Blizzard 2015: What Went Wrong With the Forecasting? - WSJ:
We just had a nice solid example of the fact that "The map is not the territory", or in this case "The model is not reality".
Those of us that use maps or GPS units have had the experience of finding that the road has changed, the place we are looking for has moved, or the GPS unit is just having "a bad hair day". We are then forced to operate in the actual territory and abandon our faulty "aid".
Likewise, forecasters used models that they had a high degree of confidence in, but it turned off that the models were "off by a bit". Nothing very new here, it is STILL a lot better to know "there is going to be a pretty good storm in the area", even if it doesn't hit where predicted.
As we have seen, the super confident "settled" predictions of Global Warming have been "off" for at least 18 years -- but for power political reasons, the elites / MSM refuse to recognize that their models have not accurately predicted reality, so are therefore flawed. Nothing unusual there, ALL models / maps / plans / narratives / etc are flawed -- they MAY predict reality to "some margin of error".
Over longer periods of time, greater distances, more precise requirements, those errors become larger -- and the storm hits Boston rather than NYC, oil production goes up vs down, and temperatures may go down 2 degrees rather than up 2 degrees in 100 years. No biggie -- the climate will have "changed", it always does.
Such is the real world. We certainly don't throw out our models, maps, plans, etc, but what we DO need to do is realize that they are useful, but flawed. When the map says that we need to make a turn, but the turn is not there, we look around a bit, and if needed, ask directions.
Anyone that claims otherwise is the worst kind of "denier" of all -- a reality denier.
'via Blog this'
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Monday, January 26, 2015
Palin, NPR, Winning and Losing
As 2016 race begins, GOP faces its Palin problem | WashingtonExaminer.com:
I generally like Sarah Palin. She is no intellectual, but compared to Joe Biden, she is a genius in intellectual terms and a comparative god of common sense! She would certainly be a better president than BO, but then pretty much anyone that isn't a anti-American Marxist with any level of basic real-world experience, would be -- someone with some leadership / management experience like Palin would be 100x better.
But she isn't going to be president or vice-president, that train left in '08.
Heading down to the RAC this AM, NPR covered this story a bit in their "political junkie" discussion in the oddest of ways -- they quoted Palin as talking about the old saw "If you want something said, get a man, if you want something done, get a woman", which they promptly took to be "an endorsement of Hillary"!
The "marginal candidate" issue is a problem for Republicans alone. The left is LOADED, and always has been loaded with batshit crazies -- Biden, Boxer, Pelosi, Kucinich, Nader, Wellstone, Sharpton, Kerry, Franken etc, etc, quite commonly either have, or still do, utter statements that make any sane person wonder what their planet of origin is -- but such statements are barely reported, or if they ARE reported, they are written off as "slips", "misquotes", "out of context", etc.
Being left means never being called stupid -- NPR has constantly harped on the supposed zaniness of Palin, yet they think nothing of taking her quote out of context and applying it as an "endorsement of Hillary". So you take a quote from someone you have no respect for and somehow think it is interesting to apply it to your cheerleading for Hillary? No problem -- it's NPR, they are shills for TP, so they can say what they want.
So Republicans have to HYPER police their own, and do it under GLARING SCRUTINY. Maxine Waters can get up at any TP function, including the convention, and ramble on about race, reparations, police brutality, need for guaranteed income for blacks -- etc, etc and there will be ZERO national coverage of it. More importantly, there will be ZERO cases of reporters asking party officials, let alone actual candidates questions like "It seems like you / the Democrats are ignoring / trying to hide, etc important Black voices like Maxine Waters?? Can you comment on this ??
But when Palin, or someone like her starts talking, the MSM is all over it and ANXIOUS to get the "Tea Party" or other parts of the party as riled up as possible, and LOVE to put the microphone in the face of party leaders or candidates and get them to either comment favorably on the farther right speech -- in which case they point out how RADICAL the party / candidate is, or to comment Unfavorably on it, in which case they work to help create a rift in the party, or better yet splinter the party to cut votes for Republicans.
Lose, lose for R, win, win for D and MSM! That is just the way the current world is, and anyone that wants to get the nation back on track has to be aware of it and deal with it.
'via Blog this'
I generally like Sarah Palin. She is no intellectual, but compared to Joe Biden, she is a genius in intellectual terms and a comparative god of common sense! She would certainly be a better president than BO, but then pretty much anyone that isn't a anti-American Marxist with any level of basic real-world experience, would be -- someone with some leadership / management experience like Palin would be 100x better.
But she isn't going to be president or vice-president, that train left in '08.
Heading down to the RAC this AM, NPR covered this story a bit in their "political junkie" discussion in the oddest of ways -- they quoted Palin as talking about the old saw "If you want something said, get a man, if you want something done, get a woman", which they promptly took to be "an endorsement of Hillary"!
The "marginal candidate" issue is a problem for Republicans alone. The left is LOADED, and always has been loaded with batshit crazies -- Biden, Boxer, Pelosi, Kucinich, Nader, Wellstone, Sharpton, Kerry, Franken etc, etc, quite commonly either have, or still do, utter statements that make any sane person wonder what their planet of origin is -- but such statements are barely reported, or if they ARE reported, they are written off as "slips", "misquotes", "out of context", etc.
Being left means never being called stupid -- NPR has constantly harped on the supposed zaniness of Palin, yet they think nothing of taking her quote out of context and applying it as an "endorsement of Hillary". So you take a quote from someone you have no respect for and somehow think it is interesting to apply it to your cheerleading for Hillary? No problem -- it's NPR, they are shills for TP, so they can say what they want.
So Republicans have to HYPER police their own, and do it under GLARING SCRUTINY. Maxine Waters can get up at any TP function, including the convention, and ramble on about race, reparations, police brutality, need for guaranteed income for blacks -- etc, etc and there will be ZERO national coverage of it. More importantly, there will be ZERO cases of reporters asking party officials, let alone actual candidates questions like "It seems like you / the Democrats are ignoring / trying to hide, etc important Black voices like Maxine Waters?? Can you comment on this ??
But when Palin, or someone like her starts talking, the MSM is all over it and ANXIOUS to get the "Tea Party" or other parts of the party as riled up as possible, and LOVE to put the microphone in the face of party leaders or candidates and get them to either comment favorably on the farther right speech -- in which case they point out how RADICAL the party / candidate is, or to comment Unfavorably on it, in which case they work to help create a rift in the party, or better yet splinter the party to cut votes for Republicans.
Lose, lose for R, win, win for D and MSM! That is just the way the current world is, and anyone that wants to get the nation back on track has to be aware of it and deal with it.
'via Blog this'
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Losing Your Sense of Small, Bump World GDP by 20%?
Billionaire Greene Bets on U.S. While Bemoaning Jobs - Bloomberg:
Something like 1700 private jets flew into Davos to discuss pressing issues like Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and Income Inequality -- Slick Willie, former fornicator in chief of the US, whose primary area of expertise is walking the halls of power with his pants around his knees, spoke on income inequality while wearing a $60K watch. Hypocrisy is not one of the topics on the agenda.
