This is the time of year when pundits review the year that is sagging into the sunset and look forward to the new one by making some predictions. Well, I'm not a pundit so I'm not going to do that.
I remember a few years back when Queen Elizabeth referred to the year just past as her Annus Horribilus. I though she was breaking royal protocol and describing an embarrassing medical condition... But she was of course, saying that sophisticated way of hers that it had been a horrible year. This one has been pretty bad. Iraq has been the only bright spot. Nobody called that one.
So much for review. Arnaud De Borchgrave has written very pessimistic article reviewing predictions of a dystopic future for the US. I don't want to dwell on such negativity so I will merely provide the link.
The Western Wall in Jerusalem is where they write prayers down, fold them up and insert them between the stones. This is not a Wailing Wall, but I do want to lay down a few prayers for the new year:
- For President Obama, that God may guide him in all things
- For peace, please Lord, somewhere, anywhere, but most of all in our hearts, because that is where peace must begin
- For the citizens and politicians of the United States, that we learn enduring lessons from the financial ruin we have brought upon ourselves
- That we may reacquaint ourselves with the Founding Fathers and the ideals they held dear
- That we look to our Creator, giving thanks and asking for guidance
- For the unemployed, that their troubled road be short
Happy 2009 and may God bless us in the New Year!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Reality -vs- Computer Models
More bad news for the Global Warming crowd: Reality is contradicting the hysterical computer models showing the Earth's temperature approaching that of the sun if we all don't repent and send our dollars to Reverend Al Gores's Church of Gaia. Yes, global temperatures in all parts of the world are falling, except in the fevered imaginings of the climate change crowd.
Reality can be intrusive like that. Christopher Booker sums it all up in his Daily Telegraph article:
Reality can be intrusive like that. Christopher Booker sums it all up in his Daily Telegraph article:
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.
Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.
Personally, I think it was the election of Mr. Obama. Didn't he say the oceans would recede?
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
WikiHow: How to Pick Up Men
I can't believe they need a WikiHow for how to pick up men. I thought maybe it was some type of physics of leverage thing, but no, it was actually advice to women on how to gain a man's attention. Here are the steps:
How To Pick Up Men:
1. Pick a good spot
2. Flirt from a distance
3. Start a conversation
4. Close the deal
WikiHow is usually spot on, but they fell down on this one. Here's what it should say:
1. If you got it, flaunt it
2. Food
3. Booze
4. Guns, sports, don't mention Obama or Ben Affleck (unless your pick-up is a metrosexual)
How To Pick Up Men:
1. Pick a good spot
2. Flirt from a distance
3. Start a conversation
4. Close the deal
WikiHow is usually spot on, but they fell down on this one. Here's what it should say:
1. If you got it, flaunt it
2. Food
3. Booze
4. Guns, sports, don't mention Obama or Ben Affleck (unless your pick-up is a metrosexual)
The Atheist's Jihad
Disbelief is a fairly simple concept, one simply does not believe, applied to the atheist it connotes a disbelief in deities. The term for one who believes in a deity or deities is theist. There are many ranges of disbelief ranging from agnosticism to strong atheism. An agnostic believes that the existence of a deity is unknowable, and there are even agnostic theists who believe that the proposition of at least one deity is true, but that the deity itself is unknowable.
There are also varying degrees of atheism and overlap between and among them. An implicit atheist does not believe in any deities, yet without a conscious rejection of it, in fact they haven't given it any thought at all, implicit atheists are undoubtedly rare. An explicit atheist has considered the existence of deities and has rejected the possibility. There are also strong and weak atheists, a strong atheist disavows the possibility of the existence of a deity with certainty, a weak atheist is someone who is not quite sure, some people classify agnostics as weak atheists.
There are positive and negative atheists, Gora, an Indian atheist calls for a secular society with positive values and states positive atheism entails such things as a being morally upright, showing an understanding that religious people have reasons to believe, not proselytising or lecturing others about atheism, and defending oneself with truthfulness instead of aiming to 'win' any confrontations with outspoken critics. Negative atheism is often given the same definition as weak atheism but I would propose that it is the opposite of positive atheism as defined by Gora, that is the active belief that people do not have reason to believe, should not believe, and through action on the part of the negative atheist be persuaded, or forced, not to believe.
The atheist's jihad is a manifestation of negative atheism, it is the struggle (jihad) to eliminate religion, it exceeds the notion of the secular as being separate from religion not opposed to the existence of religion. The line between separation of church and state is a narrow one, the founding fathers left us with the predicament of not establishing or favoring any one religion while not interfering with the free exercise of any religion at the same time. The problem with the atheist's jihad is that it attempts to further the latter, in attempting to exorcise all religion from public life it interferes with the free exercise thereof.
The atheists jihad are those activities that attempt to completely eliminate any indication whatsoever of the existence of religion from public life, many with the underlying motive and belief that if completely eliminated from public life it will wither and die in private. It can be found in the argument that religion is the source of all evil and misfortune in the world, the root cause of most if not all war, and generally the primary source of oppression.
Take the statement from the atheist display put up in Olympia Washington "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds". This statement is not one of fact but of opinion... it is the publicly exercised equivalent of running into a church and yelling "you're all fools, there is no God". One could, as legitimately, argue that religion opens hearts and minds and be just as correct. I would have no problem with an affirmative display of the belief in science and have no problem with the first part of the display "At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail". It is a fairly positive statement, unfortunately the erectors of this sign (The Freedom from Religion Foundation) chose not to espouse there own positive values, but to assault the values and beliefs of others.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation (http://www.ffrf.org/) claims to defend the separation of church and state. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to non theism. I fail to understand how they can state "Our Constitution was very purposefully written to be a godless document, whose only references to religion are exclusionary" when the the sentence they seem so concerned with reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". How can one construe the statement 'prohibiting the free exercise thereof' as exclusionary?
The atheists jihad by it's very nature is lacking in tolerance and acceptance. It is not a campaign of freedom or free thinking, but of thought control. The jihadist rejects not only the existence of a deity but the cultural value and heritage of religion. They point to religion as the source of all evil, presuming themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to the religious, yet can offer no rationale explanation for the evils committed by atheists and atheistic states, which more often than not are manifestations of evil. Too many mistakenly assume that secular means without religion, when its true meaning is separate from religion.
The problem lies not in atheism, but in the attempted and forceful promulgation of atheism. It is not the desire for a separation of church and state that is wrong, it is the self-centered arrogance of the belief that they are right, everyone else is wrong, and religion must be eliminated completely. The atheistic jihadist condemns the fundamentalist while acting in the same manner with a different agenda. I no more want to live in a theocracy than a technocracy, for both are elitist and derived from the false notion that one belief system is superior to others.
The negative atheist is not for science, he is against religion. Negative atheism seeks not the advancement of dialogue but the repression of belief, it hides behind the mask of science and reason in an attempt to find legitimacy, yet at its root it is a philosophy of opposition. The negative atheist embraces all that is wrong with religion while ignoring all that is good, they seek not to promote a belief in science but to eliminate a belief in God. They attempt to elevate themselves by belittling others and to advance their beliefs by repressing others. The negative atheist is as fundamentally wrong and dogmatic as the fundamentalist... in the belief that their atheism is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from.
It was the namesake of this blog who stated “After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands”, I'll go him one further and say that after coming into contact with a negative atheist I always feel I must take a shower.
~Finntann~
There are also varying degrees of atheism and overlap between and among them. An implicit atheist does not believe in any deities, yet without a conscious rejection of it, in fact they haven't given it any thought at all, implicit atheists are undoubtedly rare. An explicit atheist has considered the existence of deities and has rejected the possibility. There are also strong and weak atheists, a strong atheist disavows the possibility of the existence of a deity with certainty, a weak atheist is someone who is not quite sure, some people classify agnostics as weak atheists.
There are positive and negative atheists, Gora, an Indian atheist calls for a secular society with positive values and states positive atheism entails such things as a being morally upright, showing an understanding that religious people have reasons to believe, not proselytising or lecturing others about atheism, and defending oneself with truthfulness instead of aiming to 'win' any confrontations with outspoken critics. Negative atheism is often given the same definition as weak atheism but I would propose that it is the opposite of positive atheism as defined by Gora, that is the active belief that people do not have reason to believe, should not believe, and through action on the part of the negative atheist be persuaded, or forced, not to believe.
The atheist's jihad is a manifestation of negative atheism, it is the struggle (jihad) to eliminate religion, it exceeds the notion of the secular as being separate from religion not opposed to the existence of religion. The line between separation of church and state is a narrow one, the founding fathers left us with the predicament of not establishing or favoring any one religion while not interfering with the free exercise of any religion at the same time. The problem with the atheist's jihad is that it attempts to further the latter, in attempting to exorcise all religion from public life it interferes with the free exercise thereof.
The atheists jihad are those activities that attempt to completely eliminate any indication whatsoever of the existence of religion from public life, many with the underlying motive and belief that if completely eliminated from public life it will wither and die in private. It can be found in the argument that religion is the source of all evil and misfortune in the world, the root cause of most if not all war, and generally the primary source of oppression.
Take the statement from the atheist display put up in Olympia Washington "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds". This statement is not one of fact but of opinion... it is the publicly exercised equivalent of running into a church and yelling "you're all fools, there is no God". One could, as legitimately, argue that religion opens hearts and minds and be just as correct. I would have no problem with an affirmative display of the belief in science and have no problem with the first part of the display "At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail". It is a fairly positive statement, unfortunately the erectors of this sign (The Freedom from Religion Foundation) chose not to espouse there own positive values, but to assault the values and beliefs of others.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation (http://www.ffrf.org/) claims to defend the separation of church and state. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to non theism. I fail to understand how they can state "Our Constitution was very purposefully written to be a godless document, whose only references to religion are exclusionary" when the the sentence they seem so concerned with reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". How can one construe the statement 'prohibiting the free exercise thereof' as exclusionary?
The atheists jihad by it's very nature is lacking in tolerance and acceptance. It is not a campaign of freedom or free thinking, but of thought control. The jihadist rejects not only the existence of a deity but the cultural value and heritage of religion. They point to religion as the source of all evil, presuming themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to the religious, yet can offer no rationale explanation for the evils committed by atheists and atheistic states, which more often than not are manifestations of evil. Too many mistakenly assume that secular means without religion, when its true meaning is separate from religion.
The problem lies not in atheism, but in the attempted and forceful promulgation of atheism. It is not the desire for a separation of church and state that is wrong, it is the self-centered arrogance of the belief that they are right, everyone else is wrong, and religion must be eliminated completely. The atheistic jihadist condemns the fundamentalist while acting in the same manner with a different agenda. I no more want to live in a theocracy than a technocracy, for both are elitist and derived from the false notion that one belief system is superior to others.
The negative atheist is not for science, he is against religion. Negative atheism seeks not the advancement of dialogue but the repression of belief, it hides behind the mask of science and reason in an attempt to find legitimacy, yet at its root it is a philosophy of opposition. The negative atheist embraces all that is wrong with religion while ignoring all that is good, they seek not to promote a belief in science but to eliminate a belief in God. They attempt to elevate themselves by belittling others and to advance their beliefs by repressing others. The negative atheist is as fundamentally wrong and dogmatic as the fundamentalist... in the belief that their atheism is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from.
It was the namesake of this blog who stated “After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands”, I'll go him one further and say that after coming into contact with a negative atheist I always feel I must take a shower.
~Finntann~
Monday, December 29, 2008
The Evangelical atheist
Militant atheism was furthest from my mind this Christmas season, yet has been brought to the forefront by some recent comments on the post of "We had a Merry Christmas". It struck me as odd why such a benign post would elicit such a response, then it occurred to me that the response in and of itself was evangelical, so to speak... soliciting converts to 'the truth'.
Of course, as soon as I googled "Evangelical atheist" I was rolling on the floor, for the third hit down on the page was a link to Urban Dictionary which read:
"evangelical atheist - 2 definitions - See [asshole] An evangelical atheist is one who not only believes there is no god or other supreme being, but is obsessed with convincing everyone around them to become an atheist too, usually through hard-line intolerance (the kind they accuse other religions of). ." Don't believe me? Google it.
Ted Peters had this to say on the subject "It used to be that atheists didn’t bother anybody. They simply stayed home from church on Sunday and avoided praying. The social impact was minimal. "
Click here for the rest of a well reasoned article in response to Richard Dawkins: http://www.counterbalance.net/new-atheism/index-frame.html
It is not the argument that I find of interest, but the fanatical and zealous way in which it is delivered. This is not the calm and reasoned presentation of logic, but a vicious diatribe. It is the irrational extreme of Denis Diderot's "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest". It is the mindset of the soviets, that in 1918 summarily executed 10 orthodox hierarchs and founded The Society of the Godless (an actual organization, not a commentary on soviet society). It is this 'enlightened' viewpoint that resulted in the closing of hundreds of churches, the slaughter of 80 bishops, and a quick trip to the Gulag for thousands of clerics.
One wonders if the fanaticism of the response would have been directed at the author had he "had a happy solstice"? Or if some underlying rage at either organized religion or Christianity is the root cause. I would like to point out to our secular friend a tenet of that most secular of documents, "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights": "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance." I might also point out that the founding document of our nation, in instituting the separation of church and state, says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
I might point out Mark Vuletic's (an atheist) words on the subject: Atheism has a comparatively small public voice, but it is a voice that many believers hear. However, when they listen to this voice, they often hear little more than slurs and insults. When interacting with atheists, believers are frequently met with the same arrogance and condescension, the same hatred and vitriol, the same bigotry and prejudice, as atheists so often receive from believers. In short, believers tend to encounter in atheists exactly what they have been taught to expect... If we wish to shatter once and for all the myth that atheism and immorality are inseparable, we must not deny believers the compassion, tolerance, patience, and understanding that humanists are supposed to extend to all.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/moral.html
One wonders why someone so obviously convinced of their own moral, logical, and scientific superiority needs to resort to such vile rhetoric in attempting to convince others of the superiority of their position. I have had many friends in my life who have been non-believers, and while the majority of them were more appropriately termed agnostic, I have found the atheists among them to be rather vain, based upon the supposed 'infallibility' of their beliefs. I generally find anyone with absolutist views, whether atheistic, scientific, or religious to be rather intolerable. Even that great philosopher of the Scottish enlightenment, David Hume, contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt.
One often finds atheists who advance the argument that religion has been the cause of most of the evil one finds in the historical record, while overlooking the likes of Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot. They also overlook the great contributions to peace that science as brought, like Bows and Arrows, Guns, Bigger Guns, and that all encompassing advance of apocalyptic Biblical (or Bhagavad Gita) proportions, the H-Bomb. The argument that religion is evil overlooks the common factor in all evil, us. It is not the nature of religion that institutes such occurrences as the Spanish Inquisition, but the flawed nature of man. One might make the argument that evil stems from absolutism, for most if not all of the evil in our history has stemmed from absolute positions, be it fascist, communist, racist, or theist. It is the belief in one's absolute superiority that propagates throughout history as manifestations of absolute evil, horror, and inhumanity.
While a firm advocate of the separation of church and state, I have always believed that religion, in the form of comparative theology, should be taught in school. Separation of church and state seeks to prevent the establishment of a state religion (Establishment Clause), it was (IMHO) never intended to erase religion from society (Exercise Clause), and while it is possible to separate religion from state, it is virtually impossible to separate religion from culture. Religion, like art and science, is part of the cultural heritage of man, all men, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, or any number of other faiths. In a free public context such displays promote interaction and tolerance.
The 'Christmas Tree Controversy' is one that is particularly irksome. The public expression of faith should be something cherished in our society, the freedom of religion (not freedom from religion) being one of our great nations founding principles. It seems that far from offering religious freedom, we are in the foolishness of political correctness attempting to ban religion from the public space, as if it were something shameful in this enlightened age that should be hidden away like porn... it's okay, but only in the privacy of your own home. I would have no problem with a creche in the town square, any more that I would have a problem with a Jewish, Muslim, or any other display. Living overseas, I can say I took no offense to Buddha's Birthday celebrations and found them educational, and even fun. I take no offense at being greeted with "Īd mubārak" (Blessed Eid), nor would I take offense at being invited to have a Happy Ostara (Wiccan) . To take offense at the proffered good will of others, whatever the reason is petty and small.
What I do take offense at, although I would not prohibit them, are atheist displays such as the one in Olympia, Washington that read "At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." I don't oppose the viewpoint, I don't believe it but I don't recommend banning it, but that the display is more of a negative assault than a profession of belief. It is no more acceptable than fundamentalists pointing out Jews as the killer of Jesus in a Hanukkah display or the protesting by the Westboro Baptist Church at the funerals of military members. By all means celebrate your beliefs, celebrate Galileo's Birthday (Feb 15) if it makes you happy, put a whole calendar of Scientific Holidays together, but a 'celebration' putting down other peoples beliefs and customs should be beneath you.
