Friday, April 6. 2007
Re-posted from April, 2006 "Now the bricks lay on Grand Street, 
where the neon madmen climb, they all fall there so perfectly; it all seems so well-timed..." Photo yesterday, at Ferrara's on Grand St., NYC, to pick up some Easter wheat pies. Creamy, with just the right amount of Citron. Not exactly Yankee food. Kind of sad to see Little Italy slowly being absorbed by adjacent Chinatown - but Chinatown is great, too. In fact, wonderful. Feels like Asia. Any woman who carries a genuine Gucci or Prada or Kate Spade bag is a big sucker. This is knock-off city, for the folks with brains. These days, the third-generation Italians have taken the Holland Tunnel and moved out to Soprano-land to try to capture the American Illusion of suburban bliss. But the suburban kids all come back to NY, not to mention the ambitious rural kids from across the USA, and across the world. What fun it would be to own a little pied a terre in Little Italy, or on University Place, or in Gramercy Park, or anywhere near Zabar's. Thanks to Rudy and now to Bloomberg, NYC is as good as it has ever been - probably better. Why? The parks have all been re-done, and are welcoming, friendly, with all sorts of stuff going on. The tourists, and the "bridge-and-tunnel" crowd, are back with a vengeance. Interesting things to do and places to see - endless. Places to eat - fuggedaboutit: good everywhere. The cops - out of their patrol cars and just walking their beats like the old days, and seeming reasonably friendly although they have to maintain their NYC cool. The whole place is gleaming, busy, happily crowded, ethnic as anywhere in the world, and full of the usual new construction everywhere. One heck of a town. (Only complaint: Bloomberg says we can't smoke in bars. That is truly nuts, as bad as the UK. If I can handle life, I ought to be able to smoke in a bar without a Mommy telling me what to do. How about having smoking and non-smoking bars? Hmmm, I predict the non-smoking would go out of business.) We did not forget the cannolis.
I missed that detail. But I guess they deserve something for all that they did for Iranian propaganda purposes. They call this "a navy"?
Rush and Cheney on the war and related topics (via Drudge)
Thursday, April 5. 2007
"Most of the time
I'm clear focused all around,
Most of the time
I can keep both feet on the ground,
I can follow the path, I can read the signs,
Stay right with it, when the road unwinds,
I can handle whatever I stumble upon,
I don't even notice she's gone,
Most of the time.
Most of the time
It's well understood,
Most of the time
I wouldn't change it if I could,
I can't make it all match up, I can hold my own,
I can deal with the situation right down to the bone,
I can survive, I can endure
And I don't even think about her
Most of the time.
Most of the time
My head is on straight,
Most of the time
I'm strong enough not to hate.
I don't build up illusion 'till it makes me sick,
I ain't afraid of confusion no matter how thick
I can smile in the face of mankind.
Don't even remember what her lips felt like on mine
Most of the time.
Most of the time
She ain't even in my mind,
I wouldn't know her if I saw her
She's that far behind.
Most of the time
I can't even be sure
If she was ever with me
Or if I was with her.
Most of the time
I'm halfway content,
Most of the time
I know exactly where I went,
I don't cheat on myself, I don't run and hide,
Hide from the feelings, that are buried inside,
I don't compromise and I don't pretend,
I don't even care if I ever see her again
Most of the time." "Most of the Time," off 1989's Oh Mercy. A short youtube clip, interrupted for some reason, may be found here.
 The Pelosi Fiasco. It is painful to watch people when they are in over their heads. Good commentary from Rick Moran, Riehl, Dino with the WaPo editorial. Also, Terrorists Cheer Pelosi.This groveling photo should doom her - but will it? Something insane going on here.