Here is another great article from NRO on the conference that is well worth reading. Davos is a great way to get just a little bit of insight into how much contempt the world wide elites really hold those of us that can't even afford a limo, let alone multiple nannies, high class homes around the globe, and a beautiful jet at our beck and call to take us wherever we desire.
Even worse, as evidenced the 1,700 private jets, which universities they attended, what they eat, what they wear, etc, etc, a LOT of those "elites" think very much alike -- they are pretty darned sure that is because there aren't all that many options on how to think once you are so super smart.
Perhaps if you don't lay out at night with a couple of beers staring at the stars, you lose your sense of small?
Add enough money, power, intelligence, safety in the herd, etc mentality, and you ALSO can get 2,633 of the (at least in their own minds) "most important people on earth" in a little town in Switzerland at the same time. It is as if all the trophy bucks had an annual ritual where they were all congregated in a small area -- a trophy hunters dream!
I can imagine that security is "stellar", but then I would have never imagined that a guy could jump the fence at the White House and get in the front door, nor would I have imagined that White House computers could be hacked and down for a significant amount of time.
Obviously a very small nuke could take out the whole kit caboodle, but who knows ... a few well placed charges for an avalanche? any dams in the area? I'm not a very malevolent sort and I don't have much interest -- heck, maybe they are their own best protection!
The smart bad guys all realize that taking out the entire Davos herd would likely raise the world economy by 20%!
'via Blog this'
“America’s lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted so we have less things and a smaller, better existence,” Greene said in an interview today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We need to reinvent our whole system of life.”Billionaire Jeff Greene flew to Davos on a private jet with his family and two nannies. He really feels that the little people in American have WAY too high of expectations. He and BO may have a slightly different view of "hope and change" than what a lot of Americans were thinking -- but don't expect the MSM to be helping that to be recognized!
Something like 1700 private jets flew into Davos to discuss pressing issues like Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and Income Inequality -- Slick Willie, former fornicator in chief of the US, whose primary area of expertise is walking the halls of power with his pants around his knees, spoke on income inequality while wearing a $60K watch. Hypocrisy is not one of the topics on the agenda.
Here is another great article from NRO on the conference that is well worth reading. Davos is a great way to get just a little bit of insight into how much contempt the world wide elites really hold those of us that can't even afford a limo, let alone multiple nannies, high class homes around the globe, and a beautiful jet at our beck and call to take us wherever we desire.
The primary reason to read the NRO article is Williamson's attempt to deal with the horrible issue that I so often try to deal with here -- just how stupid even the smartest of humans are, and even worse, the nasty phenomenon that the smarter one is, the greater the temptation to believe in your own smartness. Couple that with a level of intelligence that is enough to fake your brilliance to a higher and higher percentage of people, add in power and wealth, plus the fact that enough similarly "smart people" will turn into toadies around you and you have a recipe for historically large egos and massive Dunning-Kruger effect!
These ridiculous hypocrites deserve every syllable of abuse that comes their way. I instinctively write off all denunciations of the wicked 1 percent coming from anybody unwilling to live at or below the median U.S. household income, which amounts to less than Clinton’s Rolex is worth. But there is something worse at work here than hypocrisy: stupidity. And stupidity is, like private-jet travel, shockingly expensive.
Even worse, as evidenced the 1,700 private jets, which universities they attended, what they eat, what they wear, etc, etc, a LOT of those "elites" think very much alike -- they are pretty darned sure that is because there aren't all that many options on how to think once you are so super smart.
Perhaps if you don't lay out at night with a couple of beers staring at the stars, you lose your sense of small?
Add enough money, power, intelligence, safety in the herd, etc mentality, and you ALSO can get 2,633 of the (at least in their own minds) "most important people on earth" in a little town in Switzerland at the same time. It is as if all the trophy bucks had an annual ritual where they were all congregated in a small area -- a trophy hunters dream!
I can imagine that security is "stellar", but then I would have never imagined that a guy could jump the fence at the White House and get in the front door, nor would I have imagined that White House computers could be hacked and down for a significant amount of time.
Obviously a very small nuke could take out the whole kit caboodle, but who knows ... a few well placed charges for an avalanche? any dams in the area? I'm not a very malevolent sort and I don't have much interest -- heck, maybe they are their own best protection!
The smart bad guys all realize that taking out the entire Davos herd would likely raise the world economy by 20%!
'via Blog this'
Thursday, January 22, 2015
American Sniper
'American Sniper' Is Almost Too Dumb to Criticize | Rolling Stone:
I saw the movie tonight, Solid, entertaining, patriotic, memorable, well done, patriotic, true to the book and events as known in the real world. Well worth seeing. Highly recommended.
So I did a Google and ran into the lovely linked article.
One needs to remain aware of the Rolling Stone, and whole sectors of the American "elite". These people, BO included, would fold like wet paper bags in the face of reality if ever forced to face 1/1,000tth of what heroes like Kyle faced, but they remain a clear and present danger. As the article makes plainly clear, their hatred for America and anything good is total, while their faith in their own intellect and smugness may be a lot less real than they want us to believe, it is a pose that their egos demand, so it is dangerous.
One looks at the title of the article and thinks of the genius of Jessie Ventura sueing Kyle's widow because "he wanted to be treated better at SEAL reunions". The author of the article seemed to think that making fun of Forrest Gump is an easy target that somehow relates to Sniper -- "Stupid is as stupid does".
The message of Forrest Gump, and indeed the message of Christianity and to some degree Western Civilization is that there is "book smart" and then there is "transcendent intelligence and meaning". "Book smart" is often foolishness that is completely certain that it is genius in it's own mind, confines of the classroom or Rolling Stone, but often falls on very hard times in the real world. In fact, much like Commodus in "Gladiator", the pseudo sophisticated intellect tends to be certain right up to the end that it's malevolent self aggrandizing is actual reality, rather than the figment of it's own imagination that it really is.
Mayor Bloomberg and the entire NYPD turning their backs to him comes to mind. The author of "the too dumb to criticize" article, Michael Moore, and a couple of other "intellectuals" walk into a bar and decide to kick a couple of Navy SEALS asses ... cuz they are REALLY smart!
Sure. No doubt before anything even started the "brilliant ones" bowels, bladders and stomachs would have spilled all contents on the floor from just looking the reality of actual character in the eye. Now, what they would really like to do is find some way to charge the SEALS with some "crime" -- say running afoul of the IRS, and take them down behind their backs.
"Brilliance" often ends up with it's head cut off in an orange jumpsuit if it is not protected by Sheepdogs of the ilk of Chis Kyle. If such arrogant "brilliance" was forced to actually face either the evil that Kyle faced down in doing his duty, or God forbid, SEALS of the calibre of Kyle, such "brilliance" of the sort of BO, the writer of the column, or the Hollywood "elite:" would grovel on the floor in their own bodily fluids t as opposed to the preening and swagger they try to fake in protected public pronouncements.
The movie has to be hated by the left because among many other hated by the left aspects, it points out the truth of Al Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq, and along with the now known WMD, these are facts that MUST not be exposed to the tender ears of the sheep in the thrall of the mythology of TP. Even worse, it shows the outpouring of emotion and gratitude of thousands of Americans in recognition of service and sacrifice of Chris Kyle in the closing scenes of actual footage surrounding his memorial and funeral.
