Tuesday, January 16. 2007
A basic summary piece on Jonathan Edwards' view of free will, with a comment about Pilgrims and sex, as quoted: Puritans had a dim view of extramarital relations, but that was because they had a very high view of sexuality in marriage. Love, like the will, needs boundaries and channels; it needs a trusting and trustworthy context. The scholar Edmund Leites has studied hundreds of Puritan sermons about love and sex (there are many), and he has documented how much they preached about the duties to desire and how they saw the marriage bed as the "other altar of love." But they also knew that love, if it is to be sacred, needs a deep set of moral rudders. It needs to be modeled on the way God loves us. For nurturing awareness of the love of God, a vibrant community of faith is needed. For nurturing the love between persons, a faithful marriage is the context.
 This fireplace grate comes highly recommended: Wall of Fire.
 Hadn't realized that Bill of INCD Journal is in Fallujah. From all I have heard, a truly God-forsaken place.
In his way to Iraq, he had the kind of conversation with someone who equates the US with terrorists - the sort of conversation we all can fall into, and then regret. Try explaining the Jacksonian view of the world to a young Icelandic pacifist woman. Bill links to a fine essay by Walter Russell Mead on The Jacksonian Tradition, which I highly recommend, and will re-read. One quote: If Jeffersonianism is the book-ideology of the United States, Jacksonian populism is its folk-ideology. Historically, American populism has been based less on the ideas of the Enlightenment than on the community values and sense of identity among the British colonizers who first settled this country. In particular, as David Hackett Fischer has shown, Jacksonian populism can be originally identified with a subgroup among these settlers, the so-called "Scots-Irish", who settled the back country regions of the Carolinas and Virginia, and who went on to settle much of the Old West—West Virginia, Kentucky, parts of Indiana and Illinois—and the southern and south central states of Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. Jacksonian populism today has moved beyond its original ethnic and geographical limits. Like country music, another product of Jacksonian culture, Jacksonian politics and folk feeling has become a basic element in American consciousness that can be found from one end of the country to the other.
I am a Jacksonian. I feel like the guy in Bourgeois Gentilhomme who learns for the first time that he is speaking prose. Whole essay here.
The NYT reports that 51% of American women are living without a spouse. What are the socio-culturo-politico-psycho-biological consequences of this trend? Besides, of course, expecting the government to fill the role - which it surely will, in once sense anyway, which I will not say here. But, love and comfort aside, who takes out the garbage and replaces the washers in the faucets?
 Tinfoil hats for the WaPo. Moonbattery
World champion freehand circle-drawer. (h/t, Tim Blair) A really big legal show: the Libby trial. NY Sun World's environmentally worst-behaving country. Guess. Flopping Are there active and passive occupations? YARGB wonders. Bloggers? Definitely passive. The French pay homage to Walt Disney Iranian executions. And, furthermore, these folks are living in something akin to Europe's Dark Ages. A quote from the NY Sun's piece on banning the letter X: Among the commission's deeds is the famed 1974 fatwa — issued by its blind leader at the time, Sheik Abdul Aziz Ben Baz — which declared that the Earth was flat and immobile. In a book issued by the Islamic University of Medina, the sheik argued: "If the earth is rotating, as they claim, the countries, the mountains, the trees, the rivers, and the oceans will have no bottom." Another bright light of the commission, Sheik Abdel-Aziz al-Sheikh, recently stopped a government reform proposal aimed at creating work for women by allowing them to replace male sales clerks in women's clothing stores. Sheik al-Sheikh damned the idea, saying it was a step "towards immorality and hellfire." The underlying logic is breathtaking: Women are more protected by buying their knickers from men! Over the years, the commission has rendered Saudi Arabia a true kingdom of darkness. Movie theaters are banned, as are sculptures, paintings, and music, and the mixing of sexes in public.
The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior’s last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his intent is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs. Carlos Casteneda (Thanks, Readers!)
