Tuesday, July 14, 2015

"Escaping" Our God Given or Random Advantage

I tried to escape my privilege with low-wage work. Instead I came face to face with it. - The Washington Post:

The author of the column definitely successfully escaped any advantage he had as a writer -- or probably he just never had any natural advantage (talent) in that area. Either God created a system in which those with advantages flourish, or such a system arose out of the chaos of randomness for unknown reasons. In any case, advancement, and even survival demands that advantage be discerned from disadvantage and the advantages be utilized toward what those with working advantages deem proper  -- either to follow the will of God, or to just thumb our noses in the face of a cold and random cosmos.

There must however be a "human lemming" switch built in somewhere that forces a human culture, once it has achieved sufficient (clearly temporary in the US case) dominance, to declare itself "unfit / unworthy" and go the suicide way. Let me "escape" any advantage I have -- certainly my "privilege".

Somehow I can't see a cheetah cursing it's speed and deciding to wear weights on its ankles because it has "a speed privilege it can't escape". It is absolutely clear that Vladimir Putin is not soon going to wash his hands of health, wealth and a strong character just because he feels bad for what a weak fool BO is. ISIS is likewise not going to be giving up any of their advantages just because BO thought they were "JVs", but now says "it will take a wider and longer approach" to defeat them. Apparently the US has REALLY been successful in giving up any military advantage we might have had -- we are now locked in a long term undefined struggle with the "JV team"!

I'm quite certain our "friends" the Iranians will sort out the mideast to whatever form they feel to be their advantage once they successfully have the bomb -- with nary even a first thought, let alone a second, of if they are justified in using their nuclear privilege, so generously bequeathed by their benefactor BO!

The race goes to the swiftest, the strongest, the smartest, or sometimes just to those that wait for fools to hand over the advantages they have with no thought that tomorrow's "privileged" may not be so inclined to benevolence.

In fact, one needent read much Islam to KNOW for certain that our options are "convert or die" -- they are more than fine with either choice.

Hope and Change indeed.

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BO Ally Against Arrogance Rises

“Evil Never Sleeps” | Power Line:

The remaining tatters of the once great US are "the evil that never sleeps" to BO's anointed mideast nuclear regional power. In complete agreement with BO's analysis of his "Dreams" book, the US and the western powers have been "arrogant" -- so the world can be made much better by taking them down a peg -- or two or three.

Israel? After his buddies in Tehran have stated so many times that they WILL reduce it to radioactive ashes, one must assume that BO shares that as the proper "justice" for the Jewish state -- finding blacks that are not virulently anti-semitic has always been a challenge. In Jeremiah Wright's church, the evil of the Jew was nearly as damnable as "God damn America!". A suicidal nation picks it's means of destruction and calls it "choice".

Iran's own state news says it best -- it must be a banner day for anti-colonialists everywhere to see a former British Colony and US ally before it's abandonment by Carter rising to the inevitable destruction of Israel -- yet another British creation. Britain was the power that BO's grandfather and father fought against -- how sweet for BO who pledged himself to pick up their task crying on their graves.

The impending collateral damage of 8-10 million jews as Israel gives its life to the nuclear victory pyre as Iran rises will no doubt be a day of even greater glory for BO.

In the words of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, “The campaign against arrogance is one of the principles of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the Holy Quran mandates the drive against arrogance.”
Within this context, there should be no respite from the campaign against arrogance, even after the conclusion of the nuclear talks with the P5+1 group (the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China).
It is hard to imagine, but I'm sure there will be those who claim "shock" the day the mushroom rises over the Holy Land -- I can't accept their sincerity.

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Monday, July 13, 2015

Climate "Surprise", Geothermal Heats Glaciers!

Natural geothermal heating in melt-hit Antarctic region 'SURPRISINGLY high' • The Register:

The "settled scientist" has to live either a life of only looking at computer model data in a darkened room, or be forced to face a number of "surprises". So the shock when they discover that geothermal heat melts ice! Who would have imagined it! ?

The life of "settled science" one of "strange happenings" -- when you KNOW that the planet is heating, you can be forced into a situation of "no explanation" for why sea ice would be expanding from already record (in very short history, like < 100 years) levels.

I mean, they KNOW that the temps are rising, so it is indeed a complete mystery as to why more ice is being created!

When your hypothesis/theory becomes an article of "settled religions faith", data which fails to fit your hypothesis/theory can't be explained!

