Rare Earth Hypothesis

There may be more proof on the side of the "Rare Earth Hypothesis" - from the Oort Cloud:

The Oort Cloud is a spherical cloud of comets believed to lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year, from the Sun which places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. The Kuiper belt and scattered disc, the other two known reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth the Oort cloud's distance. The outer extent of the Oort cloud defines the boundary of our Solar System.

Objects in the Oort cloud are largely composed of ices such as water, ammonia and methane. Astronomers believe that the matter comprising the Oort cloud formed closer to the Sun, and was scattered far out into space by the gravitational effects of the giant planets early in the Solar System's evolution.

The cometary membrane of the Oort Cloud and Kupier Belt actively feeds water to the interior planets, with some 20 to 40 ton water-ice comets hitting the earth's atmosphere 5 to 30 times per minute. Simulations show that Kuiper belt comets simply don't fall directly toward Earth's neighborhood but plod their way toward the inner solar system in stairstep fashion. It turns out that the massive outer planets are almost exactly spaced so that they "hand-off" comets from one to the other. At each step the powerful gravitational field of Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter might either eject the comet from the solar system or pass it onto the next planet inside their orbit.

apostate

Abdel Masih has rejected Islam.

To leftists, on Georgia

Varifrank:

"Where are the Human Shields? Where is Sean Penn? Where is Medea Benjamin? Where is Katrina VandenHeuvel?" Where are the protests of Russian Embassys world wide? Where are the throngs of peace loving protest crowds around the world?

Well, certainly not in Georgia where they can get hurt or possibly even killed in the process...

But if the left is anything, it's consistent. It's consistently wrong, consistently insane and consistently on the side of tyranny and this time its no different. Its always quick to condemn the so called "American War Machine", and all too quick to excuse the Imperial Russian Empire as it marches over the lives of free people...

You can be sure that each of those countries know what language His Imperial Majesty "Czar Putin I" is speaking. It's Russian, spoken with a bohemian German accent. It's the sound made by a jackboot holding a man supine against the ground, by his throat, his words of protest caught under in the desire of an empire to increase its ambitions for what is not theirs. Europeans know the sound of this language all too well, for it has been spoken for years on their continent before the peace that was brought by the Americans.

Now, here in the new century, this language seems to be making a comeback. I can't help but notice that war in Europe has broken out, just as Americans were in the act of leaving it. There might be a connection in there to take note of, if there are any of us left to make the connection after this is all over. History says that despite our hopes, this conflict will get wider and uglier before it is all over. I hope that history is wrong, but I'm a skeptic in that area.

It's interesting to me to note how the safest place for a civilian seems to be either in front of or in the care of the American Armed Services while the most dangerous place in the world for a civilian is to simply live on the border with Russia. There's a lesson in there somewhere about where the real moral high ground in the world exists.

To Obama, on supporters

Your motives are suspect when those who are against America are for you.

To Obama, on symbols

Not only is your two-handed salute a rip-off of Star Trek, the episode you ripped it off from has uncanny parallels to your campaign:

• TV: An insane doctor and his fanatical followers attempt to hijack the Enterprise, trying to find a paradise which they do not realize is deadly.
• RL: An insane senator and his fanatical followers attempt to hijack America, trying to find a paradise which they do not realize is deadly.

To McCain, on support

Perhaps you could "energize the Republican base" (a typically conservative group) by being an actual conservative.

To Obama (and McCain), on values

"Values voters" vote according to actual values, not mere words proclaiming varying values in varying circumstances.

To Obama, on America

Americans do not want their President to be a whiny pessimist.

To Obama, on leadership

American voters still don't want a Waffle House in Washington, no matter who's managing it.

To Obama, on criticism

We all know your skin color doesn't matter (nor does the size of your ears)

To Obama, on economics

Put down that moldy old copy of 'Das Kapital' and look at the real world:

Take those megarich he (Obama) vilifies — the top hundredth of a percent. According to a recent Treasury study, three-fourths of them in 1996 fell out of the group by 2005.

Meanwhile, more than half of those in the bottom income group in 1996 moved to a higher income group by 2005, with more than 5% leapfrogging to the richest quintile.

(It's no fluke: The same high degree of income mobility is seen in prior comparable periods, as well.)

Some poor moved up through personal effort, while many rode an expanding economy. Real median incomes of all taxpayers rose 24%, but the poor registered the biggest gains of all.(emphasis mine)

President Kennedy understood that a growing economy is like a rising tide that "lifts all boats." Obama, on the other hand, thinks some are lifted and others lowered, as if the economy were a system of locks operated by a cabal of evil capitalists.

Granted, Obama might not be that ignorant; he may just be playing to ignorant people's fear and greed to get elected...

losing his religion

Dr. David Evans is no longer a member of Algore's cult of global warming:

Since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:

1. The greenhouse signature is missing... The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades... They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.

2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None...

3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980). Land-based temperature readings are corrupted by the "urban heat island" effect... Satellite data is the only temperature data we can trust, but it only goes back to 1979...

4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.

None of these points are controversial. The alarmist scientists agree with them, though they would dispute their relevance.

The last point was known and past dispute by 2003, yet Al Gore made his movie in 2005 and presented the ice cores as the sole reason for believing that carbon emissions cause global warming. In any other political context our cynical and experienced press corps would surely have called this dishonest and widely questioned the politician's assertion.

So far (the global warming) debate has just consisted of a simple sleight of hand: show evidence of global warming, and while the audience is stunned at the implications, simply assert that it is due to carbon emissions. In the minds of the audience, the evidence that global warming has occurred becomes conflated with the alleged cause, and the audience hasn't noticed that the cause was merely asserted, not proved.

(emphases mine)

he's not dead, jim!

before i had a chance to try to convice him not to quit, local malcontent has decided not to give up blogging after all.

...and there was much rejoicing.

:)

hate speech is bad

...but laws against it are worse (oh, and unconstitutional)

update: this doesn't look promising either

The Beijing Olympics have begun

Wow, the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing China are such an uplifting and memorable spectacle celebrating the human spirit...

almost as memorable as that one guy:

Breaking News: Almighty Supremebeing Allah Arrested on Drug Charges

Since the pedophilia and domestic abuse charges didn't stick to the prophet (spit), maybe they can lock up the fakir's boss on drug charges:

South Windsor, CT (WTNH) -- A man who legally changed his name to Almighty Allah is facing a narcotics charge in South Windsor.

According to police, members of the East Central Narcotics Task Force were tipped off to a drug transaction in the town.

Police found the suspect and his car on John Fitch Blvd. The driver didn't stop right away when police tried to pull him over, but he eventually was stopped and arrested.

He was identified as Almighty Supremebeing Allah, age 35, who lives on Elmhurst St. in West Hartford.