All of this serves to illustrate one main point, that extremism is not the sole domain of religion, one can find extremists of all points of view from religion, to science, to politics, to sociology. The only rational approach is one of cautious restraint and dialogue. No one has ever advanced their own position by attacking the beliefs of others, unless that advance came solely from intimidation.
Until you come to the table with something positive to offer, you just come across as vulgar, barbaric, and mean...
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
~Finntann~
Of course, as soon as I googled "Evangelical atheist" I was rolling on the floor, for the third hit down on the page was a link to Urban Dictionary which read:
"evangelical atheist - 2 definitions - See [asshole] An evangelical atheist is one who not only believes there is no god or other supreme being, but is obsessed with convincing everyone around them to become an atheist too, usually through hard-line intolerance (the kind they accuse other religions of). ." Don't believe me? Google it.
Ted Peters had this to say on the subject "It used to be that atheists didn’t bother anybody. They simply stayed home from church on Sunday and avoided praying. The social impact was minimal. "
Click here for the rest of a well reasoned article in response to Richard Dawkins: http://www.counterbalance.net/new-atheism/index-frame.html
It is not the argument that I find of interest, but the fanatical and zealous way in which it is delivered. This is not the calm and reasoned presentation of logic, but a vicious diatribe. It is the irrational extreme of Denis Diderot's "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest". It is the mindset of the soviets, that in 1918 summarily executed 10 orthodox hierarchs and founded The Society of the Godless (an actual organization, not a commentary on soviet society). It is this 'enlightened' viewpoint that resulted in the closing of hundreds of churches, the slaughter of 80 bishops, and a quick trip to the Gulag for thousands of clerics.
One wonders if the fanaticism of the response would have been directed at the author had he "had a happy solstice"? Or if some underlying rage at either organized religion or Christianity is the root cause. I would like to point out to our secular friend a tenet of that most secular of documents, "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights": "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance." I might also point out that the founding document of our nation, in instituting the separation of church and state, says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
I might point out Mark Vuletic's (an atheist) words on the subject: Atheism has a comparatively small public voice, but it is a voice that many believers hear. However, when they listen to this voice, they often hear little more than slurs and insults. When interacting with atheists, believers are frequently met with the same arrogance and condescension, the same hatred and vitriol, the same bigotry and prejudice, as atheists so often receive from believers. In short, believers tend to encounter in atheists exactly what they have been taught to expect... If we wish to shatter once and for all the myth that atheism and immorality are inseparable, we must not deny believers the compassion, tolerance, patience, and understanding that humanists are supposed to extend to all.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/moral.html
One wonders why someone so obviously convinced of their own moral, logical, and scientific superiority needs to resort to such vile rhetoric in attempting to convince others of the superiority of their position. I have had many friends in my life who have been non-believers, and while the majority of them were more appropriately termed agnostic, I have found the atheists among them to be rather vain, based upon the supposed 'infallibility' of their beliefs. I generally find anyone with absolutist views, whether atheistic, scientific, or religious to be rather intolerable. Even that great philosopher of the Scottish enlightenment, David Hume, contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt.
One often finds atheists who advance the argument that religion has been the cause of most of the evil one finds in the historical record, while overlooking the likes of Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot. They also overlook the great contributions to peace that science as brought, like Bows and Arrows, Guns, Bigger Guns, and that all encompassing advance of apocalyptic Biblical (or Bhagavad Gita) proportions, the H-Bomb. The argument that religion is evil overlooks the common factor in all evil, us. It is not the nature of religion that institutes such occurrences as the Spanish Inquisition, but the flawed nature of man. One might make the argument that evil stems from absolutism, for most if not all of the evil in our history has stemmed from absolute positions, be it fascist, communist, racist, or theist. It is the belief in one's absolute superiority that propagates throughout history as manifestations of absolute evil, horror, and inhumanity.
While a firm advocate of the separation of church and state, I have always believed that religion, in the form of comparative theology, should be taught in school. Separation of church and state seeks to prevent the establishment of a state religion (Establishment Clause), it was (IMHO) never intended to erase religion from society (Exercise Clause), and while it is possible to separate religion from state, it is virtually impossible to separate religion from culture. Religion, like art and science, is part of the cultural heritage of man, all men, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, or any number of other faiths. In a free public context such displays promote interaction and tolerance.
The 'Christmas Tree Controversy' is one that is particularly irksome. The public expression of faith should be something cherished in our society, the freedom of religion (not freedom from religion) being one of our great nations founding principles. It seems that far from offering religious freedom, we are in the foolishness of political correctness attempting to ban religion from the public space, as if it were something shameful in this enlightened age that should be hidden away like porn... it's okay, but only in the privacy of your own home. I would have no problem with a creche in the town square, any more that I would have a problem with a Jewish, Muslim, or any other display. Living overseas, I can say I took no offense to Buddha's Birthday celebrations and found them educational, and even fun. I take no offense at being greeted with "Īd mubārak" (Blessed Eid), nor would I take offense at being invited to have a Happy Ostara (Wiccan) . To take offense at the proffered good will of others, whatever the reason is petty and small.
What I do take offense at, although I would not prohibit them, are atheist displays such as the one in Olympia, Washington that read "At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." I don't oppose the viewpoint, I don't believe it but I don't recommend banning it, but that the display is more of a negative assault than a profession of belief. It is no more acceptable than fundamentalists pointing out Jews as the killer of Jesus in a Hanukkah display or the protesting by the Westboro Baptist Church at the funerals of military members. By all means celebrate your beliefs, celebrate Galileo's Birthday (Feb 15) if it makes you happy, put a whole calendar of Scientific Holidays together, but a 'celebration' putting down other peoples beliefs and customs should be beneath you.
All of this serves to illustrate one main point, that extremism is not the sole domain of religion, one can find extremists of all points of view from religion, to science, to politics, to sociology. The only rational approach is one of cautious restraint and dialogue. No one has ever advanced their own position by attacking the beliefs of others, unless that advance came solely from intimidation.
Until you come to the table with something positive to offer, you just come across as vulgar, barbaric, and mean...
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
~Finntann~
NYT: Irresponsible Lending Caused Economic Crisis
An amazing admission from the official paper of the Democratic Party, the New York Times: Loaning money to people who couldn't pay it back caused the financial crisis. Of course they don't say it just like that. They faithfully lay out the facts, assign blame to the wrong people, then draw the wrong conclusions. This is why readership is dwindling at the Senile Old Lady.
They also admit that government is a guilty party. Of course, Barny Frank, Chris Dodd, and Chuck Schumer are never mentioned. No, in the Toilet Paper of Record's version, President Bush is the only villain.
The NYT propagandists start by weaving the fantasy that President Bush invented the idea of pushing homeownership on more Americans. He did not; this initiative was started by President Carter, greatly bolstered by the Clinton administration, and indeed enthusiastically embraced by President Bush.
What this slanted piece of writing inadvertently shows is that by the time we recognized the housing bubble, the seeds of destruction had already been sewn. Government had already forced lending institutions to irresponsibly loosen time-tested standards. That's how unqualified borrowers ended up getting mortgages, which in turn explains the high foreclosure rates. The mortgage industry had previously done a good job predicting who could and who could not pay back a loan. Uncle Sam stepped in, made them lower the bar, and, just as night follows day, foreclosures increased. That's the deregulation that wrecked the market.
Missing in all of this drivel is the cautionary tale of government intervention, no matter how good-hearted or well intentioned, and the lessons we can learn from it.
Just as giving a society the trappings of democracy does not make it democratic, giving people the outward signs of financial solvency does not make them financially secure. Democracy and financial security cannot be imposed. They are outward manifestations of an inner attitude. Democratic institutions and thrifty homeownership are the tangible and beneficial fruits that spring from those noble inner motives.
But this type of inductive reasoning is beyond the New York Times, which is why they now find themselves on the ever growing junk heap of national failures. It is much easier to draw a "Bush is Stoopid" cartoon than it is to provide a balanced analysis that could actually educate people.
Blame Bush, blame congress. They all had a share in creating and crashing this economic lead balloon. More important than fixing blame (nobody in DC pays for their mistakes anyway) is to learn the right lesson. Presidents and legislators intervened in a previously-rational market and forced it to make irrational decisions, causing that market to fail. Now we are all paying the price.
You can pound a square peg into a round hole if you're the government and you have a big enough hammer. Just watch out for the splinters and the sparks.
They also admit that government is a guilty party. Of course, Barny Frank, Chris Dodd, and Chuck Schumer are never mentioned. No, in the Toilet Paper of Record's version, President Bush is the only villain.
The NYT propagandists start by weaving the fantasy that President Bush invented the idea of pushing homeownership on more Americans. He did not; this initiative was started by President Carter, greatly bolstered by the Clinton administration, and indeed enthusiastically embraced by President Bush.
The Bush critics go on to explain how the president and his staff failed to recognize what was causing the housing market to tank and why foreclosures were increasing. Then they pile on some tired rhetoric about not enough regulations. Note the lack of praise for the president's big-hearted generosity; that doesn't fit the storyline. No, helping poor minorities was a mere unintended byproduct of lining his political cronies' pockets and grabbing more power. Do these people actually believe the crap they write?Eight years after arriving in Washington vowing to spread the dream of homeownership, Mr. Bush is leaving office, as he himself said recently, “faced with the prospect of a global meltdown” with roots in the housing sector he so ardently championed.
There are plenty of culprits, like lenders who peddled easy credit, consumers who took on mortgages they could not afford and Wall Street chieftains who loaded up on mortgage-backed securities without regard to the risk.
But the story of how we got here is partly one of Mr. Bush’s own making, according to a review of his tenure that included interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials.
He pushed hard to expand homeownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.
What this slanted piece of writing inadvertently shows is that by the time we recognized the housing bubble, the seeds of destruction had already been sewn. Government had already forced lending institutions to irresponsibly loosen time-tested standards. That's how unqualified borrowers ended up getting mortgages, which in turn explains the high foreclosure rates. The mortgage industry had previously done a good job predicting who could and who could not pay back a loan. Uncle Sam stepped in, made them lower the bar, and, just as night follows day, foreclosures increased. That's the deregulation that wrecked the market.
Missing in all of this drivel is the cautionary tale of government intervention, no matter how good-hearted or well intentioned, and the lessons we can learn from it.
Just as giving a society the trappings of democracy does not make it democratic, giving people the outward signs of financial solvency does not make them financially secure. Democracy and financial security cannot be imposed. They are outward manifestations of an inner attitude. Democratic institutions and thrifty homeownership are the tangible and beneficial fruits that spring from those noble inner motives.
But this type of inductive reasoning is beyond the New York Times, which is why they now find themselves on the ever growing junk heap of national failures. It is much easier to draw a "Bush is Stoopid" cartoon than it is to provide a balanced analysis that could actually educate people.
Blame Bush, blame congress. They all had a share in creating and crashing this economic lead balloon. More important than fixing blame (nobody in DC pays for their mistakes anyway) is to learn the right lesson. Presidents and legislators intervened in a previously-rational market and forced it to make irrational decisions, causing that market to fail. Now we are all paying the price.
You can pound a square peg into a round hole if you're the government and you have a big enough hammer. Just watch out for the splinters and the sparks.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Looking for hope from a politician is like looking for love from a prostitute, and the outcome is the same for both.
GOP The Magic Dumbo
The GOP has once again shown why it is the stupid party. Chip Salsman wants to run the GOP, so he plied potential voters with a Paul Shanklin CD that included the song "Barack the Magic Negro." It is a political parody based upon an LA Times opinion piece of the same name. The leadership was caught flat-footed and red-handed, and is now scrambling, crab-like, to defend itself.
Here's part of the hollow, vacuous statement from flaccid, ineffectual party chairman Mike Duncan:
Mike Duncan and the rest of the country club Republicans should apologize not for the song, but for for being so politically inept and clueless that they would let something like this get within 10 miles of GOP Headquarters. Half the country already believes the GOP is just a front organization for the Ku Klux Klan. You'd think the GOP apparatchiks would be a little more image conscious.
The song is based on a 2007 David Ehrenstein opinion piece of the same name in the LA Times. He explores how Guilty White Liberal Syndrome could bolster Mr. Obama's candidacy:
Is the song funny? I think so. Is it offensive? Not in my opinion, but I'm not black. Does it belong in the public arena? Yes. It's called free speech, and as satire, it's pretty tame when stacked up against South Park or Dave Chappelle. Regardless of the merits of the song, it is inappropriate for the GOP establishment to be trafficking in this stuff.
They only compounded their sin by gutlessly collapsing before the liberal onslaught instead of owning it and intellectually defending it. Ken Blackwell, an African-American contender to run the party, showed true leadership with his response:
In fact, an edgy, 20-something GOP leadership could have flipped this back on the so-last-century media and actually attracted the attention of the Colbert and John Stewart generation. But in the hands of the ancient, white GOP upper-crust, this just looks creepy and racist. If this doesn't convince conservatives that the place needs wholesale firings and fumigation, I don't know what will.
The very existence of the Republican party does damage to the conservative cause. Time to burn it down and start over with younger, more intellectually vibrant leadership.
Here's part of the hollow, vacuous statement from flaccid, ineffectual party chairman Mike Duncan:
"I am shocked and appalled that anyone would think this is appropriate as it clearly does not move us in the right direction."Yeah, right. Shocked and appalled. Millions of Republicans have laughed their heads off at the song, featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show. So spare us the crocodile tears, Mike. You and your party establishmentarians are intellectually and ideologically bankrupt. Bowing down before the PC gods won't save your sorry hide.
Mike Duncan and the rest of the country club Republicans should apologize not for the song, but for for being so politically inept and clueless that they would let something like this get within 10 miles of GOP Headquarters. Half the country already believes the GOP is just a front organization for the Ku Klux Klan. You'd think the GOP apparatchiks would be a little more image conscious.
The song is based on a 2007 David Ehrenstein opinion piece of the same name in the LA Times. He explores how Guilty White Liberal Syndrome could bolster Mr. Obama's candidacy:
But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."So here's a liberal columnist citing the work of liberal sociologists using the now famous phrase. A white conservative satirist picks it up and makes a funny song based on it, and Democrats mau mau the Republicans into apologizing. Once again, the inept Republicans bring a butter knife to a gun fight.
The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .
He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.
As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."
Is the song funny? I think so. Is it offensive? Not in my opinion, but I'm not black. Does it belong in the public arena? Yes. It's called free speech, and as satire, it's pretty tame when stacked up against South Park or Dave Chappelle. Regardless of the merits of the song, it is inappropriate for the GOP establishment to be trafficking in this stuff.
They only compounded their sin by gutlessly collapsing before the liberal onslaught instead of owning it and intellectually defending it. Ken Blackwell, an African-American contender to run the party, showed true leadership with his response:
"Unfortunately, there is hypersensitivity in the press regarding matters of race. This is in large measure due to President-Elect Obama being the first African-American elected president," said Blackwell, who would be the first black RNC chairman, in a statement forwarded to Politico by an aide.This is the leadership the GOP needs. No politically correct bowing and scraping to manufactured outrage, of which we have an overabundance in this country. Just an acknowledgment of the hoo-ha and restoring it to a rational context.
In fact, an edgy, 20-something GOP leadership could have flipped this back on the so-last-century media and actually attracted the attention of the Colbert and John Stewart generation. But in the hands of the ancient, white GOP upper-crust, this just looks creepy and racist. If this doesn't convince conservatives that the place needs wholesale firings and fumigation, I don't know what will.
The very existence of the Republican party does damage to the conservative cause. Time to burn it down and start over with younger, more intellectually vibrant leadership.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
We had a Merry Christmas
We scaled back on the gift buying this year and gave a little more to charity. We went to church and thanked God for all he has given us. We enjoyed family togetherness, ate good, watched Christmas videos, moved the wise men closer each evening, and sang carols around the Christmas tree. We had a merry and blessed Christmas.
I awoke on the 26th to see headlines announcing this was the worst "holiday season" ever.
The failure was with the Happy Holidays, Winter Solstice, secular plastic shop till you drop celebration. That was a bust.
I awoke on the 26th to see headlines announcing this was the worst "holiday season" ever.
How can the worst retail holiday season in years get worse? It can become the worst holiday season since anyone kept accurate records.There have been signs for several weeks that e-commerce and store sales were falling at single digit rates. But, as each day passed, the industry hoped that discounts would lure shoppers back into stores for that one final spending spree.
Qando, in a blasphemous fit, went so far as to call it a Black Christmas.
But this year, after a moderate uptick in shopping activity boosted by steep promotions the Friday after Thanksgiving, shoppers closed their wallets and reopened them only cautiously, worried by job losses, a sinking stock market and a recession climbing into its second year.
The failure was with the Happy Holidays, Winter Solstice, secular plastic shop till you drop celebration. That was a bust.