 Meyer, on the new book Reagan the Crusader, at RCP. A quote:
Reagan was elected president of SAG seven times - which makes him among the most successful union bosses in American history, by the way - and as a result he probably engaged in more negotiating sessions with hard-headed corporate CEOs and egomaniacal prima donnas within the union itself than anyone ever elected to the White House. No wonder that, years later, Reagan ran circles around the Kremlin - and around a Democratic-controlled Congress. (Someone once asked the President if it was tough negotiating with the Russians. Reagan replied, "No, it was tough negotiating with Jack Warner.")
The Soros Media Surge. Dem. Project
Monday, January 15. 2007
It actually crossed my mind - as a random notion, not as a plan - to try to live-blog the meeting, which is this week in NYC, as always, at the Waldorf. Of course I am going, as a good excuse to spend a week in NY, see a bunch of shrink friends, and visit with my baby brother and his wife. Definitely catch an Otto Kernberg talk, and any panel with Bob Michels on it - smartest guy I ever met. And Bird Dog has planned a dinner and theater too Friday night, so that's a good deal. But I quickly realized that hardly a soul on earth would be interested in these meetings. If they were anywhere but NY, I wouldn't go. So no blogging about it, unless something truly absurd comes up. Which it will.
 Lee solves the chickenhawk problem.
Teflon Don can write. Walking on History Rick Moran on 24. RWNH. Is this, like, a TV show or something? Cheney has a pair, says Kim. And Rightly So Carter supports terror. Who cares? (h/t, Powerline) LaShawn on education: I strongly advocate Christian parents taking their children out of government schools and homeschooling or sending them to private Christian schools.
Betsy on Steyn on Pelosi Atlas Shrugged - The Movie. This is John Galt speaking... How do you put a 300-page speech in a movie?
 I never was a big fan of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am sorry to say that in Yankeeland, King's Birthday means a 3-day skiing weekend at Okemo, Stratton, Stowe, Sugarbush, Loon, or wherever (if Bush-Cheney-Halliburton has not cancelled all snow) - and little more. I have always been a fan of treating every person with the human respect and consideration they deserve, depending on what they are made of and on how they lead their lives. Being a bit old-fashioned, I still believe that skin color is a matter of no interest or importance whatsoever. If I were a black guy, which I would not mind at all, I would thank my lucky stars, and God, that I lived in America - Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. However, racial equality is important - freedom of opportunity to be the kind of person you chose to be. King's politics were terrible, and I totally disagree with all of them. Why should black folks want socialism any more than white folks? Other than to get the benefit of the exertion of others? Alas, the lure of easy money crosses all human distinctions and categories, doesn't it? But segregation was truly wrong, and I give King credit for courageously taking the leadership of the movement to get rid of that dehumanizing tradition in the South. It was long overdue. Someone had to do it. I'm glad he did, and I am very sorry that he, a man of God, was killed by ignorant, low-life rednecks in doing it. Were he alive today as a grey-haired old guy on Hannity and Colmes (which I wish he were), I think I would still disagree with everything he might say. Still, one heck of a preacher, like his Dad. God rest his soul.
This 1927 22' Chris Craft Cadet, with its original 6 cylinder Chrysler engine, can be had for $52,000. Having beauty in life is one good reason to make money. What's not to like about this boat? And hey, blog brother Right Wing Nation - you need to get over your water phobia. Shrinks sometimes think it's a fear of one's own unconscious: the strange and unknown depths, etc. Dr. Bliss could cure it in one day with her "total immersion" technique in blue water. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. 
