Band Beautiful


One of the Youtube 1930's contributors has found an unspeakably splendid clip of an obscure all-girl band called the Ingenues. The clip is from 1928, recorded with rather primitive sound equipment on a track that seems to have degraded over the years, but the sheer talent and versatility come through all the decades incorruptible.

I'm not sure why this one little clip moves me so deeply.

It's not just nostalgia, because this style belonged to my grandparents' generation; it was already passé to my parents. I never saw anything remotely like it when I was young, so it's not a memory; movies like this weren't available by any methods or means.

It's partly the music itself: at that point American popular music was still descended from the classics. You can hear the influence of Sousa, Strauss, and Dvorak in these pieces.

The key seems to be exuberance + discipline, a rare combination. We've lost that combination, I think. We still have plenty of discipline in symphonic orchestras, and we have lots of raw screechy emotion in the popular realm, but we no longer comprehend that joy and glory can emerge from a perfectly organized and synchronized 'mechanism'. Mozart and Bach comprehended this emergence.

= = = = =

Sidenote after a bit of searching in the IMDB site: looks like this clip is not available anywhere else; it appeared a few years ago on Turner Classic Movies, but isn't on any available DVD's or tapes.
  ¶ 7:37 PM

  Phyllis's party
Phyllis Schlafly, the old mother Eagle, just finished a classic and consequential speech in which she outlined the platform of a third party. The platform is filled with specific actions that must be taken, most of which run solidly against the policies of George W. Vichy, and many of which were considered to be Democrat policies before 1964.

Among current politicians, Rohrabacher fulfills the Eagle platform verbatim. Phyllis's list is nearly a "table of contents" for Rohr's speeches in the last year or so.

Among the active Pres candidates, Hunter comes closest, with his strong emphasis on restoring our industrial base and cutting ties with China.

Unfortunately, Phyllis was followed and diluted by Gary Bauer, who recited a standard set of Karl Rove talking points, the same carefully focus-grouped script followed by Rush, Hannity, Medved et al. By this line of nonsense, Bush is perfection, and the only thing we need to do is ask Nancy Pelosi to condemn MoveOn.org. The same old tired set of words about words about words about words. The same old shit.

= = = = =

Speaking of candidates, I should qualify: Tancredo comes closest to saying the right things, but he lacks intellectual depth. Like Dan Quayle, he tends to falter and lose composure when faced with disputation, even from the most friendly sources. This isn't a good indication of solidity and leadership when faced with serious difficulties. Hunter doesn't follow the Eagle line quite so perfectly, but he has a deep 'ground connection' and a firm footing. (Trying to avoid the word gravitas, but it's really what I'm talking about!)
  ¶ 5:54 PM

  Cultural exchanges work both ways.....
As part of the cultural and economic opening of North Korea, Dear Leader Kim (who apparently likes classical music) has invited the NY Philharmonic to perform in Pyongyang. The Philharmonic seems to enjoy the idea, and conductor Mehta wants to perform the Star-Spangled Banner as part of the concert! Wonder what would happen if they dared to play that awful reminder of AmeriKKKan Cowboy Imperialism in Progressive New York?

This is getting interesting. The cross-border economic zone is well under way, with Northern workers learning from Southern managers. Our inspectors are making a second tour of Northern nuclear installations.

Dear Leader's openness to reunification on Southern terms seems to have accelerated recently. Could the Israeli attack on his facility in Syria have something to do with this? Nah, just coincidence.
  ¶ 8:19 AM

  The day that Rohred


Madame Polisztra sees today as a red-letter day in history.

This is the day when Dana Rohrabacher, our nearest equivalent to Churchill in clarity of vision and eloquence of prose, finally broke out of his formal shell and started speaking with perfect openness about our predicament.

Until now, Rohrabacher has been speaking with increasing urgency in special-order speeches seen on C-Span, but always remaining within the bounds of objective detachment.

Today he appeared on both of the non-talking-point radio shows: Laura Ingraham and Jerry Doyle. Spoke the plain truth on both programs: George Bush is not a friend or an ally of the United States. I won't bother with detailed quotes, because they will certainly appear elsewhere; Madame just needed to mark this day as [hoping and praying] the start of our new Churchillian era.

I've been saving this Martha Mears song for such a hopeful day.

  ¶ 9:21 PM

  Vive la France, part quatre


Keeping up our theme of honoring France, this time with an artistic offering.

Polistra is enjoying my latest CG model, a Renault R8, built partly as a tribute to France and partly as a remembrance of a real car that I owned and loved in the '70s.

I had owned a number of VWs before and since, but the R8 beat the Volks all to hell in every category. She was faster (70 MPH easily with oomph to spare for passing) --- more economical (35 MPG without trying, versus the VW's typical 25) --- safer by far (real heater and defroster, better wipers, better vision, better ergonomics) --- carried more passengers and luggage --- was easier to tune and repair --- and best of all, infinitely more comfortable.

So why didn't the R8 'kill' the VW? Because of the company, not the car. Volks built a network of competent dealers and repairmen before it tried to sell widely. Renault skipped the first step. So a hugely superior car got a bad reputation because you couldn't get parts or repairs when something went wrong.

If you're into CG stuff, specifically Poser models, you can download the R8 here. Other nice stuff, including most of the houses and furniture seen at the Mill, is available here and here.
  ¶ 9:24 PM

  Well, dammit
I vowed that I wouldn't comment on national ratshit, but this is a point that needs to be made.

The brand-R rats are busily screeching at the brand-D rats for their 'treasonous' symbolic condemnation of Turkey. According to brand-R, Turkey is our great and wonderful ally, and the symbolic condemnation of Turkey's Armenian genocide has suddenly turned Turkey into an enemy. Nonsense. Turkey has never been our friend. Turkey didn't allow us to cross its airspace at the moment when it would have helped us, at the start of the Iraq war. Turkey thus aborted "Shock and Awe", leaving it as a meaningless fireworks show. Now that we've accomplished the one thing we needed to accomplish (killed Saddam) this war is only destroying us. So Turkey's "cooperation" at this point is actually a passive-aggressive enemy action, helping Bush to use up our money and military for a totally counterproductive end.

If Turkey were in fact a great friend and ally, it wouldn't have massed its own forces on the border waiting to invade Kurdistan, and it wouldn't send those forces in at the drop of a symbolic resolution. This action shows us clearly and unmistakably the true status and position of Turkey. Seeing clearly is good.

Meanwhile, Bush is meeting with the Dalai Lama, a symbolic act of unity with Tibetan Buddhists, and a symbolic slap at our enemy China.

Which of these offensive symbolic gestures is good and which is bad?

Both are good.

It's ALWAYS good for us to express solidarity with ethnic groups that our enemies are oppressing. The countries that like us best are not our "allies" such as Turkey or Egypt, where we've spent billions to prop up bad governments. We are most appreciated in places like Albania and Latvia, where we maintained cultural contact and support of oppressed people while countering their oppressors, even weakly and ineffectively.

So the brand-D resolution against Turkey, and Bush's meeting with the Dalai Lama, are both in the best American tradition.

Shame on the brand-R talkers for missing this basic point.
  ¶ 9:34 AM

  Updates
As previously mentioned, I'm trying to preserve my sanity by paying as little attention as possible to the national-level ratshit ... trying to get some work done instead. Close attention would quite simply lead to rebellion. (Glenn Beck seems to be capturing the mood of a considerable section of the country!)

Keeping up with a few local matters:

1. Spokane has a lively but meaningless campaign for Mayor. The candidates are Councilwoman Mary Vernor, who is an outright Communist and loyal acolyte of Antichrist Maurice Strong; and incumbent Mayor Dennis Hession, who is a rather dull semi-commie. For a remarkably accurate picture of these critters, imagine two South Park characters: the green-haired lady mayor and Mr. Markey, mkay.

They ran a radio debate last night, full of sound and fury but very little actual disagreement on actual subjects. At the end, the moderator summed up the whole thing with one final question: "Do you like each other?" After twenty seconds of pregnant silence, Hession said "I like her son." And Comrade Vernor replied "Well, we agree on that. I like my son too."