"The arrestee in the narcotics case had apparently legally changed his name to 'Almighty Allah', and has convictions under this new name," Scott Custer from the South Windsor police department said.

Allah was held on $260,000.00 bond on charges including cocaine possession, attempt to sell cocaine, and traffic charges.

He was expected to be in Manchester Superior Court.

...and P.B.U.H. could change to mean "Prison Bars Until H-E-double-toothpicks".

why evil exists

This is the best - and most logical - explanation I've read of "the problem of evil". It begins:

The first step in answering the problem of evil is this: We've got to get clear on what this thing "evil" actually is. It does seem to follow that if God created all things, and evil is a thing, then God created evil. This is a valid syllogism. If the premises are true, then the conclusion would be true as well.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the second premise is not true. Evil is not a thing... evil has no ontological status in itself.

The word ontology deals with the nature of existence. When I say that evil has no ontological status, I mean that evil, as a thing in itself, does not exist.

Let me give you an illustration to make this more clear. We talk about things being cold or warm. But coldness is not a thing that exists in itself; it has no ontological status. Coldness is the absence of heat. When we remove heat energy from a system, we say it gets colder.

"Cold" isn't a thing. It's a way of describing the reduction of molecular activity resulting in the sensation of heat. So the more heat we pull out of a system, the colder it gets. Cold itself isn't being "created." Cold is a description of a circumstance in which heat is missing. Heat is energy which can be measured. When you remove heat, the temperature goes down. We call that condition "cold," but there is no cold "stuff" that causes that condition.

Here's another way of looking at it. Did you ever eat a donut hole? I don't mean those little round sugar-coated lumps you buy at the donut shop. I mean the hole itself. Donut holes are actually what's left when the middle is cut out of a donut. There's a space called a hole, a "nothing," the condition that exists when something is taken away. Same thing with a shadow. Shadows don't exist as things in themselves; they're just the absence of light.

Evil is like that. Evil isn't like some black, gooey stuff floating around the universe that gloms onto people and causes them to do awful things. Evil is the absence of good, a privation of good, not a thing in itself.

When God created the universe, he created everything good. He made a universe that was perfectly good. Everything was as it should be. After God was completely done with creating everything, something happened that reduced the good in the world. That loss of good is called evil.

That's why in Genesis 1 we read "it was good" many times. From the record we know that God didn't create evil. But something did happen in which evil - the loss of good - took place, and as a result a lot of other grotesque things came about.

So donut holes don't exist; they're just the absence of donut. Shadows don't exist; they're just the absence of light. And evil doesn't exist; it's just the absence of good.

and continues:

Now the real question at this point is, "Was it worth it? Good can come out of evil, but was it worth it in the long run, the measure of good that comes out of the measure of evil in the world?" And my response is that the only One who could ever know that is God. You and I couldn't know that because our perspective is too limited. Only God is in a position to accurately answer that question.

Apparently God thinks that, on balance, the good is going to outweigh the evil that caused the good, or else He wouldn't have allowed it to happen. Christ paid a tremendous price, an example of the tremendous love God had for us. God would not be able to show His sacrificial love unless there was something to sacrifice for.

Here's the problem, and this is why we don't think that, on balance, it's really a fair trade. We think that life is about giving us pleasure and making us happy... God's purpose for creating us was to develop us into certain types of people who were fit to spend eternity with Him. He does that by conforming us to His image by helping us grow through the process of living in a fallen world...

In God's mind, the goal of the process - being conformed to the image of His Son - is a much greater good than the bad of the evil that we have to put up with on this earth. The balance is definitely on the side of good.

I would expand on that argument by pointing out that this greater good of living in eternity with Him would by definition infinitely outweigh our temporary temporal suffering.

A Story of Truth and Hope In An Age of Extremism

Seems there's yet another hit piece on the bookshelves against President Bush:

In his new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth And Hope In An Age of Extremism, author Ron Suskind alleges that the Bush administration knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and eventually fabricated intelligence assets to support its case for war. Both the White House and the CIA deny his claims.

Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, tells Steve Inskeep that a secret mission was conducted, in which a British intelligence agent met with the head of Iraqi intelligence in a secret location in Jordan, and that the Iraqi conveyed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

So, was President Clinton LYING or DELUDED when he UNILATERALLY ATTACKED IRAQ?

(copied in its entirety to safeguard against the 'memory hole'. emphases mine.):

Transcript: President Clinton explains Iraq strike

CLINTON: Good evening.

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq; why we have acted now; and what we aim to accomplish.

Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability.

The inspectors undertook this mission first 7.5 years ago at the end of the Gulf War when Iraq agreed to declare and destroy its arsenal as a condition of the ceasefire.

The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.

The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.

The United States has patiently worked to preserve UNSCOM as Iraq has sought to avoid its obligation to cooperate with the inspectors. On occasion, we've had to threaten military force, and Saddam has backed down.

Faced with Saddam's latest act of defiance in late October, we built intensive diplomatic pressure on Iraq backed by overwhelming military force in the region. The UN Security Council voted 15 to zero to condemn Saddam's actions and to demand that he immediately come into compliance.

Eight Arab nations -- Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman -- warned that Iraq alone would bear responsibility for the consequences of defying the UN.

When Saddam still failed to comply, we prepared to act militarily. It was only then at the last possible moment that Iraq backed down. It pledged to the UN that it had made, and I quote, a clear and unconditional decision to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors.

I decided then to call off the attack with our airplanes already in the air because Saddam had given in to our demands. I concluded then that the right thing to do was to use restraint and give Saddam one last chance to prove his willingness to cooperate.

I made it very clear at that time what unconditional cooperation meant, based on existing UN resolutions and Iraq's own commitments. And along with Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully, we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning.

Now over the past three weeks, the UN weapons inspectors have carried out their plan for testing Iraq's cooperation. The testing period ended this weekend, and last night, UNSCOM's chairman, Richard Butler, reported the results to UN Secretary-General Annan.

The conclusions are stark, sobering and profoundly disturbing.

In four out of the five categories set forth, Iraq has failed to cooperate. Indeed, it actually has placed new restrictions on the inspectors. Here are some of the particulars.

Iraq repeatedly blocked UNSCOM from inspecting suspect sites. For example, it shut off access to the headquarters of its ruling party and said it will deny access to the party's other offices, even though UN resolutions make no exception for them and UNSCOM has inspected them in the past.

Iraq repeatedly restricted UNSCOM's ability to obtain necessary evidence. For example, Iraq obstructed UNSCOM's effort to photograph bombs related to its chemical weapons program.

It tried to stop an UNSCOM biological weapons team from videotaping a site and photocopying documents and prevented Iraqi personnel from answering UNSCOM's questions.

Prior to the inspection of another site, Iraq actually emptied out the building, removing not just documents but even the furniture and the equipment.

