Are You A Virginia Scientist?

SEE HERE Check out the Northern Virginia Chapter of SEEE (Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment) — this is a group of scientists who are tired of seeing science corrupted to political ends. If you want to see the data and the science and not just the cherry picked politically enabling hockey sticks then maybe you should check out SEEE. Click on the regional chairman nearest you and send him/her an email saying you'd like to participate. You'll be in good company.

The Potter-Heads Have Been Waiting: It is At Hand!

One of my favorite students (like parents all my students are my favorites) but this student is my chief Potter person and she sent me this link to the trailer for part I. HERE it is! or watch in on brambles.

Oldies But Goodie: The Old Jarhead

SEE HERE I like this a lot. It's just common sense, but that is so uncommon that it is a treat to read a bit now and then.

Let's Force a Vote On This

SEE HERE Repeal Obama Care ... track the discharge petition by CLICKING HERE Need 218 votes to bring it to the floor and meanwhile we get a look at who is for it and who is not. Win-win!
My Congressman, Bob Goodlatte, is found as number 23 on this good guys list. Is your congressperson there? If not, why not?

The Music of the Spheres

A Pause for Beauty

Truth, Goodness, and Beauty ... Oh My! These draw us closer to God. You might wonder who lives out there in all that majesty?

Wise Men Never Go Out of Date, Only Out of Fashion

SEE HERE Hayek is back!

Poverty In Perspective

SEE HERE America's "poor" are the richest poor (at least in material goods) on the face of the earth. Walter Williams points out that material poverty is largely overcome, but a deeper and more troubling kind of poverty is on the rise. Poverty of spirit, values and vision, so that a ironically: "Poverty of the spirit is a direct result of the perverse incentives created by some of our efforts to address material poverty."

The Road to Second Rate

SEE HERE A shining city on a hill — that's how America has been seen by many. The leader of the free world and a model for aspiring nations world wide to emulate — that is our image. Well it was until we got a president who thinks we ought to be less, less of almost everything. He can spend billions and billions to siphon graft to his cronies, but he sacrifices American leadership in space. I guess it's hard for me to respect this president. I want to honor the office. The man in the office is tearing down my country. I don't like him and I fear for my children and my children's children in the America he is seeking to transform into something unrecognizable as America.

Did I Mention That Politicians Are Liars?

SEE HERE Just in case you thought that money appropriated for one thing couldn't be spent on something else ... silly you! The way to tell a politician is lying is to watch his lips. If they're moving he's lying. Of course that is harsh language. Some would want it put more delicately. He is manipulating reality using the sound of his voice. One presidential candidate said of Clinton, "He's the best liar I've ever seen!" John Kerry only said he was a good liar. But still that's an interesting profession, one where your quality as a liar is truly appreciated. CHECK THIS OUT Then there are COMPARISONS Not sure Obama is up to par when compared to the best, but he's a contender.

Poor Health Care? or Government Intrusion?

SEE HERE The United States has the best health care in the world measured by such things as availability and effectiveness. You have to cherry pick your data to get a dismal picture and that's cherry pick in two dimensions since you have to pick the worst aspects of our system and the best aspects of the competing system. You also have to fail to exercise any controls for differences in the populations being compared. But never fear, the likelihood of ever getting an honest comparison from the media or the liberal progressives is nil.

Predictions from Those Who Think It's All a Conspiracy?

SEE HERE As a scientist my general methodology when people start shouting doom and gloom is to ask to see the data on which they base these claims. Now I don't for a minute doubt that people with money and influence are not out to run the world. Human nature after all hasn't changed a whit in thousands of years, only the technology has matured, not the people. In fact they've gone decidedly backward. So when doom and gloom is preached the next thing to do is to keep records. Then as things go forward and group A has predicted thus and such and later if thus and such happens you give group A credibility points. If it doesn't happen you give them chicken little points. After a while you develop a sense of who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't. Data is king!

Could We Have A Little Perspective Here

SEE HERE The oil spill goes on and it's a big oil spill, but face it folks, it's coming through a hole man drilled and is trying to close up. The total spill so far is about 1/7th of the capacity of the New Orleans Superdome ... which is a lot, but if you put it in perspective ... well look at the pictures and engage brain. I think this is survivable so can the apocalyptic talk and watch the keystone cops deal with the problem.

The Internet Is The Freedom of the Press In the New Age

SEE HERE The idea that the president should have the power to shut down the internet on a self-declared emergency is simply one more attack on the idea of free and open speech. This piece looks at the whole issue hypothetically from Benjamin Franklin's point of view.

Franklin would have been the ultimate blogger. He would have resisted Tyranny Rising!

Never Forget ... A New Yorker Who Gets It, Fancy That!

SEE HERE With a mosque going up near ground zero and all the usual suspects saying we have to understand Islam and how it is a religion of peace that only kills people because we make them and a the other unbelievable nonsense coming out of the Big Apple, this piece is a breath of fresh air. Don't know if you can resolve it since it's some facebook thingie ... but check it out.

If This Doesn't Beat All ... How Can These Folks Call Themselves Scientists?

SEE HERE I'm not too inclined to keep beating what I think is now rather a dead horse. That's at least my assessment of the Global Warming chicanery. The bottom line is that it's not related to CO2 and that human contributions to global warming are likely too small to measure. But to make any sort of case that it is you have to reduce the impact of more plausible causes like, well, like the sun. You know that big ball of fusion energy that we circle at 93 million miles which guarantees we have any warming at all to speak of. Read the story ... one researcher, one, minimized the impact of solar energy and she got to be the "consensus." It would be a riot if it were not so outrageous.

Charles Rice Addresses Christendom College Graduation

SEE HERE Charles Rice is a distinguished legal scholar SEE HERE and he is also a respected conservative thinker. He is probably best known for his career as a professor at Notre Dame Law School from 1969 to 2000 when he retired to emeritus status. In his address to the Christendom Graduates on May 15th 2010, among his words were:

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We are living through a transformation of our federal government. A one-party regime, the leader of which was elected with 54 percent of the Catholic vote, is substituting for the free economy and limited government a centralized command system of potentially unlimited jurisdiction and power. ...
To find a comparable example of the rapid concentration of executive power by a legally installed regime, we have to go back to 1933. Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor on January 30. Over the next few weeks he consolidated his power. The decisive event was the Reichstag's approval of the Enabling Act on March 23, 1933, by which it ceded full and irrevocable powers to Hitler. That was the point of no return. ...
Unlike Germany in 1933, we have legal means of redress. I am proud to say I am a Tea Party guy. In November, the reaction may dislodge the Congressional arm of the ruling class. ...

