Shoot Y'all Qaeda, Occupy Whatever

Dwight and Steven Hammond, the Oregon Standoff, and the Problems with Mandatory Minimums - The Atlantic:

I have a good deal of sympathy with the plight of 73 year old Dwight Hammond and his middle aged son Steven going back to prison. My understanding is that they wanted to lie low and were not all that thrilled with the demonstrations for them, and are completely not on board with the "occupation". I doubt hardly anyone other than the Bundys support the "occupation".

The middle east is burning down, N Korea is testing H-bombs, and his BOness is making law by fiat in direct opposition to the Constitution. Do we really care if some nuts took over some remote outhouse in the middle of the winter?

Oh, yeah, they are "right wing", so therefore "terrorists" -- this is a MUCH bigger problem than non-Islamic acts of direct violence carried out by people who happen to follow the Muslim religion which has NOTHING to do with the acts of violence ... did I mention it would be HORRIBLE to call acts by such people "Islamic", it might lead to a BACKLASH!

Did you hear that there are **ARMED** RIGHT WING TERRORISTS OCCUPYING A FEDERAL BUILDING!!! OMG! ... There was a MILITIA involved (in the march, not the occupation)! Can we call in the Army, Navy, Marines, NSA, CIA ... hell, call in the entire ALPHABET!

The linked article makes the obvious point that why the hell is the left not realizing that the Hammonds are victims of MANDATORY SENTENCING ... which the left is supposed to HATE!

But sadly, the Atlantic left wing itself, so doesn't understand that consistency is not an issue! Mandatory sentencing is bad for BLACKS, but the Bundy folks are WHITE, and did you know they are RIGHT WING! No sentences for Blacks, shoot the damned right wing whites! Why not?

“While federal management of public lands is legitimate and occupying a federal facility is unjustified,” a left-leaning publication might have editorialized, “it’s easy to see why the Hammond case struck some observers as unjust. The notion that judges are there to exercise discretion based on context––that it’s odious to force them to give severe sentences even when they judge them to be ‘grossly disproportionate’––is exactly what criminal-justice reformers have long argued. There have been bipartisan reforms on this issue before. Let’s abolish all mandatory minimums for good through the civic process, not counterproductive armed protests.”

The linked column also introduces something that makes sense -- "Red Tribe" and "Blue Tribe". After electing a man who claims his main identity is as a "Luo Tribesman", is it any wonder that our nation has descended from a being a Republic of Laws rater than men to a couple of warring tribes?

The blogger Scott Alexander once argued with more detail than I can quote here that “if you’re part of the Blue Tribe, then your outgroup isn’t al-Qaeda, or Muslims, or blacks, or gays, or transpeople, or Jews, or atheists—it’s the Red Tribe.”

We live in a nation where the federal government charges a 73 year old guy with TERRORISM for burning a few acres of land that nobody cares about for reasons that are at least sane. Not only that, he goes to trial, gets convicted, but the judge makes his sentence short in view of the "crime" .... BUT, the government has to have it's full pound of flesh, so they send him back to prison for 5 years, and that brings in some nutcases that are ticked off.

The fact they are ticked off is pretty understandable -- the fact that they decided to occupy a remote building is what makes them nutcases -- but nutcases that are causing WAY less of an issue than Black Lives Matter folks shooting, blocking interstates, occupying precinct houses, rioting, looting, etc.

Like WAY LESS problem!

I don't agree with the occupation, but the majority of this nation seems to be every bit as insane as the guys out in the boonies in the outhouse!

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British Doctor Strike, Private vs Public

Britain set for first mass strike by doctors in 40 years | Reuters:

Nothing like a Doctor strike to kick off a new year on a good foot:

Ninety-eight percent of more than 37,000 junior doctors had voted to take part in industrial action, including strikes, in protest against the new employment contract proposed by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

 I'm not in the mood to a waste too much time lamenting the rapid decline in the US health system -- anybody that paid any attention, knew it would happen, and it has -- it will continue! But time for a few words I guess.

If you look through this article you will see that Britain has a Public Health System and a Private Health System, and that the Public System is "very popular". At first, this may seem hard to understand, but one needs to ask the question; "Are there more sick people or healthy people"? Fortunately, for a large part of people's lives, their health insurance is like their car insurance -- they don't use it very often, and when they DO it is for smaller claims.

As long as all you need the healthcare service for is "standard stuff", "Post Office Medicine" is just fine (when they aren't striking), and thankfully, for the bulk of the population during most of their lives, that will be all they need. Since half of the people make the median income or below, and they tend to not be taxed very much, they get "free healthcare", it is all that they need, and they don't have to worry about it! So at least half the population LOVES IT -- and no doubt at least 10-20% above that like it too.

So how in the world can a private system continue to work and even expand in the same country if Public Healthcare is so good?

