Rick Warren and Civility

First Take: Vitriol infests Warren family grief:

First, my deepest condolences to Rick Warren and family -- if he was the very embodiment of evil in the modern world,  to not feel his pain at all makes one wonder if the prevalence of sociopaths in our society is understated.

How often we hear how "coarse" things have become in this country. Can it be ANY more "coarse" than attacking a man whose son has committed suicide?

To believe in Christ is to always have hope. One feels more sorry for those hopeless enough to attack anyone in such pain, but such is what happens for those who leave positive hope behind and replace it with the negative hope for immediate annihilation upon death.

It is not Gods will that any should perish, but for those that choose that path, they seem driven to prove that God truly is just in his eternal judgement.

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The Axis of Education

University of Minnesota's bloat must end | StarTribune.com:

Wow, Arnie and at Strib being worried about UofM spending in ANY way is definitely like the fox wanting to add safety measures to the hen house!

The numbers are suitably obscene, abut somehow the "solutions" don't look likely to do very much to me ... this and that "commission", and DFLer from here or there. Ho-hum, the U is ground zero for filling the skulls of the young with statist claptrap de jour, are they REALLY surprised that some of the folks riding the perpetual gravy train may have gotten a little greedy and pudgy?

US education is in almost as bad a shape as we are governmentally, financially and economically. It is dedicated to the ancient "kids in a room with an ossified union driving the show in bed with big government" from "Dead Start" giving the those just out of the cradle indoctrination to the majesty of the state, all the way up to having the "BS" piled higher and deeper to MS and PHD via rigorous goose-step head bobbing agreement with the socialist, anti-competitive, politically correct mantra that happens to be the current theme of the "Axis of Education ". Really more than "3" though ...  government, unions, lawyers, big education.

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Back to the '70s

Unemployment Drops to 7.6%, Mass Jobs Exodus Puts America Back at Pre-Reagan Labor Force Levels | Independent Journal Review:

Well, at least we don't have to wonder anymore what it would have been like if Jimmy Carter had gotten a 2nd term. We are living it!!

I also LOVE how SURPRISED the economists are! At least the ones the MSM consults tend to be SHOCKED by bad economic numbers when a Dem is in the WH and good economic numbers when a Republican is in there -- any good number during the W years was "surprising", and any bad number now is positively unbelievable for them. Duh!

When your models keep making the wrong predictions it is time to CHANGE YOUR MODELS!

Insanity is doing the same stuff and expecting different results!

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Progressives on Hypocrisy

Forward Progressives — Paul Ryan: The Ultimate Hypocrite:

Ran into this nice little screed on Paul Ryan that is a pretty good example of the "alternate universe" that "progressives" live in. To be "Progressive" or "liberal" is to have a keen sense of "hypocrisy" in others, but no mirror at all.

For a "progressive", the W deficits were horrible, but BO's are fine. Any use of military power under W was worthy of a protest, where under BO any military use, even without congressional approval is fine. Gitmo was a constant source of animus under W, now it is fine. Killing even Americans with drones? No problem with BO in the WH, under W? Killing ANYONE was "chilling" ... even terrorists deserved "constitutional rights", now not even Americans do if BO decides against it.

Now, let it be said that ANYONE with ANY standards is in fact a hypocrite -- or else your standards are so low as to not be worthy of being called "standards". ALL sin -- in many and various ways, so the only true non-hypocrites are guys like Slick Willie that never claimed to have any standards and did an excellent job of proving it!

The big difference here is that Ryan nor any Republican I know of ever said NO government!! Smaller than it is now, yes ... but maybe 15-20% of GDP vs the 25% it is today. Dealing with government is more like dieting than quitting smoking or drinking. Unless someone starts talking ZERO government or railing against having public schools, or benefits for children whose parents have died it is ridiculous to bring them into the discussion.

FICA **IS** a Ponzi scheme -- it just hasn't crashed yet. If we don't fix it, there will be no money for ANY. What Ryan wants to do is means test it to keep it helping those that truly need it and to characterize his approach otherwise is either stupid or disingenuous.

On budgets, spending and deficits, it is a discussion of degree. It is certainly hypocrisy to have railed against W deficits that were less than half BOs smallest to date at WORST, and in some cases 10% of BOs, and now be completely unconcerned and in fact cheering for larger deficits as is the case with Paul Krugman. Being OK with deficits that are smaller but concerned with those that are larger seems quite reasonable in may contexts -- two beers vs 12 for example makes a difference.