The Etruscans were from Lydia, says DNA. h/t, Powerline The story of Mr. Manolo, the Shoe Man. Most visited fashion site on the net? Driscoll links to the whole piece. The Rockford, Illinois Police Chief says: “Handguns are really the culprit of the degradation of this community.” Alphecca. Yes, indeed. Tie those guns down so they stop sneaking out and shooting people. Bad, bad guns. The chief of the Human Genome Project is a convert to religion. CNN Defiant grains mock scientists. Blair. Pesky right-wing grains. A secret war against Iran? CSM. Let's hope so. I happened to speak with an Iranian friend today, living in the US. She says anyone with any education or brains hates the government, but they buy off the peasants for votes. People are fearful of speaking out, because jail in Iran isn't like jail in the US. Russian Moslems seething over Beslan memorial. Exclusive, they say. How is that for hutzpah? LGF/ Moselms killed all of those kids, right? Or was it another "inside job"? Is Rudy dumber than I thought? Who would say this? According to Rudy's logic, the government should buy me handguns. As of now, he is out of my consideration. In Australia, putting your rapes on the internet is all the rage. Too much wallaby meat? Bad + dumb is a lousy combination, and will not lead to a life of contentment. Canada's seal slaughter, once again. Need those seal skins for the rich Hollywood and NYC Dems, so they don't get cold in this terrible global warming. The "elites" believe in global warming. Most regular people do not. Why? Never Yet Melted. I guess we're not elite. Thank goodness for that. We at least have common sense, I think. And we have all taken basic statistics, without which no-one can be considered well-educated. Regime Change Iran needs money. The blog has been a regular read of ours. The Brits are years behind us. They are finally discovering the "hierarchies of victimhood." It's about time. Spiked. DC photo from our pal at Shape of Days: 
 And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be with thee..."
Exodus 3:11-12
How often, in the Bible, does God call the most humble and ordinary people to serve Him?
I hate to see the US going in the direction of the UK, with government nannies all over the place telling us what to do and how to live. It is not dignified, for adult humans, to put up with such nonsense from politicians, who are the last people on the planet we want or need advice from. Scolding the scolds, from Dick Meyer at CBS News. (h/t, Anchoress, who advises reading the comments too.)
 Lean into the screen. What do you see? Step back 10' from your screen (if you can) and you will see something entirely different.
How do the eye and brain interpret visual input? Neurophilosopher, (h/t, Dr. X, from whom we borrowed the image, and who always has interesting photos). There is a moral in this.
 Right now, in Hartford, CT, it is snowing. Fairly heavily, too. What's up, Al?
And here's news to me: Al Gore gets paid $125,000 for showing up to speak about the warming crisis. Small Dead Polar Bears. Good gig for a huckster. Somebody call me. I'll do it for half of his fee - and I will explain to you why mankind should pray for a return to warming to fend off the next ice age. And, whoa. Al Gore's offset company spends only 25% of the money on offsets. The debate is over on Al Gore. Guess what? This guy is a greedy capitalist pig! Somebody remind me how he got all of that pre-IPO Google stock. I forget. I tried, but I could not get any from my stockbroker. The VIPs hogged it all, and made out like bandits. Al Gore is into the real Green now, I suspect. What is his net worth, without ever holding a real job?
We linked this piece by Stossel via Blue Crab yesterday, and I believe Rush talked about it on the radio. Here's one quote: What do you think is more dangerous, a house with a pool or a house with a gun? When, for "20/20," I asked some kids, all said the house with the gun is more dangerous. I'm sure their parents would agree. Yet a child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than in a gun accident.
Read the whole thing. It's good fun. I want a Federal ban on all swimming pools. For the children, of course.
 Hostages: There was a quid pro quo. NY Sun
As drunk as a ...bat? And speaking of bats, the Yankees will dominate baseball and will win 110 games this season. It's in the math. Army "tiptoes" into Sadr City. CSM. I think they would respect ruthless force more than an army tip-toeing through the tulips. Guilty until proven innocent. The MASS v. EPA case, and why it's a big problem for freedom and for the future. Tracisnksi at Real Clear Politics. It's an open-ended invitation for federal control over everything - and technically, even breathing. Roberts' dissent sounds compelling. Can we please have one more sane person on the Court who loves freedom more than government power? I don't want death for anyone - just a happy retirement on a golf course in Florida or Arizona. Everybody else retires and makes room for the younger folks... That was then; this is now. Betsy on Dem flip-flopping re war funding. A half-crazed Gore booed in Canada. His response: "I can't tell whether you are left-wing or right-wing." That's a revealing statement: it's about politics, not science.
