Saint Patrick ... and Snakes

As everyone knows, Saint Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland. This is how America ended up with the Kennedys.

'Am I a Body or Do I Have a Body?'

Wm.Vallicella: Am I a Body or Do I Have a Body?

Wm.Vallicella: More on my Non-Identity With My Living Body

[I hope I can find the time to comment upon this]

Leftists always lie

Michael Egnor has a recent post concerning recent events in Araby in light of current and past deliberate actions of the Administration of alleged President Obama -- AND concerning the curious incuriosity of our moral and intellectual superiors in the Team-Obama Press to ask these questions.

Most of the persons who leave comments, such as they are, on Mr Egnor's blog happen to be leftists (and illogical and anti-reason 'atheists' and irrational anti-science DarwinDefenders) ... and the general tone and content of their responses to his post are exactly the sort of dishonesty one expect of leftists (and 'atheists' and DarwinDefenders). Yet, I want especially to draw Gentile Reader's attention to this gem -- "What’s really ironic is that when conservatives talk about hate crime laws they argue against even considering the victim’s sexuality when examining the motives of the perpetrator; fighting against any laws that give that motivation any weight whatsoever. Now, all of a sudden, we need an investigation to see if this terrorist act was also an anti-gay hate crime!

Why the sudden concern? Because Egnor gets to say “Is the Obama administration in a lying frenzy to cover-up the fact that their incompetence and their idiotic effort to add a little Gay Pride to our foreign service”. What Egnor wants is a witch hunt."

'Asking the Wrong Questions'

Laura Rosen Cohen: Asking the Wrong Questions -- "Remember: the only response to "why do they hate us" is "I don't care" whilst simultaneously restocking one's moral, spiritual, philosophical, educational and physical ammunition reserves."

'Understanding New Atheism'

Shadow to Light: Understanding New Atheism

'Life at the Bottom'

Read Theodore Dalrymple’s "Life at the Bottom" online for free

'Why I'm Not a Libertarian'

Jeremy Egerer: Why I'm Not a Libertarian

Or, as I always say, when push comes to shove, when it *really* matters, the libertarians will always side with the "liberals"/progressives. For, at the root of both -isms is materialism and atheism and libertinism.

'Brutally Honest', quoting Fr. Lemieux: "This is why I am not a libertarian, but a conservative"

The World's Largest Daisy Chain

Douglas Wilson: The World's Largest Daisy Chain

Mark Stetn: Two’s Company, Three’s a Positive Role Model

"Gay" "marriage" is, and always has been, about nothing more than the institutionalized destruction of actual marriage.

Vox Day: Gay marriage eliminates motherhood -- "The homogamy advocates often like to ask how government-approved "gay marriage" could possibly affect normal heterosexual marriages. Here is the answer: by eliminating both maternal and paternal status in law. Nor is France the only place this legal assault on the traditional concepts of motherhood and fatherhood are taking place; the California Senate has sent up a trial balloon in its bill 777 which appears to be an attempt to remove the traditional concepts from the state educational system."

Creepiest Rendition of the American Flag EVAH???

Laura Rosen Cohen: Creepiest Rendition of the American Flag EVAH???

Another take

Only those not paying attention

Only those deliberately choosing to not pay attention will be "shocked" by this development.

Bob Parks: ACLU, Single Mom Gets Father-Daughter Dances Banned

In a society in which "discrimination" -- treating unlike things according to their due -- is the ultimate moral evil, in which (the recently invented) "right" to "self-esteem" is more important than the virtue of self-respect, and consequently it is "immoral" and "offensive" to express disapproval either of the "life-style" of causing children to be born bastards (*) or of the legal and social ease with which women discard the fathers of children, well of course it's going to be "discriminatory" to do anything that could be construed as suggesting that, Yes, Virginia, some little girls do have fathers.

Understand, the whole idea of a father-daughter dance is strange; and depending on the ages of the girls, not too far away from creepy. BUT, it isn't the "dance" the "liberals" are condemning, it is the 'father' in the equation.

(*) Hell! in such a morally twisted and degenerate society, it's "immoral" and "offensive" to use the terms 'bastard' and 'illegitimate birth' correctly.

Isn't it amazing

Isn't it amazing that Vox Day's "argument" against (what is called ) 'free trade' and for protectionism (*) *always* relies upon at least misrepresentation, when not outright lies? Free trade and war

The PRC is one huge slave-labor camp. No one engages in 'free trade' with Chinese citizens (there is no such thing in mainland China): any and all trade with (mainland) China is with the PRC, not with any Chinese person.


