Democrats Pledge "No New Taxes"

No Whining About the Media - Campaign Stops - 2008 Elections - Opinion - New York Times Blog

This is by David Brooks, the long time token "conservative" on the NYT editorial board. I happened to hear the part of the debate on the "no new taxes", and I was somewhat surprised, but I completely disagree with David. The only reason Bush Senior's "No New Taxes" pledge hurt him is because he is a REPUBLICAN. The idea that Brooks thinks for a SECOND that either Clinton or BO are going to stand by their pledges to not "raise taxes of any kind" on INDIVIDUALS making less than $250K a year is complete hocum and everyone ought to know it. It is "rhetoric to get elected".

Part of the reason one has to try to parse the "nuance" of what Democrats say is because "nuance" is AT BEST all one is going to get. There is no question that their statements on taxes are bold faced lies - only by trying to "read through the entrails" of things like their books, web-sites and off the cuff remarks on things like "bitterness" and race can one hope to get a glimpse behind the packaged creation that the MSM and Democrats provide as a candidate. I think his estimate of "$40 billion" on taxing "the rich" is quite high, those are the people that have the MOST freedom to move income around (including off shore), forgoing income and leaving investments in other assets, etc. They aren't the sitting ducks that people like us tax slaves are.

It gives one pause to realize that the NYT's CONSERVATIVE is lamenting that "It’s impossible to fund a health care plan, let alone anything else, with that kind of money." Brooks thinks that tax increases are going to be the way to increase revenue - apparently at the NYT, even the "conservatives" are fixed economy sized liberals. If the economy is $1000 and taxes are 10% you get $100 in tax. If it a static economy, raising taxes 1% gives an extra $10. However if the economy is growing at 5% a year, NO NEW TAXES will give you a $1050 total economy next year with tax revenue of $105, $1,102.5 the following year with taxes of $110.25, or a .25 premium for NOT raising taxes, AND, the economic growth picture just gets better and better.

Fortunately for the tax cutter and UNfortunately for the tax increaser, the economy is FAR from static. Time and time again raising taxes either slows or stops growth, and raising taxes in the face of a slowing economy is an excellent way to induce, prolong and deepen recessions. As Reagan proved, when the upper income people stop working, the whole train slows rapidly--the lead actor fails to take that extra picture this year because "it isn't worth it", and all the supporting actors, the studio, the stage hands, the wardrobe people, etc are out of job and the economy slows. By millions and billions of "little" decisions like that across the economy, the earning potential of all is removed.

This problem is as old as "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg". There are no limits on the appetite for gold, especially OTHERS gold, and the true "greedy" are those that think that their lives benifit by sucking more funds away from those who earn them. In the end, they "kill the goose", and it is those with the greatest need that suffer the worst. The rational and the productive slow their work output, take extra training, move their dollars to areas where the government is not penalizing their productivity and the overall tax revenues and the economy slow.

We have WAY better data on how this operates than Global Warming, and human beings are FAR more in control of the economy than the environment (the economy is human created). The left just refuses to accept how economics works, so they persist in taking steps that "kill the goose". Like moths to the fire, they just can't seem to get it through their heads that they MUST have the most productive people working at very close to peak efficiency if they want to keep growth going. There is no difference between their plans and putting "ankle weights" (or maybe both wrist and ankle weights) on the best atheletes in baseball, basketball, football, etc and then see how entertaining the game is.

The lefties are always braying about "diversity", but the REAL diversity that matters is diversity of talent, intelligence, drive, personality, innovation, risk taking, have different thoughts, different spiritual and emotional responses. Skin color, gender, sexual preferences and all the other "lefty diversity" are quite boring in comparison. The constant attempts to gain "equality of result", or "more civility" are really just attempts to REMOVE the true myriad of diversities that make human life and spirit wonderful gifts from the infinite.

Agreeing With BO

I got to hear a little bit of the Democrat debate at noon today re-broadcast on NPR. A couple of things struck me. First of all, it must be great to be questioned by a guy that was the communications director in your husbands administration, which George Stephanapolis was. It is pretty funny that Tim Russert on NBC served as counselor in New York Governor Cuomo in 83-84 and was chief of staff to Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from 1977 to 1982. Chris Matthews over on CNBC worked on Senator Edmund Muskie's staff, as a speechwriter for Jimmuh, (including much of the "Malaise" speech). He then worked six years as a top aide to long-time Speaker of the House, Tip O'Neil.

