Hour of Charm


A new OTR arrival at Archive.org is the 'Hour of Charm', an obscure 1945 program presented mainly for the overseas soldiers via AFRS.

According to this source the program ran from 1934 to 1946 under various names including The Electric Hour; and the musical ensemble, unnamed in these clips, is Phil Spitalny's all-girl orchestra. Spitalny's group featured many of the musicians heard earlier in the Ingenues (aka Coquettes, aka Faydetts), which explains why I love these segments so much.

Unbelievably splendid mix of classical and pop arrangements, performed by some of the best voices I've ever heard. Lots of Victor Herbert songs, and the original arrangements of pop songs have a Herbert flavor.

The recordings are somewhat scratchy; usually I don't mind, but in this case it does interfere with the pure beauty of the music.

= = = = =

Several of these 1945 episodes begin with a perfect little national hymn. I've clipped out and enhanced the best version, but the audio is still unsatisfactory.

Listen.

The words:

Father, come we now on bended knee,
Thankful for the blessings of the free,
May we always true and faithful be,
To the altar of our liberty.

This lovely hymn seems to have disappeared, which leads me to think it was an original verse set to a classical tune. I don't recall hearing or singing it in the usual church hymnals; the tune is unfamiliar but heavenly; none of the lines show up in online searches. Nearest approach is a vaguely similar fraternity/sorority song which was set to Gaudeamus Igitur. [The word 'come' in the first line may not be a correct transcription, but I can't think of a more likely substitute.]
  ¶ 3:59 AM

  Good question
BBC interviewer Evan Davis interviewed Geithner, Capo of the Jewish Mafia. Davis asked one good hard cynical question.

"In most industries we consider that they're more efficient when they pay their staff less. Why do we apply the opposite rule to banking? Why do we consider a bank more efficient when they pay their staff more?"

Capo Geithner evaded, but both parts of the question are still brilliant.

The Jewish Mafia hates to see ordinary companies having any employees in America, let alone paying them. The Mafia rewards companies with increased stock price when they shift production to foreign slave labor (aka "productivity") and rewards them even more for getting out of physical activities entirely.

But banks give constantly increasing billions to their top-level employees, increasing even more when the banks "fail" and "need bailouts" (which means in reality, "threaten to give away the government's secrets" and "receive blackmail for continued silence.")

Why the ever-increasing bonuses? For "talent", the banks tell us. Well, "talent" might be the right word, if you mean "talent" in the same sense that John Dillinger and John Gotti meant "talent".

So far the bonuses have been worth it. Nobody has snitched yet.

Sidenote: Wikileaks announced back in November that it was going to release info about Bank of America "early in 2011". Well, where is it? Has the Wall Street Mafia silenced Assange?
  ¶ 5:47 AM

  Why Korea needs to survive
Self-explanatory video. No language needed, no context needed. It's all there in one minute. Perfect proof that Korea carries the only torch of civilization, now that we've doused ours in shit and ripped it to pieces.

= = = = =

But on the other hand, there's this. Not the opposite of civilization by any means ... but certainly the opposite of self-explanatory!!
  ¶ 1:36 PM

  Coleman's 95 theses
John Coleman, one of the heroes of real science, has written an excellent piece at WUWT. He raises a basic question that doesn't seem to be discussed often.

It appears, as of now, victory, if it were to come, would be on a political level, not a scientific one. Just as “the climate according to Al Gore” has become the Democrat Party mantra, “global warming is not real” has become the rally call of the Republican Party. As a Journalist (I am a member of the television news team at KUSI-TV) I try hard to avoid taking political positions.

So I keep focused on the bad science behind global warming. If my team (There are over 31,000 scientists on my team) can make headway in correcting the science, then I will be happy to let the politics, environmentalism and alternate energy movement fight the policy battles without me.

Which is more effective, correcting the science or altering the political trend?

When I look for a historical answer I'm lost. Since the invention of modern science in the 1600's there has NEVER been a similar situation. There has NEVER been a wild-eyed apocalyptic cult, with fake scientific trappings, that took over almost everything. 90% of churches, 100% of schools and universities, 100% of governments, 200% of Wall Street, but only 85% of media.

There have been thousands of apocalyptic cults, a few leading to suicide for followers, most leading to disappointment and disgust. Until Gaia came along, none of them took over more than a small segment of society, none captured even one national government.

And there have been plenty of Kuhnian cases when scientists held onto an old theory after it was clearly invalid, or rejected a new theory when it was clearly valid. Tectonic plates in geology, the Bernoulli vibration of the larynx, the tuned-piano image of the cochlea: all obviously fit the known facts better than earlier ideas but had to wait for the older generation to die. But none of these had any political effects or political support. They were purely internal disputes within one branch of science.

And there have been a few earlier cases when political forces supported bad science because it helped them to maintain the egalitarian myth, such as Soviet support for Lysenko's inheritance of acquired characteristics, or left-wing support for B.F. Skinner's behaviorism and Margaret Mead's Samoa stories ....

Aha! There's the analogy after all. B.F. Skinner and Margaret Mead were the pet "scientists" of the insane egalitarians who have taken over most** institutions since 1948. When anyone dared to doubt that all humans are identical, they were told to read Mead and Skinner for "scientific" proof.

And what do you know? Margaret Mead also co-founded the Carbon Cult.

Why does this one unimpressive figure stand at the base of two holocausts?

I dunno.

If I had to pick a female of that generation to lead two massive quasi-religious movements, I'd pick this one, not a dumpy slouch like Mead.

To answer the original question, egalitarianism is fading fast in science but not in politics. Biologists no longer feel bound to make ritual obeisance to equality when they find results that show difference. MD psychiatrists appear to have cut loose from the dogma. But legislatures and courts are still roaring forward with Skinner and Mead, still ripping culture and society into primitive Stone-age scraps.

So: in the one relevant example, science corrected first, but the reformed science hasn't slowed the political juggernaut. Does that offer any hope for stopping the Gaian holocaust? Not that I can see.

= = = = =

** Footnote: Egalitarianism never reached anywhere near the universal coverage of Gaia, nor did it have the same religious fervor. Many governments and churches remain uninfected; Wall Street loves Diversity because it's deadly, but even Goldman never figured out a way to securitize Diversity Swaps.
  ¶ 6:31 AM

  Hot bright hands


Polistra thinks the Repooflicans are (as always) missing a great chance to make a popular point.

With the story last night about Easy-Bake toy ovens no longer being made, even NBC's Brian Williams showed anger against the fantastically idiotic "War On Light Bulbs". His phrase.

Plenty of Americans are hoarding real bulbs so they'll never have to live with the deadly and wasteful fluorescent poison pods.

Time for a crusade.

Slogan: When you take them out of my hot bright hands.

Ready-made for a partisan point, since the 2007 law was written and passed by an all-D Congress.

I suppose the obstacle is that the law was happily signed by Sultan Bush The Son, who is still seen as Magnificent and Radiant and Godlike by the pussy-ass Repooflicans.

This would be a fine chance for Repooflicans to please the public, AND distinguish themselves from Dems, AND divorce themselves from a family of disgraceful traitorous enemy agents, but I doubt they can do it.

= = = = =

Outtake:

At first I tried for "optical accuracy." I thought the bulbs should be illuminating the scene, not just showing a lit filament.



Oops! Accuracy isn't always good in a CG picture.
  ¶ 6:12 PM

  UN SES
While Qaddafi was in charge, Libya proudly sat on the Human Rights Council, even holding the post of chairman at one point. But now that he's out of power, the UN doesn't see Libya as a friend any more. Awwwww. Poor UN.

Perfect self-explanatory sentence:

"Widespread and systematic attacks against the civilian population may amount to crimes against humanity," said Pillay, a former U.N. war crimes judge.

