As we have discussed in the past, science proceeds from the known to the unknown, i.e., (k) –> O, whereas religious practice proceeds from the unknown to the known, or O –> (n); or, on a slightly more concrete plane, you could say that science proceeds from facts to principles, whereas religion proceeds from principles to facts.
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To rip an example from the headlines, look at the intrinsic fallacies involved in the tautological science of “climate change” (climate stasis — now there would be a novel theory!). The warmystics take something with which they are familiar — their computer models — and substitute it for something they want to understand — the “global climate.” But as Bolton says, “unfortunately, familiarity can be confused with understanding, and in such cases, things can appear to be understood when they are not.” For example, I am familiar with electricity. But I would only be pretending if I said I understood it.…the nondualists try to explain reality, which they do not understand, with reference to consciousness, which they also do not understand. Voila! Perfect understanding.
Archive for December, 2009
Ignotum per Ignotius
Saturday, December 12th, 2009D’JEver Notice? XLVIII
Friday, December 11th, 2009Just a few weeks ago, as we were finding space in the back of the closet for Halloween costumes, negotiating with our kids about how much candy they could eat and when, and tossing out rotting jack o’ lanterns — it would have been an utterance of “denialism,” brittle right-wing ideology and curmudgeonability…there, I just made up a new word…to say…
The science behind man-made global warming is unproven.
Now, just a short time later, that’s lavishly and laughably charitable.
Alyssa Milano Gives Up a Birthday
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Uh oh…someone’s on that “Prove I’m A Good Person” cycle, which works just like a hamster’s spinning wheel.
Such a sad thing. It seems to have started when she chopped her ‘do.
I’m giving up my 37th Birthday and it has nothing to do with vanity or nearing the big 4-0. I couldn’t care less about numbers as they pertain to my age. I do, however, care about age when it pertains to those throughout the world who don’t make it to their 37th birthdays because of a lack of clean drinking water and proper sanitation.
As a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and the founding ambassador for the Global Network, I’ve traveled to the field and seen firsthand the devastation left behind by waterborne illnesses. On these trips, I’ve run the gamut of emotions that range from mind-bending anger to heart-warming hope. Upon my return from the field, I count my blessings, and then as time passes, I become frustrated with myself that I’m not doing more to alleviate the pain of those I met on my journey.
It is because of this very frustration that I decided to give up my birthday. I have everything I could ever want or need. All I want is to provide life-giving water for 10 communities, 500 families and 2,500 people. This is my Birthday wish. In lieu of spending money on a party or presents, I’m asking people to donate to my Charity: Water campaign and help make my wish come true.
So she’s got a birthday coming up. It’s next Saturday. Far from keeping it a secret, she’s announcing it, and oh by the way she wants something.
How is this giving up a birthday?
It would be perfectly coherent, logical, charitable, good-willed and — I’m sure — well received for her to simply say “next weekend’s my birthday, and I’d just like everyone to know in lieu of gifts, I’d consider it a personal favor if…” How come the anger has to enter into it?
In fact, fortunately Alyssa’s birthday is at a time of year when people are feeling most charitable. So if that’s really the way her birthday feels, there never was a need to mention it.
These people must be spoiled rotten brats. She’s got the perfect setup for what she says she wants…and here she is throwing a fit. She must have grown up being taught that this is how you get people to do things; I really can’t think of any other possible explanation. There are needy people, there are others willing to help them, the desire is to bring them together. Why the bile? Because of your trips, is that it? Then keep soliciting donations, but stop going.
Alyssa’s water charity is here. Do consider donating. I’m sure the people really do need it, and it isn’t their fault their situation is being represented by someone so angry.
Barack Hussein Bush
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Man, I’ll bet the anti-war zealots are really pissed.
I’m talking about Barry’s Nobel speech. Blogger friend Buck sent me an offline, curious about my thoughts, noting that Sarah Palin liked it more-or-less just fine. (We are, newcomers can tell from the artwork, decidedly in her camp; our New Mexico friend sees something wrong with the safety net, and at this late hour is opting to remain in the burning building.) “Caribou Barbie” includes, it should be noted, a caveat in her positive remarks:
But while blowing a kiss, Palin also took a jab, suggesting Obama study the actions of his predecessor as he navigates two wars abroad. “By the way, I’d like to see President Obama follow more closely in the footsteps of George Bush and his passion for keeping the homeland safe,” she said.
So naturally Buck wanted to know my reaction. Well, I played a round of Obama Speech Bingo with it last night. I didn’t count the word “my” as a “me,” and mostly because of this, by the time I made it to the end we were seven squares away from a total blackout. Pretty good speech. Bingo here, bingo there, bingo everywhere…
And by the time we were done — as is subtly indicated by iOwnTheWorld (hat tip to American Digest), as well as by Tundra Princess, it reads an awful lot like something the Crawford Village Idiot would say. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?
I wonder how this happens?
Well as a general rule, when a committed politician starts talking common sense it’s only because he’s been backed into a corner and is left with no other alternative. Michael Moore didn’t like Obama’s decision on Afghanistan…that logic used by the filmmaker is the logic used by an eight-year-old, wanting to get something and not getting it…”It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around.” Bit it signals big trouble for the O-man. A quote attributed apocryphally to LBJ is “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.” If Obama’s losing Moore, He’s losing all the tie-dyed anti-war Haight-Ashbury crackpots.