Can anyone name any similar connections for Republican's in the MSM? Oh, but of course none of these folks have any bias, they just "dropped it" when they moved in the revolving door from the Democrats to the media. It sounds like a lot of BO supporters think that George S was too tough on old BO, and are blaming it on his connection with the Clinton's in the past. WOW, liberals believing that there is some potential that the folks doing the news are normal biased humans. Will wonders never cease. Naturally, this will not apply to cases like Mathews and Russert, because that would e "small minded consistency".

That brings me to this and my agreement with BO, he responded to a Stephanopolis question on his relationship with Bill Ayers of the Weathermen who said on 9-11-2001: ''I don't regret setting bombs, I feel we didn't do enough.''

George, but this is an example of what I'm talking about ["the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us from what should be my job when I'm commander in chief"].

This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George.

The fact is, is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions.

Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those either.

So this kind of game, in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, is somehow -- somehow their ideas could be attributed to me -- I think the American people are smarter than that. They're not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn't.

Why you know at least in principle, he is absolutely right! Republican's should NEVER have to explain why they don't agree with David Duke even though he ran as a Republican once, since not only DON'T they agree with him, hardly any of them have ANY association with him at ALL. But often, they are linked with him anyway, and the MSM constantly brings him up and many of them have been forced to repudiate his views anyway. We all know that it isn't very good to have to issue a "denial" (eg. "I don't beat my wife" ... most people will assume there must be SOME reason you had to issue the denial). However, the fact that sitting DEMOCRAT US Senator Bob Byrd was a recruiter in the KKK is pretty much a state secret.

How about Bob Jones University? If a Republican appears there does it mean that they agree with everything that Bob Jones has ever done? Well, golly, BO went to a racist church for TWENTY YEARS and dedicated his book to a Pastor that said "God Damn America" after 9-11 -- it is COMPLETELY "unfair" for us to indicate that choice of church or dedication of his book has ANYTHING to do with his views! Any double standard there?

Speaking of 9-11, why did the MSM make such a big deal our of comments of the like of Falwell and Robertson of 9-11 being "judgment for sin" and then do all they could to point out any relationship they could of "the religious right" to Bush and other Republicans? In CA the LA paper made a big deal out of Schwarzenegger's FATHER being a Nazi sympathizer as he ran for Gov. Might it be in his blood? Now there is a good one--how frequently do we hear of Bush or other Republicans being compared with "Hitler" or "Nazis" when they have done nothing at all to indicate they have any sympathy with any Nazi view.

The fact is that "guilt by association", often made up out of TOTALLY complete cloth used against Republicans by Democrats and the MSM is a DAILY way of life!

One has to laugh a bit at the "similarity" between a Weatherman bomber, now a tenured professor who on 9-11 says that the Weathermen "didn't do enough bombing" and a Republican in the house who no doubt considers Abortion murder -- and we in fact live in a country where the law says that the penalty for murder can be death. The fact that the BO brain sees folks bombing buildings and sitting Republican Senators as "equivalent" might be just a little chilling to the few folks that are still firing any logical brain circuits on the BO "mystique".

BO (and most of te MSM) is also pretty ticked that folks "parse his words". Golly, I bet Tent Lott finds that to be pretty special, he lost his leadership slot because of off-hand comments at a birthday party. I think EVERYONE understands there was no racist intent there at all, it was merely a great opportunity for the MSM and the Democrats to play political "gotcha", extract a pound of flesh from a specific Republican, and help tar the whole party with their false racist association. When the game is played against Republicans, the Democrats and MSM find it to be "proper politics".

Obama himself is CONSTANTLY saying "McCain wants to be in Iraq for 100 years", which is completely NOT what McCain said. He is also CONSTANTLY claiming that "McCain thinks the Bush economy is fine", only because McCain is willing to point out a few odd facts like personal income growth, consecutive quarters of growth, amount of growth, etc have been BETTER under Bush than they were under Clinton. Oddly, the Democrats took over both houses of congress a year ago promising "change", and we seem to have it - there looks like there may be a recession now.

