th century. Progressives can’t just suit up for that battle every four years.

Got that?  "It's not about the president"!  Strange that in '06, there was no shortage of articles on "Bush Referendum". 

Note that  "It" won't happen in eight years or even 80! It's an "eternal battle" -- the battle for government to squeeze the last bit of individual motivation and thought out of the last of the masses. Oh, they will tell you it is "the wealthy" that want to prevent "human dignity" ... you know, education, family life, childhood itself", but are we really that foolish? "The Wealthy" ARE The Party! How many Kerry's, Edwards, Dayton's, Kennedys, etc, etc do we need to see before the man in the street understands it?

Who is it that wants to decree what families may and may not do with their children? Who is it that increasingly demands 12-16 years and more of PUBLIC "education" that is much more about state indoctrination than it is about "teaching" anything, especially how to be a free person in a free society? "Childhood itself"? Now there is somewhat of a mystery -- in one way, the left seeks to extend childhood for the entire life -- never leaving the state teat, being regulated and monitored in every movement and action. OTOH, it is THEIR version of "childhood" -- from state mandated and controlled "head start" to state sponsored and controlled daycare, after school programs, summer programs and Youth Corps. Their stated (and directly advertised) battle is to create a nation of "Julia's" or "Pajama Boys" ... perpetual adolescent dependence as the model for a nation. 

I find this column to be highly pessimistic from the "progressive" POV. They are so far down the road on their "battle" already -- they own education, the government bureaucracy, law, medicine (BOcare), nearly all of the media -- and as evidenced by their vote on the 1st Amendment, they seek to completely control all political speech 100%. Losing the Senate in '14 would have no effect on their agenda -- BO will rule by executive order as he does now and we are certainly not talking about a veto override capable majority! This is a rather hollow call to lefty arms. 

Yes, the polls don't look good right now for the BO state, and I'm sure that is a concern to the ministry of information / education / propaganda  ... Herr Goebbels likes to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, but really, the guys over at Salon shouldn't let a few poor poll numbers from the unwashed masses get them so bent out of shape. There is no prospect at all of the evil forces of conservatism being able to make one iota of progress in getting America moving in the next two years.

The BO magic veto pen will insure that the US crawls on on in the left ditch, with not a hint of even a glance toward the roadway far to the right -- no matter what the results of the election.  The "eternal battle" isn't even visible from here -- we would have to have a basic understanding that "human freedom" and "abject dependence on a bankrupt government" are not equivalent terms to even begin such a battle. 

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Liberals Discover They May Be Human

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-frimer/liberals-conservatives-conformity_b_5697849.html

We begin with a liberal hypothesis of why conservatives "are the way they are":

The way I saw it, this slavish obedience to authority and tradition on the part of conservatives was the true source of the culture war between liberals and conservatives over foreign war, abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control, and racial inequality. They way I saw it, conservatives clung to old, near-sighted ways of thinking and fell in line with the dictates of the "man in charge." If only conservatives would think for themselves -- like liberals do -- the war would be over and we could get on with life, governance, and progress. Or so I thought.

Liberals do a lot of studies trying to prove that conservatives are somehow "inferior" -- not able to understand the facts, not able to question authority, fearful, etc. The list is long. When you are CERTAIN that you are right and in fact superior, but know that you are an extremely nice and caring person, then there MUST be some explanation for why the people you hate are so bad!!

The conservative view is really that BOTH (and all) sides are made up of inferior humans, and understanding that -- especially in relation to God, is the beginning of wisdom, a pearl of far greater price than intelligence, knowledge, or any other human characteristic like beauty or charisma.

Perhaps we have the merest inking of the beginning of liberal wisdom (oxymoron?) here:

If the two sides equally support obedience to their own authorities, how had I come to believe that conservatives are the ones that favor obedience to authority? We wondered if the asymmetry lay not in attitudes toward obedience, but in the nature of authority. Perhaps authorities tend to be conservative, and people know it.