Well, because people get sick -- and sometimes, chronically sick for long periods of time. A woman from England worked in Rochester for years because her mother had emphysema and had watched way to many people die because they could not breath in the public health ward with 5-10 beds in a large room, and not enough staff to cover. We also had people working here that came from Canada for treatment, and it is not unusual at all to see a Canadian license plate when you do through a clinic parking lot.

British life expectancy for males is 79. It is hard to get good data for "white, no criminal record, etc" life expectancy in the US, but this chart shows that for even the top half of the income level in the US, you were looking at 85 to even pushing 90 at the very top. US stats (gun deaths for example) are HEAVILY biased by our largely Democrat controlled big city cesspools of crime and depravity. For "rural / suburban, some college, middle income and over, stable family, etc", our numbers are quite a bit better than we are often led to believe.

But this is changing. The top 10% here, in Canada, in England, in Saudi Arabia, etc **WILL** get the "top care in the world" wherever that ends up being. It MAY stay here -- Mayo is certainly gamely TRYING to be a "Destination Medical Center" -- sometimes it is ALL we hear about here in Rochester, and BILLIONS are being spent on that effort.

However, that is ONLY for the top 10%, and even moving to be just the top 1%. The rest of us are now getting used to DECLINING life expectancies. For those of us in the upper 50% of the income grid we already have declining quality of care at HUGELY higher costs, to the tune of many thousands of $$$$ more each year ... not some whimpy "10-20% rise" as there used to be complaints about. No, now we are into the paying $5-10 THOUSAND vs a few hundred in the pre-BOcare rape times.

Our lives will be shorter, but at least most will enjoy them less, so we can take some solace in that. BO seems to have ushered in the "Suicide Generation" with the rates of middle aged white guys killing themselves at levels that were headline news when the guys dying were gays with AIDs. People really cared about AIDs.

Middle aged white guys with no meaning left in their lives? Let's be honest, nobody even wants to hear about it!

The USSR was a great place for "equality" -- everyone was poor! We also know that it wasn't really "everyone" "The Party" is "more equal than others". The Party Chairman can even just get up on national TV and declare new laws because he feels strongly about it. As one time, Americans would have been outraged -- now, we trudge along with our heads down like so many sheep.

Perhaps North Korea or Iran will settle it for us, but I have a strong feeling that our well deserved exit is going to be longer and excruciatingly painful to watch.

BTW. If you do go off and look at the top linked article, they will mention "anti-social hours", you can Learn about anti-social hours in this link. The short version is "it's hours outside of "8-5" weekdays in England.

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Assortive Marriage

The Marriages of Power Couples Reinforce Income Inequality - The New York Times:

Marriage is a giant problem for the left since it is adaptive -- meaning "it works" to create better health, greater happiness, better outcomes for children, better societies and communities, and yes, higher incomes and wealth. I've covered this in more detail before.

It is also exceedingly old news that the biggest determinants of wealth and poverty in the US are:

1. Delaying having children until after marriage
2. Finishing High School
3. Staying married to the same spouse

The left doesn't much like to talk about these facts because their idea is that people have no responsibility for outcomes in their lives and the job of government is to randomize incentives and disincentives so people end up in the same economic state no matter what choices they make.

Naturally, like all ideas of the left, reality continues to cause them problems. It turns out that when it comes to marriage, once you have created a whole bunch of highly educated career women, they have a nasty tendency to marry some guy that is similar to them in education and income! Who could have imagined such a thing! They call this phenomenon "Assortive Marriage"

The numbers show that assortative mating really matters. One studyindicated that combined family decisions on assortative mating, divorce and female labor supply accounted for about one-third of the increase in income inequality from 1960 to 2005. That result is from the economist Jeremy Greenwood, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and other co-authors.

This is startling news to "liberals". It "creates inequality", DAMN!

They don't indicate what they want to try to DO about this ... for fairly obvious reasons. Arranged marriages maybe? 100% tax rate on one partner working over a certain income level? Since they WANT higher income women, perhaps they will declare that the husband of a woman that makes over say "$50 or $100K" can't work -- or just gets taxed at 100%?

No doubt their fertile minds are hard at work to make all equally miserable!


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Rahm, Blue City Canary

Why the Rahm Story Matters - The American Interest:

A good one from Walter Russel Mead.

The biggest problem with Democrat policies is that they don't work for anything but buying votes. They run cities, states and nations into bankruptcy, destroy families, create rampant crime, violence and corruption and destroy productivity -- but other than that, oh, did I mention they are good at buying votes?

The whole article is worth a read, but the closing is right on target.

The increasing fragility of blue cities and states is the biggest problem the Democratic coalition faces. Those who hope that demographic change will create a “permanent Democratic majority” need to think about arithmetic as well as demography. The numbers don’t add up for blue cities. The governing model doesn’t produce the revenue that can sustain it long-term. Making cities work—enabling them to provide necessary services at sustainable cost levels while achieving economic development that rebuilds the urban middle class—is the biggest challenge the Democratic Party faces. As Mayor Emmanuel is learning, that is a daunting task.