---

Professor Rice stressed the great lies: secularism, relativism,and individualism. He framed them for his audience in the context of Catholic thought, but his message is universal. If we do not recover the truth and honor it, we will not be spared the destiny of so many other great nations of the past. November Is Coming!

Washington Is Broken Mr. President, Secure Our Borders: The Nation is Waiting.

The Federal Government is failing to do its job. Job one is national security. All this other stuff isn't even constitutional. Border security and ensuring the safety of the citizens of the United States is the fundamental role of government. It would be nice if they would do that instead of increasing the debt and the deficit until we sink into the mire. November Is Coming!
The reality of the president's non-effort in securing the border. SEE HERE This is a June 4th interview with Congressman Bilbray, California's 50th district.
The Arizona law reflects all the Supreme Court findings of the past. They've played it very smart. Listen in. Here's the letter Governor Brewer sent to the president after meeting with him. SEE HERE

Kagan's Barak — Judges Rule the Roost!

This is a video hit piece from the Action arm of Americans United for Life. SEE HERE Kagan's mentor and role model is an agenda driven judge from Israel. Apparently the mantra is that judges should rule the world. I wonder how that will sit with those in congress who think congress should rule the world, and all along the people are ignored and marginalized. Welcome to the new age of imperial America. It reminds me of Augustus who left the mechanics of the Roman Republic in place but seized all the power for himself. Tyranny Rising!

There's a Communist Living In The Whitehouse

This is a hoot!

ENOUGH!

SEE HERE Enough! Now there's a catchy slogan for capturing the sense that the government is totally out of control. If the electorate can just keep that one word in mind until November we might get a chance to stop this freight train before the train wreck that is on the way.

AWOL Afghans on Facebook? How Trendy!

SEE HERE Maybe they'll be on the David Letterman show next. This is funny! I'm surprised they were they were not tracked by their cellphone calls or Tweets or something. The linked-up, 24/7 connected world has some of the strangest ramifications.

Think About It! When More People Are On The Take Than Paying Taxes Tyranny Begins!

SEE HERE This isn't exactly news. In fact my dad used to point this out and his dad did too. I'm sure that the left liberal progressive proto-tyrants know all about it and have been working the problem seriously. Well the time has come, if it is not too late, to do something to stop this march to tyranny. Read this and think about it. The problem is that as the perks delivered to those who do not work approach the perks available to those that do, more and more stop working and the burden grows larger on those that remain productive. But it slides downhill and with increasing velocity until we are all in the trash compactor at the center of the death star together. R2D2 may not be out there to save us. It's time to start gumming up the works now. November Is Coming!

Incompetence Is Beyond Belief: How Can It Be Anything But Intentional

"Beyond Comprehension ..." EXACTLY!

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who will guard the guards themselves? — This is a question that must be asked. It is also a question that is almost never asked. We are instead asked to trust the good intentions of the policy advocates. The problem with this is that man is a flawed creature and as Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Thus whenever we create oversight, i.e. put guards in place, we are conferring power which all too often simply leads to a new form of control and corruption. The guards must be held to account. Whether it is the government, the regulators, the Federal Reserve System, or what ...
As an interesting aside, Robert Heinlein, one of my childhood favorite science fiction authors, used this as the motto of the Space Patrol in his juvenile novel, Space Cadet.
After finishing to this point I ran into THIS which seems to illustrate the point of runaway government, even at the local level taking away the legitimate rights of parents. Who will protect us from such corrupt guardians of the public trust. Why is this even slightly reasonable? We are living in decadent times and it is likely downhill from here if good people don't start standing up and demanding virtue in the public square.

Bad Science Has Killed Millions: Show Me The Data!

SEE HERE It's a bit sad really. The unforeseen side-effects of so much do-good-ism just seems unfair. Just because going off half-cocked can get things wrong, don't intentions count for anything? That's a little like my students when they've worked really hard and still can't do the problems and I give them the grade they earned. They say things like "But I worked so hard, don't I get credit for that." I'm sympathetic. But the short answer is that getting it wrong regardless of how hard you tried to get it right is still wrong. Only results count when the rubber meets the road. Rachel Carson killed millions by causing DDT to be taken off the market. Maleria had almost been beaten. Virtually none of the stuff she warned of was true. And the tragic thing is that that is going on all the time. Billions are being spent for global warming nonsense that isn't true either. Those billions could easily have paid for things that were really worthwhile. But they won't so those really worthwhile things that might have happened are the hidden cost of all the nonsensical things that actually happen. It's rare that we can point to the adverse side effects such as the impact of taking DDT out of play. That doesn't mean they are not there, only that we're not omniscient. It would be nice if the do-gooders of the world actually knew what they were talking about. Mostly they don't and that means it's important to be a good listener. Demand proof not emotional rhetoric. When people try to stampede you into action is usually means that they don't have any proof. If they did they could just show it to you.

Show me the data!

Talking So Far Outside Your Field It's Ridiculous

SEE HERE Now we have song writers and crooners besides washed up politicians telling us what to think about climate change. Let me return to the scientific mantra: "Show Me the Data." Of course they can't show you the data because to really show you the data is to reveal that there is a reason their eyes are brown.

Can You Think of Any Other Reasons To Be So Stupid?

SEE HERE An environmental disaster in progress is trumped by federal environmental speculation. I guess the wisdom of the feds descends again upon the hapless inhabitants of Louisiana. I'm not sure we could do anything worse than let the feds run anything. No surprises there.

Is the President Really Thin-Skinned? No, I Mean Really?

SEE HERE Coulter weighs in on the McChrystal Rolling Stone article. Obama takes the hit. The most ultimately stuck on himself and thin skinned president ever. Leadership is the one thing you can count on not getting from this president. It's painful even to watch.