This is what we found in a subsequent study. Americans completed a survey in which they named authorities (e.g., police officer) then indicated whether they suspected the authority figure was liberal, moderate, or conservative. People perceived authorities to be conservative. Bosses tend to vote Republican -- or at least most people suspect they do. My suspicion is that the stereotype is accurate: authorities really tend to be conservative.

I wonder if this is because conservatives are especially good at or motivated to gain positions of authority. Or perhaps gaining authority over others changes our ideology, making the boss conservative. 

We see that being wrong about the "conservatives can't think for themselves and are slaves to authority" stereotype didn't make the author any less confident in liberal stereotypes, and quickly ready to jump to the "authorities really tend to be conservative" view.

A short reading of Hayek "The Fatal Conceit" would clue her in that the smarter and better educated one is the greater their tendency to believe that "man is the measure of all things", "man is infinitely perfectible", "humans create human systems like capitalism, socialism, etc through reason", etc. In other words, the more likely they are to be "liberal" -- so the real world is the opposite of her stereotype. But, as in her original stereotype, that has never given an intelligent liberal a moments pause in being less certain of their next stereotype!

Humans are superb creators of all manner of stereotypes, narratives, models and myths to make "sense" of an infinite, complex and significantly unpredictable universe. "In general" (like all human rules, NOT 100%), the smarter you are, the greater your tendency to hubris and narcissism, with RELIGION, especially Christianity, being the great wild card transcendent model in history.

When super intelligent people have faith in an infinitely more intelligent God, especially if that God has died for them, it tends to engender some level of HUMILITY. Again, they are still human, so it is at best imperfect, but it adds another level that needs to be checked before "I'm SURE that I understand it all THIS time"!

She has mostly figured out that conservatives are likely not sub-human, but she has still not figured out that "Ideas Have Consequences" (another excellent book) ... the models we choose (or choose us), our "World View", has a profound effect on all we do, and when groups select an inferior World View, especially nation sized groups, the results are almost always disastrous.

Modern Western civilization was largely built because for a brief time (200 years), the majority of leaders were God believing to at least the Deist level, and generally Christians -- so they had a lot more understanding of the transcendent concept of wisdom, therefore taking a much more humble and reasonable view of what was possible and thus succeeding!

Terminating Abortion

Stop calling abortion a ‘difficult decision’ - The Washington Post:

It is hard for me to imagine that the woman writing this exists -- and if she does, it is positively chilling. I'd like to believe that she is just making up bluster because she knows that is what she is supposed to do -- maybe some woman's studies class or other left wing cheering section has shamed her into acting the part of a creature more fearsome than the mother of the "Alien" in that popular move -- at least that creature had maternal instinct.  I'll forget any Christian perspective, since she definitely never mentions any higher power. 

This was in the mid-1980s, when abortion was about women having control not just over their bodies but over their destinies. An unwanted pregnancy would have derailed my future, making it difficult for me to finish college and have the independent, productive life that I’d envisioned.

So she believes that billions of years of evolution left the human female with absolutely no attachment to the idea of carrying the child within her to term. Our species evolved to a form where there is no maternal instinct to be dealt with -- the death of a new life within her is absolutely devoid of moral and emotional content. Her own life is ALL that is of importance. Like some form of Lemming, the human race reached a place where species suicide became an evolutionary mandate.

OTOH, I'll bet she is passionate about Global Warming. If we asked her about the morality of some oil company that cared only about profits so they could be "independent and productive", rather than the idea that the planetary temperature might rise a few 10ths of a degree in 100 years, she would most likely be outraged!

The left would like us to believe that evil does not exist and that humans are "basically good". How are we to believe this?

A typical leftist human female is trained to be 100% selfish next to what those without God would assume to be the prime function of the species -- reproduction. From an atheistic evolutionary perspective, it is indeed ALL that counts -- we are the product of what atheist evolutionist Richard Dawkins called "Selfish Genes", end of story, full stop. How could those genes create this woman?

Western Civilization is proof that such non-genetic selfishness can happen -- we have aborted or controlled away so much of our future generations that our populations are in decline. The "White European descent" population has found itself too guilty, narcissistic or just clueless to bother itself with continuation of it's particular strain of the species. The Muslims, Indians, Africans, Hispanics and a few others will inherit the earth.

