The Clue Batting Cage

"Scientifically Proven"

2012-02-02T10:14:00.004-06:00

While it is heartening to see more and more AGW skeptics crop up, we really need to make sure we understand the issues and where the Chicken Littles have it wrong.

Saw a post on facebook on a conservative page saying: "it has been scientifically proven that we are not suffering from global warming".

Well, no, it hasn't. And except for the word "suffering", that statement is just flat out incorrect. Nothing of the sort has been "scientifically proven", just as it hasn't been "scientifically proven" that there has been global warming, or especially that we've had anything to do with it if it has.

The data says that we've warmed slightly in the last 150 years. Of course, even much of the data is speculative and/or not "scientifically" controlled measurement. The "warming" has been so little it could be a figment of our data. As a matter of fact, what climategate has shown us, there is a bias in the AGW community toward warmer data, and "corrections" that make the data "warmer" -- on top of the fact that much of the data is speculative and/or not "scientifically" controlled measurement.

It's no secret that I am a strong skeptic of Global Warming, but people on our side make the same mistake they do when we say "it has been scientifically proven that we are not suffering from global warming". The statement is easily attacked and debunked and it has little to do with the issue. There is general agreement that the Earth did warm some over the last 150 or so years, although it cooled a bit in the middle of that ... but over all, yeah. Looks like we're half a degree warmer. And that means ...????

"Suffering"? That's a loaded word. Are we really "suffering"? What negative effects have we seen? What positive effects have we seen? Most of the negative "effectcs" are, in fact, speculation and predicition, and most of those are highly subjective as to whether or not they are good or bad.

The real issue is did we have anything significant to do with it, and is there anything we can do about it? The actual data seems to say "no", and "no". (And the third issue would be should we do anything about it if we could?) The computer models which are built with assumptions that CO2 causes global warming and will induce a positive enhancement and feedback loop with water vapor are of course going to show that the earth will heat up, because the assumptions are built into the models. The data does not back the models -- and the Chicken Little's know it, as evidenced by the Climategate Communiques.

The earth's climate changes. It always has. It always will. It's not some delicate system set on a thermostat where it's "supposed" to be. It does what it does. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's bad. And we get to judge "good" or "bad" from our own perspective.

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe

2012-01-30T10:57:00.000-06:00

Paul (you lost me at Krugman) Kruglman's column is entitled "The Austerity Debacle".

What austerity?

Basically a re-hash of "Keynes was right" and "we didn't spend enough". Which I think sums up Paul's brand of economics.

A Post of His Own

2012-01-26T10:21:00.001-06:00

Cylarz comment over a week ago over on Morgan's blog deserves a post of it's own. I reproduce it here, unedited. :-)

So Buffett has pledged to match 1 for 1 all such voluntary contributions made by Republican members of Congress. “And I’ll even go 3 for 1 for McConnell,” he says. That could be quite a bill if McConnell takes the challenge; after all, the Senator is worth at least $10 million. As Buffett put it to me, “I’m not worried.”

Excuse me, Mr Buffett, but I am not seeing the ‘hypocrisy.’ Senator McConnell is not the one who stood before the American people (via an op-ed in the NYT) and told them that he thinks he doesn’t pay enough taxes. You did, sir.

McConnell doesn’t want pay more in taxes than he currently does. He wants to spend his money on the goods and services and investments of his choosing, rather than having the government pick and choose for him. The same could be said of you; instead of simply eating some crow and admitting the exact same is true of you, you upped the ante by offering to go “3 for 1.”

You’re an idiot, Mr Buffett…and more to the point, I do not appreciate you encouraging the president and members of Congress to raise taxes on the rest of us who aren’t millionaires and billionaires…which was sort of the point all along, wasn’t it? You may have money to throw around; the rest of us out here in middle America are having a hard enough time feeding our families, putting gas in our cars, keeping roofs over our heads, and running our businesses…without you and a bunch of other idle rich going around trying to get the government to take away even more of what was ours.

Just shut the hell up, will you?

I just don't think there's a clearer way to put that.

82%

2012-01-25T12:59:00.001-06:00

CBS News touts This year, 82 percent of those who watched the speech said they approve of the president's plans for the economy ...

And what about those of us who just couldn't bring ourselves to wade through more political misdirection and double-speak?

Bill Whittle: The Working Class

2012-01-23T20:58:00.000-06:00

Must See Whittle:

Waiting

2012-01-20T09:39:00.001-06:00

One thing I'll say for Newt. I've been waiting a long time for someone who will directly answer the baiting questions and call people out on it. If he promises to keep doing this every time someone tries to frame the conservative argument as simple, callous "hate" or when someone obviously comes up with a unchecked bombshell allegation at the last minute to affect the outcome of a debate or election... he may win be back.
That's twice in just a few days.

"Secretive"

2012-01-19T19:19:00.000-06:00

Obama ad claims he's under attack by "secretive oil billionaires".

Like who, right?

Hel-LO!? Like, they're secretive!!!! Shuuuuhhh!!

Oh, and psssst!!!! What are the attacks? Are they valid?

Nah, let's not go discussing anything unimportant like who or what or especially whether or not they're right. The important thing is, he's under attack!!!!

Don't Go There

2012-01-19T11:55:00.005-06:00

Racist or realistic? Fears Microsoft 'Avoid the Ghetto' app will damage economies of poor communities

It takes some brain damage to make the leap from avoiding high crime areas to "racist" -- but that is the world in which we live today. I mean, look at some of the quotes from the article:

'I can't imagine that there aren't perpetrators of domestic violence, petty and insignificant drug possession, fraud, theft, and rape in every area.'

Yeah, well neither can I. Tornadoes do occur in California and in all of the lower 48, but there's a reason the area where they occur with the highest frequency is called "Tornado Alley". Is that "stereotyping" the Midwest?

'Can you imagine me not being able to go to Martin Luther King Boulevard. because my GPS says that’s a dangerous crime area? I can’t even imagine that,'

Just because it's a dangerous crime area?!!!! These people have very poor imaginations, apparently. Besides, the app doesn't physically restrain you from doing anything. You can go anywhere you want to.

'It’s almost like gerrymandering,'she said. 'It’s stereotyping for sure and without a doubt; I can’t emphasize enough, it’s discriminatory.'

Yeah. It discriminates high crime areas from areas with lower crime rates. For sure and without a doubt.

'What happens in North Dallas certainly ought to be no different than what happens in South Dallas, so we can’t keep on doing this,'

What ought to be and what actually is is why people feel the need for an app like this.

Does the app say "avoid poor people"??? or "avoid black people"?? (and make no mistake, that's what the flap is about). Does it base its warnings on racial demographics, or does it base them on crime statistics? It doesn't even have a name yet, it's just been dubbed "Avoid the Ghetto" by people on the outside (and probably by those who seem alarmed by it.)

What if it came out under the name "Avoid High Crime Areas", since that's what the app is about? The ONLY way that could be considered racial is if one assumed that high crime has something to do with race. And who is it that makes this assumption?

The very people who see an app to help people avoid high crime areas and immediately call it "racist".

Denying "Climate Change"

2011-12-15T22:25:00.003-06:00

Gene Lyons asks "Why Do People Still Deny Climate Change?"

Look at the rhetorical sleight of hand here. The title "Why do people still deny climate change?" Then basically, there's been bad weather so it's high time we take "global warming" 'seriously'. And then a litany of bad weather events to "support" the idea that man is causing all of this. Yeah. There's never been floods and plagues and droughts before the industrial revolution. And the climate ran on a Honeywell thermostat. Ask the dinosaurs. And Europe in the Middle Ages vs the Dark Ages.

The charge here is that "Climate Change" (which nobody denies, climate always has and always will change) = bad weather = global warming ... and implied here is ... that man has something significant to do with it. Talk about moving the goalposts all over the place. But that's the point. They can't win the argument on facts, so they need a shifting "argument".

All the so-called "deniers" are denying is that the Chicken Little's have shown that man's activity has had any significant impact on climate -- if it can be discerned from natural variations. And the real scientific answer to that is an emphatic "no"

Wild Horses

2011-12-07T22:00:00.012-06:00

Like a lot of my posts in the last year, that last one fell out of a friend's or friend of friend's facebook post and the ensuing discussion. And my last post grew out of one of my comments.

And as sometimes happens, I kept thinking about it even afterward. I mean, my last post was not meant to be an endorsement of Newt.   It was a defense against what a particular author was arguing in a particular article.   It just didn't hold water for me.

And I think what it comes down to is that people keep talking about who "the right guy" (or gal) is (it would be more accurate to describe it as who isn't the "wrong" guy for this or that reason until the campaigns run out of time and the election comes and they can't throw out any more dirt before the vote is cast). But people seem to latch on to the idea that if we just elect this guy or that guy this one important time, the country will change for the better.

But that isn't the case. Because We are The Country.

Yes, we're like a chariot being dragged by wild horses careening toward a cliff, and yes, electing one driver or another will likely speed up or slow our rate of speed toward the cliff, but it's high time we admit something.

The politicians are the drivers.   We. Us. We are the wild horses. We, as a group -- we're pullin'.

Now all the horses aren't of the same mind.   There are some who think if we run fast enough we'll just keep going and land on the other side safely.   There are some who think it will all be ok as long as it's "not their fault" (directly) that we went over the cliff, as if that will exempt them from the accelleration due to gravity and the rapid de-accelleration when they hit rocks at the bottom.   There are a lot of people who are just running to keep from getting trampled, hoping the other horses or the driver will stop in time.   And there are those digging their hooves in, but are just being overwhelmed by the momentum of the rest of the team. And there are even some who actively want to go over the cliff.

But no matter what the speed, where we're headed isn't going to change until enough of we, the horses ... We, the People -- change direction.

Herman Cain is not going to fix it. Michelle Bachmann is not going to fix it. Newt Gingrich is not going to fix it.

Ron Paul is not going to fix it, either.

Look around you. Your brother. Your friend. Your co-worker.   That's where the work has to happen.   Don't wait for a driver, who likely has a parachute anyway, to change our course.   Yes, work hard to get a slower driver to hopefully give us the time we need to change hearts and minds, but when you are fighting, arguing -- argue passionately but rationally -- the principles.   Not the latest headlines and scandals (but I repeat myself). Or even the people themselves, directly.

Bill touches on that here when he talks about our failures and their fruits -- such as the OWS crowd. This is where we've allowed ourselves, over a long period of time, to be steered. It was predictable. And predicted.

"Outrageous" Newt

2011-12-07T20:43:00.007-06:00

Roger Simon (not to be confused with PJTV's Roger L. Simon) thinks Newt says a lot of outrageous things. The sole example in the article follows:

“Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works,” Newt said recently in Iowa. “So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal.”

I don't see what's so outrageous about Mr. Simon's example. He may not agree, and of course it isn't literally true in every case on the individual level -- but like most libs, Mr. Simon doesn't even come close to directly addressing what Newt said, he just calls it "outrageous" or "scandalous" and expects everyone to nod in agreement. Of course, the same libs will argue for spending millions or billions on programs for role models and government job programs to specifically address the exact same problem Newt is talking about (and perhaps even Newt himself has been for them in the past) -- and that's all perfectly ok. It's just not ok for a conservative, real or perceived, to point it out. Because, as we all know (because libs keep telling us), conservatives are a bunch of heartless a**holes for not agreeing that more government is the solution.

Newt wouldn't be my first or second or third choice. But we could do a lot worse than Newt. Case and point, take a look at who's in the White House... when the current president isn't on vacation, that is. (No, I'm not talking about Lady Gaga.) A bonafide Alinsky radical. I'm not pretending Newt is ideal or even awesome. But if this is the worst Mr. Simon can come up with for an "outrageous" comment, they have a lot to be afraid of.

Simon points out a piece written about Gingrich he uses to ridicule and put Newt's comments on "habits of working" because he didn't want to work through college and got his family to help. Well, you know, family can say "no" if they don't think their money is well spent, and they didn't. Not so with Government. And people do grow and learn between college age and 50. It is possible. Simon quotes the writer

“Dolores Adamson, Gingrich’s district administrator from 1978 to 1983, remembers, ‘Jackie [Jackie Battley, Newt’s high school geometry teacher and first wife] put him all the way through school. All the way through the Ph.D. … He didn’t work.”

and goes on to skewer:

Early on, Newt found a secret: Get family to pay your way. Then get taxpayers to pay your way, then charge $60,000 a speech, and then get corporations to give you large sums of money. And ultimately, of course, there’s the presidency with its comfortable salary, free housing and that big plane where you can choose any seat you want.

So his family paid his way through school, he became an elected official ("get taxpayers to pay your way", a point of view that I have SOME sympathy with - but let's remember Newt was largely responsible for keeping Clinton reigned in) -- and dudes, you can't live on charging $60,000 a speech if people don't want to pay $60,000 to have you come speak. You're offering a product. They can take it or leave it. Free market. Same with "get corporations to pay you large sums of money." They won't pay you large sums of money if you aren't worth it to them. I'm not saying (because I don't know) that he didn't do things for corporations I'd disagree with -- but this is not evidence of not having a "habit of working".

Again With the "Capitalism"

2011-12-01T22:13:00.004-06:00

Reading some of the comments on Facebook about the recent Daniel Hannan article on what we Evil Capitalist Pigs really believe.

You know, like "Capitalism isn't bad in and of itself. Just like any other tool or structure it is only good or bad depending on the use people put it to" or they say they hate "Capitalism" but can they show me WHERE capitalism is being practiced in the U.S.? I only see Mercantilism

We've mentioned before -- on this blog and other webulous places, that Capitalism isn't a "system" in the sense that some person or persons sat down and said "here's how it should work" ... like, say, Karl Marx et. al. did.

It is the Tao of Economics. The Way of Things. It falls directly out of human nature.   It's basic structure is I have A, you have B. You want A, I want B.   And we work out some sort of deal on how we swap A for B that is acceptable to the both of us. That's the essence of a Free Market.