2. The Tacoma foundry explosion. Apparently started by a misconnection between a propane-delivery truck and tanks at the site. The driver (who died of burns) was apparently not at fault; it appears that some work was done on the connection beforehand, and the authorities don't seem especially interested in checking any further, which leads me to wonder if some members of a "protected class", such as enemy agents, are involved. The driver's family has hired their own investigator, presumably to insure that the Feds don't play their usual trick of placing all the blame on a conveniently deceased innocent party. Maybe the investigator will find truth.
  ¶ 7:06 AM

  Looks like sabotage to me....
So far unreported on national news as far as I can tell: a huge explosion that destroyed a foundry in Tacoma.

The foundry (one of the very few foundries remaining in the US after Comrade Nixon's environmental laws killed most of them) makes high-strength steel parts for oil drilling.

Does that sound to you like an important defense industry? Yup, it does to me too.

The scenario is precisely identical to an explosion that destroyed the Whitley Fuel Co in Spokane back in July. Fire investigators quickly decided the Whitley event was arson, and later announced they were checking a 'person of interest', but there has been no news from that incident since August.

= = = = =

Update: Well, at the same moment when I was writing that last line, Spokane police were arresting their suspect in the Whitley fire. KREM TV did the jailhouse interview thing. He's certainly the classic 'usual suspect': a young thug with a long record of theft and violence, including a previous fire. I'm not convinced yet. He insists that he wasn't around at the time, and his insistence rings true for some reason. Logically he could be the one, but Madame Polisztra doesn't see him in her crystal ball.

= = = = =

Update 2, 10/12: The cops have released this guy from jail before the 48-hour limit on charging, thus acknowledging tacitly that they aren't sure enough to hold him. They haven't explicitly retracted anything yet, which makes sense .... when you're unsure, you want to cover both sides. Spokane's cops and courts usually do the sensible thing, which is rather refreshing in today's climate.
  ¶ 6:38 PM

  Time Capsule


Our political classes have descended to a previously unimaginable depth of triviality, fraud, nonsense, and absolute ratshit*, now spending several weeks in wild and violent "debate" about one advertisement by MoveOn and one sentence by Rush.

Polistra is seeking refuge in an earlier time, when our political classes and
our entertainers reflected and aided the morale, knowledge and common sense of the people.

Here's the famed and easily parodied newscaster H. V. Kaltenborn, interviewed in 1956, discussing Chamberlain and Hitler, applying those lessons to the then-current fight against Russia. Pertinent again now, after the USSR's sabbatical in the '90s.

Listen.

A rousing morale-booster by Vincent Price in 1943, reminding us why a "Long Twilight Struggle" is just another name for defeat, and showing us a more appropriate use of the phrase "Long Twilight"!

Listen.

Finally, sheer beauty. Frank Munn singing 'Eileen' in 1938, reminding us of a time when music and art were intended as a refuge from ugliness and chaos, not the primary generator of ugliness and chaos.

Listen.

= = = = =

* My profound apologies to ratshit, which is clean, pure, noble, consequential and heroic by comparison to our political class.
  ¶ 9:51 PM

  Civil Defense returns!


Recurring theme here: while the fucking idiots, traitors, psychopaths and chickenshits in DC continue to destroy this country and this culture as fast as they possibly can, some states and localities are amazingly doing the right thing.

Huntsville, Alabama is an excellent example. Huntsville, home to much of the NASA complex, is rejuvenating the old Civil Defense system, complete with fallout shelters. Starting with one of the remaining purpose-built shelters, Huntsville will expand the system to house all of its 300K residents.

Civil Defense was a good idea in the '50s and '60s; largely (and perhaps justifiably) neglected in the intervening years. Now it's a good idea again.

When the enemy knows that most of our people will survive his attacks, he is less likely to attack. Remarkably simple.
  ¶ 7:12 PM

  You're welcome, Hillary!


Apparently Hillary has been listening to Polistra.

Practically the first entry in this blog, from March 05:

I'd favor a Birthright system to replace Social Security.

Like this: Each baby born to parents who are CITIZENS gets a $10K package of bonds at birth, which can't be opened until retirement, but can be inherited. Assuming 5% return, this would give about 12K annual income after age 65. At current birthrates, it would cost about $50 billion per year, which is chump change by federal standards and vastly less than the current cost for each 'cohort' of Social Security. This would also provide one small advantage to being a citizen. As things now stand, all the incentives are backwards. Citizens get to vote, and they get to serve on a jury, and they get to pay taxes. Big whoopie. Non-citizens get to work without taxation; they get free health care, free education, and all the other privileges of a welfare society.

Seriously, I think the idea was first put forward by Charles Murray. Will Hillary thank him? Don't hold your breath.

Credit or not, it's still a good idea if used properly, and I'm glad that our next President supports it. Not clear whether Hillary wants to use it properly, though... if she's just tossing it around as an extra gift for everybody, while still maintaining the existing SS for those new generations, then it's not a good idea.


  ¶ 6:11 PM

  Canadian Cancer Cure update
I've been supporting and keeping track of a promising cancer cure under development at the U of Alberta in Edmonton. There hasn't been any public news for a while, until now.

Dr. Michelakis has been working through the various ethics committees and the Canadian authorities, and has finally gained full approval to start a clinical trial. He's recruiting patients from the Edmonton area.

He's also raised about $800K of the needed $1.5 mil.

If you need any evidence of the total depravity and uselessness of our wealthy classes, including those who claim to be benevolent, this is sufficient proof. I can understand why, for instance, no conservative has developed a truthful news network. In that case you're risking several billions with dubious return. But 1.5 mil for a nearly certain cure for most types of cancer. Wouldn't you want to be known as the man who made that possible? Apparently nobody wants that distinction. They'd rather spend 1.5 mil on a car, a bad work of modern art, or a weekend of dissipation.

Latest report here.

Labels: Ethics

  ¶ 9:38 AM

  "Better than them"
Looking at TV shots of snipers on roofs in NYC. Are these snipers getting ready to shoot Ahmadinejad? No, of course not. These snipers are ready to PROTECT Ahmadinejad from any actual American who might try to harm him.

As always, George W. Vichy is protecting our enemies.

Nothing more to say.

= = = = =

Well, no.

Now listening to the brand-R talking points vendors, like O'Reilly, answering callers who properly want us to kill A'jad. The brand-R line is "A'jad hasn't been convicted in any international court of law, and the UN has treaty rights, so we must follow the international law."

First of all, we haven't signed onto the Hague Court, so we don't have to follow it. But even if we had, the Hague Court is part of the Axis, devoted to bringing down Western Civilization. It will never find anything against A'jad, but it has already delivered a number of anti-American findings. So if we did follow that court, we'd have to convict most of our own government instead of convicting A'jad.

Second, if we really followed the UN, we'd have to convict all living Presidents (except Axis Agent Carter, of course) on the war crime of enthusiastically supporting Israel. The UN has overwhelmingly and consistently declared that Israel should not exist.

Who, then, is actually obeying the United Nations? Ahmadinejad.

Bill O'Reilly, you're the real Pontius Pilate. You're abandoning the West and yielding authority to an enemy agency.
  ¶ 10:41 AM

  One for our side!
Revenge is sweet.



Via Chosunilbo:

Mullah Abdullah Jan, the Taliban commander who led the kidnappings of 23 Korean hostages in Afghanistan, was killed in an air strike by U.S. forces.

U.S. forces launched an airstrike on a house in Ghazni province where a council of Taliban commanders was meeting on Monday night, the Associated Press reported.

Twelve Taliban leaders were killed including Abdullah, the commander of Qarabagh district in Ghazni, AP said on Tuesday, citing Ghazni provincial police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai.

Abdullah was believed to have planned and carried out the kidnappings of the Korean missionaries on July 19.

As I observed before, talking with kidnappers is sometimes the best course. We don't know what was given ... maybe money, maybe releasing some prisoners. In either case, the important part is that we got the remaining humans out of danger so we could kill the savage beasts. I suspect that the public aspect of the negotiations helped to locate the savages as well.
  ¶ 7:22 PM

  Bro Taser
Enjoying the video of the leftist dickhead in Florida getting tasered.

My first thought: The police won't get in deep trouble for this, because the dickhead was bothering Chairman Kerry, the titular head of The Party. Thus he needed to be stopped by all possible means. (If he had been bothering a Republican, the cops would be in trouble for daring to stop him at all, let alone by taser!)