How Far Down Can You Go?

SEE HERE Well Obama is plumbing new depths of unpopularity in a record breaking descent from favor. Why anyone ever thought he'd be useful is a good question in the first place since he'd not been useful to much of anyone in the past unless you count looking good behind a teleprompter. Maybe he's the lesson we need to start looking once again for a sound record of accomplishment in our leaders instead of a bunch of pretty face photo-ops and soundbytes. The media age has brought with it a kind of surface engagement that let's glibness pass for accomplishment.

We the People: November Is Coming!

Another of these patriotic videos that sound the theme that we have to recover our freedom or lose it. I like the patriotic theme, but not the triumphalism that seems like a subtext. Freedom not only isn't free, it is difficult and takes the shouldering of responsibility and that in our complaisant and indulgent age is something much easier to talk about than to achieve. But November Is Coming!

Sarah Palin on the Tammy Bruce Show June 11th

We want smaller and more Conservative government. November Is Coming!

Jon Voight Calls Out the NIC (Narcissist In Charge)

June 22, 2010

President Obama:

You will be the first American president that lied to the Jewish people, and the American people as well, when you said that you would defend Israel, the only Democratic state in the Middle East, against all their enemies. You have done just the opposite. You have propagandized Israel, until they look like they are everyone’s enemy — and it has resonated throughout the world. You are putting Israel in harm’s way, and you have promoted anti-Semitism throughout the world.

You have brought this to a people who have given the world the Ten Commandments and most laws we live by today. The Jewish people have given the world our greatest scientists and philosophers, and the cures for many diseases, and now you play a very dangerous game so you can look like a true martyr to what you see and say are the underdogs. But the underdogs you defend are murderers and criminals who want Israel eradicated.

You have brought to Arizona a civil war, once again defending the criminals and illegals, creating a meltdown for good, loyal, law-abiding citizens. Your destruction of this country may never be remedied, and we may never recover. I pray to God you stop, and I hope the people in this great country realize your agenda is not for the betterment of mankind, but for the betterment of your politics.

With heartfelt and deep concern for America and Israel,

Jon Voight

The Narrow World of the Liberal Mind — Breadth on the Order of 1 to 1.001

SEE HERE The notion that liberals are open minded is one that Ann Coulter has some fun with today. I'm always amused by the liberal idea of tolerance which is to believe everything they believe and nothing that they don't believe. Their capacity for tolerance is about on par with their degree of openmindedness. This is of course an exercise in extreme precision since the openmindedness of a liberal is akin to a very very thin shim. There may be a crack of light there, but it so small the shim will close it.

Your Friends Are Not Always Who You Think They Are

SEE HERE Politics is not a big tent. It is not one hand washing the other. It is not a group of statesmen loyal to the public trust. Currently it is a bunch of more or less robbers dividing the loot. The fact that your set of robbers is called Democrat and my set of robbers is called Republican, or the fact that one set steals more than the other, or steals from people that they've first vilified doesn't change the fact that they are all robbers differing only in degree. It's likely too simplistic to say "throw them all out and start over" because you can't do that. But you can begin to sort out those who are the most principled and not merely the most charismatic. Charisma is worthless if not grounded in substantive values and especially in integrity. If you want an example that proves the case just look at the president and I'll leave it there.

Turn Me Over, I'm Done on This Side

SEE HERE Worth a read! Thomas Sowell on the McChrystal thing. When we focus on politics we tend to ignore the things that are really important and that is because politics has become degraded. The word derives from the Greek polis (the city, ancient Athens for example) and politics was what was necessary for the good of the people. That must seem a little quaint today when politics clearly means the good of the politicians. That would be enough for Aristotle to brand it as bad government. He has it exactly right. We've let this go on too long. Just because you're being toasted slowly doesn't mean you don't nevertheless end up as toast.

And You Want the Government to Run What???

SEE HERE This would be so pathetic if it were not so funny. Do they check anything in Washington when the money is being parceled out? I think it is high time to put the government on a starvation diet. We need a lot less of it and a lot more free enterprise thank you very much.

Tea Party! Hoo-Rah!!

SEE HERE You can tell a lot about people by the enemies they choose. Newsweek apparently has decided that they need to squash the Tea Party movement. Now anyone who has followed the Tea Party movement at all knows that it's made up of middle America dismayed by the crazy behavior of government and simply wants to restore sanity and constitutional values to the republic. The fact that this make them the implacable enemy of Newsweek and the rest of the secular media show by very very disturbing. If you wondered why you were being asked to drink so much Koolaid, it's now clear that it is because they don't have your best interests at heart.

This Guy's as Candid as Patton, It's Less Clear that He's As Honest

SEE HERE I gather McChrystal is toast. So if you have not read why, then check out the Rolling Stones piece. My bet is that he's thrilled not to be in charge of Mr. Obama's dithering Afghan adventure. The military want a clear mission. There is nothing particularly clear about the mission as conceived by Obama. It seems more like "don't embarrass me" than "win." This is an interesting way to exit.

"Kill the Internet" ... "Roger That!"

SEE HERE Who is "killing the internet" going to defend us from? The government is increasingly looking like a bunch of power mongers afraid of their constituents. Maybe they missed the part about "they work for us", you know, "servants of the people." Instead they seek increasingly to become our masters. That is exactly why the framers sought to limit the powers of the federal government. Centralized government always seeks to increase its power until it becomes a tyrant. The founders put lots of checks and balances in place to deter that outcome, but over the years we've tended to remove them or reduce their effect to achieve greater efficiency or greater democracy or some other "greater" [nice sounding word] that we desperately need. The best thing the government could do for most of us, is leave us alone and get out of the way. We don't need government for much and for what little we do need them for they tend to do poorly while bragging all the while about how much we need them and how indispensable they are. Who has time to argue with them? Most of us have a lot better and more interesting things to do.