I can't remember who it was I was talking to, but this person mentioned that the word "Capitalism" didn't show up until the middle 1800's ... right around the time Marx et. al. were formalizing their forced wealth redistribution systems. Which are incompatible with a Free Market. But something called a Free Market is hard to demonize.  However, another "ism", a counter-ism, a word to use to put some distance between the concept of a Free Market and the connotation of the new "ism", and then demonize the new word by assigning it abuses of trust associated with market fraud --- much easier.

So I don't like arguing about "Capitalism".   It's a misrepresentation of what we are really for, and that is Free Markets.

Daniel Hannan on What We Believe

2011-12-01T21:47:00.002-06:00

Pretty "spot on", as he might say.

Chatting to some Occupy protesters this morning, I was struck by how wide of the mark were the beliefs they attributed to me as a Right-winger. In the interests of deeper understanding, here are ten things which – trust me – most of the Tory scum I hang around with think. Obviously, I don’t expect to turn my Leftie readers in a single post; still, they might get a clearer idea of what we actually believe.

/RTWT

Plugging on

2011-11-30T10:19:00.000-06:00

I've been a bit detached from the political world, only skimming RCP and House of Eratosthenes. Need to check my good friend Severian's blog, too.   Life has been hectic.   To throw another monkey wrench into things (though it's a much bigger problem for her than it is for us) my mother in law got a bad eye infection the weekend after the housefire and required 24 hour care there by my wife for a while. She still needs a lot of attention.

One thing I was going to mention for some reason we got this catalog in the mail, Northern Sun - Products for Progressives since 1979.

Now... I'll go out on a limb and say this is because we supported NPR for about 18 years and used to order out of Wireless and Signals.    Now I have my hippe tendencies... big Grateful Dead fan. Love Santana. Used to wear a lot of Tie Die. Read a lot of Alan Watts (and even contributed to a movie made about him this year to get it made.)    But clearly, my libertarian leanings put me on the right side of the political spectrum these days, and I do have strong sympathies with much of social conservatism  as well.

Mostly T-Shirts, bumperstickers, and posters. Some of which are actually pretty cool. Some of which are begnign. Some of which are dangerously simplistic.   Some of which sound quite profound but actually say nothing at all. And others of which ... they would consider downright mean if they were aimed at someone other than Christians.

There's a T-Rex eating a Christian Symbol fish. The ubiquitous Che.   COEXIST crap. Various platitudes about Peace (don't get me wrong, I like peace and all ... just on my terms). Ho hum, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention" (ever get the feeling that they should add "to me" to the end of that?)   ... Oh, how about this one ... "I'm already against the next war."

And then the fun ones. A spoof on the Fox News logo "News for Dumb FUX".    Picture of Palin or Beck with "Shut the Hell Up" over it.   Walmart bashing. Ha Ha, Ho Ho, "I'm a Marxist" shirts (Marxists have no class, pictures of the Marx bros "Sure I'm a Marxist") --- "Where's Robin Hood When We Need Him"?   A "Mad Tea Party" Alice in Wonderland spoof with all the Left's favorite people to hate.   A whole calendar of Sarah Palin bashing.   Witches date books.

Anyway, just thought that was kind of an interesting peek behind the curtain.

Austerity

2011-11-19T13:12:00.002-06:00

Huffpo wants us to "Stop The Austerity Trainwreck".

Austerity. You keep using that word. I donnot think it means what you think it means.

What austerity?

Here in Asia

2011-11-17T15:38:00.001-06:00

A conservative does this, he/she is an idiot, obviously unfit to hold the office of President of the 57+2 states.

But Hawaii is "here in Asia" from Obama? Nope, he's still Teh Messiah.

And you're a racist for even noticing.

It's Just Stuff

2011-11-13T19:02:00.000-06:00

Well, after that trip where I wasn't posting, it looks like it may be slow around here again, at least as far as philmon goes.

Yeah, the house caught fire. Lots o' damage. So I got my hands full. Can't live in the house until it's fixed. I had just thrown a bunch of stuff out in the attic a few weeks ago, so all that was up there was stuff I had decided to keep for some reason.

Shouldn't have bothered, I guess. The whole attic is literally toast. Kitchen roof is gone. Garage roof might as well be gone. Whole cross section of the attic has the rafters severely charred.

Scary thing is this all happened in about 45 minutes, including the 15 minutes it took the firefighters to put it out.

So.... staying with relatives. Talk to insurance adjuster tomorrow, plus back to work as well after 10 days off.

Life throws you curves.

Present!

2011-11-11T19:37:00.002-06:00

Decision time. Mr. President, how do you vote on the Keystone XL pipeline?

Who would have thought?

It looks like Newt thought of this too (before I did), so he must be right.

Baby It's Time We Got Back, To the Basics ...

2011-11-08T20:35:00.001-06:00

Been out a while. Off the grid, for the most part. WAAAAY off the grid. Even stopped by a place that is most famous for being nowhere. We were visiting family down in Texas Hill Country, and I couldn't go there without stopping by to say "hi" to Waylon and Willie and the Boys.

Now I need a little time to catch up on what's been going on outside in the big "out there", and see if I feel like there's anything I need to add or point out. Mean time, good to be back. 32 hours driving in 6 days' time is enough.

Next time I leave I might oughtta let jeffmon know so mebbe he could pipe up and say "hey" while I'm out ... but ... you know, like Severian, I guess this is my way of saying "SNUL". Which is less of a "sorry" and more of a "yeah, I'm still alive" when I say it. Just thought I'd bring that up in case Morgan started gettin' an idea to put out some snul baits and finish 'em off.

The Caning of Cain

2011-11-01T11:29:00.002-05:00

Scott Ott, on the caning of Cain.

'Journalists' Slam Cain First, Ask Questions Later

"Politico.com rocks the Republican Presidential primary race with allegations from two unnamed women that back in the 1990's Cain made un-quoted, unwelcomed remarks and non-specific, non-sexual gestures. The anonymous women were so uncomfortable, they quit the National Restaurant Association where Cain was then executive Director. Several Association Board Members contacted by Politico said they'd never heard those claims and couldn't imagine Cain behaving inappropriately toward anyone. Later Cain said the women had made allegations which were proven false. But before his denial, hundreds of news outlets immediately ran the Politico story, to avoid the embarrasment of waiting until they could document and corroborate the evidence. After all, nothing's more damning to a news organization than being labeled as a heel-dragging fact-monger."

Surprise, SURPRISE, surprise!

2011-10-31T11:23:00.000-05:00

Conservative candidate starts gaining a little too much traction and he isn't white, haul out the sexual allegations.

I'm surprised. Aren't you surprised? Because I'm really surprised.

Mark Steyn's Noticed it, Too

2011-10-30T15:25:00.000-05:00

Remember a week or so back when I was talking about "awareness" and ribbons?

Yeah, well Mark Steyn's been thinking the same thing. "Diaper Need Awareness Day"? Really?

I, ahem,... sh*t you not..

Two Years Late, But Thanks!

2011-10-26T19:52:00.002-05:00

A random google search on my blog name turned up a blog post referring to a post I made in 2009 with a quote that came, apparently, from TrogloPundit, Lance Burri's blog -- from guest blogger Mister Pterodactyl. I likely unceremoniously snagged the link from Morgan's blog and didn't even really see TrogloPundit... because if I had I would have remembered it. He has an awesome banner.

And that's too bad (that I didn't see it) because he had something nice to say about me.

He didn’t link to me, exactly. He linked to something ~~Grandpa Steve~~ Mister Pterodactyl posted while I was gone last week. So I don’t know if that counts.

On the other hand, his blog does have a great name, which is really the most important thing about blogging. Wisdom of that kind should be rewarded.

Yours truly struggled a bit years ago when I renamed the blog from "philmon" to the current name, thinking the new name sounded a bit too cocky, which is something I am not, at all. But blog brother Morgan assured me it wasn't, and said he liked it. Truthfully, I liked it, too -- it's exactly what I felt like doing, and reflects the inspiration behind my starting the blog in the first place. Yelling at NPR in the car, talking back to CNN, and muttering things under my breath in response to dumb sh*t progressive family and friends said. I felt like I needed to get out there and start swinging a Clue Bat around -- albiet mostly for batting practice, which I sorely needed. I still need it, but not as badly. It has helped me tremendously.... and now instead of 40 hits a month, I'm up to around 1,500 to 1,700 (this month it has hit 2,300, but 500 of those were in one day. I'm guessing on my 53% post. But can't be sure. Logs rolled over).

But philmon thanks TrogloPundit for the kind words, and will link him under "friends of this blog" and check his out for a while. It looks pretty good from here.

What's Behind OWS

2011-10-26T17:01:00.001-05:00

Beck put together a good show on it the other night. I recommend you set some time aside and watch it if you haven't.

It'll take some patience, if you haven't been up on who's who in leftist revolutionary circles -- if you haven't read Alinsky or Cloward and Piven, or if you're not familiar with Soros's "Open Society" and the fluid, multi-headed hydra of SEIU, ACORN, AFL-CIO, SDS, APOLLO, TIDES, etc.

If you have then this will come into focus much more quickly.

Unoccupied

2011-10-26T16:05:00.001-05:00

Oh, snap!

I guess nights are getting a little nippy. I saw a video a few weeks ago at which a homeless person camping out amongst the OWS protesters said he was just happy that the cops would probably leave him alone since they're not arresting the protesters -- but that he thought they'd be outta there the first cold wind that came through. From the article:

These are the damning images that prove the anti-capitalist protest that has closed St Paul’s Cathedral is all but deserted at night.

Footage from a thermal imaging camera taken late at night reveals just a fraction of the makeshift camp was occupied.

An independent thermal imaging company, commissioned by the Daily Mail, captured these pictures after similar footage from a police helicopter found only one in ten tents were occupied after dark.

Little Red Hen Design

2011-10-26T13:38:00.004-05:00

Are Evangelicals or University Professors More Irrational?

2011-10-25T18:23:00.003-05:00

This was good.

Are Evangelicals or University Professors More Irrational?

I'm pretty much in full agreement with the author. The whole thing is pretty good ... here are a couple of quotes that stuck out:

With regard to those evangelicals -- and for that matter, those ultra-orthodox Jews -- who believe that Earth is less than 10,000 years old and that there either were no dinosaurs or that they lived alongside human beings, my reaction has always been: So what? I believe that Earth is many millions of years old, that "six days" is meant as six periods of time (the sun wasn't even created until the third day, so how could there have been any days before then?) and that dinosaurs preexisted man by millions of years.

But what real-life problem is caused by people who believe otherwise? Does it affect any of their important behaviors in life? Do they not take their children to doctors? Do they oppose medical research? Do they reject scientific discoveries that affect our lives? No. Not at all. Are there no evangelical or ultra-orthodox Jewish doctors? Of course there are, and apparently they are very comfortable learning and practicing science.

Compared to the many irrational beliefs of secular, leftist intellectuals -- good and evil exist even though there is no God; male and female are interchangeable; international institutions are the hope of mankind -- evangelical irrational beliefs are utterly benign.

and

This Jew will take the evangelicals' values and the evangelicals' America over those of left-wing intellectuals' any day of the year. If evangelicals come with some views I find irrational, that's a tiny price to pay compared to the price humanity has paid for the left's consistently broken moral compass...

Like Another Hole In the Head

2011-10-25T09:13:00.002-05:00

Saw this on our local affiliate's fb page yesterday.

Next thing you know they'll require a little audio device like in those talking greeting cards that activates when you pick up the bottle and gives you the nutrition information in 17 different languages, of course, adding cost to the price of a gallon of milk and lots more batteries in our landfills, but hey! People can't be trusted to look for the information themselves.

I know, here's a "jobs" program!!!! Each grocery aisle should have 3 nutrtion readers per aisle. The Nutrition Readers Union will require that you request an item off the shelf, and then they read you the nutrition information to you so that you can decide - wait, did I say "decide"? What was I thinking?

We should all just be required to hire nutrition agents to do our grocery shopping for us, for, let's say, a 15% commission? Well wait, they'll need to have degrees in dietary science first, and they'll need to pay off those student loans, so a 25% commission.

But the poorer among us won't be able to afford the new higher cost, so we'll need to subsidize that, too, so 30%. After all, everybody eats healthy if we "spread the butter around."

Another "problem" solved by government! Whew! Glad we dodged that disaster!

Jillette: Charity and the Role of Government

2011-10-20T09:07:00.000-05:00

Morgan and Mark shared a Bastiat Institute fb link with a Penn Jillette quote about charity and the role of government.

I thought the money quote was this one: "You get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right."

Of course when it comes down to things that impinge on people's life, liberty, or property -- theft and fraud, murder, damage to our environment, assault ... well yeah. Those are the source of the basic laws of the land.

But one liberal commenter said that it was, in fact, the role of government to provide public education because it is "in the public interest", and he went on to say:

"Once upon a time, we had a society without public assistance programs. Everything was done through private charities. It didn't work very well."

Hmmmm. And families performing their duty to help each other out, but able to withhold support if it were clear they were taken advantage of. It didn't work very well? How is it working better today?

Today we have nameless people giving other people's money to people they don't know. The recipients look on it as a right. It disincentivizes doing whatever one can to get one's own ass out of one's bad situation.

Today we pump much more money into it, only this money buys votes and influence and invites fraud and corruption.

Schools? Yes, our founders did believe public education was important, and they left it up to the states and local communities to provide it. The current system has our communities jockeying for money for education, rather than on getting education for their money. The priorities are flipped and we see the results.

I, too, believe the average liberal honestly wants to help people. Would that they could see past their noses to see that we do, too. But that the "obvious" easy "solutions" produce the illusion of success -- but only because we measure "success" now in dollars rather than results.

That goes for welfare programs, too.

What Grounds Me

2011-10-19T10:23:00.004-05:00

A friend posted a "sign" in the spirit of the 53'ers on facebook, and a friend of his made a comment calling the guy who wrote the sign (and held it in front of his face, unsigned) "narccistic" for displaying the fact that he sacrificed for what he has, and that he thinks others should, too.

What's on that paper is not narcissism. It's a sign that says "quitcher bitchin'" to the OWS people out there calling for free college education or to have a bank pay off his student loans because "that's what I want" and calling to replace "Capitalism" with "a more just economic model" while your friends interject and plead with you not to articulate just what it is you mean in front of a TV camera.