Wednesday, April 4. 2007
 Stanley Milgram's famous Yale experiment set the standard for uncovering the capacity for sadism in ordinary people. The results came as no big surprise to parents of multiple kids.
Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment ("SPE") took the subject much further - as far as any researcher would want to take it. He is the author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Dr. Zimbardo is interviewed this week in the NYT Science Times. The evil lurking in people only comes as a surprise to those who know nothing of themselves. Dealing with it is one of the challenges of being human. And dealing with the vicissitudes of human aggression and sadism/sado-masochism (and anger too, which is another subject entirely) is a major challenge in psychiatry, both theoretically and practically. Freud found it necessary to posit a "death instinct" to account for some of these things, but he was never entirely satisfied with the idea. Denial of the capacity for evil in others is called naive, or infantile. Denial of evil in one's self is called "denial," and is usually handled via projection (an immature defense mechanism which "projects" one's own malevolence onto external sources). Those who locate evil only in themselves are often masochistic, or using various defence mechanisms which I will not get into now. The devil? Many Christians and Jews believe in a devil or devils. Devil or no, there is plenty enough material in humans for a devil to exploit (see Screwtape Letters - a diabolically fascinating and amusing read). Our first piece on evil is here. I have done evil, and I have sinned plenty. Not to brag. I know that evil exists.
 Fern Holland. Someone to remember.
Fashion Department. How to wear a scarf. SISU. Black websites. I didn't know websites came in colors. BET is a hugely popular one. Do blacks and whites inhabit different worlds? I hope not. A reader tells us that a candidate for Episcopal Bishop in her diocese went to this "seminary." To understand the MSM, you need to understand that newsmen know neither math nor science. Blue Crab on Stossel's excellent piece. We've said the same thing many times, but we aren't Stossel. 4 million year-old whale dug up in Italy. Did not realize Italy was underwater that recently. West Va. tries to cut the fat. What a joke. Good luck, suckers. The money would be better spent at MacDonalds.
 A darn good summary. I do not have a date for this briefing, but it's fairly up-to-date, and meaty. We all tend to get caught up in seeing the trees and missing the forest.
(Herb Meyer served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. In these positions, he managed production of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimates and other top-secret projections for the President and his national security advisers. Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior U.S. Government official to forecast the Soviet Union's collapse, for which he later was awarded the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the intelligence community's highest honor. Formerly an associate editor of FORTUNE, he is also the author of several books.”) . The Four Transformations: Militant Islam, China, Demographics, and Business Restructuring . Currently, there are four major transformations that are shaping political, economic and world events. These transformations have profound implications for American business owners, our culture and our way of life. There are three major monotheistic religions in the world: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In the 16th century, Judaism and Christianity reconciled with the modern world. The rabbis, priests and scholars found a way to settle up and pave the way forward. Religion remained at the center of life, church and state became separate. Rule of law, idea of economic liberty, individual rights, human rights all these are defining points of modern Western civilization. These concepts started with the Greeks but didn't take off until the 15th and 16th century when Judaism and Christianity found a way to reconcile with the modern world. When that happened, it unleashed the scientific revolution and the greatest outpouring of art, literature and music the world has ever known. Islam, which developed in the 7th century, counts millions of Moslems around the world who are normal people. However, there is a radical streak within Islam. When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks Western civilization. Islam first attacked Western civilization in the 7th century, and later in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the Moslems (Turks from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates of Vienna. It was in Vienna that the climatic battle between Islam and Western civilization took place. The West won and went forward. Islam lost and went backward Interestingly, the date of that battle was September 11. Since them, Islam has not found a way to reconcile with the modern world. Today, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by radical Islam. To deal with terrorism, the U.S. is doing two things. First, units of our armed forces are in 30 countries around the world hunting down terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very little publicity. Second we are taking military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are covered relentlessly by the media. People can argue about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong. However, the underlying strategy behind the war is to use our military to remove the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance. Our hope is that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward into the 21st century. That's what our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is all about.