We Are A Representative Republic Not a Damn Democracy

SEE HERE If there is one thing that boils me quite a lot it is hearing people praising the virtues of Democracy. Democracy is rule by the majority. It is a lousy form of government, one fraught with corruption and condemned by all the great thinkers of the past as rule by the mob. We are not and ought never to aspire to be a democracy. Instead we should celebrate the fact that we were created as a representative republic because those who framed the constitution knew the dangers and wished to isolate us and immunize us to the degree possible from them. In the intervening years we've been doing our best with the help of all those liberal left ideologues to undo what the framers wrought. The rope is just about played out. We either draw back from the brink or we plunge over the precipice to our demise. Unfortunately it may well be the decision of the mob that destroys us.

Have You Ever Wondered Why Things Are So Screwed Up?

SEE HERE Wonder no more! It's intentional. We have put in place wacko theoreticians who themselves never accomplished or did anything very useful but who feel empowered to tell children how to live their lives. I'm sorry! How are you living yours? If you're a theoretical educator I'd say that I can think of quite a few better role models. I don't have anything against educators, only the idea of making it a profession sans content. Education is not a shell subject unless you want the shell and not the lobster. The reality of the world is about content and the most important content seems to be excluded from our institutions of indoctrination. Thus you will find little about morals and less about God and frankly precious little about anything else in our elementary and secondary schools. Frankly I'd rather they were reading the Iliad in ancient Greek. They might pick up a few pointers. Instead they're being punished for putting plastic soldiers with little plastic handguns on their baseball caps. They're also being indoctrinated about religions as long as they are not Christian. Common sense has become an uncommon virtue.

The Useful Idiots

SEE HERE The country seems to have gone quite mad. It seems that we are no longer a representative republic with a government of laws and not of men, a government that sees due process as an essential. Instead we are sinking into the kind of government of personal aggrandizement, of charisma and personality that characterized such cults of personality as the Fascist states of Italy and Germany or the Communist states of Russia and China. Whether it be Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin or Mao each bring totalitarian rulers to the forefront. Obama may have been elected president, but he was not thereby given all these extraordinary personal powers he seems bent on exercising. If there are any statesmen in the Senate and Congress they should be standing up and protesting. This is not the America we recognize and honor, it is Tyranny Rising!

George W. Bush Just Won't Go Away ... Here's His Facebook Inaugural

SEE HERE It's amusing how much impact Facebook is having. It may even transform politics. Nothing like the personal touch.

May 17, 2010 Gingrich On What Is At Stake

Newt Gingrich may not be your cup of tea. He's a historian however and he's got a lot more perspective on the dynamics of history than most of us. The future he sees if the left continues with its program is dismal. We will sink into the same mire as the European socialisms. It won't be pretty and it won't be sustainable and perhaps worst it will be hard to recover from.

Gingrich Pins the Medias' Ears Back During 2008 Election

You have to wonder where the media get their narratives. From the get-go we've heard all this stuff about how poor a candidate Sarah Palin was compared with Barack Obama. It was nonsense. It's really too bad that the media is a one note band. This is a clear sign of how biased the media is. Notice that the media guy didn't even try to bring up a point. How vacant is that?

The Time to Act Is Now: "Victory or Death" the Password of Washington's Army!

A call to the ramparts: "Save America!"

Back to the Drawing Boards ...

SEE HERE It is essential in a democratic republic that we have an educated electorate. Basically that means we have to do something about the total and expensive failure of the public schools to actually educate. It seems what we have is more a set of rather poor indoctrination centers than anything resembling true education, especially education suited to a free people. I vote for vouchers which will level the educational opportunity playing field. I also vote to keep the state and the feds out of the enforcement loop and make enforcement a free market things that parent do by deciding where to spend the vouchers. You'll be astonished at how much better education gets.

Has America Gone Mad?

A little plain talk about the "religion of peace." The in-your-face religion of 9/11 plans to build a mosque at ground zero. What an insulting and offensive action!

In Case You Still Believe In Global Warming

SEE HERE One of the things that annoys me beyond measure is that the news media no longer reports the news. Instead the news media is agenda driven and only report what they consider will advance their agenda and their agenda is the progressive liberal socialist agenda. So Obama can do no wrong and every harebrained progressive idea is passed along with minimal scrutiny. The bottom line is that you're being brainwashed. You might as well be listening to Pravda in the old days and taking your marching order from their coverage of world affairs.

The Heartland Institute ran a terrific post Climategate Climate Conference and were largely ignored because it wasn't spouting the party line. Well click on the link above and see what you missed. If you still believe in global warming you better be prepared to counter the data that shows it is cherry picked hogwash advanced to promote a huge move to tax energy to the point of extinction. The usual suspects will profit and you will be fleeced. I hope you're ready for $7/gallon gasoline as the NIC shuts down U.S. coastal oil production.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Christmas 2010

CLICK HERE The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia. This is going to be awesome and in digital 3D. Can't wait!!

Who's to Blame: The Feds! Are You Surprised?

The government with their heads up where the sun don't shine is basically responsible for the whole thing. They are a bunch of idiots and a bunch of thieves.

The Seizure of the American Economy: Where Will It End?

SEE HERE Michele Bachmann expresses her concern that Obama is trying to take over the oil industry. Also the BP money looks increasingly like a big slush fund for Obama. Just how much of the administration incompetence should be tolerated before making a fuss? Trillions for this billions for that, no evidence of oversight, no evidence of competence, and pretty soon you understand that it is just a very large shell game where the cronies get the cash and you get an empty shell. Thankfully, November Is Coming!

RI boy who made banned toy soldier hat gets medal

SEE HERE Story of the idiots who objected to a kids patriotic hat because the toy soldiers on it carried guns has a happy ending. Even the ACLU did something sensible for a change. Wonders never cease! SEE HERE apparently the policy will be changing.

An OIl Spill Summary Worth Reading

SEE HERE Do you think we can use the oil spill crisis to address the oil spill and not merely as a mechanism to grow government? Government incompetency largely created the situation that led to the oil spill in the first place. Let's deal with this crisis before creating still more red tape. And of course the actions so far have not only not addressed the oil spill but are calculated to put thousands out of work and the administration lied about what the technical people said. SEE HERE The sheer magnitude of the incompetence is mind-boggling.

