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Monday, April 28, 2014

Just Getting a Drink

Just Getting a Drink

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Sunday, April 27, 2014

DarwinDefender of the day

In responding to someone on his LiveJournal blog, Jordan said, and I responded:
Jordan: I sense a huge double standard here.

Vox Day argues dubious science (creationism) on religious grounds, and he argues dubious sociology (Blacks and Hispanics less able to form and participate in civil society than Whites) based on outdated theories of eugenics. He does not, please note, argue for theocracy or for Nazi-like racial wars. ...

Ilíon: "Vox Day argues dubious science (creationism) on religious grounds, ..."

Actually, that part isn't true. The truth is this: "Vox Day argues *against* dubious science (evolutionism) on rational-and-scientific grounds, ..."


Jordan: I get that you're a crank where biology is concerned. I've made an extensive study of paleontology and am very aware of the interconnecting webwork of evidence that supports the age of the Earth and the reality of evolution. Stop trying to muddy the issue -- you're only making your own side look crazier.


Ilíon: And I get it that there are things that you just *will not* think about.

Do you really imagine that it bothers me that someone like that calls me a "crank"?
And come to think of it, the second part of Jordan's statement ("... and he argues dubious sociology (Blacks and Hispanics less able to form and participate in civil society than Whites) based on outdated theories of eugenics") isn't *quite* true, either.

What is it about DarwinDefenders that they *will not* admit that there are valid rational and scientific criticisms to be leveled against what Jordan calls "evolution"? What is it about DarwinDefenders that when they encounter a criticism of Darwinism something causes their DarLogic Module to short out such that all they can then bleat is "Religion! Danger! Religion! Danger!"

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Survivors

I still haven't watched any more episodes of 'The 100' than the pilot (which I critiqued here). Drew says it gets better, so one of these weekends I may try to catch up with it.

In the meantime, I recommend 'Survivors' as some good science-fiction/adventure/drama worth watching. The premise is at least plausible, the plot-line is (mostly) logical (*) (**) given the premise, and the characters are believable (***). Of course I can tear the plot-line apart; but my point is that it's not so terrible that I can't suspend disbelief.

Sure, the characters do stupid things -- which given their situation are really stupid and potentially fatal -- but their stupid behavior is pretty much what you would expect of the random survivors of a wild-fire flu which killed 99% of all human beings within just a week or so.

Plus, the show isn't simply a vehicle for Beautiful People Who Don't Know How To Stay Dressed.

(*) Overlooking the bit at the beginning where all the people in Britain (except the Survivors), and presumably the world, who hadn't yet presented symptoms nor already died die in a single night.

(***) Overlooking the bit at the end where the virus mutates and starts killing the Survivors whom it never affected in the least the first time around, whereas Abby Grant (and, as it turns out, her son), who *did* contract the flu, and almost died of it the night that everyone else died, and had recovered by the next morning, has the least to fear from it. Oh, sure, she may get sick, but she'll recover.

(**) Overlooking the bits in the middle where the characters just "move on" within minutes after the loss/death or departure of some character they've come to love and/or depend upon.

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Friday, April 25, 2014

'Liberal' race-card distraction to protect statism

Bob Parks: Update: Deceptive-Edit Of The Day

Bob Parks: Video Of The Day

Bob Parks: Deceptive-Edit Of The Day



Mark Steyn: How Now White Cowman?


Truth Revolt: Unedited Tape of Bundy Emerges, Sheds Light on 'Racist' Remarks -- "As always, there's more to the story than what the New York Times says."

Look, leftists are liars, *all* leftists are liars (for leftism itself is a murderous lie): even if what they say is narrowly true, they're using it to lie.

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Thursday, April 24, 2014

Some slopes really are slippery

BobParks: What Gay Marriage (x3) Has Become

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Tuesday, April 22, 2014

In which we learn that I am a heretic

In which we learn (in the comments) that I am a heretic -- Kristor: Good Friday

... but, since I'm right on this one (as explained, which means that the orthodox position is wrong, as explained), I'm not going to sweat it.

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Friday, April 18, 2014

'Free Megan Huntsman!'

Matt Walsh: This woman exercised her right to abort her infants, and now she’s being unjustly persecuted

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Thursday, April 17, 2014

Bono endorses Lewis' trilemma

K T Cat: Well, This Kind Of Explains Why I've Always Liked U2 --
Interviewer: So then, what or who was Jesus, as far as you're concerned?

Bono: I think it's the/a defining question, for a Christian is, "Who was Christ?" And I don't think you're let off easily by saying "a great thinker" or "a great philosopher" ... because, actually, *he* went 'round saying he was the Messiah. That's why he was crucified; he was crucified because he said he was the Son of God. So, he either, in my view, *was* the Son of God, or he was ...

Interviewer: Not.

Bono: No, no! Nuts!

Interviewer: Nut? Yes? Yes?

Bono: Forget rock-and-role "messianic complexes", this is like, I mean, Charlie Manson type delirium. … And I find it hard to accept that all the millions and millions of lives, half the earth, for two thousand years, have been touched, have felt their lives touched, and inspired, by some nutter. I just, I don’t believe it.

Interviewer: So, therefore it follows that you believe he was divine?

Bono: Yes.

Interviewer: And therefore it follows that you believe that he rose physically from the dead?

Bono: Yes.

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Monday, April 14, 2014

Scientism of the Day

Michael Egnor, quoting a Warm-monger -- "The hardest thing about communicating the deadliness of the climate problem is that it isn’t killing anyone. And just between us, let’s be honest: the average member of the public is a bit (how can I put it politely?) of a moron. It’s all well and good for the science to tell us global warming is a bigger threat than Fascism was, but Joe Q. Flyover doesn’t understand science. He wants evidence."