(*) by which governmental violent force and compulsion is harnessed by the organized and politically connected few so as to compell the unorganized and politically unconnected many to tender unto the few the fruits of the many's labor, in a manner they would not voluntarily do.

===
It is foolish -- and immoral -- to "compromises" with the unjust demands of protectionists. For, having done so, the very logic of the "compromise" itself allows no limit to the "protection" that can, and will, be further demanded.

If a man demands your right arm, and you "compromise" by giving him your index finger, by what logic will you not give him your entire right hand on the next iteration of his unjust demands?

The demand for protection against 'free trade' is the assertion of ownership by the organized few over the unorganized many citizens (or "citizens") of a state.

The flag was probably made in China

Bob Parks: Ex-Bonehead Of The Day -- "The flag was probably made in China."

Kathy Shaidle will be all over this

Kathy Shaidle will be all over this, and I don't blame her: Fake food allergy epidemic raging among kids (via Vox Day)

And the same applies to women (it's almost always women) who are "allergic" to "chemicals" [except, of course, for the ones with which they douse themselves so heavily as to choke others trying to breath the atmosphere of the same planet]: it's just a passive-aggressive ploy to control those around them.


Related, and a must-read -- Jim Goad: Attack of the Killer Racist Peanuts

Touching upon Benghazi and consequences

1) On the significant date of September 11, "radical Islamists" (which is to say, Moslems who take seriously the demands/commands of Islam) attack and overrun the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, hunting down and capturing, then murdering (*) the US ambassador, who happened to have been openly "gay", and three other Americans.

(*) There are reports, and official denials, that he was sodomized before or after (or both) the murder.

2) The alleged US Administration claims that this clearly-planned assult, along with protests at, and attacks upon, US Embassies in other Moslem countries is to be blamed upon not the free choices of the attackers and murderers (**), but rather upon the existence of a piss-poor (**') movie "trailer" that no one had seen until then -- and immediately "apologized" to all Moslems everywhere for the fact-and-right of Freedom of Speech in the US.

(**) Which rationalization Moslems ought to take as an insult, for its logical entailment is that they are not moral agents, as you and I are.

(**') The piss-poor YouTube video is an attempt simply to act-out things Moslems thenselves have proudly said about ole' Mo for more than 1000 years.

3) A few days later, officers of the LA County Deputy show up -- in the middle of the night -- at the residence of the man identified as the source of the YouTube video, to "voluntarily" (***) take him in to "answer a few questions" related to possible violations of his parole (****).

(***) Riiight! And what would have happened had he declined the "request" to "voluntarily" come in to "answer a few questions"?

(****) Really? In the middle of the night? Requiring a falanx of officers to "voluntarily" escort a non-violent 55 year-old man in for "questions"? With so-called journalists as part of the deployment?

4) Does no one recall the deliberate provocations to Moslems of hosting "gay" "pride" events at US embassies in Moslem countries? (for example)

4a) So this is how it appears to stand -- if some private person in America states certain truths about Islam or Mohammed that Moslems don't want non-Moslems to understand, and some Moslems claim that at a pretext to riot and/or murder Americans, then the First Amendment has to go. However, if the US government officially and quite in-your-face endorses behaviors that offend most Americans *and* Moslems, and explicitly makes it a point to wave this red-flag in the faces of Moslem, in their own countries, then ... what?

Is it really plausible that the leftists running our government have our best interest at heart?

[edit: 2012/09/28] The B&R Thursday Matinee

Why You and I Can’t Understand Atheists

Atheism Analyzed: Why You and I Can’t Understand Atheists (nor Marxists, nor Freudians, nor Darwinists; nor leftists and their "liberal" puppets)

edit:
From the same site, something that may make the informed person laugh, perhaps even out loud: Quote of the Day 8.13.12

'Defend the Constitution'

QuickMeme: Defend the Constitution -- if liberalism/progressivism, which is simply the Smiley Face version of hard leftism, is not soundly rejected by America, if the Democratic Party is not decimated in the upcoming elections, and the elections for years to come, then this is a foretaste of all our futures. It is logically and utterly impossible to compromise with those who wish to enslave you. Or kill you.

As I asked the other day, what in the Hell did you think "fundamentally transform America" meant, anyway?

Welcome, Saudi Arabians!

Briefly, today, you were in the majority of my "audience." So, welcome (even if I am utterly mystified as to how you ended up here)!

edit:
I guess I scared off the Saudi (or Saudis), since the pagereads originating from S.A. hasn't gone up.

