Income Mobllity, Where You Grew Up

The Best and Worst Places to Grow Up: How Your Area Compares - NYTimes.com:



Follow the link to the article and hopefully your browser works as well as mine did to allow you to interactively see the big and little picture of income mobility in the US by county. I'd recommend going off and playing with that a little first.



Back now? Good ... if you followed my advice, you went over, focused on either where you were born or where you live now (likely both), hopefully also got the bigger picture as well and then came back. Humans focus on themselves -- both Jesus (love your neighbor as YOURSELF) and Adam Smith (make self-interest work for all) were right!



The light blue on the chart is "no data" ... the dark blue is really good, the green is good. The red is really bad, the orange bad, yellow is average.



When you look at the chart, it looks like the upper Midwest and the eastern slopes of the central Rockies got splotched with blue and green, while both coasts and the south get a lot of red, orange and yellow. It would be great to have some other such charts so we would run off and do correlation games -- note, while that is fun, it DOES NOT show causality, the "why" ... but it might give us some hints.



But I'll do some conjecture anyway -- it is always fun to let our biases run wild.

1. It isn't "red vs blue" counties. We have seen those charts too many times with essentially the whole country being red except for the very center of urban areas and a few larger counties in MN, CO, CA, VT, etc. So scratch the easy one. 
2. Cold weather / long winters jump to mind. When it is cold from November - March, and maybe only June-July-August being really "summer", there is just more time to hit the books when young and to work hard later in life. 
3. Immigrant heritage. If you did a correlation of Scandinavian / German heritage with those charts what would you see? In the current world it is popular to say "we are all the same" -- certainly the chart shows that we are not the same relative to income mobility. Might culture matter? Dangerous thought I know. 
4. Low population density effects? I'm guessing the big swath of light blue down the middle would be blue / green if there was enough data. Higher population density means "more things to do" -- mass kinds of things, entertainment kinds of things. Low density means that you have to come up with your own things to pass the time (innovation)-- maybe with a tiny group of often life-long friends (outlook / attitude).  
5. All the stuff I haven't thought of ... and this is likely the longest and most important list. My biases lead me down certain paths just like everyone else. Maybe the "reasons" are too complex to tease out -- I tend to not believe that, but it is possible. 

I find these things of interest. Actual data that MIGHT be actionable if we were really so inclined. 

Can ANYONE look at that chart and believe that a FEDERAL program bent on treating everyone the same has ANY prospects of being successful? I sure don't. 

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Jews Offer No Apology for Holocaust

Event organizer offers no apology after thwarted attack in Texas - The Washington Post:

The "Southern Poverty Law Center", a very popular leftist organization with The Party (D),  has the ORGANIZER of the Texas cartoon event on their "list of extremists" and the linked article focuses on those who would practice freedom of speech as being the problem as opposed to those who would murder in the name of Islam.

Note that the "Southern Poverty Law Center" ALSO finds many CHRISTIAN groups to be "extremist" -- those opposed to abortion, gay "marriage" and things like crucifixes in jars of urine as art. You know EXTREMISTS!

Lincoln, JFK, RFK and MLK all did things to "incite" their attackers -- Lincoln defeated the Confederacy, JFK was too anti-communist for Oswald, RFK was not pro-Arab enough for Sirhan Sirhan, and well, MLK was black ... reason enough for a lot of Southern Democrats in the '60s. It is even possible that women dressing too provocatively is a trigger for SOME rapists -- but when we were a nation of LAWS as opposed to men, it was considered very bad form to "blame the victim".

It still is if the "victim" just knocked over a convenience store and is charging an officer as in Micheal Brown. The left still likes that cake -- when they like it. They just want to both eat it and like it -- it is sort of like intellectual deficit spending.

How could it get so that Christians are singled out for attacks, fines and harassment by  law enforcement for their beliefs on abortion or gay "marriage", while even direct violence against someone exercising their Constitutional right of free speech is blamed for the attack vs the attackers?

Step by step, the same way that tyranny always replaces freedom.

If you listen to NPR, you now know that "intelligent, reasonable people" don't "provoke" Islamists.

 Before the Jews were rounded up in Germany, "intelligent, reasonable people" stayed away from Jews and looked the other way if Jews were being harassed -- "they had it coming". It doesn't happen "overnight", but over the past 6 years it has been accelerating here very rapidly.