Why is He backed into a corner? Because He’s got a real job now, one that demands real decisions. The unicorns will have to leave the Oval Office now, and head on out to the marshmallow sparkly pastures where they belong so real-world decisions can be made.
For those who don’t understand what I’m talking about, the President’s speech provides most of what’s missing. Palin, once again, is right: It truly is a good speech — if He means what He says.
More trouble for Sort-of-God: Blogger friend Rick brings us a report that more people than ever would prefer to go back and undo the 2008 revolution:
Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama’s declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they’d rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that’s somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country’s difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited. The closeness in the Obama/Bush numbers also has implications for the 2010 elections. Using the Bush card may not be particularly effective for Democrats anymore…
Which means the whole “Obama will take us in the right direction again” was never anything more than a brain fart…a “I’m just tired of real-world decision-making”…an “I wanna vacation.” And since we live in a three-dimensional universe of cause-and-effect, the appeal of the dalliance has come-n-gone. Time to wake up. Time to do some real-world living.
Except in the meantime, during our slumber we seem to have sworn the sandman into our nation’s highest office. Oopsie.
Real life continues to play out like the finest Palin-in-2012 commercial money could possibly buy. The contest, still three years off, is being set up rather neatly and I think this is a healthy thing. Workhorses versus unicorns. Understanding and stating what needs to be done, versus dissembling and equivocating. A woman with all the right enemies versus a guy with all the wrong friends. Wife and mother, versus false prophet. A governor who left ’em wanting more, versus a President who’s gonna hang around three more years like a bad smell whether we want Him or not. “You betcha” versus “uh, uh, um, er, uh.”
Even Buck is seeing some redeeming qualities in the Barracuda:
Comment of the Day…
… over at Lex’s place, on the subject of Miss Alaska, her recent editorial in the WaPo, and Leftie reax to same:OldT6Flyer
December 9th, 2009 at 3:19 pm · ReplyThe best thing about Sarah Palin is the every time she speaks the reaction from the left is so over the top that any rational person has to say: “What could possibly be that interesting?” and proceeds to tune into the Sarah Palin channel which, even if she’s not totally your cup of tea, comes across as a reasonable sort, especially in comparison to her tormentors, who are found writhing in the corner, foaming at the mouth, and generally making asses of themselves. As a bonus the so called “women’s movement” groups get exposed as, not all that interested in promoting women at all seeing how their silence at the obvious attacks on a leading WOMAN go strangely unanswered.
So no matter what you might think of Sarah Palin you’ve just got to love the apoplexy she causes on the left. If she didn’t exist somebody would need to invent her for the cause.
Yup. What Ol’ T-6 Flyer said. It’s well-known in certain circles that I’m a Palin skeptic even though I haven’t posted a whole helluva lot on the subject here in the home space. Which is by way of saying I’ve engaged a lot on the subject of La Palin in comments on other folks’ blogs. I’ve yet to drink the Arctic Princess’ Kool-Aid and I truly believe it’s way too damned early to be talking about 2012 presidential candidates. But… two things: (a) I simply LOVE the way she makes the Lefties go completely bonkers and (b) I totally enjoy crossing swords with zealots of any persuasion. And who knows? I might jump on the Palin bandwagon if she keeps on making sense and causing coronaries on the Left. Especially the latter.
What’s it all mean? Nothing more or less than what I’ve been saying for years.
People — call this liberalism, or call it something else — live in “Candyland,” where no tough decisions are ever necessary, when they feel like they can afford to live there. When all their food is slaughtered or grown and harvested and cleaned and sanitized and inspected and shrink-wrapped and delivered to their doorsteps.
Someone still has to grow that food. Which means truck in some fertilizer, the necessity of which might not be appreciated by those who merely consume the food. Shoot some predators, poison some predators, round up the predator-bodies, plow, irrigate, clean and maintain the farming equipment, clean and maintain the equipment that cleans & maintains the farming equipment…
Just because our daily wants and needs are met without too much fuss & bother from us, doesn’t mean we live in a snow globe. Things have to get done in order to make our lofty, comfortable existence possible. It doesn’t matter one bit whether we understand this necessity or not.
Twits like Michael Moore are like images in paintings, passing judgment on the brush strokes being used to bring them into “existence.” It’s all fine and good that he’s got opinions about stuff. But your mere dependence on these things is not a qualification for you to speak about the necessity of doing them, or lack of necessity. It’s something of a disqualification, if anything. If your existence depends on things getting done, and you yourself can’t see past these links-in-the-chain so you understand how these things are important, it means you’re spoiled and you can’t be relied-on to take inventory of all the staples required for your day-to-day being.
Image Credit: Mike Ely.
Turtle Soup
Thursday, December 10th, 2009That’ll Show’em!
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
see more Epic Fails
Puppy Playing Fetch with a Dynamite Stick
Thursday, December 10th, 2009Via Cartago Delenda Est, via blogger friend Rick, we come across this article in The Atlantic about how the global warming alarmists are responding to their disgrace. Rather fascinating the psychology at work:
The guild mentality has come to the fore. Campaigns are under way to defend the integrity of science from a scurrilous smear campaign. The message is simple: you are either with us or you are a barbarian.
The first line of response to the leaked or hacked emails, you recall, was to say that they showed science going on as usual–even science at its best, some argued. “Trick” did not mean trick; “hiding the decline” did not mean hiding the decline. These were innocent phrases torn out of context.