Yes, that pretty much defines the way Qaddafi ruled. You've been endorsing his rule enthusiastically for 20 years. So why is the same behavior suddenly a cause to remove Libya from your council? Presumably because the UN knows that the successor regime will no longer be Marxist.

Tells us everything we need to know (well, not that we didn't already know it!) about Human Rights and the UN.

It also teaches dictators an important lesson. Hold onto power as long as possible, because cowardly rich countries will kowtow to you while in power, then insult you and take your money after you leave office.
  ¶ 9:03 AM

  The larger trend
Qaddafi's theory that Sheikh Osama is behind all the Arab unrest is logical, whether based on facts or not.

As I noted last month about Egypt, the direction of these uprisings is away from secular Western-favoring rulers and toward more serious Islamic governance. Toward rulers that fit the native culture. This is precisely what Sheikh Osama has been working for. Killing infidels is only a tactic, not the ultimate goal.

This Arab-world unrest and the moves toward nationalism in many Euro countries are parallel, fitting into a larger trend. Each country is moving toward a government that satisfies the natural culture of THIS COUNTRY'S PEOPLE, not the dictates of some distant and abstract empire.

In the Arab world, the distant empire is America and the natural culture is Islamic.

In the Euro world, the distant empire is the EU and the natural culture is Christian.

In all cases, we're seeing the death of the arbitrary nation-state with artificial borders, and the rebirth of the real nation defined by a single people with a single culture and a single language. And that's a goddamn good thing.

Will it happen in America? No. We're the abstract empire that everyone is abandoning. We're the original model of the artificial nation-state that is now repudiated. Under the current trend our fate is to collapse into dismal Haitian chaos with no rebirth.

The Feds no longer want to use real weapons against foreign invaders, but they will unquestionably drop a hundred megatons on the first hint of secession. Both parties worship the bloodthirsty madman Lincoln, and both parties will follow his demented bloodlust into final national suicide.
  ¶ 5:46 PM

  Cui gigabono?
So I sez Ho Kay....

Let's say you've been rigging the agriculture markets. Under your watchful eye, governments have imposed ethanol requirements, taken farmland out of production to protect "endangered species", eliminated pesticides in rich countries, and used superstitions in poor countries to stop genetically modified crops that could save them from famine.

Your speculative bets have paid off, but a few paltry trillions are no longer enough to satisfy your Aleph-One greed.

Now you realize that your high food prices are starting to cause unrest in countries that have lots of oil.... so you get your slaves in the Western media to start a Twitterfest that takes the Arab masses over the brink.

Now your oil speculation, which you had so carefully rigged in the same way (inducing governments to forbid drilling to "cut carbon emissions") is finally paying off again! Environmentalism was cancelled out by the loss of demand in 2008, but now Arab chaos is bringing oil futures back up to $200!

Aaaaaahhhh!!! More trillions! And double the pleasure, double the fun, EXTRA BONUS!!!! EXTRA BONUS!!!!! Millions of people died as a result!!!!!! Oh! Oh! Oh Gaia! Oh Gaia! Oh Yessssssssssssss. Mmmmmmmmmm. For a while anyway.......  ¶ 9:53 AM

  Refreshingly real science
Heard a brief news item about this on local NPR. First thought was "Oh boy, here we go again, another climate catastrophe attributed to human SINS AND INIQUITIES, another stupid linear extrapolation into sheer nonsense."

Nope, this time I was wrong!

Actual science making actual and useful predictions:

The researchers analyzed a sediment core from Castor Lake in north central Washington to plot the region's drought history since around 4,000 BCE and found that wet and dry cycles during the past millennium have grown longer. The team attributed this recent deviation to the irregular pressure and temperature changes brought on by El Niño/La Niña. At the same time, they reported, the wet cycle stretching from the 1940s to approximately 2000 was the dampest in 350 years.

Lead researcher Mark Abbott, a Pitt professor of geology and planetary science, said those unusually wet years coincide with the period when western U.S. states developed water-use policies. "Western states happened to build dams and water systems during a period that was unusually wet compared to the past 6,000 years," he said. "Now the cycle has changed and is trending drier, which is actually normal. It will shift back to wet eventually, but probably not to the extremes seen during most of the 20th century."

It's so damn refreshing to see research that starts with facts, takes account of cycles and pays respect to a baseline, instead of the usual process of inventing facts to fit a favorite model!

Now let's see if anyone follows the advice and starts to plan for less waterflow.

Not bloody likely. Nobody wants to follow heresy when Satanist orthodoxy brings so much more money, power and glory.
  ¶ 7:43 AM

  NZ in serious trouble
Major quake hits NZ:

Parts of Christchurch, New Zealand, were in shambles Tuesday after a powerful earthquake struck at midday, toppling tall buildings and historic churches and killing at least 65 people.

The spire of the city's well-known stone cathedral toppled into a central square, while video footage showed multistory buildings collapsed in on themselves, and others with walls that had fallen into streets strewn with bricks and shattered concrete.

Sidewalks and roads were cracked and split, while thousands of dazed, screaming and crying residents wandered through the streets as sirens blared. Groups of people helped victims clutching bleeding wounds, and others were carried to private vehicles in makeshift stretchers fashioned from rugs or bits of debris.

More:

Officials fear the death toll could double amid reports that more than 200 were trapped in collapsed buildings and wreckage of homes. Bodies were seen lying in the streets, untended until emergency services were able to reach them.

Bystanders dug with bare hands to rescue survivors trapped under piles of rubble. Some reports said the city had ran out of ambulances, with rescuers forced to use private vehicles.

New Zealand's govt has been in the forefront of the "Global Warming" scam, prioritizing its budget to put lots of money in the pockets of obscenely rich Jews in order to "stave off the inevitable catastrophic sea level rise." Nobody has explained how increasing the weight of gold in a Swiss bank account can stop the sea from rising. Perhaps it's something like the Lever of Archimedes, but facts and logic never matter to an apocalyptic cult.

Will they learn something? Will the NZ govt decide to stop worrying about a transparent and vicious myth, and start worrying about the ACTUAL catastrophes that ACTUAL Nature ACTUALLY causes? Or will they find it more comfortable to continue enriching George Soros and Goldman Sachs? I'm not hopeful.

= = = = =

One commenter at WUWT made an excellent point. Quakes are not random. They happen when the underground stresses reach a triggerable threshold, then an external force (moon phase, eruption elsewhere, etc) gives enough of a pull to exceed the threshold. One or two days before the actual quake, something happens which can be sensed by animals and humans. We still don't know what this something is, but it must be physical and measurable. If we stopped pouring money and resources into the genocidal Established Satanism of climate, we might have enough money and resources to predict quakes.
  ¶ 5:31 AM

  Agh, stop that crap.
Headline: Israel Concerned about Iran's Suez Canal Passage.

Why is everyone worried about Persia attacking other countries?

Follow history. The last time Persia attacked anyone was more than 1300 years ago. From about 700 BC to 700 AD, Persia was the big dog on earth, conquering everyone in sight.

Since 700 AD, Persia has been involved in three wars, always on the receiving end. In WW1, Russia, Turkey and Britain fought in Persia for no reason at all. (All of WW1 was fought for no reason at all; it was the ultimate modern war.) Britain ended up more or less in charge. After 1920 the Shah took over, strengthened Persia, pushed out the British, and favored Germany because it wasn't Russia, Britain or Turkey. Then in WW2, Britain and Russia repeated the same performance, fearing that the Shah's sympathy for the Krauts would turn Persia into a German helper. Again Britain ended up semi-occupying Persia for a while. In the '50s and '70s, America tried its hand at meddling, first restoring the Shah then removing him. Neither move served American interests, but that has never stopped us from meddling. Then in the 1980's, Saddam tried to take over Persian resources all by himself; a harsh ten-year war ensued, and Saddam finally gave up without admitting defeat.

All of these wars were directed against Persia from outside, all ended with Persia reasserting its independence.