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Treating People as Livestock

Race, Politics and Lies - Thomas Sowell:

A great one by Sowell. He makes a point that is obvious, but hard to see because of the "boiling frog" effect of our constantly living in the media pot.

When the recorded fatal shooting of a fleeing man in South Carolina brought instant condemnation by whites and blacks alike, and by the most conservative as well as the most liberal commentators, that moment of mutual understanding was very fleeting, as if mutual understanding were something to be avoided, as a threat to a vision of "us against them" that was more popular.

Everyone agreed that shooting a fleeing back man in the back was wrong. Oh, never mind -- the narrative is that whites are racist, can't have THIS story hanging around!

So we move on to Baltimore ... while ignoring the truth of what has happened to black communities over the past 50 years:

You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large. 

Non-judgmental subsidies of counterproductive lifestyles are treating people as if they were livestock, to be fed and tended by others in a welfare state — and yet expecting them to develop as human beings have developed when facing the challenges of life themselves. 

One key fact that keeps getting ignored is that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits every year since 1994. Behavior matters and facts matter, more than the prevailing social visions or political empires built on those visions.

Incentives and sanctions matter. The results of policies like those that have been used with blacks in America are universal , treat people like livestock and eventually they begin to act like livestock.

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Maple Syrup Miracle Drug!

http://www.wsj.com/articles/maple-syrup-new-way-to-fight-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-1430746010?mod=trending_now_1

This is old news to people that grew up in places like Vermont or northern Wisconsin. Fresh maple syrup is the all-purpose spring tonic! Go out to the sugar bush as it comes fresh and hot off the evaporator, get a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream and cover it liberally with the nectar of the spring, and you are CURED!

Of anything ... even the long dark cold months of a winter that seemed to never go away.

 Not hard to believe that it cures a few little bacteria as well!

Outing Iron Man

http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/05/robert-downey-and-the-problem-of-political-intolerance.html

I had heard that Robert Downy Jr left an interview that became "creepy" relative to his drug use history. I had not heard that he had said:

“you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal.”

I HAD heard that Mel Gibson helped him beat his addiction, and that he remains friends with Gibson -- something not particularly allowable in Hollywood.

The point of the article is that Hollywood, increasingly that nation and even the world (the weird interview was in England) continues to become increasingly intolerant of ANY divergence from 100% liberal orthodoxy. The "Thou Shalt Nots" of the politically correct left get more stringent every day.

The article isn't badly written -- although focuses a bit too much on how the author "really doesn't care" about Downy. Worthy of at least a scan.

The blog doesn't look too bad either ... may have to poke around there a bit.

Gallipoli 100, History, Humanity, Churchill

Gallipoli, 100 Years On | Power Line:

First the "basic story" -- The British attacked Turkey at the Gallipoli Peninsula on April 25, 1915. Over 8 futile months 252,000 allied lives were lost before they gave up. Churchill has sacked from his position as First Lord of the Admiralty in May as a new coalition government was formed. The event came to be known as "Churchill's Folly".

I read the section on the Dardanelles Strategy in the "The Last Lion: Visions of Glory" (the first book) last night -- so now, "The Rest of the Story".

First point -- when you are a bigger than life figure that talks a great game like Churchill, you make all sorts of enemies and when there is a chance to blame you for something, you likely get blamed. The flip side is that if the proper moment arises in history, you may also get credit for something huge that will also be the result of many other events than just you -- Lincoln freeing the slaves, TJR building the Panama Canal, FDR ending the depression, Churchill winning WWII, Kennedy getting us to the moon, Reagan defeating the USSR.

The likely story is that on March 19th, had Admiral De Robeck continued the very successful attack of the previous day, the naval force would have succeeded in opening the both straits and taking Constantinople.

The previous day, the French battleship Bouvet hit a mine and sank quickly with the crew of 600 being lost. Three British battleships were also damaged by mines. These losses caused De Robeck to break of the attack and the strategy converted to land attack which was out of Churchill's purview and under the command of Lord Kitchener, in charge of land forces.

It turns out that the ships that hit the mines hit the same string of 20 mines that had been placed close to the shore on the eastern side. They could have been easily avoided or swept. The Turkish forces were certain they were defeated -- Constantinople was being evacuated. Instead, the attack was halted and 34 year old Mustafa Kemal was given given credit for defeating the mighty Royal Navy and five weeks to prepare to battle and defeat allied forces, allowing him to become the legendary "Ataturk". 