So Obama has an excellent point. If we WERE to operate for ALL the way he thinks we ought to operate for HIM, then this might indeed be a more civil country. As it is, it is pretty obvious that his view is that we ought to treat HIM specially, and allow both him and the MSM to CONSTANTLY behave in a pattern that is MUCH WORSE in their treatment of Republicans than he has experienced. Just a little wiff of what a BO America might smell like!

Democrats and Al Qaeda Agree Again

Al Qaeda declares 'failure and defeat' for U.S. troops in Iraq - CNN.com

One sometimes wonders if there really is any difference between "Osama Obama" and "Osama Bin Ladin". Both seem to agree on the "failure in Iraq" view. Oh, I guess Obama would see Bin Ladin as somewhat "bitter and clinging to his guns" ... I suppose that is primarily because he is "living in a rural area".

Actually, Harry Reid and a lot of the Democrats have been well out ahead of Bin Ladin on this one, declaring defeat early and often relative to the troops in Iraq. That is not to say they don't "support" them--it is just that the Democrat version of "support" has a lot of "nuance", which to the less well educated means the same thing as "we think America is going to lose".

First Campfire 2008

It at least basically hit 70 here Wednesday April 16th and the wind died down in the evening. My wife's folks were up to see our son in the musical "Oklahoma" at school, and I talked at least my wife and her Dad into sitting around the firepit with the propane heater on high for our first firepit outing of the year.

I noticed on the news it was the longest span between 70 degree days here in MN since '98, which matches up with my view of "10 years of mild winters". One point plotted does not make a trend, so maybe we really are warming up and this is just a "cold" (I'd say "normal") winter that will not be quickly repeated. I have nothing invested in global warming one way or another, sure, I'd like to see it be bunk, and I'd THINK that nearly everyone would.

I would have thought that everyone would like to see the Surge in Iraq be successful and the USSR be defeated as well and I was wrong on those, so I suspect that there are a whole bunch of folks that will re-write history if it turns out that the spell of warm winters was a climate cycle based on sunspots, ocean currents or something that we just don't understand rather than human activity. One thing I AM sure of is that we won't be hearing Al Gore and the MSM EVER saying "we were wrong".

BO Leaks the Truth

"But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Guys like BO need to always tell us "but the truth is", and then continually lie when their lips start moving, since their actual views are completely out of step with 70-80% of the American public. It isn't that HillBilly really believes anything different, but the Clinton campaign is furiously trying to get some play out of this. We will see how effective MSM blockage of the real smell of BO is.

I happen to have grown up on a very small dairy farm and went to school in a town of 2K people. My wife grew up on a crop farm and went to school in an equally small town. Unlike Michelle Obama, and most likely BO, we have always been proud of our country, and the vast majority of folks that live in those towns would still do a far better job of speaking for the values of America than BO and his poor ashamed wife.

Might they justifiably be unhappy about a candidate who runs on no substance whatsoever, has a wife that isn't even proud of the country he wants to be president of, and whom maligns the very people who know way more about character and values than BO ever will? Sure, but it doesn't have much to do with him being black. Yes, there are folks that are taken in by the MSM and elites like the BOs in even small town America, but in general, those folks are a lot closer to "clinging to" the American values of hard work, character, personal responsibility, and yes, even faith in God than Ivy League lawyers like the BOs.

Are they unhappy that they have lost jobs? Sure, but mostly because the MSM and the Democrats have convinced them that you can still have union wages and work rules, not have to get the education to compete and that "some corporate CEO" was "taking their jobs". Those same Democrats were running the tax, regulation, union support, and "it isn't your fault" rhetoric that was TAKING their jobs. Nobody likes losing jobs, and they like it less when they are told it is part of some "vast global right-wing conspiracy", rather than simply the need to compete successfully in a global market, which all those "clinging" folks are more than capable of doing if they were told what the playing field really was, rather than just being filled with a bunch of useless class warfare rhetoric.