Materialism coarsens and petrifies everything, making everything vulgar, and every truth false.
-- Henri Frederic Amiel
Stuff
Overweight, overleveraged, overdrawn, overburdened with too much stuff. We like stuff, and we love shopping for it. Anne Quindlen writes:
Anne Quindlen, an innocuous, squishy-middle liberal who writes very well, gets it:
And Salvation? One must look a little higher than the Best Buy sign.
The upside of failure is that it draws our attention back to the fundamentals.
These are dark days in the United States: the cataclysmic stock-market declines, the industries edging up on bankruptcy, the home foreclosures and the waves of layoffs. But the prospect of an end to plenty has uncovered what may ultimately be a more pernicious problem, an addiction to consumption so out of control that it qualifies as a sickness. The suffocation of a store employee by a stampede of shoppers was horrifying, but it wasn't entirely surprising.Irresponsible use of credit got us here, so what's the government's solution?
But let's look, not at the numbers, but the atmospherics. Appliances, toys, clothes, gadgets. Junk. There's the sad truth. Wall Street executives may have made investments that lost their value, but, in a much smaller way, so did the rest of us. A person in the United States replaces a cell phone every 16 months, not because the cell phone is old, but because it is oldish.
Hard times offer the opportunity to ask hard questions, and one of them is the one my friend asked, staring at sweaters and shoes: why did we buy all this stuff? Did anyone really need a flat-screen in the bedroom, or a designer handbag, or three cars?
The drumbeat that accompanied Black Friday this year was that the numbers had to redeem us, that if enough money was spent by shoppers it would indicate that things were not so bad after all. But what the economy required was at odds with a necessary epiphany. Because things are dire, many people have become hesitant to spend money on trifles. And in the process they began to realize that it's all trifles.Rampant consumerism drives our economy, so to fix this mess we need to borrow, shop and spend more. This is where the pursuit of stuff has gotten us.
Anne Quindlen, an innocuous, squishy-middle liberal who writes very well, gets it:
Here I go, stating the obvious: stuff does not bring salvation.No it doesn't. Holocaust survivor Dr.Viktor Frankl observed that happiness can occur even in the extreme privation of a concentration camp. He also believed that happiness cannot be pursued for its own sake. To achieve happiness, one must forget about it and pursue a cause greater than oneself and be true to ones conscience.
And Salvation? One must look a little higher than the Best Buy sign.
The upside of failure is that it draws our attention back to the fundamentals.
Friday, December 26, 2008
My Blago Prediction
- Blago gets off scott free
- Blago appoints a corrupt Chicago Democrat to fill Obama's seat
- The corrupt Democratic machine maintains it's death grip on Illinois
- Blago appoints a corrupt Chicago Democrat to fill Obama's seat
- The corrupt Democratic machine maintains it's death grip on Illinois
Virtue Rewarded
Kosovo Names Street For President Bush
(AFP) Kosovo decided Wednesday to name a central street of its capital Pristina after outgoing US President George W. Bush for his support of the territory's split from Serbia.Backed unanimously by Kosovo's cabinet, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said the move was "a sign of the huge state and national respect and appreciation" for the United States' contribution to independence, declared earlier this year.
Located in Pristina's downtown area, Bush Street is to be linked to the main thoroughfare named after Mother Teresa, the 1979 Nobel Peace Laureate of Albanian origin.
Fans of Michael Totten will not be surprised by this. His raw reports from Iraq gave us the often brutal truth, but never in a sneering, NY Times way. He was also the first to herald the good news of the Sunni Awakening and the positive results from the surge. He has written of Kosovo:
Most of its citizens are Muslim, an oddity in Europe; further, unlike most Muslim-majority nations, Kosovo is overwhelmingly pro-American, and its relations with Israel are excellent as well.
Totten has also written of Albania, Kosovo's neighboring country, which is also majority Muslim:
Albania is fanatically pro-American, which is perhaps a bit counterintuitive to many Americans since it is at least nominally a Muslim-majority country. The conventional assumption that Muslims hate Americans everywhere isn't true.
“You should have seen President Bush’s face when he came to Albania,” an ethnic Albanian man later said to me in Kosovo. “All over Western Europe he was met by protests, but the entire country of Albania turned out to welcome him. He was so happy. You could see it on his face.”
Albanian pro-Americanism resembles that of both Poland and Iraqi Kurdistan. The unspeakably oppressive communist regime pushed Albanians strongly into the U.S.-led Western camp, and the humanitarian rescue of Albanians in Kosovo from Slobodan Milosevic's tyrannical despotism bolstered that sentiment even more.
Albania, Kosovo, Kurdistan, and to a lesser extent the newly-free countries of Eastern Europe: Nations with memories of brutal tyranny still fresh in their collective minds, greatly appreciate what the US has done for them. Indeed, even the radically anti-US newspaper, Britain's Guardian headlined their story saying he received a hero's welcome.
So, take a moment to feel good about your country and your president. We've freed a lot of people.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Foutsc's Canon
Blogger and teacher Ben Sutherland had a post a few weeks ago where he pondered new ways to make classical liberal thought (as opposed to modern liberal orthodoxy) accessible and cool to kids. We're just not teaching people how to think and analyze any more, we're teaching our kids what to think (indoctrination). Our ignorance of history and inability to put current events into historical perspective will lead us to ruin.
Here's what Ben said:
I am not a philosopher, so I don't look to any one person or secular school of thought to guide my life. I am also not into hero worship; so I don't try to model my life after any human being. I think the Holy Bible is the greatest book in the history of the world and no greater guide to life can be found.
I'm also not a teacher, so it would be folly for me to give teaching ideas to Ben. Here's what I can recommend: Know how to think, know what you believe, know your history.
Know how to think
Logical, critical thinking is the most important skill. An easy way to introduce yourself to logic is to do a sudoku. A simple explanation of the syllogism is also a good start. Add to that some examples of logical fallacies and you now at least have a logical framework to analyze what someone is telling you. There are on-line resources that can get you started.
Know what you believe
A person with no moral code is a fire. Could do good, could do bad, depending on which way the wind blows. Any religious person should start with their religious text. For Christians, that's The Holy Bible, Old Testament and New Testament. The Bible contains every note in the key of life. It starts with God creating mankind and quickly goes downhill from there. The story of God leading the ungrateful Hebrews out of bondage is a story of each ungrateful person's struggle with obeying the creator. For those agnostics and atheists, there are many non-religious moral codes out there. Pick one.
Read history & the classics
I think history is the best teacher. Read enough and you will learn that there is indeed nothing new under the sun. You will also see that whatever you are going through is not the superlative event of its kind in the history of man. Things have been better, and things have been worse. We're living in higher luxury now, but the basic human condition has not changed over the millennia. The History of English Speaking Peoples, The Story of English, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and America, the Last Best Hope are good starters. Be sure to read things you think you will disagree with; it will stretch your brain and maybe change your mind.
Finally, a healthy dose of skepticism never hurt anyone.
See foutsc's List of Great Books Here
Here's what Ben said:
I've got some ideas. They're going to take work. A mix of Mark Twain and John Stuart Mill. With some Larry the Cable Guy, Mike Judge and Stephen Colbert thrown in for good measure.Here's my answer:
I'm a little Mill-heavy and Twain-light, at this point. But I'll keep working on it.
Somehow we gotta make thinking fun, laid-back, and cool. They are, in the right hands. Now I just gotta translate that into something a bit more digestable for folks with less appreciation for classical liberal thought.
I'm curious to hear your own thoughts, foutsc. Who are your favorite thinkers? Enquiring minds want to know.
I am not a philosopher, so I don't look to any one person or secular school of thought to guide my life. I am also not into hero worship; so I don't try to model my life after any human being. I think the Holy Bible is the greatest book in the history of the world and no greater guide to life can be found.
I'm also not a teacher, so it would be folly for me to give teaching ideas to Ben. Here's what I can recommend: Know how to think, know what you believe, know your history.
Know how to think
Logical, critical thinking is the most important skill. An easy way to introduce yourself to logic is to do a sudoku. A simple explanation of the syllogism is also a good start. Add to that some examples of logical fallacies and you now at least have a logical framework to analyze what someone is telling you. There are on-line resources that can get you started.
Know what you believe
A person with no moral code is a fire. Could do good, could do bad, depending on which way the wind blows. Any religious person should start with their religious text. For Christians, that's The Holy Bible, Old Testament and New Testament. The Bible contains every note in the key of life. It starts with God creating mankind and quickly goes downhill from there. The story of God leading the ungrateful Hebrews out of bondage is a story of each ungrateful person's struggle with obeying the creator. For those agnostics and atheists, there are many non-religious moral codes out there. Pick one.
Read history & the classics
I think history is the best teacher. Read enough and you will learn that there is indeed nothing new under the sun. You will also see that whatever you are going through is not the superlative event of its kind in the history of man. Things have been better, and things have been worse. We're living in higher luxury now, but the basic human condition has not changed over the millennia. The History of English Speaking Peoples, The Story of English, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and America, the Last Best Hope are good starters. Be sure to read things you think you will disagree with; it will stretch your brain and maybe change your mind.
Finally, a healthy dose of skepticism never hurt anyone.
See foutsc's List of Great Books Here
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
A Minor Rebellion
I have always been one for lavishly decorating my house at Christmas, eight strings of icicle lights bedecking the eaves, six strands of C-7 lights all along the railings of my deck wrapping more than three quarters of the way around my house, lights in most if not all of the pine trees within reach of an extension cord (I live in the mountains and have lots of land, lots of pines, and lots of extension cords).
This year, having been subjected to Christmas decorations in stores since Halloween, I'm not quite in the mood. As a child I recall Christmas decorations appearing in stores after Thanksgiving and our tree and decorations might go up a week before Christmas. I don't know... it's just getting to be too much! What's next? I don't think I'll be able to handle Christmas decorations at the 4th of July barbecue, Santa in his red and white striped bathing suit flipping the burgers on the grill.
This year, I've taken a different approach, this year, I have one light. Yes, you read that right, one, and no, it's not a 4 million candlepower light either. This year we have adopted an old Irish tradition (I am Irish after all) of placing one candle (electric) in the front window of our home.
There are two interrelated histories about having a lighted candle in the front window of your home. The first, possibly dating back to the middle ages, is as a sign of welcome and hospitality, a sign of welcome to the holy family as they searched for a place to stay, only to be turned away from home after home and inn after inn. It goes along with the tradition of a laden table (bread and milk), and leaving the door unlatched for travellers.
The second dates back to the times of the penal laws, when the practice of Catholicism was banned in Ireland by it's British occupiers. The candle was a sign of welcome and of safety to itinerant priests, in the hopes that they would come to the house and offer up a Christmas Eve Mass (a dangerous and illegal endeavor). Of course, if questioned by the authorities, the candle was to welcome Mary and Joseph with a place to stay, a ruse that the authorities apparently bought, thinking...silly and superstitious Irish peasants.
So, we have one electric candle in the front window of our home, a symbol of hospitality.
We have a Christmas tree this year, albeit one smaller (much smaller) than usual, placed to one side of the fireplace. Honestly, I don't even know if you could call it a tree... it's more of a Christmas bush really.
Featured prominently on the mantle this year is a creche. It is a fairly large creche, with large porcelain figures of Mary and Joseph, a shepherd, lots of sheep, an ox, as well as Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Standing behind the manger is a larger than life Victorian porcelain angel, dressed all in white and silver. Sometime either late tonight or early tomorrow morning a porcelain figure of the baby Jesus shall come out to take center stage.
It is after all the reason for the season this Christ's Mass, isn't it?
Nollaig Mhaith Chugat!
A Good Christmas to You!
~Finntann~
This year, having been subjected to Christmas decorations in stores since Halloween, I'm not quite in the mood. As a child I recall Christmas decorations appearing in stores after Thanksgiving and our tree and decorations might go up a week before Christmas. I don't know... it's just getting to be too much! What's next? I don't think I'll be able to handle Christmas decorations at the 4th of July barbecue, Santa in his red and white striped bathing suit flipping the burgers on the grill.
This year, I've taken a different approach, this year, I have one light. Yes, you read that right, one, and no, it's not a 4 million candlepower light either. This year we have adopted an old Irish tradition (I am Irish after all) of placing one candle (electric) in the front window of our home.
There are two interrelated histories about having a lighted candle in the front window of your home. The first, possibly dating back to the middle ages, is as a sign of welcome and hospitality, a sign of welcome to the holy family as they searched for a place to stay, only to be turned away from home after home and inn after inn. It goes along with the tradition of a laden table (bread and milk), and leaving the door unlatched for travellers.
The second dates back to the times of the penal laws, when the practice of Catholicism was banned in Ireland by it's British occupiers. The candle was a sign of welcome and of safety to itinerant priests, in the hopes that they would come to the house and offer up a Christmas Eve Mass (a dangerous and illegal endeavor). Of course, if questioned by the authorities, the candle was to welcome Mary and Joseph with a place to stay, a ruse that the authorities apparently bought, thinking...silly and superstitious Irish peasants.
So, we have one electric candle in the front window of our home, a symbol of hospitality.
We have a Christmas tree this year, albeit one smaller (much smaller) than usual, placed to one side of the fireplace. Honestly, I don't even know if you could call it a tree... it's more of a Christmas bush really.
Featured prominently on the mantle this year is a creche. It is a fairly large creche, with large porcelain figures of Mary and Joseph, a shepherd, lots of sheep, an ox, as well as Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. Standing behind the manger is a larger than life Victorian porcelain angel, dressed all in white and silver. Sometime either late tonight or early tomorrow morning a porcelain figure of the baby Jesus shall come out to take center stage.
It is after all the reason for the season this Christ's Mass, isn't it?
Nollaig Mhaith Chugat!
A Good Christmas to You!
~Finntann~
Merry Christmas
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
-- Luke 2: 8-14
... And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.
Seasons Greetings
To all my Liberal/Progressive Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.
To all my Conservative Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
-- Courtesy of an e-mail from my old buddy OD. Feliz Navidad!
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.
To all my Conservative Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
-- Courtesy of an e-mail from my old buddy OD. Feliz Navidad!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Got Liberalism? Before The Crash
As we celebrate this Christmas looking into the abyss of total financial collapse, we need to recall how we got here. Yes, Demicans and Republicrats spent like crazy in pursuit of our votes, and we egged them on. Now we're $10 Trillion in the hole, $50 Trillion of you count all future liabilities.
But what crashed our economy? Democrats.
Led by Senator Chuck "Schmucky" Schumer and Congressman Barny "Frankenstein" Frank. Their unholy alliance with Fannie and Freddie caused this economic nightmare: Fannie and Freddie paid them campaign contributions while senators and congressment kept shoveling government money back at them while ignoring their ineptitude, mismanagement and outright fraud.
That, coupled with government coersion of financial institutions to drop prudent lending practices, is what pushed us over the edge.
Who warned of a crash and tried to stop it? Republicans.
Led by President "Compassionate Conservative" George Bush and Senator John "I'm too honorable to win" McCain. In a rare fit of conservatism, these two men tried to put the brakes on this unholy politico-financial-cluster-alliance, but were unsuccessful.
Here is a Fox News timeline on YouTube, courtesy of Proud To Be Canadian.
It is important we not forget how this happened. Every time some phoney baloney BDS sufferer opens his or her mouth about how George Bush wrecked the economy, we need to shove these facts back at them. They've got all the megaphones now, but that doesn't stop conservatives from speaking the truth.
But what crashed our economy? Democrats.
Led by Senator Chuck "Schmucky" Schumer and Congressman Barny "Frankenstein" Frank. Their unholy alliance with Fannie and Freddie caused this economic nightmare: Fannie and Freddie paid them campaign contributions while senators and congressment kept shoveling government money back at them while ignoring their ineptitude, mismanagement and outright fraud.
That, coupled with government coersion of financial institutions to drop prudent lending practices, is what pushed us over the edge.
Who warned of a crash and tried to stop it? Republicans.
Led by President "Compassionate Conservative" George Bush and Senator John "I'm too honorable to win" McCain. In a rare fit of conservatism, these two men tried to put the brakes on this unholy politico-financial-cluster-alliance, but were unsuccessful.
Here is a Fox News timeline on YouTube, courtesy of Proud To Be Canadian.
It is important we not forget how this happened. Every time some phoney baloney BDS sufferer opens his or her mouth about how George Bush wrecked the economy, we need to shove these facts back at them. They've got all the megaphones now, but that doesn't stop conservatives from speaking the truth.
Monday, December 22, 2008
More Scientists Defy Climate Dogma
These eminent scientists explain why they do not believe in global warming. Their explanations are much more cogent and logical that the those of the global warming crowd. I am not a climate scientist, so all I can do is read and figure out who to trust. I don't trust Al Gore or the UN. If others want to believe, I wish them well; just don't ask me and other hard working taxpayers to fund your fantasies.