Continue reading "Best Essays of 2007: Herb Meyer's Global Intelligence Briefing for CEOs - The Four Transformations"
Update: Ahmadinejab says they will free them "as a gift." I guess there was a deal. Iran 1, Brits 0. VDH says the hostage incident reveals the meaningless of the "alphabet" organizations: This "incident" has proved a multilateral trifecta: a patrol sanctioned by the U.N. gets no support from the U.N., a member of the EU is left hanging in the interest of EU trade, a NATO member finds no NATO allies, other than the U.S., to offer support. So what is the purpose of these alphabetic organizations? Perhaps Ahmadinejad should start holding seminars, Henry Kissinger style, to instruct the Islamic world on how to deal with the West, given his instincts that Western rhetoric is in inverse proportion to Western willingness to stand up for a principle.
"What on earth has happened to the English?" asks Derbyshire. His answer is that multiculturalism has destroyed love of country. Maybe. His piece here at New English Review. (h/t, Small Dead Baby Seals). I agree. When they come home, these sailors deserve to be charged with something, like cooperating with their captors or whatever the Brit Naval Code contains. Gagdad Bob calls them EUnuchs. Dinocrat thinks the entire episode was designed as a "time-waster" and a distraction from Iran's nuke program.
 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. 9Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Tuesday, April 3. 2007
 ...and foolishness. Pelosi and company visiting Syria reveals a break with reality, whether Dem or Repub. Who do they think they are?
I am not saying that diplomacy should not try to deal with enemies or adversaries, but it is not the job of Congress to do the work of the State Dept. and the Administration. Bush has been slow on the uptake for the past year, and so it may appear that there is a power vacuum but, even so, you don't become part of a rogue foreign policy - especially with a nation which supports Hezbollah. Leave it to the pros at State, such as they are. Image borrowed from Powerline's photo piece on the subject. There is some sort of insanity going on. By the way, where's Condi these days?
 Leonardo di Capria flies in a private jet with photo crew to be photographed in Iceland, pretending it's the Arctic. They photoshop the bear from the zoo afterwards for the mag cover. Is anything real in Hollywood - including the people? Yes - the money.
Stupidity, ignorance, Rosie O'Donnell, steel, and the Truthers. Coyote. My opinion? The "truthers" wish to deny that we have enemies outside ourselves. We wish so, too, but we try to respect reality. This would be fun - going through newly-found early 1800 Missouri court records. Cramer Springer hunts cell phones. BBC video. But how is she with pheasants? Dog Yoga? We are a nutty people. Smith vs. Ricardo on specialization, made simple. Cafe Hayek French train. 354 mph. Which train to Vichy? Does "banning the bulb" make sense? Global Warming Hoax says it does. But how about showing the data, and making it voluntary? Guerillas usually lose wars. Jim Miller. Somebody please remind the press. I agree with this on taxes, but it will never happen without a flat tax. Every citizen should contribute and sacrifice. The party's over, for the EU. I hope so. EU Ref. explains why and how. It's good news. Details of the interesting MASS. v. EPA case at the Supremes. Volokh Putin takes on the internet, after having taken on the press. It's a damn shame. Is it possible that freedom just isn't part of their value system, so to speak?
 Re-posted from April, 2006
From a piece by Brian at Real Meal Blog: As we approach Holy Week and focus on the death of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection, let us reflect on the implications of the Cross for those who seek to follow Jesus. My daughter’s argument for the safety of a life in captivity over the risk of a life freedom brought to mind the words of Jesus. In Matthew, Jesus’ most powerful challenge to his followers comes in chapter 16. Consider these two verses: NIV Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. Most of us read these verses only in the negative: self-denial, hardship, etc, but this is a distortion of Jesus’ point. Yes, the way of discipleship is hard. Let’s be clear about this.
Following Jesus Christ is a profound counter-cultural action. It is a life of risk. It is not about safety. But it is the opportunity to live a full life in the service of our Creator. It is an opportunity to live for that which we were made. Nothing could be more exiting nor, dare I say it, fulfilling. It is about following Jesus into the places that only those who have lost the fear of living can go. Jesus invites us to consider ourselves “dead men [or women] walking” precisely so that he can unleash us into a world that desperately needs women and men who are not afraid of uncertainty, danger, and trials because they know that their true Master is with them always (28:20).
