At least she left the comments

At least she left the comments -- none of which are supportive of her -- in place. That, in itself, is worthy of note.

Jenny Erikson: How My Husband Found Out I Was Leaving Him

Edit: 2013\12\06
The blogger 'Malcolm the Cynic' weighs in

Click Baby

K T Cat: Hilarious!

Stupid 'Atheist' Tricks V

I just happened to see this over at Uncommon Descent, and thought I'd share it with Gentle Reader --
Barry Arrington: If I Made This Stuff Up No One Would Believe Me

Mark Frank: “PVH is surely right that it is always possible you are wrong about an objective belief.”

Barry: “Mark, is it possible that that statement is wrong?”

Mark Frank: “Yes”

to which Mark Frank replied:

Can anyone explain to me what Barry finds ridiculous about this? I made an assertion. Like all assertions I might be wrong. Clearly I think I am right, but I am fallible.

The typical 'atheist' or 'skeptic' (or 'Science!' fetishist) simply doesn't *think* ... neither about what "the bad guys" say, nor about what they themselves say; even *after* it has been pointed out that there is a logical flaw in what they assert, they do not rationally/logically examine it to see the flaw for themselves.

What happened here is that in one easy step, Barry Arrington used the "Skeptical" game Mark Frank was playing against the game itself ... and against Mark Frank's 'Science!' fetishism.

Here's how the "Skeptical" game works --

You, not being a self-proclaimed 'skeptic' and paragon of 'Reason!' and 'Science!', that is, not being a God-hater, state (or even argue) 'X'.

Now, 'X' may or may not have anything directly to do with God or morality or other such "offensive" topics, but if it leads to God or morality or so forth, then the 'skeptic', being a paragon of 'Reason!' and 'Science!', simply *must* deny it, denegrate it, and "prove" that you're an idiot.

So, the 'skeptic', that a paragon of 'Reason!' and 'Science!', when he can't attack what you've said on rational and logical grounds -- as he generally can't -- resorts to various forms of irrationality and illogic. Currently, one of their favorite means to denegrate the ideas they hate is play the "Radical Skepticism" card, that is, to simply deny that any knowledge is possible.

Understand this: Mark Frank, and PVH before him, didn't show any error or flaw in whatever it was that someone else had said which they woshed to deny. Instead, simply by asserting "that might be wrong/incorrect", they magically transformed it into a wrong/incorrect statement or argument.

And, if you, trying to be "civil", let them play the "Radical Skepticism" card, or worse, agree with its premises, then, for their purposes, they "win". For, keep in mind, such God-haters don't care about getting at the truth of reality, but care about getting rid of God, somehow, anyhow, and about silencing anyone who is trying to discover or explicate more about God.

==== Edit: 2013/12/02
The explanation for the fact that Mr Frank (and PVH before him) was playing an intellectually dishonest game, rather than demonstrating actual skepticism, has to do with the nature of logic and logically valid reasoning --
1) when one starts with true premises, and reasons validly (i.e. logically) from them, then it is impossible for the conclusion to be other than true;
1a) when one starts with true premises, BUT reasons invalidly (i.e. illogically) from them, then it is possible for the conclusion to be either true or false ... for it it not logically connected to the premises;
2) when one starts with false premises, and reasons validly (i.e. logically) from them, then it is impossible for the conclusion to be other than false;
2b) when one starts with false premises, and reasons invalidly (i.e. illogically) from them, then it is possible for the conclusion to be either true or false ... for it it not logically connected to the premises;
3) when one starts with possibly true premises, and reasons validly (i.e. logically) from them, then it is possible for the conclusion to be either true or false ... this is because the premises may have been false, after all -- that is, such a conclusion *may* be a case of 1) or of 2);
3a) when one starts with possibly true premises, and reasons invalidly (i.e. illogically) from them, then it is possible for the conclusion to be either true or false ... for it it not logically connected to the premises AND the premises may or may not be true, after all -- that is, such a conclusion *may* be a case of 1a) or of 2a);

Had Mr Frank been demonstrating actual skepticism about whatever it was he wished to deny, he might have attempted to show that the premises were false; he might have attempted to show that the reasoning from the premises was logically invalid; lastly, he might have attempted to show that the truth-value of the premisses is unknown, and thus, though the resoning may have been logically valid, the conclusion cannot be trusted as being true.