While the article is chilling in the sense of the moral and emotional black hole that now sucks in 100's of millions  of innocent lives in the decaying west, it does give us a glimpse of God's Wisdom.

Modern secular thinking is self-terminating! 

Christ's Kingdom is growing in Africa and South America -- some of which is washing over the borders into the declining America. This article gives us a little glimpse into the soulless abyss that we allowed to become the fruit of a once-great Western civilization.

It will surely die ... and God is obviously just!

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Q1 Corrected to 2.9% GDP Decline

Welcome to Japan: More on The Q1 GDP Report | Power Line:

I've been noting the acceleration of economic problems -- vying with FICA bankruptcy and personal aging for the most predictable of events.

The linked article talks of the US moving into a Japanese style economic funk, which I generally agree with, but we are a lot bigger economy -- when the big guy gets sick, it tends to be worse! Just as when things are good, it is "more good" in a big business, economy, city, etc, the inverse is ALSO true.

I disagree with the positive implications for Republicans politically. Our nation is over that 50% relative dependency mark now (which Romney was so thoroughly castigated for claiming to still have a 3% margin). The party of dependency is the Democrat party. When people get scared, they are going to tend to vote Democrat which going to exacerbate the problem. That is natural, it is part of why nations decline when they abandon the principles that made them great -- self reliance, thrift, competitiveness, excellence, etc, and switch over to "rights, safety, leveling, regulation".

The US economy resembles nothing more than an ailing back patient that has been over medicated, possibly operated on and is in an accelerating slide, accelerated by many of the "cures" that were supposed to be "the fix".

We need to slow government spending, TAKE SOME PAIN, remove some taxation so that those that can accelerate the economy SEE SOME GAIN ... but this time start the SLOW ARDUOUS PROCESS of realizing that there is no such thing as "economic safety", and that HARD WORK needs to be encouraged with INCENTIVES, while sloth needs to be STRONGLY discouraged with DISincentives.

BTW, raising the minimum wage is NOT an "incentive". It prices low skilled workers that first and foremost need to get in the habit of working out of the job market.

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Dialectical Freezing

Keep peeing in the pool?! Climate deniers lose their minds after new EPA rules - Salon.com:

BO has unilaterally declared that there will be a 30% reduction in C(2 emissions from coal plants. At least it is consistent with aborting 100's of millions of kids, they emit CO2 as well.

If our entire economy wasn't dependent on energy, and indeed for those of us in the northern climates, life itself, some of this would be of less interest. In this past year of "Real Current Global Warming Effect", even places as far south as Memphis would have had a lot of folks frozen to death without adequate power. Much like being a Veteran and relying on VA care doesn't exempt you from the harsh realities of the disaster of government run healthcare, even climate BELIEVERS turn into Popsicles  when exposed to temperatures below 32 for decent periods of time ... even if you are screaming IT'S GETTING WARMER in their ears!

The premise of "progressivism" is that the ends justify the means and that the means can be effectively ignored because of the wondrousness of the ends -- massive debts, no energy, shrinking economy, dwindling labor force and aging population, masses of non-working younger people, all of it makes no difference next to the majesty of the "progressive" vision.

All the government sponsored studies and "real science" (the kind funded by the government rather than folks that produce something) tell the "progressives" they are right. Not that they need to be told, they KNOW in the way that only those that ignore history, deny God, eschew results vs models,  and go to all ends to say "the vast majority of people agree with us" can be confident.  Hey, 97% of scientists agree with them, they MUST be right!

So we bray back and forth and call each other names, and even the little kid in the picture HIMSELF is "fouling the pool", since we too emit CO2. Meanwhile, the planet returns to a cooling trend and we set ourselves up for an energy crisis that is actually life threatening if you live in the center of the nation N of say Arkansas -- but no matter, the "progressives" have a wonderful vision of the future!

The title is a little snark at "Dialectical Materialism" the core of Marxism and Communism ... "mumbo jumbo"  is an adequate translation in the real world.