Iraq has failed to turn over virtually all the documents requested by the inspectors. Indeed, we know that Iraq ordered the destruction of weapons-related documents in anticipation of an UNSCOM inspection.

So Iraq has abused its final chance.

As the UNSCOM reports concludes, and again I quote, "Iraq's conduct ensured that no progress was able to be made in the fields of disarmament.

"In light of this experience, and in the absence of full cooperation by Iraq, it must regrettably be recorded again that the commission is not able to conduct the work mandated to it by the Security Council with respect to Iraq's prohibited weapons program."

In short, the inspectors are saying that even if they could stay in Iraq, their work would be a sham.

Saddam's deception has defeated their effectiveness. Instead of the inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors.

This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere. The international community gave Saddam one last chance to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors. Saddam has failed to seize the chance.

And so we had to act and act now.

Let me explain why.

First, without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.

Second, if Saddam can crippled the weapons inspection system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community -- led by the United States -- has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction, and someday -- make no mistake -- he will use it again as he has in the past.

Third, in halting our air strikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance, not a license. If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed. We will not only have allowed Saddam to shatter the inspection system that controls his weapons of mass destruction program; we also will have fatally undercut the fear of force that stops Saddam from acting to gain domination in the region.

That is why, on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team -- including the vice president, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the secretary of state and the national security adviser -- I have ordered a strong, sustained series of air strikes against Iraq.

They are designed to degrade Saddam's capacity to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction, and to degrade his ability to threaten his neighbors.

At the same time, we are delivering a powerful message to Saddam. If you act recklessly, you will pay a heavy price. We acted today because, in the judgment of my military advisers, a swift response would provide the most surprise and the least opportunity for Saddam to prepare.

If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler's report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse his forces and protect his weapons.

Also, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins this weekend. For us to initiate military action during Ramadan would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world and, therefore, would damage our relations with Arab countries and the progress we have made in the Middle East.

That is something we wanted very much to avoid without giving Iraq's a month's head start to prepare for potential action against it.

Finally, our allies, including Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, concurred that now is the time to strike. I hope Saddam will come into cooperation with the inspection system now and comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. But we have to be prepared that he will not, and we must deal with the very real danger he poses.

So we will pursue a long-term strategy to contain Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction and work toward the day when Iraq has a government worthy of its people.

First, we must be prepared to use force again if Saddam takes threatening actions, such as trying to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems, threatening his neighbors, challenging allied aircraft over Iraq or moving against his own Kurdish citizens.

The credible threat to use force, and when necessary, the actual use of force, is the surest way to contain Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program, curtail his aggression and prevent another Gulf War.

Second, so long as Iraq remains out of compliance, we will work with the international community to maintain and enforce economic sanctions. Sanctions have cost Saddam more than $120 billion -- resources that would have been used to rebuild his military. The sanctions system allows Iraq to sell oil for food, for medicine, for other humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people.

We have no quarrel with them. But without the sanctions, we would see the oil-for-food program become oil-for-tanks, resulting in a greater threat to Iraq's neighbors and less food for its people.

The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.

The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people. Bringing change in Baghdad will take time and effort. We will strengthen our engagement with the full range of Iraqi opposition forces and work with them effectively and prudently.

The decision to use force is never cost-free. Whenever American forces are placed in harm's way, we risk the loss of life. And while our strikes are focused on Iraq's military capabilities, there will be unintended Iraqi casualties.

Indeed, in the past, Saddam has intentionally placed Iraqi civilians in harm's way in a cynical bid to sway international opinion.

We must be prepared for these realities. At the same time, Saddam should have absolutely no doubt if he lashes out at his neighbors, we will respond forcefully.

Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people.

And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.

Because we're acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future.

Let me close by addressing one other issue. Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down.

But once more, the United States has proven that although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America's vital interests, we will do so.

In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community, fear and hope. Now, in the new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past, but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace.

Tonight, the United States is doing just that. May God bless and protect the brave men and women who are carrying out this vital mission and their families. And may God bless America.

Now please tell us again, Mr. Suskind, who lied to whom and when? Or is it the case that you are lying now in order to simply sell books and gain fame with a sympathetic media machine?

p.s. I found this similar piece at NRO after writing this post.

energy density

or, a lot of hot air?

Solzhenitsyn

CNN reports:

Russian novelist and historian Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose works detailed the horrors of Stalin's Soviet labor camps, has died at 89, Russian news agencies reported Monday...

Awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 for "The First Circle," Alexander Solzhenitsyn was considered a moral voice for Russia. His works centered on issues of good and evil, materialism and salvation.

His three-volume "Gulag Archipelago" unveiled the horrors of the Soviet labor camps, where he himself was imprisoned for eight years... He was arrested in February 1945 for writing letters critical of Stalin and was sentenced to eight years at labor camps, which would provide the context of his future writings.

Lileks learned, as many others did,

much about the Soviet Union and the era of Stalin. After that I could never quite understand the people who viewed the US and the USSR as moral equals, or regarded our history as not only indelibly stained but uniquely so. Reading Solzhenitsyn makes it difficult to take seriously the people in this culture who insist that Dissent has been squelched. Brother, you have no idea.

During the funeral of Ronald Reagan, much was said (and rightly so) about the work he did to bring down the evil Soviet empire. But let us not forget that many others, famous and unknown, laid the groundwork for that monumental task, and that the voice of Alexander Solzhenitsyn awakened many of them.

overheard

(updated - read the last postscript below)

three different quotes from three different places:

"they are working away feverishly - at the speed of government!"

"one main problem with child protective services is that they are incapable of distinguishing between abuse and discipline."

"the moral of the story is to not buy a car battery at 2am."

p.s. i wonder if these would be improved if they were said by someone else...

p.p.s. one more: "it's funny when the news puts a question mark in the title of a story. that's like saying "we have no idea what's really going on, but we're reporting it anyway"."

p.p.p.s. they're definitely not improved when spoken by orcs:

"they are workin' away feverishlee - at da speed o' guv'ment!"

"wun main problum wif sprog protectiv servicz izzat they are incapabul o' distinguishin' betweun abuse an discipline. Oww, da bigg wurdz make mi 'ed 'urt!"

"da morul o' da stoary iz ter nub buy a car baddury at 2be."

"s'funny wen da news puts a qweztun mark in da title o' a stoary. datz loike sayin' "weeb ab no idea woss rilly goin' on, but weez reportin' it anyway"."

...at least they don't mail me anything

the rnc made it sad, but imao makes it funny again:

Frank received a letter from the RNC yesterday...

Wednesday Morning

Hey, that's *today's* date (well, it was this morning)! Seriously, what kind of date is "Wednesday Morning"? We get those roughly fifty-two times a year. I'm starting to think they recycle these letters. Dear Mr. J, blah blah blah, ah.