Granted, Persia has done some meddling of its own, supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel. I'm not saying Persia is sweeter or nicer than any other country, just that its history doesn't support the picture of a wild-eyed attacker we're trying to draw. Unsurprisingly, the inventor of chess is good at strategic games, and its persistence through the last century of attacks and incoming meddles shows that the strategy works.

After all this foreign interference with a country that has been simply trying to survive for 1300 years, can you blame Persia for raising its hackles and rattling its sabers when it sees another meddle coming?
  ¶ 2:58 AM

  History rhymes
Somebody on the radio recited the tired generational joke:

"What? You mean Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?"

This was funny for a few minutes in the '80s, then stopped being funny.

Now it's meaningless, probably puzzling to youngsters.

Nobody remembers Wings, but everyone still knows the Beatles.

= = = = =

Another generational circle: The Geico tap-dancing ad.

Announcer says "Does it make sense to sneak out of a boring meeting while wearing tap shoes?" ... Then the boring boss drones on and on about 2.9 percent sales increase, along with the tapping sound effect. Given the context of a business office, my ears insist that the sound is an adding machine. I can hear the boss keying in the 2.9 percent and multiplying by gross and net sales, but I can't shift my perception to tap shoes. For a younger generation the adding machine is a completely unknown audio reference, but tap-dancing has "come around again" via shows like American Idol.

= = = = =

And another circle. I like to watch things like AFV and newscast bloopers for a laugh before bedtime. This blooper set from 1970's NBC news popped up in the rotation tonight. Features Bill Monroe (RIP yesterday) on Meet the Press; Egypt and Israel fighting; Brzezinski meddling in Egypt; and Is there water on Mars?
  ¶ 7:00 AM

  Whee! Whoopee! 1.6 cheers!


Polistra and Happystar are sort of quarter-heartedly cheering the HUGE MONUMENTAL UNPRECEDENTED ONE POINT SIX PERCENT budget cut passed by the Lower Nuthouse today.

One point Six Percent! Zowie kaplowie! And by the time the Senate gets done with it, the cut will be even more impressively microscopic! Why, it might even turn into a huge spending INCREASE, which will be even more UNPRECEDENTED! EEEEK! I can hardly contain my ecstatic excitement!!!!!!!!!!

When I try to transpose this cut to my own budget for comparison, I realize it's not even a cut I could consciously make. It would be about $12 per month, and the things I could specifically eliminate are all larger than that. This percentage is down in the range of inevitable random variation, the sort of budget difference that arises because January has more days than February, or because the dog chews up a towel.

Admittedly, the Lower Nuthouse has finally managed to get specific on a few truly controversial things. Such as the carbon enforcement budget of the marauding enemy army called EPA.

This won't make any difference.

EPA will move money around and continue marching, marching, marching, stomping, stomping, stomping, murdering, murdering, murdering.

The only cure for an enemy army is to wipe it out entirely. Zero its entire budget, delete all laws and regulations that could be remotely interpreted to allow its actions, bulldoze its buildings with the employees inside, cover them with a cubic mile of concrete. Spend several billions to create and endow a permanent counterforce of well-armed auditors, to be dead sure that none of the evil influence pops back into zombie-life through some other agency.
  ¶ 3:13 PM

  Sometimes I wonder ...
Chuck's rule usually works to defeat idiots.

Chuck was a colleague of mine at DeVry in Kansas City. Chuck was an old Army tech sergeant with a lot of old Army stories, and he loved to tell them. He'd pull up a chair; plant it carefully to block me into my desk space; pull out an unfiltered Pall Mall; tap it on his wristwatch until it was so round, so firm, so fully packed; pull out his lifetime-guaranteed Zippo; fire up the unfiltered Pall Mall; and then start the stories.

All of Chuck's stories had the same plotline. Some pencil-necked second lieutenant was making trouble for the men by requiring them to follow some idiotic procedure that would cause utter chaos if truly implemented. Chuck and the men tried to keep things working while mollifying the pencil-necked 2Lt, but finally Chuck rebelled.

"So I sez Ho Kay. We'll do it your way."

And the men would then do exactly what the pencil-necked 2Lt wanted, utter chaos would ensue, and the pencil-necked 2Lt would back off.

So now I sez: Why do the brand-R politicians insist on doing things their own way? They only differ with brand-D on a few minor points, which don't nearly justify all the team cheering and jeering. If all brand-R politicians declared themselves to be Democrats, the most intransigent elements of our system would be flummoxed. The pencil-necked bureaucrats who love to make rules favoring one party would lose all their fun. The arrogant union leaders who rebel at everything with the R label would have to distinguish more carefully. The media on both sides would be unable to automatically pick their Good Guys and Bad Guys by label; they'd have to ask real questions and think consistently about real ideology.

Why do I sez it just now? Because Wash gov Gregoire has already extracted bigger concessions from the teachers union than the concessions proposed by Wisc gov Walker. The unions grudgingly but quietly went along with the cuts in benefits here because Gregoire wears the D. The unions are causing mass revolt in Wisc, over a smaller set of cuts, because Walker wears the R.
  ¶ 1:02 PM

  Compendium
If you want a complete summation of the End of the West, you'll find it in this one column by Jeremy King.

The initial topic is narrow and parochial. The overall point, and especially the points made by the commenters, provide a complete story of how and why China is winning and we (UK, US, AUS) have already lost the war.
  ¶ 6:30 AM

  Language update, sorta


Professor Polistra still hasn't gathered enough new and annoying phrases and words for a blackboard, but decided to pop in anyway to show off a newly acquired specimen, a rare antique.

Contemn is the verb form of contempt, but contemn is never used in speech for obvious reasons. Too close to condemn in both sound and meaning. Only a seriously talented speaker could use it without confusion.

Prof P has been waiting many years for just one specimen of contemn, and finally caught one!

It's in this episode of Info Please, at exactly 13:40. To hear the full question, start at 10:30.

Clifton Fadiman says: "Mr Brown, do you contemn musical comedy?"

From the way Mr Fadiman savors the word, you can tell he's been itching to say it for as long as Prof P has been itching to hear it!

Incidentally, the computer-like humans and human-like computers who win Jeopardy would have failed badly on Info Please. Though it started as a fast-paced quiz with lots of straight "name this" questions, Mr Fadiman quickly reshaped it into a smooth-flowing stream of civilized discourse. The listeners, who submitted all questions, picked up the change and raised the bar of sophistication. Mr Fadiman later said: "I tried to use the questions and answers as an armature on which to build a sculpture of genuine conversation."

Labels: Language update

  ¶ 5:31 AM

  Puzzling exception
A trial here in Spokane is making TV-worthy news because defendant Cole Strandberg, who is pretty clearly schizy and delusional, was spitting on his own defense lawyer. The judge required the jailers to put a burqa-like mask over his head. Good TV, I guess.

Yesterday in a preliminary hearing the judge found Strandberg legally competent to stand trial. Lots of puzzled commentary about this, but the judge is exactly right.

What's puzzling to me: Why have courts returned to a proper and rational definition of sanity after spending a couple of decades with the ACLU definition that allowed any defendant to run free "because of insanity"? On every other question, courts have continued in lockstep with ACLU's murderous chaos since 1970, but for some unknown reason they broke loose on the insanity defense and returned to the old common-law definition.

I wonder if this comes from a similar turnaround among MD psychiatrists? I don't know if this can be quantified, but my impression is that MD shrinks have also broken loose from the Satanic world of hard-left orthodoxy. In the last decade or two, articles and books written by MD psychiatrists contain lots of common sense and clear thinking about human differences; meanwhile, related professions such as PhD psychologists and MSW social workers remain in the vanguard of pure academic-left weirdness.
  ¶ 5:39 AM

  Do they realize how strange they sound?
Listening to news coverage of Wisconsin teachers protesting a proposed law to save the state from bankruptcy.