The "heroes" of the left are guys like Marx, BO, Castro, Bill Ayers, and BO -- "the brilliant". They know they have no hope of receiving the kind of honest respect of decent people like a Chris Kyle, so they hope for dependent masses and fear. Their hope is that they can gain control of massive killing machines on the order of the USSR and Nazi Germany and take out all Sheepdogs like Kyle -- ideally in some Gulag, or in some torture chamber like those of Saddam and his sons. I suspect that the author of this article would dearly enjoy a nice electrocution session with a SEAL hanging on a meat hook. It would give him a strong sense of "intellectual superiority" -- of the sort all too regularly on display in the world.
Keep the ARs clean and sighted in. So much better to die with your finger on the trigger than at the hands of the elite moral relativists or Islamic zealots of the world.
'via Blog this'
I saw the movie tonight, Solid, entertaining, patriotic, memorable, well done, patriotic, true to the book and events as known in the real world. Well worth seeing. Highly recommended.
So I did a Google and ran into the lovely linked article.
One needs to remain aware of the Rolling Stone, and whole sectors of the American "elite". These people, BO included, would fold like wet paper bags in the face of reality if ever forced to face 1/1,000tth of what heroes like Kyle faced, but they remain a clear and present danger. As the article makes plainly clear, their hatred for America and anything good is total, while their faith in their own intellect and smugness may be a lot less real than they want us to believe, it is a pose that their egos demand, so it is dangerous.
One looks at the title of the article and thinks of the genius of Jessie Ventura sueing Kyle's widow because "he wanted to be treated better at SEAL reunions". The author of the article seemed to think that making fun of Forrest Gump is an easy target that somehow relates to Sniper -- "Stupid is as stupid does".
The message of Forrest Gump, and indeed the message of Christianity and to some degree Western Civilization is that there is "book smart" and then there is "transcendent intelligence and meaning". "Book smart" is often foolishness that is completely certain that it is genius in it's own mind, confines of the classroom or Rolling Stone, but often falls on very hard times in the real world. In fact, much like Commodus in "Gladiator", the pseudo sophisticated intellect tends to be certain right up to the end that it's malevolent self aggrandizing is actual reality, rather than the figment of it's own imagination that it really is.
Mayor Bloomberg and the entire NYPD turning their backs to him comes to mind. The author of "the too dumb to criticize" article, Michael Moore, and a couple of other "intellectuals" walk into a bar and decide to kick a couple of Navy SEALS asses ... cuz they are REALLY smart!
Sure. No doubt before anything even started the "brilliant ones" bowels, bladders and stomachs would have spilled all contents on the floor from just looking the reality of actual character in the eye. Now, what they would really like to do is find some way to charge the SEALS with some "crime" -- say running afoul of the IRS, and take them down behind their backs.
"Brilliance" often ends up with it's head cut off in an orange jumpsuit if it is not protected by Sheepdogs of the ilk of Chis Kyle. If such arrogant "brilliance" was forced to actually face either the evil that Kyle faced down in doing his duty, or God forbid, SEALS of the calibre of Kyle, such "brilliance" of the sort of BO, the writer of the column, or the Hollywood "elite:" would grovel on the floor in their own bodily fluids t as opposed to the preening and swagger they try to fake in protected public pronouncements.
The movie has to be hated by the left because among many other hated by the left aspects, it points out the truth of Al Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq, and along with the now known WMD, these are facts that MUST not be exposed to the tender ears of the sheep in the thrall of the mythology of TP. Even worse, it shows the outpouring of emotion and gratitude of thousands of Americans in recognition of service and sacrifice of Chris Kyle in the closing scenes of actual footage surrounding his memorial and funeral.
The "heroes" of the left are guys like Marx, BO, Castro, Bill Ayers, and BO -- "the brilliant". They know they have no hope of receiving the kind of honest respect of decent people like a Chris Kyle, so they hope for dependent masses and fear. Their hope is that they can gain control of massive killing machines on the order of the USSR and Nazi Germany and take out all Sheepdogs like Kyle -- ideally in some Gulag, or in some torture chamber like those of Saddam and his sons. I suspect that the author of this article would dearly enjoy a nice electrocution session with a SEAL hanging on a meat hook. It would give him a strong sense of "intellectual superiority" -- of the sort all too regularly on display in the world.
Keep the ARs clean and sighted in. So much better to die with your finger on the trigger than at the hands of the elite moral relativists or Islamic zealots of the world.
'via Blog this'
Entitlement, It's Not the Plays Called, It's the Attitude Created
George Will: The harm incurred by a mushrooming welfare state - The Washington Post:
My analysis of NFC Championship loss by my beloved Packers is if you play so conservative that your DBs are sliding down with 5 min left to play, you deserve to lose. It isn't so much the conservative play calling as it the attitude in the team that is engendered by the calls -- they stop playing to win and start playing not to lose. Their mental energy is focused on NOT losing -- which is like NOT thinking about a pink elephant. Just as you immediately think of a pink elephant, the team becomes focused on LOSS, which is very commonly just what happens.
So to to the attitude engendered by "entitlement" in the US:
Like conservative play calling or NOT focusing on a pink elephant, human nature is sickeningly predictable. The primary cost is destruction of the winning attitude -- the destruction of the spirit of a people :
'via Blog this'
My analysis of NFC Championship loss by my beloved Packers is if you play so conservative that your DBs are sliding down with 5 min left to play, you deserve to lose. It isn't so much the conservative play calling as it the attitude in the team that is engendered by the calls -- they stop playing to win and start playing not to lose. Their mental energy is focused on NOT losing -- which is like NOT thinking about a pink elephant. Just as you immediately think of a pink elephant, the team becomes focused on LOSS, which is very commonly just what happens.
So to to the attitude engendered by "entitlement" in the US:
Transfers of benefits to individuals through social welfare programs have increased from less than 1 federal dollar in 4 (24 percent) in 1963 to almost 3 out of 5 (59 percent) in 2013. In that half-century, entitlement payments were, Eberstadt says, America’s “fastest growing source of personal income,” growing twice as fast as all other real per capita personal income. It is probable that this year a majority of Americans will seek and receive payments.The explosion of "welfare" programs in the last 50 years as turned America from a vibrant merit based nation focused on growth, advancement, success and the future, to a declining debt ridden nation where over 50% of the people receive some sort of transfer payment and the exorbitant tax rates to pay for only a portion of the largess are paid only by the top earners. Never before have so few been so burdened so a corrupt political party could destroy the will to work of the majority of a once great nation!
More than twice as many households receive “anti-poverty” benefits than receive Social Security or Medicare. Between 1983 and 2012, the population increased by almost 83 million — and people accepting means-tested benefits increased by 67 million. So, for every 100-person increase in the population there was an 80-person increase in the recipients of means-tested payments.Why do we do such things? Because 70-80% of those 67 million people vote for TP (The Party -D)!! This is vote farming! Much as we fill the news and march in droves over the lost lives of a couple black youth killed while resisting arrest, but totally ignore the 6K black youths killed in black on black violence every year, the cost for converting a nation to abject dependency is no issue all all. WHAT MATTERS are votes for TP!