It's all fine and good to say "everybody deserves 'The American Dream'" and then go define some pie in the sky baseline for it. But somebody has to pay for it. And somebody has to do the producing to provide the goods and services with enough left over to turn around and buy it for you because you think you deserve it just for being an American.

As the Nace Brothers put it, "There's a lot of people in exotic places who spend all day tryin' to feed their faces. They'd love a shot at what you've got, so you better hold on while you can"

I lived within my means and worked for what I got and didn't buy more than I worked for. I don't have a lot of sympathy for people out on the street tweeting to each other about Corporate Greed on their iPhones, crapping on cop cars and burning American flags, stripping naked and painting their bodies garishly to get attention and garner praise for their "awareness" and "activism".

It's less about protesting than being seen protesting, because it's the "it" thing to do.

If you want to know who the narcissists are, it's precisely the ones out there doing the "occupying".

Here's the thing that grounds me.

Cavemen had food and shelter and worked all day to get it. Anything beyond that is gravy.

If I have food and shelter and people around me who love me, what do I care that someone else has eleventy trillion dollars, 60 yachts, and a space ship?

As long as he can't take my food and shelter and family, and my ability to work for more and actually get to keep it and share it with whom I please.

Klavan Joins GBTV

2011-10-18T16:47:00.000-05:00

Klavan rocks. And "explains" himself. To his wife. And other family and friends.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

2011-10-18T09:18:00.000-05:00

I'm sure this makes me a horrible person or something, but does anyone know if there's any day of the year that doesn't fall under "Breast Cancer Awareness" Something (day, week, month, hour...)?

Is there anyone who isn't aware of Breast Cancer?

Isn't there a fear that it'll get to the point where people will be desensitized to it and just react "yeah, yeah, Breast Cancer. Mmm-hmmm.... pass the Cheezits" ?

I mean, I'm all for saving the boobies, and even more for the saving of the people to whom they are attached. But really. Are we this addicted to wearing causes on our sleeves every day of the year?

Ronald Reagan's Little Red Hen

2011-10-17T22:24:00.004-05:00

A modern day little red hen may not sound like or appear to be a quotable authority on economics but then some authorities aren't worth quoting. I'll be right back.

About a year ago I imposed a little poetry on you. It was called "The Incredible Bread Machine" and made a lot of sense with reference to matters economic. You didn't object too much so having gotten away with it once I'm going to try again. This is a little treatise on basic economics called "The Modern little Red Hen."

Once upon a time there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered some grains of wheat. She called her neighbors and said 'If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?'

"Not I, " said the cow.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Not I," said the pig.

"Not I," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen. And she did. The wheat grew tall and ripened into golden grain. "Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.

"Not I," said the duck.

"Out of my classification," said the pig.

"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.

"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen, and she did.

At last the time came to bake the bread. "Who will help me bake bread?" asked the little red hen.

"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.

"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.

"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.

"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for the neighbors to see.

They all wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, "No, I can eat the five loaves myself."

"Excess profits," cried the cow.

"Capitalist leech," screamed the duck.

"I demand equal rights," yelled the goose.

And the pig just grunted.

And they painted "unfair" picket signs and marched round and around the little red hen shouting obscenities.

When the government agent came, he said to the little red hen, "You must not be greedy."

"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.

"Exactly," said the agent. "That's the wonderful free enterprise system. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations productive workers must divide their products with the idle."

And they lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, I am grateful." But her neighbors wondered why she never again baked any more bread.

Kos & the 53%

2011-10-17T22:11:00.003-05:00

Another post on fb. Yeah, from truce boy.

It just occurred to me what he's doing. He posts these links to stories that promote bits of the "liberal" or progressive agenda, but he posts them as "interesting to think about".

Thus he gets to promote his ideology without taking responsibility for it. "Hey, I didn't SAY I agreed with it, I just found it interesting".

Ooooo-kaaaayyyyy.

This one was a Daily Kos post (but no, he's not a radical liberal, he's been a life long Republican until he drove people to the polls to vote for Obama in a state other than the one in which he lives ... but I digress ... and posts links to HuffPo and Kos)

It's a rant about one of the 53%'ers photos. And a Kos ramble about "well you shouldn't have to work that hard in the greatest country on earth, and what if you need health care or lose your job..." and how they didn't like his face.

Another guy commented that he did an analysis of the guy to figure out how he could easily be a part of the 47%, if such and such parameters he plugged into a spreadsheet were assumed.

The open letter starts out thus: "although I think you’ve made yourself clear and I think I understand you..."

Well, he doesn't. Understand him, that is. It occurred to me that this completely misses the point.

I commented:

Completely missing the point. The point is, he takes his life into his own hands, and neither asks nor expects anything from strangers.

Something else interesting to think about. $116 trillion and counting of unfunded liabilities in entitlement programs in addition to the glaring but comparatively "paltry" 15 trillion federal debt.

Of course, every one of us is free to help anyone we like. There are, and have always been individuals and organizations dedicated to this.

But big pots of Other People's Money are, always have been, and always will be magnets to those with power to misuse, abuse, and skim, for starters. And the negative social impacts have manifest themselves around us for decades. Liberals "solve" this by looking in ever-expanding circles for places to get more, because the answer to them is always more.

It is very easy to be Liberal with Other People's Money.

These people confuse the role of government and the role of society, and any attempt to separate the two means you're unfeeling or uncaring.

What's great about America is that you can put yourself out like this and reap the rewards ... the delayed gratification. But what this Kos author doesn't seem to get is the lesson of The Little Red Hen.

And no, it's not that the Little Red Hen couldn't or shouldn't share with those she deems to be in need of her assistance. It's the entitlement attitude of the other farm animals -- to dictate where the fruits of her labor should go to her ... that is the problem. That's not America.

The difference between the 99'ers and the 53'ers (outside of general worldview and the glaring difference in the civility of the behavior) -- is that the 53'ers are specifically not complaining. They're pretty much just pointing out to the 99'ers that they are, and to stop whinning.

The Theory of Coexistence, Analyzed

2011-10-16T11:22:00.000-05:00

Via Morgan, through the Hello Kitty of Bloggin'

Soundbite Flypaper

2011-10-14T11:35:00.003-05:00

As Morgan would say, "I Made a New Word".

In a reply to tim's comment on the last post, a phrase materialized in my head describing what it is I don't like about watching political debates.

They're not debates.

They're soundbite flypaper.

Oh, I suppose soundbites are useful, but I don't need to watch them get produced. I'll hear them later. The debate -- the real debate -- happens out here. Between us. Between we, the people. Arguing ideals and ideas. Arguing principles and cause and effect and consequences.

What I like about Herman Cain

2011-10-14T09:36:00.008-05:00

Worldview and Principles

I've been slow to get on the Cain bandwagon, though I've never DISliked him. What I like about him is what I liked about Sarah Palin, really (tough, Palin Haters, I like the woman). A combination of worldview, principles, and the fact that they're not Politicians first (yet).

Little turns me off faster than "yeah, well he knows how to play the game". This is what people like Romney & Perry have going for them. "Experience". Experience at what, exactly? What they mean is experience playing the machine.

But I don't want someone to play the machine.

I want someone who's basic philosophy is to simplify the machine within the confines of the blueprint. Which will, over time, necessarily move us closer to that blueprint. We need a little Jesus goes ballistic in the Temple in Washington. "What are you doing to my house????"

9-9-9

It's really got nothing to do specifically with 9-9-9. 9-9-9 probably wouldn't pass as is. But it's that kind of thinking that I want. A president can't make laws, anyway. They can propose them. But it's up to Congress to make them law or not.

9-9-9 is on the right track. Broaden the tax base, lower corporate taxes, and provide a formula for adjusting an eventual flat/fair tax.

Does it have flaws?

Of course it does. Everything has flaws. There are no solutions. Only tradeoffs. 9-9-9 is a fine starting point for discussion in the right direction.

He's Black

There, I said it. Ok, this isn't so much about what "he" IS -- he is a man and an American first and foremost -- but this attribute, and his popularity among especially Tea Party conservatives, really finally blows the whole "conservatives are bigots" argument. True, anyone paying attention should be aware by now that today's "conservative" movement is really more about our founding principles than anything else, and our founding principles clearly state that all men are created equal. It does not say that everything in their houses should be made equal. But they are created equal. Which is why republicans (people who see our nation as a Constitutional Republic) and the party they started (capital "R") have always fought for this view to become manifest in society and government. Refusal to treat people unequally does not mean you have it in for the people the other side wants to give privilidges to.

So while his race wouldn't actually be a deciding factor in my support, this post is entitled, "What I Like About Herman Cain" ... and as a presidential candidate, I do like this about him at this moment in our history. It takes the Democrats' favorite bogus argument off the table. Not that they won't still try it, but it'll fall flat on the American Peoples' ears. We're not stupid.

It looks like this is the field we're getting. Like Fred Thompson last time around, this guy's my guy. We'll see what happens in the primaries.

Whittle on OWS

2011-10-13T16:40:00.000-05:00

Is America Ready?

2011-10-12T19:50:00.001-05:00

The headline grabbed me. And to be sure, The Washington Times' Charles Hurt is spot on with his article, but I couldn't help but comment on the question being asked upfront.

"Is America ready to make history by electing the first black president to replace a black president?"

Despite what the self-congratulatory left, the media and Hollywood (but I repeat myself) keep telling you, America does not care what color skin the President of the United States has, nor is it concerned with the gender. America is over it, why don't they join us?

Oh, that's right. They're too busy patting themselves on the back because they still believe that not being a bigot is something unusual that sets them apart from the rest of America. They've got too much of their inflated self-image tied up in that.

Those Antarcticans Just Don't Care

2011-10-11T09:43:00.002-05:00

Diane Sawyer of ABC says the OWS protests have spread to 250 cities and over a thousand countries. Which I'm pretty sure means it must've spread to at least 5 other planets like ours, since we have just shy of 200 nation-states on this one (195?).

I imagine it's spread to all 57 states as well. It's spread to "every continent except Antacrtica".

Those lazy, racist Antarcticans. I hear the whole place is just covered in white.

Awesome

2011-10-10T10:53:00.002-05:00

Wow. Looks to me like a celebration of self-centeredness.

Bill Zeiser at American Spectator actually went, checked it out. Amazing.

Columbus Day

2011-10-09T22:07:00.001-05:00

Ok, I just got steamed. The truce with fb "TruceBoy" is off. He called it off a couple of weeks ago by asking my opinion on a political subject.

And tonight, he posted this bit of Progressive Snark.

Oh, hee-hee, ho-ho, I didn't mean anything by it I just found it funny.

No.

I've had it past my eyeballs with this.

And I'm afraid I had to open with both barrels on it.

Let's beat ourselves up over the fact this is pretty much how the entire human history of the world had been up to that point, probably since before we dropped from the trees. Let's also ignore the fact that native tribes did the exact same thing to each other before "we" ever got here. There's not one place on the planet that wasn't taken from other people over the millennia, most of them multiple times.

Let's all get on the Critical Theory and deconstruction of Western Civilization bandwagon and show everybody how morally superior we are by tearing down 500 year old heroes and publicly flogging them so we'll all get the warm fuzzies from our college professors going on about the patriarchal heteronormative theocratic hegemony of the culture that brought you liberty and Constitutionally restrained government. The idea that rights do not come from man or his agent, government. That they pre-exist.

There's only two groups of people on the timeline with an unique claim to it. The current occupants, and Clovis Man.

I am the 53%

2011-10-09T18:27:00.001-05:00

I studied in school and got called a nerd. I took harder courses in math and science, and my GPA suffered for it, but I got some tools I would need. I milked cows and split wood and cooked food from scratch for my family when I was a kid.

My first job in high school was weeding the gravel bed of a septic tank overflow. I followed that by cleaning cabins, mowing grass, and washing dishes. I rode my bicycle 7.5 miles to and from work.

I went to college with the help of grants and a small scholarship, but paid for it mostly by working through it and taking out loans which I paid off, since I made sure I didn't get in over my head. My parents were financially unable to help me. I shelved books, slopped food, sold records, and lived in dormitories until I got my first degree, after which I lived in a drafty garage. I bought my first car at 23 for $500. It was almost as old as I was.

I worked at a student job in user support for a couple of years, showed up on time and did an excellent job, teaching myself things I was not taught in school. I was hired as a full-time employee, where I was rewarded with a low salary but got health insurance benefits. I continued to prove my worth with my employer, eventually managing the team that ran the Univerisity's email servers, getting rewarded more and more as I developed and proved my worth to my employer.

I met a good, honest woman, a single mom with two kids, just scraping by and took them on as my family when I got my first full-time job making about $20K. We lived in inexpensive housing, eventually buying a house that cost about a third of what my contemporaries were paying for theirs. I've never bought a new car. I minimized the risks I took and paid off the credit card which had gotten up to a nail biting $6,000 while we took on our new house. I still have a couple but I pay them off every month.

The job I have has a pension plan, but I put away a few hundred a month in addition so that I might be able to enjoy my retirement a little more and I realize that Social Security may go bankrupt by the time I retire -- rather than spending it on new cars, expensive phones and data plans, though I do spend a little on things to enjoy today as well.

I give to charity, I give to my family, pay my taxes, I work hard, I pay my bills, I plan for the future, and I make conservative choices. I live responsibly. I am the 53%.

I Feel Better Now

2011-10-09T12:54:00.002-05:00

Spidey Sense

2011-10-08T22:16:00.009-05:00

My Spidey Sense is tingling. We've seen the Van Jones/MoveOn/Frances Piven/Labor Union "Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Together" protests. I've read Cloward and Piven's Strategy to End Poverty. I've seen the protests, small and inane as they may be, in our town.

And yesterday on our way back from lunch, I noticed a guy walking down the street and to his car in this really weird mask.

One in our group recognized it as from a movie I've never seen called "V for Vendetta". I didn't think much of the comment, as it is October and Halloween is approaching and I do live in a bit of an arty, hippy-dippy ... in many ways, College town.