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Open Carry TX

Armed Texans Celebrate State’s New Open-Carry Status - The New York Times:

The article fails to address the main reason to have open carry on the books. If you don't, a concealed carrier that inadvertently exposes their weapon can often be charged with "display" or even "brandishing" by an anti-gunner, or just a nervous citizen that happens to see the gun.

Very few people will actually open carry other than in isolated cases to "make a statement". Not a very smart statement in my opinion, but freedoms never really were about "protecting the popular".

The best way to carry is concealed. Let the bad guys worry that nearly everyone is carrying concealed, and they don't have any target to go for if they want to take your gun, often the problem that police face because their guns are right there in the open.

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Occupy Oregon Wilderness Headlines

Militia members occupy federal building in Oregon after protest:

Occupy "Federal Building"? They are apparently in the Visitors Center of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in VERY remote Oregon. How about "Protestors Occupy Remote Visitors Center"? Accurate, but not the narrative the MSM is trying to active.

Why does the headline say "Federal Building"? My guess is that it is an attempt to get people's minds to link back to the Oklahoma City Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah FEDERAL BUILDING by Timothy McVeigh. The media went to extraordinary lengths to link the bombing to "right wing militias", and most likely with a lot of the standard MSM listening sheeple and least somewhat succeeded.

Anyone remember "Occupy Wall Street"? Notice any difference in the kind of  emotional context the MSM wants to bring out in this case vs that? Consider the occupation of the State Capitol in Madison as Walker sought to reduce collusion between government unions and Democrats, Ferguson Missouri, various college campuses and even the 4th Precinct in Minneapolis this past November.

Some will say "These people are ARMED!". Sure, probably, this is WAY RURAL Oregon. Many of the people occupying the previously mentioned things in previous paragraph may have well been armed as well. MN, WI, MO at least are Concealed Carry states. We DO have a 2nd Amendment right to be armed, it is SHOOTING INNOCENTS that is illegal!

Anyone want to bet that if this remote facility was being "occupied" by Indians the story would be a whole lot less prevalent and cast in a WAY different light? Even up in the Minneapolis, many on the left suggested that they should just leave the precinct occupied! Right in downtown Minneapolis. You suppose that holding a remote building in remote Oregon in January is something that authorities could just "wait out" if such was a good idea in downtown Minneapolis?

I wouldn't really recommend going off and reading this ... long, not well edited at all, etc but the bottom line is that for at least decades, the Hammond family has been battling the government who is trying to move them off their land and eminent domain it for "wildlife" (even though the wildlife seems to actually prefer the private land over the federal land). This came to a head with some charges that appear to be EXTREMELY specious relative to some burning done on private lands years ago, which the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) escalated to "terrorism".

The jailing of a couple men from the Hammond family is what brought in the Bundy family who are of some fame from their fight with the BLM in Nevada. Apparently there were some "Militia Members" in a march in Burns OR,  a "city" of 2,700 near the wildlife refuge, but the "occupiers" are just some Bundy people and possibly a couple others. The Hammond family has nothing to do with the Bundys ... they just showed up.

Seriously? This is HEADLINE NEWS in a nation of 300 million people? While Saudi Arabia and Iran have dropped diplomatic relations and are at each others throats partially because of our feckless "agreement" with Iran???

 I keep thinking at SOME point even a large percentage of the sheep will see some of this stuff and go "WTF"????

Apparently not.

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Executive Action Ends Pursuit, Achieves Happiness

At a town meeting this week, Barack Obama announced a comprehensive program on happiness that will begin immediately. The program, called "BOhappy!",  a play on "Be Happy",  is far more comprehensive and far more intelligent than any previous program. The announcement received wide support from Democrats and all media that broadcast the speech. Fox news and a number of AM stations inexplicably were suffering technical difficulties, as well as selective internet sources. We were unable to find any politicians to comment in opposition to the program -- it seemed that a great many of them were still out of town from the holidays.

The text of the speech:

My fellow Americans.

We have succeeded completely in changing this nation to be more hopeful in the last seven years through my many "Smart Changes"(tm). In my last year of office, I'm finishing the job and insuring that Hope remains unshaken, and there are no future attempts to undo the Change that I have provided you through my unprecedented intelligence and leadership ability.

Today, the greatest number of people in our nations history are pursuing their dreams of watching TV and playing internet games rather than wasting their time on worthless college degrees or low paying jobs. We are increasingly a happy and contented nation. Abroad, foreign leaders are so confused they are supporting Donald Trump.

But I'm not satisfied, and it is clear that many of you are not as well. I can't in good conscience leave office with my task not fully finished.

Effective immediately, all people over the age of five will be given mandatory wrist bands similar to the FitBit(tm) to be worn at all times.  Every hour in which the wearer is awake (detected by attitude/motion), the band will buzz, and if the wearer is happy, they will push the "Happy Button" (tm).