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Never Enough: Americas Limitless Welfare State

Link to Book

A well written and fairly easy to follow discussion of how "liberals" have hi-jacked the American experiment, but it is far from ONLY a criticism of liberals. The author honestly set out to try to discover a limiting principle for "liberalism" and of course found none. Liberalism is like an invasive species with no predators -- it consumes all that is available until it's "niche" (the country or countries) that are it's host environment are destroyed.

Why? Because as Ayn Rand said, means are finite, but human desires are infinite.

or as Steven Hayward said in the foreword:

Ultimately what is at stake is not money or prosperity as much as self-government itself. Voegeli explains: “The danger liberalism poses to the American experiment comes from its disposition to deplete rather than replenish the capital required for self-government.” 

This book touches on the aspect that "liberalism" is an organism that abhors any kind of limits, so "limited government is anathema to it's existence:

When [FDR] took office in 1933 the separation of powers effectively ceased to function for the first time in a major domestic crisis other than civil war.

As I've stated in the blog many times, and one would assume would be obvious to the most casual of observers of Europe and the US:

“there is now a broad understanding that the social democratic project itself is unsustainable: that it has grown wildly beyond the principles of its inception and that the consequences of this are not only unaffordable, but positively damaging to national life and character.”16

I could go on endlessly quoting and there are close to 100 decent quotes along with a lot of excellent and very specific charts / analysis of US since FDR, the "Reagan attempt" that was the ONLY significant, yet still unsuccessful attempt to slow the Welfare State.

He then covers our current sad state --

• "limited government" Constitutionally destroyed as of the '30s and being trampled more each day. 
• A people addicted to benefits for the "most needy 100%" with all but the top 10% believing that they will be net importers of government largesse from others pockets. 
• The ever tightening screws on the smaller and smaller percentage of people still working, and detailed analysis of the futility of ever being able to transfer anything approaching enough money from that smaller and smaller group in order to "reduce inequality" -- in fact, why government transfers directly contribute to income inequality by rewarding behaviors that keep you poor (single parent family) and continually punish attempts to get off the bottom (marginal effects of moving up a level in income and losing government benefits)
• Lots of solid analysis of why libertarianism has no chance, and conservatism must be VERY careful if it seeks to have any power left at all ... 

In summary, while he doesn't state it as directly as I do, we are effectively screwed -- and likely were once we allowed FDR to sell us the false idea that "happiness" rather than the PURSUIT of happiness was a right -- it isn't, and of course it can't be!

MAYBE conservatives can slow the reckoning. MAYBE some other pair can come to where he says that Clinton and Gingrich were before the Lewinsky scandal broke --- supposedly in secret meetings trying to means test FICA / Medicare and allow private accounts. But he doubts it, as do I.

Essentially it is a book that does a better job of covering a lot of the stuff that I have covered over the years from a better writer, with a little more hope than I have been ground down to. I heartily recommend it.

Immanentizing the Eschaton

You Stay Classy, Paul Krugman - Ricochet.com:

I often run into things that make me feel like a complete and total idiot for having not been aware of them. At one time NRO put out T-SHIRTS! with the title phrase on them, and yet up until 10 min ago, I had never heard of it! As a Christian and a Conservative, I need to put on the dunce cap and sit in the corner for a few hours!

Eschaton - The final Christian heavenly state. From "The New Science of Politics", yet ANOTHER book that I had never even heard of, so I am now VERY behind on my reading again! This is nearly as horrible a situation as when I am yet again required to get the Ranger out and plow snow! ;-)

Nice short little article covering a recent emanation from the eminent and no doubt highly caring "economist" (and former Enron adviser) Paul Krugman. I don't like to cover a lot about Krugman because I agree with this NRO article that he intellectually died sometime around the point at where he took $50K from Enron, wrote glowingly about them, and then promptly wrote columns excoriating them, the W administration relative to them, AND "their advisers" while while conveniently forgetting he was on that list himself!