WASHINGTON, DC – Award winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer, who was reportedly fired by former Vice President Al Gore in 1993 for failing to adhere to Gore’s scientific views, has now declared man-made global warming fears “mistaken.”
“I am convinced that the current alarm over carbon dioxide is mistaken,” Happer, who has published over 200 scientific papers, told EPW on December 22, 2008. Happer made his remarks while requesting to join the 2008 U.S. Senate Minority Report from Environment and Public Works Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK) of over 650 (and growing) dissenting international scientists disputing anthropogenic climate fears.
“I have spent a long research career studying physics that is closely related to the greenhouse effect, for example, absorption and emission of visible and infrared radiation, and fluid flow,” Happer said this week. “Fears about man-made global warming are unwarranted and are not based on good science. The earth's climate is changing now, as it always has. There is no evidence that the changes differ in any qualitative way from those of the past,” he added.“Over the past 500 million years since the Cambrian, when fossils of multicellular life first became abundant, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been much higher than current levels, about 3 times higher on average. Life on earth flourished with these higher levels of carbon dioxide,” he explained. “Computer models used to generate frightening scenarios from increasing levels of carbon dioxide have scant credibility,” Happer added.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Dr. W. M. Schaffer, Ph. D., of the University of Arizona - Tucson, past member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, who has authored more than 80 scientific publications and authored the paper “Human Population and Carbon Dioxide,” dissented in 2008.
“My principal objections to the theory of anthropogenic warming are as follows:
1) I am mistrustful of ‘all but the kitchen sink’ models that, by virtue of their complexity, cannot be analyzed mathematically. When we place our trust in such models, what too often results is the replacement of a poorly understood physical (chemical, biological) system by a model that is similarly opaque,” Schaffer told EPW on December 19, 2008.
2) I am troubled by the application of essentially linear thinking to what is arguably the ‘mother of all nonlinear dynamical systems’ - i.e., the climate.
3) I believe it likely that "natural climate cycles" are the fingerprints of chaotic behavior that is inherently unpredictable in the long-term. As reviewed in a forthcoming article (Schaffer, in prep), these cycles are "dense" on chaotic attractors and have the stability properties of saddles. Evolving chaotic trajectories successively shadow first one cycle, then another. The result is a sequence of qualitatively different behaviors - what climatologists call "regime shift" - independent of extrinsic influences. Tsonis and his associates discuss this phenomenon in terms of network theory and ‘synchronized chaos,’ but these embellishments are not necessary. To be chaotic is to dance the dance of the saddles,” Schaffer explained.
“The recent lack of warming in the face of continued increases in CO2 suggests
(a) that the effects of greenhouse gas forcing have been over-stated;
(b) that the import of natural variability has been underestimated and
(c) that concomitant rises of atmospheric CO2 and temperature in previous decades may be coincidental rather than causal,” he added.
“I fear that things could easily go the other way: that the climate could cool, perhaps significantly; that the consequences of a new Little Ice Age or worse would be catastrophic and that said consequences will be exacerbated if we meanwhile adopt warmist prescriptions. This possibility, plus the law of unintended consequences, leads me to view proposed global engineering ‘solutions’ as madness. (LINK) (LINK)(LINK)
Info courtesy of Marc Morano, Office of Senator James Inhofe, Senate EPW Committee
Venezuela: A Latin American Primer
We have met the oligarchy and they are us.
Most Americans don't understand Latin America. Why bother? It's just a confusing jumble of left-wing... no, right-wing... oh whatever! Google the news for Guatemala or Uruguay and you get political corruption stories or soccer scores.
Venezuela contains everything you need to know about Latin America. It was a peaceful, stable democracy where the rich oligarchs crapped all over the poor while calling it "capitalism" and "democracy." This paved the way for Colonel Hugo Chavez to knock over the government and declare a revolution of the people. He was jailed for his efforts, but won election to the presidency six years later because the rich and powerful didn't take his candidacy seriously enough to get a corrupt judge to block it.
Well, ten years later, the poor are still poor, and the right-wing oligarchs have been replaced by the left-wing oligarchs. Vanessa Neumann reports from Caracas that the Chavez effect is wearing thin.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Most Americans don't understand Latin America. Why bother? It's just a confusing jumble of left-wing... no, right-wing... oh whatever! Google the news for Guatemala or Uruguay and you get political corruption stories or soccer scores.
Venezuela contains everything you need to know about Latin America. It was a peaceful, stable democracy where the rich oligarchs crapped all over the poor while calling it "capitalism" and "democracy." This paved the way for Colonel Hugo Chavez to knock over the government and declare a revolution of the people. He was jailed for his efforts, but won election to the presidency six years later because the rich and powerful didn't take his candidacy seriously enough to get a corrupt judge to block it.
Well, ten years later, the poor are still poor, and the right-wing oligarchs have been replaced by the left-wing oligarchs. Vanessa Neumann reports from Caracas that the Chavez effect is wearing thin.
Reminds me of that line from the song by The Who, Won't Get Fooled Again: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."Meanwhile the Chavistas, as the president's fans are known, buy so many Hummers that the vehicles have their own assembly plant in Venezuela.
Petro-money has seen sales of Rolexes rise sevenfold and clubs like Sawu, where the new elite pour Johnnie Walker Blue - that elixir of the ultra rich - into their Coca-Colas, flourish.
The fact that the institutions of privilege have merely changed hands increasingly angers ordinary people who were promised everything and have been given very little.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Government Helps Those Who Won't Help Themselves
This is the stupidity that government intervention in markets engenders: Cerberus Capital Management LP, which owns Chrysler, is refusing to put more money into its failing company because competitors Ford and GM are not taking similar measures to save their rotting empires. This is an absurdity, and our tax dollars should have no part of it. Here's a snippet from CBS News:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/18/business/main4675171.shtml?tag=topStory;topStoryHeadline
Congress urged Cerberus to infuse Chrysler with capital earlier this month, but the company rejected the plea, noting that Ford and GM were not being asked to inject more capital into their flailing operations, the Journal reported.Here's a simple question from a simple man: If the Big Three's own investors are refusing to put more money into their operations, why should the government contemplate putting taxpayer money into it?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/18/business/main4675171.shtml?tag=topStory;topStoryHeadline
Common Sense as Rocket Science
I was enjoying a discussion with fellow Bloggers about irresponsible kids and their stupid parents when Ben Sutherland asked a simple question:
When did common sense become brain surgery?
My Dad has said as much to me on various occasions. I was talking to him enthusiastically about one of Dave Ramsey's financial advice books and Papa Foutsc could not believe somebody was making money selling common sense. This was information he learned on on my Grand Pappy's knee. Nothing against Dave Ramsey, he is doing the Lord's work for those willing to heed his sound advice, but this is stuff we used to know and take for granted:
Don't spend more than you have
Don't buy more house than you can afford
Live below your means if you want to save money
If you don't understand it, don't put your money in it
Save money for a rainy day
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is
There's no such thing as a free lunch
You can't cheat an honest man
Horace Greeley was right: Common sense is very uncommon.
When did common sense become brain surgery?
My Dad has said as much to me on various occasions. I was talking to him enthusiastically about one of Dave Ramsey's financial advice books and Papa Foutsc could not believe somebody was making money selling common sense. This was information he learned on on my Grand Pappy's knee. Nothing against Dave Ramsey, he is doing the Lord's work for those willing to heed his sound advice, but this is stuff we used to know and take for granted:
Don't spend more than you have
Don't buy more house than you can afford
Live below your means if you want to save money
If you don't understand it, don't put your money in it
Save money for a rainy day
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is
There's no such thing as a free lunch
You can't cheat an honest man
Horace Greeley was right: Common sense is very uncommon.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Global Warming's Missed Opportunities
Arguments over global warming/climate change/whateveryouwanttocallit have taken on the tenor of religious discussions. Logic is abandoned for frantic imperatives to action: Don't think, just do something! Tax water vapor! Buy carbon offsets!
Crabby skeptics like me resent being labeled stupid, environmentally insensitive, unscientific, or *horror or horrors* uncaring. I love the environment; that's where the tasty animals come from. It also comes in pretty handy when I want to fish, camp or ski.
The angry shoutfest that has sprung from the climate change debate is is a shame, because there are real, uncontroversial global environmental issues that require international cooperation.
Climate fetishism wastes the finite resources needed to resolve these issues. This is what economists call an opportunity cost. The cost of trying to cool down the planet with expensive, dubious schemes is that the resources used cannot be used in solving more tangible and immediate problems. There are only so many dollars, people, and other resources in the world. If you spend a dollar here, you can't also spend it there.
Scientists and other climate experts like CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers are pushing back against the climate change movement's intellectual incontinence:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062501946.html
http://www.lomborg.com/
Crabby skeptics like me resent being labeled stupid, environmentally insensitive, unscientific, or *horror or horrors* uncaring. I love the environment; that's where the tasty animals come from. It also comes in pretty handy when I want to fish, camp or ski.
The angry shoutfest that has sprung from the climate change debate is is a shame, because there are real, uncontroversial global environmental issues that require international cooperation.
Climate fetishism wastes the finite resources needed to resolve these issues. This is what economists call an opportunity cost. The cost of trying to cool down the planet with expensive, dubious schemes is that the resources used cannot be used in solving more tangible and immediate problems. There are only so many dollars, people, and other resources in the world. If you spend a dollar here, you can't also spend it there.
Scientists and other climate experts like CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers are pushing back against the climate change movement's intellectual incontinence:
“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”Prominent intellectual and University of Copenhagen professor Bjorn Lomborg would disagree with Myers' first sentence but agree with the second. Lomborg is not an environmental scientist (he has a PhD in Political Science), but he has conducted some rigorous academic study on the subject of climate change. Lomborg accepts the premise that man is affecting the earth's climate. Where the professor parts company with the climate change crowd is in the solution. He writes in a recent WaPo article that resources should be dedicated to R&D efforts in pursuit of practical solutions such as more efficient solar panels and a new generation of biofuels.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a co-sponsor of the bill, has called it "the world's most far-reaching program to fight global warming." It is indeed policy on a grand scale. It would slow American economic growth by trillions of dollars over the next half-century. But in terms of temperature, the result will be negligible if China and India don't also commit to reducing their emissions, and it will be only slightly more significant if they do. By itself, Lieberman-Warner would postpone the temperature increase projected for 2050 by about two years.
Many people believe that everyone has a moral obligation to ask how we can best combat climate change. Attempts to curb carbon emissions along the lines of the bill now pending are a poor answer compared with other options.
Consider that today, solar panels are one-tenth as efficient as the cheapest fossil fuels. Only the very wealthy can afford them. Many "green" approaches do little more than make rich people feel they are helping the planet. We can't avoid climate change by forcing a few more inefficient solar panels onto rooftops.
The answer is to dramatically increase research and development so that solar panels become cheaper than fossil fuels sooner rather than later. Imagine if solar panels became cheaper than fossil fuels by 2050: We would have solved the problem of global warming, because switching to the environmentally friendly option wouldn't be the preserve of rich Westerners.
This message was recently backed up by the findings of the Copenhagen Consensus project, which gathered eight of the world's top economists -- including five Nobel laureates -- to examine research on the best ways to tackle 10 global challenges: air pollution, conflict, disease, global warming, hunger and malnutrition, lack of education, gender inequity, lack of water and sanitation, terrorism, and trade barriers.
These experts looked at the costs and benefits of different responses to each challenge. Their goal was to create a prioritized list showing how money could best be spent combating these problems. The panel concluded that the least effective use of resources in slowing global warming would come from simply cutting carbon dioxide emissions.
Air pollution and water pollution contribute to death and disease worldwide; lack of fresh water and biomass cause hunger, conflict and death. Most everyone can agree that these are pressing issues. Carbon emission restrictions via onerous taxation schemes will keep the developing world mired in poverty, while robbing the rich nations of their wealth. This in turn will destroy the economic engine needed to fund tangible environmental solutions.
I am a fan of Professor Lomborg because he gathers up the incoherent, disjointed shards of the chaotic climate change debate and constructs logical, practical solutions that satisfy all but the extreme fringes. The middle is where these solutions will be implemented. It is naive to imagine any country will economically castrate itself in sacrifice to Mother Earth.
Even at the personal level, people will not deny themselves what is readily available: Environmentally aware Hollywood celebutards jet around the world, drive gas hogs and live in palatial mansions, but scold me for using my gas powered chainsaw, leaving my computer running, and using too much toilet paper.
Professor Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus provides practical solutions that can preserve the environment while tangibly improving the lot of the poor. The brilliance of these solutions is that one can support them regardless of belief or disbelief in man-made climate change.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062501946.html
http://www.lomborg.com/
Glass Houses
They mock Christianity while lavishing money on a church founded by a 1960's science fiction writer...
I can understand Tom Cruise, but I thought Will Smith was smarter than that.
http://gawker.com/5113028/will-smith-pours-more-money-into-scientology
I can understand Tom Cruise, but I thought Will Smith was smarter than that.
http://gawker.com/5113028/will-smith-pours-more-money-into-scientology
Climate Change Orthodoxy
All those record low temperatures were making a mockery of Global Warming, so in a brilliant marketing ploy, Mother Earth worshipers changed the name to Climate Change. It was hot and sunny yesterday, but today it's snowing! Climate change!
Climate Change has left the realm of cold, logical scientific inquiry and has now become Religious Orthodoxy--Do Not Question Authority!
Larrey Anderson over at American Thinker explains how the climate change crowd's logic has collapsed upon itself, devolving the arrogant movement into a petty, incoherent religion. Here is a large excerpt from his article:
Climate Change has left the realm of cold, logical scientific inquiry and has now become Religious Orthodoxy--Do Not Question Authority!
Another CNN meteorologist attacked the concept that man is somehow responsible for changes in climate last year. Rob Marciano charged Al Gore’s 2006 movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” had some inaccuracies.
“There are definitely some inaccuracies,” Marciano said during the Oct. 4, 2007 broadcast of CNN’s “American Morning.” “The biggest thing I have a problem with is this implication that Katrina was caused by global warming.”
Marciano also said that, “global warming does not conclusively cause stronger hurricanes like we’ve seen,” pointing out that “by the end of this century we might get about a 5 percent increase.”
His comments drew a strong response and he recanted the next day saying “the globe is getting warmer and humans are the likely the main cause of it.”
Like Copernicus and Galileo before him, Marciano bowed down and recanted under the weighty glare of Pope Albertus Maximus, Supreme Pontiff of The Church of Gaia and the International Climate Change Inquisition.
Larrey Anderson over at American Thinker explains how the climate change crowd's logic has collapsed upon itself, devolving the arrogant movement into a petty, incoherent religion. Here is a large excerpt from his article:
The original "climate change" hypothesis was that the planet was getting colder and that it would continue getting colder. That was a very simple hypothesis and was easily proven or refuted. Planet keeps getting colder = hypothesis correct. Planet gets warmer = hypothesis incorrect.
The world got warmer instead of colder. The "climate change" hypothesis was rewritten. This time the planet was facing a catastrophic meltdown. The world was not only getting warmer -- it was going to keep getting warmer at an ever increasing and life-threatening rate.
I remember this hypothesis too. It was scary. Computers were fed information that the world was now heating up and asked, again, "what will the weather be tomorrow?" This time the computers spit out: "hotter." Good computers.
The computers said it would be even hotter the day after tomorrow. Hotter still next week, and next month. And in a few years? Forget about it.
The hypothesis predicted, and the computers affirmed, an exponential increase in temperatures was being caused by the exponential increase in man made green house gases. Al Gore's famous (and refuted) "hockey stick graph" proved it. In other words, the earth would heat fast, then faster, then faster still. Man made global warming was predicted to be a run away train on a steep downhill incline that had to be stopped and stopped immediately.
That was the hypothesis. It was simple. And it was just as easily proved or refuted as the global cooling hypothesis. World gets steadily and increasingly warmer = hypothesis correct. Planet gets colder = hypothesis incorrect.
But while concentrations of CO2, the culprit behind man made global warming, continued to rise -- the temperature did not. The empirical data refused to cooperate with the hypothesis. In the last few years the earth's temperature has leveled off. It may be dropping.
Oops. Another hypothesis bites the dust. Not to worry. The hypothesis has been rewritten, once again. Now we have a "climate crisis." Long term global warming is causing short term global cooling that will, eventually, result in long term global warming. Really. That is the new hypothesis.
The official reason being given is that the "weather is not the climate." For those readers not skilled in dialectical huckstering, the argument seems to be that the weather can get colder while the climate gets warmer.
Proponents of global warming finally have an irrefutable, because incoherent, theory guaranteed to win any debate. This hypothesis cannot be refuted. If the "weather" cools it proves that the "climate" is getting warmer. If the weather gets warmer then the climate gets warmer. As the barker shouts out at the carnival,
"Winner! Winner! Winner!"