A Philosopher Defends Religion

Thomans Nagel: A Philosopher Defends Religion

(h/t Victor Reppert )

God's Blessings ...

Congratulations, and God's richest blessings to Mr and Mrs Steven Crowder -- "We did it right."

The Other McCain: She Makes Him Sandwiches

You know that’s got to drive liberal nuts: Steven Crowder’s got the hawwwwt blonde wife — and she’s making him sandwiches.

Next? Have about a dozen beautiful babies.

They’ll never forgive you for that. Or the sandwiches.

Actually, "hot" is what the new Mrs Crowder is not. [edit: Though, taking into account the dress that she deliberately chose to wear as her wedding gown, one has to admit that she may well be a "hottie" wannabe ... in which case, the marriage will fail. In his article, Crowder references a prior article, in which he writes, "Yes, I admit it, I’m in a long-term relationship and I’m abstinent. Scandalous, I know. It’s an incredibly difficult thing to do (mostly for me, because she’s way out of my league)... ". Now, if Mr Crowder really does believe that his wife is "out of his league", and especially if he seduces her into beliving it, then similarly, the marriage is doomed.]

"Hotness" is about the mindset and actions of using one's sexualiy and whatever attractiveness one has as a commodity with which to purchase other tangible or intangible goods. Though, generally, these good are of a tawdry and temporary nature; it's simply the nature of the transaction. Moreover, "hotness" is a commodity with a short shelf-life. "Hotness", being a commodity, has to be used to be of any value ... and its use dramatically shortens its shelf-life.

'Hotness' is about the mindset and actions by which one makes of oneself, whether male or female, a slut.

Steven Crowder:

... Let me preface this column by saying this: my wife (I have to get used to saying that) and I not only waited sexually in every way (no, we didn’t pull the Bill Clinton and technically avoid “sex” sex,) but we didn’t shack up as live-ins and most importantly, we courted each other in a way that was consistent with our publicly professed values.

We did it right.

Feeling judged? I couldn’t care less. You know why? Because my wife and I were judged all throughout our relationship. People laughed, scoffed and poked fun at the young, celibate, naive Christian couple.

We’d certainly never make it to the wedding without schtupping, and if we did, our “wedding night would be awkward and terrible,” they said.

Turns out that people couldn’t have been more wrong. Looking back, I think that the women saying those things felt like the floozies they ultimately were, and the men, with their fickle manhood tied to their pathetic sexual conquests, felt threatened.

I think it’s important to write this column not to gloat (though I’ll be glad to), but to speak up for all of the young couples that have also done things the right way. When people do marriage right, they don’t complain so much, and so their voices are silenced by the rabble of promiscuous charlatans, peddling their pathetic world view as “progressive.”
...

I've written before about those pathetic-and-self-deceiving souls of the "Manoshpere" -- those "Gamers" -- who rail against the suicidal destruction that the variant of leftism known as feminism has unleashed and continues to rain down upon our society ... even as they whinge because they see themselves as missing out on their "fair share" of the booty while there is still booty to be got before the utter collapse.

The "Gamers" claim that they just want good women who will be their wives and rear their children. But, that's not the truth: what they want is a bevy of "hot" young women who will enslut themselves for them when they (the men) are young ... and for there still to be an ample supply of non-sluttish "hot" young women from which finally to choose one to marry when they (the men) are ready to "settle down".

The "Gamers" claim that they want what Steven Crowder reasonably believes he has. The truth is, they simply want no-strings sexual access to the beautiful woman. Which is to say, they don't want a wife, they simply want a "hot" woman to put out at their convenience.

The "Gamers" claim that they oppose feminism. The truth is: they want more of feminism and its hollow promises; the truth is that they're simply bitching because the so-called Sexual Revolution isn't delivering as was promised. And so, their "solution" to that problem is to double down, to turn sexuality into even more of a tool, and a weapon, rather than making of it the gift God intended.

This is, of course, hightly irrational: it cannot be both ways -- if you will make of all women sluts, then all woman are sluts (if only in your own eyes), and there are no "good women" stashed away on some hidden shelf just waiting to be pawed over when you are ready to be "faithful" (for now). If you are not willing to be faithful to your wife *now* -- before you have even met het -- why should anyone expect that you will be capable of being faithful to her ever? (The same goes for women, of course.)

The reason you all, men and women both, are so miserable, is because you are trying to lead your lives as though life were a never-ending singles bar ("meat market"): you make of yourselves sluts, you make of your "partners" sluts ... and then you whine in indignant shock that all you have to show for it is sluttishness, and heartbreak.