I don't want to believe you've abandoned the Republican Party

I don't want to believe the Republican Party's abandoned me either, but I also didn't want to believe that they killed off Captain America or that Buffy broke up with Spike. Lousy do-gooder.

but I have to ask... Have you given up?

Um, duh? Has any conservative not given up?

Our records show we have not yet received your Republican National Committee membership renewal for the critical 2008 presidential election year.

Presumptive much? Your records should also show you have not yet received our Republican National Committee membership renewal since about 2004, when the Republicans started acting like they didn't win that election and started being like Democrats with the spending and the hating conservatives.

As the Treasurer of the RNC, I know our Party's success depends directly on grassroots leaders like you.

What? The Treasurer wrote this letter? Why don't you just get the RNC Historian to write to us so we know just how important we are?

So I am surprised and concerned especially because I know how generously you supported President Bush and the RNC in the past.

And after that generous support, imagine our surprise when President Bush and the RNC started screwing us every chance they got! (Except lately, with the oil thing, but he should have done that ages ago.)

You helped to advance our vision for America and elect Republicans at all levels of government.

Hey, we accept no credit/blame for anyone but the conservative one. Or two. There are two, right? Please tell me there are two.

Mr. J, I know other things come up, and perhaps you've just been delayed in renewing your membership. If that's the case, I understand.

I hope you also understand that we hate you and would moon you from the back seat if we passed you on the highway.

But we've not heard from you this year -- and I hope you haven't deserted our Party.

Party with a capital P. They're important.

Your generous financial assistance and active involvement are more important than ever as we work to elect a new Republican president and Congress.

But we asked for a conservative president and Congress, not Republican ones. Sorry to nitpick.

There is so much at stake. The Democrats are determined to put a liberal like Barack Obama in the White House,

The Republicans are determined to put a liberal like John McCain in the White House, so your argument would have gone better if you'd called Obama a socialist.

expand their narrow majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, and push our country to the Left [again with the capitals?] with their agenda of high taxes, big government and weakened national security.

Big government and weakened national security. That reminds me of this one time when the president passed every bill the big government Democrats put in front of him and this other time when John McCain decided that sovereign borders have nothing to do with national security. Good times.

Big Labor [dude, relax with the ShifT KEy], radical liberal protest groups and Hollywood elites are planning to spend more than $500 million to defeat Republicans and aid the Democrat power grab.

Oh no! Not the protesters and the actors! The unions do scare me a little, so I won't scoff at them.

Mr. J, the RNC relies on the voluntary support of Republican activists like you.

Frank's an activist? Anyway, you can rely on our voluntary support when you stop being voluntary tools. Begging for money, turn the letter over (it's a two-pager!)... Blah blah blah...

The RNC is also the ONLY Republican organization permitted by federal law to directly support our presidential nominee.

You're proud of this, yes? Proud of the fact that there are laws in place that say who can support nominees and how much they can spend? Oh yes. Your candidate is into that.

If we fail to hold the White House and make gains in Congress, the Democrats have made clear they will overturn every reform you helped President Bush achieve.

If you fail to hold the White House against a breezy empty suit and fail to make gains in a Congress that has a 13% approval rating, then you have only yourselves to blame. And Ron Paul. It's fun to blame him for stuff, because he's crazy. Say, do you think the Democrats will also overturn McCain-Feingold, even though I didn't help President Bush achieve that one?

Democrat presidential candidates and the Reid/Pelosi-run-Congress

Ok, see... you're reminding me how you failed so HARD in 2006 that these two are in charge of the legislature.

have promised to blah blah blah... We cannot allow them to succeed!

Cannot? Or must not/should not? Because I'm pretty sure you can. I believe in you.

That's why your renewed commitment is so important.

You first, dude.

So if you have delayed in renewing your membership because you feel the RNC has let you down, or no longer needs you, please let me know. I want to hear from you.

You do NOT want to hear from me. I promise.

Just include your comments and suggestions with the enclosed Membership Confirmation

LOL. Really? Is the postage prepaid, because the envelope could get pretty heavy.

and return them with your 2008 membership renewal check.

Darnit. Blah blah blah, thank you, signed Mr. Treasurer of the Party.

p.s. while you're at imao, read this one too.

history quiz

the answers shouldn't surprise anyone who has studied history from independent sources.

change we can't believe in

Some children in Kenya are still hoping for the change Barack Hussein Obama promised them.

well-grounded

via discerning texan:
the facts on the ground,
and the facts underground.

against atheism again

i wish i had seen these quotes earlier...

minimum wage raised

minimum-wage workers hardest hit.

talking heads, indeed

the democrats' platform has been "stop making sense" since at least 1968...

global salinization

how long until algore promotes investing in sodium chloride credits?

One of the latest global warming claims is that the weather will just be more unpredictable. Sometimes it will be hot, and sometimes it will be cold, and sometimes it will be just right. Since that pretty much sounds like any other description of the weather for the last 10,000 years, it makes global warming pretty hard to prove or disprove.

There is another theory that says global warming will cause the next ice-age (or a mini-ice-age). Supposedly, we had one of those in the early-mid 1800's. I'm not sure what was supposed to have caused that one, though, since they can't say it was increased carbon-monoxide in the atmosphere.
Another theory blames excess methane (bad cow!). Actually, methane can be released from swamps, deep-sea deposits, and from thawed permafrost (northern tundra that gets too warm). It could come from anything, in other words, and nobody seems to know how to tell what will happen, when it will happen, or even if it will happen. Some people think the oceans will just absorb the extra gases; some people believe the oceans will release extra gases.

Anyway, the bad news is that the last mini-ice-age seems to have come on kind of sudden-like. They went from the warmest summers on record in Europe, to the coldest in less than 10 years. They think it had something to do with the "deep-sea ocean conveyor" that distributes salty, less-dense, warm water from the equator to the less-salty, dense, cold arctic water. Anyway, at some point, the temperature difference between the equator and the northern seas becomes small enough (warming of the polar ice-caps) that the "conveyor" shuts down. Once the conveyor shuts down, Europe freezes over in a relatively short period of time because the warm water that normally flows along the coast is cut off. The wind that was formerly warmed by the warm water in the ocean is now cooled by the cold water in the ocean. Then the Thames river freezes over (like it did in about 1830). Voila, mini-ice-age.

(slightly edited)

wedding bells

congratulations to the local malcontent on his engagement!

update: apparently the engagement took place at a "private well-dressed Indian powwow"...

the results of wishful thinking

varifrank:

The result of wishful thinking after World War I was World War II and the deaths of 52 million people. The result of our long costly effort in Europe after World War II is a continent populated by a generation that has no experience in war, which given the long bloody history of that region is quite remarkable...