With quavering intensity, one teacher says "I don't know what I'll do if this passes. I haven't thought that far ahead."

She's not talking about losing her job or losing her life or losing her house. She's not talking about the state bankruptcy that will result if the status quo continues. No, she's only talking about losing collective bargaining. She's talking about a change that will SAVE her fucking job, and she can't begin to imagine how she will get through life with the new rules that will SAVE her fucking job from a state bankruptcy.

Do these fuckheads realize that the VAST MAJORITY of Americans somehow get along through a full lifetime without collective bargaining? Do these fuckheads realize that the VAST MAJORITY of Americans aren't even sure what collective bargaining is? Do these fuckheads realize that the VAST MAJORITY of Americans have never worried for even a millisecond about the lack of collective bargaining? Do these fuckheads expect anyone outside their own union to sympathize with them for a millisecond? Even the Commie media are finding it hard to develop the requisite level of sympathy for these fuckheads.

= = = = =

Sidebar: If the unionized teachers in other states have any desire to keep their current benefits and salaries, they should be urgently ordering the Wisconsin teachers to stop this strike. A lot of Americans who don't normally think about the economics of schools are suddenly thinking hard about the subject, and some of the thoughts are unfair. We're hearing a lot of talk about how teaching is easy because of the short days and three-month vacation. This is unfair. Teaching is very hard work, and most teachers need the long break to maintain sanity. But it's impossible to think fairly when you see people who make more money than you do leaving their job and taking the students with them, to make a bunch of irritating noise about potentially losing some "rights" that you never had in the first place!

It's parallel to the situation with the "global warming" scam. Because one small branch of science has turned rotten and taken up grand theft and mass murder, all other branches of science are besmirched. Other scientists still haven't spoken up in any numbers; other scientists still appear to be in concord with the genocidal Carbon Cult, and often state their agreement with the criminals. The public can only conclude that all science serves to enrich George Soros and Maurice Strong; that all science wants the human race to disappear. If honest scientists wanted to maintain their reputation, they should have spoken up a long time ago, should have debunked the Carbon Cult in detail with a massive joint publication occupying every page of every issue of every scientific journal until the Carbon Cult was brought down. In other words, they should have treated Gaians the same way they currently treat Christians.

Now it's too late.
  ¶ 6:23 PM

  Unfortunately makes sense.
The Wash state legislature is being urged to eliminate the "death penalty" to save money.

As things stand, this is a good move.

If we had an actual death penalty, enforced the old-fashioned way, the question wouldn't even be worth asking. If murderers were hanged certainly and immediately** after finding them guilty, the death penalty would remove incurably evil people from the gene pool, and would serve as a real deterrent.

But that's not what Wash does. Like most states, it "imposes" the "death penalty" on some defendants, then spends millions of dollars on lawyers to argue both sides of the case for twenty years. Meanwhile, the prisoner is kept in privileged first-class accommodations to avoid any added opportunity for newly invented "appeals" by the Soviet-front Anti-Civilization Lawyers Union.

This accomplishes exactly nothing for public safety; it only guarantees a career to evil lawyers, supports ACLU, and protects the worst prisoners from the rapes and other nastiness that we provide for less serious criminals.

Since this is what the "death penalty" means in reality, let's get rid of the expensive pretense.

= = = = =

** When I say immediately, I mean immediately. Like this:

Gallows in the courtroom, hangman's hand on the lever.
"We find the defendant guilty, your honor."
"So say you all?"
"Yes, your honor."
THUMP!

  ¶ 7:36 AM

  Watson
I haven't found this story particularly interesting, but it's impossible to avoid.

Newscasters are asking how Watson will spend the million dollars.

BZZZZZT!

"Watson?"

"What is multi-core porn?"
  ¶ 7:18 AM

  Gaian missionaries
NPR is doing a series on the Kiribati Islands near Australia, where the genocidal Gaian wackos who run the world have persuaded the unsophisticated leaders to panic about "dramatic and catastrophic sea level rise".

Complete nonsense, of course, since sea level rose steadily and slowly from 1850 to 1998 and now appears to be flattening out along with the overall temperature curve. If you had to extrapolate a trend from real facts and real Nature, you'd say sea level is likely to stay flat for a while then start dropping.

Yesterday's episode dealt with the "conflict between religion and science", because the Kiribati folks are intensely and unanimously Christian. Of course it isn't really religion vs science, it's a fight between two religions. Gaia vs Christ.

Today's episode details an Aussie government attempt to re-program the islanders from heretical Christianity into orthodox Evil. The "reporter" serves as a Gaian missionary right on the air, telling these good folks that they are headed for a watery Hell if they don't convert Right Now to the One True Church that provides infinite money money money money money money money money for George Soros and starvation for everyone else. The islanders don't seem easily persuaded, which is the only good part of this whole fucked-up pile of Satanic ratshit.

Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame.
  ¶ 6:22 AM

  Borders bankruptcy
News item:
Independent booksellers are feeling the same pressure as Borders, and many are closing.

Though in general I vastly prefer to have smaller businesses survive, I'll make an exception in this case. Independent booksellers deserve to fail because they refused to respect and serve their own customers.

I've always been a voracious reader and a steady buyer of old books. When Amazon and Alibris came along, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, instantly abandoned 'live' bookstores, and have bought more books online than I ever bought from the 'real' stores.

Nearly all independent bookstores are run by beady-eyed Stalinist bullbitches who chase males out of the store and refuse to stock books not approved by The Party. Their failure is purely their own damn fault. They could have had twice as many customers if they hadn't shut out half the population.
  ¶ 6:56 PM

  What do the three horses pull?
Polistra has been naming and shaming the Three Horsemen of the Modern Apocalypse: Human Rights, Climate Change, and Free Trade. All are weapons used by the Gramscian Left to destroy human civilization, especially the part of civilization that serves poor and working people. The part that serves the Gramscians is preserved, because when you have a private fleet of Gulfstreams and a private security army, you don't need functional governments and you especially don't need a fabric of culture and morality. More chaos means more room for you to manipulate events, more trillions laying around ready to steal.

But how do the horses know which way to go? What is the carriage that sums up the vectors of their different-seeming pulls? Now I have the answer.

Share prices as a replacement for the profit motive.

Polistra has also been hammering repeatedly on this point, but without harnessing the horses to it.

This morning NPR did a feature on the growth of Portland, and though they didn't quite put it Sailer's way, they did acknowledge sub rosa that Portland is popular because it's white, and that Portland suicidally wants to be non-white because it's white.

One statement snatched my attention:

Enrique Washington helps these large firms recruit minority candidates. He says his clients want a diverse staff to help them innovate and connect to consumers.

"The more diverse culture you have, the better your stock prices do," Washington says.

Got it.

Stock price is the carriage drawn by the three horses. I had seen two of them already: the "Global Warming" scam is designed to increase the price of Carbon Exchange shares (though that enterprise is fortunately failing); Free Trade clearly increases the share price of every company that destroys American jobs.

But I couldn't see how Human Rights (i.e. substituting chaos and tyranny for civilization and culture) would directly affect share price.

Now we know that big corporations see the connection, even if I don't!

Labels: Shared Lie

  ¶ 5:27 AM

  Good teaching is universal
I bumped into this Korean video clip while looking for something else, and it grabbed my attention immediately. I said: Hey, that's Mrs Hunholz!

Different country, different decade[ Edit: Well, let's be honest. Different century! ], different language, different race, but the same great teaching.

I'm not sure of the purpose of the clip ... the title says something about Experiential Teaching, according to Google's translator ... but there's no question that it shows how real teaching works. Create muscle memory, create total sensory images, transfer to skills.

Labels: Experiential education

  ¶ 2:26 PM

  Wow. That's aphasia.
A CBS reporterette in Los Angeles suddenly slips into complete jumble on air, without losing her smile and without realizing what has happened. Either a stroke, or some kind of toxic or drug reaction, turned off part of her brain's speech center.