But I may have underestimated the hardness of leftists in the media and in city governments; it looks like most of the ideological sympathy is with the dickhead, because Kerry is viewed as insufficiently orthodox. The dickhead's attempt to associate Kerry with Bush via Skull & Bones seems to be "normal" thinking in those circles.

My second thought came from my previous life in the Left. "Hey, dickhead, didn't you get any training in passive resistance? We were taught to be stoic and patient, to provide an example of civilized behavior, to show the audience that we Leftists were the civilized ones while the cops looked uncivilized by comparison. What do you think you'll accomplish by all that screeching and whining?"

But I may have underestimated the absolute corruption and gutlessness of this age. Apparently screeching and whining are seen as attractive.

My third thought was to show the long and distinguished record of passive resistance. I opened the New Testament at random, looking for some advice about teaching by example, and landed here immediately:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,

...

But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.

But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience ......

Well, that covers it all, doesn't it? Not just Bro Taser but Nifong, OJ, Wide-Stance, cable news, you name it.
  ¶ 12:59 PM

  ACLU pays its slaves well.
I noted that Wide-Stance Craig served the ACLU by helping to, um, water down the Patriot Act a couple of years ago. At that time I didn't understand why WS was helping the ACLU, but the motive became clear recently. Now the Anti-Civilization Lawyers Union is returning the favor.

I have to give them credit for fairness. Ordinary blackmailers don't provide any rewards when the victim follows their orders; they just open up the stall door if the victim doesn't pay for the towel.
  ¶ 8:03 PM

  Newt is here!
Newt has been here in Spokane for a couple of days, taking part in a conference on the future of health care. He did a long and moderately interesting interview with Richard Brown, the main anchorman of KXLY-TV. Here's the video.

One thing in the interview was potentially significant. When Brown pushed him in the predictable way about deciding whether to run for Pres, Newt referred to George Washington in 1791, who was tired of politics and eager to go home to his farm ... until several other leaders persuaded GW that he was needed for a second term. Sounds like a rather strong hint that Newt will "allow himself to be drafted" if the proper set of leaders "persuade" him.
  ¶ 7:21 PM

  Newt note
Some time ago I speculated that Newt is trying to form a new party, because his campaign is so strange and puzzling.

I've decided it's not strange at all ... but it is entirely unlike the pattern we've come to see as politics. Campaigning as defined by Dick Morris and Karl Rove means a slimy race to the bottom, where both sides cover each other with mud. Its goal is to disgust and repel the vast majority of voters, leaving only the hard core of hopelessly loyal, easily identified and easily manipulated 'broken-glass' voters on each side, while carefully saying nothing of consequence that might attract new people to your own side.

What Newt is doing is the opposite, which wouldn't look strange in any context outside modern politics. He's running a typical product rollout, as any competent company will do with books, beer, or brooms. Instead of turning away all but the reliable handful, he's gradually establishing his brand to attract voters. He's saying: Here's what I'm made of, here's the problem I'll solve, here's what I'll do for you.
  ¶ 3:47 PM

  Talking-point pivot
Yesterday's Brand-R talking point was "Oh, how awful!!!!! MoveOn.org is calling General Petraeus nasty names!!!! Calling him Betray-Us!!!!! This crosses all lines of decency!!!!! It's Treason!!!! Treason!!!! Treason!!!!"

Aside from the unusual screechiness over a trivial bit of name-calling, I suspect the Brand-R Talking-Points Club will have to spin an amazing pirouette.

Petraeus didn't help the 'stay-the-course' line at all. When asked whether the war is making us any safer, he said "I don't know" in a tone that strongly implied "No, it isn't."

This will be fun to watch. Brand-R is going to end up calling him Betray-Us before it's all over.
  ¶ 12:25 AM

  He's BAAAAAACK!


Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water closet....

Wide Stance has managed to outdo himself yet again, by un-un-un-pleading guilty.

Polistra's response is Pavlovian.

Truly, the worst part of this mess is not Craig himself; the worst part is Enemy Agent Specter. EA Specter, without even knowing it, shows us exactly what's wrong with our entire government: Total loss of common sense and human nature.

Specter sees nothing beyond the technicalities of legalism and process. As long as the final written judgment, after all proper appeals, contains the words 'Not Guilty', EA Specter is perfectly satisfied, and Wide Stance should continue to serve as Senator. Facts, reality, emotions, trust, credibility, integrity, are utterly foreign concepts to a Senator. Only the words on the piece of paper are significant, and the rest of us are expected to follow along.

No sir.

This road gives us Nifong.

This road gives us Hitler.

All death warrants at Dachau were perfectly correct; Due Process had been followed precisely at every point. Nobody ever stopped to ask "Is this good?" or "Is this right?" because die Papier in guter Ordnung stand.
  ¶ 1:54 PM

  Newt's speech
Taking a quick look at the transcript of Newt's major speech this morning.

Most of the speech is cast in the form of alternative history: how America would have handled this war if a competent and non-brain-damaged President had been in office at 9/11. I don't see anything dramatically new there ... pretty much the same things that Polistra and other historically minded bloggers have been saying for years. FDR gave us the model; all we had to do was use it.

Toward the end is a list of more realistic proposals, given the fact that we have spent 6 years with an incompetent and brain-damaged President. This list can be read as the platform for a Newt presidency, I suspect.

Highlights of the Newt platform:

While there is much to learn from the past we are faced with the decisions of the present and the possibilities of the future.

We are engaged in a larger war, Podhoretz’s World War Four, against a determined set of opponents who have survived six years of fragmented American and allied effort.

We will never win this larger war with limited efforts in one or two countries in isolation.

We must reject legislating American surrender and defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan but we must also reject 'stay the course' as an answer.

We need a new course.

We need an honest national dialogue and a determination to be candid about our opponents, honest about the problems, and passionately committed to the survival of America as a free country in which its citizens can be safe.

We need to make changes today to have our 21st century national security structures ready for the challenges of the 21st century.

We need a blueprint for reform and success. It is not acceptable that we have more impediments to action than enablers for action.

[More impediments than enablers: EXCELLENT POINT.]

We need a strategy—not a campaign—to rationalize ends and means to achieve our objectives in this long war against our way of life.

The American people are fully capable of understanding the scale of the threat, the dangers to our lives, the threats to our very survival.

The American people showed enormous patience through the great agony of the Civil War.

The American people sustained the Cold War for 44 years until the Soviet Union disappeared.

The problem is not with the American people.

The problem is with our politicians, our news media and our bureaucratic elites.

They are afraid to tell the American people the truth.

They are afraid to explain the scale of the threat and the inevitable scale of the needed response.

Let them trust in Americans.

Yes, but are you going to force them to do that? I don't see a proposal for taking over the media, which FDR did very effectively. Presumably, and hopefully, Newt will follow up this opening salvo with more details.
  ¶ 10:35 AM

  Leaning


Two things are notably strange about Osama's latest speech. I haven't heard either of them mentioned....

One: Unless the original tape is much clearer than what we're seeing on TV, the black beard looks to me like a video trick. Note that you can't see any mouth movement at all, and you can't see the larynx either. If I were going to add new audio to a previously made tape, this is exactly how I'd do it.

Two: The only available transcript is peculiarly crude. It's not a true digital text; it's not even scanned properly. If you were going to scan previously printed pages, it would be easier to place them straight than to align them at various angles. I'd guess it was done by photographing the printed pages with a digital camera. The printing is in a typically British font, not often used in the US.

So the transcript must have been done in some low-tech situation ... OR ... it was actually scanned, and the various angles form some kind of steganography.

The text itself is obviously the work of Pearlman/Gadahn or some similar Western Leninist converted to Mohammed. It's rather well done, but not as smooth and persuasive as Ahmadinejad's propaganda. It's an interesting mix of Marx and Mohammed, with an essentially valid critique of modern China-über-Alles global capitalism, which has in fact declined to a dangerously corrupt condition.

Most of the persuasion is aimed at the Leninist choir, with one interesting and up-to-date exception: "And the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages..."

Fortunately, Pearlman/Gadahn is a birthright Commie who grew up in a tight leftist community, so he doesn't quite understand the feelings of non-Communist westerners. I say fortunately, because a less restricted mind would have seen a more promising crack for his propagandistic wedge in our sense of utter and total corruption. A writer who was raised in a Christian environment, even if he converted to Marx and then to Mohammed, would have made great use of Wide-Stance Craig and similar incidents. The question would be easy to ask and hard to answer: Is Western democracy doing anything for you?