Anyone who is not happy over 50% of the time will be immediately enrolled in Free and Mandatory(tm) happiness training. In the event the person is not able to attend the training or the training is ineffective, they will be introduced to one of a series of "Happiness Camps" in remote areas of the country. Here, away from negative stimuli, all the capabilities of modern science and technology can be brought to bear on the cause of this unfortunate condition,

Typically, in a few months, or at most a year, the unhappy person will be returned as a fully happy and supportive citizen. In some cases though, often after a number of failed attempts, it will be clear that this person can really only be happy by permanently remaining in these wonderful facilities dedicated to the happiness of all. I know that we all want our loved ones to be happy, and now we can rest assured that their happiness is certain!

Make no mistake. As has happened so many times, I'm certain there are racist and reactionary elements in the Congress and at Fox News that will seek to undermine this program, or even make specious claims that it is somehow outside the scope of my office to see to it that Americans are happy! These people are our shared enemy, nearly as dangerous as Climate Change! I remind these ideologically driven relics of the past, that the efficacy of this program is scientifically proven! 97% of scientists currently agree that this program will be 100% effective -- and my advisors assure me that the other 3% will be in agreement in less than a month!

Everyone has sought happiness for millennia. It would be wrong to not insure that even my opponents attain a state of bliss, so earlier today I instructed the Secret Service, Homeland Security and the Capitol Police to immediately transport both Houses of Congress, the SCOTUS, and key State Officials from States that we are able to discern have been unable to achieve the happiness we desired for them in the past seven years, to a specialized Accelerated Happiness (AH ... tm) facility in far Northern Saskatchewan. I have reached agreement with Prime Minister Trudeau that extreme isolation is needed to achieve the results we all desire in as short a time as possible. As I speak to you, your representatives and Supreme Court Judges are already well on the way to lives of total happiness!

Polls tell me that intelligent and reasonable Americans have had more than enough of the constant bickering and discord in Washington DC, as certainly have I. Those days are now in the past. The National Science Foundation (NSF), the American Medical Association (AMA), and the National Security Administration (NSA) have assured me that we have the knowledge, methods, technology and information to absolutely insure complete happiness and support from all three branches of government in less than six months.

We have entered a new era where we WILL all finally be in complete and HAPPY agreement! The old idea of "pursuit of happiness" is another false idea from the past, shrouded in superstition and racism. Through my guidance and leadership we have finally reached the greatest day in the history of our nation!

Tonight, I can sign off KNOWING that well before this time next year, 100% of Americans will be completely happy! It goes without saying that I am deservedly proud of my many accomplishments, but tonight I leave you on the threshold of what people of the past, their minds clouded by superstition, racism and waiting fervently for the advent of my leadership, were only able to dream of!

We no longer "wish" or "pursue". Tonight, we KNOW that we WILL have a Happy New Year! I have again exceeded even the highest expectations of those who supported me in creating an America that my wife Michelle and I could  finally take pride in.

Good Night, Happy New Year, and I fully and deservedly accept your thanks for this, my greatest achievement so far!

Sapiens, A Brief History of Humanity

http://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451706273&sr=1-1&keywords=sapiens

"Sapiens" by Yuval Harari, is a bit more thoughtful than standard atheist rendering of the ascent of man, with even some small refreshing hints of humility. It is broad in scope, proposing to cover the story of man from pre-history up through the Cognitive Explosion, agriculture, civilizations, religion, the "Enlightenment" and on through modern times to conjectures of the possibility that our species will pass through a "Singularity" driven by genetic engineering, nanotech, cybernetics or AI that creates a "new species" more "god" than man.

Why? Well, he summarizes the tragedy of that quite well at one point (p 391):

Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if the planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about it's business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence, any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion. The other-worldly meaning medieval people found in their lives was no more deluded than the modern humanist, nationalist, and capitalist meanings of modern people's beliefs. 

The last line of the book,  ending with some trepidation of the potential amoral terror of meaningless power unleashed  is:

Is there anything more dangerous than irresponsible and dissatisfied gods who don't know what they want?

A fitting ending, but my opinion is that he does perform a useful function in pointing out that from the atheist scientific viewpoint, ALL of the religions and ideologies in world history are "imaginary" -- they have to be. This is the lament of Nietzsche as he said "God is dead" -- so Nietzsche suggested that SOMEBODY had better get down to business and form some "new myths", because the old "god myth" in his mind was dead. Fortunately, Nietzsche (and his soulmate, Hitler)  is definitely dead, so his pronouncements are at best "hollow".

I've been over this ground a few times, but it is fairly complex ground, so the fact that humans CAN'T OPERATE beyond "family, clan, tribe" exceeding orders of say 250 people tops UNLESS they have some shared believed order (he calls it "imagined order"). Religion, money, capitalism, democracy, liberalism, communism, human rights, corporations, animal rights (he likes that one, you can tell), nationalism -- they are ALL imagined (at least if you are an atheist, they HAVE to be!). This whole issue is covered well in "Dawin's Cathedral".