Thus proving that whatever man holds to be his "highest good" becomes "religion" -- of which, "science" is a very poor compared to Christianity.

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Thursday, July 09, 2015

BOcare For Housing AFFH

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule Passes | National Review Online:

AFFH ... Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing ... 377 pages.

In true Lutheran fashion, What does this mean?

It means that red voting areas in blue states are about to turn blue. Take MN 6th distrifct, the one that Michelle Bachman held. It is a red district in a blue state that is NOT DIVERSE!

AFFH will move "the right kind of voters" into the 6th until it IS "diverse" (BLUE!) ....  better yet, in some "low density areas" (read suburbs with large lots and houses), a few  McManshions will be eminent domained (see Kelo ruling by SCOTUS in 2005) and a nice high rise for low income housing of proper diversity will be put up!

No need to do this in proper limosine liberal suburbs with huge homes -- eg BO's Hyde Park Chicago neighborhood. Already BLUE! (generally lilly white as well save the BO family, BUT ... no need to "diversify" -- already BLUE!).

A TWO-Fer! Punish your enemies in red by lowering the property values in their neighborhood, PLUS, turn a red neighborhood blue! Of course it is RACIST to say that building a high rise full of low income voters in the middle of a low density neighborhood will lower home values! Heck, it may even be "hate speech" to claim such that can get you locked up!

Over the slightly longer term, this is a major part of the strategy to lock blue in everywhere -- why not move a couple thousand "Undocumented Democrats" into a few key districts outside of say Oklahoma City? No voter ID, instant blue!

Law? We don't need no stinkin law -- we have HUD!




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What Color Is Your Socialism?

Socialism on the Left: It's White| National Review Online:

As we now have an actual admitted socialist out on the campaign trail (Bernie Sanders ... BS, appropriate initials!)

The linked article is a worthy read. I'm reminded of people who have detailed plans for what they will do "when they win the lottery". The American Left is like those people -- they believe that they are building a Scandinavian future right here -- with millions of brown people constantly streaming across the border from the south right in the midst of their imagined "progress". I agree with the following paragraph, although it isn't OCCASIONALLY -- it is common.
The Left occasionally indulges in bouts of romantic exoticism — its pin-ups have included Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Mao Zedong; we might even count Benito Mussolini, “that admirable Italian gentleman” who would not have been counted sufficiently white to join Franklin Roosevelt’s country club — but the welfare states that progressives dream about are the whitest ones: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc. The significance of this never quite seems to occur to progressives. When it is suggested that the central-planning, welfare-statist policies that they favor are bound to produce results familiar to the unhappy residents of, e.g., Cuba, Venezuela, or Bolivia — privation, chaos, repression, political violence — American progressives reliably reply: “No, no, we don’t want that kind of socialism. We want socialism like they have it in Finland.”
Translation: “We want white socialism, not brown socialism!”
While our US socialists like BO, BS, Hilly, etc like to talk about "diversity", what they mean is "Everyone must think exactly alike". When your political and world view are based on fantasy, fiction and a total lack of consistency, it seems totally reasonable to postulate a nation where a racially, ethnically and culturally diverse population will cheer in wild unity like those beaming throngs of National Socialist Germans once did, or at least quietly and efficiently comply like the throngs of Finns, Swedes, Danes, etc today. A not very close look at any of those adoring masses of socialist utopia would give pause to any but those who hold to the radically inconsistent and fabulist creed of modern american liberalism.
Socialism and welfare-statism, like nationalism and racism, are based on appeals to solidarity — solidarity that is enforced at gunpoint, if necessary. That appeal is more than a decent-hearted concern for the downtrodden or the broad public good. It is, rather, an exclusionary solidarity, a superstitious notion that understands “body politic” not as a mere figure of speech but as a substantive description of the state and the people as a unitary organism, the health of which is of such paramount importance that individual rights — property, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of association — must be curtailed or eliminated when they are perceived to be insalubrious.
No doubt in the minds of the fabulists, the idea that "successful socialism" is ethnically homogeneous is racist -- pay no attention to past or existing examples! Indeed, paying no attention to reality and calling your opponents nasty names is one of the chief cornerstones of the left.

The idea that different groups of people -- even different religions! might think and behave differently can be BOTH celebrated on one hand, and discounted on the other once all need for even minimums of logical consistency are abandoned -- and so it is for the modern american liberal!