He *pretended* to be taking the third tack, simply by asserting his "conclusion" that the thing he wished to deny was possibly false: either because the premisses were possibly false or because the reasoning was possibly invalid.

Ilíon, do you see what's happening here?

B.Prokop: "Ilíon, do you see what's happening here?"

Oh, I do, indeed! "What's happening here" is that B.Prokop was demonstrating his leftist intellectual hypocrisy. If Gentle Reader really needs me to flesh this out, I will, so long as you help me see what you're not quite getting.

MEANWHILE, for Gentle Reader's edification and/or education, here are a number of recent new items illustrating what *really* goes on under systems of socialized medicine ... of course, these news items are "via ideologically-filtered media, i.e., an alternate (un)reality", and are thus not at all to be trusted nor given any credence --

From Denmark: LifeNews.com: 19-Year-Old Recovers as Doctors Start to Harvest Her Organs -- I've linked to horror stories like this before, both in Europe and in America. It's apparently worse in Europe, for their official protocols seem to be more relaxed than ours, but it happens here, too.

"Carina’s family is now suing the hospital for damages. Her family’s lawyer claims that she keeps asking whether her doctors were trying to kill her. “Those bandits in white coats gave up too quickly because they wanted an organ donor,” Carina’s father told the Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet."

Exactly! There is a noisy political market for the transplanting of vital organs -- and the concomitant ongoing life-long expense of anti-rejection drugs -- but the human beings who will be strip-mined for those vital organs die individually, quietly, tucked away somewhere where no one needs to think about the moral cost.

From Ireland: (Daily) Mail Online: 'The doctors told us to let Simon die. Instead we tried for a baby... and ended up with twins!': The inspirational film-maker who refused to accept the 'death sentence' of Motor Neurone Disease -- "It's time for you to choose to die [because paying for a machine to breathe for you cuts into our budget for "sex change" operations]"

From the UK: The Telegraph: Pensioner left on end of life pathway for four days -- Understand what is being described here: "doctors" deliberately chose to withhold care -- including food and water -- from this old man; "doctors" and "nurses" *deliberately* ignored his pleas for water for four days; then, with the excuse that his organs were "too damaged", "doctors" again *deliberately* choose to not give him food, but rather to put him into an induced coma ... so that his suffering as he died the death-by-hunger-and-thirst that they had *chosen* to inflict upon him would not be so readily apparent.

This is not a one-off, this sort of thing is done all the time under Britain's NHS; this is official policy! These "doctors" will no more face prosecution than do the Dutch and Belgian "doctors" who openly euthanize "patients" who not only didn't ask for it, but actively declined it.

I had previously linked to these stories --

From the Belgium: The Telegraph: Belgian killed by euthanasia after a botched sex change operation

From the Belgium: (Daily) Mail Online: Deaf twins who discovered they were going blind and would never see each other again are euthanized in Belgian hospital

Here is a comment by the blogger 'Wintery Knight' explaining *why* socialized medicine does and must produce such monstrous results -- Wintery Knight: Doctor shortage: how Obamacare makes Americans lose their doctors

The problem is that when government controls health care, they spend the money on things that will buy them more votes. People who need expensive care like this definitely do not get treated. In government-run health care, government takes control of the money being spent by individuals on actual health care in the private sector. They then redirect that money into public sector spending on “health-related” services. Instead of helping people who are really sick, government-run systems cut lose those sick people and concentrate on buying perfectly healthy people things like condoms, abortions, IVF and sex changes. They spread the money around to more people in order to buy more votes. The main goal is to get the majority of people dependent on government so that they continue to vote for bigger government. The few people who need expensive health care? They can just go die in a ditch.