Relativism’s Moral Mission

R.R.Reno, in 'First Things' Relativism’s Moral Mission

It's never really over ...

... so long as the citizens continue to allow and lawyers and judges to believe that they are our rulers.

Wm.Jacobson (Legal Insurrection): It’s never really over in Wisconsin, is it? Dane County Judge throws out collective bargaining reform law

Minds, Machines, and Gödel

Jim S (Agent Intellect), quoting J.R.Lucas (from 1961): Quote of the Day (it's a long quote, well worth the read; and his post contains a link to the full paper)

'Better Dead Than Red'

Back in those ancient days when I was still a tadpole, back when 'red' and 'blue' meant much the opposite of what they mean in current American politics, there was a saying amongst true-blue conservatives, and thus much mocked by "liberals" as a prime example of the the "unreasonableness" and "irrationality" of conservatism (*): "Better Dead Than Red"

But, today, when we speak of "Red States" and "Blue States", when the color historically associated with The Left, that is, the color of blood, in now routinely used to denote what passes in America for The Right, it is the "liberals", those puppets of The Left, who believe "Better Dead Than Red", even if they don't explicitly express the saying (**).

In those now remote days, "Better Dead Than Red" meant "it is better that we all, our entire nation, should die, than that we submit to communism". In contemporary leftist-run America, "Better Dead Than Red" means "it is better that we all, our entire nation, should die, than that we face/acknowledge [the 'conservative' nature of] reality".

Lawrence Auster: Our leaders apply the liberal template to the embassy attacks --

Meaning, these were not intentional acts of violence by people who oppose the United States and want to hurt it, but just the “acting out” of whacked-out individuals, the equivalent of a drunken man firing a gun aimlessly on a street. Meaning, the murders of the American diplomats have no meaning. They must not have meaning, because if they do, their meaning is that at least a significant number of Muslims are our enemies. And if Muslims are our enemies, then we must think in terms of “us” and “them.” We must be for ourselves and against them. We must negatively judge them, discriminate against them, defend ourselves from them, and even fight them. But if we did those horrible things, modern liberalism would be kaput. We’d all be Nazis. And it’s better to let ourselves all be killed by senseless violence than to be Nazis.

(*) as though it even can be reasonable and rational to compromise with he who desires of you only that you should die.

(**) Still, given the pop culture reference to red pills and blue pills, is it not utterly fitting that the "liberals", the puppets of the left, are now the blues and the conservatives the reds?

Just One More Finger

Douglas Wilson: Just One More Finger

David Lampo tries to convince us that conservatives, Republicans, and libertarians should rally around in support of gay rights. Unfortunately, in order to make this case, he does not advance a new argument, but rather doubles down on an old confusion about the "wall of separation" between church and state. So this is not the next step in our upward evolutionary development, but is rather the point where a leper has one more finger fall off.
...
I agree with Lampo that, for the most part, the Founders left religious language out of the Constitution (excepting the signing "in the year of our Lord," referring to Jesus). So they left Jesus out of it, except where they didn't, and the standard reaction to this observation shows what would have happened if the Apostles Creed had been written into the Preamble. We would then be told that they "had to say things like that back then," and besides "nobody meant it." The secularists argue from that mythical wall of separation, erected in Thomas Jefferson's personal correspondence [*], but their ingenuity would be fully capable of working around established state churches, and a monarch who is a "Defender of the Faith."

Where we differ is why the Founders did this and, regardless of motive, whether it was wise or prudent to do so. When the Constitution was ratified, 9 of the 13 states were explicit Christian republics. Establishing a Church of the United States was problematic when the varying states had established varying denominations as their state churches. At the time, it was a federalism thing, not a secularism thing. But I have written on this enough elsewhere (e.g. here).
...

[*] And, keep in mind, Jefferson not only had nothing to do with the drafting of the US Constitution, for he was in Paris at the time, but he actively opposed it as it was being drafted, and actively worked against its ratification afterward.

Moreover, being the despicable weasel that he was, after Ratification and the election of Washington as first President under the Constitution, and Washington's appointment of Jefferson as first Secretary of State, Jefferson worked behind the scenes (*) to twart Washington's policies and to discredit Washington himself.

It is Jefferson who set the course the Department of State has followed ever since -- either to work against the policies of the current President or to work against the long-term interests of the United States.

(*) Jefferson knew he could not attack Washington directly, for all the nation loved him; to directly attack him would have been political suicide.