He asks a wonderful question on p176:

Was the late Neil Armstrong, whose footprint remains intact on the windless moon, happier than the nameless hunter-gatherer who 10K years ago left her handprint on the wall in Chauvet Cave? If not, what was the point of developing agriculture, cities, writing, writing, coinage, empires, science and industry? 

To which I'd put my tongue in cheek and add Scotch and ZZ Top. He does take the time to stumble around through the problems with "happiness" or "pleasure" as the meaning of life.

If happiness is based on feeling pleasant sensations, then in order to be happier we need to re-engineer our biochemical system. If happiness is based on feeling life is meaningful, then we need to delude ourselves more effectively. Is there a third alternative?

Both the above views share the assumption that happiness is some sort of subjective feeling (of either pleasure or meaning) and that in order to judge people's happiness, all we have to do is ask them how they feel. To many of us that seems logical because the dominant religion of our age is liberalism. Liberalism sanctifies the subjective feelings of individuals. It views these feelings as the supreme source of authority. 

He realizes the fact that "Liberalism" is the dominant religion, and he then points out the fallacy of liberalism. It will be interesting to see if he is spared from some sort of punishment from the liberal hierarchy, or if the fact that he espouses no specific alternative to the state religion gains him clemency. In one specific line he observes,  "Like Satan (who he does NOT believe in), DNA (which he does, and believes to be meaningless) uses fleeting pleasures to tempt people to place them in it's power."  For a non-sentient non-entity DNA, "uses" seems wrong ... "employs"? "infuses"? killing teleology (purpose) is much harder than killing "god", but without God, humans are the only teleological source available ... and so far, we haven't modified our DNA.

He recognizes that there is NO CHOICE but to throw the REQUIRED baby of the ability of humans to cooperate on scales much larger than 250 people out with the "bathwater" of god when you decide that "god is a myth" because certainly that means that EVERYTHING other than hard science is a "myth" (and that is at best an "inductive myth about mechanism ONLY"). It is this intellectual honesty that I find the best feature of the book. He realizes we have to have "myths" that nobody questions -- but he doesn't have any idea how that would be maintained in a truly "advanced" society that in his definition would be "pure science".

I don't completely agree with him that science is exempt from being pitched as well -- it requires a belief in universal order that is only falsifiable according to Popper, so it's "basic truth" is as fragile as the next experiment. Let's not even go into it being "imagined" just like everything else from a human consciousness that is a total mystery, and human perceptions which we are completely unable to check against some "other perception" (whatever that might be!).

He also realizes that science is completely value free -- it has no "right or wrong", it only has "correct / incorrect", "works / doesn't work".  Nuclear bombs or nuclear power are "just technology that works" -- science can say naught about which is "the good / better". It's methods explicitly deny such questions.

He does a good job in "The Prison Walls" (p112) of discussing how "The Imagined Order" is currently maintained ...  it's embedded in the material world (statues, buildings, etc), it shapes our desires (we buy into fabrications like "individualism" and they are so real we can't imagine an alternative, but most of all, it's "intersubjective") ... which he defines as follows:

Objective --  a truth that is OUT THERE" -- like gravity or radiation. Not ignorable by man. It would be there just the same if man ceased to exist.

Subjective -- meaning a truth that exists in the beliefs of one person (a child's imaginary friend)

Intersubjective -- a subjective truth shared by a group of people (money, christianity, human rights, progressivism,  communism,  global warming, ...)

So there you have it -- we are a species possibly on the brink of making ourselves into "superhuman gods", and we have no ideas of meaning, purpose, good/evil, etc beyond "myths" -- none of which the author finds to be apparently worthy of allegiance or even compelling.

He DOES come VERY close to one of my conjectures at one point, but he misses it by a smidgen (p 221), and there is a bit of irony in his pronouncement here considering his last line. Does he realize that he postulates the unleashing on the universe of something much akin to the belief that he finds "logical" about god (evil), but that nobody up to now has had the stomach for?

So monotheism explains order, but is mystified by evil. Dualism (Devil) explains evil, but is puzzled by order. There is one logical way of solving the riddle: there is a single omnipotent god who has created the universe, and he is evil! But nobody in history has had a stomach for such a belief. 

No, there is at least another (and probably many) logical answers -- there are MANY universes and free will is at least one of the engines that causes them to "fork". God created a perfect universe with free will. If we would have followed Gods will, there would be no evil. Evil is simply using free will to do other than what God intended  -- his perfect universe still exists, and he has even sent his Son to allow our now mostly evil one to be saved, which I believe it will be, but unfortunately at the cost of those who reject that option, again using their free will. They will exist for eternity with the result of their own choice (a choice they freely made against God's will).

It's a good read -- it is ultimately depressing if you accept his view that there is no meaning and we are eventually going to be transformed into some new species of angry, confused, capricious "gods", but it does do a better job of covering the challenge of "what is the good" than many books of this type, even though it ultimately gives no answer.

Perhaps it is meant to be the story of unleashing an evil god on the universe -- the one nobody has been willing to stomach.