In short, we are in a critical position, similar to the 1930's in the failure of both democracy and capitalism. Democracy is failing in the same way as before: Hoover was seen as paralyzed and helpless, Bush is seen as paralyzed and helpless. Capitalism is failing in a different direction now, but still failing for all except the billionaires.

We are ripe for a replacement.

Polistra has been asking: Would Sharia really be all that much worse? She hasn't started trying on burqas yet, but that point is not far off.

FDR understood the danger perfectly, and took dramatic steps to co-opt and counter the appeals of both Soviet Communism and German Fascism.

Needless to say, Bush wouldn't even know how to sense the danger, let alone how to counter it.

So we are comparatively lucky so far, in that our modern Leftists have abandoned the economic side of Marxism, and thus abandoned their previous appeal to the poor. And we are comparatively lucky that Osama's main ambassador to the West has such a narrow understanding of Western problems and Western thinking. We can't count on the enemies to remain incompetent, though.
  ¶ 5:51 PM

  LOTS OF NEW NUKES!!!!!


Paul Harvey mentioned this good news today. Indeed it is the best news of the year, perhaps even the best news of the decade!

The last time I looked at the NEI website there were only two new licenses for nuke plants, which I considered to be pretty good news. That was in June.

Suddenly there are AT LEAST 33 new nuclear plants being licensed for construction. Here's the chart, as viewed from an NEI spreadsheet.




If all of these plants are built quickly, this will essentially solve our energy independence problem.

You'd think Congress or the Bush admin would want to trumpet this news, as evidence that they're finally getting serious about the future. That would be normal and sane behavior for politicians. Apparently these insane creatures actually prefer to let the people hold them in contempt, even in these rare instances when they accomplish something critically important and tremendously good for the country.

It's absolutely beyond me.
  ¶ 12:14 PM

  Do these folks ever listen to themselves?
Story on Osama's latest tape begins: "The most wanted man on earth has been heard from again after three years of silence." A few seconds later in the same story: " ... can survive in the mountainous region because there are no active searches for him."

Most wanted man. No active searches.

Most wanted man. No active searches.

Most wanted man. No active searches.

Most wanted man. No active searches.

Most wanted man. No active searches.

Anyone notice a slight, shall we say, dissonance?

= = = = =

Wish we could somehow convince the American media and authorities that Osama had one of his own daughters with him, contrary to a custody agreement that only gives him visitation rights. Preferably a daughter with blonde hair. If the media and authorities believed that story, the whole Amber Alert mechanism and 110% of the FBI's vast resources would come into play, and he'd be found and "brought to justice" in less than an hour. The one thing we're truly serious about is fathers who unthinkably dare to spend time with their own children.
  ¶ 9:01 AM

  That's better.
Seems that the Senate has finally started acting like a proper guild, instead of actively supporting and encouraging blackmail. Wide Stance Craig has apparently received such a thunderous blowback that he has now un-un-pled guilty and un-un-resigned. Still hasn't quite returned to simply pleading and resigning, but un-un is better than un.

= = = = =

Couple more random observations:

1. Trusting the opinion of a judge over your own conscience or your own community is the mark of Leftists. [Sidenote: this isn't a basic property of Marxism; it's a consequence of the American Left's decades of hard work in replacing all judges with fellow Commies.] Wide-Stance's insistence on waiting for a final opinion of a judge, after all appeals are exhausted, tells us which side he's on.

2. In a deeper sense, WS is showing catlike logic and behavior. Or you could call it sociopathic thinking. A cat or a sociopath will learn, after 20 or 30 punishments, that getting up on the table while the human is watching leads to being thrown across the room. He has no unpleasant association with the table, as long as the human isn't watching. A normal dog or normal human has a sense of right and wrong, a sense of shame. One hard look will usually suffice to convey the idea that jumping on the table is unwanted. The normal dog or human needs respect more than food.
  ¶ 2:29 PM

  Wrong question, 2
Big story today: The Air Force was caught carrying cruise missiles across the country in B-52s, toward a destination where they will be decommissioned. There are huge investigations, heads are rolling, and organizational structures will be revamped, to avoid carrying cruise missiles across the country while we are throwing them away. We must, must, must find another way to transport the missiles to the trash pile, because we agreed with Khrushchev in 1960 that we would never, ever, ever, carry missiles in bombers while throwing them away.

Hold on. Aren't we forgetting something? Didn't anyone else hear the important part of the sentence?




Well, Polistra heard it, and she asks:



  ¶ 5:52 PM

  Mmmm, blackmail feels soooo good... do me some more!
A couple days ago I wrote that the R party obviously enjoys being blackmailed. I hesitated a bit on that line, feeling it might be excessive; but now that Wide-Stance Craig is trying to unplead guilty and unresign, I'm on solid ground.

Think about this: W.S. Craig has been a sort of double agent. He has undoubtedly represented Idaho's economic interests well. In addition, because of his dirty secret, he is easy to blackmail, and the results of the blackmail were visible in his vote against parts of the Patriot Act. (Probably some other pro-enemy votes as well; otherwise Enemy Agent Specter wouldn't be so determined to keep him around.)

Now compare: if WS is replaced by a relatively clean man, the new man will be a SINGLE agent, representing Idaho but NOT representing the ACLU.

So, replacing Old Wide-Stance would mean cutting the power of the blackmailers, decreasing the votes for the ACLU, and increasing the credibility of pro-American positions. Leaving WS in office is an act of allegiance to blackmail and Communism.

You can be sure the story won't go away, and it's a safe bet that other, ahem, shoes are still waiting to drop. Despite all this, the R party hasn't physically, ah, booted him out of the Capitol, and seems prepared to allow his idiotic reliance on Due Process while he stays in office forever.

This tells me without any doubt that the R party is more interested in pleasing the blackmailers on the Left than in representing the 'Red-state' interests of Idaho.
  ¶ 9:34 AM

  Newt's 'major opus'
Newt is going to present a major speech at AEI next week, in which he lays out the 'third option' that has been missing from all of our debates. Should be an interesting speech.

Polistra has been making this point for quite a while.
  ¶ 9:18 PM

  New direction for the phrase 'Korean Missionaries'
Via Chosunilbo as always:

A U.S. humanitarian organization has set a landmark by chartering a direct flight to airlift aid for North Korean flood victims. Samaritan's Purse president Franklin Graham said on the organization’s homepage Sunday, "We've been told that this airlift is the first direct flight from the U.S. to North Korea since the Korean War." The aid organization sent goods to the North on a chartered Boeing 747, which took off in Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday and landed in Pyongyang on Friday. Worth US$8 million, they include antibiotics, drugs and plastic housing materials.

Bravo Rev. Franklin!

Contrary to the [fully understandable] cynicism of most conservatives, I'm even more convinced that Dear Leader Kim is deflating quickly. If he's allowing a famous Christian organization to help his people openly, he's no longer even pretending to be the Vanguard of Progressive Stalinism.

Kudos to the State Dept, credit to the Graham outfit, and perhaps even credit to China which must be tired of supporting Kim, with no obvious strategic benefit, while juggling other problems.
  ¶ 4:01 PM

  Madame Polisztra channels Skeletor



Madame Polisztra seems to have a channel to FEMA, whether she likes it or not. (Note this entry, two weeks before Katrina.)

Four days ago: "I haven't been in touch with the whole subject for many years, so I presume the ARRL still exists but is no longer allowed to interfere with FEMA's all-encompassing and all-destroying incompetence."

Today we hear that FEMA is going to crack down on "unofficial" helpers in disasters, which would presumably include radio amateurs (with their long-tested and well-organized methods of off-grid disaster communication) as well as the Christian charities that have proven to be vastly more effective than FEMA in every possible way.

Yes sir, can't have competence interfering with the government's goals!
  ¶ 12:48 PM

  Yes, let's have a SINGLE STANDARD!
Susan Estrich on Prince Walid News just now, expressing the Official Leftist Position: "I don't care about somebody's sexual orientation; what bothers me is when they vote the opposite way. That's hypocritical."

Wonderful! Let's apply the hypocrisy standard universally!

Any heterosexual who votes FOR gay marriage should be exposed as a hypocrite and shamed out of office.