Image: Duccio (1255-1319), Entry into Jerusalem
I am re-posting this essay because I think it got a bit lost in the mix over the weekend. Why so important? Because it makes clear that our civilization and our culture - including our religion - are what we have going for us. These things are precious, and more fragile than we'd like to think. The noble savage is a child's dream.
World violence is diminishing. A History of Violence - a speech by Steven Pinker. A sample: In the decade of Darfur and Iraq, and shortly after the century of Stalin, Hitler, and Mao, the claim that violence has been diminishing may seem somewhere between hallucinatory and obscene. Yet recent studies that seek to quantify the historical ebb and flow of violence point to exactly that conclusion. Some of the evidence has been under our nose all along. Conventional history has long shown that, in many ways, we have been getting kinder and gentler. Cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of conflict resolution—all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history. But, today, they are rare to nonexistent in the West, far less common elsewhere than they used to be, concealed when they do occur, and widely condemned when they are brought to light. At one time, these facts were widely appreciated. They were the source of notions like progress, civilization, and man's rise from savagery and barbarism. Recently, however, those ideas have come to sound corny, even dangerous. They seem to demonize people in other times and places, license colonial conquest and other foreign adventures, and conceal the crimes of our own societies. The doctrine of the noble savage—the idea that humans are peaceable by nature and corrupted by modern institutions—pops up frequently in the writing of public intellectuals like José Ortega y Gasset ("War is not an instinct but an invention"), Stephen Jay Gould ("Homo sapiens is not an evil or destructive species"), and Ashley Montagu ("Biological studies lend support to the ethic of universal brotherhood"). But, now that social scientists have started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward: Far from causing us to become more violent, something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler.
Read the whole thing (link above). Sounds like Freud's Civilization and its Discontents wasn't too far off. Civilization has its challenges, but the alternatives aren't so hot. Image: Mor's Feast of Attila the Hun
The Very Reverend Jeffrey John, Dean of St. Alban's, claims Christ did not die for our sins. The Telegraph. I think this guy is inventing his own religion. There is a term for that. Dobson acts like a real jerk. I wish he would stick to his knitting. Much of his family stuff is very good, but when he gets into politics he makes a fool of himself. The New Atheists vs. the Old Atheists. The Tennessean. And who knew Harvard had a Humanist Chaplain. What's that, exactly? (h/t, News for Christians) A Maggie's Farm reader was presented with the following "version" of The Lord's Prayer at her Episcopal Church: My Creator (soul's Source, spirit's Destination, Ground of Our Being, etc.)
in whom/which is heaven, or within which we can find heaven (as co-creators)
we revere/respect you
We will work to see your divine intent become a reality where we live.
We will work to see that everyone has the food they need to live and have health and energy to contribute to the welfare of Earth and its life systems.
We sense that we are forgiven for our admitted shortcomings to the extent that we art able to forgive others their failures.
We recognize the presence of evil in our world and strive to avoid being a part of it as well as pointing it out whenever we are aware of it.
We work for these changes in our lives and in the lives of others in the spirit of Jesus who cared for all those who were unjustly treated or oppressed.
May we make these things so. As Rick Moran would say, I am speechless.
The Unchained Goddess, from Bell Telephone Hour on TV, in 1958. Video at Evangelical Outpost. Makes Al Gore sound positively tame. Remember, this show was before the global cooling hysteria of the 1970s.
A comparison of proposed taxes over the next five years, stolen from a good piece at the King of Graphs, Willisms. The Dem leadership graph (yellow) would constitute the largest tax increase in American history, exceeding Clinton's. May I ask what this new tax money is supposed to be for? No matter - they'll find some way to spend it, and the very rich will find some way not to pay it. 
Don Surber is right. That line above is a joke headline of the New York Times. They use it so often that I suspect they hit one button to print it, then fill in the blank after it. Global warming? Yup. Grandaddy Long Legs reminds me that the actual joke line was "World to end tomorrow. Women and minorities hardest hit."
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