 Reposted from Feb, 2005
This excellent, personal essay by Rogert Scruton appeared in The New Criterion in 2005. A classic, and one to which many of us recovering liberals can relate. One quote: By 1971, when I moved from Cambridge to a permanent lectureship at Birkbeck College, London, I had become a conservative. So far as I could discover there was only one other conservative at Birkbeck, and that was Nunzia—Maria Annunziata—the Neapolitan lady who served meals in the Senior Common Room and who cocked a snook at the lecturers by plastering her counter with kitschy photos of the Pope. One of those lecturers, towards whom Nunzia conceived a particular antipathy, was Eric Hobsbawm, the lionized historian of the Industrial Revolution, whose Marxist vision of our country is now the orthodoxy taught in British schools. Hobsbawm came as a refugee to Britain, bringing with him the Marxist commitment and Communist Party membership that he retained until he could retain it no longer—the Party, to his chagrin, having dissolved itself in embarrassment at the lies that could no longer be repeated. No doubt in recognition of this heroic career, Hobsbawm was rewarded, at Mr. Blair’s behest, with the second highest award that the Queen can bestow—that of “Companion of Honour.” This little story is of enormous significance to a British conservative. For it is a symptom and a symbol of what has happened to our intellectual life since the Sixties. We should ponder the extraordinary fact that Oxford University, which granted an honorary degree to Bill Clinton on the grounds that he had once hung around its precincts, refused the same honor to Margaret Thatcher, its most distinguished post-war graduate and Britain’s first woman Prime Minister.
Please read it, if you haven't. We like Scruton. Image: Scruton receiving an honorary doctorate in 1998.
Is passivity always the best response to aggression? Dr. Helen discusses Ace claims Dems will trade deaths for votes. Will the US Survive until 2022? Derbyshire at New English Review. Among other things, he discusses multi-ethnic nations, and central govt incompetence. A quote: Certainly our federal government inspires little confidence. I have a sheaf of credit cards in my wallet, any one of which my local merchants can validate with a quick swipe. Why cannot a prospective employee’s social security card similarly be validated? Because private corporations are approximately 100,000 times better—more efficient, more capable—of doing anything than is the government. In the 1990s I had a job which required me to make occasional phone calls to banks and investment houses, and also to the offices of federal regulatory agencies like the FDIC in Washington. To call a private company with a request, then to call a government agency, was to step through a horological time warp. A business would deal with me more or less well (sometimes less well, to be sure), usually in a single call. To get the equivalent response from a government agency needed a whole week of calls. If anyone picked up the phone at all, I would hear a slow, indifferent voice, irked at having its game of Solitaire interrupted, saying: “She ain’t here today… Oh, he left early…” Would my contact be in the office next day? “Hard to say… I guess…”
Are humans becoming smarter and more moral? Kling thinks so. I'm a skeptic, but he makes the case at TCS. A quote: But perhaps the focus on scientific ideas still misses a key component of economic growth: improvements in the human species. As we get wealthier, we also become enhanced physically, cognitively, and morally, leading to a virtuous cycle of improvements to the standard of living. As the economy improves, human cognitive ability and moral reasoning improves, which helps markets to work better and makes the process of innovation more productive, leading to greater wealth, more mental and moral development, and so on.
I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live. Martin Luther King Jr.
Sunday, January 14. 2007
Editor's Note: This post captures a chunk of the essential spirit of Maggie's Farm. Thanks, Barrister. Ya done good, ol' buddy, with Scotch or without. Glad to know that horse did not kill ya yet. We need ye as the Pilgrims needed Miles Standish.  I believe that the Dems want the USA to be Denmark.