BO needs to get his story straight. In his book, he talks of the disaster of "the '70s and '80s", blithly running the Reagan ec0nomic boom in with the Carter economic swoon, but giving Willy credit for "good times". The numbers and ranking are so easy to see that anyone that can't figure Reagan as the best economy and Slick and Bush so close to each other that one could nod either way if we didn't consider 9-11 and the stock market crash of 2K that moved to recession. We can bet that whatever happens BAD in the economy this year will be charged to Bush, and this year isn't over, so we can't say for sure.

Separation of Christ and State

Wednesday: Wall of silence broken at state's Muslim public school

Here in MN a nice lefty blue state, the separation of "Church and State" is an important principal (in theory). The issue is ALWAYS Christ, not "religion". Muslims may have 10 times the restrictive rules on women, gays, casual sex, alcohol, drugs, etc and all the other fruits of the liberal spirit as Christians do, but the left STRONGLY prefers them to Christians. Katherine Kersten is the token conservative that the Red Star has hired to give people the false impression that the paper is something other than a liberal tract, so don't think that the leftys are turning here. They really don't care about "separation of muslims and state", in fact state funding of our own MN Madras is just peachy with them.

Why? I'd argue that my perennial claim that for liberals, consistency isn't an issue is flawed. They ARE consistently anti-American and anti-Christian. Post 9-11, Muslims have turned out to be a two-for! The left can show it's disdain for all things American by cozying up to the very folks that murdered 3K of their fellow citizens and at the same time thumb their noses at the supposed "Christian Nation". One might look at typical lefty beliefs and think that they would take a dim view of folks that go death penalty on anything from dissing Mohammed, gays, adultery, or a whole bunch of other stuff. A woman that is not in full Muslim garb is "open season" for rape, and the guys get off "free", just not their fault since she was "tempting". However, Muslims are BOTH anti-Christian and anti-American! Talk about your lefty win, win! They simply can't resist being smitten with that pair of very strong commitments, so they are willing to even have state funding of a religious school for them.

I've been perplexed the last couple days to try to figure out what had happened to the leftys on China. Back when China killing millions of their own people and supporting the genocidal Viet Cong as they killed both their countrymen and US soliders, Mao and his "Little Red Book" were complete darlings of the left. They were waving their flags and trying to dress like their "comrades". Back when the good old USSR that killed 40-60 million of it's own people was invading Afghanistan the leftys didn't even support their own Jimmuh Carter in his boycott of the games, let alone support any US efforts to help repel the Soviets. Commies have always been the kind of folks that your average blue state lefty finds worthy of admiration, no matter what their body count may be. They put Che Guevera on their T-shirts, and he was as blood thirsty a killer as one can find.

There seem to be very few theories around now as to why suddenly commies taking over countries and maybe killing a few folks is something that needs to be protested. What has happened:

• My main guess is that China just has gotten too friendly with the US and too prosperous. The left loves abject poverty and virulent anti-Americanism in their friends, and China no longer measures up. Being Anti-American is the big key -- one can even have a little money as long as your hatred of America credentials are strong, but start playing nice with the US and liberals no longer feel the love.
  
• One assertion is that the Dali Lama has enough Hollywood types in his spell that they have been able to lead the rest of the blue sheep to bleat against the evil China and the Olympics being held there.
  
• Since Bush is planning to go, it must be inherently bad to a lefty. At their level of logic, if Bush wants to do it, it HAS to be bad. I'm almost wondering if he ought not take a shot at a massive tax increase, immediate pullout of the troops from Iraq and Federally funded gay marriages before he leaves office here just to be certain that liberals would always be for tax cuts, a stable Iraq and marriage being between a man and a woman.
  

Bumper Ballistics

I saw the following bumper sticker on a lefty vehicle along with a stack of the standard "Impeach Bush", "Wellstone", yada yada:

"Yellow Ribbons are not Bulletproof"

My first thought was; "Neither are Bumper Stickers", followed shortly by the more general thought that the entire concept of "bulletproof" really shows a lack of ballistic imagination. I'd argue that very few civilian constructs, even likely including armored trucks are really "bulletproof" against a .50 BMG in armor piercing. Something available to civilians. Once one moves into military rounds, a 155mm howitzer is likely to pretty much dispose of any "proofing" attempts by sticker applicators.