Another Example of Democratic Economic Ignorance

SEE HERE Democrats need to be required to take economics classes so they actually become at least marginally competent when it comes to managing policies with economic impact. Every time they touch the economy they tend to screw it up.

Economic Prognostication: Where is the Economy Going?

Growth in Gold prices is surprising especially long range. Dollar is only holding because Euro and Yen are weaker, so it isn't a testimony to the absolute strength of the dollar, only the relative strength. That can be seen by the continued strength of gold even after it has quadrupled in value over the not so distant past. Oil may also go up strongly due to all the take down of oil supplies.

Lost Tools of Learning

SEE HERE Dorothy Sayers is considered an honorary Inkling. For those who may not have the foggiest idea of what I'm talking about, i.e. who don't have an inkling of what an Inkling is. The Inklings were a group that met with C.S. Lewis, generally his friends from around Oxford, in his college rooms on Thursdays and at a local pub, the Eagle and Child, called the Bird and Babe, on Tuesdays. Dorothy Sayers was not an Inkling but is often considered something of an honorary one because of her correspondence with Lewis.
Here we see her discussing education. I thought it something worth pointing out since it was highlighted on SpareOom, a C.S. Lewis listserv on Yahoo which I moderate.

She proposes that we must turn back the wheel to preserve education (certainly something like that appears necessary given the sad state into which education has fallen in our own time.) She questions the effectiveness of our current education by pointing out how susceptible we have become to advertising, asserting that that shows that we don't apply critical thought to this persuasive media that surrounds us. Her point is well taken as she shows through her discussion of the Trivium: Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric, in that order.

The odd thing is that these three are the foundation of organized thought. If we don't have an adequate command of language we simply cannot think. Herein lies a problem with modern education. She captures the essence of our problem today when she says of our young people " ... they are a prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of them in their intellects." We are turning out people who cannot think because they have not learned the tools of thought.

The solution is to return to what worked, for what we are doing now decidedly does not work unless it is intentional that we are building a nation of drones. If it is intentional then I think we have a conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories and perhaps to end us all. Rather I think it is laziness that has gone unchecked so long that it has become ingrained. One might reasonably apply what goes by the name of Hanlon's Razor ("Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.")

But a problem we have and it has led to our present state where we can elect a man whose only visible credential is his ability to speak well, especially on script with a teleprompter. That should scare us. But if we are already so fully converted to drone-dom, perhaps we will just settle into the mire of complacency. Time will tell! Meanwhile read Dorothy Sayers' essay and weep for a lost world.

— "The Lost Tools of Learning" was first presented by Miss Sayers at Oxford in 1947.

Data Rules!

SEE HERE There is a popular idea especially among liberals and progressives that the government programs of Roosevelt's New Deal saved us from the Great Depression. In this reading Thomas Sowell throws a little data on this hypothesis and cooks it convincingly. It would be nice if liberals and progressives cared about data, but they don't. They only care about their theories which are concocted to give them control and power to punish those that oppose them. If you doubt that you might explore the behavior of the Obama administration. They use every opportunity to apply political tests to the largess they are spreading around. It is corruption on a deep and continuous level, just like the New Deal.

The Asylum Is Being Run By the Inmates

SEE HERE Sometimes it just doesn't pay to get up. An extra hour of so of sleep might prepare you to meet the sheer insanity that is printed in the morning paper. Here in Harrisonburg we have a former mayor nutjob who's running for city council claiming that in a special election yesterday the computer glitch that got the day started was a sinister conspiracy on the part of the Republicans to limit the vote. This idea doesn't survive even the early smell test. No-one's vote was not counted and it was a new system. If there was any fault it was not having the manual back-up system in place. Then down the page was a story out of Rhode Island about a kid who came to school with a decorated hat, part of an assignment, and he decorated his hat to honor the military with little plastic soldiers. But since they were carrying little tiny guns they ran afoul of the school district's zero-tolerance weapons policy. This, as usual, is an example of sheer madness.

I'm not sure when it happened that we turned the media and the schools over to lunatic nutjobs, but that's the case these days. Instead of learning reading, writing, and mathematics the kids are learning or more accurately being indoctrinated into liberal social theory, sexual perversion and promiscuity, and to disrespect their parents and anyone that doesn't toe the superliberal mindlessness that passes for political correctness.

C.S. Lewis wrote an excellent essay called "On the Reading of Old Books" and in it he made the observation: "Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths, and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. ..." The essay is in God In the Dock for those who might be interested in reading the whole essay.

Our own period is more a tissue of fads and fallacies than anything else. Chris Matthews in the reading is an excellent example of a man who personifies this period's fallacies. It might be worth picking up Aristotle's "Politics" to see how far we have fallen. This sage of ancient Athens could teach the modern school system and folks like Chris Matthews quite a lot. But I'm afraid they have all forgotten how to read for understanding. Instead they read for talking points and elements that can be exaggerated into slanders or distorted into slurs.

SEE HERE for some resolution to the story of the RI boy with the banned hat.

The Demon-crats Don't Like Conservative Women Either

SEE HERE And you thought it was only Sarah Palin? Silly you! The bottom line of course is that liberals really don't like to be contradicted. After all whatever it is they believe is the revealed wisdom from the home tree (sorry Avatar), infused into their bodies without stopping at the brain by the PC injection. It's genetic, but it does have a cost, a major reduction in neurons. They atrophy from lack of use. But they are really offensive. It's unintentional of course.

They think (well not exactly) perhaps it's more "they emote" that anyone who thinks must be masculine, see the conservative women comments. I suppose that means they think they are all women since they have such a low view of women as to believe they must all be liberal, socialist, progressives, i.e. as brainless as they are.

Conservative women rock: Some of my favorites, 1) Ann Coulter, 2) Michelle Malkin, 3) my wife (not necessarily in that order), and did I mention, 4) Michele Bachmann, 5) Sarah Palin, and 6)Laura Ingraham. I guess that's enough for now. The common denominator? — They know how to use their neurons! The liberal, progressive, socialist bunch only know how to use their mouths to repeat the mantra and call names. That's what passes for thought on the left. Sorry, but truth is truth!