... the structure of U.S. government spending “has been completely overturned within living memory,” resulting in the “remolding of daily life for ordinary Americans under the shadow of the entitlement state.” In two generations, the American family budget has been recast: In 1963, entitlement transfers were less than $1 out of every $15; by 2012, they were more than $1 out of every $6.The government is great, the government is good, we thank it for our daily bread. God, fathers, and the family have been replaced by the "benevolent" government as being the source of bread. TP has succeeded in creating a nation of dependent children (many of advanced age) who are beholden to it for their very sustenance.
Like conservative play calling or NOT focusing on a pink elephant, human nature is sickeningly predictable. The primary cost is destruction of the winning attitude -- the destruction of the spirit of a people :
“... the issue of welfare is not what it costs those who provide it but what it costs those who receive it.” As a growing portion of the population succumbs to the entitlement state’s ever-expanding menu of temptations, the costs, Eberstadt concludes, include a transformation of the nation’s “political culture, sensibilities, and tradition,” the weakening of America’s distinctive “conceptions of self-reliance, personal responsibility, and self-advancement,” and perhaps a “rending of the national fabric.” As a result, “America today does not look exceptional at all.”
'via Blog this'
SOTU, The Party As Employer
Woman Showcased by Obama in SOTU is a Former Democratic Campaign Staffer | Washington Free Beacon:
Somehow I missed out on seeing BO flap his lips on TV this week, watching a paid liar lie just doesn't capture much interest for me. Turns out, he is lying even when he is NOT talking, as in the "optics" of the event. The woman that he held up as example of how his policies are working for "average Americans" was a Democrat Party employee.
As we slip more and more to single party state with a higher and higher percentage of people drawing support from the government or directly from "The Party", does not the "Party Worker" become the rule rather than the exception?
So I guess in BOistan, having a DNC person up there is just fine.
'via Blog this'
Somehow I missed out on seeing BO flap his lips on TV this week, watching a paid liar lie just doesn't capture much interest for me. Turns out, he is lying even when he is NOT talking, as in the "optics" of the event. The woman that he held up as example of how his policies are working for "average Americans" was a Democrat Party employee.
As we slip more and more to single party state with a higher and higher percentage of people drawing support from the government or directly from "The Party", does not the "Party Worker" become the rule rather than the exception?
So I guess in BOistan, having a DNC person up there is just fine.
'via Blog this'
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Little MSM Compare, Reid Slingshot vs Cheney Shooting
Badly Injured Harry Reid Just Fitness-Shamed America - The Daily Beast:
Cheney Shooting (4 years later)
I've paid little attention to the Harry Reid story. It might well be as stated, a VERY strong elastic band somehow flung him across the room and did all the damage claimed. It might be something else -- it was reported on New Years Day, Harry would not be the only person in America that had too much to drink some New Years in case alcohol was involved.
As I've often said, I don't really care how the press decides to treat these sort of things -- they could treat them as they treat them when an R is involved, or they could treat them as they do when a D is involved. My only beef is that they ought to have SOME thought of treating them THE SAME!
Which they don't.
We barely know of the Harry Reid accident, while at the time of the Cheney accident it was plastered all over, including late night shows, etc. As we see above, even four years later in 2010 it is worthy of a multi-page retrospective from the Post full of "unanswered questions".
It isn't very hard to read the accounts of Reid's accident without a few "questions", but nobody is really asking them, and I'm fine with that. For PERSONAL issues, I think both parties ought be treated that way so that a higher caliber of people would be willing to go into politics. EVERYONE, independent of party has a PERSONAL life that includes personal failings, family failings, failings of friends, accidents, etc..
Bill Clinton saw fit to harass Paula Jones, an employee and to have a sexual relationship with an employee at the WH, both of which would have been the end of the line for a low level manager at McDonalds or any other US corporation. That ought not be confused with "personal" for EITHER party -- and by the way, if low level managers lose their jobs over such things, so ought presidents irrespective of party. (** Note, I'm NOT saying that low level managers necessarily SHOULD lose their jobs, just that it is the law of the land that they do, and the fact that law was signed by one Bill Clinton should give one pause)
Both Reid and Cheney were on their own time, not on official government business, their accidents were personal. Reid apparently injured himself, Cheney injured a friend. Both cases are are private / personal, but the difference in treatment is glaringly obvious.
We can't change how the press operates, but we CAN pay enough attention to realize that there is a very transparent attempt at a form of brain washing!
'via Blog this'
Cheney Shooting (4 years later)
I've paid little attention to the Harry Reid story. It might well be as stated, a VERY strong elastic band somehow flung him across the room and did all the damage claimed. It might be something else -- it was reported on New Years Day, Harry would not be the only person in America that had too much to drink some New Years in case alcohol was involved.
As I've often said, I don't really care how the press decides to treat these sort of things -- they could treat them as they treat them when an R is involved, or they could treat them as they do when a D is involved. My only beef is that they ought to have SOME thought of treating them THE SAME!
Which they don't.
We barely know of the Harry Reid accident, while at the time of the Cheney accident it was plastered all over, including late night shows, etc. As we see above, even four years later in 2010 it is worthy of a multi-page retrospective from the Post full of "unanswered questions".
It isn't very hard to read the accounts of Reid's accident without a few "questions", but nobody is really asking them, and I'm fine with that. For PERSONAL issues, I think both parties ought be treated that way so that a higher caliber of people would be willing to go into politics. EVERYONE, independent of party has a PERSONAL life that includes personal failings, family failings, failings of friends, accidents, etc..
Bill Clinton saw fit to harass Paula Jones, an employee and to have a sexual relationship with an employee at the WH, both of which would have been the end of the line for a low level manager at McDonalds or any other US corporation. That ought not be confused with "personal" for EITHER party -- and by the way, if low level managers lose their jobs over such things, so ought presidents irrespective of party. (** Note, I'm NOT saying that low level managers necessarily SHOULD lose their jobs, just that it is the law of the land that they do, and the fact that law was signed by one Bill Clinton should give one pause)
Both Reid and Cheney were on their own time, not on official government business, their accidents were personal. Reid apparently injured himself, Cheney injured a friend. Both cases are are private / personal, but the difference in treatment is glaringly obvious.
We can't change how the press operates, but we CAN pay enough attention to realize that there is a very transparent attempt at a form of brain washing!
'via Blog this'
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Man's Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl
link to book
Personal events of the past week have yet again brought this book off my shelf and I realized that I have never directly reviewed it in the blog.
Dr Victor Frankl, trained as a psychiatrist before suffering years of life in the brutal concentration camps of Nazi Germany where he lost his young wife, parents and of course millions of others (including many more of his friends and associates), has a level of authority that is hard to ignore.
Beyond his experience in the horror of the camps, he founded a school of psychotherapy called "Logotherapy", derived from the Greek "logos" or "meaning". It is considered the 3rd school of Viennese psychotherapy, contrasted with Freud's "will to pleasure", and the Adler/Nietzsche "will to power", it talks of a "will to meaning" in the existential manner similar to Kierkegaard.