As a student of human history I know that wars are often started by well-meaning, peace-loving folks who intended to do just the opposite. Rest assured, that to me the intentions of the next President will make no difference at all if in 6 years time, my son is called into service to fight to liberate Iraq for a third time because of a desire to leave hastily and in chaos just to meet a campaign promise...

...we should all agree that the best policy to follow in the future is the policy that insures that we never have to go back and fight, and that with the right course of action, the middle east might someday be as quiet and peaceful as Europe. This is possible, but only if we do the right thing and not the thing that makes us "feel good".

We left Europe in haste in 1918, it felt good. We embargoed Japan's oil in 1940, and it felt good too. We did both those things beliving it would result in peace, but 52 million people around the world paid the true price for wishful thinking.

read the rest.

fix one thing, break another

while adding a title image to this blog's template, i accidentally made all the text center aligned - trying to fix it now...

update: now everything's left-justified, including the banner (which i've found is the wrong size...)

real change

viewpoint recommends newt gingrich's new book 'real change'

...the problem is that though the American public may know what it wants, it doesn't vote for it. It doesn't have the foggiest idea who in Congress stands for what, and consequently it elects people who actually oppose the very things that Americans say they want. For example:

• Ninety six percent want the Social Security system fixed now.
• Seventy one percent want a flat tax.
• Sixty five percent want nuclear power plants built.
• Eighty seven percent want English declared the official language.

Yet Congress is run by people who refuse to do any of these things.

Gingrich rightly faults Republicans for failing to lead on these and other issues when they had the majority, and he rightly faults Democrats for thwarting reform largely because they're beholden to bureaucracies, unions and interest groups which would lose power and money were real reforms to be enacted. But he nowhere faults the American people for their slothful approach to politics and their indifference to the responsibility imposed upon them by the rigtht to vote.

do the math

to paraphrase any number of hysterical reform-peddling concerned citizens (tm), "won't someone please think of the economic impact!"

wow

judging by the headline, either the chinese have invented time travel, or bbc writers have absolutely no concept of history.



(granted, the story clarifies the point, but still...)

is anyone surprised by this?

today, obama is offended by a cartoon.

does that remind you of anyone?

related: jonah goldberg, in summarizing muslim outrage, may also be describing a more local phenomenon:

"Maybe, just maybe, these guys brought some issues to the table long before they ever heard of these cartoons... Around the world, Muslims suffer from a mixture of legitimate grievances and an enormous inferiority complex."

dig in

www.antiobama.net has lots of reasons why (in a sane world) barack hussein obama should be unelectable:

in obamaspeak, 10,000$ > 31,000$

same waffle house, new management

bill and ted meet obama

11 questions that everyone should be asking

some obama staffers are more equal than others

forget silver

25th anniversary? move to paraguay!

;)

so do i

lileks wishes he knew:

...the exact point at which it became required to love the Beatles in order to be a reasonably enlightened member of western civ. Not just like them enough for their catchy tunes and winsome ways and insouciant follicle arrangements, but believe that they were somehow the zenith of all music, the apogee of song, the toppermost of art. I agree there’s some brilliant stuff in there, some lovely tunes and new ideas. Compared to a Beethoven Sonata, though, it’s monkeys pounding on a xylophone.

and - trust me - don't dare ask one of those beatle-worshipers about it.

hear no evil, see no evil

michael ramirez via discerning texan

swiss minaret ban

Typically, the first to complain about witchhunts are the witches:

Far right groups in Switzerland have collected enough signatures to force a nationwide referendum on banning minarets, the distinctive towers of Islamic architecture.

In what is being seen as a sign of growing Islamophobia in Europe, more than 100,000 Swiss citizens signed a petition to halt the construction of minarets...

to parallel: In what is being seen as a sign of growing West-o-phobia, Islamofascists kill and maim innocent civilians on a regular basis, and are perpetually outraged at the slightest excuse...

The petition was launched by Ulrich Schlüer an MP from the controversial Swiss People's party, which was accused of racist campaigning last year...

The UN expert on racism, Doudou Diene, has said the campaign is evidence of an "ever-increasing trend" toward anti-Islamic actions in Europe...

The UN "expert" had no comment on the "ever-increasing trend" toward anti-female actions in Islamic countries, or the "ever-increasing trend" toward anti-Christian actions by Islamofascists in the rest of the world...

who, indeed?

Local Malcontent asks that eternal question: "Who wants to type anything, after a hot day and cantaloupe?"

have you noticed?

tvfoh has:

have you noticed that there are no farmers running around with stolen plasma TVs or holding stolen liquor over their heads. There’s no looting or yelling “Where’s Bush?”, “Where’s FEMA?, Where’s my check?”, or ”Why isn’t the Gov’t out here saving me and my farm?”

Likewise, I’ve also noticed there are no reports of any other country coming to help or sending aid.

Shocking contrast isn’t it???!!!!

...and with all those guns in "flyover country", it's amazing that no one has taken a potshot at a helicopter! :P

you say "potatoe"

and he says "57 states"

forced prayer in schools

...but not to the true God...

Schoolboys punished with detention for refusing to kneel in class and pray to Allah

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent — which included wearing Muslim headgear — was a breach of their human rights.

One parent, Sharon Luinen, said: “This isn’t right, it’s taking things too far.

“I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn’t join in Muslim prayer.

“Making them pray to Allah, who isn’t who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful."

to those two brave boys, and those who would follow their example, i repeat some words from churchill:

Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

...and paraphrase some others:

This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, whose names and deeds will not be recorded in this life below but in the one above. Let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Mohammed will be lifted from our age.

happy independence day

(oops, in the midst of all the festivities, i forgot to actually post this one...)

if fireworks are illegal in your vicinity, try these

democrats on energy

i certainly hope for change in the next election (if not sooner)

sandbag?

no, windbag.

...Like all posturing politicians who have always proven all too ready to exploit a scene of natural disaster and personal tragedy for the benefit of their politics, Senator Obama with over 100 members of the media his secret service staff as well as his own campaign staff, and visited a flood zone in Quincy, Illinois on Saturday. Senator Obama distracted the effort by pretending to help locals fill sandbags to place on the banks of the Mississippi river while the massive press and politcal staff stood by passing out campaign buttons and bumper stickers to those who had recently lost all of their belongings in the flood. Senator Obama has vowed to push for state and federal aid to help victims of the floods, which is almost entirely guaranteed and unopposed by all elements of both the state and federal government. Locals who were on the scene during the "campaign circus" were heard to ask the candidate if he would allow the Army Corps of Engineer to dredge the river or repair the levees, so that this sort of disaster wouldnt happen in the future. In response, the candidate and his staff was heard to laugh to themselves as he retreated into their SUV convoy and drove to the next fundraiser.