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The next line of response was to say that the emails involved just a few individuals, and implicate no more than a sliver of information about global warming. Even if you threw out everything the Climatic Research Unit had done, such is the weight of other research that nothing would change…This is a strange defence. Would deleting not just selected CRU data but its entire research effort really subtract nothing from what we thought we knew?If CRU’s work is as redundant as that, taxpayers might wonder if they have been getting value for money.
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Also note that the first line of defence fatally undermines the second. If the CRU emails show climate science as it is done in the real world, and there is nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about, then what reason is there to think that the corroborating research, even if truly independent, has been done to a higher standard?
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Which leaves just the “attack on science”. Circle those wagons. If you criticise one of us, you criticise all of us. No distinction is attempted between intelligent informed critics and ignorant malicious critics. The distinction which is emphasised, rather, is between qualified critics and unqualified — where “qualified” means “people who agree with us”. What could be more anti-scientific?To criticise the work of a particular scientist or collaborating group of scientists is no more to attack science than criticising a particular journalist is to attack press freedom, or criticising a particular politician is to attack democracy. Trying to shut down criticism in the name of science is the real attack on science.
They are a puppy playing fetch with a dynamite stick. The fuse has been lit, and it doesn’t matter if the puppy realizes it is a dynamite stick or not. It doesn’t matter that the game-of-fetch has already been played for so many rounds, that cap-n-crap taxation is inevitable…and all the freedom-bashing laws that lie beyond it are also inevitable.
None of that matters.
What matters is that these excuses, each and every single one, are dealing irreversible harm to the credibility of this supposed scientific discipline and those who practice it.
The puppy, be he aware of it or be he not, m-u-s-t drop the stick right now and run away. He must. If he keeps carrying it around he’ll be blown to kingdom come, and there will be no do-over.
Twilight of Honeymoon X
Thursday, December 10th, 2009Wow is it ever getting dark lately.
I notice something lately about these gaffes of Holy Man’s: They represent, for the most part, all there is to discuss about the administration. The policy debates have been pretty dull, after all. They go like this…Barry got an idea; if you’re one of the hardcore hope-and-change zealots you put out this phony-baloney pastiche of “Hmmm,” stroking your chin thoughtfully as we ponder how, let’s say as an example, cash-fer-clunkers is gonna work out over the long term.
The rest of us who live in the real world roll our eyes one more time. It isn’t even skepticism, it’s more of an “Omigaw, I hope this isn’t as expensive a blunder as that Swindle-us thing.”
But He only hauls out a new one of those every two or three months or so. The “Sort-of-God Doesn’t Know How to Behave Himself” theme reverberates every week, sometimes multiple times a week.
As I write this, the award ceremony is in full swing, and Barry is sitting in the audience with a monstrously smug look upon his face, reminding me more of one of the thug type football players just drafted with his chin up in the air. Football watchers know what I mean. Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem you can take Barry anywhere[.]
Barack Obama’s trip to Oslo to pick up his Nobel peace award is in danger of being overshadowed by a row over the cancellation of a series of events normally attended by the prizewinner.
Norwegians are incensed over what they view as his shabby response to the prize by cutting short his visit.
The White House has cancelled many of the events peace prize laureates traditionally submit to, including a dinner with the Norwegian Nobel committee, a press conference, a television interview, appearances at a children’s event promoting peace and a music concert, as well as a visit to an exhibition in his honour at the Nobel peace centre.
He has also turned down a lunch invitation from the King of Norway.
According to a poll published by the daily tabloid VG, 44% of Norwegians believe it was rude of Obama to cancel his scheduled lunch with King Harald, with only 34% saying they believe it was acceptable.
Good job, Chump! Pissing off yet another ally.
He’s like the Captain Marvel of democrat politicians. Bill Clinton’s respect for the American spirit; Al Gore’s exaggerated perception of one’s own achievements; Ted Kennedy’s raw, predatory narcissism; FDR’s bullshit vision of countries spending themselves out of recession; Jimmy Carter’s competence; and here, on display, we see Lyndon Johnson’s manners.
One cannot help but wonder how, behind closed doors, the committee sees this decision in hindsight. They’ve handed out this award to make political statements before, and they’ll do it again. Will their regret over this year’s humiliating events slow them down a little tiny bit from doing it? Do they even see the connection?
Over here, it’s quite surreal. It is rather like watching the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau try to figure out what to do, after inheriting a large estate or being elected to some high office. You know some “punchline” is coming, something that will make you giggle and groan — you don’t know how and you don’t know when. But you know it’s coming…again and again and again.
Obama Can Negotiate in Copehagen
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009The alarmists are lickin’ their chops. They can’t wait.
A top United Nations climate official says the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to declare greenhouse gases a danger to public health will give Barack Obama more room to negotiate here.
“It’s a very good signal indeed,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the Convention on Climate Change. “It makes it easier for the president of the United States to commit to something.”
Hey waitaminnit…can He do that?
Yes! He! Can!
Report: President Obama Has the Clear Legal Authority to Make a Binding Commitment for Greenhouse Gas Reductions in Copenhagen Without Waiting for Congress
COPENHAGEN— The Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute released a report today demonstrating that President Obama has clear legal authority to commit the United States to reducing greenhouse gas pollution…
“President Obama’s hands are not tied by Congress’s lack of action or the grossly inadequate cap-and-trade bills currently under debate. President Obama can lead, rather than follow, by using his power under the Clean Air Act and other laws to achieve deep and rapid greenhouse emissions reductions from major polluters,” said Center attorney Kevin Bundy, the report’s lead author. “Obama can use his authority to make a binding agreement in Copenhagen without additional action from Congress. The Constitution and existing domestic environmental laws give President Obama all the power he needs to join with other nations in making a real commitment to solve the climate crisis.”