You often hear a tired brain that can't find a - a - a - word, or litches a few sweaters, but I've never heard such a complete and sharp switch from normal speech into Wernicke word salad.

Video.

According to news, she was not hospitalized but "checked out by EMTs and sent home with a friend." Not smart. Even though she didn't turn red and fall down like a cartoon stroke, something serious happened inside her head.

[A week later: CBS, probably tired of hearing from people who questioned this decision, got Serene to describe her condition. She has a rare type of migraine headache which sometimes causes temporary spasms in cranial arteries. Thus the symptoms are fully identical to a stroke but the cause -- unlike a clot or aneurysm -- goes away in a few seconds. Presumably the TV station already knew about the condition, which explains their non-emergency attitude.]

= = = = =

Later linguistic note: Interesting that her neologisms, though formed by a defect, all have a Latinate feel. Burtation, darison, tairette, taison, hebitet. Thus following the pattern of English vocabulary, which makes new words from Latin roots more than anything else. Our primitive grammatical elements, the pronouns and articles and a few old verbs and nouns, are Teutonic; some older nouns are Norman French; but nearly everything since 1400 comes directly from Latin and Latinized Greek.
  ¶ 7:27 AM

  Simple proof
Listening to some Sunday morning news-type program, with David Gregory interviewing some Republican leader, maybe Boo-Hoo-Ner. Gregory was hammering on and on and on and on and on and on and on about why Boo-Hoo-Ner wouldn't COME DOWN HARD on those HORRIBLE NAZIS who still refuse to accept the ABSOLUTE UNIVERSAL TRUTH, AXIOMATIC SINCE BEFORE THE BIG BANG, that Obama is a Christian. Boo-Hoo-Ner's reply was weak and defensive, as always with Repooflicans.

Suddenly it came to me: There's a simple proof that Obama is NOT a Christian.

If Obama were a Christian, people like David Gregory would hate him, and would treat him with the same ferocious vile venom-spitting contempt that they apply to every real Christian. In fact, people like David Gregory idolize Obama and take His every word as Gospel, and treat everyone who doubts His Gospel as a WITCH WARLOCK HERETIC DEVIATIONIST-ROADER! BURN! BURN! BURN! Therefore, people like David Gregory know with complete certainty that Obama is a rigid doctrinaire Gramscian like them. Not necessarily a Muslim, though his biography makes that conclusion highly likely; but certainly not any form of Christian.
  ¶ 4:30 AM

  It's not just the math
I've often discussed how the drive toward abstract work, the tendency to judge people by graduate degrees, has already destroyed America's black population and is now in the process of destroying its Caucasians as well. The harder we try to compete with China and India on their own intellectual territory, the more we drive our own best people into poverty.

I'm starting to see another aspect to this national suicide. It's not just the pull away from industrial and skilled labor; it's also the pull away from Christianity into secularism.

Math and science were never America's specialty, no matter how often our leaders try to tell us this lie. During the decades when we had the world by the tail, our special talent was an ability to organize and systematize jobs, and our driving force was Christianity.

Well, who does Christianity best? Africans.

If you want a serious Christian, a Christian who serves God with all her heart and makes moral decisions correctly and courageously, you're far more likely to find her in the Bethlehem Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God than in St John's Episcopal or First Methodist.

As we marginalize Christianity more and more, we also marginalize and discredit one of the main contributions of blacks to the American totality.

England is encountering a similar situation now, though with a different emphasis. The post-Christian secularists have advanced much faster in England than here, mainly because an Established church is a weak church. But they're now having to deal with the strength and rigor of an African religious thinker inside the ranks of the Church:

Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York and the second most powerful cleric in the Church of England, has warned against forcing vicars to conduct same-sex civil partnerships as the government prepares to grant full marriage rights to homosexual couples.

Liberal Jewish groups, Quakers and other Christian organisations have been pressing the government to introduce the civil partnership reforms, and gay rights campaigners welcomed the latest news.

Sentamu [says]: “I live in a liberal democracy and I want equality for everybody. I cannot say the Quakers shouldn’t do it.

“Nor do I want somebody to tell me the Church of England must do it or the Roman Catholic Church must do it because actually that is not what equality is about.”

That's logical rigor and moral strength. Sentamu grew up in Uganda, fled to England after Idi Amin imprisoned and tortured him.

The Episcopals in America don't have a Sentamu inside their ranks, so they've violently embraced every new Communist trend from feminism to homosexuality to Gaia-worship. The small fraction of non-Communist Piskies in America have split off from the main church, working under a missionary operation run by Anglicans from Africa.

= = = = =

Later: Interestingly, Mike Potemra at NRO makes the same basic point from a different angle. Luckily for my authorial ego, Potemra's article was posted one hour after mine!
  ¶ 6:08 PM

  Geithner goes west
News item:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says whatever role the government ultimately plays in the mortgage market, it will be smaller than it is now.

"The way we describe this is we're going to drive west. Everybody wants to go west. We sort of know where we're going to go. But somewhere around Salt Lake City we'll make a choice about what mix of ultimate options," he said.

I suppose he was trying to appeal to those vulgar flyover people, but he missed. He only showed Flyoverians that he's never been west of the Hudson.

Salt Lake is exactly the wrong city for this metaphor. From SLC you have no choice at all about how to continue Westward. You can go due west on I-80, or due north or south on I-15. There aren't even any minor roads or state highways. I-80 is the only road through the desert.

Much better choice for the metaphor would be St Louis or KC. From those cities you can choose a half dozen good ways to continue generally westward.
  ¶ 6:24 AM

  When do we get ours, Lord?
Now that Egypt has been blessed with a military ruler, it makes me even more hungry to see this unfortunate land straightened out.

After 40 years of misrule and 22 years of scorched-earth Soviet blitzkrieg by EPA's marauding cadres, the only hope for America is a Pinochet type with the guts and guns to kill all enemy agents. In Chile, Pinochet had to kill about 3k Commies to save the country; by proportion a Pinochet del Norte would need to take out 100k here.

Unfortunately we've been deprived of this hope because our military has been fairy-ized and Islamized, just in time to eliminate this source of salvation. It now belongs to the enemy just as completely as the Gaia-worshipping permanent bureaucrats and Wall Street Mafiosi who run the civilian gov't.
  ¶ 10:28 AM

  Oklahoma beats Spokane
Truly amazing. Northern Okla, my old stomping ground, has set some low temps that beat Spokane's all-time records. The Spokane record low is -25, with several years hitting -22 or -23. Negative temps aren't rare here; every winter bumps zero for at least a week, and about half of all winters dip a little below.

Last night in Okla, both Enid and Ponca hit -23, Newkirk and Medford hit -27, Nowata hit -31.

Those values are much farther from the norm in Okla, where +15 is the bottom in most years. Their household plumbing and heating systems, and their city water systems, weren't designed with subzero cold in mind. Their roofs are not designed for two feet of snow followed by extreme cold. An occasional inch or two, melting the next day, is the typical winter pattern.

Gonna be lots of ice dams, lots of collapsed roofs, lots of ruined ceilings and walls.

This winter is truly strange. Began in La Niña form, early and heavy in November, 30 inches of Global Warming here. Felt like it was going to break all records. Then after early December it suddenly flipped over to El Niño form, slamming California and the Midwest hard. Since that switchover the Northwest has received pretty much average temps and precip.

Maybe this winter is a tranny. Call it Miss Niño Fabuloso.


  ¶ 12:18 PM

  Numba One Boy
China Numba One Boy, Missa Lush Rimbaugh, dirigentry serve goars of Grorious China yestaday. Missa Rimbaugh say "Amelican manufactulel just as good as arways. Amelican manufactulel stirr Numba One in Wold!"

Nonsense. Pure propaganda to keep the masses sedated.