It should be noted that while Senator Obama has raised over 100 million dollars in campaign funding in the last few months and breaking all records for fundrasing in the process, he has yet to offer to donate any of these "windfall" funds to the towns in his home state who have been affected by this disaster.

evolution in the clutch

these incredibly long odds must surely be a strain on the blind faith of the darwinists...

i'm back

we cut the time on the road for vacation a little short, but we still saw basically everything we had planned. more details may become available when i've recovered from the 4200 miles in 11 days...

on the road again

as alluded to before, i'm going on vacation for a couple of weeks. expect no posts until friday 27, since i'm wireless (in the luddite sense, not the way them dang whippersnappers use it these days...)

out of the basement

Lileks on the annual ice cream social:

It’s a pleasantly archaic concept, and draws much of its goodwill from the old-timey name. You expect men with handlebar moustaches and waxed hats, kids rolling hoops with sticks, women covered nape to sole in smothering fabric, an amateur band in the town gazebo uttering bovine oompahs. It’s not like that at all, but the mood is the same – kids running around, games of chance, hot dogs whose contents would still horrify Upton Sinclair, music wafting over the broad lawn. But no secretive teens forming cliques at the margins of the park...

We only have kids under 13. Or, the teens find the entire thing lame beyond description, and had retired to a basement to text each other while listening to some emo-thrash fusion band that laid bare the essential loneliness and emotional wasteland of life. Meanwhile, everyone else walked around outside and talked and laughed. This would frustrate the ungrateful teen immensely.

unfortunately, i ended up staying in "the basement" long after i left my parents' house. fortunately, someone put in an elevator when i discovered there were no stairs. <\symbolism>

a mish mash of thoughts

some things on sackofcatfood's mind today:

• I think a nice complement to "String Theory" would be "Cat Theory" which posits that any experimental evidence contradicting String Theory is actually caused by subatomic cats pouncing on the strings.
• Why is "<--Tear Here-->" the most consistently indestructible part of cheese packets?
• I think the most awesome defense against an advancing zombie horde would be an oil slick. HILARIOUS.
• Ctrl/alt/shift keys should be replaced by pedals underneath your computer, so when you type it's more like playing on an organ.
• Selective perceptive rationalization: I believe the reason that I am not at this very moment entertaining a throng of sexy babes is because they feel threatened by my awesome. Perhaps if I get fat and neglect to shave I will finally bring myself down to where I will be overwhelmingly popular with the ladies.
• Doing your diary in bulletpoints is way cooler than writing self-directed narratives. If I ever write an autobiography, it will be exactly like this.

no more "amarillo by morning"s for me

update: links fixed - thanks wry mouth for catching the broken ones

since early 2007, i've made a number of weekend trips from dfw to amarillo (approximate route), first visiting mom while she was sick, then helping dad get the house clean & packed so he could move near his grandkids. this weekend was the last of those trips - dad's in his new house, and the old house is now empty (and already sold, thankfully).

all that said, he's not going to be "settled in" any time soon. we are going to tour of the northeast. starting next weekend, we intend to visit (in a not yet entirely decided order):

old rhinebeck
yankee stadium
the empire state building
nearfest - (dad may skip this one...)
monticello
and whatever else he wants to see.

it's only fair

via dustbury, a letter to the perpetually aggrieved islamofascists:

Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student’s Association. The e-mail was in response to the students’ protest of the Danish cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The group had complained the cartoons were ‘hate speech.’ Enter Professor Wichman. In his e-mail, he said the following:

Dear Muslim Association,

As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intend to protest your protest. I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest inTurkey), burnings of Christian churches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women (called ‘whores’ in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris, France. This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many of my colleagues. I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Muslims to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile ‘protests.’ If you do not like the values of the West - see the 1st Amendment - you are free to leave. I hope for God’s sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.

Cordially,
I. S. Wichman
Professor of Mechanical Engineering

As you can imagine, the Muslim group at the university didn’t like this too well. They’re demanding that Wichman be reprimanded and the university impose mandatory diversity training for faculty and mandate a seminar on hate and discrimination for all freshmen. Now the local chapter of CAIR has jumped into the fray. CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, apparently doesn’t believe that the good professor had the right to express his opinion. For its part, the university is standing its ground in support of Professor Wichman, saying the e-mail was private, and they don’t intend to publicly condemn his remarks.

it's true

unreasonable search and seizure

the u.k. has it backwards:

"senior officers admitted that there was a potential to uncover a massive range of “ill-gotten gains” stored at the depots"

remember folks, only governments are allowed to have ill-gotten gains.

"Members of the public who have innocently and legally stored their valuables were “inevitably” going to get swept up in the disruption, it was predicted. Police said they could use a freephone number - 0800 030 4613 - to claim back their goods."

they have that whole "innocent until proven guilty" backwards as well.

homeschooling

one more good reason

what's in a name?

that which we call a democratic presidential candidate by any other name would smell as smarmy.

opposition to religion

orson scott card doesn't seem to believe in any of them...

he's against the cult of gaia,

against both creationism and darwinism,

and he doesn't like hillary or obama either.

the list of what he's actually for is pretty good too, as far as it goes.

for the kids

maybe divorce isn't such a great idea after all...

invitation to obama

scott ott hopes for change that obama can believe in

hmm, who should i vote for?

both roslin and sackofcatfood are more appealing than the dregs the two-party system is offering this year...

war on drugs

That oft-maligned "War on Drugs" is simply another front in the continuing battle of American independence.

remember

freedom isn't free, it has a very high price.

conservative principles

Fred Thompson:

Conservatives should stay true to their principles and remember:

• Congress cannot repeal the laws of economics. There are no short-term fixes without longer term consequences.
• In a free and dynamic country with social mobility, there will be great opportunity but also economic disparity, especially if the country has liberal immigration policies and a high divorce rate.
• An education system cannot overcome the breakdown of the family, and the social fabric that surrounds children daily.
• Free markets, not an expanding and more powerful government, are the solution to today's problems. Many of these problems, such as health-care costs, energy dependency and the subprime mortgage crisis, were caused in large part by government policies.

Would that we actually had a conservative choice in the next election...

Cult of Gaia, cont.

Jonah Goldberg goes behind the greens:

At its core, environmentalism is a kind of nature worship. It’s a holistic ideology, shot through with religious sentiment. “If you look carefully,” author Michael Crichton observed, “you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.”

Environmentalism’s most renewable resources are fear, guilt, and moral bullying. Its worldview casts man as a sinful creature who, through the pursuit of forbidden knowledge, abandoned our Edenic past. John Muir, who laid the philosophical foundations of modern environmentalism, described humans as “selfish, conceited creatures.” Salvation comes from shedding our sins, rejecting our addictions (to oil, consumerism, etc.) and demonstrating an all-encompassing love of Mother Earth. Quoth Al Gore: “The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”

I heard Gore on NPR recently. He was asked about evangelical pastor Joseph Hagee’s absurd comment that Hurricane Katrina was God’s wrath for New Orleans’s sexual depravity. Naturally, Gore chuckled at such backwardness. But then the Nobel laureate went on to blame Katrina on man’s energy sinfulness.