Concerning the Belgian woman who was "killed by euthanasia after a botched sex change operation", my comment at the time was this: "So, rather than actually trying to help this poor confused and mentally-ill woman, the "liberal" answer was to surgically mutilate her sexually (probably at tax-payer expense) ... and then, since that didn't actually help her, as of course it could not, the "liberal" final solution is to put her down."

Can you not see 'Wintery Knight's' explanation being worked out? Before the "sex change" operation, she was perfectly healthy" -- physically, though not mentally nor emotionally. What she *needed* was to understand and incorporate into her psyche the truth that her mother's hatred of her had nothing to do with her, nor her body, nor her sex.

But, there is political hay to be made in using government force and violence to compel those it controls to pay for "sex change" operations, and far less in trying to actually help people as they really need. So, off to be mutilated she goes! And, when it inevitably becomes clear that she's still enslaved to her mother's hatred of her, off to be murdered she goes!

What the poor woman needed was spiritual freedom (which comes, ultimately, only from God) from her mother's hatred of her, what she got is death.

Mrs Obama is a 'Birther'

For the second time recently, Bob Prokop, a leftist from Victor Reppert's blog, who has mysteriously taken to reading and commenting here (and who is constantly amused by his own witticism of equating my opposition to the imposition of leftist tyranny upon free-born Americans with advocating "Hell's Own Constitution"), has questioned whether I am a "birther" (*).

I am not.

However, Michelle Obama is a "birther" -- I have seen at least two videos of her expressing her "birtherism" before the Democratic Party handlers taught her to shut up about the matter.

Here is a video of Mrs Obama, in 2008, addressing the Perversion Caucus of the Party of Perversion (and Death), referring to Kenya as Barack Hussein Obama's "home country" (see the :40 to :47 mark) --

Think about this: back in 2008 -- before he and his handlers realized that they'd better change the issue -- BHO's own wife, who had, as she says, "lived with him for twenty years", *believed* and *said right out in public* that Kenya was his "home country".

Now, as I've pointed out multiple times, *where* Barack Hussein Obama, Jr, was born is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether he meets the Constitutional requirements to occupy the office of President of the United States. Nevertheless, the Democrats had tried, and so far succeeded, to use the issue of *where* he was born as a red-herring to deflect attention from the real issue: Is Barack Hussein Obama a natural born US citizen? (hint: no, he is not, and his failure to be a natural born US citizen has nothing to do with his birth-place) and to tar those who point to the *real* issue as "birthers", on par with "911 truthers".

The Republican Party and their shills have been happy to cooperate in this Democratic Party red-herring ... for they want someday to run Mario Rubio or Bobby Jindal or Ted Cruz -- none of whom are natural born US citizens -- for the presidency without having to worry about the pesky Constitutional requirement.

This is how Republics die.

======

(*) The second instance of B.Prokop accusing me of being a "birther" is here.

The first instance of B.Prokop accusing me of being a "birther" is here. NOTE: I had explained to him at that time, now nearly four months ago, that I am not a "birther"; I had explained to him at that time *why* I refer to the Obamanation as an 'alien' (regardless of where he was born); I had explained to him at that time *why* (though, there is more I could have said) the Obamanation is not Constitutionally able, thus not legally able, to occupy the office of President of the United States.

But, B.Prokop is a leftist ... so none of that matters. All that matters is protecting the brand; or, as in this case, protecting the face that represents the brand ... so long as that face still looks useful.