I still want to hear how far the CO2 saturation in the atmosphere, currently 0.038%, has to get before we can consider the crisis solved.
Why do I obsess over this? Because nobody else is…and consider the ramifications of that. We sign on to something. Public doesn’t know what the CO2 saturation is, and doesn’t care what it is — even though that’s precisely what the crisis is supposed to be.
So it ends up being a bottomless cookie jar for the policy makers. “Whoopsie, we aren’t taxing enough to solve the climate crisis!” Why wouldn’t that be the rallying cry each and every week? Seriously, what mechanism have we put in place to stop it? If the public isn’t tuned into this number, the legislators and cabinet members and other bureaucrats at the tippy-top of the food chain…they can do whatever they like with it. It’ll just be measureless. Yet another “Come A Long Way, We’re Not There Yet” thing.
Tongue, Flagpole…Yup, That’s How It Works
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009Don’t try it, it’s really true.
It’s a story you’ve heard before. An impressionable young boy eyes a metal pole as winter sets in and thinks, “‘what the heck, a little lick can’t hurt anyone.” Of course, there’s always a dare involved.
If you think we’re talking about the infamous scene in “A Christmas Story” you’d be right. But we’re also talking about a scene that unfolded this week in sleepy Boise, Idaho. On Tuesday morning, a boy of about 10 decided to stick his tongue on the metal pole, and lo and behold he could not get it off.
A woman driving by noticed the boy’s dilemma and called 911. Fire Capt. Bill Tinsley told The Associated Press emergency workers came to the rescue. And what did they use to free the boy’s tongue? The tried and true method of extraction: a warm glass of water. Tinsley said the boy’s tongue bled a little, but he was deemed healthy enough to continue his trek to school.
Sacramento Road News
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009Wow, what a good story:
A man who says he was kidnapped, held hostage and robbed may have saved his own life by crashing the car he was driving into a Sacramento sheriff deputy’s squad car.
A deputy was taking an accident report at Folsom Boulevard and Manlove Road Tuesday evening when suddenly a car hit his patrol car. The driver got out shouting two men in his car had guns. Those men got out and fled the scene.
“He was screaming, ‘Oh my God, they’re trying to kill me,’ ” said Francheska Owens. She was a part of the original accident and witnessed the events unfold.
Deputies found a handgun in the front seat of the car the victim was driving and a shotgun in the back. It was unclear if the car belonged to the victim.
And then we have a stomach-churning “Yikes!” moment, the ultimate nightmare of many a motorist:
Florin Perkins Road was closed Wednesday morning after a deadly accident between a truck hauling milk, and a car.
The crash happened around 4 a.m. Wednesday morning on the southbound side of the Florin Perkins Rd. just north of Fruitridge Rd.
Sgt. Mike Carrasco with Sacramento Police Dept. says the big rig was pulling out of Ramos Court, turning north onto Florin Perkins Rd.
The car was heading southbound and didn’t stop, skidded underneath the big rig trapping the driver.
Witnesses say they tried to pull the driver from the wreck but the car burst into flames.
The person in the car died on the scene.
Officer Carrasco says speed may have played a factor in the crash, but alcohol did not.
These road names are just giving me a little bit of a chill. I’m well east of most of the tomfoolery and nonsense, and that’s a blessing. Girlfriend has to drive in to work, but that’s much later in the day. Still — it’s a jungle in there.
Sacramento & immediate environs have always had this “Murphy’s Law” thing going on. I get the feeling sometimes I should be taking out a special insurance policy whenever I go that way.
Kitty Heater
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
From One for the Road.
AP: Dems to Drop Public Option
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009Associated Press is the only one out, that I can see, with a headline that says something like this. If you read the story, it’s just some of ’em. This is just more snow on the teevee while we’re waiting to see what picture ultimately crystallizes. For now.
We’ll see how it plays out.
Democratic senators say they have a tentative deal to drop a government-run insurance option from health care legislation. No further details were immediately available.
But liberals and moderates have been discussing an alternative, including a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage. Additionally, talks centered on opening up Medicare to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, a significant expansion of the large government health care program that currently serves the over-65 population.
Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa told reporters he didn’t like the agreement but would support it to the hilt in an attempt to pass health care legislation.
Before the end of the year, huh?
Might happen. Better watch this pot. It really is the A-Number-One best chance Congress has to screw up the economy further.
TSA Breach
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009As innerwebs loudmouths continue to lecture me that I’ve “lost all credibility” for backing Palin, real life continues to play out as the best Palin-in-12 commercial money could possibly buy.
PrezBO’s respect, or lack thereof, for experience in the private sector:
And the consequences of this respect or lack thereof:
In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inadvertently posted online its airport screening procedures manual, including some of the most closely guarded secrets regarding special rules for diplomats and CIA and law enforcement officers.
The most sensitive parts of the 93-page Standard Operating Procedures manual were apparently redacted in a way that computer savvy individuals easily overcame.
The document shows sample CIA, Congressional and law enforcement credentials which experts say would make it easy for terrorists to duplicate.