Then I saw a video on YouTube today with someone with this mask on, claiming to be with this "Anonymous" movement I've heard of, vaguely, as a bunch of anarchist hackers. Well I work in IT, so that's the angle I heard it from. And I looked up some more videos.

They're a bit creepy. Something's up, and it may be big.

During my forays, I noted that it is also referred to as a Guy Fawkes mask.

Guy Fawkes I did remember as some British revolutionary, and that there is a Guy Fawkes day, and I remembered that as I looked at the "Occupy Together" sign on the ground that said "Guy Fawkes News" ...

And then I saw a "turn off your facebook account day" as well ... which is Nov 5. Which happens to be Guy Fawkes Day.

Now Guy Fawkes tried to be anonymous, until somebody outed him. I think that's why the fascination with Guy Fawkes here.

Frankly, I don't care if people turn off their facebook accounts, but something seems to be fairly well orchestrated here, and that, as I said, combined with other things I know, makes my spidey sense tingle. And not in a Chris Matthews/Barack Obama way.

If you've read Cloward and Piven, and indeed the things Cloward and Piven probably read (the history of fomented Socialist Revolutions) they need something. They need two things. Unrest, directed at "the status quo", and some violence to go with it. They need it. And they don't really care much who does it, it's just the crisis they need to bring in their populist and be "the solution" to "our problems". And by "our" I mean we the original Forgotten Man (pre FDR). They will sweep in and save society from this unrest and violence, if only we hand the reins of power to them.

It happened in Russia. It happened in Cuba. It's happened in many places.

But they need that violence, regardless of where it comes from. Crisis.

They hoped the financial crisis would be enough to bring about this fundamental transformation, and indeed they did get their guy in there largely because of it. But then the Tea Party happened. So they looked to the Tea Party for it, and have, multiple times, tried to provoke violent responses from us -- sending SEIU thugs to townhalls and Tea Party events, or the Congressional Black Caucus publicly marching through the presumed racists Tea Partiers in DC on their way to sign the Health Care Bill, or the very haughty march of Pelosi with her giant gavel, chin in the air, through the crowd.. But the Tea Party is largely made up of The Forgotten Man, and it didn't work. We don't work that way.

Mean time, their guy in the White House is imploding, over half the states are suing over Obamacare, they lost their majority in the House and lost a bunch in the Senate and it's not looking good for them in 2012.

They passed some bold and unpopular, probably unconstitutional legislation using in-your-face sleazy tactics, and I think they thought two things would happen. 1) I think they really did think that The People would "come around" after they passed it, and 2) I think they didn't think it would matter because passed legislation is... 9/10 of the law ... whether its constitutional or not. Or even good.

Have you ever noticed that a dying tree throws up a zillion shoots from the stump before it goes in an attempt to extend its existence? I have observed it, and I've even seen it work. Yeah, the tree almost has to start over except for its root system, but the same organism often survives,

I think the forces, the NGO's that got Obama elected are doing this, and this is the "Occupy Together" movement. It is not only a fight for survival, but it is one designed to, they hope, bring about the unrest and violence they need (seriously, read the paper). It's pretty clear. The strategy extends to anything they want.

Now these people, the ones behind it, are not anarchists. But they'll use anarchists. And Democrats, and capital "L" Libertarians. And students who want their loans forgiven, or free college, or "green energy" . And peaceniks and pot smokers and pretty much anybody who'll get out on the street and make a stink for any reason. But they are Socialists, and by that I mean Marxists. They want control, and of course, this time they'll get it right. (You know, because the only reason Socialism hasn't worked is that the right people haven't been in charge, and They Are The People They've Been Waiting For).

Even so, they may not actually have enough together, and it might not work. But there is a danger that it will. However, it won't work if We the People don't freak out. Because that's what the unrest and violence is supposed to accomplish. We're supposed to freak out and demand that "someone" step in and fix it.

Well in America, the Government is Us, and hopefully enough of that attitude remains to ward off attempts at having someone else step in and ... "Fundamentally Transform" it by usurping that idea (all the while claiming that it was Democratic because we demanded it) -- imposing Socialism and the totalitarianism it always takes to enforce it.

So stay on your toes, peeps. Keep your cool. Know what you believe, and do not be afraid to defend it to your family, friends, and co-workers.

Above all, keep your cool, and let that coolness re-assure others around you.

We keep our cool, they lose. Unless they start shooting at us. Which is unlikely, I hope.

But if that happens, keep your cool that you may aim well, right back at them.

The Undefeated

2011-10-07T14:48:00.006-05:00

I watched Sarah Palin's "The Undefeated" last night. Basically a documentary of her career. And it pretty much confirmed what my general impression of her has been. That she really was an ordinary, hard-working, middle-class citizen that got into local politics for the right reasons, and rocketed to stellar success by ... not being a politician. I defy you to find any facts (facts, mind you) that say different.

This allowed her to simply resign from a 6 figure salary job she found herself in when appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission -- over the deep corruption she saw there.

This is not something politicians do.

This made her wildly popular with Alaskans, and 3 years later she ran for governor and won, slashing state spending and simultaneously increasing state income, and holding a consistent 80%+ approval rating. She stared down big oil executives into sh*tting or getting off the pot on oil leases, broke its monopoly on oil leases and opened it to true competition, did not use the Governor's chef, preferred to sleep at home when possible, sold the Governor's jet, refused to take a commission-reccomended pay raise ... and using about 20% of what the previous governor used in expenses.

It was only after she was chosen to run as McCain's vice presidential candidate that her whole history was suddenly and retroactively revised to that of a corrupt idiot.

Frankly, I think she's exactly the kind of person we need in the White House. Buck stops here, no-nonsense, get it done steward of The Peoples' freedom.

I read Katie Couric's blurb on Palin deciding not to run in 2012. In it, she talked about "the question", “And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?”

Well, you know what? I don't, myself, regularly read any particular newspapers or magazines. I read articles from dozens of them, but I don't pay a lot of attention to what publication the article appeared in - I'm more interested in the content of the articles. I don't have a publication I turn to for a "media guru" to validate my opinions.

And just like most regular Americans, I suspect neither did Palin. Now if I sat and thought about it, I could name some. (WSJ, NYT, UK Times, LA Times, Miami Hearald, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, Washington Post, Orange County Register. I even occasionally read Slate and Mother Jones articles. But I'm not in the middle of an interview with Katie Couric. I got a chance to sit and think about it without my readers seeing an awkward pause. And nobody's playing "gotcha" with me on National TV) And again, their names aren't important to me.

As for her resignation as governor, it seems to me that Palin got more accomplished in 2 years than many governors accomplish in 4 or even 8, and I completely understand that the onslaught of politically motivated and universally dismissed as frivolous "ethics complaints" that were filed against her along with the sudden turn of Democrats who had been working well with her -- now suddenly against her, as well as establishment Republicans' desire to distance themselves from her sudden supposed idiocy -- some still smarting from her clamping down on corruption and cronyism ... was breaking her family financially (the Palins were not rich, and a half million dollars was a lot of money!). And it was also paralyzing any efforts to get her previously popular, but now suddenly taboo -- agenda passed.

She did the right thing.

Like she's always done when the chips were down.

This is a good woman. This is an exceptional woman. The Christophobes and political cronies just don't want you to realize it.

What Parts Were Taken Out Of Context?

2011-10-06T11:28:00.004-05:00

Saw a post on Facebook about the controversy over the "Introduction to Labor Studies"/"Labor, Politics, and Society" course being taught jointly at UMKC/UMSL that one or more students exposed via Breitbart's "Big Government" site.

The discussion on facebook was about the Faculty Council revising it's policies on classroom recordings to prohibit sharing written or recorded material from a class outside the classroom. Something to do with privacy and the inhibition of free discussion.

One has to wonder what these people thought of Julian Assaunge's Wikileaks, at least while it's torrent was aimed at the Bush Administration. But one probably does not have to wonder much.

At any rate, I saw in the article that“officials on both campuses agreed they distorted the educators’ views”. Which I'm sure were completely unbiased assessments from people who support "_______ studies" classes.

The comments talked about the clips being edited and that the one lady's outfit changed several times in one video. And that they were pulled from YouTube due to "terms of use" violations. On the other hand, none of them said how any of this was relevant to the points being made about the videos. If you haven't seen them, it's all "he said/she said". And most people won't watch the videos.

I say watch the videos yourself and see if you think you can discern the instructors' intent, and whether or not you're good with using state money to pay for the promulgation of this Alinskian claptrap. Also, remember that this kind of technology automatically flips back and forth between the cameras, on opposite sides of the state, depending on who is speaking. That's not all "edits" (not that there aren't edits), that's the way this stuff works.

Zo on the Racist People Protesting Obama

2011-10-05T13:18:00.005-05:00

Double-standard much? You tell 'em, Zo.

Zo has a great point re: the golden opportunity to snatch the race card from their hands and burn it for all to see.

Hank vs Madonna

2011-10-04T09:31:00.002-05:00

Madonna flashes flashes images of Hitler, Mugabe, and McCain together at a concert during the 2008 election. She's tapped to play the Superbowl halftime this year.

Hank Jr. makes a metaphor about polar opposites pretending to be friends, and he's booted off his Monday Night football theme gig.

But there's NO bias in the media. Of course not.

"American Fall" ... er .. Autumn

2011-10-03T09:31:00.002-05:00

Went out to a kind of "Bachelor Party" for my older son Friday evening. There were 7 of us, and it mostly consisted of walking to a few bars downtown where I managed 5 beers in 6 hours. Real rowdy.

As we were walking downtown, I noticed a small group of people in front of the new city building, holding up signs. Mostly about hugs and kittens. At first I thought maybe it was some church group trying to win over us hard-core alcoholics or something.

But I got to thinking about Van Jones' tailcoating of the "Arab Spring" with the "American Fall" (yeah, no Freudian slip there, eh? Don't believe me, look at my last post.)

I commented to one of the guys that maybe this was part of that manufactured "movement". I said if it was, I didn't think the Tea Party had a lot to worry about. Snagged the above photo off their facebook page, but I could easily have taken it myself, because these are the signs I saw. One commenter on their facebook page even noted, "nothing says "take us seriously" than holding up signs that have absolutely nothing to do with #occupycomo!" .

On our way home we walked through them. I noticed a Guy Fawkes sign and a few others on the ground. I hadn't seen them hold it up. Maybe someone said "Don't Say It, Bro!" More likely, the silly signs were meant to draw you in and then you'd come see their other signs while you were talking to them.

Oh, here. How convenient. One of them posted a picture of those signs as well.

I also noted they were complaining that there were only 12-15 people there and they expected hundreds to show up and help protest. Well... that's a good sign as well. Heh. He said "sign".

There is nothing wrong with you. Yeah. We know. But y'all might want to check yourselves.

Don't Say It, Bro!

2011-10-03T08:27:00.002-05:00

Saw this clip this morning -- on the street interviews with "Occupy Wall Street" protestors, asking them what it's about.

Ok, so it's about destroying capitalism, we've got that -- but what do we want to replace it with?

Don't say it, Bro!

Yeah, anyone who believes this movement is not an attempted revolutionary movement to bring about a socialistic government is just a silly right-wing nut. Right?

Everyone at these rallies voted for Obama, to a man. Every. Single. One. Unless they didn't vote at all.

Update: Related post -- American Fall.

Argument Fail

2011-09-29T08:35:00.006-05:00

Update: Fail Fail.
--------------------------
I admit it. I was wrong here. Sort of. Well, definitely. But the author's point was subtle and I missed it. I shouldn't have missed it, but it was easy to miss.

He did not say 400% on savings. He said 400% on savings income. On that point, he is correct.

I hate it when this happens.

But it does. And in CATO, which makes it worse.

I showed how many Americans of all income levels are paying effective tax rates of approximately 400 percent on their savings income because the government is keeping short-term interest rates under 1 percent while generating inflation of 3.8 percent at an annual rate.

While indeed Americans are loosing savings money at about 3% or a little more, the fact is that the rate is 400% higher than the interest rate they are getting.... they are not being taxed at an effective rate of 400% on their savings. That would mean for every $100 I had, I'd be paying $400 in taxes. It's not that bad. Yet.

Now the fact remains that a bad argument (in this case, about low interest raont-tes relative to inflation rates being bad) doesn't mean the point is incorrect. But the reason I point this out is I don't want our side making bad arguments. That's the other side's job.

And the intellectual argument winner is...

2011-09-28T08:41:00.000-05:00

Heh. Brilliant. And exposes the opposing school of "thought" for what it is.

Back To Elizabeth Warren

2011-09-26T15:50:00.001-05:00

Because this sums it up mightily:

Fully exploring the thinking behind Warren’s remarks would demand a book at least. We might point out that most of the rich got that way by creating value for others, meaning they gave back in the process of getting rich. Or we might wonder if her thinking implies that, because the state is responsible in part for the environment in which all of us earned what we have, the state is the actual owner of what we have.

Concise. Accurate.

Yeah, it's not even a short step from what she said to the last part of that statement. She's already there, but she won't say it out loud.

Even Without the Gaffe

2011-09-26T13:24:00.006-05:00

I don't care about the gaffe, really. Beck pointed out that if you're saying something you don't really believe, you have trouble spitting it out -- and apparently he's had trouble spitting this line out twice... but no matter. Let's just look at what theObama transcript says

When you start saying, at a time when the top one-tenth of 1 percent has seen their incomes go up four or five times over the last 20 years, and folks at the bottom have seen their incomes decline -- and your response is that you want poor folks to pay more?

Give me a break.

If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.

I will say that someone who is actually familiar with the concept of honor would probably not say that they wear it "with" a badge of honor. Here's my badge of honor.   And I'll wear this other thing somewhere along with it. Somewhere.
But let's just look at what he's saying here. So the top 0.01% (which pays a very disproportionately high portion of federal taxes to begin with) has seen their incomes go up 4 or 5 times in the last 20 years. Let's just take that as a given.