Logotherapy speaks of "existential frustration", where the term "existential" has 3 related meanings:
1). The completing of a "work" -- art, innovation, a family, ideas, business, etc ...
2). Experiencing or encountering someone or some thing -- the love of your life, care for the poor, the elderly, the sick ... or maybe just "baseball", or "riding motorcycle"
3). Suffering -- facing inevitable suffering and turning it to triumph. Very much looked down on today where we tend to make people "ashamed for being unhappy". Note if the suffering CAN be removed, then that is what should be done, but if it is a terminal painful condition, or someone close to you is lost -- or if you are in a concentration camp, then human suffering CAN have dignity.
A well known quote from Nietzsche comes up a couple times in the book "He who has a why can bear with almost any how." The message of the book is that it is meaning that is primary (the why). Happiness is a RESULT not the immediate objective, and in fact, the pursuit of happiness as a primary goal is often destructive as it fails to realize that RESPONSIBILITY ... inescapable responsibility to answer the question that life asks us, is the natural human state and it REQUIRES tension ... effort, risk, loss, pain.
The idea that happiness is a worthy "pursuit" and some would even say "a right" is a sham, because of what Frankl calls "the tragic triad" that is part of each of our lives:
Pain, Guilt, and Death.
Part of each of our "question" is how do we say yes to life in the face of Pain, Guilt, and Death. His basic answer is "A human being is not one in pursuit of happiness, but rather in search of a reason to become happy".
I'm going to include his "imperative", even though it is one that does not speak to me as well as much of the book does:
The book is not directly a "religious book", although to believe that "life" asks each a meaningful question, there is only a short step from "life" to "God". If one has Christian Faith, much in the book is quite easily to translate to that context.
Needless to say, I highly recommend the book, ESPECIALLY for those suffering ... and in human life, eventually, that includes all of us.
Personal events of the past week have yet again brought this book off my shelf and I realized that I have never directly reviewed it in the blog.
Dr Victor Frankl, trained as a psychiatrist before suffering years of life in the brutal concentration camps of Nazi Germany where he lost his young wife, parents and of course millions of others (including many more of his friends and associates), has a level of authority that is hard to ignore.
Beyond his experience in the horror of the camps, he founded a school of psychotherapy called "Logotherapy", derived from the Greek "logos" or "meaning". It is considered the 3rd school of Viennese psychotherapy, contrasted with Freud's "will to pleasure", and the Adler/Nietzsche "will to power", it talks of a "will to meaning" in the existential manner similar to Kierkegaard.
Logotherapy speaks of "existential frustration", where the term "existential" has 3 related meanings:
- Existence itself in the way that humans experience it.
- The MEANING of existence
- The PERSONAL SEARCH for that meaning
1). The completing of a "work" -- art, innovation, a family, ideas, business, etc ...
2). Experiencing or encountering someone or some thing -- the love of your life, care for the poor, the elderly, the sick ... or maybe just "baseball", or "riding motorcycle"
3). Suffering -- facing inevitable suffering and turning it to triumph. Very much looked down on today where we tend to make people "ashamed for being unhappy". Note if the suffering CAN be removed, then that is what should be done, but if it is a terminal painful condition, or someone close to you is lost -- or if you are in a concentration camp, then human suffering CAN have dignity.
A well known quote from Nietzsche comes up a couple times in the book "He who has a why can bear with almost any how." The message of the book is that it is meaning that is primary (the why). Happiness is a RESULT not the immediate objective, and in fact, the pursuit of happiness as a primary goal is often destructive as it fails to realize that RESPONSIBILITY ... inescapable responsibility to answer the question that life asks us, is the natural human state and it REQUIRES tension ... effort, risk, loss, pain.
The idea that happiness is a worthy "pursuit" and some would even say "a right" is a sham, because of what Frankl calls "the tragic triad" that is part of each of our lives:
Pain, Guilt, and Death.
Part of each of our "question" is how do we say yes to life in the face of Pain, Guilt, and Death. His basic answer is "A human being is not one in pursuit of happiness, but rather in search of a reason to become happy".
I'm going to include his "imperative", even though it is one that does not speak to me as well as much of the book does:
"Live life as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now".To try to give readers a chance to follow this better than possibly I do, I will quote a bit more:
" In fact, the opportunities to act properly, the potentialities to fulfill a meaning, are affected by the irreversibility of our lives. But also the potentialities alone are so affected. For as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past wherein it as been safely delivered and deposited. In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. To be sure, people tend to see only the stubble fields of transitoriness, but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past which they have brought into the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity."My belief is that the reason this does not speak to me to the same extent is that I did not suffer in a concentration camp, nor lose a young wife that I loved, all my family and most of my friends to the Holocaust. To Frankl, his life prior to, and even the experience of the horror of the camps is so much a part of his soul that he has had to integrate that as "treasure", somewhat in order to live, but possibly more so in order to honor and keep alive the memories of those he knew and loved that were lost so early in his life.
The book is not directly a "religious book", although to believe that "life" asks each a meaningful question, there is only a short step from "life" to "God". If one has Christian Faith, much in the book is quite easily to translate to that context.
Needless to say, I highly recommend the book, ESPECIALLY for those suffering ... and in human life, eventually, that includes all of us.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Young Earth Science, History Began in 1880
2014 Breaks Heat Record, Challenging Global Warming Skeptics - NYTimes.com:
Last year was the hottest on earth since record-keeping began in 1880.
Fundamentalism is endemic to humans. Fundamentalist Secular Humanists love to poke fun at religious fundamentalists to who extrapolate from the genealogies in the Bible to a 6K age for the earth, but by comparison, the religious fundamentalists have a VERY old earth compared to the "settled science" of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) faithful who use 1880 as the beginning of time.
Note though that the 130+ years used for this startling historical dart to the souls of anyone that maintains any skepticism relative to "settled science" is somewhat aged compared to the time we actually have actual satellite global data, which begins in '79 ... and shows no statistical warming since '98, ranks 2104 as the 3rd warmest by a tiny statistically insignificant amount since '79.
Wow, time for a headline!! THIRD warmest year since 1979!!! We are talking a FULL 36 years here folks, a span of time virtually impossible to even conceive of in scientific history! Perhaps with immense scientific advancement, far in the future, humans will even be able to recall what life on this planet was like 36 years in the dim and distant past!!
Unlike the evolutionary crowd who like to talk about "great age", the AGW crowd has to contend with quite a few living human specimens that actually lived in such dim and distant past ages as 1979! Although given the distractions of TV, Rock Music, the Internet, Cell Phones, etc, I guess the assumption is that very few of them will be able to recall such dim historical ages.
As noted here before, those of us of apparently exceptional memory recall the '70s and early '80s were pretty chilly times, when science was "nearly sure" (although less political about it) that an ice age was in the early stages. "Settled" is a bit of a short term phenomenon in modern "science".
From the amount of play this pronouncement of 2014 being "the warmest in history" is getting, it is fairly clear that the warmist faithful are feeling rather concerned about their religious faith.