Do I believe that Ryan, W, and many Republicans were in the wrong to do medicare part D? Yes, I thought it was a fools errand at then and still do. I believe that their much smaller, but still excessive government spending was wrong. The problem is that government is often a "lesser of two evils" problem, ESPECIALLY if you are a conservative. The only folks that are going to be elected and be at all effective are POLITICIANS, so one is always hiring the equivalent of the fox to guard the henhouse!

To be a Christian means that I need to recognize that **I** am the "ultimate pile of garbage" ... but reading columns like this does provide the temptation to believe that some folks are worse! ;-)

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Climate Denial

Meet the New Climate Deniers | RealClearPolitics:

Somehow I really doubt that these climate deniers will be treated the same in the media!

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Unsettled Science?

Climate science: A sensitive matter | The Economist:

Few concepts are as abhorrent to a thinking person as "Settled Science". Science is never "settled", because although one of it's base theories is that we live in a stable universe where experiments are likely to be repeatable, the very strength of the scientific method is that it is ALWAYS open to discovery!

Somewhere along the way, Science decided that technical "success" translated to thinking that it was well armed to comment on topics vastly beyond it's pay grade. Science and it's step-child Engineering can give us the plans for nuclear reaction -- but cannot by it's methods provide even a hint as to the values of using that knowledge for a weapon, power source, or to lock it away and look at it no farther.

The topic is "sensitive" because to the Economist  and all "intelligent people that follow as good liberal sheep", the very idea there could be a "question" on what was declared "settled" is "sensitive" in the extreme.

To actual Scientists and people of reason, the "news" that the multi-billion year old earth is more complicated than Al Gore and friends believed is not even remotely surprising.
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PostCivilizationistan

Mark Steyn: Real 'modern family' not so funny | marriage, most, american - Opinion - The Orange County Register:


Ladies and gentlemen, ... or I guess "indeterminates",  we proudly continue our descent into PostCivilizationistan. Please return your Burkas and Chinese language learning earphones to the proper positions. Many of you will be under the ground shortly,  have a nice afterlife!

Thanks for flying Decadence Airlines -- we love to make certain that you all get what you deserve!

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Last Call On Carrey

I'm over my limit on the Carrey / Heston / Guns / Fox News "create some news", but I never imagined he was a vaccine denier, and this video is pretty well done.  Remember when Reagan was considered by the left to be too stupid to be listened to because not only had he been an actor (gasp), he had played a role in the movie "Bedtime for Bonzo".

My how we have progressed! A glance at the Carrey curriculum vitae would lead one to believe we would be inoculated against Jimmy's opinion forever by comparison!



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Give Us Gay Marriage!

The reducio ad absurdum of American constitutional jurisprudence | Power Line:

The irony of Gay "marriage" being argued before the SCOTUS during Holy Week struck me a number of times this past week, but it really dawned on me during the tenebrae service last night. "Give Us Barabas"!! The cry has changed slightly, but the spirit is identical.  All the FB pages turning color might just as well as been the crowd as Pilate passed judgment.

What shall be done with the Christians??  Crucify Them! Crucify Them! Not quite yet, but they will get around to it, they always do.

God's law must be thrown down for the desires of man. What then? Well, as Strauss said, "Once everything is relative, then cannibalism is only a matter of taste".

The left and the atheists often trot out the "God is Dead!" cry of Nietzsche as if it was a cry of triumph on the order of "The wicked witch is dead!".  No, it was a LAMENT, like the women wailing as Christ was on the cross. If God is dead, then there is no moral order. Morals are relative, which means they are controlled by the STRONG! (the pure Aryan Superman for Nietzsche)  Gay "marriage" is as strong a cry as possible for NO LIMITS to our desires! The re-election of "Yes We Can!" BO was another recent example.

As this all unravels, nobody ought to be surprised when no limits turns out to mean no limits!

Naturally, the left assumes that will either be "the people", or "the benevolent elite" ... as in SCOTUS, Federal Government and Bureaucracy. Game over, match, set, point -- the "progressive" project has won and utopia has arrived. Long live utopia!  

Nietzsche knew, and all of us should have figured it out after Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc and 100's of millions dead, that "the strong" are really not at all guaranteed to be "benevolent". Our founders knew it well ... they had just escaped from oppression by government.

The US Constitution says NOTHING about Marriage for ANYONE. Nor should it. It doesn't say anything about parenting, gardening or nutrition either. The basic idea of the US was LIMITED government. It freed people from oppressive government to give them equal opportunity  to do all sorts of things. It once worked extremely well!

Gay "marriage" for the bankrupt lotus eaters in CA? Sure, it's their funeral. An idea so good it has to be mandatory for all 50 states?? It ought not even be a topic of serious discussion by anyone that would pledge allegiance to something called America.