Of course, when you pay taxes at a rate, when your income goes up, you pay more in taxes. If you were making 50 million and paying 17.5 Million in taxes, and your income goes up 4 times to 200 million ... your taxes then go up to 70 million. See, you're paying more taxes, too. So I'm not sure what the issue is with the top 0.01% making more money is except that you don't like it.

Second, show me where "the folks at the bottom" have seen their incomes decline. I'd really like to see that data and how this claim was teased out of it.   See, I know how they do it. They use words to mean things differently than what the words actually mean. They use relative ideas such as GINI indicies and then substitute "their incomes decline" when the fact is that it's a decline relative to someone else's, which is not the same thing.

And then there's this: and your response is that you want poor folks to pay more?

Well first of all, when we're talking federal taxes, and that is what we're talking ... more would mean more than nothing. So a buck would be more.   Secondly, who is running around saying that the solution is for the poor to pay more? Really. Show me who. And what they said.   And what dictionary you used to translate it.

The fact of the matter is that there is an inherent assumption in this whole argument (more than one really, but I'm going to talk about this one because it's core).... That there is no question that the government should be spending what it wants to spend, and that it's necessary to raise more so that we have it to spend (even though I'm convinced that from here on out, without a culture change, the government will spend at least 1.2x -- or more, right now it's 1.6x) of what it takes in. From us.

If I ask a billionaire (who pays a 35% tax rate) to pay the same tax rate of a janitor (which is in the 10%-15% range, most nearer the 10%), then I either have to lower the billionaire's tax rate or raise the secretary's. Since we all know Obama wants to raise taxes 'on the rich' "out of fairness", we can only assume, then, that he wants to raise the janitor's tax rate to 35% (well, plus whatever it takes to get it up to whereever he wants the billionaire's rate, right?). So there's who's talking about making the poor pay more.   I swear it is better logic than they use to get to his opponents wanting the poor to pay more.

Stop complainin', stop grumblin', stop cryin'.

You first, Mr. President.

Bristol Palin Stops an Echo

2011-09-23T14:42:00.000-05:00

Looks like I can't embed the video, but it's here.

You have to go to the point where she finally falls off the bull (1:44) and some very hateful man at the bar yells out that her mother is a "whore".

Bristol did not back down from him, she walked up to him to get him to expound on the founding of his opinion. He had nothin'

Stop an Echo!!!!

Good, Better

2011-09-23T11:29:00.002-05:00

<-- Saw this cartoon the other day, which was good, but it didn't quite capture what I felt it was really trying to say. I think maybe he was a little too married to the David Banner/Incredible Hulk metaphor to go where I think it needed to go.

So I modified the first frame a bit to show the real irony. Apologies to Eric Allie. -->;

Capitalism & Government

2011-09-21T22:33:00.000-05:00

"Capitalism is an economic system that falls naturally from Liberty. It is defined by human nature. Government's role is to constrain it from acts of fraud and coercion." - me

Gonna have to stuff this into "Things I Know".

Statist Dictionary

2011-09-19T21:20:00.000-05:00

Many of us have talked about compiling one of these.

Robert A. Hall has made a pretty good first stab.

They Can't Help Themselves

2011-09-19T11:03:00.004-05:00

Apparently ole what's his face's ... McGinniss? ... book allegedly about Palin but in fact about some fictional character -- is too bad for even the Palin Haters not to take pot-shots at.

My guess is that they actually love this, because it gives them a chance to look "fair" by criticizing some of her critcizers. "Hey, I once defended Sarah Palin. I'm balanced!"

But one need look no further than the very article in which Palin is being "defended" from hints, allegations, and innuendo ... that the author of the article isn't really so far from McGinniss

Her quick retreat from the Alaska governor’s mansion, which she quit after serving barely half a term, was punctuated by the most bizarre and self-pitying exit speech since Richard Nixon promised in 1962, after losing the California governor’s race, that we wouldn’t have him to kick around anymore. Widely discussed lapses in judgment, including a push to fire her former brother-in-law, who was a state trooper, and her disturbingly narcissistic reaction to the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona raise serious questions about her capacity to govern effectively.

Uh, here's my take. By all accounts she governed quite effectively while she governed and was extremely popular. This was before she rather unselfishly quit when external forces -- her new-found political enemies on the national stage, made it impossible for her to be effective using a law that doesn't exist in any other state and definitely doesn't exist at the federal level -- that made it possible to harrass a governor to a standstill and to bankrupt one who doesn't have very, very deep pockets. Which at the time, the Palins did not.

This is what she said in her "self-pitying" exit speech. I think it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.

Does this sound like an abuse of power to you?

Monegan said the subject of Wooten came up when he invited Palin to a birthday party for his cousin, state senator Lyman Hoffman, in February 2007 during the legislative session in Juneau. "As we were walking down the stairs in the capitol building she wanted to talk to me about her former brother-in-law," Monegan said. "I said, 'Ma'am, I need to keep you at arm's length with this. I can't deal about him with you.[132] She said, 'OK, that's a good idea.'"[128]

I read that they had hired a private investigator to look into possible Wooten wrong-doings ... but ... that's not using state resources. They found nothing, and they dropped it. What's the big deal?

The big deal is that her political opponents will grab on to anything and use the same kind of allegations and innuendo as McGinniss used .. and that includes Nick Gillespie.

And finally, I'm curious as to what Gillespie (a very staunch Libertarian at the venerable Reason Mag) feels was "narccisstic" about "Palin's reaction" to the Gifford shooting. Palin's reaction was to the ridiculous wild accusation that her "rhetoric" had anything to do with it, and that her district "targeting" meant she wanted her minions to actually shoot people. What, she's not even allowed to defend herself?

Gillespie -- you're really not that far from McGinniss.

Special Interests

2011-09-19T09:13:00.000-05:00

Just saw a headline talking about "the Hispanic Vote" being up for grabs.

And it occurred to me ... is there any sense of irony when Democrats talk about special interests when they go after the women's vote, the black vote, the Hispanic vote, the Jewish vote, the "youth" vote, the senior vote, the .... ???

"Obviously Dumb"

2011-09-16T14:55:00.001-05:00

I just saw the link from RCP to the Mother Jones article, "How Progressives Should Talk About Solyndra" -- and curiosity got the better of me.
I about spit my water out laughing when I hit this bit:

Watching this unfold over the last week, I keep thinking back to "Climategate." When it first broke back in late 2009, lefties and bloggers and Dem lawmakers just ignored it, because it was obviously dumb.

emphasis, mine.

"Hey, look, these emails show that lead "scientists" in the Global Warming field have been cherry-picking and improperly manipulating data using methods they know are questionable at best - but that deceptive would be a much better word, while they systematically kept research that did not support the anthropogenic global warming theory from being published in any major scientific periodicals."

"Nuh-Uhhhhhh! That's dumb!"

I looked to see if they went on at all to expound on just what it was that made it "dumb", although I suspect it is just that it was strong, searing evidence that undermined their worldview.

Is the left stuck in 4th grade? Do they think the rest of us are?

Which reminds me of Geraldo on Fox News this morning

"If you don't think all these floods and everything else represents Global Climate Change™ ..."

Then what, Geraldo? Do you think floods and "everything else" are new? Because geologists and climatologists ... not to mention historians, can assure you they are not.

Walter E. Williams Weighs in on the 3/5ths Compromise

2011-09-15T22:28:00.000-05:00

I know I've talked about this several times, but it's important. If you haven't learned this, you need to. Progressive useful idiots, or actual malicious progressives who know the truth but don't care ... never tire of bringing this up.

The truth will slap them down, hard.

By counting slaves, who didn't have a right to vote, slave states would have had greater representation in the House and the Electoral College. If slaveholding states could not have counted slaves, the Constitution would not have been ratified and there would not be a union. The compromise was for slaves to be counted as three-fifths of a person in deciding representation in the House and Electoral College. The compromise reduced the power of slave states relative to the South's original proposal but increased it over the North's original proposal.

My questions for those who condemn the three-fifths compromise are: Would blacks have been better off if slaves had been counted as a whole person? Should the North not have compromised at all and a union not have come into being?

Know the truth. Stop an Echo. It is important to learn. It greatly increases your capacity to stop these. And we need your capacity to be realized.

Failed Coup in Jefferson City

2011-09-15T19:40:00.004-05:00

From fellow Mid Mo Patriot James.

Who says we are marginalized and can't make a difference. BTW, one of the testimonies James & Ron had in his stack of 400 was mine.

From: James Coyne
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2011 6:21 PM
To: Philmon ; rbonberry
Cc: jamesh ; RonC;
Subject: A failed coup in Jeff City

News from the front: Spread this around.

A funny thing happened on the way to Obama Care.

This morning I attended the Senate hearing of the committee charged with considering health insurance exchanges in Missouri. I testified and presented over 400 personal letters from citizens all over the state who are strongly opposed to Obama Care in Missouri. (Thanks to the beautiful tool Ron Calzone of Missouri First helped me use in the email we sent out)

I asked the senators to read at least a few of them to get an idea of what their constituents thought on the issue.

The showing in favor of the exchanges was much weaker than I had expected - just a few sob stories about how someone could not get the insurance and care they wanted and a "consumer advocate". In retro speck I think the pro-exchange people where at an entirely different meeting - stay tuned.

Several great testimonies opposed. It was apparent that the committee was not buying the whole Idea that Missouri had to set up the exchanges at all or that it was a good idea.

When, like a scene from a bad movie, a staffer came in and handed a piece of paper to Senator Ridgeway. She stopped the proceedings and stated that Governor Nixon was directing the Missouri High Risk Pool to set up the very exchange they were talking about !! And he was doing it right then !!! Who needs senators anyway huh ?

(he had previously accepted 21 Million Dollars of Federal money even though the exchanges it was for had never been approved by the legislature)

They were meeting at a facility about 3 miles away.

Several senators expressed their outrage and got up in the middle of the meeting and drove there!!Myself and several tea party folks got there first. The senators arrived, pulled the power that be in the back room and stayed there for about a half hour. When they emerged one of the Senators commented to me " it is off the agenda, we told them if they do this there is going to be a war. "A lady came around to the attendees and ripped one piece of paper out of their agenda folders.

Would I have loved to see that page !!! I can guess what it was about.

The senators left and that was a day.

Anyone want to make this into a lifetime T.V. drama - freakin unbelievable.

I think this is the act of one desperate man and I think he is going to pay a very heavy price for the attempted coup.Keep a close eye - they may not be done. If you want to call the Gov. his number is 573-751-3222

May God Save the Republic (and I think he is !)

Well, he may be, but God helps those who help themselves, I always say.

Just Bookmarking This Malkin Post

2011-09-15T08:36:00.003-05:00

What happened on flight xxx?

Mostly because of this ... old clip.

Ron White's Response to Brian William's Question to Perry

2011-09-13T09:23:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite Ron White lines:

"That's right, if you come to Texas and kill somebody, we will kill you back."

I also love the way he's always got a glass of scotch on hand.

Very Telling

2011-09-12T10:22:00.001-05:00

Not even going to comment. I think the picture speaks for itself.

Really.

But Not I

2011-09-11T10:47:00.011-05:00

I wasn't going to say anything more. Really. But this pompous, ok ... bite my tongue ... (update.... I'm not the only one who had this reaction -- wanting to hold my fire and bite my tongue but felt this was really out of line.)

Seriously, Paul? Isn't there a nice European country you'd rather live in? You've certainly got the money to move.

On the 10th Anniversary, Paul Krugman: It was [Y]Our fault. We deserved it.

If you only had a conscience. Like me.

You stay classy, Paul.

The One I Remember

2011-09-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

Then briefly, there was this.

Which is the inspiration of the 9/12 Project. But that is all for today.

Ford Joins the Tea Party

2011-09-10T10:29:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure they've been here all along, they've just been quiet about it like the rest of had been for too long.

At the very least, they're advertising to us. Which means THEY don't think we're an insignificant fringe.

Do I Have This About Right?

2011-09-09T23:06:00.005-05:00

The president wants a program to spend a half a trillion dollars on stuff to make Jimmy Hoffa et. al. happy, with a possible temporary blip in the economy to help his re-election chances -- which he is asking to be offset in the budget by having Congress (Republicans ... spending bills start in the House) cut a half a trillion dollars in spending elsewhere. Oh, and this has to be passed, like every other bit of Obama backed legislation ... last week or sooner. Even though it took him like 3 weeks to come up with it, 3 years into his term, after multiple vacations. Gotta be passed pronto. No time to waste. Pass it so we can see what's in it.

So in his head, during the election season he gets to point to a great "jobs" program (of course it is, he said it was) and beat the Republicans up over all the programs they cut, and this is how he hopes to run. "I'm just trying to provide jobs, meanwhile the evil Republicans are cutting programs."

Do I have that about right?

It's a rhetorical question. :-)

Update: (09/13/2011) - Bill Frezza apparently agrees, and he put it way better than I did.

The Veg-O-Matic President

Ed Who?

2011-09-09T23:00:00.000-05:00

There's a rumor going around these parts that Ed Darrell dedicated an entire post to trashing me a week or so ago. I hadn't noticed. And I'm not inclined to check it out.

I frankly couldn't care less what Ed Darrell thinks of me or my blog. It is good to know, however, that someone with his worldview doesn't like my blog. I'll take it as a compliment, and wear it as a badge of honor.

If I can find a shirt to go with it.

Change You Can Saruman

2011-09-09T15:41:00.000-05:00

Another one from Mark.

Mark-O Has Some Ideas

2011-09-09T12:59:00.000-05:00

It's supposed to be Hoffa-man's Army. I mis-read and pre-maturely corrected. And Mark has a better sub caption. I'll update this one when I have time.

And then there's this one....

He's got one more, but we'll need to frame and caption. :-)

Happy Birthday to Jeffmon

2011-09-08T09:10:00.000-05:00

It's brother and "partner in crime" jeffmon's birthday today. Party on.

No, They're not Socialists ... What would make you say they were?

2011-09-06T15:11:00.004-05:00

Yes, We Need Jobs. But What Kind?

Yes, what kinds of jobs should the Government create for us?

ON Thursday, President Obama will deliver a major speech on America’s employment crisis. But too often, what is lost in the call for job creation is a clear idea of what jobs we want to create.