15 Lefty Narrative Killing Pieces of Reality

15 Stats That Destroy Liberal Narratives - John Hawkins - Page full:





This is the synapsis, more detail in the article as well as links even MORE detail!

1. Muslims are five thousand times more likely to commit a terrorist act than non-Muslims. 
2. It's very hard to support charges that America is "racist" with statistics. 
3. BOcare is expensive and it reduces quality of care
4. BOcare only increased coverage by 2.7%
5. Sanders thinks you can fund $18B in new programs from "the rich" -- you can't 
6. In '10 38K died from drug overdoses while 30K died in car accidents, 13K were murdered and 700 died in gun accidents. 
7. Since '79 our cost on poverty programs has gone of 6x, but the poverty numbers have barely budged
8. In the last 4 years, 121 illegals released by ICE have committed murder. 
9. Since 2000, SNAP (food stamps) has grown from $20B to $80B ... 46.5 million are on it. 
10. Drug offenders make up 16% of state prison population and only 7% of Federal ... Let them ALL out and 84% of state offenders stay and 93% of Federal. 
11. Undocumented Democrats paid $39B in taxes in 2011and used $94B in services. 
12. WaPO thinks there have been 355 "mass shootings" this year. Mother Jones (supposedly FAR left) thinks 4 this year, 73 since '82. 
13. We didn't really bring in Muslims until after 1965
14. Homosexuality is not genetic, and that is WAY more "settled" than Global Warming! 
15. only 4 in 10 of the young entering the workforce last year found jobs

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The "We're Not Worthy" Civilization

Seeing the West as worse - The Orange County Register:

A society that no longer believes in its core beliefs cannot prevail against rivals who, although less wealthy and far less technologically advanced, embrace their core ideals. A West that rejects (and sometimes is unaware of) its own heritage cannot overcome those who, for religious or national reasons, have a powerful belief in theirs.

Seems pretty obvious does it not? What is it that we are supposed to believe in here in "middle north america?". Global Warming and Republicans are the greatest threat to our "civilization"? You mean the baby killing gender confused cult of shopping? THAT "civilization"?

As the great 15th century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun observed, societies that get rich also tend to get soft, both in the physical sense and in the head. Over the past two centuries, Western societies, propelled by the twin forces of technology and capitalist “animal spirits,” have created a diffusion of wealth unprecedented in world history.

Soft in body and soul -- the current essence (such as it is) of the tattered remnant of a once great civilization. The linked article could have been trimmed a good deal in my opinion, but it is generally well done. It closes as follows ...

Ultimately, we can only confront the challenge from authoritarian forces – whether in the Middle East, China or Russia – when we once again embrace our cultural values as important and worthy of protection. Our opponents – and that’s what they are – may be fundamentally weaker than us, but can count on the advantage of belief in their destiny. To save ours, Western culture needs to stay, not be put away.

For those that don't understand the title reference, a bit of comic relief ... because when you have a ringside seat for the end of Western civilization, a little laughter is REQUIRED!

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Truth To Pussies

Back when W Bush was regularly being insulted in every way imaginable by comedians, democrats and the media in this country, the media often used the phrase; "Truth to Power".  Where did that go?

Well, you have to have some "power" if you want to give it some "truth", and after the foggy stench of BO, there is neither. So, the media didn't report it very much a few weeks ago when a retired Lt Colonel referred to our golfer in chief has a "Total Pussy".  It would be an insult if it weren't so true -- as it is, it is just another reminder of how far this once great nation has fallen in just 7 short years. Since we clearly don't have any "Power" in the WH, this is what the guy had to say in a case of total truth to a total pussy:

Mr. President, we're not afraid, we're angry. We're pissed off, we're furious. We want you to react, we want you to do something. He's afraid. He's a total pussy, it's stunning.

We, the American people, who he does not know in any intimate sort of manner, we want action. We want action against Islamic State. 

This is a president who doesn’t want to hurt our enemies. 

This is a president who cares more about thugs in Guantanamo or thugs in Ferguson, MO, than he does about law-abiding American citizens and their right to live in safety and peace.

Back in the days of W, while the media, the democrats and the comedy elite liked nothing better than to poke nasty fun at him,  Iran halted their nuke program for awhile, and Libya gave up their WMD program because they and our own media understood that W had POWER -- they hated it,  but they tacitly admitted it all the time as they spoke of "Truth to Power".

The problem with being a powerless pussy is that nations kick sand in your face -- or not just sand, sometimes they use missiles.

Nothing grabs the attention of the American military like a member of the “axis of evil” firing rockets close to a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the biggest stick in the Pentagon’s massive arsenal. 

That’s just what Iran did Saturday, shooting several unguided rockets about 1,500 yards from the USS Harry S. Truman and a pair of smaller U.S. and French warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

 It takes power, guts, backbone, character, strength, leadership and a bunch of other things BO lacks to make our supposed "big stick" credible. W was credible, and the media unwittingly admitted it, as they now unwittingly admit that BO is not.