Obamamandias

Douglas Wilson: Obamamandias

Trailer Of The Day

Bob Parks: Trailer Of The Day

God in the Dock - Tragedy and Trilemma

by way of Brutally Honest -- Dr Bryan Cross: God in the Dock: Tragedy and Trilemma

Then [concerning his son's death] at some point while still pounding on the wheel and repeatedly interrogating God with no reply forthcoming, a kind of trilemma began to form in my mind, and I gradually realized that under each of its three horns what I was doing was silly and pointless. Either God did not exist, or God was evil, or God was good. In what I had witnessed in Joshua's suffering, any God who was morally indifferent or 'neutral' or apathetic was just evil. If God did not exist, my complaining was silly and pointless, because in that case nobody was listening. And if God were evil, then my complaints were also silly and pointless, because there would be no point complaining to an evil deity about ill treatment, since if he were evil he wouldn't care about failing to be good. I realized by this process of reasoning that my act of complaining to God about an injustice could only make sense if God is good. But then, of course, if God, being God, is good not by participation in goodness or by derived goodness, but as Goodness itself (ipsum bonum), then my act of complaining to Him also did not make sense because in that case He certainly has a good reason for allowing my son's suffering and death to happen, a reason I cannot presently see. I would be complaining to Goodness itself about its behavior, as though I know Goodness better than Goodness knows Goodness, and as though I know better than Goodness how Goodness ought to run things. And that too would be silly and pointless (and arrogant), because one can't show up Goodness by appealing to Goodness. Any attempt to do so only shows up one's own insufficient understanding of Goodness, and is thus self-refuting. The proper response, if God is Goodness, would not be to rail against Him but instead to trust Him, even if I never found out the good, justifying reason for Joshua's death, even if for the rest of eternity I never could find out that reason because it was so far above my finite comprehension.

The "argument from pain", aka, "the argument from evil", is the best arrow in the quiver of God-denialism ... and yet it actually *supports* Judeo-Christianity. To put it another way, at best, God-denial is a category error.

This is the trilemma Dr Cross came to see --
1) God is not ... in which case, railing against injustice is pointless. Who is listening? Who gives a damn about it? Who is going to do a damned thing about it?
2) God is, but is *not* Goodness Itself, and may even be wicked (*) ... in which case, railing against injustice is pointless. Who is listening (except maybe to gloat like a Bondian villain)? Who gives a damn about it? Who is going to do a damned thing about it?
3) God is and *is* Goodness Itself (*) ... in which case, railing against injustice is pointless, for he already knows, and he has already decreed the judgment against it, and has already fixed the time of justice and restitution.

If you say you trust God ... then *trust* him.

And, if you deny God, or deny that he is Good ... then shut the Hell up, for you have nothing to say.


(*) Now, there are whole other arguments that show the logical incoherence, and thus the absurdity, of the propositions "God is wicked" and "God is not Goodness Itself", but that's not our concern here.

And, of course, the proposition "God is not" is also absurd, for among its many absurd entailments is the absurdity that "Oneself is not". But, likewise, that is not our concern here.

The concern here is to help one see/understand/grasp that the "the argument from evil" is actually childish, in the negative sense: for it is not actually an argument at all, but is rather an appeal to emotion and it gets is "umph" from the studied *refusal* to maturely-and-rationally consider the matters of good-and-evil, in general, and/or one's pain or suffering.

An amazing (and amusing) juxtaposition

Canceled health care plans to get one years extension, president says --

WASHINGTON (AP/WJLA) - Admitting that his administration “fumbled” the healthcare rollout, President Obama made steps on Thursday in order to fix the beleaguered Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Obama said that Americans whose insurance would terminate at the end of 2013 will now be able to stay on their current plans for another year.
...

Even if he really were legally the President of the United States, we doesn't *have* the authority to suspend any part of "his signature legislation" ... not that any such legal niceties have every bothered him or his supporters.


White House: Obama would veto Republican healthcare bill --

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama would veto a bill sponsored by a Republican congressman that would allow insurers to offer healthcare plans slated to be canceled because they do not meet the new U.S. healthcare law's standards, the White House said on Thursday.