Had De Robeck succeeded, WWI would likely have been over in less than a year, saving more than a million lives, and the shape of Eastern Europe relative to Christian / Muslim and Russian influence would have been MUCH different.  It is likely one of those moments in history of great leverage. But part of that seeming leverage is of course the fact that we can postulate on what MIGHT have happened to our hearts content, but there is no way to actually KNOW that. It is maddening -- it is what God surely knows, but we cannot see. 

As one reads a detailed account like the Churchill  bio, the people involved are fleshed out. Churchill thought he had a good relationship with the Sea Lord, Jackie Fisher, but it was likely a mistake to appoint the old man to the position. He had a love/hate relationship with Winston and was at too advanced an age for the responsibility -- he resigned in May in protest over the Gallipoli campaign which brought down the Government and Winston was sacrificed, losing his position as First Lord of the Admiralty. 

Churchill also had history with Lord Kitchener which likely contributed to troops not being part of the March plan. Then there is Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, who had a long running affair with young Venetia Stanley, a woman 35 years his junior to whom he often wrote three times a day and was hugely emotionally attached to. She broke off the affair and suddenly eloped in the midst of the Fisher resignation and political crisis, leaving Asquith a basket case. They tended to keep their love letters in those days -- over 500 from Asquith to Stanley for example. 

Looking at history in the manner that our public schools choose to teach it, it appears as a dry collection of somewhat ordered and tidy events. It appears that a "good government", or "experts" could just get their heads together and make things run "smoothly". It sometimes even appears to be a "story" -- to have some sort of a "narrative". 

All this is illusion.  From our perspective it is at best a  Rube Goldberg jumbled mass of conflicting ideas, personalities, foibles, visions, hallucinations and events, splashed on a cosmic palette by a God whose ways nor plan is possible for us to fathom. Some of us believe his plan is one of hope and truth, while others deny that there is any plan at all -- as said best by Shakespeare: 

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

 

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Murder, Morals, Popularity

Scalia’s quip about gay-marriage protester stirs bias debate - San Francisco Chronicle:

If we assume there is no God, therefore no Natural Law (the idea of right and wrong written on the hearts of man), and thousands of years of tradition can be invalidated in a period of less than a couple decades, then how do we arrive at any concept of morality?

The current view is "we take a vote" -- what is "moral" is what a majority on at least a national, if not world level says is moral. Smaller sub-units like States have been declared to have no rights to restrict abortion for example, and we are fast headed to say the same for gay "marriage".

As seen recently in Indiana, as well as other states, not only may a State not hold a different moral position than the national body, an individual may increasingly not hold such a position if it impacts their actions, as in,  they will not bake a cake for a gay "wedding".

To date, we can't prevent an individual from holding a moral position in the privacy of their own thoughts, but no doubt many would like to find a way!

Under the definition that "morality" is "whatever is popular", does not morality cease to exist as a concept? Formerly, morality was a higher standard -- ultimately going back to God, but assumed by nearly all to be wired into our very nature. As Scalia has said and is quoted  in the above article in a couple different ways:

Laws, Scalia wrote, can be validly based on “moral disapproval of homosexual conduct,” like other statutes expressing disapproval of “murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals.” 

Dissenting from a 2003 ruling that struck down criminal laws against gay sex, Scalia said a state should be allowed to criminalize sexual behavior that their citizens consider “immoral and unacceptable,” such as “fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality and obscenity.”

One of the popular things said against anyone opposing gay "marriage" was "How does it hurt you?".

For one thing, it changes the entire definition of marriage -- a lifetime committed relationship between a man and a woman. That is what the word marriage meant. Although we have apparently legalized it, I'm not even certain what the form of a bi-sexual "marriage" is -- I can guess, I just don't want to think about it. So we actually don't know what the word "marriage" now means.

Murder in most forms is currently unpopular, not "immoral", because we have demonstrated that we no longer recognize that word in our society.

Abortion is the killing of a very vulnerable person, and not only is it legal, we are increasingly required to fund it via our tax dollars because that is the popular will. It is not only legal, it is subsidized.

We are a nation that no longer respects standards based on God, the Constitution, History, Tradition, etc. Our standard is only what is popular -- and if it is popular, increasingly you MUST agree!