Then the only votes FOR gay marriage would come from the openly homosexual members of Congress, which at present means Barney Frank. Fine with me!

I'd love to hear a "counter-expert" use this line of response, perhaps with a little extra: "Okay, so we've established that you aren't really arguing against hypocrisy. Instead, you're advocating blackmail. Now that we know what you are, let's start negotiating."
  ¶ 10:14 AM

  Define 'Man'.
Does your moral palate require cleansing after attempting to digest the Sordid Senatorial Spectacle?

Try this, from the WPA Guide to Oklahoma, 1941.



= = = = = = = = = = =

RED OAK (590 alt., 484 pop.), is a small farming center which was named for a large red oak tree that stood in the center of the town when this region was the Choctaw Nation. The Indians held district court there and used the oak as a whipping post.

The most serious political disturbance in the history of the Choctaw Nation had its finale at Red Oak when Silan Lewis was executed for his part in the Nationalist uprising, following the election of 1892. The fullblood Lewis, who had been sheriff of his own district, upheld the traditional Choctaw honor when he came striding in from his woodland home on the appointed day, November 5, 1894, and quietly sat with back against the tree to await his death from the firing squad.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Man.



  ¶ 12:29 PM

  Wrong question
On the Craig mess, today's talking point is: "Why do the Republicans always give in to these accusations? Why don't we hold tough and fight?"

Wrong question.

The right question is: Why do we always hold tough long enough to reach the point of scandal?

If we have any principles at all, anything we really want to accomplish by holding office, why do we allow so many easily compromised politicians to stay on our team?

In other words: Why do we enjoy being blackmailed?

It's a fact that the sexual blackmailers are on the left now. Wasn't always the case*, but it's emphatically true in the last 20 years. Unless there's a way to purge the feminist and gay activists, we simply have to accept this as part of the conditions of the battlefield, and adjust our strategy accordingly.

What's the right strategy? If we have any principles at all, if we want to be free to push those principles, we need to thank the sexual blackmailers for helping us to clean up our team. Thank them for providing a useful signal.

The main editorialist at Catholic World News has been running an informative series of comparisons between the Boy Scouts and the Roman leadership. His point: The sexual blackmailers have been pushing the Scouts for many years to Celebrate Diversity by taking in more homosexual scoutmasters, and more generally to abandon Christianity and carry the leftist torch. The Scouts haven't given in, and the blackmailers haven't even gained any traction. The Roman church (in America anyway) has adopted nearly all of the usual leftist principles.

What's the diff? The Scouts are perhaps the only major institution that still puts reputation first. They reject a scoutmaster who shows any sort of dubious tendencies, and they kick him out before his dubious tendencies can do any damage either to the boys or to the group's reputation. The Roman church follows the modern course: hold tough, use Due Process as an excuse, keep numerical "power" at the cost of total blackmail and total loss of principles and credibility.

We're seeing similar failures in many realms. Astronauts in diapers, baseball players in steroids. We've lost the guild mentality, the idea that your primary job is to maintain the reputation and grandeur of the profession. We've replaced it with a quantifiable lust for numerical and tactical wins, which aren't even wins.

When you know players will be tested for drugs and disqualified, the team doesn't really gain anything by keeping a Barry Bonds on the roster. When you know politicians will be tested for sexual hypocrisy and disqualified, the team doesn't really gain anything by keeping a Larry Craig on the roster.


= = = = =

* In fact, the all-time champion sexual blackmailer in American politics was good old J. Edgar, who was also the all-time champion anti-Communist. I'm not sure when the practice shifted over to the left, but it must have been after Hoover died.
  ¶ 5:46 AM

  Thanks be unto Providence.



Via Int'l Herald Tribune: 8 released now, the remainder (presumably in a different place) to come out shortly.

Moral of the story: Talking with kidnappers works. Sometimes.



We need to learn from Korea and rethink our standard "no-negotiation" policy, which isn't truthful in any case.

The basic question is always means vs ends. Our end is to preserve our own kind (Christians and their allies). The "no-talk" policy often destroys our own without gaining anything meaningful from the enemy. If talking preserves more of our own, it should be at least an openly available option.
  ¶ 6:36 AM

  Wide stance
The worst thing about these scandals is not what happens after the revelation, the predictable circus of prurient chortling from the left and prurient smarminess from the right.

The worst thing is what happens before the revelation. It's hardly news that living a secret life guarantees blackmail; yet for some reason our elite classes have forgotten this basic fact of human nature.

I remembered mentioning Craig once here ... looking back, I find that I was disgusted by his surrender to the ACLU on the important point of Patriot Act wiretapping. Now the reason for the surrender is obvious. If Larry Craig hadn't been living a secret dirty life, there would have been one more firm supporter of the Patriot Act.

= = = = =

Back to basics: What was the key to America's success, back in the days when it did succeed? Not freedom, though a certain amount of well-placed freedom was important. Not capitalism, though a certain amount of well-regulated capitalism was important. Not education: very few of our best innovators and leaders finished high school, let alone Harvard. No, what made us work was a dense web of 'mediating organizations', well described by Tocqueville.

Every trade had its informal and unofficial guild, which dispensed both carrots and sticks. Every religion had not only churches but social groupings, and every race and ethnic group had lodges. The guild usually served as a mutual assistance organization, taking in rather hefty dues and providing various forms of insurance and help for members. In return, it required ethical and professional behavior. You were supposed to be a positive example to the public, and you were expected to listen to the advice of older members and help develop younger members.

My working life came largely after guilds had turned obsolete, but I was involved in one such organization for a while. Radio amateurs were ably represented by the ARRL (American Radio Relay League). The ARRL took care of testing and training young amateurs in both electronics and ethical practice; it 'defrocked' hams who violated the norms; and it organized hams for emergency service in disaster situations. All of those functions were quasi-governmental, and the FCC happily allowed ARRL to perform them.

After 40 years of inattention, I still remember looking up to the ARRL with a sense of grandeur, and I remember the solid pleasure of being supported and shaped by a benevolent association.





ARRL's symbol nicely expresses the function of any guild. The antenna at the top picks up new signals; the tuning coil in the middle keeps the signals within a narrow bandwidth where they can be useful; and the ground at the bottom provides both a standard of reference and a place to dump unwanted signals.

I haven't been in touch with the whole subject for many years, so I presume the ARRL still exists but is no longer allowed to interfere with FEMA's all-encompassing and all-destroying incompetence.

Since Lenin began his grand takeover in 1920, the government has grabbed both the welfare and social enforcement functions, and most guilds were unfortunately willing to let it happen. Now trade associations no longer mediate between the members and the public at large; they only serve to lobby for more federal subsidies and special exemptions to all-encompassing and all-destroying regulations.

Legislators and judges, operating under anti-discrimination statutes, have snatched away the internal regulation functions of guilds. Every aspect of behavior is now subject to pure governmental force. We no longer walk in harness; we no longer sense the gentle rein-pull of our associations or churches; we just careen and skid through life, waiting for the random and arbitrary arrest, which may or may not bear any connection to a genuinely bad act.

Kafka wins.

And what was the guild for legislators? Political parties formerly served the mediating functions of a guild. Filtered out bad apples before the arrest and scandal went public; dispensed favors to loyal voters; developed young candidates. Now, thanks to 70 years of "reforms", they only gather money and buy advertising. But how can we do without advertising? Well, advertising wasn't quite so important when the candidates were better men, and when loyalty was rewarded directly.
  ¶ 1:13 AM

  Vick for AG


Polistra has a bright idea. Kill two birds with one stone:

We need an Attorney General with guts.

Michael Vick needs a way to stay out of prison.

So we let him do his Community Service and Restitution by serving as AG for the remainder of G. W. Vichy's term.

We give him these simple instructions: Treat Arabs and traitors the way you treat dogs.

Imagine Vick being grilled by Teddy Kennedy.

Comrade Teddy: "Now, Amister Avick, tell me athis: awhat did you aknow and awhen did you aknow it?"

Vick: GGGHHHHRRRRRRAAAAAGGGHHH!!!! [Leaps across the desk, tears Kennedy's head off, then hangs him from the chandelier to bleed out.]

This would be not only legal restitution but a beautiful spiritual restitution. Arabs hate dogs [i.e. civilization] even more than Vick does. By torturing Arabs, he would be eliminating the worst enemies of dogs [i.e. civilization].