The fact that NOBODY uses the "Truth to Power" phrase these days shows us the actual truth.

Governed By Idealistic Idiots

The Reason I’m Anti-Anti-Trump:



The entire column is worth a read -- the bottom line is that the "Empty Chair" that is BO has begat Trump. A sample paragraph ...

"Our government may choose to do many things, such as giving poor children Head Starts, but the much smaller list of things any government must do includes defending the nation’s borders and sovereignty, protecting its citizens, and intimidating its enemies. That 21st-century American government seems neither particularly good at these tasks, nor particularly abashed by its failures, bolsters the Trump campaign’s central message, as distilled by the Atlantic’s David Frum: “We are governed by idiots.” "

I also like his conclusion. The entire column contains a lot of the particular BO follies of the past year that I've covered elsewhere in the blog.

Demagoguery flourishes when democracy falters. A disreputable, irresponsible figure like Donald Trump gets a hearing when the reputable, responsible people in charge of things turn out to be self-satisfied and self-deluded. The best way to fortify Trump’s presidential campaign is to insist his followers’ grievances are simply illegitimate, bigoted, and ignorant. The best way to defeat it is to argue that their justified demands for competent, serious governance deserve a statesman, not a showman.

Hear hear!


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Must Stop New Years From Coming

The time from very late Tuesday the 22nd until the 31st was the shortest and best eight days of my life as we had a wondrous holiday with our little granddaughter, her parents and our youngest son here from Denver. I knew it would be a special Christmas, but was shocked to experience one of the most rare of things in my over intellectualized, overly anxious, and tending to the darker emotions, life. I was treated to the most joyous of surprises as to just how wonderful Christmas could be. I generally dislike surprises -- and often feel concerned even when they are pleasant ones, because I feel I must not have thought adequately to realize this good thing could happen!

Oh, I still managed to "what if" some -- grandpa did a lot of the most careful driving he has ever done, however, unlike falling in love, marriage, having kids, milestones in their life, etc, the wonder and magic of a perfect little granddaughter is such an unalloyed gift that reminds me that God may always have "just one more surprise" in his plans for his children. Even for those who are very much the least deserving of all, which would be me. There are a number of times over the past seven years where I wished that my life had ended earlier because of bad things happening.  I was very wrong ... I would not have been around for those completely undeserved eight days! 

One of the many highlights of the time was the Baptism of our granddaughter, and so the embedded  "Borning Cry" which has become dear to me since becoming a Lutheran. Baptism is a completely undeserved gift, depending on none but Christ -- as is our life, made eternal through the gift of participating in God's Grace. 

It was 2008 before I understood the Lutheran phrase used at death -- "They have left this Vale of Tears".  Sudden younger death holds few advantages, but one is the likely avoidance of learning the impact of what that phrase means. Grandparents, aunts or uncles, pets, etc dying are an introduction to death, but they often fit into "the circle of life" -- the "proper order". "They had a good life" ... "they are at peace now", etc. Such phrases often bring comfort, but not always ... 

Life is even more precious when the "vale of tears" has been experienced. When the rest of your family gets into the car to head to the cities to fly back to Denver with your wife driving, you realize how vulnerable we all are to losses that are all the worse in that they actually are VERY imaginable. 

Some people like to claim that "religion is imaginary",  that there is "no evidence for it". In order to reach that conclusion they must of course not consider how unlikely our existence is, historical evidence for things like the resurrection, etc, but lets just say, OK, it's "imaginary". 

We KNOW that money is all dreamed up by man. Is that real? Capitalism? Communism? Human Rights? Which parts of your important life experience aren't "all in your head"? 

Well, my best Christmas ever is now "all in my head". Will it remain the best that I ever experience? Will tragedy strike and I will again fall prey to wishing it was my last? Will it be my last? Such is the essence of our lives -- poignant, ironic, capricious, indefinite, ethereal, ineffable  ... I'm not about to give up my best Christmas just because it is all in my head -- in fact, it is very very dear to me there -- like my Christianity (if the doubters are right). Sure, the fact that my best Christmas was very much "shared" and is in others heads as well is critical to it being "real" ... same with my Christianity. Same with money ... take a look at times in history when people lose their shared faith in it. Confederate currency anyone? 

So now life goes on with that bittersweet hole in the heart, but also much gratitude to God for allowing me to live to experience that joy. We were able to take her up to see my 89 year old father and get a four generation picture -- considering he was 30 when I was born and I was 31 when my son was born, there is a lot of grace in evidence there! 

Oh how my mom would have loved to hold her! Gods ways are not our ways.  I pray that heaven will wait 100 years at least for that meeting -- and  it will be a great one!

So "New Years Eve came, just the same" (like "The Grinch")  ... and now 2016 has come. 2015 was a year that started in terrible tragedy for us, but from 6/14 on contained a lot of indescribable joy,  and it now slips it's way into being all in our heads (and hearts). 

