I can't believe I missed this. Hopefully they'll be another one. Although I would then be required to buy a bike. Perhaps I'd be asking too much if I asked for a Tweed stroll?
Conquest’s third law
November 16, 2009Conquest's third law of politics is: "The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies." Let's assume a bureaucracy is passing a douchey law prohibiting genetic testing for any purpose whatsoever(!). If such an organization was run by a secret cabal of its enemies, could such a cabal come up with a better name for the law than GINA? I think not . . .
The decline and fall of the American Empire
November 13, 2009Tongue-in-cheek edition:
Sigh
I keeping hearing Carlyle echo
November 12, 2009Here's Professor Kling quoting something:
Here's Carlyle:
Carlyle and Hasan
November 10, 2009I couldn't help think of this (from Latter-Day Pamphlets):
If you love your thief or murderer, if Nature and eternal Fact love him, then do as you are now doing. But if Nature and Fact do not love him? If they have set inexorable penalties upon him and planted natural wrath against him in every god-created human heart, — then I advise you, cease, and change your hand. . . .
The one answer to him [the thief or murderer] is: "Caitiff, we hate thee; and discern for some six thousand years now, that we are called upon by the whole Universe to do it. Not with a diabolic but with a divine hatred. God himself, we have always understood, 'hates sin,' with a most authentic, celestial, and eternal hatred. A hatred, a hostility inexorable, unappeasable, which blasts the scoundrel, and all scoundrels ultimately, into black annihilation and disappearance from the sum of things. The path of it as the path of a flaming sword: he that has eyes may see it, walking inexorable, divinely beautiful and divinely terrible, through the chaotic gulf of human History, and everywhere burning, as with unquenchable fire, the false and death-worthy from the true and life-worthy; making all Human History, and the Biography of every man, a God's Cosmos in place of a Devil's Chaos. So is it, in the end; even so, to every man who is a man, and not a mutinous beast, and has eyes to see. To thee, caitiff, these things were and are quite incredible; to us they are too awfully certain; we, — send thee back into the whole Universe, solemnly expel thee from our community; and will, in the name of God,not with joy and exultation, but with sorrow stern as thy own, hang thee on Wednesday next, and so end. . . .
'Revenge,' my friends! revenge, and the natural hatred of scoundrels, and the ineradicable tendency to revancher oneself upon them, and pay them what they have merited: this is forevermore intrinsically a correct, and even a divine feeling in the mind of every man. Only the excess of it is diabolic; the essence I say is manlike, and even godlike . . .
When I read this:
PC award
November 10, 2009If there was some sort of award for stupid journalism that has been made stupid through political correctness, sure this article would win. Perhaps it could be named "The Hanna Rosin Award."
The actual facts presented in the article are as follows, to understand the excerpt, you must be aware that the author is blaming the housing crisis on new forms of Christianity, exemplified by the prosperity gosel:
Somehow she managed to forget to thank Steve Sailer for compiling the data. Anyway, the author then proceeds to the logical conclusion that the housing crisis was caused by increased lending to minorities, particularly blacks and hispanics. Ha! Just kidding. She can't conclude that, because even though it is the only logical conclusion that flows from her evidence, she's not allowed to conclude (or think) that race could be to blame. The reason she should get an award is that she manages to take this incredibly un-PC set of facts and reach an incoherent, unjustified, incredibly PC conclusion. She concludes that . . . wait for it . . . religion is to blame.
I am dumbfounded. Ms Rosin, your ability to mis-interpret facts to fit PC conclusions is truly unparalleled. If the future is just and if truth eventually prevails, then at some distant time this article will be used to explain the downfall of mainstream media. Once again, congratulations.
The decline and fall of the American Empire
November 10, 2009I can't help remembering that this country – in its modern form – is based on making people take loyalty oaths. During the Civil War, the rebelling states were put down by the most extreme force. They were then forced to re-join the country and their citizens were forced to pledge allegiance to the forces that had recently been trying to kill them. The most interesting thing about this strategy was that it worked pretty well (all things considered).
There is no mystery about how today's strategy will work. Instead of fighting and demanding loyalty, we basically apologize and worry that some of our citizens might not take these attacks lying down. Our concerns are not for the victims families, instead they are for the people who may possibly sympathize with the perpetrator. This strategy always has and always will fail. It is evidence of a dying civilization. Our days are numbered. Enjoy the remaining vestiges of civilization while they last.
Finally!
November 6, 2009A court has recognized the truth – that environmentalism is not science but it is a religion.