Then of course, Paul Osterman goes on to complain about the wage profiles of the jobs Rick Perry "created", and to pontificate on how higher wages mean happier people and less stressed marriages. Duh.

How about this? How about we just mandate that everyone make $1,000,000 a year. Hell, at 35% tax rate, and 112 million households -- and since 60 percent are married households let's just say 150 million income-earners .... somewhere close to 63 trillion in income taxes. Hey, all problems solved. Sunshine from cucumbers! I say!

If they don't have anything to that we can pay them for, why they can prepare us for a Martian invasion!

I was having a discussion with someone last week, wishing once, just ONCE ... a candidate would say, "No, I am not going to create any jobs. Creating jobs is not the role of the government. My 'jobs plan' is to try to keep the government from making jobs less affordable to business."

Palin would probably be the candidate most likely to say this. This is the thing about her I find most attractive. She gets this. But will she say it?

I think people would jump out of their chairs and cheer.

It's Even Worse Than I Thought

2011-09-04T21:41:00.005-05:00

First, let me apologize. I didn't stop an echo here. It is hard to do with family, I'll grant you. And she's in her 90's, so .... I'm not about screwing up family time, really. You have to pick your battles when it comes to family.

But sitting at dinner tonight, talking to The Progressive (family member), who finished reading "Last Man Out" which was written by a man who lives in the same retirement community she does.

She said it was impressive what Castro had accomplished, raising the literacy rate from very low to almost 100%, and the universal health care, yada, yada ....

"The only thing that went wrong was the sugar cane didn't do as well as they expected, so they didn't have the money they needed."

I am telling you, my tongue has tooth perforations in it, and it was all I could do to keep blood from shooting out of my eyes. My wife was looking at me to watch my reaction.

Later she [my wife] told me that in an earlier conversation The Progressive had told her that "the rich people all 'left' because they couldn't have it the way they wanted it. They all went to Florida."

Oh, yes, they were just irritated and just voluntarily packed their bags and left. Right.

'The way they wanted it'. You know, little things like property rights. "Hey, give us your property and submit or we'll kill you." Yeah, they left with their lives -- when they could.

"I didn't read the parts about Castro and the military and all that. That stuff doesn't interest me."

It would never occurr to her that perhaps the sugar cane production didn't meet expectations because, unlike in a Capitalist system, there was no personal incentive to do the work to make it produce what privateers, who had incentive, used to make it produce before you stole their land, or murdered them and took it, or just kicked them out of the country, happy to escape with their lives -- and took it.

GAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

The woman is a full-blown Socialist.

When It's Not Your Money

2011-09-04T09:15:00.000-05:00

You can rationalize all kinds of activities to be for the general welfare, or for that matter to be charitable -- when it's not your money you are spending on them.

Just a further thought on this post.

...and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown

2011-09-03T23:24:00.001-05:00

"Towards the preservation of your Government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown." - George Washington, Farewell Address

"If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed." - ibid

We should pay more attention to that guy.

Making of America NCCS Seminar - Columbia, MO

2011-09-03T09:23:00.001-05:00

MidMo Patriots is sponsoring a day long seminar put on by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, The Making Of America on Sept 17, 2011 in Columbia Mo at the Howard Johnson near US 63 & I-70.

The Callaway Tea Party put one of these on last spring and by all accounts it was fascinating and instructive. For those of you who live in Missouri, or maybe even just across a border, this is a great opportunity for anyone 5th grade or up.

Sign up here.

As Long as it's Voluntary

2011-09-02T16:49:00.002-05:00

I've long said Socialism is fine as long as it's voluntary. And here in my second reading of Bastiat, I come across this:

Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first."

In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot.

Right there in 1840's black and white, and from a Frenchie, to boot.

It is often used as an argument by the progressive left that, after all, isn't being charitable good, and shouldn't we help our fellow man, and didn't Jesus say to do these things, yada yada yada ....

Yup.   All of the above.

But nowhere did he say "and you should delegate these things to the government."

You do them yourselves, or you organize into charitble groups of like-minded people and do it. Because otherwise, you're legalizing plunder, and that road goes to no good end.   Ever.

The story goes that God created us and gave us free will so that we would be free to choose or reject Him.   Why? Because choosing Him because you have to isn't really choosing, now, is it?   You want friends who really like you, right?

Mandatory fun isn't fun. Forced friendship isn't friendship. Forced charity isn't charitible.    And guaranteed charity is an invitation to sloth and exploitation. Because we are imperfect beasts, and we always will be.

Tax Those Filthy B*stards!

2011-09-02T14:38:00.005-05:00

I got in the middle of yet another tif over "yoo stoopid teabaggers" not wanting to tax the rich and the rich are only rich because they exploit and it's better if the state has more power to slap down those evil, evil companies (and rich) by taxing the shit out of them because none of them deserve a dime they have, and ...

Oh, crap, I think I was channelling one of them and just got carried away. "Posessed" might be a better word. Good thing I cast it out before I got to hating brown people and blood for oil. Anyway, sorry.

I was arguing that if a person gains his wealth by legal means, it is no less his than any lesser wealth anyone else gains (never mind the fact that we already have a progressive tax structure that taxes the rich much more both in real dollars and percentagewise than the lesser wealthy). But the answer kept coming back, do you think that all business people are moral and upstanding and you're naive for thinking that. Which I don't, by the way. If a business is behaving immorally and a majority of people agree on that, they elect representatives to pass laws to punish that behavior. Oh, I was also told I need to "grow up".

The hell of it is, if you follow what they're saying is that businesses/"The Rich" do immoral things to make their money, and their solution is to confiscate a larger portion of it -- otherwise turning a blind eye to the actual [alleged] immorality. "Yeah, it's wrong, but we'll let you keep doing it if we can grab more of your dough."

Whereas our solution is, if it's immoral [ie, exploitative], then it should be illegal and once it is illegal then you can address the root of the problem, the immoral behavior.

Their solution is to punish all of the businesses or "rich" regardless of whether or not any of them individually have done anything wrong, and oh by the way make a tidy profit on it. In other words, they are compliant accomplices and beneficiaries.

This is why class warfare propaganda is so popular with politicians. "Tax the bastards!" It gets more money, and more power -- into their own hands.

Thought experiment: if punative taxing of “the rich” got them to cease the allegedly immoral acts that won them their wealth, would the state then turn around and tax them less at that point? Or is the assumption, “They have more. Therefore, it was ill gotten.”

In the end, they’re not really interested in addressing the root of the corruption, the immoral behavior – because what they’re ultimately interested in, in the end, is justification for taking something that isn’t theirs. Because they want it. But somehow that’s not “greed”.

Must See Whittle: The Truth is Out There

2011-09-02T14:00:00.001-05:00

Well worth watching. Whose truth? Which way are all the boats headed? How many people have been shot to death trying to flee Capitalist countries?

From the extreme leftist KFPK radio station funding drive, pony up, because "KPFK is the only radio station in LA not directly funded by the corporate weapons manufacturers, whose mission statement is to kill brown people in their global war for oil."

Bill wishes he was making that up. But he's not.

How to Argue With a Progressive

2011-09-02T10:36:00.001-05:00

Go read this post by my fellow Missouri Tea Partier Van Harvey.

Takes down a commenter who attempted to defend Van Jones' "Contract for America", and does a rather nice job of it.

Obama Pundits and Charlotte's Web

2011-08-31T19:41:00.011-05:00

James Taranto in today's WSJ was talking about Obama's one-man echo chamber (good article, and hat tip to Morgan via HKoB for it) where he brough up one of my favorite columnists to avoid (his zealous idiocy makes my head explode) ... Eugene Robinson.

This is a moment for the president to suppress his reflex for preemptive compromise. The unemployment crisis is so deep and self-perpetuating that only a big, surprising, over-the-top jobs initiative could have real impact. Boldness will serve the nation well--and, coincidentally, boost Obama's reelection prospects.

Yeah. Because hey. That's what we all really want. 4 more years of Fundamental Transformation. Hey, wouldn't suppressing his ... [snicker] reflex for preemptive compromise [/snicker] be intransigent?

Seriously, what this really shows is that the left is out of airspeed, out of altitude, and out of ideas. "It's time to be bold." They don't really have a plan, but that's not important. What's important is to be bold. All they can do is hope that their savior will come up with some magic play that nobody's ever thought of before after a brilliant night of brainstorming (with his shirt sleeves rolled up) and come up with a Sooper Awesome Plan so that they can all say, "look, weren't we all brilliant for backing him?" That's what they're reduced to, and they have nobody to blame for it but themselves. But nobody has a clue what that sooper plan would be. Especially not Obama, as his philosophy is clear and predictible as a broken record.

Sadly, what they're probably doing is coming up with what they hope is the perfect rhetorical flourish to finally (this time for sure!) sell us all on Statist Socialism without using the word "Socialism", thus finally "Fundamentally Trasform"ing America. Remember, with Obama, success is always one [more] "great speech" away.

As if to underscore this point, Eugene continues:

Obama and his advisers know very well that this is the wrong time to cut government spending. They know that using federal money to seed big new initiatives--to upgrade the nation's crumbling infrastructure, jump-start the "clean" energy industry, retrain the unemployed so they can compete in tomorrow's job market--would give the economy a much-needed boost. They know, too, that federal action to buoy the housing market would help revive consumer spending, thus giving corporations a reason to invest the estimated $1 trillion they're sitting on.

And this is different from what the President has been pushing .... how? This is what Eugene thinks the "new" sooper-dooper plan should be? Clearly, what Eugene wants is a sooper duper new sales pitch for the same crap sandwich. And really, Eugene isn't any different from the rest of the Obama lap dogs on this. He's just an easy target.

You know this just hit me. It's a little bit like Charlotte's Web (I love that story, but ...). Think about it. What was special about Wilbur? He was a pretty ordinary pig. Less than ordinary. Ok, really what made him "special" was that he had friends. Otherwise he was just another pig. But I digress.

In order that Wilbur would be able to continue a life hanging out with his friends and they with him, Charlotte came up with a PR campaign.

"Some Pig"
"Terriffic"
"Radiant"
and then finally
"Humble" (Well we wouldn't want all that terrifficness and radiance to go to his head).

Charlotte's plan was to make Wilbur sufficiently famous and popular to keep him from being turned to bacon and ham hocks. You'll notice she wasn't terribly specific. "Bold" could easily be thrown in that list. And that's all it is.

President "Hope" & "Change" comes up with a new speech to tell us why we all need Socialism, and it's the only fair thing to do and after all, aren't Americans fair, yada yada .... and the left pundit-o-sphere all says "Terriffic!" "Radiant!" "Bold!"

Wing and a [secular] prayer. That's my prediction. Here's hoping it doesn't work!

Thuggery Right In M'own Back Yard

2011-08-31T19:07:00.000-05:00

Dana Loesch alluded to this on facebook with few details earlier today. And now we have details.

Good ole ClaireMac, our own Pelosi in training (if she gets re-elected) in the Senate ... held a "Kitchen Table" meeting this morning. So folksy. So Fraizier Crain. "I'm Listening".

Well, she didn't show up. Turns out they didn't want any video or audio at the public event, either. But things got out of hand.

A Tea Partier comitted the "violent" offense of taking photographs at this public event held by a public representative in a public building on the taxpayers' dime. And roll details from CryLiberty.

"Everybody Knows It"

2011-08-31T16:59:00.000-05:00

I was talking to a friend today ... good friend, not really a liberal, and I started in on how many founders such as Jefferson actually viewed the "Indians" as independent nations and was fascinated with them.

Next thing she's responding "Yeah, well apparently he was fascinated by some of his female slaves, too." Nudge, Nudge -- wink, wink.

I told her that was incorrect. And she brought up the DNA test from 1998, which everybody heard about. Everybody knows that.

Well ... how did "everybody" "find out"?

This is why Stopping Echoes is such an important job.

Which brings me to basically re-publish this well researched piece by David Barton. Get familiar with the material. You may need it.

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: The Search for Truth

David Barton - 01/2000

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson has had a significant impact on America, American government, and American culture. His words have helped shape policies on everything from the relationship between church and state to the scope and limits of the federal government. Yet, notwithstanding this extensive influence, a cloud hangs over Jefferson's reputation--his alleged affair with Sally Hemings.

Sally Hemings was a young slave girl who served Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha, at the Jefferson home, Monticello. When Jefferson was sent as an American diplomat to Paris in 1787, he took with him his youngest daughter, nine year-old Polly, and the thirteen year-old Sally Hemings as a companion for Polly. Critics charge that while in Paris, Jefferson began a sexual relationship with Hemings (nearly thirty years his younger) which produced some or all of her children (of which four lived).

These Jefferson-Hemings charges have been repeated for over two centuries and, despite the fact that many Jefferson scholars have long rejected these claims, today much of the nation accepts them as true. The projection of Jefferson's allegedly tainted character is reinforced through media presentations such as CBS's "Sally Hemings" and the feature movie, "Jefferson in Paris." Yet, was Thomas Jefferson really guilty of the sexual misbehavior with which he has been charged? What is the evidence against him?

The evidence against Jefferson stems from three primary sources:

The recent DNA testing which was reputed to provide proof that Jefferson fathered at least one of Hemings's children.

Oral tradition, the strongest of which comes from Thomas Woodson. Two centuries ago, Woodson claimed (and others repeated) that Sally Hemings was his mother and Jefferson his father, and it was thus speculated that Sally had named the child "Thomas" because he had been fathered by Jefferson.

The published newspaper reports from Jefferson's day charging him with fathering Hemings's children.

On its face, such evidence against Jefferson appears almost conclusive. Yet, if the evidence is as unequivocal and overwhelming as the critics make it seem, why, then, have most of the prize-winning Jefferson historians long rejected the charges leveled against him? On what basis do they reach their conclusions in the face of such apparently incriminating evidence? What is the truth?

Three legal principles should guide the search for truth.

First, an individual is innocent until proven guilty.