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Space To Destroy

The Baltimore Mayor made her comment "It's a very delicate balancing act because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well, and we work very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate."

She later said it was a "mis-speak" -- she meant "space to DEMONSTRATE". I'm guessing that may well be unfortunate but correct. It is an interesting choice of wrong word -- it is hard to imagine the media letting an R get away with it.

BO however doesn't seem to have any trouble with words. Both in Baltimore and with Iran he seems to be very willing to give "space for destruction". His position in both places seems to be that both Iran and the rioters are justified in their grievances, so it is legitimate for them to do some destruction until their demands are met. 

In both cases, he is 100% for meeting their demands!

Onion, Gravity, Wrong On Many Levels

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-reviews-gravity-34083

I don't condone this movie review, and intellectually find it wrong in a number of ways. Mental illness is a very real and serious problem and it VERY RARELY results in dangerous and violent behavior on the part of those that suffer it.

This review treats a serious subject in a slapstick and incorrect fashion, carrying on a stereotype that is damaging to those facing  a real problem.

... So, why would I post it!

Because I am human, and humans carry the unexplained penchant for HUMOR!

Humor is WRONG -- it is "immature", it is "expensive" -- someone has a fall, embarrassment, ... something that is "an their expense" ... or a group's expense, etc.

There are times that I believe humor will save us from liberals, and there are times that I think that liberals will snuff it out and replace it's joy with smugness. It hangs in the balance as "progressives" gain force.

In the ultimate advanced "progressive" world there can be no humor -- because we will all be fully educated, all fully compassionate to any even pantomimed misfortune of others, fully accepting of cultural differences that in today's "less than fully progressed" world can strike a funny bone -- just a small step away from a racist, sexist, ageist, etc bone ... in the realm of not perfectly processed and "progressed" liberalism.

Or you could just forget all that and enjoy the video -- because you might be human too, and to be a not fully "progressed" human is to still have a sense of humor! ... inappropriate though it may be

Tom Crean Book, South Pole Pub

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

I finished the linked book and enjoyed it very much.

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

Crean made three voyages to Antarctica.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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College Encourages Open Exchange of Idea!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/college-encourages-lively-exchange-of-idea,38496/?fb_action_ids=817192691708304&fb_action_types=og.shares&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B976691785682500%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.shares%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

I'm afraid that one is just a little too close to reality for comfort! Ah yes, "a lively exchange of idea" ... each person can freely show their support for the idea! People need more opportunities to share a single homogenous opinion!

Let's start the list ... Anthropogenic (human  caused)  Global Warming (AGW), Gay Marriage, Income Inequality, Abortion, THE BEARS SUCK!

Hmm, well that last one DOES seem like something that we OUGHT to all agree on!

Republican Senators Seize Ship!

U.S. dispatches destroyer after Iran boards commercial ship - The Washington Post:



Oh wait, it was our close nuclear buddies the Iranians, never mind ... story buried well down in the news. I suppose if the Iranians sent a letter explaining their Constitution, THAT would be big news, right?



The article is an interesting read, for example this:

“At first appearance, it does seem to be provocative behavior, but again we don’t have all the facts yet,” Warren said. 

It was not immediately clear whether the Farragut, which is now in international waters, would enter Iranian waters. 

The incident comes days after U.S. officials sought to de-escalate naval tensions that arose with Iran after the U.S. military sent an aircraft carrier off the coast of Yemen. U.S. officials suspect that Iran has been sending weapons and supplies to Yemen to aid Houthi rebels who are fighting a U.S.-backed coalition of Arab nations.

If you follow only the MSM, your could be forgiven for missing this. Ships being seized are less newsworthy than they used to be.



The news is chock full of how race relations are going swimmingly in Baltimore with a Black Mayor, Black Police Chief and huge majority of Black officers on the force! BO even inspired us all today by calling for a national "soul searching". He failed to say what we were "searching for". Is there a shortage of whites to blame in Baltimore or something?



Meanwhile, things seem to be going about as well in the Persian Gulf with our negotiating partner Iran as they are in Baltimore. At the very least I expect Iran  will nearly match the trustworthiness of BO!