And a side benefit: Vick is an Authentic African-American, i.e. gangster. Thus the leftists would be utterly unable to criticize anything he does, because the prime directive of leftists is to Celebrate Authenticity at all costs.
  ¶ 8:33 AM

  Outtake
I don't do 'shop talk' here often, but this was just a perfect bit of accidental Murphy's Law humor. Recently mentioned my long-lasting and artistically satisfying project to model the Nelson Dream Village tourist lodge. It's reached the point where I'm about ready to submit the set to online graphics stores for testing and sale. So I decided to rig up a series of demo pics to stir up some interest, and maybe get a couple of acquaintances to run a beta test before submitting to the store.




First a nice outdoor shot, with the Musical Fountain emphasized. The fountain was the centerpiece of the real Dream Village, and the truly unique part of Colonel Nelson's dream. Lots of tourist lodges in the '30s had charming rock-faced cottages; only the Dream Village had a music and light show every evening in the summer.

Apparently the original mechanism ran the fountain and lights through a standard 'ringing the changes' pattern, while Colonel Nelson's granddaughter Beth took charge of the turntable, favoring Strauss waltzes. I've done the Colonel one better in digital form, with an animated mechanism that 'dances' the fountain and lights to the music.





Second, the interior of the cottage looking toward the kitchen and bath. Since no interior pix of the actual Dream Village are available, I've used appropriate period furniture, as seen in other motels of the time.




Third, we'll turn toward the front window and wait for the fountain to start up. I activate the water and lights, and ....





CUT!

Apparently the water was improperly centered on the house instead of the fountain.





Obviously we're not ready for testing and sale yet, if Murphy's Law can bite me so easily. An unsuspecting buyer would have even worse problems!

= = = = =

Much later note: Most of the Dream Village set has ended up as part of my free Route 66 packages. The cottage is here and much of the furniture is here. The fountain isn't part of either set; I decided it wasn't up to the same quality standards.
  ¶ 11:36 PM

  Chutzpah
Beck's radio show is running a wonderful parody of Shameless John Edwards, but they've missed the biggest chutzpah of all.

Edwards is DIRECTLY AND PERSONALLY responsible for a significant part of our health care crisis. Obstetricians are wasting money on tests, doing far more C-Sections than necessary, and simply leaving the practice in droves, because of the pattern of lawsuits that Edwards started. And now Edwards has the MONUMENTAL GALL to complain about the costly and inefficient medical system.

This actually beats the old joke about killing your parents and pleading for mercy on grounds that you're an orphan.

Truly, the only way out of the mess is to take up full and total government-owned medicine. That will disentangle the awful and unmanageable semi-monopolistic / semi-governmental maze we have now. After that, we'll at least be able to see and measure what's really happening; and the result quite possibly will be better than the current setup. It really can't be worse.

And there is justice in the universe. When the system is owned by the government, the legal principle of Sovereign Immunity will apply, and IT WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE TO SUE DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS! Giving Edwards what he wants [or claims to want] will put him and all his evil cohort out of a job!

Not quite as satisfying as the Shakespeare Solution, but still pretty damn good.

That one fact, all by itself, makes the change worthwhile. That one fact will allow doctors to return to common sense, and will allow the whole system to work better.

= = = = =

While I'm ranting on this subject:

The brand-R talking point vendors always say: "If you like the way the Post Office or the DMV treats you, then you'll love socialized medicine."

This comparison may work for some people, but it sure as hell doesn't work for me. In my adult life, say 35 years, I've used private doctors about 8 times, and used emergency rooms about 4 times. My experience with private doctors has been worse than the DMV every single time. Long waits, disdainful and contemptuous attitudes, no attempt to listen to what I'm saying, and worst of all, bad advice and wrong diagnoses. Emergency room experience was actually better: more respect, more attention, and correct diagnoses.

So would I rather have DMV-type health care? Hell yes. The DMV treats you with contempt, but at least you get a valid license at the end of the process!
  ¶ 3:28 PM

  A cute joke
Saw this joke on a forum:

A public school teacher was arrested this morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the man, who has not been identified, is believed to be a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement and has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a problem for us," Gonzales said. "They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President.

Some of the puns are lame, but overall it's a good parody, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it actually happened. Homeland Security is easily stupid enough to decide that a slide rule must be some kind of weapon.

And I wouldn't be surprised if G W Vichy decided to go against Mathematicians instead of Mohammedans. Our real enemy has strong lobbies in the form of the ACLU and federal judges, and Vichy is more inclined to obey judges than to fight the real enemy.

Going after mathematicians would have the added advantage of pleasing all the voters who really count in Karl Rove's calculus: Women, hispanics, and blacks.
  ¶ 6:13 AM

  Two steps backward, three steps backward
And while we're talking about sophisticated harmonies from the '30s.....

A passage from the WPA Guide to Kansas, written in 1938 as the Dust Bowl was still going strong.

Recent years of almost unprecedented drought have led to the often expressed belief that the climate of Kansas is changing. Geologists and meteorologists, however, point out that weather runs in cycles, the most pronounced being about a third of a century in length. Conditions during a cycle are easily mistaken by laymen for permanent changes. Despite year by year fluctuations in temperature and precipitation, recorded evidence shows that general climatic conditions remain unchanged.

The scientists of 1938 had knowledge, logic and common sense. They understood the principle of the wheel or the wave: what goes around comes around. Today's "scientists" have lost that basic understanding. Like a newborn babe, they see something going up and they assume it's going up forever.

And the third of a century has continued with fair precision. 1938 was a year of floods and droughts, including a terrible flood in Los Angeles and a hurricane that flattened Providence, RI with a HUNDRED-FOOT-TALL surge. Add 35 and you get 1973, another year of floods, supercells and tornados. Add 34 to that, and you get 2007.

Well, what do you know. Those old benighted scientists just might be right. Things do run in cycles. Amazing.

Satire aside, I'm desperately frightened to see our "keepers of knowledge" dragging us down into a Dark Age. It took several centuries for the learning of Greece and Rome to fade into raw superstition; our Communist masters have accomplished the same level of destruction in a few decades.
  ¶ 9:04 PM

  Time capsule: Good Morning Glory!


Polistra thinks it's time to cheer things up around here. She wants you to catch three songs by 'sister acts' of the 1930s.

What these songs have in common is highly sophisticated harmony, a lost and lamented art nowadays ... and voices imitating instruments, a lost and perhaps not so lamented art.

1. The DeMarco sisters in their first radio performance: "That's the story of love".

Listen.

2. The Pickens sisters from early 1934, doing a real wake-em-up "Good Morning Glory."

Listen.

3. Pickens again, with a strange half-Oriental number, "Lowdown Tune."

Listen.

The DeMarcos went on to a long career. The Pickens Sisters only performed for four years; apparently they had their own radio show at some point. Jane Pickens, the eldest, carried her fame into a long and distinguished life in New York high society, even running for Congress on the Conservative line in 1972 against Ed Koch!

= = = = =

A bit later: An unparalleled collection of '30s movie clips on Youtube contains the original 'Good Morning Glory', with the Pickens doing only some of the singing. If you don't smile for several days after seeing this clip, you're either totally Stalinized or dead.
  ¶ 8:31 PM

  Spirit of a sissy, III
While the Korean missionaries are demonstrating the difference between Allah and God, the difference between Jihad and saintliness, the Roman leadership is trying hard to ignore or blur the difference.

What is the difference? Easy.

A jihadi sacrifices himself to kill infidels.

A saint sacrifices himself to save infidels.

Dutch bishop Tiny Muskens has quickly become infamous for telling his parishioners to call God "Allah", as a way of pacifying the Mohammedans. I wonder if any Dutch priests in 1942 told their people to refer to Christ as "Thor", in order to pacify the Nazis? Somehow I doubt it. They were too busy hiding and saving Jews.

Big Daddy-O Benedict is not quite so thoroughly muddled: he does seem to recognize that the Church has enemies ....

Reflecting on the readings from the book of Revelation, the Pope proclaimed that “The love of God is more powerful than the materialism of this age.”

Benedict spoke specifically about the figures of the dragon and the woman clothed with the sun in Revelation 12. He explained that in the days of the early Christians “the evil red dragon was the anti-Christian Roman Empire and the Church, which is embodied by the woman, … outlasted the persecution of the dragon.”