Second, there must be opportunity for cross-examination so that the other side of the story may be offered.
Third, guilt must be based on a preponderance of the evidence--that is, after hearing all of the evidence, there should be no reasonable doubt that the accused individual is guilty of the charge. If a different view can be presented which raises a legitimate doubt and offers a rational alternative explanation, then the individual cannot be presumed to be guilty of the charges leveled against him.

Using these guidelines, examine the three sources of evidence against Jefferson. Consider first the most recent evidence--the scientific testing.

In late 1998, the prestigious scientific journal Nature announced that it had conducted DNA testings which proved that Thomas Jefferson had fathered a child with Sally Hemings. According to Nature:

Almost two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson was alleged to have fathered children by his slave Sally Hemings. The charges have remained controversial. Now, DNA analysis confirms that Jefferson was indeed the father of at least one of Hemings' children.¹

Following the release of this story, writers and columnists across the nation spread the report.² In fact, within only a few days, Jefferson had become a sexual predator, ³ and several reports made him into a child molester. ⁴

These authors, however, deliberately ignored the non-paternity results of the DNA testing. In fact, the original Nature article had reported that Thomas Woodson--the child that oral traditions claim was born of Sally when she was fifteen or so--the child born shortly after her return from France--was not sired by Jefferson:

President Jefferson was accused of having fathered a child, Tom, by Sally Hemings. Tom was said to have been born in 1790, soon after Jefferson and Sally Hemings returned from France where he had been minister. Present-day members of the African-American Woodson family believe that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Thomas Woodson, whose name comes from his later owner. No known documents support this view. ⁵

This finding was significant, for it repudiated the strongest of the oral traditions against Jefferson that many long had accepted as fact. A few--but only a very few--even bothered to report this non-paternity aspect of the DNA findings. ⁶

Nature, however, after exonerating Jefferson in the birth of Thomas Woodson, claimed that the DNA evidence proved that Eston Hemings--the youngest of Sally's children--was fathered by Thomas Jefferson. It was this story which swept the nation.

Yet, only eight weeks after releasing this story, Nature issued a retraction, admitting, "The title assigned to our study was misleading." ⁷Why? Because after proving that Jefferson had not fathered Woodson, it was revealed that their paternity conclusions about Jefferson fathering Eston were based on inaccurate and incomplete information, both scientifically and historically.

While the researchers did find Jefferson genes present in the descendants of Eston Hemings, the researchers could not say that they were the genes of Thomas Jefferson, for they had not tested the DNA of any of Thomas' descendants. They tested only the genes of the descendants of Thomas' uncle, Field Jefferson, and of his nephews, Samuel and Peter Carr! Significantly, there were twenty-six Jefferson males living in the central Virginia vicinity at that time. Quite simply, the researchers failed to eliminate the other lines. As one report accurately observed, "Experts have noted the total absence of accurate Jefferson ancestry charts in the study." ⁸

However, of the twenty-six Jefferson males living around Monticello, eighteen lived over one hundred miles away and seem unlikely suspects, therefore leaving eight remaining. Herbert Barger, the Jefferson family historian and genealogist who assisted in the original DNA study for Nature (and who strenuously objected to the conclusions published in the original story) explained:

My study indicates to me that Thomas Jefferson was not the father of Eston or any other Hemings child. The study indicates that Randolph [Thomas' younger brother] is possibly the father of Eston and the others. Randolph, named for his maternal Randolph family, was a widower and between wives when, shortly after his wife's death, Sally became pregnant with her first child. . . . She continued having children until 1808 when Eston was born. Randolph Jefferson would marry his second wife the next year, 1809. . . . [Significantly, t]hree of Sally Hemings' children, Harriet, Beverly and Eston (the latter two not common names), were given names of the Randolph family. ⁹

Interestingly, in its retraction even Nature ruefully conceded:

It is true that men of Randolph Jefferson's family could have fathered Sally Hemings' later children. ¹⁰

Although Nature's retraction and modification of its initial announcement was far more significant than its release, the retraction received little notice. The result is that the reputation of Jefferson has been permanently tarnished by "scientific evidence" which actually did not prove that Thomas Jefferson fathered any illegitimate child. But, as the Wall Street Journal noted, "Of course, the backtracking comes a little late to change the hundreds of other headlines fingering Jefferson." ¹¹The effect has been unfortunate, for as one reporter who covered the DNA story accurately noted, "Defective scholarship is difficult to recall." ¹²

Yet, the contemporary "scientific" testing was only investigating the published charges made against Jefferson two centuries ago--the third and remaining source of evidence against Jefferson. Those charges originated in newspaper articles written from 1801-1803 by Scottish emigrant James T. Callender.

James T. Callender (1758-1803) first came to attention in 1792 in Scotland when he authored The Political Progress of Great Britain. That work, highly critical of the British government, led to his indictment for sedition. After being "oftimes called in court, he did not appear and was pronounced a fugitive and an outlaw." ¹³Following that pronouncement, Callender, with his family of young children, fled to America for refuge and arrived here in 1793, having no prospect of a job or means of support. Many American patriots, learning of Callender's plight, embraced him as a man suffering British persecution; and many, including Jefferson, personally provided charitable contributions to help relieve Callender.

In 1796, after three years in America, Callender found a job with an Anti-Federalist (pro-Jefferson) newspaper in Philadelphia. Promising his readers "a tornado as no government ever got before," ¹⁴Callender resumed his defamatory writing style which had landed him in trouble in Great Britain, only this time it was against prominent Federalist Americans like Alexander Hamilton.

Fearing legal punishment as a result of his writings, in 1799 Callender fled Philadelphia and went to Richmond, Virginia. He took a job with another newspaper where he continued his attacks on the Federalists. (By attacking the Federalists, Callender considered himself as the mouthpiece for Jefferson's Anti-Federalist party and believed that he was rendering it a valuable service.) Because of his vicious writings, in 1800, Callender was tried under the federal Sedition Law, fined $200, and imprisoned for nine months. Yet he did not relent; while in prison he authored two more attack pieces.

Throughout this period, Callender wrote Jefferson several letters--most of which Jefferson declined to answer or even acknowledge. In fact, because of Jefferson's lack of response, Callender once told James Madison that he "might as well addressed a letter to Lot's wife." ¹⁵ While Jefferson generally avoided direct contact with Callender, he continued his occasional charitable gifts for the support of Callender's young children.

When Jefferson became President in 1801, he declared the Sedition Law to be unconstitutional and pardoned those who had been imprisoned under it--including Callender. Jefferson also ordered the $200 fine to be returned to Callender by the same Federalist sheriff who had collected it. That sheriff, however, refused, and even ignored direct orders from Secretary of State James Madison to refund the fine. Callender, unaware of the difficulty with the sheriff regarding the return of his fine, wrongly thought that Jefferson was personally at fault and became irritated with the delay.

Believing that Jefferson's party owed him something for all of his "service" in their behalf, Callender demanded a presidential appointment as the U. S. Postmaster for Richmond--a post which both President Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison properly refused him.

Obtaining neither the postal appointment nor his $200, Callender became enraged against Jefferson. After complaining, "Mr. Jefferson has not returned one shilling of my fine. I now begin to know what ingratitude is," ¹⁶he issued an ominous warning--that he was no man "to be oppressed or plundered with impunity." ¹⁷ The disgruntled Callender, who had previously written only for Anti-Federalist newspapers, sought a job with a Federalist newspaper in Richmond highly critical of President Jefferson.

Callender there proceeded to launch a series of virulent attacks against Jefferson in articles written throughout 1801, 1802, and 1803. He accused Jefferson, among other things, of "dishonesty, cowardice, and gross personal immorality," ¹⁸ and even charged Jefferson with fathering several children by Sally Hemings.

Callender died less than a year after publishing his charges against Jefferson, and during that time Callender was constantly intoxicated. In fact, after threatening suicide on several occasions, he eventually drowned in three feet of water in the James River (a coroner's jury ruled his death accidental, due to intoxication). Significantly, however, before his death, Callender acknowledged that his attacks against Jefferson had been motivated by his belief that Jefferson had refused to repay his $200 fine. ¹⁹

Even though Jefferson could have taken the libelous Callender to court, he refused to lower himself to that level. Instead, he turned him over to the Judge of the Universe to whom he would eventually answer. As Jefferson explained:

I know that I might have filled the courts of the United States with actions for these slanders, and have ruined perhaps many persons who are not innocent. But this would be no equivalent to the loss of [my own] character [by retaliating against them]. I leave them, therefore, to the reproof of their own consciences. If these do not condemn them, there will yet come a day when the false witness will meet a Judge who has not slept over his slanders. ²⁰

He later told Abigail Adams that he did not fear a blemish on his reputation from Callender's charges because, as he explained:

I am not afraid to appeal to the nation at large, to posterity, and still less to that Being Who sees Himself our motives, Who will judge us from His own knowledge of them. ²¹

Confident of his own innocence, and confident that God knew the truth, Jefferson was not afraid to appeal to God as his judge regarding the veracity of Callender's charges.

Not surprisingly, then, given the scurrilous motives behind Callender's publications of his accusations against Jefferson, and with such a proven record of inaccuracies, eminent historians both then and now have dismissed Callender's charges as frivolous. For example, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James Truslow Adams said that:

Almost every scandalous story about Jefferson which is still whispered or believed can be traced to the lies in Callender's [writings]. ²²

Others, including Merrill Peterson, Professor of History at the University of Virginia, hold the same opinion. ²³

John C. Miller, a Stanford University historian, describes Callender as "the most unscrupulous scandalmonger of the day . . . a journalist who stopped at nothing and stooped to anything." ²⁴ He explains:

Callender made his charges against Jefferson without fear and without research. He had never visited Monticello; he had never spoken to Sally Hemings; he had never made the slightest effort to verify the "facts" he so stridently proclaimed. It was "journalism" at its most reckless, wildly irresponsible, and scurrilous. Callender was not an investigative journalist; he never bothered to investigate anything. For him, the story, especially if it reeked of scandal, was everything; truth, if it stood in his way, was summarily mowed down. ²⁵

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Dumas Malone, after describing Callender as "one of the most notorious scandalmongers and character assassins in American history," ²⁶ accurately observed of Callender that "The evil that he did was not buried with him: some of it has lasted through the generations." ²⁷ And even historian Benjamin Ellis Martin--a hardened and ardent nineteenth-century critic of Jefferson who therefore could easily have accepted Callender's charges--found no basis for believing Callender's claims. In fact, Martin described Callender as a writer who did "effective scavenger work" in "scandal, slanders, lies, libels, scurrility" and one who excelled in "blackguardism" (unprincipled, vile writing). ²⁸ Martin concluded:

I am unable to find one good word to speak of this man. . . . He was a journalistic janizary, his pen always for sale on any side, a hardened and habitual liar, a traitorous and truculent scoundrel; and the world went better when he sank out of sight beneath the waters of the James River. ²⁹

Significantly, history has proved many of Callender's charges in his articles against Jefferson to be completely fallacious. In fact, the charges Callender similarly made against George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison were largely ignored by the citizens of that day. And Callender's charges against Jefferson probably would have completely died away had it not been for three feminist writers (Fawn Brodie, Barbara Chase-Riboud, and Annette Gordon-Reed) who in recent years, citing Callender's charges, have written books accusing Jefferson of an affair with Hemings. As eminent Jeffersonian historian Virginius Dabney observed, "Had it not been for Callender, recently revived charges to the same effect probably would never have come to national attention."³⁰

The conclusion of all of this is very simple: neither the movies shown about Jefferson on CBS and in the theaters, nor the recent "scientific" charges of Jefferson's illicit paternity, nor the oral traditions of two centuries ago, nor the tabloid "journalism" of Jefferson's day or of today, in any manner demonstrates--much less proves--that Thomas Jefferson had any illicit relationship with Sally Hemings. If Thomas Jefferson is guilty of the charges against him, it will take much better evidence to prove his guilt than what has been presented to date.

Since this article was written, the Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission released a 565 page report on the Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings controversy. The Executive Summary of that report states:

The question of whether Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children by his slave Sally Hemings is an issue about which honorable people can and do disagree. After a careful review of all of the evidence, the commission agrees unanimously that the allegation is by no means proven; and we find it regrettable that public confusion about the 1998 DNA testing and other evidence has misled many people. With the exception of one member, whose views are set forth both below and in his more detailed appended dissent, our individual conclusions range from serious skepticism about the charge to a conviction that it is almost certainly false.

The Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission was made up of eminent historians and scholars; they released their report on April 12, 2001.

Endnotes:

1. Eric S. Lander and Joseph J. Ellis, "Founding Father," Nature, November 5, 1998.

2. Dinitia Smith and Nicholas Wade, "DNA Tests Offer Evidence that Jefferson Fathered A Child With His Slave," New York Times on the Web, November 1, 1998; see also Barbra Murray and Brian Duffy, "Jefferson's Secret Life," U.S. News & World Report, November 9, 1998; see also Dennis Cauchon, "Jefferson Affair No Longer Rumor," USA Today, November 2, 1998; see also Malcolm Ritter, "Was It Thomas Jefferson?" Buffalo News, November 1, 1998; see also Lucian K. Truscott, IV, "Time for Monticello to Open the Gate and Stop Making Excuses," San Jose Mercury News, November 8, 1998; see also Donna Britt, "A Slaveholder's Hypocrisy was Inevitable," Washington Post, November 6, 1998.

3. Christopher Hitchens, "Jefferson-Clinton," Nation, November 30, 1998.

4. Richard Cohen, "Grand Illusion," Washington Post, December 13, 1998; see also Clarence Page, "New Disclosure Shows Two Thomas Jeffersons," Chicago Tribune, November 5, 1998; see also Dinitia Smith and Nicholas Wade, "DNA Tests Offer Evidence that Jefferson Fathered a Child With His Slave," New York Times on the Web, November 1, 1998.

5. Dr. Eugene A Foster, et al, "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child," Nature November 5, 1998.

6. Gene Edward Veith, "Founder's DNA revisited," World, February 20, 1999; see also Dinitia Smith and Nicholas Wade, "DNA Tests Offer Evidence that Jefferson Fathered A Child With His Slave," New York Times on the Web, November 1, 1998.