Simple Model Shows Temperature Causes CO2 Rise Not the Other Way Around

SEE HERE This is pretty cool from Lon Hocker (see below). The quality of the fit is impressive. Another spike in the global warming coffin.
-- Lon Hocker describes himself as: “Undergrad physics at Princeton. Graduate School MIT. PhD under Ali Javan the inventor of the gas laser. Retired president of Onset Computer Corp., which I started over 30 years ago. Live in Hawaii and am in a band that includes two of the folks who work at MLO (Mauna Loa Observatory)!”

Haters: The People Who Demonize Everyone Are the Demon-crats

SEE HERE Do leftists say the darnedest things or merely the most hateful things? I've been watching what passes for politics in the United States for a long time probably beginning with the first Eisenhower run when I was just a kid and we'd only had our first black and white TV for a while.
So I've watched this tendency of Democrats to simply slander people regardless of who they are or what they think just so long as they are the opposition. I think it points up the character of Democrats. People of character assume the best of others. People who are Democrats I've found operate in the opposite fashion, assuming the worst of others. It's one thing when you have a track record, but Democrats don't like a track record, too easy then to counter their specious arguments.
Bush is rapidly becoming the most vilified president of all time. His fate reminds me of Herbert Hoover who was vilified by the Roosevelt administration for all kinds of things he didn't do. The mantra "Bush did it" is getting mighty old however.
The last civilized Democrat that I remember was Adlai Stevenson. If there were any others I'm not sure I noticed. Kennedy was a philanderer. Johnson was a crook who had others take the fall for him. Carter was the previous worst president of my lifetime destroying the economy in essence robbing the elderly of their retirement. I would run into them working at the airports in menial capacities to earn a few bucks because their retirement programs no longer were enough to pay their bills. Clinton was a lower class version of Kennedy. He was also a philanderer but without any style. Now we have Obama who will soon pass Carter as the worst president in my lifetime. Now I consider these all statements that are trivially easy to validate so don't say I'm name calling. If you disagree do your homework and show me I'm wrong.

I might add that I'm not claiming the Republicans were great or didn't have some flaws. But it is more difficult to see because they had their presidencies in the presence of the continual drum beat of slander and misrepresentation from the press and the Democrats.

If I were a Democrat, which I can never be after their abandonment of the Vietnamese on the battlefield after the North violated the treaty, I'd say something like "well you do the same thing." My reaction to this is disgust because, first off, it's a fallacy not an argument, second, it not only isn't true, but is easily demonstrated not to be true. What is true is that Republicans have criticized Democrat presidents on many occasions. But they've worked with them, often advancing ideological agendas that they don't agree with. The opposition has never done this. They make sweet talk about bipartisanship while sharpening the knife they're going to stick in your back as soon as you show the least signs of believing them. It cost the first George Bush a second term. It cost Ronald Reagan his reputation as a fiscal conservative. But enough. The indictment is that Democrats cannot be trusted. The record that demonstrates this is long and convincing. When are we going to stop pretending and start insisting on principled government by people who have integrity?

Government Is Not the Solution to All Problems

SEE HERE Actually government is the true solution to very few problems and those usually ones that government is ignoring like the illegal immigration problem. The oil spill in the Gulf is going to be solved, if at all, by expertise from private companies. The government actually made this problem and most of their actions so far have simply exacerbated it, delayed any solution, and actually created economic chaos in the industry destroying the jobs and incomes of thousands. It may come as a shock to the NIC, but government is not only not the solution to all problems, but often enough it is the source of the problems to begin with.

Ann Coulter Is Such a Hoot! This is Funny!

SEE HERE If you follow politics at all then you've likely noticed that this fellow named Alvin Greene won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat in the Democratic primary in South Carolina. The whole thing is a hoot and the liberals are incensed because Greene is a convicted felon, spent no money essentially on the race beyond the filing fee of $10,000. The funny thing is that the Democrats are determined to blame it on the Republicans.

This is very illuminating. See if you can follow my logic: 1) In order to win the primary Greene had to get more votes. I gather his name was first on the ballot, which generates a small bump from voters who have no clue and just pick the first name. Maybe it was that they didn't like the guy they knew about who had spent all the money on the election where Greene had spent next to nothing. But in any case it wasn't the Republicans crossing over, they had twice the vote turn out in their primary. So the first mantra is I. Blame Someone Else For Results You Don't Like. 2) then now that you know it is someone's fault spin up the media with trial balloons that have nothing to do with reality. II. Construct a Narrative that Explains The Result (no facts need complicate matters). III. Try to Reverse the Result by Demonizing.

I think what it shows is that Democrats might actually have a sense of humor, at least the ones that vote. That does seem like an unlikely conclusion. Certainly the ones that live in my neighborhood don't. We just had a landslide special election which elected a local small businessman to replace a state delegate who was appointed by the governor to an agricultural position. The small businessman was a Republican. There was a failure of some equipment at the polls due to bad programming early in the day which stimulated a former Democratic city major to make accusations against the Republicans. I think it is actually a universal Democratic thing — Never Take Responsibility for Anything! And if something goes wrong, Look for Someone's A$$ to Kick!! It couldn't be your fault. Ann Coulter is a treat!

Don't You Get Tired of the Lying? We Are Not Running Out of Oil

SEE HERE I guess when liberals cook up their lies after a while they must start believing them themselves they tell them in such a lockstep consistent fashion. It has to be a form of self-hypnosis. Are we running out of oil? Depends on what you mean. There is never any more oil then what has been discovered so far and there is always more to discover, or at least there has been. Oil is not due to decomposing dinosaurs, and the supply of oil over all is unknown but likely very large. We have hamstrung ourselves by choosing not to exploit the known reserves of easy oil that are available. We actually have enough known reserves to satisfy our oil consumption for three centuries, we've just decided not to exploit them. Instead we do crazy things like force BP 40 miles offshore to water almost a mile deep to drill where the risks are, as we are discovering, much higher than shallower or on land. We did it to ourselves and we're not running out of oil. We have too many liberals and not enough will to tell them to stuff it. So when you hear all this propaganda about how awful and irresponsible BP is, you might wonder about the responsibility of those who forced them out into those deep waters and risky technology.