Our manufacturers may still be Number One in dollar sales, but that's because they're making big expensive things like cars and aircraft and heavy construction equipment. We still do those big things well.

All the smaller stuff has moved elsewhere.

Simple proof: If we were still manufacturing most things, I could buy something made in America. In actual fact, I cannot buy anything made in America, no matter how hard I try. Not clothing, not household appliances, not furniture, not cookware, not computers. All made elsewhere, mostly China.

In fairness, the situation may truly look different from Missa Lush's perspective. He mainly buys multi-million-dollar things like Fleets of Gulfstream Jets and 9000-Horsepower Armored SUVs and 24-Paks of Disposable Mexican Servants. Thus his purchases are aligned with the class of things we still make.
  ¶ 6:27 AM

  Because I say so, that's why!
The article about Gramm and Goldman's famine, mentioned in the previous entry, includes one wildly powerful quotation from John Lanchester.

"Finance, like other forms of human behaviour, underwent a change in the 20th century, a shift equivalent to the emergence of modernism in the arts – a break with common sense, a turn towards self-referentiality and abstraction and notions that couldn't be explained in workaday English."

The same turn has happened in science and in law, and in all cases it happened around 1970.

[Footnote for accuracy: the type has always existed, as Swift illustrated 300 years ago. But the complete takeover by this type, the fulfillment of Swift's dystopia, happened around 1970.]

Polistra has discussed this evil tendency in a mathy way, as the abandonment of all natural limits, the loss of all feel for cycles and friction and feedback.

These insane Men of Infinite Appetites believe they have transcended the lowly bounds of earth, transcended the lowly laws of physics, transcended the lowly laws of economics.

They believe that their own computer models, or their own artistic "installations", or their own multi-layer derivatives, or their own injunctions based purely on ideology, are the same as factual reality.

Why? Because I say so, that's why. Pure raw infantile ego, pure aristocracy.

I am an Artist, therefore everything I do is Art. I am a Scientist, therefore everything I do is Science. I am a Financier, therefore everything I create has Value. I am a Justice, therefore everything I say becomes part of the Constitution.

You lowly Vulgarians and Skeptics are NOT ALLOWED to question My Noble and Godlike Work, because you are Vulgarians and Skeptics and I am God.

What's the difference between these Men of Infinite Appetites and the lunatics we "treat" with drugs (or more often leave on the streets to suffer and create trouble?) Easy. The Men of Infinite Appetites have titles of nobility, which in modern terms means graduate degrees. PhD, LLD, MBA, MFA. The lunatics we "treat" with drugs do not have titles of nobility.

= = = = =

In short, we are back in the Dark Ages. It's official. The Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, the concept that reality exists and can be observed in a common way, has been cancelled. Lights out. We're back to Dark Matter, Hidden Warmth, Hidden Dimensions, Dark Markets, Penumbras & Emanations, Hidden Discrimination. Mysterious forces and factors that can never be observed but must be obeyed on faith, no matter how many trillions of dollars the obedience costs, no matter how many millions of people are killed in the process. Why? Because the Priest says so.
  ¶ 3:21 AM

  Phil and Ben's Excellent Famine
There has been some truly informative discussion at WUWT about world food prices, triggered by Krugman's claim that "global warming" caused the riots in Egypt. Most of the commenters simply took the line that food prices didn't go up anywhere, and used a chart of food prices IN AMERICA to make the claim. I knew that wasn't right, because I'd been following enough international news to know that food has become vastly more expensive in some countries... but I had no idea why this was happening.

Other commenters came along to explain the current situation. Gang Leader Bugsy Bernanke is pulling the old Weimar trick, on a somewhat smaller scale. He's devaluing the American dollar to "pay back" our massive debt to foreign creditors by lowering its value. We don't see a lot of the inflation here, because the devaluation is mainly with respect to other currencies; but the inflation hits poor countries when they pay much higher prices for American food commodities.

The most interesting link pointed to an earlier scam by the same people, which also caused starvation and riots in foreign countries. Our media didn't bother to tell us about this, because they were part of the scam.

Here's the story in concise form. It started, like all other recent economic problems, with Phil Gramm. Along with repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999, making the whole set of insane bubbles possible, Gramm also repealed specific regulations on farm speculation. Previously hedging had been restricted to farmers and grain dealers who had skin in the game. Now it was open to Goldman Sachs, and they grabbed it and ran into the Land of Infinite Greed with securitization. In 2006, when their housing derivatives began to crumble, Goldman transferred near-infinite amounts of mythical cash into their agriculture derivatives, which caused world food prices on the "futurable" grains to skyrocket. Poor countries went into famine; unknown numbers of people died. The prices returned to a normal range of variability in 2008, but only because the whole set of bubbles collapsed together and Goldman couldn't keep the balls in the air.

The blood is on your hands, Phil Gramm and Goldman Sachs.

Labels: the broken circle

  ¶ 6:55 PM

  Best discussion of taxes in history
I've never been able to appreciate Repooflicans, primarily because I just can't get interested in taxes, let alone excited about the subject. And ZERO TAXES FOR BILLIONAIRES is the only subject Repooflicans ever talk about.

However! Here at last is a discussion of taxes that grabs my attention!

Found on this bountiful website.
  ¶ 10:16 AM

  Best pun in history


Spoken by author Richard Maney in this Info Please episode from May 1943. I don't want to spoil it; just listen to the clip. To save time, skip the first 8 minutes and listen especially for the question about Jap Admiral Yamamoto.

The episode also includes some delightful banter by Ethel Barrymore, who was well-informed, thoroughly pro-American, and a great laugher. Unlike modern Hollywood types, decerebrate Leninbots incapable of humor.
  ¶ 5:23 AM

  How it works
The Three Horsemen of the modern apocalypse: Climate Change, Human Rights and Free Trade. I've been hitting the first two lately but haven't hit the third.

"Free trade always benefits everyone" is another of those vicious Agreed-On Lies. Governments employ charlatans called "Economists" to generate fake numbers that supposedly "prove" this lie, but normal people still recognize it as a vicious lie.


Today's news includes a hitherto unpublicized example of how "free trade" destroyed an entire sector of American agriculture and transferred it to hostile countries:

In the early 2000s the U.S. government encouraged Peruvian farmers to grow asparagus instead of drugs. [The policy was implemented through the Andean Trade Preferences Act.] Northwest asparagus growers say that policy devastated them.

Since then, all the processing plants in Washington State have moved to South America where labor and environmental costs are lower.

Now those who can prove they were hurt by that policy will share $15 million from an earmark to the U.S. agriculture bill.

Terri Hayles farms north of Pasco, Washington. She says the payment will be nice but: "The reality is, the money that the growers lost, this doesn't even pay the interest on what we lost. They're willing to compensate us something, which is better than nothing."

In 1990, Washington farmers produced 110 million pounds of asparagus. Last year they harvested just 17 million pounds.

As always. Delete American business, turn painfully acquired skills and facilities into worthless crap, then give the damaged Americans a few dollars of welfare and expect them to be grateful.

Labels: skill-estate

  ¶ 7:42 AM

  Always nice when they admit it
It's been obvious for a while that American big business no longer operates on the profit motive. Its main variable, the goal of all activity, is stock price, not profit. And this is exactly why American business no longer serves the basic purpose of commerce in general, why it no longer wants American employees or American consumers, why it no longer deserves support or respect.

But it's been hard to find straightforward admissions of this fact; most "debates" follow the Agreed-On Lie that American business seeks profit. As always, the brand-D side says profit is bad and the brand-R side says profit is good. As always, they're "arguing" about a myth.

Here's Jim Manzi, a big business insider, comparing teacher evaluations with retail sales evaluations:

Beyond this, no list of metrics can usually adequately summarize performance, either. In absolute theory, what we would want to know in a business would be the impact of a given employee’s behavior on company stock price. But we can never really measure that. Instead, we have a bunch of proxies that we believe collectively approximate this.