Son of Bork

Douglas Wilson: Son of Bork

... Now I have no problem whatever granting that Romney, considered in isolation, is far, far better than Obama. Dubya was far, far better than Gore or Kerry. Herbert Walker was far better than whoever it was he ran against the first time. But is that the only comparison, the names on the ballot at a given point in time?

No, the story is bigger than that. I grant that Obama is terrible, and another round of him would be double terrible. But how did we ever wind up with Obama anyway? We got Obama because of the big government conservatism, the compassionate conservatism of Bush.

Clinton was gross and bad, and during his administration conservatives were fit to be tied. Now, having had a taste of Obama, conservatives are looking back at the Clinton years longingly. But remember how we felt at the time. So, how did we wind up with Clinton at the time? That happened because George the First raised taxes despite his "read my lips pledge." In other words, squish conservatism opens the door to that which is far worse than itself. That is what squish conservatism does. That's its job.
...
So I grant that Obama is bad and that double Obama will be double bad. Got it. And I grant that Obama will be far worse than Romney if you placed them side by side and kept them there. But who is going to follow Romney? Will it be eight years of Romney, then eight years of Ryan, and then the millennium? Come on. Republicans will do what Republicans do, which is to say, they will screw it up somehow. They always seek to propitiate the gods of bipartisanship. But those gods never answer with fire, even if the Speaker of the House and the members of his caucus dance around the altar, cutting himself with knives. ...

The Chocolate Milk Test

Douglas Wilson: The Chocolate Milk Test

In talking about gay rights, we have to distinguish between different kinds of rights. If someone tries to ramp up the stakes by saying that he is talking about human rights, then we have go on to distinguish between different kinds of human rights.

The first kind of right is a liberty right -- the right to be left alone in certain specified areas. ...

Now in this sense, I absolutely believe in gay rights. Homosexuals are people and habeus corpus applies to them as much as to anybody else. They have a right to a fair and speedy trial. They have a right to not be convicted of a crime on the basis of stupid rumors. In fact, I cannot think of a single genuine right that I have that homosexuals do not have together with me, and for the same reasons.

At this point in the proceedings, someone clears his throat and says, "Umm, marriage? You have a right to marry, and they do not." But "marry" is not an unspecific verb with no direct object. I have the right to marry a woman, and so do they [male homosexuals]. A man and a woman together is what marriage is. The fact that they don't want to marry a woman is their look out. I have a right to own a gun and so does your spinster Quaker aunt. The fact that she doesn't want to own a gun is perfectly acceptable. But what she is not free to do is redefine everything, and say that gun ownership is very important to her, but that for her, gun ownership means owning a quilting rack.
...
But there is more. Liberty rights mean that other entities (like the government or your meddlesome neighbor) have a corresponding duty to respect that right. They respect it by leaving you alone. You buy a gun, and they do not attempt to take that gun away from you. They respect your rights by doing nothing. All they have to be is "not a busybody." In this sense, such rights are negative rights.

This leads us to the other conception of rights, which are not rights at all. They are "positive" rights, in the sense that something must be given to you. These would be things like the right to "affordable housing," or a "living wage." With the gun, you buy the gun and other people leave you be. With the affordable housing, you provide the lack of a house, and somebody else has to buy the house. You provide the need for a job, and somebody else has to pay the wage. Your "rights" understood in this way amount to an obligation on the part of someone else to provide it.

You have a right, and they have a corresponding duty, not to respect what you bought, but rather to buy you something. Your right is purchased with corresponding duties from them. The more freedom you have under this definition, the less somebody else has. So not everybody leaps to do their duties in this regard -- enter the government in order that we have somebody to make them do their duty. The government takes money from them in order to pay for the "right" to an affordable house, a living wage, or a hot lunch.

This notion of positive rights is therefore the intellectual framework of slavers. The former, the idea of liberty rights, is the theological framework for a free society. With liberty rights, you pay for your own gun, and other people leave you alone. With the positive rights, under that definition, say that you had the right to gun ownership. This would means somebody else would have to buy you a gun . . . with a gun pointed at them in case they didn't want to.

So what does this have to do with gay rights? All we have to is ask whether or not anybody is going to have to be coerced in outlandish ways order to establish, say, the right of homosexuals to marry. ...
...
So say that homosexuals are given [by government, rather than by God], the right to marry [others of the same sex], as has occurred in a number of states. Do Christian photographers have the right to turn down the job of shooting the wedding? Do Christians caterers get to say "No, thank you. We don't do gay weddings."? Do the Christian owners of a bed and breakfast have the right to decline being the scene of the honeymoon? No? Well, then, there's your answer. Those driving this particular agenda are no friends of liberty.