"Winner! Winner! Winner!"
This latest hypothesis is a violation of the most basic of the laws of logic: the principle of non-contradiction. Something cannot be both A and not A. The weather cannot get colder while the climate gets hotter anymore than the earth can be flat while the world is round. This is not science, or logic; this is unabashed nonsense.
Yes. Climate science has come to this: We are now being told, in effect, to ignore the data and believe the hypothesis. I have recently written that global warming is not a science -- it is a religion. I take it back. Global warming, aka climate crisis, is now a crisis of logic. In other words, it is insanity.
Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. His latest award-winning novel is The Order of the Beloved. His memoir, Underground: Life and Survival in the Russian Black Market, has just been released.
Links
http://businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20081218205953.aspx
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/climate_crisis_logic_crisis.html
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Nationalization of America
Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merril Lynch, to name some of the more recognizable institutions that you, the American taxpayer now own part of, Federal investments for the above institutions range from 10-25 billion each.
Ask most people what the bailout is, and chances are they won't answer with: The partial nationalization of the banking system. To speed the plan through congress the administration said the money was needed to purchase bad mortgage-related assets, and said nothing about direct stock purchases.
Most of the Treasury's investments so far have been in preferred bank stocks and most of them thus far have been losing investments.
The government has thus far given Citigroup 45 billion dollars, aside from preferred stock at $1000/share, the government deal included warrants for 210 million shares at $17.85 and 254 million shares at $10.61, Citigroup closed today at $7.02, a potential loss of over 3 billion dollars.
Today, the President offered a 17.4 billion dollar bailout to the auto industry, declaring, in a gesture worthy of Hugo Chavez, Public Law 110-342 to be 'non-binding'. The bailout demands concessions similar to those rejected by the Senate a week ago.
If you'd like to read what the law says:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ343.110.pdf
Some of the terms include a requirement to cut compensation for rank-and-file workers, executive compensation restrictions, sale of aircraft or interests in aircraft, detail spending on holiday parties, travel and new real estate, and get White House approval for asset sales and other transactions of more than $100 million. Nothing like a free market, eh?
The question that remains, is why is this all silently passing by?
Socialism by any other name...
~Finntann~
Ask most people what the bailout is, and chances are they won't answer with: The partial nationalization of the banking system. To speed the plan through congress the administration said the money was needed to purchase bad mortgage-related assets, and said nothing about direct stock purchases.
Most of the Treasury's investments so far have been in preferred bank stocks and most of them thus far have been losing investments.
The government has thus far given Citigroup 45 billion dollars, aside from preferred stock at $1000/share, the government deal included warrants for 210 million shares at $17.85 and 254 million shares at $10.61, Citigroup closed today at $7.02, a potential loss of over 3 billion dollars.
Today, the President offered a 17.4 billion dollar bailout to the auto industry, declaring, in a gesture worthy of Hugo Chavez, Public Law 110-342 to be 'non-binding'. The bailout demands concessions similar to those rejected by the Senate a week ago.
If you'd like to read what the law says:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ343.110.pdf
Some of the terms include a requirement to cut compensation for rank-and-file workers, executive compensation restrictions, sale of aircraft or interests in aircraft, detail spending on holiday parties, travel and new real estate, and get White House approval for asset sales and other transactions of more than $100 million. Nothing like a free market, eh?
The question that remains, is why is this all silently passing by?
Socialism by any other name...
~Finntann~
Global Warming Skeptics Question Authority
Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.Millions of gullible world citizens have surrendered all sanity and skepticism to worship at Reverend Albert Gore's altar to Gaia.
-- George Santayana
Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: Great Minds are Skeptical.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Meanwhile, here are quotes from some of the world's leading scientists to remind us that the science is not "settled," nor is there a consensus. Both very unscientific terms, by the way:
“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.
“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet.” - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.
“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” - Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.
“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.” - Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.
This collection of quotes comes courtesy of Mark Morano, dedicated staffer to Senator James Inhofe, Republican, Oklahoma. Senator Inhofe uses his good offices to expose the Global Warming panic. Go here to see his official Senate web site and the latest report.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Party like it's 1929
Hey, it may be overused, but I like it.
Continuing on the theme of the financial bailout, I had a request for information on the mortgage market. Figures are courtesy of the US Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve.
As of 2007 the total value of mortgages held was: $14,557,000,000,000
Of this figure 11.136 trillion was for home mortgages (defined as 1-4 family dwellings).
831 billion was for multi-family residences (which I am assuming is any apartment larger than a fourplex).
2.5 trillion was held on commercial properties and 117 billion on farms (I wonder if agri-business is considered commercial, or farm).
1 trillion is a little less than 10% of the current mortgages outstanding, but estimates on the future cost of the bailout have reached as high as 8 trillion in some quarters. One is left wondering how efficient this whole process is going to be. Theoretically, we could, for 5.5 trillion dollars, reduce mortgage payments roughly in half (by eliminating half the principal and refinancing under the loans current terms), probably less if we only apply this to single-family home mortgages. This would in effect create an increase in spendable income that would be sure to stimulate the economy to a far greater effect than any other program thus far.
The median household income in the United States in 2007 was $50,233. Given that the rough rule of thumb is that mortgages are not to exceed 28% of income, (and yes I know, I am being overly simplistic), this should generate and additional $586 dollars per household per month in spendable income. For 7 trillion this could be extended to renters as well, by offsetting mortgages on multi-family dwellings on the condition that the landlords reduce the rent tenants pay by 40% (the landlords get to keep 10% of the mortgage savings per unit for themselves, and of course the program would be voluntary, but market competition should promote it).
So, 7 trillion dollars for a significant increase in relative income in all houses in the US, add a trillion in overhead and we are at the 8 trillion dollar figure being espoused by some as the cost of fixing this mess.
What would a 586 dollar increase in spendable income per household do for the economy?
Even spending half that would be the equivalent of a economic stimulus check every four months.
But back to that 1 trillion dollar figure, apply that and you have roughly a 10% reduction in mortgage payments generating and additional $100 in spendable income per household.
Currently, the mortgage bailout plan is in essence a relief act for those who made poor financial choices. We are providing relief to those who gambled on the market (adjustable rate mortgages), who leveraged themselves beyond their means (on more house than they could afford), and who have been unable to keep up with their payments. The bubble burst and now everyone pays the price, not only in the foreseeable increase in taxes to pay for all this, but in lost equity in homes and investments. Those of us who purchased homes within their means, securing fixed rate mortgages, and taking responsibility for ourselves now and in the future (retirement funds) get screwed coming and going.
I would venture to guess that those defaulting on their ARMs have greater financial problems than just their mortgages. Presuming that most people actually try to pay their mortgages, one can assume that they are also burdened with high credit card debt in which they are also in default. Providing mortgage relief (as has been done thus far) is not in my opinion going to induce any great stimulus into the economy. One need look no further than GM and Chrysler to see the impact of a restricted credit market, and if companies start failing it is just going to spiral downhill from there.
12 trillion pays off every home mortgage in the country.
I am not advocating nationalizing the mortgage industry, even partially, my point is simple... watch the money! The government can only throw money at problems for so long... the Fed can only lower interest rates so far, and we are rapidly approaching the end of the rope. We can not afford to devalue our currency, and what happens when the Fed can't lower interest rates any further and the market is still in the hole? How many trillions should we spend? Certainly no more than 12. Keep in mind we could probably pay off all delinquent and in foreclosure mortgages for 1 trillion. Watch the money and make sure we get what we pay for... and in the meantime?
What can we do? Party like it's 1929!
~Finntann~
Continuing on the theme of the financial bailout, I had a request for information on the mortgage market. Figures are courtesy of the US Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve.
As of 2007 the total value of mortgages held was: $14,557,000,000,000
Of this figure 11.136 trillion was for home mortgages (defined as 1-4 family dwellings).
831 billion was for multi-family residences (which I am assuming is any apartment larger than a fourplex).
2.5 trillion was held on commercial properties and 117 billion on farms (I wonder if agri-business is considered commercial, or farm).
1 trillion is a little less than 10% of the current mortgages outstanding, but estimates on the future cost of the bailout have reached as high as 8 trillion in some quarters. One is left wondering how efficient this whole process is going to be. Theoretically, we could, for 5.5 trillion dollars, reduce mortgage payments roughly in half (by eliminating half the principal and refinancing under the loans current terms), probably less if we only apply this to single-family home mortgages. This would in effect create an increase in spendable income that would be sure to stimulate the economy to a far greater effect than any other program thus far.
The median household income in the United States in 2007 was $50,233. Given that the rough rule of thumb is that mortgages are not to exceed 28% of income, (and yes I know, I am being overly simplistic), this should generate and additional $586 dollars per household per month in spendable income. For 7 trillion this could be extended to renters as well, by offsetting mortgages on multi-family dwellings on the condition that the landlords reduce the rent tenants pay by 40% (the landlords get to keep 10% of the mortgage savings per unit for themselves, and of course the program would be voluntary, but market competition should promote it).
So, 7 trillion dollars for a significant increase in relative income in all houses in the US, add a trillion in overhead and we are at the 8 trillion dollar figure being espoused by some as the cost of fixing this mess.
What would a 586 dollar increase in spendable income per household do for the economy?
Even spending half that would be the equivalent of a economic stimulus check every four months.
But back to that 1 trillion dollar figure, apply that and you have roughly a 10% reduction in mortgage payments generating and additional $100 in spendable income per household.
Currently, the mortgage bailout plan is in essence a relief act for those who made poor financial choices. We are providing relief to those who gambled on the market (adjustable rate mortgages), who leveraged themselves beyond their means (on more house than they could afford), and who have been unable to keep up with their payments. The bubble burst and now everyone pays the price, not only in the foreseeable increase in taxes to pay for all this, but in lost equity in homes and investments. Those of us who purchased homes within their means, securing fixed rate mortgages, and taking responsibility for ourselves now and in the future (retirement funds) get screwed coming and going.
I would venture to guess that those defaulting on their ARMs have greater financial problems than just their mortgages. Presuming that most people actually try to pay their mortgages, one can assume that they are also burdened with high credit card debt in which they are also in default. Providing mortgage relief (as has been done thus far) is not in my opinion going to induce any great stimulus into the economy. One need look no further than GM and Chrysler to see the impact of a restricted credit market, and if companies start failing it is just going to spiral downhill from there.
12 trillion pays off every home mortgage in the country.
I am not advocating nationalizing the mortgage industry, even partially, my point is simple... watch the money! The government can only throw money at problems for so long... the Fed can only lower interest rates so far, and we are rapidly approaching the end of the rope. We can not afford to devalue our currency, and what happens when the Fed can't lower interest rates any further and the market is still in the hole? How many trillions should we spend? Certainly no more than 12. Keep in mind we could probably pay off all delinquent and in foreclosure mortgages for 1 trillion. Watch the money and make sure we get what we pay for... and in the meantime?
What can we do? Party like it's 1929!
~Finntann~
Computers in the Classroom
Will we ever get past bumper sticker solutions to educating our kids in the 21st century?
Camille Paglia is a liberal lesbian feminist. I mention these personal facts only to show that I appreciate intelligent thought regardless of who it comes from (I am a conservative, straight, male chauvinist pig.) She's also a brilliant scholar and thinker who knows how to get her usually unorthodox point across. This college professor describes her disappointment in President-elect Obama for indulging in the fantasy that computers in the classroom is a universal panacea.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/12/10/hillary_mumbai/
Camille Paglia is a liberal lesbian feminist. I mention these personal facts only to show that I appreciate intelligent thought regardless of who it comes from (I am a conservative, straight, male chauvinist pig.) She's also a brilliant scholar and thinker who knows how to get her usually unorthodox point across. This college professor describes her disappointment in President-elect Obama for indulging in the fantasy that computers in the classroom is a universal panacea.
But then I gulped when Obama also pledged educational reform by putting state-of-the-art computers in every classroom. Groan. Computers alone will never solve the educational crisis in this country: They are tools and facilitators, not primary conveyors of knowledge. Packing his team with shiny Harvard retreads, Obama missed a golden opportunity to link his public works project with a national revalorization of the trades. Practical training in hands-on vocational skills is desperately needed in this country, where liberal arts education has become a soggy boondoggle, obscenely expensive and diluted by propaganda and groupthink.It's unfortunate we don't hear more of this from academe. My bet is on more of the same the next four years, only it will cost us more...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/12/10/hillary_mumbai/
Virtue Rewarded
This is how the market rewards virtue and attempts to right itself.
The temptation will be too great. I predict our feral government will muddy this rare occurrence of market clarity with some type of ham-handed bailout or intervention within 60 days...
WASHINGTON (AP) - Homeowners around the country are scrambling to refinance their mortgages at the lowest rates since the early 1960s as the economy staggers through what's likely to be the worst recession in decades.The thrifty are rewarded and the irresponsible are left to wallow in their self-created misery. Responsible borrowers get lower payments while banks and mortgage brokers make money with the increased business.
On Wednesday, some mortgage brokers were quoting mortgage rates of close to 4.5 percent for people with strong credit and hefty down payments.
It was the best news in months for anyone looking to lock in a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage. But it was not expected to be a cure-all, and borrowers already in danger of foreclosure probably won't be able to take advantage.
The temptation will be too great. I predict our feral government will muddy this rare occurrence of market clarity with some type of ham-handed bailout or intervention within 60 days...
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
1 Trillion Dollar Bailout
Forget about the money for the moment, and lets talk about the number: 1,000,000,000,000
Something to think about really, an astronomical number, a number inconceivably large. If you don't think so, close your eyes for a minute and imagine 1 ping pong ball. Not so hard a feat to accomplish, now imagine a dozen. A dozen is something you can grasp, a dozen eggs... easy to imagine. Now, ready for a challenge? Close your eyes and imagine a gross of ping pong balls, that's 144. Could you do it? Were there ping pong balls everywhere? Now, close your eyes and imagine one million ping pong balls, one billion? One trillion? Where and at what point did you lose any hope of keeping track of them all?
What does a trillion really mean? One third of all fish in the sea? The number of 'human' cells in your body (Believe me you don't want to know the number of non-human cells in your body). The number of unique URLs identified by Google. The number of seconds in 31,546 years.
It takes 5 trillion snowflakes to cover a football field to a depth of 1 foot with wet snow, for a total weight of 539 tons.
Lets talk money!
1 trillion dollars, strung end to end is roughly 1 astronomical unit, or the distance from the earth to the sun. 1 trillion pennies stacked evenly would form a cube 237 feet on each side and weigh 3,125,000 tons (that's roughly 6 billion pounds). There are estimated to be only 140 billion pennies in circulation, with only 300 billion ever made.
1 trillion dollars, spread evenly across the population works out to be $3,320 dollars a head. But then again, we don't all work, do we? So that's a $6,835 dollar tab for each and everyone of us that is employed.
Various estimates for the total costs range from 2 to 5 trillion dollars when all is said and done. By comparison, the Louisiana purchase cost us 15 million, adjusted for inflation that works out to only 217 billion. The New Deal cost us 54 billion, adjusted for inflation to around half a trillion dollars. The most expensive single event in American history was World War Two, with a price tag of 288 billion, adjusted for inflation to 3.6 trillion. Afterwards, we rebuilt Europe under the Marshall plan for just 12.7 billion, or 115 billion in today's money.
We could nationalize all credit card debt for just 2.5 trillion dollars according to the Federal Reserve.
That's not to say we ought to do nothing, just pay attention and make sure we get our dollar's worth.
~Finntann~
Something to think about really, an astronomical number, a number inconceivably large. If you don't think so, close your eyes for a minute and imagine 1 ping pong ball. Not so hard a feat to accomplish, now imagine a dozen. A dozen is something you can grasp, a dozen eggs... easy to imagine. Now, ready for a challenge? Close your eyes and imagine a gross of ping pong balls, that's 144. Could you do it? Were there ping pong balls everywhere? Now, close your eyes and imagine one million ping pong balls, one billion? One trillion? Where and at what point did you lose any hope of keeping track of them all?
What does a trillion really mean? One third of all fish in the sea? The number of 'human' cells in your body (Believe me you don't want to know the number of non-human cells in your body). The number of unique URLs identified by Google. The number of seconds in 31,546 years.
It takes 5 trillion snowflakes to cover a football field to a depth of 1 foot with wet snow, for a total weight of 539 tons.
Lets talk money!
1 trillion dollars, strung end to end is roughly 1 astronomical unit, or the distance from the earth to the sun. 1 trillion pennies stacked evenly would form a cube 237 feet on each side and weigh 3,125,000 tons (that's roughly 6 billion pounds). There are estimated to be only 140 billion pennies in circulation, with only 300 billion ever made.
1 trillion dollars, spread evenly across the population works out to be $3,320 dollars a head. But then again, we don't all work, do we? So that's a $6,835 dollar tab for each and everyone of us that is employed.