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Wednesday, July 08, 2015

Reality Has Failed, Piketty Demands Fantasy

Austerity Has Failed: An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel | The Nation:

"Austerity has failed" ... and probably gravity, truth, death, the passage of time and aging with it!

I've read most of the celebrated on the left Piketty book, "Capital" ... it is an academic dream, lots of data and sweeping conclusions that have little to do with the data or any real world principles. It's primary weakness is that it fails (as the whole left seems to) to understand that "Capitalism" as in "the free exchange of goods and services for mutual benefit" wasn't created by humans -- it is simply part of our existence, like walking, language, heterosexulal sex, etc. It can to some degree be controlled or modified -- like gravity, truth, death, etc, but only at great cost and like nature, it will "find a way" -- as the black (but capitalist) market always does when the state attempts to control markets, no matter how draconian the measures.

What has REALLY failed (as it always does) is SOCIALISM -- which is completely UNnatural, but it is what the left and Piketty like, so they really really hate to see it fail.

Thus, they want to hide the failure and stave off the ultimate reckoning -- as they always do. Thus loan forgiveness, more loans, longer terms, more highly paid bureaucracy to "control it better this time", etc, etc.

People enjoy spending other people's money, so they get really cross when they run out of it and have to face "austerity" -- if they can avoid it, they will! So the hopeful Greeks with guys like Piketty cheering for them loudly cry "GIVE US OUR FREE STUFF!!!!".

The true anthem of Socialism.

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Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Taking The Soul Hole

The New Totalitarians Are Here:

As we in the central region of N America bend to the lash of our betters, we need to know whom we serve. Are they authoritarians or totalitarians?
Simply put, authoritarians merely want obedience, while totalitarians, whose rule is rooted in an ideology, want obedience and conversion.
As we look at the Confederate flag issue as well as gay "marriage", it is clear that our ruling elite is of the totalitarian stripe -- mere fealty is not sufficient, our "hearts and minds" must yield to their superiority. We must love them as well as serve them!

So know what it takes to survive in this brave new land without rule of law.
They want obedience, of course. But even more, they want their rule, and their belief system, to be accepted and self-sustaining. And the only way to achieve that is to create a new society of people who share those beliefs, even if it means bludgeoning every last citizen into enlightenment. That’s what makes totalitarians different and more dangerous: they are “totalistic” in the sense that they demand a complete reorientation of the individual to the State and its ideological ends. Every person who harbors a secret objection, or even so much as a doubt, is a danger to the future of the whole project, and so the regime compels its subjects not only to obey but to believe.
It is not enough to admit defeat -- the terms of this surrender must be total. You must love your new earthy god with "all your heart and all your mind".  While the modern progressive statist admits to no eternal soul, they definitely take the hole left when they force you to renounce your soul to join them.
Most of all, they do not want you, Present Reader, to even think about agreeing with people like Thomas or Young. By attacking everyone in the public sphere from judges to writers, they’re sending a clear warning that there’s plenty of room in the bonfire. It is a vow that you will be held to account for your personal thoughts, even if you’ve already been defeated in a democratic or judicial contest.
No, even after losing, you will be forced to admit the error of your ways. You must accept that you’ve sinned. You must discard your own values and accept the ideas of your betters. You must denounce yourself for undermining the construction of a better world. 
You, too, must love Big Brother.

Riding, Helmets, Viva la Vida

Uneasy Rider: Boomer Deaths in Motorcycle Crashes Jump - WSJ:

A couple of things bring this topic up. The most recent is a 320 mi up and back Wing ride to Barron WI  on Sunday along with being in IA for the 4th weekend where the ABATE rally was being held at Algona in the area we were at.  Hundreds of bikers on the road without helmets.

Riding up to Barron and back via the scenic route I saw at least 50 bikes -- maybe a handful had helmets. I was most impressed by being behind a nice burnt-orange Harley Electra Glide style who was behind a slower vehicle in hard to pass country. When we finally got an opening, he pulled out and I hit the gas and immediately closed the gap and considered just going around him as well for a second, but decided "I'm already at 80 MPH ... where is the fire? So pulled in behind.

Helmetless, he apparently was headed for a fire -- I hung with him for a bit as he slowly crept the speed up to at least 90 -- I was already back in 5th and just went back down to 64.999999. He continued blasting down the highway and disappeared. Apparently as unconcerned about tickets as his head.