The improperly redacted areas indicate that only 20 percent of checked bags are to be hand searched for explosives and reveal in detail the limitations of x-ray screening machines.
I’m not sure what this improper-redaction-method was, exactly. I got an idea. And if that idea is wrong, I got an idea that when I find out what the technical details really are, I’m gonna cringe.
General Zod is Out of Date
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
You are not the President. No one who leads so many could possibly kneel so quickly.
Oh, dear. Well, 28 years is an awfully long time.
Don’t Confuse Harry Reid with History While He’s Playing the Race Card
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009It was the GOP that fought slavery and the Democrat Party that battled to preserve it.
It’s the Democrat Party, not the GOP, that boasts an ex-Klansman among its senior leaders.
But don’t confuse Harry Reid with history while he invokes slavery to lambaste the GOP for opposing the government-run health care takeover.
Details? Bah!
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.
The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement — even though it was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.
Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid’s comments “offensive” and “unbelievable.”
Not unbelievable, of course. The Left has been playing the race card on Demcare from the start. Jesse Jackson. Jimmy Carter. Harry Reid.
I’m confused. Which party is supposed to be an obstructionist party, trying to derail the debate, all out of ideas? Come again?
Time for a refresher course from Blogger Friend Phil regarding which party has a racist legacy…Michelle also has something to say about it, above.
“Take That”
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009Ah yes. That “Make Flypaper From The S On My Chest” superpower, I remember it well.
I’m a little curious how this kinda stuff happens. Since the days of Superman I and II, it’s been shown that making a decent comic-book movie is not that easy. And maybe that’s the fail-point, when you have someone put the movie together who isn’t quite up on what the superhero is & is not supposed to be able to do.
Here’s the original scene. Kinda silly…you’ll notice that famous Kryptonian “White Frosting Laser Beam From My Finger” power comes next…oy.
Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XXIII
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009So, if Bolton is correct, then extremes meet in the monistic Darwinians and Deepakians, who are monstrous reflections of one another, being that both exclude God and replace him with the idol of human consciousness.
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Perhaps this idea of the “worship of intelligence” is new to you, but it is the blue thread that runs through the modern left extending over the past century or so. Although it is primarily a narcissistic exercise in self-flattery, those who are not members of the cult are not just considered wrong, but dismissed as morons. But one of the bases of wisdom — which transcends the mere intellectualism of the tenured — is to know the limits of intelligence. And the left repeatedly fails in this regard, again, because of the replacement of God with human (small r) reason.Nearly every leftist policy failure falls into this trap, and yet, the prescription is always more of the same…
:
[E]ven despite the revelations of weathergate, these pinheads persist in their insane project of destroying the world’s economy — its wealth-producing mechanism — to “solve” a problem that doesn’t exist…For these radicals, the death of one child due to malaria is a tragedy, but the death of 50 million is a smashing success. [emphasis mine]
The irony, to me, is whenever I meet these folks they are always obsessed with humility. They may have a different name for it; but it is a constant that they consider the primary cause of all the world’s problems to be human arrogance, or something immediately connected to it.
Their error is caused by a dearth of precisely that agent they say they want to make more abundant in our world.
And yet when their programs fail…or simply demonstrate they could stand some improvement, but usually it’s a total fail…their own arrogance puts everyone else’s to shame. Let’s do it again. We did the right thing, just not enough of it.
We saw it this year, several times. Swindle-us. Cash for clunkers. Bailouts for S&L, auto companies, looks like media is next.
George Bush was expected to express all kinds of regret over Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, invasion of a sovereign country, angst over saying “bring it on”…none of this contrition ever did a damn thing to redeem him in the eyes of a single soul, but it was demanded of him anyway. But liberals can keep right on keepin’-on.
They make the mistake of comparing their own intentions, with the achievement of others. Their gonna-dooz against others’ have-dunz.
Palin Favorability 46 Percent in CNN Poll
Monday, December 7th, 2009That’s kinda like Satan’s approval rating on the rise in a Heavenly poll. There’s definitely something going on.
Sarah Palin has erased her drop in the polls that followed her resignation as Alaska governor, according to new national survey.
But when it comes to opinions of Palin, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday suggests a partisan divide and a gender gap.
The survey indicates that Americans are split on Palin, with 46 percent saying they have a favorable opinion of her and an equal amount saying they have an unfavorable view of last year’s Republican vice presidential nominee.
:
Following her resignation, Palin’s favorable rating dropped to 39 percent in CNN polling, but her popularity is now back to the same level it was before she stepped down.
I got an off-line from fellow Palin blogger Shane Vander Hart letting us know about his latest post…a few more tantalizing hints about whether she’s planning to run or not. Couldn’t resist hitting the reply button and sharing what I’ve been seeing:
Two statistically significant factions exploding in number since the book tour started:
A. “Hate to break it to you, but this woman is NOT winning any elections!”
B. “It is WAY soon to be talking about any of this!”How many deluded Palin-hating souls do you think have made the mistake of signing up for both of these? Perhaps they need to have it pointed out: You need to choose one…
I’d nominate Boortz to represent A, and blogger friend Buck (commenting at Daphne’s place) to represent B. Yes, neither one’s a hater. But both represent millions of people who do so hate…or nurse a grudge…or criticize to the point of tedium…or sneer…or, or, or.