Various estimates for the total costs range from 2 to 5 trillion dollars when all is said and done. By comparison, the Louisiana purchase cost us 15 million, adjusted for inflation that works out to only 217 billion. The New Deal cost us 54 billion, adjusted for inflation to around half a trillion dollars. The most expensive single event in American history was World War Two, with a price tag of 288 billion, adjusted for inflation to 3.6 trillion. Afterwards, we rebuilt Europe under the Marshall plan for just 12.7 billion, or 115 billion in today's money.
We could nationalize all credit card debt for just 2.5 trillion dollars according to the Federal Reserve.
That's not to say we ought to do nothing, just pay attention and make sure we get our dollar's worth.
~Finntann~
Like Father Like Son
American Teens Lie, Cheat, Steal at "Alarming Rate"
The attitudes and conduct of some 29,760 high school students across the United States "doesn't bode well for the future when these youngsters become the next generation's politicians and parents, cops and corporate executives, and journalists and generals," the non-profit Josephson Institute said.
In its 2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, the Los Angeles-based organization said the teenagers' responses to questions about lying, stealing and cheating "reveals entrenched habits of dishonesty for the workforce of the future."
Overall, 30 percent of students admitted to stealing from a store within the past year, a two percent rise from 2006. More than one third of boys (35 percent) said they had stolen goods, compared to 26 percent of girls.
"Cheating in school continues to be rampant and it's getting worse," the study found. Amongst those surveyed, 64 percent said they had cheated on a test, compared to 60 percent in 2006. And 38 percent said they had done so two or more times.
But it's all OK. At least these little lying, cheating thieves feel good about themselves.
"Despite these high levels of dishonesty, these same kids have a high self-image when it comes to ethics." Some 93 percent of students indicated satisfaction with their own character and ethics, with 77 percent saying that "when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know." Children are a reflection of society's adults. So 30% of young Americans steal, 64% cheat, but 93% are satisfied with their character and ethics. This self-awareness gap explains a lot about what is going on in America today.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
There's No Fool Like a Rich Fool
So some guy named Bernard Madoff scammed a bunch of gullible millionaires out of $50 billion and now he's off to the hoosegow. Magazine owner Mort Zuckerman, along with various professional sports team owners were among the fleeced.
There's a word for these people: Suckers.
In the mad rush for even bigger piles of cash, these stupid rich people violated the first rule of investing:
Don't buy investments you don't understand.
Nobody understood what this guy was doing, because it was a brilliantly concealed ponzi scheme. He had a magic black box that produced returns of 12% per year, and that's all these naifs needed to know.
If you want to avoid a similar fate, visit Ric Edelman's website and read his lessons for turbulent times.
Don't laugh too hard at these greedy fools; you're bailing them out under the Securities Investor Protection Act. Who's the sucker now?
http://wcbstv.com/business/madoff.ponzi.scheme.2.888036.html
There's a word for these people: Suckers.
In the mad rush for even bigger piles of cash, these stupid rich people violated the first rule of investing:
Don't buy investments you don't understand.
Nobody understood what this guy was doing, because it was a brilliantly concealed ponzi scheme. He had a magic black box that produced returns of 12% per year, and that's all these naifs needed to know.
If you want to avoid a similar fate, visit Ric Edelman's website and read his lessons for turbulent times.
Don't laugh too hard at these greedy fools; you're bailing them out under the Securities Investor Protection Act. Who's the sucker now?
http://wcbstv.com/business/madoff.ponzi.scheme.2.888036.html
New Gas Tax
First it was California city slickers escaping to the Mountain West, finding to their shock and horror that livestock lived there, and then demanding the offensive creatures be banned. Now comes the EPA of President George Bush, Republican of Texas, with their plan to tax cow and hog farts.
Sounds funny, but it could run some ranchers out of business. It also reminded me of that famous anonymous Tax Poem.
The Tax Poem
Tax his land, Tax his bed,
Tax the table At which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor, Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes Are the rule.
Tax his work, Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts anyway!
Tax his cow, Tax his goat,
Tax his pants, Tax his coat!
Tax his ties, Tax his shirt,
Tax his work, Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink,
Tax him if he Tries to think.
Tax his cigars, Tax his beers,
If he cries, tax his tears.
Tax his car, Tax his gas,
Find other ways to tax his ass.
Tax all he has Then let him know
That you won’t be done Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers, Then tax him some more,
Tax him till he’s good and sore.
Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in which he’s laid.
Put these words upon his tomb,
“Taxes drove me to my doom.”
When he’s gone, Do not relax,
Its time to apply the Inheritance Tax.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_on_bi_ge/farm_scene_cow_tax_2
Sounds funny, but it could run some ranchers out of business. It also reminded me of that famous anonymous Tax Poem.
The Tax Poem
Tax his land, Tax his bed,
Tax the table At which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor, Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes Are the rule.
Tax his work, Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts anyway!
Tax his cow, Tax his goat,
Tax his pants, Tax his coat!
Tax his ties, Tax his shirt,
Tax his work, Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink,
Tax him if he Tries to think.
Tax his cigars, Tax his beers,
If he cries, tax his tears.
Tax his car, Tax his gas,
Find other ways to tax his ass.
Tax all he has Then let him know
That you won’t be done Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers, Then tax him some more,
Tax him till he’s good and sore.
Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in which he’s laid.
Put these words upon his tomb,
“Taxes drove me to my doom.”
When he’s gone, Do not relax,
Its time to apply the Inheritance Tax.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_on_bi_ge/farm_scene_cow_tax_2
Cowardly Exercises In Freedom
The shoe throwing incident could not have happened under the previous Iraqi regime. A reporter exercises his new found freedom by attacking the man responsible for bringing him that freedom. Yes, the Middle East is a complicated place.
This was not a brave act; it was a cowardly act. It's like the religion haters in the US who harass anti-gay marriage churchgoers or dunk a crucifix in a jar of urine and call it art. Try that in Europe with a Koran and see how far you get. These are not brave acts of free speech. Christians are easy targets because they don't cut heads off and burn down cities in a fervid rampage, foaming at the mouth and screaming all the while like a flaming pack of hemorrhoids.
No, Christians just shake their heads and move on. The Judeo-Christian God is too big to be insulted. As Cecil B. DeMille once said, "Man cannot break God's law, he can only break himself against God's law."
So throwing a shoe at President Bush was too easy. The president displayed some lightning quick reflexes, shook his head, and moved on. That Saddamite reporter will not suffer the fate of Iraqi reporters before him. He will not find himself chained to a lamppost in his neighborhood, bleeding out from the mouth because the government cut his offending tongue out. No, he will live to throw shoes another day. And that makes me happy. I am proud that we have carved out a place in a cauldron of hatred where people can express themselves without being killed for it.
Now, if that reporter, or any liberty lover, really wants to speak truth to power he could do it in lands uncontaminated by President Bush's hand. Let's see him throw a shoe at Egypt's Pharaoh Hosni Mubarak, Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad, or any member of the Iranian theocracy. That would be a brave statement.
This was not a brave act; it was a cowardly act. It's like the religion haters in the US who harass anti-gay marriage churchgoers or dunk a crucifix in a jar of urine and call it art. Try that in Europe with a Koran and see how far you get. These are not brave acts of free speech. Christians are easy targets because they don't cut heads off and burn down cities in a fervid rampage, foaming at the mouth and screaming all the while like a flaming pack of hemorrhoids.
No, Christians just shake their heads and move on. The Judeo-Christian God is too big to be insulted. As Cecil B. DeMille once said, "Man cannot break God's law, he can only break himself against God's law."
So throwing a shoe at President Bush was too easy. The president displayed some lightning quick reflexes, shook his head, and moved on. That Saddamite reporter will not suffer the fate of Iraqi reporters before him. He will not find himself chained to a lamppost in his neighborhood, bleeding out from the mouth because the government cut his offending tongue out. No, he will live to throw shoes another day. And that makes me happy. I am proud that we have carved out a place in a cauldron of hatred where people can express themselves without being killed for it.
Now, if that reporter, or any liberty lover, really wants to speak truth to power he could do it in lands uncontaminated by President Bush's hand. Let's see him throw a shoe at Egypt's Pharaoh Hosni Mubarak, Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad, or any member of the Iranian theocracy. That would be a brave statement.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Gun Grabbers?
Chicago Sun Times reports that President-elect Obama is playing snake charmer to gun owners:
How does Mr. Obama define "common sense?" Does he have any plans to redefine what "lawful" means? Don't hold your breath waiting for some metrosexual reporter who thinks hunting is murder to ask those questions.
As to his comment that lawful gun owners have nothing to fear, I couldn't help recalling a Thomas Jefferson quote:
Therein lies the problem with trying to restrict God-given freedoms: How does a bureaucrat decide how many guns (how much freedom) is "enough?"
Leave law-abiding citizens alone. There are more than enough criminals running loose to keep our law enforcement busy without creating a new class of criminal out of some do-gooder's paranoid fantasy.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1318968,obama-gun-sales-up-120808.article
"I believe in common-sense gun safety laws, and I believe in the second amendment," Obama said at a news conference. "Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I said that throughout the campaign. I haven't indicated anything different during the transition. I think people can take me at my word."I take the president-elect at his word. I just have a few questions about the meaning of some of those words. Like a famous man once said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word is is.
How does Mr. Obama define "common sense?" Does he have any plans to redefine what "lawful" means? Don't hold your breath waiting for some metrosexual reporter who thinks hunting is murder to ask those questions.
As to his comment that lawful gun owners have nothing to fear, I couldn't help recalling a Thomas Jefferson quote:
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign against Gun Violence, had this to say about a spike in post-election gun purchases:
"We think they are people who already have more than enough guns at their homes to protect themselves and are buying more."Who is Peter Hamm to decide someone has "more than enough" guns? To some of us, too many guns is like too much fun. And like Daryle Singletary, I ain't never had too much fun.
Therein lies the problem with trying to restrict God-given freedoms: How does a bureaucrat decide how many guns (how much freedom) is "enough?"
Leave law-abiding citizens alone. There are more than enough criminals running loose to keep our law enforcement busy without creating a new class of criminal out of some do-gooder's paranoid fantasy.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1318968,obama-gun-sales-up-120808.article
Mexodus
Mexicans are self-deporting because of the bad economy, heading south for Christmas.
I've never been one to demonize illegal immigrants; they've got mouths to feed and we encourage them to sneak over and go to work. I don't blame them; I blame our government and the crooked business owners who have created this human rights misdemeanor of encouraging illegality and rewarding it with criminally low pay, no benefits, and legal harassment. We are a sick society that dangles a carrot then whacks with the stick.
Meanwhile, why are we denying a work permit visa for someone who has been legally employed here for 18 years? Mr. Espinoza is obeying the law. That's the person we should be inviting to become a citizen, not sending back home.
Not to worry. This southward tide of humanity will reverse course once the Democrats' New Deal jobs program kicks in. Building infrastructure is gritty, backbreaking work that rarely stops for inclement weather. Many unemployed Americans will be holding out for government-sponsored office jobs, and businesses will be holding out for cheap labor. Mexicans, God bless 'em, will fill that gap.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081215/ap_on_re_us/return_to_mexico
DENVER – After going months without a full-time job, Daniel Ramirez has decided it's time to return to family in Mexico.
Vicenta Rodriguez Lopez says she can't afford to live in Colorado any more because her husband was deported.
Roberto Espinoza is going back, too. After 18 years as a mechanic for a General Motors dealership in Denver, his work permit wasn't renewed and he didn't want to remain in the country illegally.
All are leaving Colorado in time for Christmas — joining a traditional holiday migration that will number almost 1 million people, says Mexico's interior ministry. But they have no intention of returning to Colorado, a place that promised prosperity.
I've never been one to demonize illegal immigrants; they've got mouths to feed and we encourage them to sneak over and go to work. I don't blame them; I blame our government and the crooked business owners who have created this human rights misdemeanor of encouraging illegality and rewarding it with criminally low pay, no benefits, and legal harassment. We are a sick society that dangles a carrot then whacks with the stick.
Meanwhile, why are we denying a work permit visa for someone who has been legally employed here for 18 years? Mr. Espinoza is obeying the law. That's the person we should be inviting to become a citizen, not sending back home.
Not to worry. This southward tide of humanity will reverse course once the Democrats' New Deal jobs program kicks in. Building infrastructure is gritty, backbreaking work that rarely stops for inclement weather. Many unemployed Americans will be holding out for government-sponsored office jobs, and businesses will be holding out for cheap labor. Mexicans, God bless 'em, will fill that gap.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081215/ap_on_re_us/return_to_mexico
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Government's Golden Rule
It's a sad state to which our society has fallen. And saddest of all is that our government has led this descent into craven pandering. Like starving third-world refugees fighting over bottled water and bags of rice, we witness bankers, union workers, auto executives, business owners, homeowners, community activists, governors, and mayors shove and trample one another in slavering pursuit of government largess. So much for the pioneer spirit of the New World.
And in true entitled recipient fashion, the beggars curse the benefactors all the while...
I realized we had abandoned the realm of sanity when something the Reverend Al Sharpton said on TV yesterday actually made sense to me. He lambasted Bank of America for for laying off thousands of workers after accepting government money. I just wasn't right, he maintained. They took government money so they should be saving jobs, not destroying them.
More vitriol is aimed at GE for taking a government handout and using it to buy Chinese airplanes. Savagely elbowing their way to the front of the line, Angry UAW members (has anyone ever heard of a happy UAW worker?) demand to know why congress shovels trillions to Dirty Hank's Wall Street bandit buddies but denies Detroit a mere $15 Billion?
I stand with Reverand Al and the UAW: Our government has acted in an unfair and immoral fashion. It's all legal mind you, if you ignore the original intent of the constitution, but it stinks of immorality to us commoners. It violates that vague, secular American sense of fairness.
This is what happens when a government becomes disconnected from its founding principles. What are the rules of this damned bailout? It's just one rule: The Golden Rule: They who have the gold make the rules. Our constitution should be our moral code for governance, but it's being used as a doormat right now. Reverend Sharpton, union workers, and underwater homeowners can all rightly cry "foul."
If you're going to pick winners and losers you better have a clear set of rules that all the players understand or you are wide open to charges of fraud and favoritism. Better yet, why doesn't our government tend to getting its own fiscal house in order and leave picking winners and losers to the consumer?
And in true entitled recipient fashion, the beggars curse the benefactors all the while...
I realized we had abandoned the realm of sanity when something the Reverend Al Sharpton said on TV yesterday actually made sense to me. He lambasted Bank of America for for laying off thousands of workers after accepting government money. I just wasn't right, he maintained. They took government money so they should be saving jobs, not destroying them.
More vitriol is aimed at GE for taking a government handout and using it to buy Chinese airplanes. Savagely elbowing their way to the front of the line, Angry UAW members (has anyone ever heard of a happy UAW worker?) demand to know why congress shovels trillions to Dirty Hank's Wall Street bandit buddies but denies Detroit a mere $15 Billion?
I stand with Reverand Al and the UAW: Our government has acted in an unfair and immoral fashion. It's all legal mind you, if you ignore the original intent of the constitution, but it stinks of immorality to us commoners. It violates that vague, secular American sense of fairness.
This is what happens when a government becomes disconnected from its founding principles. What are the rules of this damned bailout? It's just one rule: The Golden Rule: They who have the gold make the rules. Our constitution should be our moral code for governance, but it's being used as a doormat right now. Reverend Sharpton, union workers, and underwater homeowners can all rightly cry "foul."
If you're going to pick winners and losers you better have a clear set of rules that all the players understand or you are wide open to charges of fraud and favoritism. Better yet, why doesn't our government tend to getting its own fiscal house in order and leave picking winners and losers to the consumer?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Imagine Whirled Peas
Look out, believers! Self-appointed Enlightened Ones have decided to craft a charter to make the world's bowl of Mixed Religious Nuts all get along. The goal? Only universal tolerance and world peace.
But I don't want to be accused of cynicism, so here's my stab at a world peace religious charter:
I have a dream that one day the world's door knockers and tambourine shakers can all get along.
The head cutter will lie down with the bible thumper.
The three big monotheistic faiths will combine their religious texts into one book of harmonious diversity, The Toranible.
That the monotheists and the dualists can combine their faiths into a new, confusing trinity of creative destruction, or destructive creativity, or whatever.
Twelver Shia can all drive Mazdas in a nod to Zoroastrians.
Nietzscheans and televangelists can acknowledge each others' will to power.
Christian eco-sinners can buy enviro-indulgences from Reverend Al Gore's Church of Gaia.
This is fun; try it yourself! Fortunately for us believers, this kind of feel-good babble-blather, like a UN resolution, makes the participants feel good, but is largely ineffective. Everyone can go back to their own religious text now.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081114211405.6b9pjnso&show_article=1
A website launched Friday with the backing of the technology industry and Hollywood elite urges people worldwide to help craft a framework for harmony between all religions.Good luck with that lady! I've seen the world, and it ain't in the mood for joining hands and singing that Coca-Cola song around the Christmas tree. It's more in the mood for Beethoven's Eroica or anything by Wagner that involves loud booms.