Skepticism of science! We all know that science is a matter of FAITH! Something which can NEVER be questioned!
'via Blog this'
Note though that the 130+ years used for this startling historical dart to the souls of anyone that maintains any skepticism relative to "settled science" is somewhat aged compared to the time we actually have actual satellite global data, which begins in '79 ... and shows no statistical warming since '98, ranks 2104 as the 3rd warmest by a tiny statistically insignificant amount since '79.
Wow, time for a headline!! THIRD warmest year since 1979!!! We are talking a FULL 36 years here folks, a span of time virtually impossible to even conceive of in scientific history! Perhaps with immense scientific advancement, far in the future, humans will even be able to recall what life on this planet was like 36 years in the dim and distant past!!
Unlike the evolutionary crowd who like to talk about "great age", the AGW crowd has to contend with quite a few living human specimens that actually lived in such dim and distant past ages as 1979! Although given the distractions of TV, Rock Music, the Internet, Cell Phones, etc, I guess the assumption is that very few of them will be able to recall such dim historical ages.
As noted here before, those of us of apparently exceptional memory recall the '70s and early '80s were pretty chilly times, when science was "nearly sure" (although less political about it) that an ice age was in the early stages. "Settled" is a bit of a short term phenomenon in modern "science".
From the amount of play this pronouncement of 2014 being "the warmest in history" is getting, it is fairly clear that the warmist faithful are feeling rather concerned about their religious faith.
Skepticism of science! We all know that science is a matter of FAITH! Something which can NEVER be questioned!
'via Blog this'
An Islamic Mallard Walks Into a Bar
The Conversation Obama Doesn’t Want to Have | National Review Online: "’"
A good discussion of the collateral damage of the BO admin's 3 card monte "It wasn't anything Islamic" dodge.
A good discussion of the collateral damage of the BO admin's 3 card monte "It wasn't anything Islamic" dodge.
Think of it this way. A bird waddles into the room. It walks like a duck, it talks like a duck, it gives off every indication of duckness. If Josh Earnest says, “That’s not a mallard,” well, okay. You can have a reasonable conversation about which species the bird might be. But if Earnest says, “That is not a duck. It has no relation or similarity to anatine fowl in any way, shape or form, and any talk of ducks is illegitimate. . . . ”'via Blog this'
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Why Is Jimmy Carter Laughing at Jewish Safety?
Jimmy Carter: Jews Safer in France than Israel | Washington Free Beacon:
Watch this video, it's damned spooky. Why is the question of Jewish safety somehow funny? Why do Carter and his interview buddy find the idea of Jews being safer in Israel than France to be so entertaining?
Iranian nukes come to my mind as something that vermin like Carter may have in the back of his mind.
As Carter says in the video -- these attacks provide a great opportunity for the West to discover what makes Islam "great"! Sure, it must a single minded will to power -- just imagine how super an opportunity a couple nukes to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would be with that same logic!
PowerLine had a great little bit of Carter humor in the same vein of his laughter on the tape ...
Jimmy Carter went to a fortune teller and asked when he was going to die. The fortune teller responded: "On a Jewish Holiday". Carter responds, "Which one?".
Fortune teller responds, "Whatever day you die will be a Jewish holiday".
'via Blog this'
Watch this video, it's damned spooky. Why is the question of Jewish safety somehow funny? Why do Carter and his interview buddy find the idea of Jews being safer in Israel than France to be so entertaining?
Iranian nukes come to my mind as something that vermin like Carter may have in the back of his mind.
As Carter says in the video -- these attacks provide a great opportunity for the West to discover what makes Islam "great"! Sure, it must a single minded will to power -- just imagine how super an opportunity a couple nukes to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would be with that same logic!
PowerLine had a great little bit of Carter humor in the same vein of his laughter on the tape ...
Jimmy Carter went to a fortune teller and asked when he was going to die. The fortune teller responded: "On a Jewish Holiday". Carter responds, "Which one?".
Fortune teller responds, "Whatever day you die will be a Jewish holiday".
'via Blog this'
Fox News Snubs French, African Lives Matter?
Group says satellite images show destruction of Nigeria villages by Boko Haram | Fox News:
More proof of the racism and anti-TP bias at Fox. They are providing some coverage of damage so severe that is shows up on satellite, along with the potential of 2k deaths in Nigeria.
Clearly, yet another case where Fox has missed the memo -- thousands of deaths in Africa matter far less than 12 deaths in Paris, just as 2 black youths killed in Grand Jury reviewed police matter, while 6K young black men gunned down by other young black men do not.
The rules of TP (The Party-D) are very specific -- go outside those rules and you will be considered "biased, racist, stupid, etc".
Somehow I suspect that Nigerian estimates of casualties vie with BO administration estimates on BOcare for accuracy.
'via Blog this'
More proof of the racism and anti-TP bias at Fox. They are providing some coverage of damage so severe that is shows up on satellite, along with the potential of 2k deaths in Nigeria.
Clearly, yet another case where Fox has missed the memo -- thousands of deaths in Africa matter far less than 12 deaths in Paris, just as 2 black youths killed in Grand Jury reviewed police matter, while 6K young black men gunned down by other young black men do not.
The rules of TP (The Party-D) are very specific -- go outside those rules and you will be considered "biased, racist, stupid, etc".
Somehow I suspect that Nigerian estimates of casualties vie with BO administration estimates on BOcare for accuracy.
'via Blog this'
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
When Reagan's Approval Hit 35% and the Left Was Right
Robert Samuelson: Volcker, Reagan and history - The Washington Post:
I remember these times very well -- Reagan was the first Republican I had voted for. I listened to A LOT of NPR in those days since I drove more, and their positions on Reagan were quite simple -- idiot, warmonger, destroyer of the economy, etc. Of course their positions on America were pretty much as they are now -- too wealthy, too much consuming, too much income inequality, too much military, too many stupid red state people that don't know what is good for them, too much religion, best years behind it, etc.
At that point in my life I had suspicions that NPR might be right, but being in your early 20's is a time when it is hard to look at the future as a "deserved decline" to everyone living in European sized condo flats, no consumer type toys (boats, snowmobiles, etc), dinky little cars, no real reason to look to "advance" in your career since any increase would just go to tax, etc..
But in '82, it looked like NPR was right and "Reaganomics" was a huge disaster.
The US stock market had been essentially flat from '62 - '82. The home I would finally purchase at 12.5% interest in '83 was built in '60 and was still "current" in '82, other than the electric heat, which meant I lived in the basement and very cold to save money. The fact that in the '60s the "experts" were so certain that electricity was going to be "too cheap to meter" was a little reminder that the "experts" always quoted by NPR were not ALWAYS correct as I shivered under my blanket reading "Time" in the basement.
But NPR, Time, NBC, ABC, NY Times, etc could not ALL be wrong, could they? It was obvious the climate was cooling at the time, we had harder and harder winters pretty much every year. We CERTAINLY were out of oil -- of that there was ZERO doubt, only a complete idiot would think otherwise, and hunger + "the population bomb" were the issues that would CERTAINLY be gigantic issues the next decade. ("The Population Bomb" had been published in '68, and was known by anyone with any education).