The veto threat came hours after Obama, under fire for the botched roll-out of his signature domestic policy achievement, said health insurers could extend by at least one year policies that were due to be canceled because they do not comply with new minimum requirements.
...

Meanwhile, Congress does have the authority to amend or suspend any portion of this illegal (*) so-called law, or to scrap the whole damned mess.

Open your eyes, Americans: this alien interloper thinks he’s an Absolute Monarch. This is how republics die, this is how tyrranies are born.

Mark Steyn:

Hewitt ... pointed out to Steyn that today’s move could postpone the worst of Obamacare to just before next year’s midterm elections.

“I think that’s true. I mean, he keeps using this line, oh he’s ‘only inflicting catastrophe on fewer than 5 percent of the population,” Steyn said. “That’s because he unilaterally decided to suspend the employer mandate for a year. Otherwise, a lot of spouses and children, for example just to take the most obvious thing, would be getting kicked off employer-based plans round about now. Now obviously this is unbecoming to a republic, to any kind of theory of responsible government. One of the indictments of George III that you excitable revolutionary colonials made was that he was arbitrarily suspending laws that had been passed and refusing to implement them according to his regal whims. Obama, having wrecked people’s lives by forcing insurance companies to comply with Obamacare, is now ordering them not to comply with Obamacare. I don’t even think that’s doable, but if it were doable then this would no longer be a free society.”

(*) It's unConstitutional, and thus illegal, no matter what those fools on the supreme Court have decreed.

Lena Dunham and the Politics of P****

Robert Stacey McCain (The Other McCain): Lena Dunham and the Politics of Vagina

"If you’ve ever watched Girls or have been aware of the things Lena Dunham says, you’d see a portrait of narcissism and entitlement.
…
“It is the idea that the women on the show are entitled to men wanting them. Despite any flaw — whether it be physical, emotional, or a lack of accomplishments — they are owed a relationship with a man. Based on this premise, any poor behavior or lack of interest in their appearance cannot be the cause of why he didn’t call back.”
– Amy Otto, Nov. 12

...
Annica Benning says this controversial ad for ObamaCare “portray[s] women as giddy, sex-starved and desperate”:

Amy Runyon-Harms, executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, defended them, saying: “People get upset when you portray women as independent.”
That is interesting — independence can now be defined based on sexual promiscuity?
In fact, the underlying message is not independence, as government-funded birth control doesn’t convey any form of personal independence, certainly not financially.

But that’s just it, see? Democrats want women to be “independent” from men — i.e., unmarried — so that they will then be dependent on government. And if these allegedly “independent” women are “giddy, sex-starved and desperate,” they’ll eventually need a scapegoat to blame for their miserable loneliness: Blame the oppressive patriarchy! Blame “corporate America”! Blame Republicans!

Defining “independence . . . based on sexual promiscuity” not only undermines marriage, but it also (a) results in women being infected with diseases, for which they require medical treatment, (b) creates demand for legalized abortion, and (c) fosters unwed motherhood, with more children growing up in poverty. The propaganda of Lena Dunham thereby helps grow the Democrat Party coalition.

And what about basic Judeo-Christian bourgeois morality, which Engels derided as “false consciousness”? It’s not just about sex, you know. The strongest possible condemnation of the liberal Welfare State can be summarized in four words: Thou shalt not steal.

It is fundamentally wrong to demand that government give you “free stuff” you have not earned, paid for by the taxes of people who work hard for their money. Amy Otto notices the “narcissism and entitlement” in Girls, which we might also call simple selfishness.

An irresponsible, self-centered attitude — Veruca Salt demanding, “I want it now” — is really what contemporary feminism is all about. Disassemble the ideological infrastructure, get past all the elaborate pseudo-intellectual rhetoric, and feminism is about the avoidance of responsibility: “Bad things happen to me because . . . sexism!”

It’s like the lazy young hippie punk with no skills who nevertheless refuses to take a “dead end job” at a fast-food restaurant because he’s not about cooperating with The Capitalist System, man.