The FIRST modern Gay "marriage" recognized as "marriage" was in Netherlands in 2001. The institution of Marriage as being between a man and one or more women is thousands of years old! As nearly as we understand culture, it is based off memes  / epigenetic rules that take at least many hundreds of years to develop. The planet has handled all manner of shocks for the past few Billion  years, yet the left feigns terror over the "fragile" climate -- compared to culture, the climate is robust, emergent even -- actually getting BETTER when challenged. Just like our bodies do (try laying in bed for a month).

We are operating in 100% the opposite way we need to operate on multiple fronts -- commonly called a Death Spiral!  It has been seen before -- the last time someone in a culture flaunted Gay "marriage", it was Nero, and the Roman Empire was due to fall. Why??

People and economies are emergent. They get better with stress, in fact they only live within bounded stress!! If you remove their stress, they die. Stop moving, stop facing emotional tests, stop learning, and you will shortly die. Attempt to take  away risk in an economy, attempt to make it more "predictable", and it will die! So, we as a nation are hell bent to make our lives and our economy SAFE and PREDICTABLE. We will, that answer is called DEATH!

Society and culture are fragile. They they are products of lots of trial and error and full of "unintended consequences" when meddled with.

People and economies are like liquor sales during prohibition. Culture is like your wife's favorite china plate. We have figuratively legalized liquor and are in fact supplying free booze to all -- so the virtual "rum runners" of working people and businesses aren't doing very well. Meanwhile, gay "marriage" is the cultural equivalent of playing frisbee with the favorite china plate!

Our prospects suck.


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Cold Dead Civility

Jim Carrey's 'Cold Dead Hand' Music Video Spoofs Gun Enthusiasts Like Charlton Heston (VIDEO):

I don't recommend watching this, it completely lacks in comedic or redeeming value.

It won't be long now before someone on the right "insensitively" mentions "targeted something", or "binders of women", or questions the "patriotism"of burning the flag, or some new "hate laced and uncivil statement" and we will all be treated to a discussion of the how "coarse the debate has become in this country", and "why can't we come together".

The Jim Carrey wing of the "lefty popular" culture has always had plenty to say -- usually  in as raucous,  nasty, irreverent and sophomoric an approach as they can possibly muster. They feel great as they bravely poke one in the eye of the dead! Oh, and for the living, Carrey has an armed bodyguard -- no need to prove your proud manhood with the living!

What is new, and disturbing to the left is that on occasion there are folks like Beck, or Limbaugh, or maybe even "once or somewhat current" stars like Heston, Eastwood, etc that leave the reservation and stand for something that they believe in that isn't in lock step with the Statist Establishment.

When they speak, HuffPo lectures them and us. When Carrey spews,  we get the snide "The NRA won't like this".

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Stomp on Jesus

'Stomp On Jesus' Controversy At Florida Atlantic University Draws Gov. Rick Scott's Involvement (VIDEO):

This didn't get a lot of coverage, although I suspect if it had been "Stomp on Mohammad" or "Stomp on N-wordS" at a Christian affiliated school, we would ALL know about it in EXTREME detail!!

Uh, "the point" ... apparently, words and symbols have power! News at 11!

Perhaps a discussion of how many millions of dollars a commercial costs at the Superbowl and some other SLIGHTLY less offensive exercise could have sufficed? Like maybe write YOUR NAME ... or your favorite team's name? ... or maybe just "Obama"? No wait, THAT would be BOTH racist and HORRIBLY offensive!!

I imagine the MSM is convinced that the name "Jesus" was just a random choice?

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Cyprus American Style

Can It Happen Here? | RealClearPolitics:

You can do it fast and loud, or you can do it slow and quiet. The US Government is doing Cyprus slow and quiet, but if you pay attention, you can  realize that the man behind the curtain is punishing thrift as well as success while rewarding failure and sloth.

There are more sophisticated ways for governments to take what you have put aside for yourself and use it for whatever the politicians feel like using it for. If they do it slowly but steadily, they can take a big chunk of what you have sacrificed for years to save, before you are even aware, much less alarmed. 

That is in fact already happening. When officials of the Federal Reserve System speak in vague and lofty terms about "quantitative easing," what they are talking about is creating more money out of thin air, as the Federal Reserve is authorized to do -- and has been doing in recent years, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a month. 

When the federal government spends far beyond the tax revenues it has, it gets the extra money by selling bonds. The Federal Reserve has become the biggest buyer of these bonds, since it costs them nothing to create more money. 

This new money buys just as much as the money you sacrificed to save for years. More money in circulation, without a corresponding increase in output, means rising prices. Although the numbers in your bank book may remain the same, part of the purchasing power of your money is transferred to the government. Is that really different from what Cyprus has done?