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Baltimore, The Un-Ferguson

Rioting intensifies in Baltimore; liberal narratives among the casualties | Power Line:

We were assured by our Black President and his Black Attorney General as well as the media that the problem in Ferguson was to many racist whites in the Ferguson city government and police department. So Blacks naturally rioted.

BO also assured us that the "Russian Reset" was a brilliant diplomatic move, his administration would  be "transparent",  he would act if a "Red Line" were crossed in Syria, if we liked our health insurance we could keep it and Yemen was an example of how to do "smart foreign policy". Right now he assures us that Iran can be trusted relative to nukes --  believing all that is what it means to be "Ready for Hillary"!

The idea that  Blacks "naturally riot" is what conservatives call racism -- along with the ideas that they "naturally" are all Democrats, talk in a certain way, smoke marijuana, and can't operate in a society without a lot of subsidies and affirmative action. Thomas Sowell, Mia Love, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and a host of other Blacks prove that such stereotypes are far from destiny.

The mayor and police chief of Baltimore are black, and whites are a minority in the police force.

Blacks in any major city in the US are a Democrat managed "community" that are stage managed by a set of Democrat government officials including social workers, church leaders, community organizers, NAACP, and usually a number of elected officials since their communities are specifically gerrymandered to be democrat strongholds.

A lot of what passes for "black behavior" in the US is a result of this management -- which creates a "black lifestyle" that has one major positive aspect if you are a Democrat -- a guaranteed large voting bloc, but a series of negatives -- crime, poverty, broken homes, rioting, etc that go with it.

When a "trigger" happens, the black community erupts in riots, it's the "tradition". Note that similar things happen in other "communities" ... eg French car burning, or US college campuses after sports victories.

Humans have well documented tendencies of "mob behavior" built in as a species -- the bedlam of a huge sporting event or political rally brings it out as do "riots". The fact that the Democrat management of the black community is linked to "entitlement" which is an easy step to "taking stuff that I really deserve" promotes the higher crime rate in black communities and creates the fact that black riots involve looting, where college campus riots generally do not.

This is easy to understand, but since understanding it would make more people question the wisdom and morality of purposely managing the black population of this country as a captive voting bloc, the MSM nor the government is going to state the obvious.

Our peril as a nation is greatly magnified by the fact that our public schools and universities increasingly suppress critical thinking as part of their indoctrination -- going so far as to not invite any speakers nor certainly allow any professors that are not 100% aligned with "progressive" dogma on income distribution, climate, race, gender, GLBT, being anti-Christian, and a host of other positions.

The small number of people able to think critically and independently is frightening low.

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Jenner, Last Taboo

Bruce Jenner said he’s a Republican. Only 21 percent of LGBT Americans are. - The Washington Post:

The left of the nation was shocked on the 20/20 interview last week when Bruce Jenner came out as a ....  GASP! Republican!

This article mentions that "ONLY" 21% of LGBT (and who knows what other letters we ought add to that soon!) are Republican.

First of all, effeminate men, gay men, cross dressing men, all of the same in reverse for women are old news. Deviancy is nothing new for mankind. That is no surprise, or really of any interest to conservatives. "There nothing new under the sun". It is very hard to be a sexual deviant these days (like what DO you need to do to actually be a "deviant"?) , but it is certainly EASY to be a thought deviant -- just come out as Republican!

The left is ALL about "diversity" or even just deviancy based on race, sex, "gender" (when they admit it exists), acting out, profanity, "art", etc. What they are AGAINST -- and they show their colors here, is diversity of THOUGHT! Animals have sex organs, animals have different coloration, animals have violent or non-violent interactions. What they DON'T have is THOUGHT -- the left is OK with but ONE kind of thought, left wing thought. Any other kind is "shocking, radical, regressive, racist, reactionary, etc" -- BAD. That the left can't stand is any thought that is not in lock step with their dogma!

So they accidentally show their true colors when they get surprised. The right will tell you that they disprove of your actions on occasion, but they are actually FAR less inclined to try to control what you THINK than the left.  You may well get AIDs or a host of other sexually transmitted diseases if you engage in gay sex, but you get no disease by being attracted to the same sex. It is action that matters -- it is in the same approach as "guns don't kill, people do" -- it isn't the inanimate object or even the impulse that does harm (or in some cases good) -- it is the ACTION.