And most of the so-called women in North America totally buy into this mindset ... regardless of the fact that most of them will say, "Oh, but I'm not a feminist!" (Which mostly just means "I'm not a lesbian")

"Disassemble the ideological infrastructure, get past all the elaborate pseudo-intellectual rhetoric, and feminism is about the avoidance of responsibility"

That's true of the whole spectrum mental illnesses which comprise leftism.

The ultimate goal of leftism -- of which feminism is just one tool -- isn't socialism; that's just (currently) the most effective way to get there. The ultimate goal is statism/totalitarianism.

I Have Seen the Future, and it Is Idiocy

Dalrymple: I Have Seen the Future, and it Is Idiocy

... The contrast between the authorities’ alacrity on one hand in preventing innocent filming for a matter of a few minutes (the policeman said authorization was necessary because it might cause a disturbance, and, being kind, I refrained from laughing), and on the other their slow response to a nasty incident that might have ended in murder, was emblematic of the modern state’s capacity to get everything exactly the wrong way around, to ascribe importance to trivia and to ignore the important. There are, of course, many more employment opportunities in trivia, since there is much more that is trivial in the world than is important.
...
It often seems, then, as if modern state authorities live in a looking-glass world: What normal people regard as important is for them of no importance, while what they regard as of supreme importance normal people regard as of no importance. For them the respectable are suspect and the suspect respectable. A tweed jacket is a sign of menace, while a broken bottle is a sign of harmless intent. ...

Coming soon to a country near you

USA Today: Venezuelan military seizes major retail chain --

CARACAS - Thousands of Venezuelans lined up outside the country's equivalent of Best Buy, a chain of electronics stores known as Daka, hoping for a bargain after the socialist government forced the company to charge customers "fair" prices.

President Nicolás Maduro ordered a military "occupation" of the company's five stores as he continues the government's crackdown on an "economic war" it says is being waged against the country, with the help of Washington.

Members of Venezuela's National Guard, some of whom carried assault rifles, kept order at the stores as bargain hunters rushed to get inside.

"I want a Sony plasma television for the house," said Amanda Lisboa, 34, a business administrator, who had waited seven hours already outside one Caracas store. "It's going to be so cheap!"
...
"This is for the good of the nation," Maduro said. "Leave nothing on the shelves, nothing in the warehouses … Let nothing remain in stock!"

The president was accompanied on television by images of officials checking prices of 32-inch plasma televisions.

Daka's store managers, according to Maduro, have been arrested and are being held by the country's security services. Neither Daka nor the government responded to requests for comment.

Maduro has long blamed the opposition for waging an economic war on the country though critics are adamant that government price controls, enacted by Chávez a decade ago, are the real cause for the dire state of the economy.

With such a shortage of hard currency for importers and regular citizens, dollars sell on the black market for nine times their official, government-set value. Prices, at shops such as Daka, are set according to this black market, hence the government's crackdown.
...

"Too extreme," you think? "That will never happen in the US!"

But it will -- it's all-but inevitable -- because most of the political elites and a good half the people already subscribe to the faulty -- and immoral -- reasoning used to justify the looting.

What do you think will happen to the economy ... and to society ... then? What do you think will happen once everyone realizes that what a man has is "his" only so long as "the government" hasn't yet decided to expropriate it to buy votes/popularity?

And, after the inevitable and utterly predictable collapse of social trust, and collapse of the economy, what do you think "the government" will say? Will it be, "Oops! We caused that with our doctrinaire leftist policies and actions; we shall un-do our destructive policies at once"? Or, will it be, "President [Leftist Shill] ordered a military "occupation" of [company X's] stores -- [so as to] force the company to charge customers "fair" prices -- as he continues the government's crackdown on an "economic war" it says is being waged against the country. [X's] store managers ... have been arrested and are being held by the country's security services."