The Charter for Compassion project on the Internet at www.charterforcompassion.org springs from a "wish" granted this year to religious scholar Karen Armstrong... in California (where else?)
"The chief task of our time is to build a global society where people of all persuasions can live together in peace and harmony," Armstrong said.
But I don't want to be accused of cynicism, so here's my stab at a world peace religious charter:
I have a dream that one day the world's door knockers and tambourine shakers can all get along.
The head cutter will lie down with the bible thumper.
The three big monotheistic faiths will combine their religious texts into one book of harmonious diversity, The Toranible.
That the monotheists and the dualists can combine their faiths into a new, confusing trinity of creative destruction, or destructive creativity, or whatever.
Twelver Shia can all drive Mazdas in a nod to Zoroastrians.
Nietzscheans and televangelists can acknowledge each others' will to power.
Christian eco-sinners can buy enviro-indulgences from Reverend Al Gore's Church of Gaia.
This is fun; try it yourself! Fortunately for us believers, this kind of feel-good babble-blather, like a UN resolution, makes the participants feel good, but is largely ineffective. Everyone can go back to their own religious text now.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081114211405.6b9pjnso&show_article=1
Friday, December 12, 2008
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.
-- James Madison (one of the guys who wrote the constitution)
-- James Madison (one of the guys who wrote the constitution)
Netherlands Famed Liberalism Used Against Them
Here's a blast from the recent past. I am a huge fan of classic liberal democracy. It is the foundation of our modern western world. Enemies of freedom are using legal jujitsu to put an end to it. How crafty: Using a society's freedoms to defeat that society.
A Dutch cartoonist has been arrested for anti-Islamic cartoons that violate Dutch law prohibiting violence-inciting speech. Imagine that... Christianity on the old continent could have been saved if good Christians had just bombed and killed those who criticize it. Pelagius has a good article on the whole sorry episode.
Well, at least the guilty cartoonist didn't get slaughtered on the streets of Amsterdam, like Theo Van Gogh did.
This is another wakeup call, but we're still sleeping...
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Congressional Constitutional Ignorance
How do you get around the constitution? Oily, expansive politicians merely ignore the original intent.
That's how our government justifies spending trillions on dubious schemes. James Madison predicted it:
http://blog.heritage.org/2008/11/27/for-visitors-a-capitol-scandal/
http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/fp5.cfm
That's how our government justifies spending trillions on dubious schemes. James Madison predicted it:
“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare,” James Madison wrote, “the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.”And now $650 million of your tax dollars have built a monument in our nation's capitol dedicated to distorting the constitution's original meaning. Congress’ new Visitor Center decrees the Constitution isn’t a list of powers delegated to government by the people, but rather of “aspirations” Congress is expected to define and realize. The exhibit specifies six:
- Unity (as in “a more perfect Union” in the Preamble, which grants Congress no power).
- Freedom (based on the First Amendment, which begins with the words “Congress shall make no law …”).
- Common Defense (from Article I, Section 8).
- Knowledge (authority to promote public education, support arts and sciences, fund extensive research).
- Exploration (to justify funding “curiosity and boldness” — like 4, this comes from a convoluted reading of the clause granting Congress the power to issue patents).
- General Welfare (found in Article I, Section 8’s restriction of the taxing power, but taken here to mean “improving transportation, promoting agriculture and industry, protecting health and the environment, and seeking ways to solve social and economic problems”).
What is the constitutional text? It is an act of communication, of instruction, from the supreme lawmaker within the American constitutional system to government officials. It conveys their intentions as to what power government officials would have, how that power would be organized, to what legitimate purposes that power could be used, and what limitations there would be on that power.Who is the supreme lawmaker? We The People. And don't let your elected officials forget it.
http://blog.heritage.org/2008/11/27/for-visitors-a-capitol-scandal/
http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/fp5.cfm
Fear
All fear is not bad. Rational fear is an instinct that instructs and keeps you out of trouble.
NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) - The recent spate of drug-related killings in Nogales, Mexico, is driving apart what have long been close-knit communities, discouraging some residents of its Arizona sister city from crossing the border.Even lifelong residents of the U.S. side of the border are refusing to cross the line to see relatives or friends. Others are going less frequently or restricting themselves to daytime visits.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
U.N.: Useless Nobodies
Abuses Persist as UN Human Rights Declaration Turns 60
Some headlines need no further explanation. Regardless, I can't miss an opportunity to heap scorn on the pathetically useless and rotten, corrupt organization known as the United Nations. UNICEF is the only entity that has done any good, and Lord only knows how many children were abused in the process by the sick molesters this International House of Perverts seems to attract like flypaper...
So what's the state of human rights around the world 60 years after this corrupt dictators club promulgated their famous declaration?
Bloody, avaricious tyrants run their personal fiefs in Central Africa. Millions are displaced and tens to hundreds of thousands are raped and killed in lovely garden spots like Sudan, which has the blood of Darfur on its hands. Homosexuals are persecuted and killed in the Middle East, while women there fare only slightly better as long as they know their place. Journalists rot away in the dungeons of China and Cuba...
But what do you expect from an organization with such humanitarian luminaries as China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia on its Human Rights panel?
Hot air and pompous declarations are meaningless. The only way to stop bad people is with better armed good people. War has never solved anything except for ending slavery, fascism, communism...
Peace Through Superior Firepower!
Some headlines need no further explanation. Regardless, I can't miss an opportunity to heap scorn on the pathetically useless and rotten, corrupt organization known as the United Nations. UNICEF is the only entity that has done any good, and Lord only knows how many children were abused in the process by the sick molesters this International House of Perverts seems to attract like flypaper...
So what's the state of human rights around the world 60 years after this corrupt dictators club promulgated their famous declaration?
Bloody, avaricious tyrants run their personal fiefs in Central Africa. Millions are displaced and tens to hundreds of thousands are raped and killed in lovely garden spots like Sudan, which has the blood of Darfur on its hands. Homosexuals are persecuted and killed in the Middle East, while women there fare only slightly better as long as they know their place. Journalists rot away in the dungeons of China and Cuba...
But what do you expect from an organization with such humanitarian luminaries as China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia on its Human Rights panel?
Hot air and pompous declarations are meaningless. The only way to stop bad people is with better armed good people. War has never solved anything except for ending slavery, fascism, communism...
Peace Through Superior Firepower!
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
GOP Mojo
How does the GOP get its mojo back? By staking out core conservative principles, not watering them down, and attracting people to the cause rather than repelling them.
Two things stood out from two articles I read a few Saturdays ago. Peggy Noonan (I know, she's a Sarah-hating snob, but bear with me) said the following about President-elect Obama saving Senator Lieberman's chairmanship:
So the key lies in agreeing on core principles (the essentials) and expelling politicians who violate them, while tolerating a diversity of thought on the non-essentials, all the while being civil, optimistic and charitable towards those we disagree with.
Two things stood out from two articles I read a few Saturdays ago. Peggy Noonan (I know, she's a Sarah-hating snob, but bear with me) said the following about President-elect Obama saving Senator Lieberman's chairmanship:
Politics is a game of addition, take the long view, don't throw anyone out...Mark Sanford is a successful GOP governor I admire. He once turned a pig loose in the South Carolina Statehouse to chastise the state's pork barrel spending legislators. He has the following advice for the GOP:
I believe Republicans and conservatives must agree on our core principles. St. Augustine called for ‘unity in the essentials, diversity in the nonessentials, and charity in all things,’ and while I believe there should always be a big GOP tent, there must also be a shared agreement on the essentials.Peggy Noonan's comment highlights a mathematical fact: The GOP cannot win another national election without expanding the 2008 voter base. You win elections by attracting people to your cause. Torch-carrying pogroms expelling the infidels from the party may be the path to emotional self-satisfaction, but it spells ruin for a political movement.
So the key lies in agreeing on core principles (the essentials) and expelling politicians who violate them, while tolerating a diversity of thought on the non-essentials, all the while being civil, optimistic and charitable towards those we disagree with.
Monday, December 8, 2008
FDR, Obama, & The Forgotten Man
I'm reading The Forgotten Man, by Amity Shlaes. It is an especially useful book right now since it knocks down many myths of the Great Depression.
The 1929 crash was no different than previous panics, but government intervention made it worse. Hoover's tight-fisted monetary policy, tax hikes, and import tariffs turned a temporary dip into a full-blown depression. FDR's centrally-planned government interventions scared away private money and intimidated investors, prolonging the depression.
Perhaps our government should indeed be spending more money right now in a Keynesian effort to prime the pump. But that only goes so far, and the danger is that government money is stupid money: How does a bureaucrat spend a dollar so it best benefits the economy? How does government avoid competing with the private sector? Or favoring one company over another?
A well-regulated free market is much more efficient. And no, our current economy is neither well-regulated nor efficient: It is a rotten swiss cheese shot though with government intervention, and greedy rats slink through dark warrens carved out by politicians who use our constitution as a doormat. Government should set rules of fair play and then butt out, but there's too much money to be made engaging in mutual backscratching with unions and big business.
Another ignored lesson from 1929 is that raising taxes is a bad idea because it depresses private sector hiring. And government intervention in the free-market creates uncertainty that kills economic growth. Roosevelt didn't pull us out of the Great Depression; the private sector gearing up for World War II did. Roosevelt's policies can be rightly credited with keeping people from starving, but private enterprise rebuilt our economic engine.
George Santayana famously observed that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
A witty unattributed riposte is: Those who do remember history are doomed to make new, more interesting mistakes.
Well, President-elect Obama's braintrust is all atwitter at the prospect of reliving the good old days, while relishing the opportunity to outdo FDR's ambitious projects.
It's up to us conservatives to know our history and get involved in this discussion. We can't just throw rocks. People are out of work and the economy is on the skids; extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Conservatives won't control this debate, but they need to stay in it to fight for free-market solutions. To do otherwise would be to helplessly watch nostalgic old-line Democrats usher in the 1930's all over again.
The 1929 crash was no different than previous panics, but government intervention made it worse. Hoover's tight-fisted monetary policy, tax hikes, and import tariffs turned a temporary dip into a full-blown depression. FDR's centrally-planned government interventions scared away private money and intimidated investors, prolonging the depression.
Perhaps our government should indeed be spending more money right now in a Keynesian effort to prime the pump. But that only goes so far, and the danger is that government money is stupid money: How does a bureaucrat spend a dollar so it best benefits the economy? How does government avoid competing with the private sector? Or favoring one company over another?
A well-regulated free market is much more efficient. And no, our current economy is neither well-regulated nor efficient: It is a rotten swiss cheese shot though with government intervention, and greedy rats slink through dark warrens carved out by politicians who use our constitution as a doormat. Government should set rules of fair play and then butt out, but there's too much money to be made engaging in mutual backscratching with unions and big business.
Another ignored lesson from 1929 is that raising taxes is a bad idea because it depresses private sector hiring. And government intervention in the free-market creates uncertainty that kills economic growth. Roosevelt didn't pull us out of the Great Depression; the private sector gearing up for World War II did. Roosevelt's policies can be rightly credited with keeping people from starving, but private enterprise rebuilt our economic engine.
George Santayana famously observed that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.
A witty unattributed riposte is: Those who do remember history are doomed to make new, more interesting mistakes.
Well, President-elect Obama's braintrust is all atwitter at the prospect of reliving the good old days, while relishing the opportunity to outdo FDR's ambitious projects.
Providing some economic incentives for the private sector is a good thing, even in the environmental area. But watch out for pointy-headed bureaucrats who want to perform social experiments using our tax dollars:The big ticket will be the public works spending. “We will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s,” Mr. Obama said.
He did not give any estimate of how much he would devote to that purpose, but when he met with the nation’s governors this week, they said the states had $136 billion worth of already-approved road, bridge and other projects ready to go as soon as funding became available. They estimated each billion dollars spent would create 40,000 jobs.
“We won’t do it the old Washington way,” Mr. Obama said. “We won’t just throw money at the problem. We’ll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve — by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world.”This is reassuring to a liberal or moderate ear, but to the conservative, free-market ear it is a clanging alarm bell. The new administration needs to promote job growth and stimulate the economy, but it must not repeat the interventionist, central-planning mistakes of the past.
It's up to us conservatives to know our history and get involved in this discussion. We can't just throw rocks. People are out of work and the economy is on the skids; extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Conservatives won't control this debate, but they need to stay in it to fight for free-market solutions. To do otherwise would be to helplessly watch nostalgic old-line Democrats usher in the 1930's all over again.
Atheist Encounter
A few weeks ago I followed a provocative link while surfing and ended up staggering into a website popular with atheists. The author was lampooning the virgin birth and Marian apparitions, with readers gleefully piling on with vulgar jokes and comments. I asked a simple question and boy, did I get my hat handed to me. Here is my initial comment that brought what felt like the wrath of God down upon me:
So you're an atheist. Why be so derisive of those who don't share your views? Also, I ask your intellectually superior readers to examine the rolls of history's greatest minds. There you will find believers and non-believers alike.
Why is it so many critics of religion swaddle themselves in smug condescension? I guess everybody's gotta believe in something.
I suppose I brought it on myself with references to intellectual superiority and smug condescension. You can read the whole article and the sorry thread that follows here. My comments start at # 141. You will notice I never criticized their (non)belief, nor tried to convert anyone. That didn't save me though. They flamed me mercilessly.
I still wonder why so many atheists are not satisfied with merely disbelieving, but must make jolly fun of mocking the Almighty and his believers. It is insecurity? There also seems to be a lot of anger in their comments. Many non-believers take their non-belief quite personally. I wanted to know why.
I really upset the faithful when I opined that non-belief becomes a belief with its own orthodoxy. Those who question that orthodoxy become the target of witty, sarcastic derision or worse, angry personal attacks. Keep questioning, and then the comments get angrier. When I pointed that out, it seemed to only engender more anger. From there it became a downward spiral of charges and countercharges, each accusing the other of smugness and condescension.
I have also noticed that atheism and the use (or misuse) of logic go hand in hand. Atheists see themselves as supremely logical, while we believers are illogical, superstitious boobs. Our historical accounts are worthless, although they are of the same kind we trust to inform us of the battle of Marathon or Tamerlane. Rather than use logic as a rapier to slice and dice confusing issues, bringing order out of chaos, they misappropriate it as a blunt instrument to bludgeon those unfortunate enough to stumble into their presence.
Well, Dinesh D’Souza has the antidote. He uses Kant’s philosophy to refute atheism. We learn from him that those who try to prove or disprove the existence of God with traditional logic are committing what philosophers call a category error. God exists outside of time and space and is not subject to natural laws. Indeed, miracles are a contravention of the laws of nature. Just because you cannot see something doesn't mean it does not exist. Anyway, D’Souza breaks it down so ordinary people can understand it. I recommend you check it out.
Finally, I am not nearly as smart as Kant or D'Souza, or the Atheist Richard Dawkins, but I know this: Arguing over the existence of God is futile. It cannot be proven or disproved as can a mathematical formula. Men and women have provided historical testimony. You can choose to believe them or not. Meanwhile, science cannot prove how life spontaneously came into being.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Happy Days Are Here Again
Obama Pledges Massive Public Works Program
The New York Times' giddy, screaming headline says it all. Liberals are partying like it's 1929... Actually, 1932, when disgraced president and former wonder boy Herbert Hoover was driven from office by the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It's all about jobs. Mr. Obama is planning a massive jobs program ala FDR.
Now if we could just find 5.5 million Americans qualified and willing to do construction work. This could turn into a huge boon for illegal immigrants...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/us/politics/07radio.html?_r=1&ref=politics
The New York Times' giddy, screaming headline says it all. Liberals are partying like it's 1929... Actually, 1932, when disgraced president and former wonder boy Herbert Hoover was driven from office by the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It's all about jobs. Mr. Obama is planning a massive jobs program ala FDR.
Mr. Obama and his team are working with Congressional leaders to fashion a spending package that could invest hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy. A big part of that would be infrastructure projects such as building or repairing roads, bridges, schools, sewer systems and other public utilities.If government is hell-bent on blowing a bunch of money, national infrastructure is much preferable to dubious "green jobs," and other lurches into socialist banking experiments. This could produce over 5 million jobs. Real jobs creating real infrastructure that benefits our nation.
The big ticket will be the public works spending. “We will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s,” Mr. Obama said.