I sometimes describe the mentality of soft despotism that surrounds us on every hand as the "free chocolate milk for everybody" mindset. So let this be your litmus test. Do I have a right to buy chocolate milk if I want? Or is someone else being obligated to buy me a chocolate milk whenever I want?

So, after they denied God three times, the cock crowed

The Anchoress: Cleverest Remark on DNC[onvention] and Clinton -- "So, after they denied God three times, the cock crowed; what next?"

Democratic Presidents Produce More Combat Deaths, Too

... or, it is logially impossible reason with "liberals" --

Senator Blutarsky: Democratic Presidents Produce More Combat Deaths, Too -- "Personally, I reject both factoids due to their shared reliance on an assumption of Presidential omnipotence. But I would challenge anyone accepting the jobs claim to offer logical grounds on which to reject the casualty claim."

The point is that the very same logic which attributes pro-Democratic partisan significance to a factoid about "jobs creation" also attributes anti-Democratic partisan significance to a factoid about the filling-up of military cemetaries. Most people, and especially "liberals", won't give the "reasoning" a moment's critical thought when applied to the former circumstance, while utterly regecting it when applied to the latter. -- And this is the essence of intellectual dishonesty; this is what 'being a fool' is all about.

Does anybody else miss the good old days ...

Kathy Shaidle: Romney entertains spectacularly stupid questions from reporters re: 9/11 embassy attacks (a.k.a. acts of war) -- "... Does anybody else miss the good old days, when journalists were just good old fashioned alcoholics and not downright crack heads?"

One of these days

One of these days, you (you know who you are) may finally figure out, or admit, that I'm always right (*). Of course, what you really need to do is not just admit that you erred about a politically manufactured controversy, but that you erred in relying on personal insult to "debate" me concernting an earlier iteration of the same.

(*) There was that one time when I thought I had been wrong, but as it tuned out, I was mistaken.

One true statement

Almost everything Clinton says in this ad is false or measleading, or both -- "Clear Choice" Obama ad. But then, it is Clinton, so what else is to be expected?

The one true statment Clinton makes -- though, as is typical with him, it is intentionally misleading -- is this: "President Obama has a plan to rebuild America from the ground up, "investing" in [blah, blah, blah] ..."

Now, the thing about trying to "rebuild [something] from the ground up", is that you first have to tear it down to the ground, or blow it up, and cart away the pieces.

It's not as though it were exactly news to anyone who had wanted to know, all along, that Obama intends to destroy America-as-we-are. What in the hell do you think "fundamentally transform America" means?

I was actually able to listen to most of it

There is something about rap or hip-hop "music" -- no matter what its agenda -- that grates on me; I just can't listen to that merde. But I managed to sit through most of this -- Who Knew Conservative Rap Existed?

This also is funny

... and everything sports and sports-related is boring to me.

Bob Parks: Video Of The Day

This is funny, too

Fox News: Woodward Book: Pelosi Put Obama on Mute During Stimulus Talks

In one scene during negotiations over the 2009 economic stimulus package, Woodward reports that when Obama called then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to discuss the bill, she put the president on speakerphone so that the group of Democratic lawmakers in her office could hear him, according to a report in The Washington Post.

But when Obama began making an “uplifting speech” over the phone, Pelosi pressed the mute button.

“They could hear Obama, but now he couldn’t hear them,” Woodward writes in “The Price of Politics,” according to the Post. “The president continued speaking, his disembodied voice filling the room, and the two leaders got back to the hard numbers.”

OK, that's funny, all by itself; but now consider her reported denial of having put The Drone on mute:

"That didn’t happen," Pelosi said, according to Current.com. "When the president of the United States is having a conversation, it’s a formal situation. Every call is history so I usually, mostly, I clear the room when I am talking to the President. I clear the room and I take notes and we have a conversation."

I wonder, is it raaaciss to put The Reader of the Free World on mute when he's rambling on about nothing appropriate? Is it raaaciss to report that someone put The Reader of the Free World on mute when he was rambling on about nothing appropriate?

Now this is funny ...

Now, this is funny when one understands and recalls the public posturing (*) of the Fourth Estate.

Bob Parks: Bonehead Of The Day

(*) recall also that most of them subscribe to the dictum laid down by Mike Wallace that they are reporters first, and Americans someplace after that, such that if a reporter knows of an ambush laid for American troops, he is 'duty-bound' to not warn them. Though, at the same time, the troops are morally obligated to save his worthless ass when the so-called enemy turn on him.