BTW, I was glad that I didn't do much for speeding this weekend -- on a road in IA with VERY little traffic where the speed trap was SHOCKING, there was a county mounty with the radar that gave me the flat hand pushed down and flipped the lights on but stayed sitting for my 64.9999 in the 55 in the Avalanche. Saw four other cops set up and met a few more in both IA and WI, so the troops were out of the 4th weekend!

The second incident of impetus was on the leg home as part of a nice 360 mile jaunt up to Barron a week ago with my wife that included a great run through Somerset WI, Hudson, River Falls, Prescott and down the WI side on 35. On the S side of Pepin WI, just after acclerating back up to 60ish, a white pickup made a swerve for me ... the snake brain (unconcious automatic reflexes) worked properly and rapidly, I swerved immediately right (I was in the left side of the S bound lane with wife on the right) and nothing happened -- good shot of adrenalin for both the wife and I, and life went on.

So a little data from the linked article ...
The number of motorcycle deaths per 100 million miles traveled trended down to 23.4 in 2012 from 38.8 in 2003, U.S. government data show.
The rate for cars is 1.5 deaths per 100 million miles -- so like at least 20x more dangerous to be on a bike in raw data. From other stats, one can cut the risk by close to half by wearing a helmet (10x), another close to half by not drinking (5x), and another close to half by not driving at night. So MAYBE something like 2.5x as risky -- MAYBE ... I'm being optimistic by addiung the effects. 10x is more likely as "safe" as a bike gets. 

But all that is not really how our human brains work.

My mental makeup is pretty close to the "scaredy cat limit for riding a motorcycle" -- my trust level for other drivers is darned near zip even in a car and approaches "paranoid" on a bike -- especially after things like the white truck incident.

I believe that people with the "fighter pilot, surgeon, NFL QB" kind of brain get MORE confident when they successfully avoid a "close one" like the white truck -- they look at it as "see, I have what it takes". I  look at it as "damn, I'm glad the snake brain didn't screw up THAT time, but I STILL don't trust it!".

I strongly suspect that the 90+% of the bikers with no helmets that I saw on the roads this past weekend enjoy their rides more than I do because they are confident that they will not be one of those bad statistics -- they will get their 10k, 50k, 100K, or even million lifetime miles on bike with nothing very bad happening to them because they are GOOD and LUCKY! -- but they mostly don't think about it at all and just enjoy the ride, which I actually believe is the much better attitude.

But that isn't me! I do enjoy the ride (with some fear) --- but what I REALLY enjoy are the glorious memories of the rides.The emotional joy of being able to completely beleive that "I'm going to be OK" and riding down the road with the wind in your hair (or your scalp in my case) is a joy that I'll never know in this life -- and I'm jealous of that on occasion, but I'm wired as I'm wired.

Statistics have real limitations for us as individuals -- cancer, heart disease, accidents, Alzheimers, etc -- none of us get out of life alive. So we live -- as best we can, but still imperfectly. Some may be certain that when that last moment comes that St Peter will (or won't) call their name, but I'll just have to go on in HOPE!  Such is the lot of the Moose, who most assuredly never has and never will rule the world.

"Viva la Vida" (Live Life) !




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Sanctuary, Shit and Sheep

The deep meaning of San Francisco | Power Line:

Detroit, Baltimore, Ferguson (St. Louis) ... we KNOW the results of the D policies, but somehow the descent of once great cities into reeking LITERAL shitholes on top of the death and despair is kept quite quiet.  When all that is meaningful in life is removed and replaced by depravity, the descent of the human animal nature into the lowest of forms is quick and certain.

So this past weekend we see 10 killed and 55 wounded on the streets of Chicago. The news of this and the young woman killed in SF by a 7 time convicted felon and 5 time deportee, walking the streets of a "sanctuary city" as an Undocumented Democrat (illegal alien). The city is a "sanctuary" for shooting innocents and shitting on the street -- decent folk need to get the hell out as they did from Detroit decades ago.

The linked article is well worth the read -- and even taking a quick gander of the articles it links to that show that some of the little folk in SF are getting to be a bit nonplussed at the results of their royalty left wing ruling class in the limos. The AC filters out the stench of the policies the left imposes.

40 years ago at the end of the sick, slimy sad seventies, people were finally FED UP! They were angry at the decline, the crime, the filth, the loss of US stature and the Carter statements of turning off your Christmas lights and turning down your heat because the world was out of oil.