Note the completely matter-of-fact tone.

Labels: the broken circle

  ¶ 7:00 AM

  Oh.
I was pondering why each "party" wants so badly to get the numerical majority in the Lower and Upper Nuthouses. As soon as each party gets the majority, it just sits there for two years without doing anything, so what's the po....

Oh.



Why do I always overthink these things?

The Law of Inferred Intent works every time, but I often forget to apply it.
  ¶ 2:51 PM

  Oh boy! Pretty shiny pictures!
NASA's latest "achievement" is this:



Wow! I'm impressed! When these two satellites are aligned just right, which happens every two years, they can see the sun from two different angles! Zowie! It's Buck Rogers all over again! Maybe by 2525 AD they'll figure out how to use Photoshop to line up the two sides!

Satire off.

What a sad end for an agency that once specialized in both science and adventure.

Now they support the genocidal terrorist activities of James Hansen, who has already murdered science and wants to murder the entire human race. And they keep trying to work with an antique gadget designed by Raymond Loewy. And they try to persuade us that a 3d view of the sun will tell us more than 400 previous years of real sunspot research.




Back when the Soviet Union was based in Russia, it used to tout its great technological achievements such as the Trabant. In 1989 the Soviets moved to America, much to the relief of Russia. Since then, our Soviets have been practicing the same tawdry lies.
  ¶ 5:20 AM

  Elegiac, not erroneous
Aguilera flubs anthem:

"... at the twilight's last reaming."

Not an error at all. A good poetic description of this unfortunate land's final 30 years, basically all of Aguilera's lifetime.
  ¶ 3:20 AM

  Just a thought
I'm really starting to wonder if the whole AGW scam was a bankshot. On the surface it's designed to enrich participants in the 'Carbon Exchanges'. But those businesses have been allowed to fail easily without any governmental bailouts.

Maybe Emperor Soros has always understood the simple reality that we're heading for a very cold period. Maybe he set up the AGW scam to draw governments and dumb investors (Algore) into the wrong group of investments. When those turn out to be useless, we'll find "to our surprise" that Soros owns all the stuff you need for an Ice Age.

[Incidentally, I posted the above at NRO combox under the name 'WPA38'. I've been using that name there since they re-opened commenting ... not for anonymity but only because 'Polistra' is somehow stuck in a previous subscription and can't be re-used. The name 'WPA38' refers to this paragraph, which I really ought to paste and post every day instead of trying to write new stuff. Maybe I'll put that passage on my gravestone followed by "I told you so, you fucking fools."]
  ¶ 5:05 AM

  Why I listen to NPR, part 6
This morning, while the other news media were breathlessly reporting on Egypt's "democratization", and wondering whether Egypt's new "democracy" will accomplish the only goal that our media understand, namely "human rights" (i.e. absolute privilege for fags, amorphodites and bullbitches) ... While all that crap was rolling out of the other media's posterior orifices, NPR decided to interview a realist and hear some facts.

History prof J. Rufus Fears of OU told the story of Egypt. For 5000 years Egypt's rulers have been just like Mubarak, and for 5000 years Egypt's "transitions of power" have occurred when the people rioted over high food prices. Period. No reason to expect anything else. The Arab culture has its own ways which are not our ways.

Bravo to NPR for carrying a factual view straightforwardly and respectfully, without sighing and laughing and grunting and eye-rolling all the way through, without overlaying cartoony music or screechy grindy sound effects, as all other Republican and Democrat media always do when they feel impelled to carry facts.

= = = = =

Think about this... you have a system that has worked for 5000 years, has kept your nation in one place and one piece, kept your nation in an important position on the world stage from Cleopatra to Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Now some annoying teenage bully of a country, with a system that worked for exactly 200 years before collapsing, is trying to persuade you to adopt the collapsed system. Would you buy this junked Vega?
  ¶ 12:42 PM

  WOW! England wakes up!!!!!!!
Huge news from Britain:

British Muslims must subscribe to mainstream values of freedom and equality, David Cameron will say as he declares that the doctrine of multiculturalism has “failed” and will be abandoned.

... The Prime Minister will declare an end to “passive tolerance” of divided communities, and say that members of all faiths must integrate into wider society and accept core values.

To be British is to believe in freedom of speech and religion, democracy and equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality, he will say. Proclaiming a doctrine of “muscular liberalism”, he will say that everyone, from ministers to ordinary voters, should actively confront those who hold extremist views.

Cameron is following Angela Merkel, basically copying her words from a few months ago.

Nevertheless, this is a tremendous advance in rhetoric, and if followed by regulatory and police action, it will be the first sign that an English-speaking country has STARTED TO FIGHT the current war, the first real response to the real threat of Jihad. After ten years of utterly wasted Phoney War in Iraq and Afghanistan, which killed lots of their civilians and lots of our soldiers for exactly zero purpose, we're finally getting back to Dec. 8, 1941.

That's a big If. Remains to be seen, and Polistra will be watching closely....



Polistra is praying to St George, patron saint of England. Grant them the moral strength to carry out this difficult war.

= = = = =

Later, after hearing the speech itself: It's not clear that Cameron can make this happen. There's a basic logical weakness.

On one level he states that Muslims are different from Englishmen. He acknowledges that the existing policy tolerates traditional Muslim attitudes while criminalizing traditional English attitudes. This makes law enforcement absurd, and quite properly leads Englishmen to withdraw their consent from the government. In objective fact the governments of US, UK and Australia have abjectly surrendered to Islam, and the Christians understand it only too well.

But at the same time Cameron also says the primary value that defines Englishness is a belief in equality.

Can't have it both ways. Either you observe human nature accurately, which means you notice, discuss and act on real differences; or you follow Robespierre, Lincoln and Lenin into the modern world of evil delusion, where no differences can be seen, mentioned or acted on.

Cameron tries to square the circle in the same way that the Buckleyite neocoms do: it's all about an imposed ideology, which anyone could adopt under the right conditions. Anyone can get democracy if they want it, anyone can get "radical Islamism" if they want it. Nope. Culture is more permanent than that, and culture is partly innate.

Near the end of the speech he destroys the whole point by saying "Anyone who claims there's a war between Christians and Muslims is speaking nonsense." It's possible that he feels the need to say this for some stupid public-relations purpose; I always prefer to judge politicians by actions, not words. But you really can't fight a war unless you know it's a war. The Islamic side knows it's a war.
  ¶ 5:59 PM

  On the way to hell 2
An unusual Arctic freeze has caused electricity failures in Texas, and now natural gas failures in New Mexico. Some of this may be genuinely unpredictable, but it's the job of utility companies to account for Nature's vagaries.

This is what happens when you throw all the government's money into hippie-ass power-CONSUMING devices like windmills and solar, and throw all the government's regulatory power into stopping all other electric generation.

This is what happens when the entire cultural and governmental and scientific establishment adheres to a LUNATIC AND INTENTIONALLY SUICIDAL religion.

The "scientists", and the governments blindly relying on their insanity, cannot prepare for cold weather, because they no longer understand UP AND DOWN, they no longer understand CYCLES.

In the deranged decerebrate JimJonesMinds of "scientists", this cold air simply doesn't exist. Only the Hidden Variable, the Dark Warmth, exists. The Dark Warmth continues getting warmer and warmer and warmer and warmer and warmer, in linear and infinite form. By now the Dark Warmth has reached Ninety-Forty-Eleven Thousand Dozen Gazillion Pagiga-degrees [Kelvin, of course], and any second now it will BURST THROUGH the wormhole and ROAST US ALL!!!!!!!!

We're fucked. Heading for Haiti, heading for hell.

A simple solution, a literal Silver Bullet, is available now. The Hyperion mini-reactor, available now, is buried deep in the ground where no cold air can reach it. The Hyperion doesn't need to be hardened against "unprecedented", i.e. NORMAL, parts of Nature's cycle.
  ¶ 5:23 AM

  On the way down to hell
Haven't spotted a Self-explanatory Sentence lately.