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Opinion: Why do TV critics hate Jay Leno? - CNN.com

Opinion: Why do TV critics hate Jay Leno? - CNN.com:

Gee, why does the elite hate Leno?

Well, middle America, the "masses" love him, so the elites hate him! They want the bourgeoisie to love THEM!! The fact that a guy like Jay that is still way left, but not "PURE left enough"  (he has the gall to make fun of BO) is loved shows the elite that "more education" (maybe at gunpoint) is needed before the unwashed masses quit clinging to their religion, guns and cars (Jay likes cars too, another mark against him) .

But here's the thing: Leno doesn't appeal to anyone but the viewers. At least those who live west of the Hudson River and east of the Santa Monica Mountains. He does broad comedy and hardly wields the kind of cutting-edge style favored by the bicoastal elites. But much of America likes him.

Does the 62-year-old comic skew old? Well, he's been beating Kimmel and David Letterman even in the coveted 18-to-49 demo.

Consider the above the next time you want to believe "there is no liberal bias, it is all just about money".

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Cyprus "Deal" Not So Fine Print

Cyprus Salvaged After EU Deal Shuts Bank to Get $13B - Bloomberg:

You worked hard, you saved money, you invested, you have a 401K that has 100's of thousands or maybe even a couple of million in assets after 30 or 40 years of working.

You think that is yours? You think that is your private property? You think that the BO statement "You didn't build that" to small business owners is just something blown out of proportion by the right wing?

Maybe. Try these apples buried in this news story.

The revised accord spares bank accounts below the insured limit of 100,000 euros. It imposes losses that two EU officials said would be no more than 40 percent on uninsured depositors at Bank of Cyprus Plc, the largest bank, which will take over the viable assets of Cyprus Popular Bank Pcl (CPB), the second biggest.

Got that? The news initially reports stories about unrest over the "haircut", then reports "crisis averted" letting everyone that doesn't read in detail believe that the haircut was avoided! No story here folks, move along.

What the Statists are establishing are the precedents for the seizing of greater percentages of private property. The "principle" was initiated with the "progressive" income tax, but they have run out that cash cow. They are getting 80-90% of taxes from the top 10-20% of the income earners and falling short by more than $1T every year. They have borrowed over $16T and are behind something in the neighborhood of $100T when FICA, Medicare and now BOcare is factored in. 

The Ponzi scheme is at it's end and these folks are DESPERATE. They will not admit their scheme at anything else than gunpoint -- Bernie Madoff was a very nice and reasonable man compared to the folks running our government. We are in grave danger. Desperate men will do ANYTHING to cover their tracks. 

First they come "for the 1%", then for "the top 10%", then "the wealthy", then "those that have more to share" ... eventually, if you have any assets, they come for YOU!

Our Founders realized that EQUAL PROTECTION, PROPERTY RIGHTS and RULE OF LAW were NOT NEGOTIABLE!! The "progressive" income tax breaks them all, and based of the success of that attack, the relentless attack of the state to enslave all runs on.





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If Only it was Branding

Most Americans Agree with GOP on the Issues... Until They Find Out the Republicans Support Them | Independent Journal Review:

Some look at this and say "We need a fig leaf", I look at this and say "They ate the apple".

As many of us realized in the last election, the Democrats/MSM have succeeded in labeling Republicans as evil, but unsurprisingly, the common sense of a large majority of people is still intact.

So far!

90% of our news media, education, all of the music industry save maybe a bit of Country and even huge swaths of many of our churches are and have been pounding the Statist Progrom into the brains of especially the young since at least the 60's. If you broke these numbers down, I'd bet dollars to donuts that a lot of the no common sense folks would be < 40.

"Ideas have Consequences" (great book BTW). Most likely at this late stage this situation is going to get WORSE before it gets better. The people that didn't see the malaise of the '70s move to "Morning in America" in the '80s with at least 20+ year life experience at the time completely don't get it!! We ALL are going to have to SUFFER in order to turn the tide AT BEST.

The unfortunate likelihood is that the final few remaining embers of  freedom ... the tattered Constitution, mostly the 2nd Amendment, the mostly all ready gone states rights will be sniffed out and liberty will die. It was always an experiment and a long shot. It was NOT a Democracy but a Republic -- but the propensity of "the certain" to buy the votes of the masses with the treasure of the successful has been stronger than our founders fully envisioned. Regressivism (mis-named "progressivism") has pretty much won. It isn't new ... Liberty was new. Tyranny is as old as mankind.

BUT, if God sees fit to be merciful beyond imagination ... and this is indeed the season for it, we must be absolutely certain to not let the forces of chaos educate the children next time!!  Once the state controls education, they are just waiting for the harvest!

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