I’ll take them all as sincere commentary — provided nobody’s crossing over. Anyone occupying the overlap is simply grasping at straws, and driving themselves nuts by doing it. So that’s my challenge to the Palin haters. Choose one.
Meanwhile, I can’t help noticing: Forty-six percent approval is within a point or two of He Who Walks On Water, over in the White House. For all intents and purposes, it is equivalent. Hmmm…I think Faction A just took a beating. Need to watch those hasty predictions.
Fifty-Six Newspapers
Monday, December 7th, 2009They took the unprecedented step of coming together to put out a coordinated editorial.
Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.
Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.
The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.
It doesn’t mention how far the 0.038% carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere needs to be brought down in order for us to consider the crisis resolved. It does say, as you can see, we all need to come together. As if I hadn’t heard that before.
I just want a saturation amount. It oughtta be defined somewhere…oughtn’t it? That would determine just about everything, wouldn’t it?
Michelle Malkin has rounded up a list of the fifty-six chicken littles, and makes an apt recommendation:
Someone should translate the phrase “Hide the Decline” in all the 20-plus languages editorial has been printed in and stamp it across their front pages…
When you get a chance, click open the 1,000+ comments on the Guardian article. Click that sonofabitch open, stand back, and prepare to be amazed. Prepare, as in prepare to take a sip from a fire hose. So much hatred. You wonder why this bullshit is catching on so well? Just like I said. Pure bile. If it was stupidity and not bile, it might take longer.
I used to think the infestation of anti-corporate hostility — people chomping at the bit to deal injury to the businesses, in the same breath as bemoaning a skyrocketing unemployment rate — was a national tragedy. I have to take it all back.
It’s an international crisis.
And you know what? It’s probably responsible for causing global warming. There. How ya like them apples?
Pearl Harbor Mystery Submarine Found
Monday, December 7th, 2009A little bit of Pearl Harbor news for you, on today the 68th anniversary.
The remains of a Japanese mini-submarine that participated in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor have been discovered, researchers are to report today, offering strong evidence that the sub fired its torpedoes at Battleship Row.
That could settle a long-standing argument among historians.
Five mini-subs were to participate in the strike, but four were scuttled, destroyed or run aground without being a factor in the attack. The fate of the fifth has remained a mystery. But a variety of new evidence suggests that the fifth fired its two 800-pound torpedoes, most likely at the battleships West Virginia and Oklahoma, capsizing the latter. A day later, researchers think, the mini-sub’s crew scuttled it in nearby West Loch.
Other interesting things with regard to today’s date:
Michigan Governor says to lower the flags.
Malkin has a suitably horrifying pictorial.
This is a commentary on the times in which we live, well worth noticing: Firedoglake is feeding their own prejudices about Sarah Palin, making up stories about how she feels about Asian people, pretty much pulling the facts straight outta their butts, and it got scooped up and put in Google’s listing of “blog entries about Pearl Harbor day.” Glad to see we all have our heads screwed on straight, folks.
Folsom Snow
Monday, December 7th, 2009“Pardon my ignorance, I’m in Folsom. What’s all that white stuff in the picture?”
— Me, being a smartass on Buck’s blog a few days ago.
“Styrofoam. It’s a New Mexican tradition, imported from Las Vegas.”
— Buck, educating the less-experienced generation how smartass is done.
Well now. I’m getting all sorts of edjyoomakayshuns lately, aren’t I?
Click for larger.
This is something of an event in niner fiver six three zip. You can see the palm trees in the shot…they’re transplants, but they aren’t plastic. We’re an “orange and lemon trees in the backyard” kinda place. A cold day means the swimming pool area isn’t that crowded. A more typical winter means you see some of Buck’s Las Vegas styrofoam, maybe, if you head on up past Placerville, where you’ll run into it about at the 2,000 foot line.
Snow line’s at eighty feet according to radio guys.
This is a little bit of a change. Not an unpleasant one…yet…of course we know how that works (language NSFW behind link).
“We Here at The Times Are Not Scientists”
Monday, December 7th, 2009Clark Hoyt, New York Times Public Editor:
As world leaders prepare to meet tomorrow in Copenhagen to address global warming, skeptics are pointing to e-mail hacked from a computer server at a British university as evidence that the conference may be much ado about nothing. They say the e-mail messages show a conspiracy among scientists to overstate human influence on the climate — and some accuse The Times of mishandling the story.
:
Although The Times was among the first to report on the e-mail, in a front-page article late last month, and has continued to write about the issue almost daily in the paper or on its Web site, readers have raised a variety of complaints:Some say Andrew Revkin, the veteran environmental reporter who is covering what skeptics have dubbed “Climategate,” has a conflict of interest because he wrote or is mentioned in some of the e-mail messages that the University of East Anglia says were stolen. Others wondered why The Times did not make the e-mail available on its Web site, and scoffed at an explanation by Revkin in a blog post that they contain “private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye.” What about the Pentagon Papers? they asked.
:
The biggest question is what the messages amount to — an embarrassing revelation that scientists can be petty and defensive and even cheat around the edges, or a major scandal that undercuts the scientific premise for global warming. The former is a story. The latter is a huge story. And the answer is tied up in complex science that is difficult even for experts to understand, and in politics in which passionate sides have been taken, sometimes regardless of the facts.
:
Goode, his editor, said: “We here at The Times are not scientists. We don’t collect the data or analyze it, and so the best we can do is to give our readers a sense of what the prevailing scientific view is, based on interviews with scientists” and the expertise of reporters like Revkin.