---

Whether or not it’s adopted the trappings of religion, my biggest beef with environmentalism is how comfortably irrational it is. It touts ritual over reality, symbolism over substance, while claiming to be so much more rational and scientific than those silly sky-God worshipers and deranged oil addicts.

It often seems that displaying faith in the green cause is more important than advancing the green cause. The U.S. government just put polar bears on the threatened species list because climate change is shrinking the Arctic ice where they live. Never mind that polar bears are in fact thriving — their numbers have quadrupled in the last 50 years.

---

Plastic grocery bags are being banned, even though they require less energy to make and recycle than paper ones. The country is being forced to subscribe to a modern version of transubstantiation, whereby corn is miraculously transformed into sinless energy even as it does worse damage than oil.

---

In the broadest sense, the environmental movement has won. Americans are “green” in that they are willing to spend a lot to keep their country ecologically healthy, which it is. But now it’s time to save the environment from the environmentalists.

(emphases mine)

sanctimonious rubbish

Lileks on Epcot's Cult of Gaia church service:

The actual Circle of Life, as applied to animals, consists of birth, killing, consumption, excretion, copulation, and solitary death from small predators in the blood or nasty ones with big teeth. Sometimes there’s death by fire, for variety’s sake. It takes consciousness on the human level to extract the metaphorical weight in the whole Circle of Life thing, and while I think it’s wonderful to appreciate and marvel at the intricate ecosystems of the planet, and tread as lightly as necessary, wordless choirs voicing ecstatic vowels over footage of wildebeest herds does not really equal a High Mass for spiritual impact or depth. All of which I kept to myself, of course. But I felt like the village atheist.

The plot was hugely ironical: Timon and Roomba or whatever the warthog is named were building a resort in the jungle, and damming a stream to create a water feature. Simba showed up to demonstrate the error of their ways. The hilarity of any manifestation of the Disneyverse criticizing an artificial lake to build a resort goes without saying. And it did go without saying, of course. Simba said that Timon and Roomba or whatever were acting like another creature that did not behave in tune with nature, and that creature was... man.

...I tire of this. Big evil stupid man had done many stupid evil bad things, like pile abandoned cars in the river, dump chemicals into blue streams, and build factories that vomited great dark clouds into the sky. Like the People’s State Lead Paint and Licensed Mickey Merchandise Factory in Shanghai Province, perhaps? Simba gave us a lecture about materialism and how it hurt the earth – cue the shot of trees actually being chopped down, and I’m surprised the sap didn’t spurt like blood in a Peckinpah movie – and other horrors, like forests on fire because... well, because it was National Toss Glowing Coals Out the Car Window Month, I guess. I swear the footage all came from the mid-70s; it was grainy and cracked and the cars were all late-60s models. Because I’m pretty sure we’re not dumping cars into the rivers as a matter of course any more. You’re welcome to try to leave your car on the riverbank and see how that turns out for you.

(emphases mine)

update: CSM has a related post.

Oriana Fallaci Square

in fair Verona, where we lay our scene

weekend summary

in ad form:

990 miles by car: $110
387 miles in a fully-loaded 26' u-haul: $780
ten assistants: free
getting dad closer to his grandkids: priceless


in prose(?) form:

leaving...
plans & midnight,
"amarillo by morning"
the dark northwest flow
interrupted every half-hour.

returning...
air & caffeine,
"lemmings in shiny metal boxes"
the first blue of dawn touches
the sodium-lit haze over dallas.

loooooong weekend

due to several hundred miles of family obligations, expect no new posts here until monday at the earliest.

turn it down

oh please, not 11!

Israel at 60

Mark Steyn:

By most measures, the Jewish state is a great success story. The modern Middle East is the misbegotten progeny of the British and French colonial map makers of 1922. All the nation states in that neck of the woods date back a mere 60 or 70 years – Iraq to the Thirties, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel to the Forties. The only difference is that Israel has made a go of it.

Would I rather there were more countries like Israel, or more like Syria? Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East (Iraq may yet prove a second), and its Arab citizens enjoy more rights than they would living under any of the kleptocrat kings and psychotic dictators who otherwise infest the region.

On a tiny strip of land narrower at its narrowest point than many American townships, Israel has built a modern economy with a GDP per capita just shy of $30,000 – and within striking distance of the European Union average. If you object that that’s because it’s uniquely blessed by Uncle Sam, well, for the past 30 years the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid has been Egypt: their GDP per capita is $5,000, and America has nothing to show for its investment other than one-time pilot Mohamed Atta coming at you through the office window.

the bottom line

...tells the whole story

better health care at a lower price?

everyone could have it if the government would get out of the way.

playing god's advocate

david berlinski asks some good questions in "the devil's delusion":

Has anyone provided a proof of God's inexistence? Not even close.

Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close.

Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close.

Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough.

Has rationalism in moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough.

Has secularism in the terrible twentieth century been a force for good? Not even close to being close.

Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences? Close enough.

Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even ballpark.

Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on.

is it robin hood?

or rage against the machine?

Chuck Baldwin, Constitution Party

Chuck Baldwin has a presidential platform I could vote for, rather than merely choosing the lesser of two evils yet again.

fact vs. fiction

...is often found in the focus.

The experts agree...

Gun control works!

via the jungle hut

"Darwinians doth protest too much, methinks"

viewpoint points to three evangelical outpost posts explaining how darwinian dogmatists help promote intelligent design:

part 1
part 2
part 3

(disclaimer: the evidence i've seen points more towards young-earth creationism, but i'd take i.d. over darwin's folly any day...)

Gasoline's Still Too High

Guess I posted this a couple of years too early... :(

-------------------------------

With an insincere apology to the Starland Vocal Band, here again are my alternate lyrics to "Afternoon Delight":

Gonna buy unleaded, gonna fill my tank,
When I saw them numbers, well my heart just sank.
Only got a twenty for the whole dang week -
Wouldn't move my Suburban seven hundred feet.

Skyrocketing price,
Gasoline's too high.
Ga-aaa-soline's too high.

Thinking that I can't afford to fill 'er up.
Dollar got a couple gallons, now, just half a cup.
If the war was about oil, wouldn't you just think
That the pricing of the petrol might begin to sink?

Skyrocketing price,
Gasoline's too high.
Ga-aaa-soline's too high.

When the metal numbers move a dozen times a day,
You just know big oil company's gonna make you pay.

Skyrocketing price,
Gasoline's too high.
Ga-aaa-soline's too high.

---

This is still true, too.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

(update: this post has gone through many minor revisions, and may continue to do so. "kinda like microevolution, huh?" asks the author...)