The left likes to outlaw objects, suppress speech in the case of Conservative or Christian ideas, or in some cases simply shame you into at least giving lip service to their point of view. For someone like Bruce Jenner to not follow their dogma, or AT LEAST give it lip service on TV just really pisses them off!

"Only 21%"? Of GLBT? What percentage of the population is LGBT? Kinsey tried to make it out to be 10% -- it looks like the real total is more like < 5% and could be quite a bit less than that.

So well under 10% of Blacks identify as Republican -- more like 5%, or maybe about the same as the total GLBT population relative to the general population.

What does this mean? Possibly nothing -- there may well be no causality here at all, only correlation, statistics are like that.

The left has more work to do in order to get the GLBT population where it "should be" relative to political party? One would assume they believe that the WHOLE population ought to be there  at the 95%+ D -- no diversity of thought at all.

It is certainly the mark of a civilization WAY past it's prime when something as trivial as an aging male sports star deciding to "go woman" gets any level of interest at all. It looks though that we are FAR down the road to where being a Republican is the last remaining taboo.

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The Tudors of the Ozarks

Will the Clinton-Cash Scandal Doom the Hillary’s White House Bid? | National Review Online:

The Clintons are like the Tudors of the Ozarks. They believe they are royalty, but they also understand that even monarchs need friends. The Clinton Foundation is the perfect vehicle for their ambition. Like the medieval Catholic Church, it blurs the lines between ideals and interests. On the one hand, it does yeoman’s work in the Church of Liberal Dogoodery, but it also provides a conduit for business interests, foreign governments, academics, activists, and journalists to gain access to the imperial court-in-waiting.

We all need and always have operating mental models, "narratives" about most everything that happens to us. Often we don't even know it. We have our political biases, tastes, liked and not liked people, places and things, sources of information and "feelings" about how things are, aren't, should and shouldn't be.



I liked the designation of Ozarkian royalty for the Clintons in the article as well as the model of the medieval Catholic Church for much of modern liberalism. Liberalism claims to be the TRUE nostrum for the masses, but somehow it is a "big church" -- it finds room for lots of wealth, graft, international bribery and kickbacks and LOTS of indulgences and forgiven sins for at least it's leadership. In fact, the Clintons vaulted from being "broke when they left the White House" (it must be true, Hillary said it) to being worth around $100 million today with just a few scraps from the left wing franchise.



In reading about the Clintons, it helps to try to understand how the leftist mind looks at them. Here you have two people that in the period since 2000 created no product or idea, did not entertain or display some great skill like that in sporting or art, nor invested or accomplished any other act that one would associate with amassing wealth, yet amassed a fortune of over $100 million and spent much more than that.



Do we really need a book such as the one discussed in the article to understand where that money came from? Don't we all know that it was transferred to them for influence, protection, favors and such? What could possibly be more obvious than that?



The interesting part to me is that unless this is really the start of some NY Times coup as the article hints at, nobody on the left really cares. In fact, I think they kind of enjoy it. My view is that this is a standard NY Times inoculation -- "they reported it", so at a minimum it is "old news". We can expect variations and combinations on the following to follow:



1). The author of the book will have done "something wrong" -- the form makes little difference. "Took money from the Koch brothers", "Published something in the past that may be untrue", "treated his ex-wife, girlfriend, dog, parakeet, etc badly" ... something.



2). SOMETHING in the book will be "wrong" -- ergo EVERYTHING in the book is wrong!



3). Since the information in the book is reported and "nothing happened", that means that "there is nothing important here" -- no story, move along.



#3 is the obvious -- we see it in great frequency with people from the left, from Whitewater, cattle futures, Travelgate, Monica, etc in the old Clinton universe to Gun Runner, IRS, Benghazi, NSA, various lost e-mails, etc today. "It was reported, nothing came of it, so move along"



If you listen to NPR, you will still get some rapt reporting on Watergate, Iran-Contra, WMDs, etc -- even W National Guard and Cheney shooting his buddy hunting. Those were all REAL -- the kind of thing that even if they did have some level of effect, OUGHT to have had WAY more! Those were hunts for REAL "bad guys doing bad things", the glory of which needs to be told and re-told around the media campfire again and again and savored!



But to the left, so their own Clintonian Royalty made over $100 million off kickbacks and favors? Whey ever would anyone be so small minded to begrudge such greatness such a small pittance? Can we talk about how W got away with being a less than stellar fighter pilot again?



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