Then of course, the USSR was on the march ... Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Africa -- the inevitability of communism was well, "inevitable". NPR regularly covered with glowing and gushing terms the marvelous healthcare in the USSR and Cuba, the superb free day care for kids, and the complete equality of income. Why should the US even have ANY defense budget agains the inevitable? The inevitable that was in fact better!
Reagan was not only a fool -- the disaster of "Reaganomics" had been proved by '82, but he was DANGEROUS. To claim that the US would consign the mighty USSR, the inevitable winner of the cold war to "the ash heap of history" was simply insane. The ONLY way that would happen is by a nuclear war that would destroy the planet -- winter was a big theme in those days, so "nuclear winter" fit right into the cold and getting colder ambiance of the time.
But as we know now, the "certainty" that all the experts, media and academia were completely certain of was 100% false. The "stupid actor from California" was WAY smarter than all the PHDs, pundits, economists and columnists. By '84, it would indeed be "Morning in America", and not even the MSM could fight the reality. Reagan would be re-elected by a landslide.
I learned TWO giant lessons:
1). The obvious -- the "experts" are always certain and frequently wrong. If you just have your eyes open that will be obvious MANY times in the course of a lifetime.
But maybe more importantly!
2). The objective of TP is POWER -- not success for the nation, better conditions for the people, or even the continued existence of the US in anything like the state it was founded to be. The expectation that that "the experts will learn", or even that the people that support the "Standard Media Narrative of the Day" will learn is completely false. They will not! "Learning" has never been on their radar except in the case of better ways to gain POWER!
TP (The Party-D) and their supporters in the MSM learned precisely NOTHING about communism, oil, climate, economics or anything else from the '80s, '90s, and the continued growth of the US up to 2008. Because all of those things that I thought were important -- jobs, homes, economic growth, etc. were not even on their objective list!
They learned nothing because their desire is for POWER and that means MORE GOVERNMENT! No matter who that hurts, how much freedom is destroyed, no matter if people go hungry, no matter if thousands of young black men kill each other every year, no matter if the nation is sold off in pieces to the Chinese or whomever, or simply ceases to exist as an entity as it sinks under a horde of illegal immigrants and debt.
For TP, POWER is the ONE singular driving lust that trumps all else, and "facts" relative to things like strong families, individual rights, economic growth, opportunity, innovation, a meaningful life, etc for the masses, will NEVER mean anything.
The masses living in government mandated cinder block high rises riding public transportation, getting public healthcare with no alternatives, watching government run media and entertainment -- maybe even "enjoying" a 5th of vodka or even few joints as "recreation", while the "deserving" TP elite have their "Dachas" in the Hamptons, Palm Springs, Upper East Side, etc and live the deserved life that elite "servants of the people" ought.
That is the "utopia" that TP sees, and no mere "facts" are ever going to change their minds!
'via Blog this'
I remember these times very well -- Reagan was the first Republican I had voted for. I listened to A LOT of NPR in those days since I drove more, and their positions on Reagan were quite simple -- idiot, warmonger, destroyer of the economy, etc. Of course their positions on America were pretty much as they are now -- too wealthy, too much consuming, too much income inequality, too much military, too many stupid red state people that don't know what is good for them, too much religion, best years behind it, etc.
At that point in my life I had suspicions that NPR might be right, but being in your early 20's is a time when it is hard to look at the future as a "deserved decline" to everyone living in European sized condo flats, no consumer type toys (boats, snowmobiles, etc), dinky little cars, no real reason to look to "advance" in your career since any increase would just go to tax, etc..
But in '82, it looked like NPR was right and "Reaganomics" was a huge disaster.
Reagan rejected this futile path. As the gruesome social costs of Volcker’s policies mounted — the monthly unemployment rate would ultimately rise to a post-World War II high of 10.8 percent. Reagan’s approval ratings plunged. In May 1981, they were at 68 percent; by January 1983, 35 percent.
Still, he supported the Fed. “I have met with Chairman Volcker several times during the past year,” he said in early 1982. “I have confidence in the announced policies of the Federal Reserve.”I can remember listening to NPR, seeing the evening news, and reading "Time" magazine thinking that I was learning an important lesson -- the High School and College instructors really had been right! In the "modern world", massive government was the ONLY way -- the buying a home and having it go up in value, or investing in the stock market era was over. The best years of a more economically free and vibrant US economy were behind us -- time to turn down the thermostats, shut off the Christmas lights, and learn the life of austerity.
The US stock market had been essentially flat from '62 - '82. The home I would finally purchase at 12.5% interest in '83 was built in '60 and was still "current" in '82, other than the electric heat, which meant I lived in the basement and very cold to save money. The fact that in the '60s the "experts" were so certain that electricity was going to be "too cheap to meter" was a little reminder that the "experts" always quoted by NPR were not ALWAYS correct as I shivered under my blanket reading "Time" in the basement.
But NPR, Time, NBC, ABC, NY Times, etc could not ALL be wrong, could they? It was obvious the climate was cooling at the time, we had harder and harder winters pretty much every year. We CERTAINLY were out of oil -- of that there was ZERO doubt, only a complete idiot would think otherwise, and hunger + "the population bomb" were the issues that would CERTAINLY be gigantic issues the next decade. ("The Population Bomb" had been published in '68, and was known by anyone with any education).
Then of course, the USSR was on the march ... Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Africa -- the inevitability of communism was well, "inevitable". NPR regularly covered with glowing and gushing terms the marvelous healthcare in the USSR and Cuba, the superb free day care for kids, and the complete equality of income. Why should the US even have ANY defense budget agains the inevitable? The inevitable that was in fact better!
Reagan was not only a fool -- the disaster of "Reaganomics" had been proved by '82, but he was DANGEROUS. To claim that the US would consign the mighty USSR, the inevitable winner of the cold war to "the ash heap of history" was simply insane. The ONLY way that would happen is by a nuclear war that would destroy the planet -- winter was a big theme in those days, so "nuclear winter" fit right into the cold and getting colder ambiance of the time.
But as we know now, the "certainty" that all the experts, media and academia were completely certain of was 100% false. The "stupid actor from California" was WAY smarter than all the PHDs, pundits, economists and columnists. By '84, it would indeed be "Morning in America", and not even the MSM could fight the reality. Reagan would be re-elected by a landslide.
I learned TWO giant lessons:
1). The obvious -- the "experts" are always certain and frequently wrong. If you just have your eyes open that will be obvious MANY times in the course of a lifetime.
But maybe more importantly!
2). The objective of TP is POWER -- not success for the nation, better conditions for the people, or even the continued existence of the US in anything like the state it was founded to be. The expectation that that "the experts will learn", or even that the people that support the "Standard Media Narrative of the Day" will learn is completely false. They will not! "Learning" has never been on their radar except in the case of better ways to gain POWER!
TP (The Party-D) and their supporters in the MSM learned precisely NOTHING about communism, oil, climate, economics or anything else from the '80s, '90s, and the continued growth of the US up to 2008. Because all of those things that I thought were important -- jobs, homes, economic growth, etc. were not even on their objective list!