Enough of the WWII generation was still vigorously around, and the Boomers were even able to put down the weed and the beads long enough to decide that maybe it was time to DO SOMETHING! Reagan was elected, the direction was changed and we had a 25 year rebirth of an America that was quite stunning -- it didn't reach the moon, but at least it tore down that wall!

But this time the fire seems to have gone out. One might think that Americans would be more inclined to stand up to rag-headed desert vermin that rape little girls and hack the heads off people in orange jumpsuits  than we were to stand up to Russian commies that built ugly walls but sent mostly their own people to die off in gulags for saying the wrong thing -- but one would be wrong.

Today, WE at least figuratively send folks off to the virtual gulag for not baking certain cakes (gay) or baking others (confederate) ... or saying the wrong word, flying the wrong flag, or such. Today we by and large do what we are told -- and that is NOT what it once meant to be an American! This little image covers it well -- being American once meant STANDING UP TO POWER -- now it means the silence and compliance of the lambs.



Superman once fought for "Truth, Justice and The American Way". Today "truth" is largely what the left says it is, and questioning it is a major social sin. "Justice" has been perverted into the government taking money from the people that earn it and giving it to those that don't. What WOULD the "American Way" be today? Certainly not working hard. Certainly not creating a successful business ("you didn't build that"). Absolutely not faith in God ... "Country"? What **IS** "country" with no respect for a written Constitution by the POTUS or SCOTUS?

So we are left with "Sanctuary and Shit" ... and the Sheep are silent in the belt of territory between Canada and Mexico.

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Monday, July 06, 2015

Sacred Elephant Facts Frames Emotions

MOST of us find it mind-boggling that some people seem willing to ignore the facts — on climate change, on vaccines, on health care — if the facts conflict with their sense of what someone like them believes. “But those are the facts,” you want to say. “It seems weird to deny them.”
And yet a broad group of scholars is beginning to demonstrate that religious belief and factual belief are indeed different kinds of mental creatures. People process evidence differently when they think with a factual mind-set rather than with a religious mind-set. Even what they count as evidence is different. And they are motivated differently, based on what they conclude. On what grounds do scholars make such claims?
The big devil in the detail of all epistemology (study of knowing and what is knowable) is that it all must be done using human brains. We have no idea of how many vast unknown fallacies we face that are in the nature of the fish, or better yet, coral, contemplating the concepts wet/dry. All of our thinking about thinking is done with the same limited human brain.

I'm going to VASTLY oversimplify here, but maybe just a tiny bit less than the column author.

First of all, we ALL do our thinking from a specific "World View"  (WV) -- it is our "meta-model" of God and man, who we trust, our language, our culture, our values, our experiences, our friends, organizations we are part of, our politics, our gender, rural / urban, level of education and what form -- etc, etc. Our WV is essentially "who we are", and for all of us it is unconsciously there all the time, and for a few of us, we are able to at least recognize that it exists.

The author of the column is apparently not able to do so. Our WV **IS** our real religion -- we BELIEVE IT! All of us! She believes pronouncements of science on warming / vaccines and no doubt a number of things are FACTS. A few months ago when the NIH decided that cholesteral wasn't near as bad as they thought it had been for 50 years, she might have felt a "twinge" -- or even more likely, she just didn't pay any attention to it. It was for her exactly like a religious believer dealing with some doctrine of their faith that they find "troubling / questionable". I say exactly because we all consider our WV true by DEFINITION!

Everything we "know" is "known" and understood in some sort of a "Frame" -- which I covered relative to the book "Don't Even Think About an Elephant" ... and a number of other posts around that one.

For ANY of us to be able to critique our own WV or our various "frames" is like learning a new language, a new computer operating system, complex skill, etc -- it is PAINFUL! Rather than automatically "knowing the truth / facts", we become PAINFULLY aware that even the simplest elements of what we are CERTAIN of can be very very hard to defend if we are faced with either a real event that shakes our WV, or exposed to someone who brings some element of our WV into question.

You KNOW what red is, but to explain it to a blind person gives a little idea of how hard it is to step outside of your WV / Frames. 

For most of two thousand years the dominant WV with many interelated frames was "Western Christian Civilization" -- the universe was created by an omnipotent, omnicient, omnipresent God for a purpose -- partially to allow humans the joy of life and fellowship with God, and most likely for other purposes beyond the capability of man to comprehend from our mortal and fallen state. For myself, and other people that the author of the column looks down on, all that is still true.