Don't You

SEE HERE
Somehow this was left as a stub. The point was intended to detail the fact that the president simply misrepresented the state of oil in the world. It apparently got started and then doubled somehow so that the next post is on the same topic where it is developed.

Is He or Isn't He?

SEE HERE Well here we go again. My tendency is to think that president Obama must be a chameleon since on alternate Tuesdays he's a Christian or a Muslim. One thing seems certain and that is that if he's a Christian he's certainly made no very great display of it by doing things like going to church. The problem I have with it is more the fact that it's an issue than what the truth is. It's like all the other mysteries that surround Obama like his birth certificate, his school records, his religion, all the contradictory swirl of evidence that surrounds him that never seems to get cleared up. It's just bizarre and the fact that no one insists enough on it being cleared up that it is, is even more bizarre. I'm waiting to discover that he's really an alien landed from a spaceship to take over planet earth.

Benjamin Wiker: 10 Books that Screwed Up the World!

I'm enjoying Wiker's book about the ten conservative books, see a couple of posts back, that I ordered his book on the ten books that screwed up the world. In the course of looking for more information about him I stumbled upon this short video which is about the book to some extent.
I was fascinated by the comments that accompanied the video because they were virtually all 'ad hominem's without any real sense of what he had been saying. I've been in a dialogue in another forum about the fact that most people these days don't recognize an argument when they hear it and often advance assertions as if they were arguments. I'm sorry folks, but an assertion is not an argument. Generally it is a statement of something you believe or want others to believe which is to be demonstrated to be valid or invalid. It is the beginning of an argument. Today you'll likely be accused of impoliteness merely for disagreeing. The person advancing the assertion thinks they have finished when they have said what they believe. Often they imagine that truth is a vote about how many people believe as they do and that isn't an argument either.
One of the things I like about Wiker's books insofar as I've read them so far is that he says why he believes. He provides actual arguments and not mere assertions. It doesn't hurt of course that generally I've found myself in agreement. I'll probably come back to this topic when I've finished reading his two books that I have.

Ten Things He Might Have Done Had He Any Leadership!

SEE HERE I suppose beating up Obama for lack of leadership is a bit like beating a snail for being slow. I mean What Did You Expect? Well common sense would have been nice. Increasingly it looks like when crisis hits, the NIC looks for the things to do that will deepen the crisis, not lessen it. That's just my sense of how things have gone down on the half-dozen or so crises that have loomed. Even when things have gone OK it has been mostly because of the initiative of others.

Culture In Crisis: Winning the Culture Wars! or Called to be Saints! Only the Good Can Conquor Evil!

SEE HERE You have a choice when things get bad. You can fight or hunker down and hide. The first strategy is courageous, the second may sometimes be prudent. It is a shame when either are actually necessary since it is a given that we ought to live in a good society. Aristotle understood society to be about advancing the good of all the citizens and that if the leaders were only interested in their own aims then the society was seriously flawed. We live in a time that is increasingly decadent and moving towards tyranny. The surprising thing is that so few people seem to notice or care. PODCAST OF KREEFT's SPEECH

Revisiting the Past: A Dark Night!

SEE HERE Somehow we seem to be hell-bent to revisit the past because once again we've failed to learn its lessons. If free societies collapse in the European Union we may be in for a whole new period of National Socialism, Populist Socialism, Communism, all the other permutations of collectivism that see like solutions until they impoverish their practitioners. I've really never seen a time in my own life when these kinds of prognostications seems so frequent and so relevant and possible. I'm hoping that it is all fear mongering, but it all smells wrong, so I'm not so sure. I wish my own grandfather was around to tell me what it was like when he was alive. He was a young man when the depression hit and saw the run up to all the European fascism and communism as well as our own dalliance with some of these ideas here in the United States. I found his copy of Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" the other day, which seemed appropriate.

Leadership Obama Style: Appoint Another Czar!

SEE HERE True leadership is about getting solutions to problems not about things like plausible deniability, CYA, blame distribution, kicking someones a$$ or all the other strategies that Obama likes to embrace. True leadership is about finding competency, concentrating it, getting solution in a timely fashion, giving credit where credit is due and not hogging it to try to elevate your personal status. As you can see simply by watching, Obama is a master of rhetoric and the blame game. Competency doesn't seem to generally reach his job description which apparently has not been updated since he was a community organizer, whatever that is. The "appoint another Czar" strategy is a CYA, blame distribution strategy ... I'm doing something and they'll tell me whose a$$ to kick. There is hardly a president we've ever had that I don't miss at this moment. There isn't one that couldn't do a better job that this one is doing.

2000 Years of Christian Devotional History

SEE HERE Sometimes a book just jumps out at you as if the Holy Spirit was nudging you on the shoulder. I felt that way a little when I was walking over to Books A Million and saw this book's title in the window off to one side of the store, an obscure side that just happened to be in front of the window. It wasn't a display, but the title was in large enough letters that as I approached the store where I was expecting to wait a while for wife and mother-in-law, I noted the title "Devotional Classics" and I thought, "That sounds interesting."
My wife and I are in a spiritual book club that meets monthly to discuss our progress through various spiritual classics. Sometimes we spend several months on the same book. Most of what we read is devotional in some sense. So I prowled through the store to the back aisle that was in front of the window to see the book. I was delighted with it. I have not had a chance to read it mind you. Flipping through it and seeing the sources I was convinced.
"Devotional Classics" is an ecumenical work that offers the work of 52 devotional writings and authors from every strain of Christianity and every period. I was excited by the book and happened to pick it up the day of the spiritual book club when we were finishing one book and would need to pick a new one. This book just screamed "Pick Me, Pick Me!" so I bought it and took it with me to the book club. It was love at first sight and we start reading it this month with it's first theme: Preparing for the Spiritual Life featuring eight authors: 1) C.S. Lewis, 2) Dallas Willard, 3) Jonathan Edwards, 4) Francis de Sales, 5) John of the Cross, 6) Bernard of Clairvaux, 7) Francis Fenelon, and 8) St. Augustine. Just that selection should give you a flavor of the book. I'll try to remember to follow up when we've had a meeting or two.