As leftists like to say, "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." What they don't tell you upfront is that those eggs are human heads. Still, it has been over two centuries since the French Revolution, and *every time* leftists get control over the dispensation of state violence, the result is windrows of human corpses. Every damned time. At this late date, anyone who doesn't *know* what the leftists ultimately have in store for him doesn't know because he refuses to know.

Margaret Thatcher is generally credited with the observation that "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." What most people don't want to think about is the fact that before the (current batch of) socialists admit this, as eventually even they must, they are quite willing to convert any number of human lives into money. But, of course, that just shifts the problem with socialism being that eventually you run out of other people's lives.

'Liberal' political response to 'the will of The People'

Bob Parks: Bonehead Of The Day

Republicans Claim Historic Win In Annapolis Mayoral Race
Annapolis City Council considers stripping mayor’s powers
Flashback: MA legislature flip-flops on governor’s senatorial appointment power

Using Annapolis Alderman Ross Arnett and Massachusetts’ desire for one-party rule as precedent, maybe we should make the Virginia governor a “ceremonial” position until a Republican is reelected. That’s only fair, right Dems?

Since the Democratic Party went insane in 1968, they've been even worse about this sort of thing than they were before. This isn't just "dirty politics", this is leftism in action.

Keep this *always* in mind: leftists are always liars, scoundrels and hypocrites; you *can't* compromise with these people, about anything. You might as well be done with it and just cut your own throat.

First, put the guns away

Doug Wilson: You Ain’t Gonna Make It With Anyone Anyhow

...
What the soft Christian left does not appear to understand is that whenever the offering plate is passed, and the collection officer is wielding a firearm and has big, block letters on his jacket, and looks at you meaningfully, the results, however remunerative, are not what you seem to be claiming. The large offering would not be an instance of Christian love, compassion, tenderness, thoughtfulness for the poor, or any of that glow-in-your-heart talk.

Statist redistribution depends upon coercion and violence, pure and simple. It is not love, it is not compassion, and it cannot be supported by appeals to all the Christian happy words. Put the guns away, and then let’s talk about Christian concern for the poor.
...
The left needs to stop its love affair with bossing people around, making people do things, fining them if they don’t, putting them in prison if they resist, and raiding their houses with SWAT teams if someone in authority suspected something. As Charles Krauthammer once put it memorably, liberals don’t care what you do, so long as it is mandatory.
...

I would say that it's not *merely* that "soft Christian left does not appear to understand", but that they *will not* understand.

Wilson's last paragraph touches upon a fundamental difference in attitude and approach between conservatives/rightists and leftists:
* the conservative attitude is "if it's not forbidden, it's permissible"
* the leftist attitude is "if it's not mandatory, it's forbidden"

People refuse to learn from reality and history

Robert Tracinski: Ten Lessons of ObamaCare -- the problem is deeper than ObamaCare: the problem is governmant ... and a population that government has trained to believe that they can live indefinately off the labor of others; that is, to believe that by collectively stealing the liberty of others, they can individually live "for free" and with no loss of their own liberty, or moral worth.

Here are Mr Tracinski's ten lessons:
1. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
2. Regulation stifles production.
3. The power to tax is the power to destroy.
4. No one is accountable.
5. Politicians lie.
6. The press lies, too.
7. The Law of Unintended Consequences.
8. The Law of Intended Consequences.
9. The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
10. Freedom is indivisible.

Do read the whole thing.

Your society on feminism

Wintery Knight: Psychologist claims father is an unfit parent for refusing to yield to son’s demands for fast food -- The cases W.K. discusses (and the millions more like them all across North America) are the direct result of the deliberate goal of feminists, and leftists in general, to destroy the family, to destroy fatherhood, to destroy masculine authority.