He said that the dragon also represents the great dictatorships of the past century: Nazism and Stalinism and again the Church survived. Even in these dark circumstances the woman, that is, the Church, survived. In the end, “love proved stronger than hate.”

Hey, this is starting to sound like the courageous Benedict who appeared ever so briefly at Regensburg. Is he coming back toward Pius XII? Is he going to identify the enemy? Let's continue listening:

“Today the dragon exists in the materialist ideologies which tell people that it’s absurd to think about God; to observe the commandments, which are described as outdated; and that they should grab what they can.”

Nope. Still missing in action. This is 1957 stuff, sort of like Stan Freberg's parodies of over-commercialized Santa Claus. Materialism always pulls Christians downward, but materialism is not killing nuns and missionaries RIGHT NOW in places like Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
  ¶ 6:56 PM

  Sanctificata est.
Via Chosunilbo as usual:

Taliban kidnappers have declared that negotiations with the Korean government for the release of 19 Koreans held in Afghanistan have collapsed. Some reports said the Taliban threatened to kill one or two more hostages unless Korea makes a genuine offer by Monday. Since freeing two women, the Taliban said they will kill no more hostages while negotiations are under way as talks with a Korean delegation were going smoothly.

But in a phone interview with the Chosun Ilbo’s local correspondent, the purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi blamed the Korean government for the collapse of the negotiations, saying the militant group no longer expects Korea to persuade the Afghan government to release Taliban prisoners in exchange for the hostages.

...

Ahmadi said unless the South Korean side gets more active in negotiations than it has been, “one or two hostages could be killed.” ...

Meanwhile, one hostage gave up her chance to return home to another woman when the Taliban freed two female hostages last week. The woman asked the kidnappers to release the other woman instead of her, saying her health was getting better.

These are saints.
  ¶ 6:37 PM

  Bilevel


Polistra is happy that the roulette tables in the Wall Street Casino are burning. Maybe it will finally bring some reality to the elite coverage of economic conditions.

No, it won't.

Nevertheless, we are still moving toward a two-part economy, like most Latin American and African countries, and like J. P. Morgan's 1890 America. The elite barons, both 'Left' and 'Right', live in gated compounds with private security, free to move to Dubai after they have shorted America into submission. The masses have their bread and circuses.

Yesterday the distinction between Upstairs and Downstairs showed brightly, with a glint of irony, when Glenn Beck interviewed Peter Schiff, a pessimistic expert.

Transcript of relevant section, from GlennBeck.com:

SCHIFF: Well, it`s going to be worse, certainly, than the 1970s. We -- we`re going to have to pay the price for years of living beyond our means, while we were spending all this money and consuming, our real industrial base was disintegrating beneath our feet. So we`ve been living off of borrowed money and an artificial standard of living, and that`s all going to come to an end.

Just like an individual, if you quit your job and live off of a credit card, eventually, you know, the bills -- the bills come due, and you have to downsize your lifestyle. That`s what`s going to happen. But you know, you talked about the 1930s, where if you were in cash, you did well.

Unfortunately, this time around, our money, the U.S. dollar, is going to collapse, as well. So simply having money in the bank...

BECK: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on just a second. Peter, you honestly are sitting here making the prediction that the U.S. dollar is going to collapse?

SCHIFF: Yes. I think it`s going to lose at least 50 percent of its value, maybe more.

BECK: In what time period?

SCHIFF: It could happen over the course of just a couple of years. Maybe even sooner.

Schiff's diagnosis is exactly right. Under both brand-R and brand-D "Free Traders", i.e. Chinese agents, we've sold our industries and patents to China, and allowed our own factories to disappear. The irony: this process actually does "hurt minorities and women most", because as I've discussed before, it removes low-skilled men from the pool of providers and decent husbands, leaving them no option but crime; which in turn removes low-skilled women from the pool of full-time mothers, requiring them to work at WalMart.

Well then, does Schiff have a good solution? Yes indeed.


BECK: I`ve got 30 seconds, and we could spend an hour on this. What exactly is the average person supposed to do?

SCHIFF: Well, I mean, what you could do is get rid of your dollars while you can. I mean, that`s what I`m helping my clients do at Euro Pacific. We`ve been doing that for years. We`re selling dollars, and we`re accumulating foreign assets. We`re investing in Asia and Europe. We`re trying to get rid of a currency that`s on the verge of a collapse.

BECK: Holy cow. Peter, thank you very much.

Get rid of dollars??? Sell dollars???

Telegram for you, Schiff: this phrase is not even comprehensible, let alone helpful advice, to the average man.

This may well be useful advice for the Wall Street Casino Bettors who are ready to move to Dubai, but it's several universes removed from the average man.

Labels: the broken circle

  ¶ 8:44 AM

  Solar chihuahua


Let's say you've been spotting dog poop in one corner of your yard. You suspect the neighbor's chihuahua, but you haven't actually seen him pooping. This morning you see him doing what dogs do, in the same corner of the yard where you've been seeing and smelling the poop. The next morning you see him in action again, and again the next evening.

A normal rational human, or a normal scientist, will conclude that the neighbor's chihuahua is the actual source of the earlier poops, which were small enough to be his product, not likely to be Great Dane poop. The scientist will use more precise measurements and more statistics, but the basic inductive reasoning is the same.

Not so for a Paranoid Religious Zealot. The PRZ will notice the chihuahua depositing poop, and instantly conclude that all chihuahuas have Jew-chips implanted in their tiny brains, which force them to poop in a Jew-coded way. He will then carefully scoop up the Jew Code Defecatorium, bring it into the house and try to decode the patterns, and (after appropriate rearrangement) the Jew Code Defecatorium will absolutely verify that the chihuahua is sending secret messages to be read by Jew satellites on Mars, thus passing orders to the guy across the street who is a 32nd Degree Mason and thus undoubtedly an Illuminatus.

= = = = =

Now for an article in latest New Scientist mag, headlined "Sun takes some climate blame, but most is ours."

Most is ours. Does this mean the "scientists" finally have any evidence of the connection between human activity and the earth's temperature? No, it refers to increased factual proof of the sun's connection to global temperatures, followed by a typical piece of Paranoid Religious Zealot "reasoning" by the "scientists".

The actual observation: "Planet-wide heating and cooling of the atmosphere during the 11-year sunspot cycle has been measured for the first time."

Evidence of longer-term solar effects has been clear for many years, but the fine-grained changes in the short 11-year cycle were not large enough to spot easily amid the huge variability caused by all sorts of other stuff. New research has managed to tease out the correlation between sunspot cycles and roughly 0.6 degrees of average variation.

If we had any actual scientists practicing in the climate realm, this observation should put the final nail in the coffin of the idiotic greenhouse "theory", but no.

Here we go on the paranoid merry-go-round:

"What will excite climate scientists most is that Tung and Camp are the first to measure directly how a given change in the amount of heat energy in the atmosphere translates into a change in [worldwide] temperature. Researchers call this the 'climate sensitivity' of the atmosphere, and it is a vital factor in climate research because it determines how fast the planet will warm as a result of climate change.

...

Tung and Camp say that [this correlation] shows that a doubling of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would cause a warming of between 2.3 and 4.1 degrees C within about a year. They say this makes the lower estimates of some models 'unlikely'. "

And this last point is what has the Gaia-worshipping PRZ's excited. More disaster! More apocalypse! More sin by humans! More reason to exterminate the entire human species! Oh boy!!!

Trying to pry this apart: The facts of this new factual discovery, if they were treated as facts, would help to knock down the global-warming hoax, because the facts make it clear that we are noticeably warmed and cooled by the 11-year solar cycle, along with the already-known longer solar cycles. Rational thinkers would treat this added evidence for solar influence as added evidence for solar influence, just as the observed squatting of the chihuahua is added evidence that the chihuahua is the main influence on your yard's odor.

In turn, this should decrease the credibility of theories about other influences (such as greenhouse gases) because those are not even theories; they are fraudulent superstitions based on a reverse reading of known data.

But that's not how the Gaia-worshippers see it. Instead, they treat these new facts as nothing more than a modified parameter for their fraudulent models, a new code to be fed into the same wild axioms, leading always to the pre-determined conclusion: Exterminate humans! Exterminate humans! Exterminate humans!
  ¶ 10:13 AM

  Dignity
Just a thought.