Naturally, a couple more seconds produced the probably correct meaning of the sticker; "Hey you right wing idiots with your yellow ribbons on your cars, those ribbons aren't going to protect any troops, so %$^&*^ you!" Ah yes, liberal "civility". It is rather nice to see the leftys at least feigning concern for the troops this time rather than always just calling them war criminals, baby killers and spitting on them. While the treatment of Abu Girab and some of the other coverage has shown the general hatred of the military lying just slightly below the surface, it is nice to see them at least realize that open acknowledgment of disrespect for US soldiers doesn't play that well.

I'm always amazed at the lefty propensity for bumper stickers. It is just something that never appeals to me that much - maybe a candidate one during the core months of the election, but those seem purposeful. There are occasional counter examples from the right, but it has to be almost 80% left, 20% right in the bumper sticker world. I guess from the POV of a lefty, having a bumper sticker on your vehicle that says "HATE is not a family value" is a way to show how nice you are and how much respect you have for folks with different views than you.

Muir Woods on CNN

After having just been out to to Muir Woods, it was interesting to see this out on the web. I found Muir Woods to be a great little place, but my recollection is that the Redwoods up around "The Avenue of the Giants" further north was that they were even more impressive and that we will want to return there.

Muir Woods celebrates a century of conservation - CNN.com

The Clinton's Millions

After a long wait, HillBilly finally released their tax returns. The poor "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" beset Clinton family has been forced to scrape by making only $109 million in the 7 years since the end of "The Great Stain" Presidency. They seem much more charitable than the Goreacle, having given $10 million away (I'm not sure to whom-the society for willing big haired young women maybe?). For those that don't recall, in '98, Gore gave $353 to chairity on an income of nearly $200K. Not that anyone in the MSM cares, he was in favor of having a lot of other folks pay a lot of taxes and killing the unborn, so he was OK by them--but I digress.

Slick and the First Enabler also paid $33 million in taxes (Willie's used underwear deductions must have gone down some), which still sounds like a pretty good rate for $109 million two income couple. So they had to scrape by on only $66 mil -- with use of government planes and a ton of other provided percs for ex-presidents and senators of course.

I note that there isn't a lot of howling from the MSM on this one. A lot of this money came from corporations paying $255K for an hour speech. I'm certainly hoping that he spoke on topics that he has expertise in -- how to get sex at work, get caught, but still keep your job, how to bomb other countries (twice) at critical points of personal scandal, but not have any significant questioning of it, etc. The MSM seems to question the motives of Bush constantly, yet back when Slick was launching attacks after coming off vacation and saying "I have to go and do something Presidential", it was the height of being "Un-American" to wonder if there could be a relation to his scandals. One just absolutely couldn't question the motives of his royal slickness without the media having a good howl.

How things have changed--I'm sure that it must all be due to the sterling character and brilliance of the Dope from Hope, and that is why he is worth $250K an hour. No thought of cashing in on "influence" from the Dem side, they only have "the best interests of the people" in mind while they rake in THEIR $109 million. Think of the idiot CEOs that make $10-$20 million a year for leading companies, producing products and making profits for shareholders. They get yelled at constantly for "gouging" and there is constant talk of regulating their salaries, yet Bubba rakes in $250K per hour and it is "no problemo".

They hate a cat fit when Reagan left office and went to Japan and made some speeches. Newt was investigated, castigated, and forced to pay money on "ethics charges" for his book deal, but Hilly rakes it in while in office without a peep from the MSM. I really don't mind that they make the money. If Republicans were treated even a TINY bit the same by the MSM on the subject, it would be just fine.

Clintons Release Tax Returns | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

Lieberman Lives

One of the ways to completely disappear from the MSM is to be a "Maverick Democrat". The disappearance of such a person is so complete in the MSM that I don't think I've ever even heard the term applied to a Democrat that actually breaks ranks with the party. The place that I've heard it applied is for a Democrat that is so far to the LEFT (like Wellstone or Kucinich) that the term comes out. Actually though, Joe Lieberman is still alive, and thanks to the still not silenced Conservative blogsphere, one can actually read what he has to say.

Very worth reading, I thought his best line was exactly the Democrat and MSM position on Iraq.

"What I'm about to say, with respect to my colleagues who have consistently opposed our presence in Iraq, as I hear the questions and the statements today, it seems to me that there's a kind of hear no progress in Iraq, see no progress in Iraq, and most of all, speak of no progress in Iraq."