Liberalism 101

Alan Roebuck: Liberalism 101 -- "... If you have the insight and wisdom to doubt at least some of the liberalism that people all around you believe, and the courage to maintain your beliefs in the face of the unremitting scorn and ridicule that the left directs against even the most mild apostasy, then you certainly have what it takes to go all the way, and uncover liberalism in its essence. If you are a conservative, I encourage you carefully to examine the liberalism you oppose. If you oppose the effect (mass immigration, same-sex marriage, socialism, etc), you should oppose even more the fundamental cause that makes the effect what it is. ..."

The Irredentist

The Superversive: The Irredentist

In for a penny, in for a pound

The Superversive: In for a penny, in for a pound -- The same pattern, if not yet the same ratio, is true of the US dollar.

Biology is stranger than any of us can ever imagine

Michael Egnor: “I recently called for congressman Todd Akin to quit his Senate race in Missouri because of comments he made regarding the likelihood of conception during rape. … I still disagree with his comment on rape and conception …”

I think it would be better to neither agree nor disagree. To be more precise, I think that how he phrased what he said may well be factually false (though, even there, who knows?), but [that] what he was trying to say may even be true. [Especially when one takes into account that in common usage, 'conception' doesn't mean merely fertilization of the ovum]

Biology is stranger than any of us can ever imagine.

* Medical science says that human girls raised in the same households as their biological fathers enter puberty at a statistically-significant older age than girls raised absent their biological fathers. Strange-and-inconceivable, no?

* What about the ‘Bruce effect’, which has been demonstrated in rodents and ‘proposed’ for at least one primate species? How do we know that something similar (and if so, obviously weaker) doesn’t happen amongst humans? We *don’t* know [that] it doesn’t, and morally we can’t directly experiment to find out. -

What we *do* know is that many cultures, throughout time and place, have “locked their women away” … from strange men. We, because of our strange leftist[-and-feminist]-inspired cultural taboos, attribute this to “sexism” and “patriarchy” … but, what if it was because, throughout time and place, people had noticed that pregnant women exposed to strange men tended to miscarry more often? Would not the people of a culture in which this had been noticed, desirous of children … desirous of the continuation of their own culture … rationally be expected to segregate their women from strange men?

What if one reason that so many modern women are finding it so difficult to get pregnant … I mean, aside from the fact that so many are putting off even attempting it until they are 39 … is that leftism/feminism *demands* that they “work outside the home” … constantly exposed to strange men?

[What if, one of the reasons that some women can successfully carry a pregnancy to term only with "bed rest" is that exposure to strange men increases their likelihood to miscarry? What if it's not so much the "bed reast" as the corresponding-and-accidental separation from strange men that enables these women to bear the child?]

Why do we imagine that our obviously suicidal culture is rational, much less that it is the only rational way to organize a society? What is rational about destroying one’s own culture for nothing in return? (*)

* What about the anecdotal evidence that a woman’s long-term psychological state has some bearing on a woman’s ability to conceive and carry-to-term a pregnancy? Surely, everyone knows a least one couple who had tried unsuccessfully for months, or even for years, and perhaps with many miscarriages along the way, to conceive and bear a child … and then, having resigned themselves that they were barren, and perhaps having adopted, find themselves pregnant.

Thus: On what rational ground is it so inconceivable that a woman’s emotional and psychological state following a rape may have the effect of, say, making more likely a failure to implant of an embryo conceived from the rape?

[(*) edit: Some of my ancestors -- and only four generations ago -- gave up their historical/familial pagan culture so as to integrate into the Christianized "white" Anglo-American culture. I don't give a damn what the "liberals" and other leftists will assert -- the trade was worth it! My ancestors gave to me something far better than what they had naturally received from their own fathers.]

It's already here

In the comments of Vox Day's post called 'That didn't take long', 'Map' writes:

... It gets worse.

Gay marriage followed by polygamy will destroy any biological-basis in parenting. Under polygamy, courts would be able to tell a biological father that he is not the true father of his children and assign "fatherhood" to any possible entity: another man; another woman; the state, etc.

This is all-out war.

But, as Lydia McGrew explains in 'This is not a game', the future result 'Map' envisions is already here.

People who like to think themselves 'conservative' need to get this into their minds: the leftists are intent to destroy all vestage of our historical societies -- they intend to destroy us -- and the "liberals" ... and the libertarians ... are their allies-and-stooges in this war to the death. Further, if *you* who call yourself 'conservative' do not actively work to identify and eliminate from your thinking the false leftist premises planted there during your incarceration in the public-indoctrination centers, along with your constant immersion in "popular culture", then you, too, will end up functioning as a stooge, and ultimately a corpse, to leftism.