A Dane explains why it's a bad idea. TCS. My guess is that it's a very good deal for the lazy, the unmotivated, the dysfunctional, the dependent, the feckless, the spiritless, the addicted, and the sociopathic exploiters of the system. I feel badly for all of such folks, except the latter. But how is it for strong or energetic adventurous men and women who want to do things and make things and grow and develop their skills and make money and create their own life free from government constraint and intrusiveness - and taxation? And who are willing to take the blows when they fail, as fail they must, sometimes? And for those who want to have the spare cash to support charities and causes you want - and not just those the government wants? The reason Denmark is not my ideal is that men can never be Men, and women never Women - because the State remains their parent throughout life, while sucking out their lifeblood - just never enough to kill them. Permanent adolescence - or serfdom, as Hayek would term it. Might just as well be laboratory mice with great sex and free food. All needs met, except for the ones that matter most, and which differentiate us from animals. I do like the Danes, but they can keep their risk-free, opportunity-free Mommy state. It's like life in a government mall: safe, sterile, spiritless, and never quite grown-up. Regressive, as the shrinks would say. Europe has a feudal history. They have an ancient template for a kind of relationship between the individual and the State. Authority does best, and knows best. When they screw you - hey, that's life. Each year, you thank them for your bowl of porridge. If you're unhappy, you go on strike, like a passive-aggressive teen-ager. But don't expect anything of yourself, like to try something different. It is bullsh-t. Those "authorities" are just sucking off your own teats, like piglets in a pig sty. What do they produce? What wealth do they create? What products? What services, other than those moved from one person to another? Excepting military defence. Because of love of power and self-love, government always becomes an unfaithful servant. Darn that ol' sinful human nature. Uppity souls - they forget to stay in the servant's quarters where they belong. They forget their place. Think they are important - and worse, think they are smart. But what can they really do? (Think about it it, If you took away Ted Kennedy's or Joe Biden's or John Dean's trust fund, or Nacy Pelosi's or Jon Cary's husband, or Tony Blair's pension, how would they support themselves? They would starve.) The average citizen knows far more about life in any country than their insulated leaders. I am certain of that, and even more so in Europe and in the EU, where government is even more of a "profession" - as is prostitution - than it is in the US. America does not have that. We were founded on the principle of keeping the State off our backs. We took a lot of risks, and died willingly for that novel notion that placed the individual human spirit at the top of the pyramid. Correction - the individual human spirit as fed, inspired, and led by the spirit of God. Theirs jes' ain't the red-blooded, well-armed, God fearin', spirited American Way that built this country that the whole world wants to come to. Sure, they want the money - but the legal immigrants mainly want freedom and risk: opportunity, not freebies. And, besides, whatever Robert Reich wants - I don't want it. Give me liberty, etc. I am near fed-up with the EuroWeenies being held up as role models. I prefer John Wayne and Gregory Peck to Mr. Reich. Well, duh. We native Yankees refuse to be happy mice: that is not the bold spirit our ancestors wanted for us. Free men, free women, on our mentally-disordered psychotic horses, with guns, in a free land, on a grey January afternoon in New England. That is real America, or at least a big piece of it. But this battle wearies me. No snow on the ground - I have been to church and have had a fine glass of Scotch whiskey with some cheese for lunch, and am ready to go out for an afternoon (horseback) ride now with the lovely Mrs., to enjoy our glorious free land. With my 20 ga. in the scabbard, in case we happen on a nice grouse cover. One of these days, this wacky horse will kill me. He is fast, but he never watches where he is going. Great fun. Duck your head for low branches when he feels like a gallop, because the SOB only listens when he feels like it. Gotta love his ornery nature. He would not be a good Danish citizen. He lacks mouse genes. And I do not mean to equate the bold Viking Danes with mice.
Tunagate! Bluecrab sums it up. But does Tunagate have legs? Do tuna have legs? Given the orientation of the MSM, probably about as many legs as the Sandy Burglar "non-story." Still, any Yankee has to admire a Cape Cod Bluefin Tuna. It is almost sad that a mere man has the power to kill one of these glorious creatures with just a stick, a string, and a boat. Don't sell them to the Japanese. Grill up that fatty belly meat which is the only thing tastier than a Kansas City steak, and bring the rest to your local fish shop. Americans deserve this good stuff. 
Yes, it's about "life in abundance."
There is no other sort of wealth. Slower Pace
In the beginning was Nothing and Nothing created Everything. When Nothing decided to create Everything, she filled a tiny dot with Time, Chance, and Everything and had it explode. The explosion spread Everything into Everywhere carrying Time and Chance with it to keep it company. The three stretched out together leaving bits of themselves wherever they went. One of those places was the planet Earth.
Whole thing at Evangelical Outpost
Multi-billionaire Sir Bob Shilling knew that he was getting on in years, and that it was time for him to choose which of his two sons, Dan or Jim, would inherit his fortune. Give it a try. Tangled Web Update: Got it. Let me know if you do. (Warning - he has the answer in his comments)
The Lunesta and the Prozatene are amusing. Kevin MD
From a piece at Gates of Vienna, on religion humor: 
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