It doesn't get a lot more clear than that. Forget the security of the country, forget the sacrifice of our troops and most of all, forget the Iraqi people-all that counts is failure in Iraq to be blamed on Bush at any cost.

Since we are on the subject, consider the idea of "Maverick Republican"? A Republican that sides with the Democrats--Olympia Snow, Lincoln Chafee, Arlen Specter ... and even sometimes John McCain. Certainly common to see them called out as "mavericks", "courageous", "principled", etc, AND what is important, they are CALLED OUT in the MSM when they do the bidding of the Democrats. McCain was a DARLING as long as he was taking positions against the Republican leadership and Bush. He is of course less good now as he is due to be the Republican standard bearer, and they are loathed in the MSM.

Watch how much coverage Lieberman's stand on Iraq (and Lieberman in general) gets, and then think back to McCain when he took positions against the Republican leadership.
Lieberman is a non-entity today, yet his party is in power and he was the VP candidate in 2000. Think of how Lieberman's views would be covered if he were a Republican standing strong against the leadership of his party, and then try to imagine that the MSM is unbiased.

Glenn Beck: The $53 trillion asteroid

Glenn Beck: The $53 trillion asteroid - CNN.com

This article is well worth the read, as are a number of books on the subject - "The Coming Generational Storm", written in 2004 is one that I found to be very solid on the subject. I suspect that few are going to listen, so "what happens will happen" in the future. Some of my thoughts on why this is so:

• It is a bi-partisan problem at this point. FDR put us on the path of the government funded pot of gold at the end of the retirement rainbow. His intent of course was that nearly nobody would ever collect, and he envisioned an ever increasing workforce. Both assumptions are now radically wrong, so we have a radically big problem, but it has been the "third rail" for a long time. Both parties have bought into the madness.
  
• Everyone loves rights and entitlements, nobody likes waiting, working, responsibility. There is an endless supply of people who want someone else to solve their problems, and are willing to vote accordingly. On an individual basis is there is no cost to vote irrationally.
  
• People who have more have more options as well (at least perceived) - more talent, more intelligence, more health, more money, more wisdom, etc. than the people that have less. Christ was right when he said that "to those that have, more will be given, and to those that don't, even that will be taken". It is easy for God to understand how the universe works--if you are certain that you have little, and no options and the only chance you have for success is for things to be given, you will lose what you have (since clearly, you are not even aware you have it). If you are certain that you are blessed with a lot (maybe even more than you deserve), you will see the blessings continue to flow. So the general population is voting to lose what they have. Those that have more will be better off, but the whole will lose a lot.
  
• The idea of "retirement" is generally bad for healthy people. Not surprising that government would be encouraging it and going broke while doing it. Sort of like the free cigarettes given to the soldiers in WWII. Big win for government and tobacco companies. Not so big a win for the soldiers.
  
• Government has been using FICA as a giant extra tax and spending all the money-which is always what was intended. FDR just wanted to increase the government take and buy votes. He did it the old fashined way ... he created the worlds larges ponzi scheme, now the $53 trillion bad debt is coming our way.
  

Letter to a Christian Nation

In the subject book, Sam Harris, writer of the "The End of Faith" is still all worked up about those pesky Christians-they are a national and world emergency. His basic premises remain the same - Christians and all believers of any stripe are dangerous fools, atheists are wonderful, loving, geniuses. (in general, Sam is probably quite superior to the general lot if you really get down to detail).

He continues to speak a bit of truth about Islam: "With few exceptions, the only public figures who have the courage to speak honestly about the threat that Islam now poses to European society seem to be fascists. This does not bode well for the future of civilization". He seems to have Islam pegged pretty well for what it is, he is at best a thousand years late with his understanding of Christianity. In his materialist mind, all non-scientifically proveable ideas are equivalently useless, so holocaust denying suicidal terrorists in planes are really no different from Mother Theresa. "Mother Teresa is a perfect example of the way in which a good person, moved to help others, can have her moral intuitions deranged by religious faith".

He goes on to quote Christopher Hitchens:

" Mother Theresa was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction".