For the column author -- and an increasing number of especially the political left though, god is dead, the universe is cold and beyonnd indifferent -- to man, life, or anything. There is no ultimate purpose save man getting "smarter" and creating "better stuff" -- technology, governments, pastimes, ideas about how to live -- on his own with no reference to history, philosphy, and certainly not to "religion". Any "heaven" to happen will be here on earth, due to "progress" -- of which the moderns like the author strangely believe is for somehow "destined" (randomly I guess) to "better", although it becomes harder and harder to imagine how one might arrive at that value judgement. (like what "values" count except power?)

No doubt for the column author (as for all of us), emotion is involved. I wonder how she thinks of GMO's? Many of the left have a reaction to them which is possibly more anti-science than questioning climate change -- humans after all CLEARLY created GMOs, climate historically changed a good deal without us.

As the GMO column points out, fear is possibly an explanation for the GMO reaction. It is also a common method used to hold people in thrall to beliefs like "Anthropogenic Gobal Warming" (AGW) -- "Thou must follow the high priests of AGW or thine children will burn in the hell of AGW"! A not too clever thinker might note that this sort of sermon varies little from "Sinners in the hand of an angry God" of times past.
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Since all religions are made up of humans, it is really not too hard to see parallels. In the liberal AGW religion, the flock need modify their lifestyle not at all for the forseeable future -- "the wealthy", or "the oil companies" or "someone else" will provide propitiation for their computers, internet, jet flights to warm climates for the winter (no irony there), etc.

To  be human is to have a religion (WV), worship and attempt to follow it's tenets. The PRIMARY tenet of all religions is to declare your faith! The author of the column is doing well at that. For many religons -- Islam, National Socialism, Communism, Secular Humanism, etc, disparaging, persecuting and even killing non-adherents is dogma. The author is doing a bit of that as well.

Christianity has a REAL difference there which held Western Civilization in really good stead -- "Love your neighbor as yourself". Now THAT is a REALLY different concept in a WV -- a damned inhuman one!

No matter what your WV, knowing you have one and trying to realize just how natural it seems, and how the Frames that you have picked up or had foisted on you force your brain down pre-determined paths. Magicians, marketers, politicians and many others know how to manipulate your WV and Frames -- you should know as well and understand what they are doing.

Don't even think of an elephant!

(bet ya did -- if not, please check in as not being human!)


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Cheering The Descent to Poverty -- Greece

These 7 Yanis Varoufakis Quotes Show Why We’ll Miss Him | TIME:

The quotes are kind of enjoyable -- as is the whole spectacle of Greece and the rest of the Western World slowly discovering the truths in simple nursery rhymes like "The Ant and the Grasshopper" and "The Emperor's New Clothes" or aphorisms like "Sooner or later you run out of other people's money" is at least comforting in that the world still works as we know it does.

Naturally, those on the left do not believe in the surly bonds of reality -- here is a link to the debt crisis explained in less than 100 words... but it really takes less than that.
  1. Greece has a nice socialist economy -- lots of aid to poor-middle class, lots of cushy high paid government jobs, tough on business and wealth. 
  2. Business and wealth flee the country -- and what doesn't hunkers down. 
  3. Financial crises comes (2008) ... income dries up even more, more people in trouble -- need loans and "bailouts". 
  4. Creditors demand change -- less government spending, higher broader based taxes. 
  5. Anger, denial, the vote this past weekend. 
  6. Poverty 
It's a very old story in many forms from individuals, businesses and governments. Living high on the hog on credit is good until the bills come due.

They always come due.

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Thursday, July 02, 2015

Will Israel Save America? A Worthy Read

Will Israel Save America? – Tablet Magazine:

This is worth taking the time to read -- real thought, real history, real unavoidable truth for consideration by mortal people to humble themselves enough to at least recognize their mortality and their limits both individually and collectively. History is full of examples of the pain caused by humans failing to do this -- to choose "men as Gods" (kings -- dictators, 5 people in robes).