I saw Ben Stein's new movie on Sunday. Tom Bethell's review of the movie is a solid starting point, and I would add:

• It was the only movie I've ever attended where people applauded more than once.
• It was not as humorous throughout as the previews might lead you to believe. The explanation of how "ideas have consequences" becomes rather depressing when it explains how many millions have died due to Darwin's folly as implemented by nazis, abortionists, and various communists.
• The presentation of the connection between Naziism and Darwinism could have been timed better. Though accurate, its suddenness had a Godwin's Law feeling.
  
• The user comments on IMDB show almost no signs of intelligence, but the wikipedia article does have at least one on the discussion page:

  "This article is about a movie that claims that scientists who oppose the "consensus" view are shouted down and marginalized as kooks. And when someone complains that this article itself is an attempt to shout down Ben Stein and marginalize him as a kook, they are in turn shouted down and marginalized as a kook. Do I detect a pattern here????"

  The bile spewed denouncing this movie is elegant and irrefutable proof that the movie's claims are true.
• One of the "stars" of the movie got really bent out of shape about it, and resorted to "pot calling the kettle black" tactics by saying:

  "dull, artless, amateurish, too long, poorly constructed and utterly devoid of any style, wit or subtlety."

  which describes Dawkins' rant perfectly,

  "What a shoddy, second-rate piece of work."

  which describes Darwinism to a T, and

  "Quite apart from anything else, it is drearily boring, the tedium exacerbated by the grating monotony of..."

  Dawkins' histrionics. (although the movie doesn't portray him as unsympathetically as his ideology deserves.)
• The ads before the movie previews were a whole other steaming pile of greenie propaganda that deserves nearly as much ridicule as macroevolution.

In related reviews, Martin Cothran's review has another angle, and Patrick Roberts adds at least four cents.

update 2: stand to reason answers some questions that might be asked after this movie.

what's the opposite of "our lady of peace"

how about "our madman of perpetual hate"?

---

related: it seems that the definition of "hate crime" in the u.k. now sadly includes "reporting hate crimes".

---

both links via local malcontent

just how far does that memory hole go?

or, the dark side of wikipedia

via snadrs

i come not to praise obama

but to mirror him:

So, it depends on where you are, but I think it’s fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people feel most cynical about religion. The people are mis-appre…I think they’re misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to ‘city folk don’t wanna go to church — don’t wanna vote for the Christian.’ That’s…there were intimations of that in an article in the Weekly World News today - kind of implies that it’s sort of a faith thing.

Here’s how it is: in a lot of these overgrown cities in on both coasts, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by hypocrites, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about religion, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a white man, then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter)...

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these urban sewers like New York, and like a lot of other rat-infested cities, morality been gone now for 80 years and nothing’s replaced it. And they fell through the Graham revival and local missions, and each successive revival has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to gays or drugs or hatred of non-miserable people or amoral sentiment or anti-god sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find true Christians. And you can go into places where you think they’d be rich and people will just be morally bankrupt. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what's right.

turnabout is fair play in love and war ;)

---

update: lileks buries him

Happy tax day, all you God-clinging gun-nut anti-NAFTA fools. The Rubeoisie, as Mencken might have called you.

What annoyed me about the Obama comments was the crude reduction of everything into economic terms, the most dismal prism through which to regard humanity. So the factories close, and the sullen mass of the lowly workers ball their fists, feel a strange sour bolus of resentment bolting up their throat, and think: must – channel – confusing - emotions- into – unreasoning – opposition – to – redefining – marriage. If the factories magically reappear, does everyone sigh with relief, quit church and drop off their guns? I have money! No need for the Magic Carpenter and that poorly-worded amendment. Call off the border patrol, too – there’ll be jobs and upward wage pressure for everyone. It’s not exactly an unusual thesis; I’ve encountered it for years. People cannot possibly believe these crazy things for their own sake; they must be driven to them by external forces.

It’s possible there are bitter people who regard their station in life as a direct result of the current rate of capital gains taxes, but it seems an insufficiently reasoned basis for a national economic policy. Oh, it’s possible; at this very minute one of the country’s innumerable domestic terror cells could be planning a bombing of a Planned Parenthood center, driven to extremism by the very possibility of a Colombian trade pact. But I doubt it.

Not to say economics don’t affect people; I’m not that stupid. But like any adversity, you meet it with a certain amount of psychological capital. The more grounded you are in things that transcend the dollar, the better you can deal with the downturns. Some seem to suspect that the “grounding” is nothing more than a stake in the ground to channel the bolts tossed off by madmen in the pulpits, but those are the people most likely to believe that church services either consist of yelling and snake-handling, or gaseous bromides pumped out over a complacent stack of prim-faced morons and hypocrites who spend the service lusting after young women in the choir. There is no goodness, only the momentary self-delusion accorded by participation in a consensual charade.

I’ve been trying to find the right words for a certain theory, and I can’t quite do it yet. It has to do with how a candidate feels about America – they have to be fundamentally, dispositionally comfortable with it. Not in a way that glosses over or excuses its flaws, but comfortable in the way a long-term married couple is comfortable. That includes not delighting in its flaws, or crowing them at every opportunity as proof of your love. I mean a simple quiet sense of awe and pride, its challenges and flaws and uniqueness and tragedies considered. You don’t win the office by being angry we’re not something else; you win by being enthused we can be something better. You can fake the latter. But people sense the former.

bad news for bad religion

Let's pray that they are not merely exchanging one brand of church for another, but that they are turning towards the one true God through faith in Jesus Christ.

this meme's just six words long

tagged by local malcontent, i post:

The Rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4. Tag at least five more blogs with links.
5. Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

"obscure spectral shards with regrettable inertia."

it's both poetic and needlessly puzzling.

will tag others later; brain's tired.

the struggle continues

Charlton Heston recognized it nine years ago:

I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain accepted thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 -- and long before Hollywood found it acceptable, I may say. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life -- throughout my whole career. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out the innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution I'm talking about, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.

From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind like that. You are using language not authorized for public consumption."

But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys -- subjects bound to the British crown.

In his book, "The End of Sanity," Martin Gross writes that

"blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly twisted on us -- foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the country, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it."

Let me read you a few examples. At Antioch College in Ohio, young men speaking and seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process, from kissing to petting to final, at last, copulation -- all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.

In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who'd been infected by dentists who had concealed their own AIDS, the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not -- need not! -- tell their patients that they are infected.

At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team "The Tribe" because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs really like the name, "The Tribe."

In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.

In New York City, kids who didn't speak a word of Spanish had been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their own names sound Hispanic.

At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students.

Yeah, I know, that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "Negroes." Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no now.

...

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does -- does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. That's what it is: New McCarthyism. But, what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation?

Well, the answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.

You simply disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey the social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.

I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.

...

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.

If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree.

via monday evening