There we see the flower of the superior "innate morality" that comes to the surface once the shackles of religion are thrown off. So abortion is the only known cure for poverty? Certainly an atheist with no ultimate standards can come up with something better than just killing the unborn? Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and so many before have led the way. To the atheist, there is NO "gift" ... of any sort. Only meaningless randomness. What would the reason be to stop the killing at only the UNborn? None.

"Atheism is not a philosophy; it is no even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. ... Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs."

No new arguments are presented- Since Harris is made of material and lives in a material system, he has chosen to ignore any prospect for the non-material (or even the as yet undiscovered material) This leaves him with no consciousness, love, beauty, kindness or countless other abstractions. If one can't produce a scientific proof to justify it, it simply doesn't exist to the faithless.

"Clearly, it is time we learned to meet our emotional needs without embracing the preposterous. We must find ways to invoke the power of ritual and to mark those transitions in every human life that demand profundity-birth, marriage, death-without lying to ourselves about the nature of reality. Only then will the practice of raising our children to believe that they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish be widely recognized as the ludicrous obscenity that it is."

But Sam, what theorem would create "profundity"? Aren't even those emotions just provably electro-chemical chimera? Why waste the time on new rituals? Why even mark individual birth and death? Marriage? Isn't that PURELY some old religious relic that has nothing to do with the "natural order"? Doesn't every bit of science that we have point to "natural man" living in a state where the "fittest" would acquire as many women as they desired? Isn't that "naturally best"? I'd expect a solid atheist to be making those "reasonable noises" before even giving any sort of a nod to someone creating something like "profound transitions"? Profound how? By some "random selection" or potentially by the "selection of the fittest idea"? Hmmm ... but what would signify fittest? Might?

"The fundamental problem with religion is that it is built, to a remarkable degree, upon lies.". If we remove the "lies" and insert "incomplete information", we pretty much have human existence. Naturally, Sam is very impressed by what our modern sciences can do, and they are certainly very convenient. Jets, electricity, computers, modern medicine -- all are very nice. One is left with that nasty little fact though, "if we are so smart, how come we die"? Sam is convinced that "maturity" means that it is just "accepted", but one doesn't need to be much of an armchair psychologist to know that denial and repression are a lot easier for the human psyche than the supposed "mature acceptance" that Sam thinks is going to be so easy with the right "profound rituals". If those "profound rituals" are going to show up, one would have thought a brilliant atheist would have just rolled those puppies out by now.

"Everyone who has eyes to see that if the God of Abraham exists, He is an utter psychopath-and the God of nature is too. If you can't see these things just by looking, you have simply closed your eles to the realities of the world".

Sam likes to complain that "Christians" write him nasty notes or say bad things about him. I can see where that would be painful for him, he obviously holds them in high regard. It reminds me a lot of many on the left who deplore the "loss of civility" in our society with the advent of things like talk radio and Fox news. Sam's basic solution seems quite the same -- if the opposition can be completely and utterly destroyed, then we can all be "civil". Why would one really stop so short of nirvana as to only wipe out "poverty" by killing the unborn?

Certainly guys like Sam can make the world "safe" through "rational means". Once one gets by the foolishness of "ultimate authority", the kind of "pragmatic group morals" that "make sense" can give us a world that is OBJECTIVELY better! There may have been "flaws" in the versions of some of the previous geniouses that faced "reality as it is" such as Satin, Hitler, etc ... but, there will always be new opportunities. Guys like Sam are ready and waiting to lead the way!

Monterey and San Francisco

Yesterday we launched fairly early from the Hearst Castle up the very beautiful but a little challenging to drive highway 1 past Big Sur and on into Monterey. It was a gray rainy day, but we decided to go out whale watching anyway. We saw 3 humpbacks at relatively close range, but they seemed to be a bit cagey and the lightly loaded whale watch boat didn't seem to be very interested in ranging any farther to find any other subjects. Oh well, I can understand them not wanting to burn too much fuel on a 100' boat with only 10 folks or so at $35 a head.

We drove on into our hotel that is right off Fisherman's Warf in San Francisco and went out for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe -- loud with expensive glasses with drinks, but kind of fun and the food was fine. On the way home we stopped by some street painters doing pictures of the golden gate with spray paint. They were fun to watch and did them very fast with a lot of loud music to listen to, we ended up with two of them at $10 each. Not great art, but a fun memory.