7. Dr. Eugene A Foster, et al, "The Thomas Jefferson Paternity Case," Nature, January 7, 1999.

8. Press release by Jefferson family historian and genealogist, Herbert Barger, on January 2, 1999.

9. The Truth about the Thomas Jefferson DNA Study as told by Herbert Barger, Jefferson Family Historian, February 12, 1999.

10. Dr. Eugene A. Foster, et al, "The Thomas Jefferson paternity case," Nature, January 7, 1999.

11. "Founding Fatherhood," Wall Street Journal, February 26, 1999, sec. W, p. 15.

12. Gene Edward Veith, "Founder's DNA revisited," World, February 20, 1999.

13. Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Callender, James Thomson."

14. Dumas Malone, Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1962), p. 469 (Volume III of a six volume series Jefferson and His Time), in a letter from James Callender to Thomas Jefferson on November 19, 1798.

15. Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, 1801-1805 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970), p. 209 (Volume IV of a six volume series Jefferson and His Time), in a letter from James Callender to James Madison on April 27, 1801 after Jefferson failed to respond to a Callender letter of April 12, 1801.

16. Id.

17. Id.

18. Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Callender, James Thomson."

19.Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, p. 208, quoting the Richmond Recorder, May 28, 1803.

20. Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Ellery Bergh, editor (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. X, p. 171, to Uriah McGregory on August 13, 1800.

21. Jefferson, Writings (1904), Vol. XI, p. 44, to Abigail Adams on July 22, 1804.

22. James Truslow Adams, The Living Jefferson (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), p. 315.

23. Virginus Dabney, The Jefferson Scandals: A Rebuttal (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1981), p. 15.

24. John Chester Miller, The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery (New York: The Free Press, 1977), p. 153.

25. Miller, p. 154.

26. Malone, Jefferson the President, First Term, p. 212.

27. Id.

28. Benjamin Ellis Martin, "Transition Period of the American Press," Magazine of American History, Vol. XVII, No. 4, April 1887, published in Vol. XVII of Magazine of American History, Martha J. Lamb, editor (New York City: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1887), p. 285.

29. Martin, pp. 285-286.

30. Dabney, p. 6.

Stray Cosmic Rays

2011-08-29T09:15:00.001-05:00

We joke about them all of the time in the IT world as the cause of all kinds of unpleasant surprises, so it's easy to forget that they are, in fact, something real and they do have their effects. And not surprisingly, they have their effects on our atmosphere.

To bring those who don't hang around these parts up to speed, I do have a degree and about 3 years of graduate study in Atmospheric Science. Weather has been an interest and hobby for me since I was about 12 years old. I've known about "global warming" since before most of you heard of it. I've worked the black body equations upon which it is based. And I follow it.

And if you have been around these parts much you know I am a skeptic as to the impact of any man-made CO2 contribution to the global carbon budget has on the Earth's temperature. And I know that very well respected figures from the early IPCC conferences complained about the politicization of the science and its impact on what went into the reports and especially what went in to the "IPCC Summary for Policy Makers" and the massive distortions and clearly intentional omissions that went out to the media and world governments.

Since the Climategate scandal, we now have clear evidence outside of hearsay that Lindzen et. al. weren't making it all up.

All this to set this up -- I had read articles on this theory of the relationship between cosmic rays and condensation nuclei and thus cloud cover, which, in fact, would have an impact on Earth's energy budget due to increased albedo.

But enough political roadblocks have been removed (probably thanks to Climategate) for an important experiment (the stuff on which science is based) to go forward. And the result will upset the followers of The Goracle.

It's nice to see Science making a play for the front seat again in this debate.

Things I Know #37

2011-08-28T10:43:00.000-05:00

Things I Know #37: There are few states of anxiety that cannot be at least temporarily broken, if not completely cured by a baby's laugh.

Economics

2011-08-26T14:49:00.006-05:00

Maybe I should just start a majority of my posts, "I was over at Morgan's, havin' a drink and a stogie, and ...." (while you're there, read Severian's excellent comment)

As I alluded to over on this EconLog post, economic discussions often reduce to two camps:
•People who think of the economy in a very simplistic (essent[ia]lly cartoonish) way, abstracting away all details and likening it to a machine you can control and tune – tweaking dials, pulling levers, opening valves, priming pumps.
•People who don’t, and who instead think the economy is pretty complicated, and details matter.
Now, fine. Two approaches, to each his own, right? But here’s what I find astonishing:
The former group thinks they are Smart and they look down with sneering contempt on the intelligence of the latter group.

Morgan thought that was inexplicable.

Actually, it’s pretty explicable.

They think economics is a “science”. It really isn’t, for the same kinds of reasons psychology is not a science. If it were, and the “scientists” (economists) were correct, then of course the Economy should be run by “experts” through the State. Anyone who believes otherwise is obviously “unscientific” in their eyes.

It goes further. “Experiments” in economics look like the USSR, Cuba, the New Deal, The Raw Deal (Obama ) China, North Korea, and to a bit lesser extent … Europe. So what do we have here (theoretically) in America?

The fact of the matter is is that Economics is a part of human behavior. It cannot be dictated any more than our hunger or other drives. Economics is a study in what people value, how much and how much they value it compared with other things. You can’t dictate that. It just is. And when you mess with it, well … how’d that old ad go? It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!

Capitalism is not so much an economic plan, but a recognition that there can be no economic plan that is compatible with Liberty. It’s more like an economic “lack of plan”, or more accurately, millions and millions of micro-economic plans working together in symbiosis on their own, creating and breaking associations as each sees fit in the persuit of happiness. It is an “ism” to economics as nihilism is an “ism” to philosophy.

Of course, they don’t get any of that. It’ s much more reassuring to believe there is, or can be, someone with an Economic Plan™ than will “work” than it is to believe that the best economic plan is to Let It Be. Our plan is to have no plan, or to plan to let everyone plan their own plan.

Now that is a true “collective” plan!

Some Good Wording from Victor Davis Hanson

2011-08-26T13:49:00.000-05:00

Here's some excellent wording from Victor Davis Hanson.

Despite nearly $15 trillion in federal debt, the administration apparently wants to defy the rules of logic and do more of what made things worse in the first place, under the euphemism of “investments.” American popular culture has coined all sorts of proverbial warnings about such mindless devotion to destructive rote: “Don’t flog a dead horse,” “If you are in a hole, stop digging,” and “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

No matter: The administration still adheres to the logical fallacy that the toxic medicine cannot be proven to be useless or harmful, because there was supposedly never enough of it given. And the proof is that the worsening patient is still not quite dead.
:
That there is never enough spending is a seductive fallacy because it never requires any empirical proof: If millions of those supported by the state have lost their self-reliance and self-initiative, perhaps it is because millions supported by the state were not supported well enough, and so in response, some resorted to stealing things they could not afford.

Yeah, I Know

2011-08-22T12:47:00.002-05:00

I can't believe anybody takes this guy seriously

2011-08-16T14:37:00.001-05:00

Depak Chopra. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was making fun of himself here. If ever there were a more clear illustration of their projection, it is here:

An intolerant faction like the Tea Party cannot be tolerated. They must be stopped with harsh, combative measures. A crazy minority is running rough shod over the executive branch and shows no sign of relenting. Fighting for your principles is more honorable than compromise with immorality and injustice. Reason is a foolish, impotent guide when you are under constant attack. The bad guys should be named in public and opposed with all necessary force. Compromise is a nice word for lack of leadership, and lack of leadership will sink us all.

We must fight with harsh measures for our principles of tolerance and non-combativeness and not tolerate people who are fighting for their principles! Harsh, combative measures! Opposed with all necessary force!

They must cram their morality and sense of justice down our throats because their morals and justice are better than ours, because we want to cram ours down their throats! Because, you know, it's wrong to think your morality is superior to anothers.

What was the term Douglas Adams used? Vanish in a puff of logic?

It is no wonder that socialist "utopias" always turn out to be giant, national gulags.

Is This Where We Want to Go?

2011-08-16T10:51:00.001-05:00

Hat tip to Morgan.

The very fact that we can't have frank discussions about things like this without being called "racists" and/or "haters" is chilling.

You know, if we talk about behavior, and the Left associates the behavior with a race or a social class ... then who's the bigot?

He Hunted Down and Killed Bin Laden

2011-08-16T10:48:00.008-05:00

Wow. Just saw a political ad aimed at Obama, praising him for various things before urging him to do something about AIDS. The ad states that Obama "hunted down and killed Bin Laden."

One can imagine Barack in Rambo gear, personally covering the terrain -- hiding behind trees and under water with blood streaming from his scrapes and bruises -- tattered camoflage clothes dripping with sweat, and M16 in hand, pointed up, held close to his body ... finally aiming and pulling the trigger for the kill shot...

Hey, at least they know where to go to get to him. Straight to the ego.

On Collective Salvation, and the Bible

2011-08-15T19:21:00.005-05:00

Kinda looks to me like there's this meme going around on the Collective Salvation (Left) side of the street that uses a couple of Bible verses to back it up.

Morgan had been commenting on a thread over at Mallard Fillmore's Bathtub (for the life of me I don't understand why he wastes his time there, except that he got me to literally waste my time there this morning). A commenter named Jim posted:

“Yet in Matthew 25, Jesus clearly teaches that NATIONS (the Greek is ethnos which is faithfully rendered as “nations” or “societies”) are saved or damned on the basis of what they did and didn’t do vis a vis the poor and marginalized. ”

First of all, just because there is verbiage in the Bible, the Bible doesn't necessarily "teach" that. But in this case, the relevant passages can be taken as a teaching. But they "teach" nothing of the sort. This post is based (and includes most of) the comment I left over there, but it never got published. It was "awaiting moderation". Never got approval. I wonder why not?

Never mind the clever red herring on the fact that he appears to know the original Greek and that it translates to "Nations". It's irrelavent. Let's dive in.

According to Jim, if you follow his logic, Nations will go to heaven or hell, not people.

OR … everyone in a “good” nation will go to heaven because that nation is “good” … so would that include Timothy McVeigh, or Charles Manson?

And what about “undocumented workers”? Are they in, or out?

Or suppose you believe America is “bad”.

Is Martin Luther King, Jr going to hell? Seriously?

Complete and utter nonsense. The assertion collapses under its own weight, above. But perhaps Jim is just posing as a believer (which is actually more likely) and he's just playing a game of "literal gotcha".

Mind you, I haven’t read much of this stuff in 35 years, but I know bullshit when I see it. So I went out and checked Matthew 25. Relevant passages appear to be:

” 32And all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats:
33And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.”

"Clearly", he says. It says all of the nations will be gathered before him, true. But it is far from clear that what he is separating is nations. It just means “everyone’s gonna be there”. The separating is much more likely, in light of lots of other Biblical passages, of the individual people. If Christ came here to instruct Nations on salvation, why the hell didn't he just hang out with Kings and Ceasars? Jesus didn't seem to have much use for nations except to say to pay to Ceasar what is Ceasar's and to God what is God's. And he said things like that to throngs of regular folks like us. He was pretty standoffish with the state. To Pilate, he said hey, you're the boss down here. Do whatcha gotta do.

(one might note, as an aside, on which side the sheep are put, and which side the goats are put. But I mirthily digress).

Now about what St. Paul said …

“[6] And hath raised us up together, and hath made us sit together in the heavenly places, through Christ Jesus. [7] That he might shew in the ages to come the abundant riches of his grace, in his bounty towards us in Christ Jesus. [8] For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God; [9] Not of works, that no man may glory. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them. ”

I don’t see anything in there that talks about collective salvation. It basically says your good works must come from the grace, the goodness in your heart — not from a desire to do them just to boast of them.

Other passages on the subject:

Saved by grace

(Ephesians 2:8-9) – “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”
(Rom. 3:20, 28) – “because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin…For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
(Galatians 2:16) – “nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.”

Saved by works

(James 2:24) – “You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.”

(Matthew 19:16-17) – “And behold, one came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” 17 And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

A lot of talk of individual salvation in there. Nothin about collective salvation.

See, what we're looking at here is another of those Alinsky rules. "Whenever possible, go outside of the expertise of your opponent." This is how they get away with this shit. If you don't know and your ethics don't allow you to just make shit up on the spot or not speak without being exactly sure of your sources, people just assume that the person speaking confidently, throwing around things like "the original greek" and thinks that make it sound like you know what you're talking about -- like they do on the Jefferson only wanted freedom for white people meme... you're at a disadvantage. And they know it. But if you are familiar with the material, you're much more likely to be able to call their bullshit.

And then they got nuthin' but ... "RAAAAAAAAAAACIST!!!!"

Petulant Declarations of Allegedly Settled Facts

2011-08-14T08:15:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Matt Welch at reason Magazine for coming up with that nice turn of a phrase.

I like it. File under "summary of 'arguments' from the left."

Keynesian economics
Anthropogenic Global Warming
The Tea Party is racist
.
.
.

Christian Women Need Not Apply

2011-08-13T16:03:00.003-05:00

So the big "gotcha" question for Bachmann.... for the left, it seems, is what does her marriage vow to love, honor, and obey obey her husband mean?

Got one question for ya, o Progressive Left.... Would you vote for a devout Muslim woman for president?

Well, wouldja? Yes or no?

What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?

It seems to me that according the progressive left, at least, Christians need not apply. Unless it's a vague, toothless, a la carte "spiritual" Christianity.

It's also lauded by the left when strong First Ladies influenced their husbands decisions. Why would we expect it to be any different with a First Dude?

A couple is a package deal, and if it's a good couple, that is far from a bad thing. It is a great thing.

Coincidence?

2011-08-13T11:18:00.001-05:00

I'm probably not the first to notice this, but I was behind a car with a carbonfund.org bumpersticker yesterday, and noticed a striking similarity.

Booker T.

2011-08-12T21:03:00.000-05:00

‎"My experience in raising money for Tuskegee has taught me to have no patience with those people who are always condemning the rich because they are rich.

They do not know how many people would be made poor and how much suffering would result if wealthy people were to part all at once with any large portion of their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple great business enterprises" ~ Booker T. Washington

Green Onions. ~ Booker T. and the M.G.'s