A Chesterton quote: "A room without books is like a body without a soul."

Truth Trumps Drivel

SEE HERE I was wandering around Books a Million yesterday actually just waiting for my wife and her mother to finish a little shopping. They leave me in a bookstore, sort of to warehouse me for the interim since I rarely bite people or get into too much trouble if I'm wandering around among book, a forest of knowledge and wannabe knowledge, a feast from truth to drivel with hardly an empty spot in the continuity.
As often happens to me I would pick up various books and quickly peruse them to see where they lay on the spectrum. The vast majority of the sort of trendy drivel kind, written often quickly to make a buck before the fashion that inspired them changes.
Today though I was fortunate (or unfortunate since my wife insists there are too many books in the house), and I stumbled across two treasures worth actually coughing up the money to take them with me.
The first was this one "10 Books Every Conservative MUST READ" — the title got me to pick it up. Focusing in on the authors listed on the cover got me to open the book and then buy it. I wandered over to the coffee section, got a mug of brew, black, and read the first chapter on Aristotle and learned a little from his "Politics." I was struck by the fact that Wiker who now writes full time for the Discovery Institute was such a clear and incisive writer, and also had authored a previous book "10 Books That Screwed Up the World." When I got home I ordered that one from Amazon. I figured between these two books we should be able to populate the spectrum from truth to drivel rather well. I'll leave the second book to another post.

Democratic Congressman's Idea of Civil Discourse

"Who are you?" ... repeated many times while physically assaulting a young man who merely greeted him and asked him if he supported the Obama agenda. Seems over the top to me. I guess he thinks being a congressman makes him a special form of life.

Sgt. Friday on Obama ... Amusing!

I'd change the last sentence to "We call it a representative republic not crony corruption." or something like that. It's getting harder and harder to watch this ongoing parade of incompetency at the Federal Level. Point fingers, declare emergency, spend money we don't have, repeat. That's the algorithm. It ends when the economic system collapses. Don't know how long we have. Need a good model. I'm sure the global warming folks can contribute a catastrophe scenario. Just kidding! November Is Coming!

Posturing, Demands, Deadlines ... Are There Any Realists In Government?

SEE HERE Anyone would think that Harry Potter's alive and well and ready to come to the rescue with some sort of magic spell that cleans up oil. If the best the government can do is to yell and scream and set unrealistic deadlines (48 hours or else ... give me a break!) then we're doomed to a long painful lesson in reality. You can't wish your way out of this. Whatever ends up working will take significant time to implement. Engineers can't perform magic and this leak is 5000 feet below the surface of the ocean, almost a mile down. Even getting these pictures we've seen is an amazing technical achievement.

The government forced these guys out there. Signed off on ridiculous safety plans (What are the consequences to the regulators for lousy regulation and allowing plans that were inadequate to go forward?). There is no end of blame to go around, but all we're going to hear is BP this and BP that when the NIC spends 54 days getting around to even talking with BP and now wants to impose 48 hour deadlines. That's desperation and nonsense to boot. Superman isn't employed by either BP or the U.S. Government. Meanwhile instead of deploying a wide range of techniques to try to manage the situation now, right now, the government is casting around for a silver bullet that may not exist at all. If you ever wondered why government should not be allowed to run things, this is an object lesson. Save me from government that imagines it knows what it is doing! November Is Coming! We need a lot less government and a lot more freedom.

Did You Ever Wonder How It Feels to Be the Government?

SEE HERE Well the government makes even more errors than Microsoft so this might be a clue.

Is There Something to be Concerned About? A Definite Maybe!

Short Intro: A correspondent of mine sent the following links which were used in a presentation given at the Shenandoah Valley TEA Party Patriots Meeting last Thursday. The theme I gather was concern about the possibility that the current administration has sinister plans to create a Hitler Youth kind of organization to advance the administration's agenda. I don't know how seriously to take such a concern, but the links below were used in support of that concern.

1 - http://change.gov/agenda/service_agenda/
2 - Obama: The Civilian Security Force as big as our military. Hey what?
3 - Boy Scouts and Border Patrol:
4 - City Year - this is the 10 minute version - that actually includes Obama and Rahm
5 - Rahm Emanuel
6 - Explorer Scouts train in law enforcement (click on more photos to see the photos)Photos
7 - Another Explorer video, not shown but talked about VIDEO
8 - A city year induction ceremony (also not shown)VIDEO
H.R. 1388 -Serve America Act
Open Congress link to serve act
Ready Reserve Corp in the Healthcare law ( if this link doesn't take you to the page type in 'Ready reserve corp' in the "find" box and click next until it takes you to the text) CLICK HERE

Maybe the Birthers Win

Breaking news about Hawaii. A former employee of the Honolulu government says there is no birth certificate. It isn't there. If that is true isn't it malfeasance or something for the state of Hawaii to continue to cover for the president? What is going on? SEE HERE

This Is Damn Interesting!

SEE HERE Strange bedfellows indeed. My enemy's enemy is my friend? Will wonders never cease? Well gotta wonder about this one. I guess Iran has few friends even in the Muslim world, must be a Sunni Shiite thing. Iran is Shiite and 90% of the Muslim world is Sunni. SEE HERE

Gulf Blame Goes All Around

SEE HERE Last night Greta had Sarah Palin on her show. One of the more interesting things was the source of some of the BP contingency planning. Yup, you guessed, taken in some cases word for word from Alaskan documents even including the protection of Alaskan indigenous animals like sea otters. If that isn't clear evidence that no one bothered to read the document I guess nothing is. I guess not only are Congressmen reading challenged but so are Federal oversight personnel.

Palin catches the NIC out right off by questioning why it takes 54 days to get around to talking to BP. If there is something outrageous it is the total incompetence exhibited by the administration leadership on this crisis across the board. The president has a clear problem with priorities. One of the problems is the priorities of the presidency seem to take back place to all the other things he wants to do, like be on television and read teleprompters and things like vacations and flying in chefs for dinners, and fly in dates with his wife to interesting places. Job? Priorities? "Hey I won the election, it's party time." (at least that's how he acts.) Thankfully, November Is Coming!