Tom J (33):
The defense that, “We here at The Times are not scientists,” is specious. You are also not generals, physicians, nor accountants. You certainly don’t hesitate to aggressively investigate and question war planning, mammogram recommendations, or Bernie Madoff. You sound like an air-headed Barbie doll lamenting how hard science is.
Jason (#43):
I’d suggest that there are two key problems with the New York Times coverage, one of which you repeated here:
1. It is interesting to know that skeptics _believe_ that the emails “show a conspiracy among scientists to overstate human influence on the climate”. It would have been much more interesting to learn that the emails contain passages like this: “Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?”
I’m not saying that reaction to the emails isn’t important, but shouldn’t the first priority be describing the controversial emails? Reaction can come later.
2. You say that the emails were “stolen”. Andy has repeatedly characterized them as having been stolen by hackers. There is a notable absence of evidence supporting this claim. The organization of the file itself strongly suggests that it was generated within UEA by somebody in an official capacity. Under UK law, leaking it may very well have been permissible depending on the circumstances.
I recognize that somebody else may have chosen your headline “Stolen E-Mail, Stoking the Climate Debate”, but it is unfortunate nonetheless.
Mike Zarowitz (#47):
Models definitely do help in understanding a situation and are very important in forming testable hypotheses.
However, the more useful models depend on plotting one’s data and then drawing the curves, not drawing the curves and then plotting the data.
illustrator (#50):
It does not matter who released or exposed the e-mails. They are out. They are factual.
The e-mails expose fraud, corruption and a conspiracy to perpetrate this global warming fraud.The secondary big story in all this is the cover up by main stream media (NY Times) and politicians to hide the truth that these e-mails expose.
Those are chosen more-or-less randomly. Hoyt was rightfully handed his own ass cheeks on a platter.
Me:
D’Jever notice? We all who are not scientists, seem to enjoy a perfect license to side with the alarmists. It’s only when we show some willingness to listen to something offered by the skeptics that we have exceeded the limitations of our knowledge…and, apparently, caused an offense against some unnamed deity.
Yes. I said “deity.” That’s what I mean.
Hat tip to American Digest.
Bjørn Lomborg: Global Warming and Mt. Kilimanjaro
Monday, December 7th, 2009Every year, more than 10,000 tourists are drawn to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, driven in no small part by the fear that the mountain’s magnificent ice will soon melt.
Mary Thomas lives not far from their path, on the southwestern slopes of that mountain, but tourists do not come to her town of Mungushi.
At 45, Mrs. Thomas is a widow. Her husband died of complications from HIV/AIDS; she too was diagnosed as HIV positive. “When my husband’s family found out that I had HIV, they isolated me and took my house,” she told a Copenhagen Consensus researcher in June. “Before I got HIV I never expected to live like this and be so poor. I had a good house and food on the table and I was living a good life.”
:
For Mrs. Thomas, arguments over the state of the ice are irrelevant. When she was asked by a Copenhagen Consensus Center researcher what donors and the Tanzanian government should do, she doesn’t think for long. “Education is the first priority,” she says, “and it should provide proper understanding of HIV and reduce the stigma. The next priority is micro-finance so people can have the chance to become self-reliant.”As she puts it, “There is no need for ice on the mountain if there is no people around because of HIV/AIDS.”
Lomborg has been making arguments of this type for awhile, that the priority needs to be on food, treatment of epidemics, and education, and that the efforts to fight the global-warming boogeyman would distract from those. He makes a persuasive case. When “developed nations” reduce their carbon footprint, it has a non-neutral effect on the world’s poor, and this effect is not a helpful one.
There does exist, at the most respected levels of the UN authorities on climate change, a certain delusion that the boom can be lowered on “developed nations” while leaving the “developing nations” alone economically. One has only to crack open the last IPCC report and flip through it looking for those terms. They’re everywhere. It’s in the way the committees are set up, it’s in the way the “peer review” is conducted within the UN. This is all based on an isolationist myth. Fact of the matter is — as the wealthier nations take their steps to become cleaner, their economies are going to start sucking…and the suckage will be rapidly exported to the third world.
And really, suckage is what it is all about. This isn’t about climate, it’s about psychology. Some people have a fear of success, and with that, a jealousy of it. Our businesses are destroying the planet, supposedly — cattle are not emitting methane that warm the planet, and there is no need to worry about industry in…China, or India. No, it’s those big bad corporations in the United States.
But how many people just like Mary Thomas, would see their already impoverished situations deteriorate even further as we struggle to reduce the CO2 saturation in the atmosphere, from 0.038% to…uh…0.038%?
Sen. Tom Hayden: I’m Stripping the Obama Sticker Off My Car
Sunday, December 6th, 2009Revealing, albeit not surprising:
Obama’s escalation in Afghanistan is the last in a string of disappointments. His flip-flopping acceptance of the military coup in Honduras has squandered the trust of Latin America. His Wall Street bailout leaves the poor, the unemployed, minorities, and college students on their own. And now comes the Afghanistan-Pakistan decision to escalate the stalemate, which risks his domestic agenda, his Democratic base, and possibly even his presidency.
The expediency of his decision was transparent. Satisfy the generals by sending 30,000 more troops. Satisfy the public and peace movement with a timeline for beginning withdrawals of those same troops, with no timeline for completing a withdrawal.