In childhood, the feeling of "Christmas is over" (and at that time, the INTERMINABLE amount of time until next year!) was a hollow difficult feeling. My parents said "you will grow out of it!" ... and I did, but at the price of Christmas not being as magic and dear as it once was. I was too "grown up" for such childish feelings. 

As my career moved along, there was a similar feeling in going back to work after the holiday break ... that left with the end of working. Then last year was the first year with no kids able to make it home -- a different sense of the holiday that made the loss of my mother touch my heart more as well. Last year was the Christmas of the missing. 

Now I've come full circle for at least one year, to have not "grown out of it" after all! My soul feels that there is a major message of life there -- to know great joy is to know great sadness, there are no peaks without valleys. To enter Heaven we must be "as a little child" -- it seems that God has given me a great lesson in understanding that truth! 

Trumping A Conservative Party

If Trump wins the nomination, prepare for the end of the conservative party - The Washington Post:

When one steps back and looks at the bigger historical picture, certain crisis and cleavages at least appeal to trying to make sense of things. Perspective will always vary, and history is never tidy, so caution is required.

In the linked column, George Will channels his (in my opinion justified), disdain for Trump into a potential ending of the current Republican party. It is worth reading, but in general I do not agree with all that much of it.

His short history includes Teddy Roosevelt's attempt to convert the Republican party from a somewhat conservative party into a "progressive" party, failing, running under the "Bull Moose Party" banner and giving us Woodrow Wilson as a result. Wilson was the most "progressive" anti-Constitutional president up until BO. A little background on that debacle is covered in "Liberal Fascism" . The idea of a "conservative party" was preserved in Will's mind, but it was far from pure.

Will then considers the Goldwater run the point at which the Republican Party became a "true conservative party". I disagree ... we elected Nixon twice. Nixon took us off the gold standard, founded the EPA, agreed with Keynesian spending, put in wage and price control, and went to China -- none of which are in any way "conservative".

Reagan TALKED about being conservative, but given the entrenched D congress he had to deal with, he settled for ending the USSR and lived with huge deficits and a giant FICA tax increase! HW Bush raised taxes ... nuff said. W Bush created a vast new medicare drug program.

Reagan DID slow the GROWTH of government spending, but Newt and the '94 congress were the only truly "conservative influence" that the R's have managed to muster in a LONG time ... and it requires some twiddling on what one means by "republican".

The Republican party of Lincoln was ANYTHING but "conservative"! It wielded vast centralized government power and FORCE in order to edict it's will upon the South. While my review of the book "The Conservative Mind" doesn't go into much on that aspect, the book does in it's discussion of the effects of the Civil War on the conservative principle of states rights.

We really have to go back to Jefferson and Madison to find a "smaller government" party, that interestingly enough was called "The Democratic Republican Party" -- for it wanted small government AND more democracy, while the Federalists (Washington, Hamilton, Adams, ...) wanted more government and more centralized government.

A major source of our problems is our loss of understanding of the human condition, and the ultimate conservative position of "transcendence" -- ultimately correct values over "what looks/feels good today" which comes from "man being the measure of all things". This is possibly best and most succinctly covered in "The Ethics of Rhetoric".

So in summary, I disagree with Will that we have REALLY had a "conservative party as a constant presence", but I agree that Trump is a clear marker post on the fall of man and the specific fall of what was America. While not "likely", I consider it "possible"  that Trump may win, and in fact, I'd claim it hard to really explain "who is worse"? Yes, both are exceedingly bad, but it is more a question of "What do you hate worst" ... complete fecklessness, total incompetence, total disdain for vast swaths of the American public (R's) that you declare them "enemies" in the same class as ISIS (Hillary) ... or Trump, which the article and day to day media now castigate with justified regularity.

So, I think things are already a lot worse than Will seems to think for "conservatives" ... and given his thought that we have had a "consistent conservative presence" in the R party for a long time, I question what he means by the term "conservative" ... (here is what I mean if you need a refresher).

His closing ...

 "In 2016, a Trump nomination would not just mean another Democratic presidency. It would also mean the loss of what Taft and then Goldwater made possible — a conservative party as a constant presence in U.S. politics"

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Hawaii Names Empty Chair for BO?

Hawaii can’t seem to name anything after native son Obama - The Washington Post:

"Like all of the previous Obama naming efforts, however, it has gone nowhere. This week, the first family returned to Hawaii for their eighth straight vacation here since Obama was elected president in 2008. "

What is the matter with Hawaii? Don't they have any prisons, sewer plants or refuse dumps? Perhaps they have a windmill, gasification plant  or an abandoned building somewhere? It sounds like they DID attempt to name a vacant lot after him -- that would have been appropriate.

Perhaps they could create a "Chair" at one of the universities, commonly done at places like Harvard, Oxford, etc  as in "The Lucasian Mathematics Chair" at Oxford, once held by Sir Isaac Newton, currently held by Stephen Hawking.

This could be the "BO Chair" and it would always be empty!

Strange that Kenya is having better success, but they have good reason! They can be thankful that BO was never THEIR leader!

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