Now if we could just find 5.5 million Americans qualified and willing to do construction work. This could turn into a huge boon for illegal immigrants...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/us/politics/07radio.html?_r=1&ref=politics
Saturday, December 6, 2008
A Day That Will Live In Infamy
Frenchman crying - June, 1940He cries as he watches the German soldiers marching down the Champs Elysees. The glory of France has been ground underfoot by Hitler's goose-stepping legions. In a matter of weeks, the vaunted French army, the Maginot Line, and all of France's pride has been destroyed by the Nazi blitzkrieg. He is a middle-aged man, maybe in his mid Forties. Look at his tears, his tie, his nice suit. He survived World War One and looks like he has since prospered. And now? The night has fallen over France, and soon, all of Europe. He cries for the Twentieth Century. Picture and caption: http://www.acepilots.com
My wife and I took our kids to a museum here in town on December 7th a few years ago. While there, we had the good fortune to meet a WW II Navy veteran who had survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. We also encountered the famous WW II picture of the Frenchman crying. These two contrasting encounters taught my family a lesson that I want to share with you.
At the beginning of our tour I spied the aging sailor wearing a veteran’s garrison cap emblazoned with the words “Pearl Harbor Survivor.” I crouched down and quickly tutored my children on Pearl Harbor, WW II, and the man’s significance upon that historical landscape. Fortunately, the kids grasped the meaning of the moment and we approached the gentleman. A mellow, unassuming man, he treated our questions with kindness and received our thanks with humility.
At the end of our museum tour we came face to face with the elderly veteran’s polar opposite: the picture of the Frenchman crying. Many of my fellow Americans would probably enjoy hearty anti-French belly laughs at this picture. But I feel only a profound, heart-tugging sadness when I gaze upon that pitiable countenance. This is the face of a people who lacked the will to defend their freedom. This is the face that traded war and its attendant violence for subjugation and humiliation.
I felt just as compelled to introduce my children to the Frenchman crying as I did to the aging hero. I directed my kids’ attention to the picture and asked them to describe it. “He’s crying,” and “That man is sad,” were the answers I got. They could see his distress and wanted to know what had caused it.
I told them this is how you end up when you're unable or unwilling to fight for your freedom. I told them that if they were not prepared to risk their lives for their country, they had better be prepared to stand on the street crying as the conquerors march by. I insisted they study the picture some more, observe the pain on the man’s face, notice the tears running down his cheeks. “Remember that face,” I told them, “and may you never experience his misfortune.”
Reliance on Maginot Lines and international organizations provides a sense of security--up until the inevitable failure of such contrivances. Then, alas, it is back to blood and steel. Sadly, we are all too human after all.
The veteran and the Frenchman stand in stark contrast. Taken together, they remind us of two unyielding truths: The opposite of war is not necessarily peace, and freedom is never free.
Conservatives: Keep the Faith!
The road to GOP recovery lies not in chasing every last infidel from the party, but rather organizing around simple constitutional principles and then sticking to them. And that doesn't mean abandoning your traditional values.
Randall Hoven has written a piece in the American Thinker entitled, A Libertarian Defense of Social Conservatism. He defends social conservatism better than social conservatives do.
He exposes the angry left as the truly intolerant social engineers who use legislation and the courts to boss the rest of us around.
Randall Hoven has written a piece in the American Thinker entitled, A Libertarian Defense of Social Conservatism. He defends social conservatism better than social conservatives do.
He exposes the angry left as the truly intolerant social engineers who use legislation and the courts to boss the rest of us around.
The most obvious point to me is that it is the do-gooding liberals who are telling us all what we can and can't do.
The religious right usually just wants to be left alone, either to home school, pray in public or not get their children vaccinated with who-knows-what. Inasmuch as the "religious right" wants some things outlawed, they have failed miserably for at least the last 50 years.
Abortion, sodomy, and pornography are now all Constitutional rights. However, praying in public school is outlawed, based on that same Constitution.I must say, even as an agnostic, something is creepy about a government that outlaws Nativity scenes at City Hall, but subsidizes Piss Christ. That tries to disband the Boy Scouts but promotes gay marriage. That disallows even voluntary, student-led prayer at public school, but teaches children how to put on condoms.What is so funny about Bill Maher's Religulous? What is so bad about Sarah Palin hoping to do God's will or praying for His guidance?
Conservatives can embrace core principles, keep our traditional values, and still attract small government and libertarian agnostics to our cause. Keep the faith!
Friday, December 5, 2008
Parenting 2008
First it was bankers who know nothing about handling money. Now the spotlight is on parents who know nothing of parenting, courtesy of Breitbart:
How do these wimpy parents function in real life? How do they ask for a pay raise or tell a subordinate that their performance stinks? I'll bet the used car salesmen can spot these suckers coming a mile away.
The message: Please, in these days of economic angst, cut back on marketing your products directly to our children. The letter-writing initiative was launched by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which says roughly 1,400 of its members and supporters have contacted 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids.This quote from an Indiana woman, oops, it's a neutered new millennium male, sums up our parenting crisis:
"Unfortunately, I will not be able to purchase many of the toys that my sons have asked for; we simply don't have the money," wrote Todd Helmkamp of Hudson, Ind. "By bombarding them with advertisements ... you are placing parents like me in the unenviable position of having to tell our children that we can't afford the toys you promote."What a boob. I tell my kids that every year. Try this: "Kids, mom and dad don't have the money to buy those presents you want, but Christmas is not about cashing in anyway."
How do these wimpy parents function in real life? How do they ask for a pay raise or tell a subordinate that their performance stinks? I'll bet the used car salesmen can spot these suckers coming a mile away.
Unbalanced
The GM Chief Financial Officer obviously hasn't seen the government's balance sheet...
DETROIT -(Dow Jones)- General Motors Corp. (GM) expects the federal government, possibly in the form of an oversight board charged with overseeing the auto maker's turnaround, to have a key role in restructuring the company's debt.
"It is very, very evident from the government's perspective that we're going to have to restructure the balance sheet to make sure we have a viable enterprise going forward," Chief Financial Officer Ray Young said Wednesday. He added that the government will have a say on how this restructuring gets done. (Read Entire CNN Article)
Now, can we get someone to come in and force our government to restructure its balance sheet "to ensure we have a viable enterprise going forward?"
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Blind Leading The Blind
GM CEO Wagoner optimistic after Senate Hearing
Would you be optimistic if someone who had burned down their house playing with matches offered to light your furnace for you?General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner emerged Thursday from a six-hour hearing before the Senate Banking Committee optimistic that a deal can be reached in Congress to help his company survive a critical cash shortage.Ever heard the phrase "brilliant minds think alike"? Well, so do dumb minds:
Wagoner said many of the questions and suggestions from committee members were compatible with the viability plan GM submitted to Congress on Tuesday in an effort to obtain up to $18 billion in federal loans.GM and congress agree on a plan? It's doomed.
College: Somebody's Gotta Pay Big Ed
Google News link groupings can provide an instructive contrast. Here's the latest concerning college costs.
The Mercury News brags that California has the lowest college costs in the US. Californians are complaining that the state is raising per unit costs from $20 to $30.
Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle scolds Texas for getting an F in college affordability. 47 other states also got an F. Do you think the organization handing out the grades might be biased?
Would it be churlish of me to point out that California is a bankrupt failed state while Texas is a well-governed model of economic success? Neither news report said anything about that.
Here is the current state of college costs, again courtesy of the Mercury News:
Finally, here's a link to a hilarious look at the 10 Most Worthless College Degrees. Warning: Offensive language!
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11125006?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headlinCollege: Somebody's Gotta Pay
http://www.holytaco.com/2008/06/03/the-10-most-worthless-college-majors/e/metro/6144079.html
The Mercury News brags that California has the lowest college costs in the US. Californians are complaining that the state is raising per unit costs from $20 to $30.
Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle scolds Texas for getting an F in college affordability. 47 other states also got an F. Do you think the organization handing out the grades might be biased?
Would it be churlish of me to point out that California is a bankrupt failed state while Texas is a well-governed model of economic success? Neither news report said anything about that.
Here is the current state of college costs, again courtesy of the Mercury News:
Nationally, college is getting less affordable every year... Overall, tuition increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2006, while median family income increased 147 percent and the consumer price index 106 percent, the study found.When is Congress going to drag college administrators before its pompous committees and demand Big Education stop gouging the consumer?
Finally, here's a link to a hilarious look at the 10 Most Worthless College Degrees. Warning: Offensive language!
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11125006?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headlinCollege: Somebody's Gotta Pay
http://www.holytaco.com/2008/06/03/the-10-most-worthless-college-majors/e/metro/6144079.html
May a Plague of Bankers Descend Upon You
Beware swarms of failed bankers descending upon the heartland from the east.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081026/D942BR8O0.html
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Bankers and brokers looking to escape the financial meltdown are scrambling to relocate their families, possessions and rarified talent far from Wall Street to places such as Florida, Chicago, Milwaukee, Virginia and Asia. Read the article...They've gotta patronize local stores, hire movers and various tradespeople in the process of getting settled in that new house. I hope Joe the handyman and Jill the plumber gouge the crap out of them...
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081026/D942BR8O0.html
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Commies In Our Back Yard
I'm tired of hearing about Russia and China wooing Latin America, and I'm tired of the hand wringing that accompanies the latest news reports of it.
Latin America is not Uncle Sam's back yard. It is a diverse collection of countries full of people who don't like the United States. I think much of the dislike is unjustified and springs from envy, but our history is checkered there, so I won't begrudge the good Latinos their emotions.
It's been a fiery, tempestuous relationship between Uncle Sam and the sexy, exotic land to our south. Latin Americans willfully forget our acts of generosity while cataloging our every sin and carving them in stone never to be forgotten. It’s time we dropped the Sisyphean task of force feeding them aid and democracy. It has done no one any good.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/forecast-for-latin-america-cold-war-winds-from-russia/
Latin America is not Uncle Sam's back yard. It is a diverse collection of countries full of people who don't like the United States. I think much of the dislike is unjustified and springs from envy, but our history is checkered there, so I won't begrudge the good Latinos their emotions.
It's been a fiery, tempestuous relationship between Uncle Sam and the sexy, exotic land to our south. Latin Americans willfully forget our acts of generosity while cataloging our every sin and carving them in stone never to be forgotten. It’s time we dropped the Sisyphean task of force feeding them aid and democracy. It has done no one any good.
A dedicated core of socialists across Latin America hate the US and romanticize Russia. Well, it’s time they got a taste of what it’s like to be embraced by the bear. Russia selling their pathetic military junk to gullible caudillos does not threaten the US.
The smart governments like Brazil, Chile and Colombia have already forged a confident path for themselves and trade effectively with a variety of world players. They have 21st century economies build upon solid democratic principles. Dealing with China and Russia will do them no harm; avoiding exclusive agreements with one country actually improves their position.
Meanwhile, tinpot dictators in places like Venezuela and Bolivia (Evo Morales has actually donned a tin hat) will cozy up to Vlad the Impaler, thumbing their noses at the colossus to the north. Fine. They've already gone over the edge anyway. Might as well hitch their fortunes to a falling red star; it'll make the inevitable crash all the more spectacular.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/forecast-for-latin-america-cold-war-winds-from-russia/
Fred Thompson on the Bailout
Why didn't this guy campaign harder in the GOP primary?
I love it when he talks about how reckless borrowing and spending got us into this mess and now our government is doubling down by recommending more of the same.
I love it when he talks about how reckless borrowing and spending got us into this mess and now our government is doubling down by recommending more of the same.
"This is like tellin' a fat guy that the way to lose weight is to eat more donuts"
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Give that drunk another bootle of hooch!
So let me get this straight: It was a bad thing that the US savings rate was negative and that people were borrowing too much and spending money that they didn't have. This contributed to our current economic calamity.
So what's our government's solution? Offer consumers more credit so they can buy more stuff they can't afford!
Einstein also said:
Nouriel Roubini at Forbes is a smart man. He discusses solutions that are definitely not the same old thing, and they do involve a higher level of consciousness.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ag3TJyGD73qk&refer=news
http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/11/26/deflation-stagnation-liquidity-oped-cx_nr_1127roubini.html
So what's our government's solution? Offer consumers more credit so they can buy more stuff they can't afford!
Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve's new $800 billion effort to combat the financial crisis is designed to make credit more accessible to shaken consumers who aren't sure they want more debt.Albert Einstein once saidThe new programs bring the estimated total government commitment to ease credit to about $8.5 trillion, with $3.17 trillion being used to date.
..."It's too early to tell whether the lending has increased or not,'' David McCormick, Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. "We certainly expect that it will.''
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”If that don't apply here I'll stick a needle in my eye.
Einstein also said:
"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."Einstein was a genius. The Wall Street pirates and Washington hucksters grappling with this financial crisis just think they are.
Nouriel Roubini at Forbes is a smart man. He discusses solutions that are definitely not the same old thing, and they do involve a higher level of consciousness.
The U.S. economy is confronting a toxic mixture: deflation, a liquidity trap and debt deflation, as well as rising household and corporate defaults. Put plainly, the signs of a "stag-deflation"--a deadly combination of stagnation/recession and deflation--are now clear.Our departure from reality and sound economic principles has landed us in a very scary place: Irresponsible borrowing has built a house of cards, and we need to egg on more irresponsible borrowing to keep the flimsy structure from collapsing on our heads. I think they call this a downward spiral.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ag3TJyGD73qk&refer=news
http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/11/26/deflation-stagnation-liquidity-oped-cx_nr_1127roubini.html
Monday, December 1, 2008
GObama!
So far, President-elect Obama is looking pretty good. His finance advisers could have been picked by Mr. McCain. They can hardly do worse than Dirty Hank and the downhill gang.
I really like his foreign policy team. Retired USMC General James Jones is an excellent selection for National Security Advisor. I was so sure he'd pick some lefty civilian pointy head for that job. And Hillary heading up state. If you were Putin, Chavez or even our friend Merkel, how would you like staring that woman down? Scary thought, isn't it? Plus, her foreign policy has never been liberal; it has tended towards cold-eyed realism, and we need more of that.
My argument with the so-called neocons has nothing to do with the left-wing wackadoo charges of nefarious oil-stealing plots and other international buggery. It's simply that they base their trigger-happy foreign policy on pie-in-the-sky fantasies: No, you can't turn a 6th century society with poor toilet habits into a 21st century democracy overnight. And foisting the trappings of liberal democracy upon them is just asserting the conclusion. The neocons have worthy goals, but you can't just ram them through; it takes baby steps.
Speaking of neocons, Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan in particular, I'm always suspicious of anyone who has never served in the military but is hot to use military force. We need more speaking softly and less big stick brandishing. I think General Jones will be an advocate of that. Before you dismiss this as squishy pacifist talk, Special Ops advocates have been saying essentially the same thing for years, criticizing our huge troop presence in the CENTCOM AOR as not much more than turning food into excrement.
Robert Kaplan wrote an article last year detailing our many unheralded successes in places like the Phillipines and Colombia. Small, quiet operations are the wave of the future. As someone who has turned food into excrement in the highly kinetic Middle East as well as performed low-key military assistance missions in Latin America, I say the time is ripe.
So to all my conservative friends, I'm asking you to consider keeping your powder dry. This is not a liberal foreign policy team. We should cheer President-elect Obama's picks. Don't worry, there'll be plenty to criticize soon enough.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/25/opinion/op-kaplan25
I really like his foreign policy team. Retired USMC General James Jones is an excellent selection for National Security Advisor. I was so sure he'd pick some lefty civilian pointy head for that job. And Hillary heading up state. If you were Putin, Chavez or even our friend Merkel, how would you like staring that woman down? Scary thought, isn't it? Plus, her foreign policy has never been liberal; it has tended towards cold-eyed realism, and we need more of that.
My argument with the so-called neocons has nothing to do with the left-wing wackadoo charges of nefarious oil-stealing plots and other international buggery. It's simply that they base their trigger-happy foreign policy on pie-in-the-sky fantasies: No, you can't turn a 6th century society with poor toilet habits into a 21st century democracy overnight. And foisting the trappings of liberal democracy upon them is just asserting the conclusion. The neocons have worthy goals, but you can't just ram them through; it takes baby steps.
Speaking of neocons, Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan in particular, I'm always suspicious of anyone who has never served in the military but is hot to use military force. We need more speaking softly and less big stick brandishing. I think General Jones will be an advocate of that. Before you dismiss this as squishy pacifist talk, Special Ops advocates have been saying essentially the same thing for years, criticizing our huge troop presence in the CENTCOM AOR as not much more than turning food into excrement.
Robert Kaplan wrote an article last year detailing our many unheralded successes in places like the Phillipines and Colombia. Small, quiet operations are the wave of the future. As someone who has turned food into excrement in the highly kinetic Middle East as well as performed low-key military assistance missions in Latin America, I say the time is ripe.
So to all my conservative friends, I'm asking you to consider keeping your powder dry. This is not a liberal foreign policy team. We should cheer President-elect Obama's picks. Don't worry, there'll be plenty to criticize soon enough.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/nov/25/opinion/op-kaplan25
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