Obama’s timeline for the proposed Afghan military surge mirrors exactly the 18-month Petraeus timeline for the surge in Iraq.
:
This is not like the previous conflict with Bush and Cheney, who were easy to ridicule. Now this orphan of a war has a persuasive advocate, a formidable debater…
“Easy to ridicule.” There’s a window into the hard-left liberal mind.
In my list of Fifty Fucking Sick Things, items 10-13 deal with liberals directing a frothy rage toward women, blacks, Jews and homosexuals who happen to believe in something conservative — a special nastiness that will not ever be experienced by six-foot straight white guys keeping all twenty-one digits, like myself. President Obama, perhaps, is experiencing this from liberals like Sen Hayden.
Bush was a dimwit, Darth Cheney was evil.
Obama cannot be caricatured. So it’s time to haul out that special white-hot napalm. Hayden, to his credit, buttresses this dripping bile with something resembling a coherent argument; many other lefties don’t bother to go this distance, the bile is good enough.
Still and all, the recommendations are something, aren’t they? All theory, no practice. It’s been quite a while since you’ve heard a hardcore bay-area liberal say “they should do xxx, it was tried in yyy back in zzzz and it worked pretty well.” No precedence. All gonna-dooz. No have-dunz.
FrankJ’s one-liner is a more than apt response to Sen. Hayden’s proposal, methinks:
Hippies are for punching, not for getting foreign policy advice from.
They experience friction in their own lives when their theories butt up against reality. President Obama has done a wonderful job representing the interests of those theories, against reality. This week he represented the interests of reality against theory. He didn’t want to; He was backed into a corner. But regardless of that, now He’s asking the other side to do some compromising in the middle of the split-second fender-bender…the other vehicle is absorbing some of the impact…and this does not fit in well with their mindset. They aren’t accustomed to it.
So out come the sticker-scrapers.
The Top, The Bottom, Everything In Between
Saturday, December 5th, 2009This is just cool.
Mine!
Saturday, December 5th, 2009Cinematic wonderfulness.
Obama voters right there.
“Calm Down”
Saturday, December 5th, 2009I’m liking that “oooohh,” nice touch. Bad handling by Bagdad Bob Gibbs.
Imagine Glenn Beck having an exchange like this.
Robert Gibbs is a man from whom I perceive precious few redeeming qualities. He’s a toad. And I hope a platter of frogs-legs comes out of this.
Hat tip to Hot Air.
You As**oles Need to Stop Your Character Assassination
Saturday, December 5th, 2009This is all over memorandum so I could be excerpting and handing out hat tips all night long.
And I’m sure that would be a lot of fun. But I’m having all I can stand just watching the clip, and writing that headline above.
Buckstaposition
Saturday, December 5th, 2009Buck, like millions of others, prefers Fox News over CNN. He’s offered this juxtaposition of videos to explain why. Do you think this makes the case?
Yep…grown-ups, versus children.
It isn’t that right-wingers (or centrists, if you’re positioned to see things that way) are or more less inclined to see issues in an “us-versus-them” dynamic than left-wingers (or centrists, if you’re positioned to see things that way). What it is, is that if you’re a left-winger we tend to give you a pass. Left-wingers are revolutionaries by nature. That is their history. They are grown-up hippies. And so we’ve come to expect it out of them; every single issue that comes along, they see it in terms of “our side” and “their side.” One is left with little reason to conclude they’ve retained any capacity — any at all! — for seeing anything, anywhere, in any other way. Blue & Gray. Lilliput and Blefuscu. Lancaster and York. Elois and Morlocks. Jets and Sharks. Crips and Bloods. It’s their view of the world, they aren’t stigmatized for it.
You haven’t long to wait before you hear of a right-wing conservative talk about an “enemy camp,” to be sure. But it’s a far more rare occurrence on the right side for this kind of twaddle to be served up as supposedly thoughtful news commentary. Bill O’Reilly might drift down a little bit further, somewhere into this general zone. He might call someone a “pinhead” — some individual who’s said or done something to merit it. And the lefties will land all over him for it. And imagine — just imagine! — Brit Hume commenting on President Obama meeting with SEIU officials, wondering aloud what our President is doing having talks with the enemy. Oh, my goodness, the hijinks that would ensue. But Matthews calls West Point enemy territory, and that’s all good. Ridickerous.
Another thought: Sad to say, but our current President owes his victory to several jackasses just like Matthews. Folks who dutifully trudged off to the polls on a Tuesday thirteen months in the past, then later that day squealed with delight as His Holiness proclaimed victory. Then, in the weeks that followed, bellowed with bellicose triumph as the winter air cackled with with the spark of this stuff called “hope.” Divisions healed, and all that.
Obama makes a speech at West Point and the hubbub distills down to a plaintive wailing of “What the heck are ya doin’? That’s the enemy!”
No sense of irony whatsoever. Vote for a healing of the divide, breathlessly anticipate a healing of the divide, and then protest vehemently against any move toward a healing of the divide. All in one, smooth, fluid motion. They think they’re being consistent, and maybe in their surreal, tie-dyed universe, they are.
Too much funny stuff smoked back in the sixties, I reckon. Pretty damn sad. National tragedy. An entire generation of people who can’t think in a straight line.
Next time the arguing starts up about Fox News I’m linking to Buck’s post, or to this one. This is a rather serious problem. It afflicts more than the afflicted, because how in the world are we going to gain access to serious news, if we lose our ability to define what it is?