They learned nothing because their desire is for POWER and that means MORE GOVERNMENT! No matter who that hurts, how much freedom is destroyed, no matter if people go hungry, no matter if thousands of young black men kill each other every year, no matter if the nation is sold off in pieces to the Chinese or whomever, or simply ceases to exist as an entity as it sinks under a horde of illegal immigrants and debt.
For TP, POWER is the ONE singular driving lust that trumps all else, and "facts" relative to things like strong families, individual rights, economic growth, opportunity, innovation, a meaningful life, etc for the masses, will NEVER mean anything.
The masses living in government mandated cinder block high rises riding public transportation, getting public healthcare with no alternatives, watching government run media and entertainment -- maybe even "enjoying" a 5th of vodka or even few joints as "recreation", while the "deserving" TP elite have their "Dachas" in the Hamptons, Palm Springs, Upper East Side, etc and live the deserved life that elite "servants of the people" ought.
That is the "utopia" that TP sees, and no mere "facts" are ever going to change their minds!
'via Blog this'
Monday, January 12, 2015
Myths, The Center of the Universe
The Biggest Myth About Debunking Myths | RealClearScience:
Man always wants to be the "center of the universe" ... and today, science and humanist thought are the latest to claim that mantle. They are CERTAIN that THEY think "rationally". Even true brain scientists could tell them that what all humans do is RATIONALIZE -- we are so beset with confirmation bias and selective "facts" that none of us are remotely objective.
From there, you can pretty much decide "it is all meaningless, I prefer to not think about it", **OR** you can decide "there is more to me and what I see around me than mere randomness, I want to believe there is a purpose, something in my core SCREAMS there is more, and I think I'll look for it".
From that point, Christianity is a pretty quick and easy to understand answer -- none of the other religions offer anything like the success in history of Christianity, nor anything like a God that cares enough for man to take human form and die to save him. What's more, we have 11 Apostles and hundreds of people that saw the risen Savior. Ten of the 11 Apostles died martyrs declaring that knowledge to the end, along with many others.
To die for what you believe when you THINK it is true, but have no way of verifying it, is one thing. To die a horrible death for something you know to have been a lie -- as the 10 Apostles would have if Christ did not rise, is beyond comprehension or belief. But that is what you MUST believe if you are to deny the Resurrection!
Our thinking is often in error, as is the thinking of the dominant political parties, scientists, journalists, thinkers, etc.
The beginning of knowledge and wisdom has always been and will always be the fear of the Lord! It is the only escape from human centric thought.
'via Blog this'
"To successfully impart knowledge, communicators need to understand how people process information, how they modify their existing knowledge and how worldviews affect their ability to think rationally. It’s not just what people think that matters, but how they think," he says.It's a recursive (self referential) universe if you are human. All you CAN know is banging around in your head if you are a pure physicalist, and while Descartes thought that the beginning of all knowledge was "I think, therefore I am", it is earlier than that ...
Man always wants to be the "center of the universe" ... and today, science and humanist thought are the latest to claim that mantle. They are CERTAIN that THEY think "rationally". Even true brain scientists could tell them that what all humans do is RATIONALIZE -- we are so beset with confirmation bias and selective "facts" that none of us are remotely objective.
Proverbs 1:7 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction."FIRST, you have to recognize your human place in the universe -- tiny, temporal, needy, dependent, emotional, fragile, easy to confuse.
From there, you can pretty much decide "it is all meaningless, I prefer to not think about it", **OR** you can decide "there is more to me and what I see around me than mere randomness, I want to believe there is a purpose, something in my core SCREAMS there is more, and I think I'll look for it".
From that point, Christianity is a pretty quick and easy to understand answer -- none of the other religions offer anything like the success in history of Christianity, nor anything like a God that cares enough for man to take human form and die to save him. What's more, we have 11 Apostles and hundreds of people that saw the risen Savior. Ten of the 11 Apostles died martyrs declaring that knowledge to the end, along with many others.
To die for what you believe when you THINK it is true, but have no way of verifying it, is one thing. To die a horrible death for something you know to have been a lie -- as the 10 Apostles would have if Christ did not rise, is beyond comprehension or belief. But that is what you MUST believe if you are to deny the Resurrection!
Our thinking is often in error, as is the thinking of the dominant political parties, scientists, journalists, thinkers, etc.
The beginning of knowledge and wisdom has always been and will always be the fear of the Lord! It is the only escape from human centric thought.
'via Blog this'
Millions Support Slandering the "Prophet""
Array of world leaders joins 3.7 million in France to defy terrorism - CNN.com:
Before the UN General Assembly in 2012, BO stated:
The administration also condemned Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons that might be offensive to Muslims in 2012.
BO put the man that made the anti-Islamic movie that was used as his first cover lie for Benghazi in jail. There doesn't seem to be much question that his heart lies with having people like Charlie Hebdo SHUT UP!
One can imagine that BO is ambivalent at best about the happenings in Paris. You notice there are no calls for more gun control as there would have been with pictures of men dressed in black swaggering down streets and executing a policeman with a full-auto burst in the US. Such pictures in a country with completely oppressive gun control serve to remind the average American sheep that the idea that a government -- even one as massive and entrenched as the one in France, is ever going to keep you secure is just one more "you can keep your life if you like it" lie!
BO attended an Islamic school in Indonesia. He was well read and connected to Nation of Islam as documented in "Dreams", expunging white blood is a problem:
Since the "Dreams" which BO documents as picking up from his father in the book are the dream of destroying the colonial overlords, it is easy to understand why going to France (full of white blood) to march in solidarity with the colonial powers is just not something BO feels comfortable with.
'via Blog this'
Before the UN General Assembly in 2012, BO stated:
"The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."... it was a part of a moral equivalence litany that equated anti-Islam statements with abusing women, making too much money, destroying the environment, and other things which BO on some occasions finds to be "bad things".
The administration also condemned Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons that might be offensive to Muslims in 2012.
BO put the man that made the anti-Islamic movie that was used as his first cover lie for Benghazi in jail. There doesn't seem to be much question that his heart lies with having people like Charlie Hebdo SHUT UP!
One can imagine that BO is ambivalent at best about the happenings in Paris. You notice there are no calls for more gun control as there would have been with pictures of men dressed in black swaggering down streets and executing a policeman with a full-auto burst in the US. Such pictures in a country with completely oppressive gun control serve to remind the average American sheep that the idea that a government -- even one as massive and entrenched as the one in France, is ever going to keep you secure is just one more "you can keep your life if you like it" lie!
BO attended an Islamic school in Indonesia. He was well read and connected to Nation of Islam as documented in "Dreams", expunging white blood is a problem:
As I imagined myself following Malcolm X's call, one line in his book stayed me. He spoke of his wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that, for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction. I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if and when I left my mother at some uncharted border.BO also connected with Nation of Islam politically in Chicago.
Since the "Dreams" which BO documents as picking up from his father in the book are the dream of destroying the colonial overlords, it is easy to understand why going to France (full of white blood) to march in solidarity with the colonial powers is just not something BO feels comfortable with.
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