When you find it necessary to attack a person going in for their 4th round of cancer treatment on any topic, let alone their statement relative to losing their oncologist, people (as opposed to leftist Golems) tend to just say "I'll pick other battles").

But not Paul ... let me charge in and attack the cancer patient Krugman. Yes, "I'll break you in half like a boy" is bad behavior for a back benching congressmen, akin to the usual output of George Clooney, or Matt Damon, or Alec Baldwin, or ... well, you get the picture, While we are on the topic, if there is breaking to be done, it seems Justin Bieber might be a decent place to start ... but I digress.

But one might expect a higher standard from the NYT. How pray tell  do they still have a guy that is this crass and out of touch writing a regular column for them? It is a testament to the selective reporting of what passes as American "journalism" that this goes on! In this case, I don't even care one whit what the actual facts of the Coburn case. I PERSONALLY know of one person that lost their coverage under BOcare (because it "wasn't good enough), and their wife had a stroke in the fall. So now their new coverage is over $10K more than their old, PLUS it has close to a $10K deductible!!!

But now I better understand why ... if you can Immanentize the Eschaton (in the LEFT sense of "end times"),  you get Luciferian dispensation!

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The Incredible PFT (feminism)

Louise Pennington: Femen: Reinforcing the Patriarchal F***ability Test:

I'll let you disambiguate the "PFT". While I well know that the percentage of what is going on in the world that I know about is well in the ".0000..." class, sometimes it STILL seems surprising to see what I've never heard of!

Long ago I read "A People's History of the US" by Howard Zinn (http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html) and became initiated into the "victim view of history" ... the savages were all "noble", the Communists were and are noble, Labor is noble ... Christianity, "Western Philosophy", and Capital / Business most of all, are EVIL. Take them away and Nirvana quickly ensues! It's a nice simple view, shared by a lot of our state supported colleges. It's a wonderful world.

There is another alternative galaxy out there far far away where the roles of men and women were defined in some murky past by a male conspiracy ... no doubt over beers and football, possibly including cigars.

While the essential part of the Zinn view is removing civilization, the essential part of the feminist view seems to be the removal of procreation. I'm not much of an evolutionist, but I'm thinking there might be a problem with that, but I'm probably wrong. I'm the kind of dunce that believes that solar and wind don't work on a calm foggy day, and some people actually need the belief that there is a CHANCE they will keep a good deal of what they make before they get up and go to work in the AM. I'm admitting my lack of touch with current reality.

Apparently, pretty much all of western civilization is based a vast conspiracy of males to want to RAPE young women ... they may of course consent, be of age and all that, but it is still rape as defined by the keepers of the PFT.

I'm quite sure that there is nothing at all "natural" about women of prime breeding age displaying their sexual availability, it happens in no other species. No doubt before the advent of the Western Male PFT, the "natural man" didn't even notice unless he was in some "appropriate age range". I can't even imagine the chief of some tribe in the 10K year ago African savannah  would EVER use his position to gain sexual favors!

No, such unnatural acts are the work of evil patriarchal conspiracy (I'm guessing it is predominantly right wing, but perhaps this is one or the very rare areas where the political spectrum comes together??) If there is such a thing as this being "natural" however, we are now highly advanced and with proper education we can definitely learn to counteract our urges.

Except of course for Gays ... they are the way they are and have no choice in the matter. Oh, and teens ... they need free birth control. Oh, I guess women as well ... they have to have it provided for them for free. It is a complex world, but the feminists and the Zinn historians as well as no doubt BO know the answers, and they will tell us for sure!

Anyway, I'm sure folks like the author of this and the linked articles have this all figured out. I'm just another lost evil western patriarch with everything signed over to my wife. They seem intent on "smashing the patriarchy" ... I imagine the matriarchy will be a real hoot.

Protest needs to be vibrant, engaging and culturally specific but we will not smash the Patriarchy by reinforcing its belief that the only women who matter are those who conform to the Patriarchal Fuckability Test.

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Corruption, Climate, Consistency

Hit piece journalism:

The first linked piece is by the eminent Thomas Sowell, who covers the fact that there are "experts" that likely have no bias beyond "that is what they think". But, given the broad range of opinions, a "supporting expert" can usually be found for virtually any position.