Today we slept in a bit and toured San Francisco via cable car, bus and lots of shoe leather. Keenan wanted to see the Haight Ashbury area since so much of the rock history came out of there, so we went up there, Golden Gate park, and then walked most of the way across the bridge. Three large container ships went under the bridge during the time that we were out there, so that was fun to watch.

We picked up dinner on the pier - bread bowl clam chowder, shrimp cocktail and a crab sandwich, and then brought our sore feet back to the hotel.

La Brea Tar Pits, San Simeon

Sunday we got a little later start and went down to Uncle Bill's Pancakes in Manhattan Beach. The buckwheat blueberry cakes that I had were excellent, as were the buttermilks and the fried potatoes, but the omelet wasn't up to our high CA standards. The homes along the beach were very nice, I suspect that they are priced in the millions, but they didn't all LOOK that way, and it was really fun to imagine settling down to one of those for a few weeks in the cold part of the year. Maybe no quite warm enough for some in the family though!

We had hopes of doing the Getty Museum but discovered it was closed on Monday. We ended up going over and standing in line for only about an hour at 2:30 to get a Pink's Hot Dog!
We saw them on the hotel TV the first night in and thought we had to try them out--they were right, it is almost always well over an hour wait. We stopped in on Saturday, and waited for about 45 min before we realized how slow the line was going and that it was going to interfere with too much to wait then. They are good hot dogs, not that expensive by Hollywood standards, but in no way "worth the wait", although it is clear that the wait is part of the experience!

We saw the La Brea tar pits, which I've been impressed with ever since I was a small kid reading the encyclopedias. They make much the same point that I've heard a few times that most of the large mammals-ground sloths, north American Mastadon and Mammoth, north American Lion, Sabre Tooth "tiger"( cat) etc, all went extinct in a short period around 10-11K years ago. Caused by man? Climate change? Something else? Nobody seems to have the answers, and compared with a lot of geologic / paleontology mysteries, not that ancient. Interesting place, right in the middle of the city now.

Keenan was a bit under the weather with some sniffles, so he retired to the hotel and Marla and I headed down to the beach to watch the sunset, downtown Santa Monica for a little shopping, and then to Lares Mexican Restaurant for dinner. It was very highly rated, nice place, valet parking, but the food was only "very good"--would rather eat at a couple places around home.

We launched at 8:30 with Keenan feeling better. Stopped and had breakfast at Paradise Cove in Malibu. Great view of the water and excellent food. Hit the road and booked it north up Hwy 1 to the Hearst Castle. Lots of beautiful strawberrys being picked out of huge fields along the roads. Amazing farming in California.

The Hearst Castle was more that I expected it to be. 5 miles away from the ocean and 1,600' up, it sits atop a hill where the Hearst's had a hunting camp when WR was a child. His mother took him to Europe for a year and 1/2 when he was 10 and he was impressed with the great homes, cathedrals and ruins. He wanted it all brought together, and he enjoyed "projects". He hired a brilliant woman Architect, Julia Morgan and they created together without an overall plan ... a number of false starts and do-over's including three rebuilds of the amazing Neptune Pool.

The thought I had in walking through it was that today's rich lack imagination. Hearst was the first leading Newspaper man with an empire that ran from coast to coast, centered on his San Francisco Chronical. He was a congressman three times as a Democrat, and considered himself a progressive/populist Democrat. I suppose today, Rupert Murdoch might be somewhat of an equivalent, but I don't see him building the modern equivalent of the Hearst Castle. Maybe that time is past, or the wealthy are simply too busy to spend time and money in the construction of great projects.

It is interesting for one in their 51st year to note that he didn't get started until he was 56 in 1919, and worked on it continuously until his health would no longer allow it in 1947.

Reagan Library and Griffith Observatory

Day 2 in CA included a trip up to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, and then up to the Griffith Observatory, high above Hollywood. A little time was remaining for a run down to Redondo Beach Pier for a great seafood dinner at Tony's.

As is normal on early vacation we have been going so hard that there isn't a lot of time to spend writing about all the details. Here is the start of the photo album.

California 2008