Damn those "morons" in Flyoverland for not understanding "science" and for wanting evidence before they're willing to submit their lives to the arbitrary whims of the Warm-mongers!


By the way, Egnor quotes the Warm-monger, and comments, far more extensively. Do read his post.

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Friday, April 11, 2014

I think I'll be even more skeptical this time

Mail Online: Could you soon be filling up with SEAWATER? US Navy reveals 'game changing' fuel created from water

2014/04/17:
I could be misremembering, but the main photo (of the contraption) in the linked article looks to me like the same photo I'd seen in similar articles a number of years ago.

The problem is that it takes more energy as an input than the system/process outputs. This doesn't mean that such a process can't be useful in some circumstances. But, it does mean that such a process is *still* dependent upon some other energy source, such as fossil fuels, or nuclear, or possibly solar.

So, if the goal is to make portable fuel -- that is, to convert electricity into fuel -- such a process may be useful. But, if the goal is to generate electricity/energy, then it's counter-productive.

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Thursday, April 10, 2014

Gaywalkers, Gaytards, and the Gaystapo

Douglas Wilson: Gaywalkers, Gaytards, and the Gaystapo

Douglas Wilson: Too Thick to Deal With -- "... We are a generation that, in the words of Dabney, are simultaneously sentimental and inhumane. The only way we react with moral outrage anymore is if someone insults our bizarre and disjointed sentimentalist taboos.

But this is not mindless behavior on their part; it is a play they are running. They are running it very successfully. They arbitrarily make more and more things offensive to say, and then well-meaning Christians who want to “maintain a good witness” volunteer to police the boundaries of their new prohibitions. Orwellian double-speak abounds, with Christians who really should know better serving as the double-speak cops. They do this, thinking it our duty for the sake of the witness, when our real duty is to put our foot through the side of every double-painted lie.
"

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Illegal vs Immoral ... And the Leftist War On Liberty

This post is prompted by a comment I recently posted on Victor Reppert’s blog. The context has to do with the leftist-gay alliance’s current moral enthusiasm to label as bigotry not just opposition to “the gay agenda”, but also insufficient enthusiasm for it (see the next-to-last paragraph).

My comment n Victor Reppert’s blog is this --
ozzielionel: "… everything that is legal is not necessarily moral."

And likewise, not everything that is immoral can reasonably-and-practically be made illegal.

And further, since all human laws – all of them that command “Do this” or “Do not do that” – are *always* backed up by the threat of state violence and state-sanctioned violent death, it is incumbent upon a sane, rational, and moral people, who cherish liberty, to keep laws to a minimum.

The root-cause of the problem here -- and most of you reading this will *refuse* to understand this … which is to say, you will *refuse* to move to the intellectual ground from which you can defend your own liberty – is that when the Republicans finally overturned the Democrats’ Jim Crow laws, they didn’t *merely* end the state demand-under-threat-of-violence that some citizens behave toward other citizens as though they were bigots, whether or not they would have behaved that way absent the state threat. Oh, no, not they! Not being content simply to end an injustice, the self-congratulatory civil-rights politicians had to go on and create a new injustice: using the threat of state-violence-unto-death to compel bigots to treat those against whom their bigotry ran as though they loved them.

The *reason* that the leftists are now so easily able to label simple people who simply wish to be left alone (*) as “bigots” who must be persecuted with all the resources of The State is because you, Mr and Mrs America, have already surrendered. You already subscribe to the twisted presuppositions from which they reason – no matter how much you whine about “political correctness gone wild”, all this is just the out-working of the twisted logic to which you already have surrendered.

(*) that would be *you*, Mr and Mrs America
Gentle Reader, until you are willing to defend the legal right of the “bigot” (whether real or so-called) to *be* a bigot, then you are not willing to defend your own legal and moral right to the liberty known as “freedom of association”, which just happens to be one of the fundamental liberties upon which all other liberties, and civil rights, depends. If you are not willing to demand that The State leave the “bigot” the hell alone, then you are not willing to assert your own liberty. Nor deserving of it.

Now, as a moral being, and as a member of society, it is certainly within your sphere-of-concern whether this person or that is a “bigot”. And if you think he is, then don’t deal with him. That’s all you need do … and that’s all you have the moral right to do.

But, as a citizen, it is generally not your business (*) whether someone is a “bigot”. What you do not have the moral right to do is to use the violent power of The State to crush the “bigot”.

(*) One of the few exceptions would be the allocation/spending of tax monies.

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What Would You Have Them Have Done?

RD Miksa: History: What Would You Have Done?

As I commented: "Exactly.

I have always despised the pig-ignorance – when it’s not intellectual dishonesty – of the anti-Crusadesers. I have upon occasion given thought to showing, as so many others have done, that the Crusades were not unjustified (but, rather were long delayed) and that instead it is the current leftist-inspired mind-set of slandering our cultural ancestors that is unjustified. You have written the post I’d like to have written … so I‘ll have to be content with linking to it.
"

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Wednesday, April 9, 2014

What’cha waitin’ on?

Bob Parks rhetorically asks, concerning the anemic sign-up for ObamaCare, "Sixty-six million progressives voted for the president. YOU wanted ObamaCare. .. What’cha waitin’ on?"

And, of course, we all know the answer -- It wasn’t supposed to work out this way (for those leftie voters) -- someone else was supposed to pick up the tab! When reality hits, as it inevitably must -- and leftie voters discover that *they* are that “someone else” – then it’s time to change the rules. Again.

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