The 2nd aspect is that "money talks" ... private money, corporate money, and CERTAINLY Government money as well ... since the government has the deepest pockets of all, and it has a gigantic role in educational institutions where ALL of the PHDs are trained and must pass muster if they want to achieve that degree.

Is the discussion of "Human Caused Global Warming" biased? Well, certainly!! There is money on both sides, their are interests on both sides. I for one prefer a few inches more ocean level and some higher temperatures to mile thick ice sheets covering most of the food growing area on earth.

That is my personal bias, but unfortunately given the historic scientific record, I'm pretty sure that in the next thousand years or so, and possibly AT ANY TIME, we will slip back into an ice age no matter what I or the rest of mankind might prefer. Why? Because as best we know, climate has generally been much cooler and more volatile than what we have seen the last 10K years or so, and "regression to the mean" is a common phenomenon.

Given that ANY view on climate is likely to be biased, I like to search out information when I can on BOTH sides.

Here is some data that would indicate that even though the experts are always telling us to believe THEM rather than our lying eyes (and shivering bodies), there may be something to snow in May, shivering cold the last week of July, and plenty of snow and cold in Nov-Dec. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/2013-one-of-the-ten-coldest-years-in-us-history-with-the-largest-drop-in-temperature/

Do you think NOAA has a bias? How good would it look for BO, "leading scientists", NASA, etc if it came to light that their claims of "settled science" had a lot more to do with "settled politics" than anything else? Nah, no reason at all for them to have a bias, right?

Naturally, the claim will be "that is WEATHER" ... usually accompanied with things like one being a "foolish denier", or some other crack about lack of intelligence, being a rube for the oil companies, etc, etc.

So here we have an exhibit from last summer dealing with a significant number of climate researches trapped in the ice at the NORTH Pole ... which BTW had been predicted in '08 to be "Ice Free" by '13, but instead the ice EXPANDED significantly http://bilber99.blogspot.com/2013/09/ipcc.html

Now, with nature providing no shortage of irony, we have climate scientists trapped in the ice at the SOUTH pole ... http://www.cbsnews.com/news/blizzard-stops-latest-rescue-bid-for-ship-trapped-at-antarctica/

Ok, North America is cold, BOTH poles, SO WHAT! Right?

Well yes, I listen to NPR, I certainly KNOW that record hot temps, lack of cold temps and anything that can be called "changeable weather" is PROOF of Global Warming ... and anything that is record cold, early / late snow, etc, etc is "just weather".  Oh, and anyone that doesn't agree with that is certainly either poorly educated, just stupid,  or "under the influence of big oil".

We also happen to have the 112 year Mideast snow anomaly  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/blizzard-stops-latest-rescue-bid-for-ship-trapped-at-antarctica/

Is any of this "proof"? Certainly not. IT IS DATA! However when people come up with labels like "Denier", and start going to great lengths to call the other guy "corrupt", I tend to smell a rat. Name people you know that are immune to corruption? If you named any, I'd suggest you look a little harder. We are ALL very prone to corruption.

Most people don't like to be called stupid ( for some reason, I rather like it, but I know that is an odd predilection). Most people like to feel that the "powers that be" have some reasonably correct handle on what is going on ... again, I don't, and I have been told this all means that I'm an "iconoclast". I've always assumed that "the experts" each know everything about nothing ... while I like to know nothing about everything! Clearly a FAR superior position!

My advice in 2014 is the same as my advice in any year. Don't believe in ANY currently breathing human. Love them, forgive them, but DON'T believe in them. They are NOT reliable! That goes quadruple for me, and unfortunately includes yourself, ESPECIALLY yourself. We are HORRIBLE at even coming close to the truth about ourselves.

Look for what is OLD. What has stood the test of time, and try your best to understand WHY it has done so ... but realize that it is way more important to know it HAS survived rather than to understand why. That is likely impossible in any case! But that is actually really good news!

Happy New Year!

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