If you free yourself from the shackles of leftist "thought" in which you were enchained before you even knew what was going on, you may still end your (physical) life as one more of the vast count of victims of leftism. But, you'll end your life as a free man, and not complicit in your own murder.

Kurt Godel - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition

A video clip: Kurt Godel - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition (hat tip to 'JohnnyB' at Uncommon Descent)

Here is an example of a mathematical truth that cannot be proven by any machine, cannot be proven by any arithmetic logic, but can be grasped/understood by any human mind who is willing to grasp it -- 1/0='infinity' ERGO: the human mind is not a computer ... and no computer will ever be a mind.

And, by the by, while the math problem [1/0=?] cannot be recognized by a machine as being unsolvable by machine logic, the human mind can see, almost immediately, both that it is logically/mathematically unsolvable AND what the solution is. Indeed, to grasp the one is to grasp the other; the two understandings are two sides of the same coin.

This is my transcription of the very last comment of the clip --
"I think people very often, for some reason, misunderstand Gödel, certainly he intention. Gödel was deliberately trying to show that what one might call 'mathematical intuition', [I mean] he referred to what he called 'mathematical intuition' , and he was demonstrating, clearly, in my mind, demonstrated, that this is outside just following formal rules. And, I don't know ... some people picked up on what he did and said, 'Well, he's shown there are unprovable results, and therefore beyond the mind.' What he *really* showed was that for any system that you adopt, which, in a sense, the mind has been removed from it, because you ... the mind is used to lay down the system, but from there on, it [the rules so laid down] takes over, and you ask, 'What's its scope?' And what Gödel showed is that its scope is always limited, and that the mind can go beyond it."

A little pro-abortionist humor

Oleg (a pro-abortinist): "When one side decides to demonize the other, a reasoned dialog is impossible." [edit: <-- that was the humor]

To 'compromise' with wickedness is to surrender to it: you cannot reason with Satan, so don't even try.

The *only* 'reasoned dialog' a moral person can have with pro-abortionists (no matter how they claim not to be pro-abortion) is to keep hammering the point: "Your position with respect to the mass murder of 'little people' still in the womb is grossly immoral, and you cannot offer a rational justification for it that does not also justify the mass murder of 'big people' outside the womb."

Coming soon to a country near you

Andrew Stuttaford, in The Corner: The Noose Tightens -- this sort of thing is just the logical result of the foolish (and frequently dishonest) opposition of certain fools, who do not need to be here named, to 'free trade'.

For the next Dem Spelling Bee

In the comments, 'Eric_MC' suggests that for their next sky banner, the Dems might try "Froward". And, for that matter, to say that someone is 'forward' is no compliment.

Yesterday’s untreated female insanity is today’s 'normal' social policy

For Gentle Reader's reading pleasure, more Kathy Shaidle (Yesterday’s untreated female insanity is today’s 'normal' social policy) -- keep in mind always: leftists *hate* reality, they *hate* existence: they hate the world root and branch, and they would much rather see it -- and you -- be utterly destroyed than to actually work to solve what ails the world.

Count me as a third

Kathy Shaidle: Finally: Two people agree with me that the Paralympics aren’t really that great, actually

Count me as a third ... and remember, my mother was a cripple (*), from birth: I know, as well as any able-bodied person can, what it is like to be crippled in body.

I also despise "handicap parking" -- which is just one more special privileges/victimization lottery for the well-off.

(I'm aware of this Frankie Boyle, and normally I'd agree that he's a boil upon the ass of humanity; but in this case, at least as reported by James Delingpole, he's right.)

(*) In case it was missed, let me emphasize my deliberate use of such an "offensive" word: 'cripple', as in, "My mother was a cripple" ... and I am not ashamed to call it as it was.


edit:
When my mother was growing up in the 1930s, it was common to treat crippled children as though they were 'retards' (*gasp* did he really go there?) and shuttle them off to the hell-holes that were that time's version of "special-needs education". These days, the fashionable 'we' treat them as pets (**) and patronize them. Of course, they also patronize their own children, so in a half-emply/half-full kind of way, perhaps patronizing can be seen as progress.


(**) I especially have in mind that disgusting manner that most women adopt when talking to at small children and pets ... and old people. And "the mentally challenged". If one pays attention, one will notice that this same sing-songy patronizing condescension is also generally employed when talking to at "the disabled" ... which is why it's so commonly used when talking to at old people.