A little teaser -- but the essence can't really be shortened very much.
One does not have to view Israel’s accomplishments through a theological mirror to understand what the Jewish State tells us about statecraft. Freedom does not arise from the mere presence of democratic institutions, as we learned in Iraq, or from bursts of popular enthusiasm, as we learned in the Arab Spring, or from participation in elections, as we learned when Hamas swept the 2006 West Bank elections. It depends on the radical commitment to the premise that a higher power than human caprice is the ultimate arbiter in civic life. It requires willingness to take existential risk. That is the Jewish principle in politics, the civil content of the Sinai covenant, and the basis for the American Founding. To the extent we have forgotten this, the people who stood at Mount Sinai still are there to remind us. If we reject this reminder, we will un-choose ourselves as Americans.


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Mindless SCOTUS / Religion Meme

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207283969040245&set=a.1082209898215.2014464.1315355655&type=1&fref=nf&pnref=story

This has popped up on a few lefties FB feeds. It is inane, pedantic and false -- so appealing to leftists, but it may confuse some, So a few words.

First the really easy standard lies:
In fact, one religious party believing they know the truth for all humans is how terrible oppression starts - that is how Naziism started, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, the Klu Klux Klan, Al-Qaeda and now ISIS - the most destructive, hateful, murderous periods of human history have arisen directly out of one religious group (ironically, most of these examples were lead by Christians) believing their religion and religious beliefs were THE truth, and therefore they had the right to take away the rights (and lives) of those who lived or believed differently than them.
Naziism had nothing to do with religion other than Hitler hated Jews -- but as a "race", not particularly a religion. The Crusades were a DEFENSIVE action -- Islam was the aggressor party, once they were in France, Christendom finally woke up. The other items listed are pretty much "noise" -- humans like to do stupid and often violent things independent of creed (read the column), we could point out equal and longer lists on the left -- without even counting abortion.

The bottom line is this paragraph shows the author as a hater of Christians so her comments directed at such ought be taken in that context. The LEFT (meaning centralized state control) is the champion killer by FAR after the 20th century with over 100 million dead -- Communist, National and other Socialists. They KNOW they have "the truth" -- just like the column author, and their "truth" quite commonly sets millions of souls free from their earthly body in a violent fashion. Why not? They have no moral foundation beyond "might is right" -- and the author wants to make sure there is no "law" save power to stand in the way of their promethean objectives.

The problem with the whole article is just that -- "truth and power". The old US was founded a set of ENUMERATED WRITTEN RIGHTS that were "endowed by our creator" -- therefore transcending human power. Without something being transcendent -- God, a document, laws, then POWER is what determines "morality" -- might **IS** right! The SCOTUS gay "marriage" ruling is pure POWER. Our "truth" once transcended "man" (as in 9 in robes) -- and the earthy power was reserved to the people (often people too "Christian" for the author's taste, thus the preference for statist power)

"Marriage" was not one of those enumerated rights in our Constitution  -- so it was therefore left to States and Localities to determine. **IF** it was determined that a Constitutional Right to marriage was desired, the procedure to attain that in what was America was a Constitutional Amendment -- 2/3 of both houses of congress (or a convention), ratification by 3/4ths of the states. That was law.

What any law abiding person -- Christian or no, should be concerned about is the SCOTUS itself being lawless as it has on this and other cases -- Roe V Wade being the prime example. Slavery was abolished by the 13th-15th Amendments -- the law of the land was followed! Women received the vote via the 19th Amendment ... legally! To compare what just happened with real rule of law is dangerous ignorance -- or possibly blatant lies to mislead the less intelligent.

The gay "marriage" ruling was NOTHING to do with "church and state" nor the establishment clause -- and the SCOTUS never claimed that it did. Purely a fantasy of the author of the piece. Lots of wasted text.

The combination of lack of knowledge and basic reason on the part of the author of the piece is breathtaking -- although, I strongly suspect that a thinly veiled rage against Christians is really what is speaking here.
Rights are not and should not be up for a popular vote or up to the states to determine. Rights are absolute and cannot be dependent upon anything other than the fact that the person is a human being and is a citizen of the US. If those two conditions are met, YOUR belief system about what is MORALLY or spiritually right or wrong does not matter and should not. You should be glad that is the case, because it would be just as easy for another religion to take over and curtail your rights as a Christian (something that has happened throughout history).
If the author has a belief system, it must be that "government is great, government is good -- and we trust that it and it's practitioners are omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent".  We DID have a written Constitution based on "self evident truths" and "being endowed by our creator". We HAD a rule of law, not of men -- complete with a known procedure to amend the sacred document if such was needed over time -- and we DID it for things like slavery and women's suffrage!