This isn't exactly an SES, in that the meaning isn't fully self-contained. But when taken in context, it packs a punch. I literally jumped back from the screen when I read it.

Context: 'Bootstrap Analysis', an urban architecture blog, looking at Detroit decay in 2008. Under pictures of collapsing mansions in the Brush Park area of Detroit, one commenter FROM THE PHILIPPINES wrote:

i think the pictures were beautiful. the houses were indeed in decay, but they tell a story, and leave much to think about. i hope things get better for all of you there...

Blam. We are objects of pity to Filipinos. That's where 30 years of exceptionalism, 30 years of fucking around in other countries while abandoning the people of this country, has taken us. Headed for Haiti, headed for Hell.

= = = = =

Update several days later: Mark Steyn, subbing for Rush, hits the Detroit tragedy today. In typical Neocom Egalitarian style, Steyn attributes the problem to Democrats. For a Commie, whether Neo or not, all problems must be caused by ideology, not the culture. In plain fact Detroit's problem is black rule, not Democrat rule. Everywhere on earth, in Africa itself and in black areas of America, blacks have shown that they are incapable of ruling. Wherever they rule, you get total corruption, violence and poverty.

Reminds me of something. Back in 1964, our family went to visit maternal Grandfather in suburban Detroit. We hadn't seen him often because he had separated from Grandma long before I was born, and Michigan was a long way from Kansas. Grandpa was dying of cancer caused by alcohol, and it was also alcohol that had caused the permanent separation. He was showing us around the Detroit area, saying things like "Well, as you can see, the coloreds are taking over here. It won't be a fit place to live, but at least I won't be living here much longer." My parents tried unsuccessfully to shush him, and later spent a long time explaining why Grandpa was wrong. Nope, Grandpa was right. He was a steam plant engineer, and knew the critical importance of accurate observations. A dishonest reading can blow the whole plant to hell. That was my first lesson in the difference between Real Reality and Commie "Reality". I'm still catching up to Grandpa, who didn't need any lessons
  ¶ 9:29 AM

  Hooray for Egypt!
Anderson Cooper attacked by mob.

About goddamn time. This evil mutant amorphodite monstrosity has done more than any politician to ruin America. It's too bad s/he didn't get attacked by the Gulf-area businessmen whose livelihood s/he destroyed; but as aforementioned, Americans are thoroughly beaten down and incapable of proper vengeance against our own tyrants.

I hereby take back all the nasty things I've said about Arabs. They clearly have a stronger sense of justice, and a stronger desire for sensible government, than Americans or Brits. (But I do not take back anything I've said about Arabians.)

Later: Fox's Greg Palkott also got a richly-deserved whipass. I'm getting fonder and fonder of those Egyptians.
  ¶ 10:29 AM

  Land of the free?
According to this BBC source, the successful and fairly non-violent Tunisian revolution was triggered by one man resisting tyranny:

Last month an unemployed young man set himself on fire in Tunisia, and the flames appear to have engulfed a region. Officials wouldn't let Mohamed Bouazizi sell vegetables without a licence, and his desperate act triggered an upsising that toppled the government of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Since then we've seen a dramatic chain reaction, as people across the Arab World have protested against what they see as authoritarian and oppressive rule.

Think about that.

Our internal propaganda likes to portray America as a "free country" where the people won't consent to arbitrary actions.

Okay then, who would self-immolate if our government refused a license to sell vegies for no reason at all? Nobody, because tyranny is the rule, not the exception. We are beaten down, tenderized, pulverized by 30 years of black-robed enemy saboteurs giving "rights" to privileged classes and stealing "rights" from normal people.

Admittedly, this form of tyranny doesn't often affect rich people or big corporations, because they have armies of lawyers and the government doesn't want the hassle. Except when the license involves something that could be called "environmental", and then even the rich companies have trouble avoiding the tyrant's iron fist, as the Conoco situation illustrates.

We are more accustomed to tyranny than Tunisians are.

  ¶ 4:32 AM

  Rollin, rollin, rollin....
The huge drums for Conoco's refinery in Montana will finally start their overland trip tonight. After many months of expensive and completely unjustified "legal" wrangling, the Idaho Dept of Transport finally put its foot down and made an actual decision. I don't know why the sudden good sense; maybe Conoco finally gave IDOT the bribe it was waiting for, maybe the "judge" simply got tired.

In any case, hippie-ass envirotyrants lose one, America wins one!




= = = = =

Update next morning: First leg of trip completed without problems. The hippie-ass envirotyrants had threatened to "shadow" the convoy, but didn't materialize. Nothing like a fait accompli to wither protesters. Good video here.

Update after trip completed: Apparently the surveyors didn't get some of the angles and dimensions right. In a couple places the trucks struggled to get around a turn with a rocky ledge on one side, scraping part of the load and causing longer delays than planned.

As I said before: There's a deeper problem at the source. This hugely complicated transport route wouldn't have been needed if Conoco had built its refinery the old way, with American workers forging and fabricating everything on site from American steel panels. Those pieces could have been shipped routinely by normal rail or truck freight from Wheeling or Pittsburgh, and this mess wouldn't have been possible. But since Conoco chose the modular approach to minimize American labor, maximize Chinese profit, and maximize shipping, the hippies had a chance to break the system.

And now this misplanning of the route adds another illustration of the gross distortion of modern American business. All energy goes into lawyering and stock manipulation. No energy goes into engineering and design. The Chinese shit we buy at WalMart is shit because it was designed shittily by Americans (or more likely by Chinese spies working in "American" engineering departments), not because it was built by Chinamen in China.
  ¶ 5:45 PM

  Isolationism comeback?
It's interesting to watch the various commentators responding to the events in Egypt. Obama is, of course, continuing all Bush policies seamlessly, and the usual party hacks are responding to this in their usual way. Republican hacks are wildly against the Bush policy because it now carries the horrible satanic name of Obama. Democrat hacks are wildly for the Bush policy because it now carries the magnificent godlike name of Obama.

But some of the semi-independent types (eg Jerry Doyle, Jason Peters) are beginning to think more independently than usual, beginning to wonder if it's time to stop meddling in other countries, time to stop influencing other countries, time to start treating other countries like adults.

We can do plenty of good by showing specific respect to countries and factions, as we did with the little Baltic countries from 1940 to 1989. Because we had consistently recognized them as real countries during their Soviet occupation, they respected us in return. We didn't lift a finger to help them, and that turned out to be the best approach.

Whatever a country wants to do within its own borders is none of our damn business; it only becomes our business if and when the country directly attacks us. At that point our business is to delete the attacking country from the face of the earth.

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How I got back to isolationism:

In 1996, Newt's grand accomplishment of welfare reform, still the one and only good thing done by the US govt in my lifetime, caused me to support Newt's party. Then 9/11 stirred some form of patriotism, which kept me from fully analyzing the multiple signs that Sultan Bush was fighting the wrong wars. In 2006, the Dubai ports fiasco woke me up. I had to assemble all the signs and determine that Sultan Bush was objectively working for the other side, even if his cute little walnut-sized brain might not have understood what he was doing. Because he was stuck in the Nixon-Kissinger model of universal intervention, universal influence, playing every game on every side, he ended up doing exactly what Sheikh Osama wanted him to do. Sultan Bush was deeply and murderously meddling in two countries that had not attacked us, and kissing the hem of the filthy Arab Crown Prince in the country that had attacked us. And the current president continues following Kissinger.

After that, I slowly evolved back to my original isolationist view after encountering the harsh unbreakable logic of Michael Scheuer.

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I was way too slow to understand the truth, but my awakening didn't matter. Now it's refreshing to see awakenings in a few people whose voices are actually heard.
  ¶ 5:59 AM