Most women reading this next sentence (by which I mean 'women' of whatever chromosomal compliment) are going to shriek like banshees at my “sexist” heresy, but the truth is that ultimately this sort of thing, and much else that is destroying the nation, is the result of our great-grandfathers giving in to the demands of perpetually-dissatisfied females by giving all “women” (*) an acknowledged public voice in the running of the polity. The sad fact is even if a society starts out with almost all its females actually being mature women, once it gives women the vote, human nature – and the politicians’ race to the bottom for votes – ensure that within three to four generations most of the “women” in that society will be exactly the sort of worthless, weak, utterly dependent, yet-continually-boasting-of-being “strong, independent women”, females-stuck-in-junior-high-school that we see around us everywhere.


(*) My intent is to make a distinction between women – mature persons who happen to be female, and who really are "strong, independent women", and of whom there are precious few living in this age – and “women” (some of whom even have XY chromosomes) whose minds are stuck in junior high school.

Hey, It's Almost Chanukah!

Laura Rosen Cohen: Hey, It's Almost Chanukah!

Raped by the police

Vox Day: Raped by the police -- I especially liked the police chief's response/attitute in the newscast video at the first link --

Newsguy: "... Just one question, as the police chief of Demming, what reassurances could you give people, that when the come through your town, that they're not going to be abused or violated by your police officers?"

Police chief: "We follow the law in every aspect, and follow procedures and protocols that we have in place."

Newsguy: "And do you think, in your own opinion, as the chief of police here, do you think that those officers in this particular case did that?"

Police chief: (paraphrased) "[That question is above my pay grade: I have no opinion on the matter]"

She's such a woman

She's such a woman ... and I mean that in a very negative way.

So, I was reading Laura Rosen Cohen's blog, and came across this link, (approvingly) concerning Kathy Shaidle -- and one of her recent reactions to criticism.

So, here's what I saw when I decided to click:

Someone posting as 'Frip88' didn't like *how* she'd written something:

Shaidle: "When he appeared just before Christmas, he was no De Niro. He was no Bronson, either—the word “vengeance” made craggy flesh in the Death Wish (as in, fulfillment) series."

What a horribly crafted sentence.

And, truth be told, it *is* "a horribly crafted sentence".

So -- of course -- Shaidle and her fan-boys/girls simply must respond in the irrational way that most women respond to criticism -- *especially* when it's valid criticism:

Bahoomba: Meow.

brewin: Shaidle is a good writer because she is uncannily good at reading people. And her killer phrases far outweigh her bad.
Grammar nazis are rarely worth reading.

Kathy Shaidle: Hey thanks, Brewin. I don't let the jibes of anonymous jealous unpublished grammar nazi commenters bug me :-)

brewin: I think the operative phrase is "you're not smart enough to tell me how to write" ;-)

Keep on punching above your weight (literally)

RevantDream: Grammar nazis are rarely worth reading.
Hear hear.

Mal: What a crafty semblance of horror.

Peter Crawford: William Shatner is a funny man. Here in Britain he is universally liked due to his guest- hosting appearances on various shows, always genial and often hilarious.

To those who dislike Kathy Shaidle's sentence constructions, I invite you to go back to your dank couches, to tug weepily at the tattered remnants of what was once a proud young manhood.

*IF* one has read Shadle for any length of time, surely one can savor the irony (and hypocrisy) of her reaction.

A case of 'Big Business' takes a hit to the wallet

As we all know, "liberals", with their heartfelt solicitous concern for "the little guy", have a constitutional distrust/hate of "Big Business" (*) -- one of their favorite means of denigrating ideas or arguments they don't like and don't want to deal with is to associate them in some way with "Big Business", a la "Oh, that's just 'Big Oil/Pharma/Ag/etc' speaking ... so it's automatically false (and a lie)" -- so, I'm sure we can expect to see rejoicing from "liberals" all across the land, now that "Big Abort" has taken a hit to its quite ample wallet.

Michael Egnor (quoting Wesley Smith): "If abortion was really only 3% of [Planned Parenthood]..."


(*) except, of course, when they don't

Cargo Cult Modernity

Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog: Government Is Magic