To equate 5 people in robes conjuring a new "right" out of thin air with the actual amendments that abolished slavery and women's suffrage is to show a level of willful ignorance that proves us to no longer be worthy of the freedom to govern ourselves. "Religion" is not what the winsome lass ought be concerned about -- what 5 people in robes giveth, 5 people in robes can take away! Without respect to anything save raw power, and THAT is the power that definitely corrupts!

When we had a country called America, the authors concerns about "somebody's morals mattering" were pretty much correct -- it was LAW that mattered, and if you wanted a RIGHT, there was a LEGAL PROCEDURE to achieve that called a Constitutional Amendment.

What the author of the piece exhibits is a bigoted and poorly informed outlook with little ability to reason. It is no wonder -- our schooling has for the last 50-100 years been turning out robotic crowd following mental serfs with no concept of critical thought -- and often even no thought of doing even a Google on a fact or two rather than just making it up. Memes like this are driven by nothing deeper than knee jerk adherence to the mass "word of the day" in true Orwellian fashion.

"It made me feel good when I read it, so it MUST be true!".

So, if you see this noxious meme -- now you know a bit more of the truth. That such things can be taken seriously in this now lawless area of North America, formerly the USA, is yet another reason to wax nostalgic for the wisdom of our founders and the country we once had.

Wednesday, July 01, 2015

Pope Slips Surly Bonds of Sanity?

Unabomber or Unapapa? | Power Line:

I commented last week that the pope excommunicated Christ -- which seems like a bad idea to me.

Now he seems to have crossed that odd boundary where his writings are indistinguishable from the Unabomber -- a bit like Al Gore, not a good sign!

The fact that what you are saying sounds exactly like someone who is certifiably nuts isn't certain proof you are in a bad mental state -- but it is enough to give sane people pause and good reason to check with the nearest planet for confirmation one is still at least within radio range of sanity!

No word if there has been a radio check from the pope -- or perhaps we just don't have any antennas pointed his way and set to deep space!

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Gay Pride, A Pagan Two-for

Love Among the Ruins - WSJ:

The linked article shows that I'm not the only one that sees the world we are living in at this moment as completely surreal.

The rainbows flowered all over FB and even at the WH -- what was the official position of BO on gay "marriage" in 2008 BTW? Oh, never mind, the idea that there should be any remote semblance of consistency in any form from ANYONE on the left is completely absurd -- being left means never having any consistency beyond "leftward ho"!

As the article points out, people were being beheaded and blown up, and gays were being thrown to their deaths elsewhere, but all that counts here in lala-land is that a few hold out states in the already leftist gay riddled and dying US were now forced by 5 people in robes to create a new right to something with no definition (follow the link -- or just just try to define bi-sexual "marriage", no definition beyond "it's legal!")

The core human failing always has been and always will be PRIDE! The Bible makes it clear that "the BEGINNING of wisdom is the fear of God" and the core of Christianity is the acknowledgement that we are sinners in need of a Saviour to pull us up from our broken condition. To be human is to know pride, to be a Christian is to know that pride is a deadly sin.

"Gay Pride" VERY proudly trumpets two mortal sins -- equal sins. The pride is just as much and no more sin than the gay. No Christian would hold pride up as a virtue -- "Gay Pride" is pagan two-fer. It really ought to be PRIDE!! -- Gay Edition.

But watching social and public media erupt with cheap and exuberant pride of those feeling superior because they have followed the winds of the crowd. "If all your friends jumped over a cliff would you follow them?" used to be a parental admonition to stand on your own feet and think independently. That used to be an American value -- independent thought, independence, being willing to stand on your own two feet!  It is one of the many things that died as America died.

Now the masses chests swell cheaply with pagan pride, totally unaware of what they are even uttering beyond it being popular. When the gates are opened and vice becomes virtue, there is no moderating force beyond raw dictatorial power and violence. This is completely known and old as man -- see Pandora and Prometheus.

For thousands of years civilization tamed the chaos of the human soul, with great cost and effort -- most effectively with Judaism and Christianity. Even up to the middle of the 20th century many at least recognized what we had and why we had it ("God and Man at Yale" is a very worthy read on that topic).

It is obvious to those few of us that still have a very tenuous connection with the wisdom of the ages that the Furies have been released -- and the masses cheer to "Give us Barabbas"!!, because as always, they know not what they do.

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