The brand-R politicians and commentators are all huffy about the "indignity" of answering Youtube questions. Romney said "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."

Okay, so what kind of question is "dignified" and "becoming"?

Well, we can take George W. Vichy's choices as a standard, since he's the champion when it comes to declaring actions as "unbecoming". He's so dignified that he won't do any of the normal things that leaders do ... such as telling the people what's going on, or telling us when our soldiers gain territory from the enemy.

So which kinds of questions does Vichy happily take? Which category of questioners does he cheerfully josh around and smile with?

Helen Thomas.

David Gregory.

Traitors who should have been imprisoned or hanged long ago.

So this is the Vichy standard.

Traitors are proper and dignified sources of questions, while animated videos are "beneath respect".








What's wrong with this picture, other than every goddamn thing?

= = = = =

Later: Huckabee, appearing on Laura Ingraham's show, separated himself from the defenders of the Imperial Presidency: "I don't mind. I've answered questions from far sillier people than an animated snowman." Must admit I didn't like him much at the start ... he seemed to be mainly about losing weight ... but he's definitely gaining points for leadership and clarity.
  ¶ 12:51 PM

  Two missionaries unmartyred


Via Chosunilbo:

Taliban kidnappers on Monday released two Korean hostages, Kim Gina (32) and Kim Kyung-ja (37), after 26 days in captivity in Afghanistan. Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong on Monday officially confirmed the women had been released and handed over to Korean officials. Cho said the two women, who were reported to be ill, were now in a safe place under the protection of Korean authorities. He added that Seoul was relieved that some of the 21 surviving hostages have been released.
A government official said the two are in an area under the control of an allied forces reconstruction team in Ghazni Province.

The next part is not strictly newsworthy, but I find it interesting in two ways:

Kim Gina, who teaches computerized animation at a junior college, reportedly used her vacation to take part in a short-term missionary trip to Afghanistan. Her brother Ji-woong (35) said he was worried every time he saw media reports about the health of the hostages, since Gina had left for the trip before a back ailment was fully cured. “I was worried that she hadn’t brought enough medicine with her, even though she needs continuous treatment using painkillers.” Kim Kyung-ja had told her family she was going to Dubai to stop them worrying.

First, you'll find very few Christians, let alone saintly Christians, among computerized animation people in the West. Nearly all of them are orthodox West-hating Osama-loving Leninists. I wonder if the mandatory connection between art and Communism hasn't been formed in Korea? If so, it's another reason for us to listen closely to Korea.

Second, "Kim Kyung-ja told her family she was going to Dubai to stop them worrying."

These are saints. That's all I can say.
  ¶ 11:11 AM

  Skousen's prophecies
A few days ago, someone at NRO mentioned W. Cleon Skousen as an important anti-Communist intellectual. I'd never heard of the guy, and his name was so wonderfully clattery that I just had to look him up. Turns out he was an FBI agent in the early '50s, who had helped to penetrate the Commies.

Later he left the Bureau and joined the Birchers, before the Birchers themselves were penetrated by the Party and turned away from effective anti-Communism to stupid CFR/Illuminati conspiracies.

Skousen wrote an astonishingly prophetic document, and I'm amazed that I haven't read it before. It seems to be distributed widely around the Web.

Callers to C-Span and various radio shows often read other lists of supposed Commie goals, which are either wrong or clearly fictional. This list is drawn from Skousen's FBI experience, its date of publication has been verified, and nearly everything in it has come to pass.

Many of the items were not at all obvious in 1958, and must have seemed like wild paranoid thinking to those who read it before 1970. A few items were specific to Soviet practice, and thus became obsolete when Reagan, the only pro-American president since 1958, tossed the Soviet Union into the dustbin of history.

= = = = =

Here's the list, with my comments in brackets after each item.

1958 CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

[Done!]

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

[Done, with cherries on top! See Comrade Bush dealing with Persia... ]

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament (by) the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

[Comrade Carter accomplished this task.]

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

[This has shifted from Russia to China. Both Bushes and Clinton have been working on this one with tremendous results for China's benefit.]

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

[Obsolete; the lend-lease program went away.]

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

[Done!]

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

[Comrade Nixon accomplished this one.]

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

[Done but obsolete]

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

[Done but obsolete]

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

[Done but obsolete]

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces.

[See blue berets.]

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

[Obviously worked; CPUSA is still going strong, mainly doing business now as "United for Justice and Peace" or variations thereof.]

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

[Loyalty oaths were still in use in 1958, so this must have been accomplished later; I'm not sure exactly which Comrade was responsible. Wasn't terribly important in the big picture.]

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

[Shifted to China with enthusiasm, and added copyrights as well.]

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

[Done, again with the brief interregnum of Reagan.]

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

[This is the most dramatically prophetic item to my thinking. Was a completely alien concept in '58, and now it's the sole purpose of the Federal courts.]

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

[Done.]

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

[Done, but now being resisted in a minor way by 'alternative' conservative papers on some campuses.]

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs of organizations which are under Communist attack.

[Shifted in recent years from student riots to black riots, thanks to the great work of Comrades Piven and Cloward, implemented by Comrade LBJ.]

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

[Done.]

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

[Done. Not just key positions but all positions.]

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

[This one caught me by surprise. I thought the movement toward ugliness was a conformist tendency among the artsy types who also happened to be leftists. I didn't realize it was Party policy!]

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

[Redundant with 22. Done]

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

[Done. The comrades who sit in the Supreme Court building have been wonderfully busy and effective, haven't they?]

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.

[Again prophetic; not a visible trend in '58]

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

[This one is still being worked on, as you can tell by watching any and all TV programs; started later than most other goals.]

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

[Done, with a few temporary holdouts like the Baptists. The Party's modern Global Warming campaign seems to have finally knocked down the Baptists, who had firmly resisted the push toward gay ministers etc.]

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

[Done. Again not publicly known in '58]

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

[Done. Special credit to Comrade Breyer on the last bit. The black-robed saboteurs have thoroughly shredded all of the Constitution except the trivial details of "terms of employment": 2 years for House, 6 years for Senate, Pres must be natural-born, etc. For some reason they've never bothered to shred those bits, so I must assume that those bits are helping to bring down America. Black-robed saboteurs are thorough, meticulous and consistent; they never accidentally miss an opportunity to destroy the country.]

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

[Done and prophetic.]

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the grounds that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

[The latter part, emphasis on Russian history, is the only point in this list where Skousen missed. Or at least the only point that was never accomplished by the Party. Maybe it wasn't very important to the Party.]

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture - education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

[Done, mainly by Comrades Johnson and Nixon.]

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

[Apparently done, or at least such laws are no longer enforced.]

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

[Done. Skousen didn't see quite far enough on this one, since Congressional Committees now serve only to investigate and punish anti-Communists.]

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

[Didn't need to discredit; instead the FBI was turned into an agency to burn Christians and prosecute Americans who dare to oppose our internal enemies.]

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

[Happened, but unions were turning obsolete at the same time, so it didn't really matter.]

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

[Done and relevant.]

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand (or treat).

[Again wonderfully prophetic. This campaign didn't begin until the mid-70s.]

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

[Redundant with #38]

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

[Done and prophetic.]

41. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

[This one is subtle because the 'rising up' has never been part of the public front of the Party. If you watch Comrades Sharpton and Jackson in operation, you can see the results, though....]

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

[This was actively underway in '58, proudly and openly sponsored by Communists, so it's true but not at all prophetic. A few of those African nations are now starting to regret what Communism did to them, and considering re-colonization.]

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

[Thanks to Comrade Carter again.]

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

[I don't know the Connally Reservation, but the latter part is obviously working out quite nicely.]
  ¶ 8:08 AM

  Bravo Newt
Newt appeared briefly on Prince Walid News a few minutes ago. Said that the only one of the [declared] candidates who is thinking boldly enough is Obama.

Bravo! All the brand-R politicians and talkers have been zapping Obama for proposing an attack on Pakistan; all say it's "irresponsible" because "Pakistan is our good ally and friend."

Any rational observer of facts can see perfectly well that Pakistan is our enemy. Though I suspect Obama's motives are not quite simple and factual, he has still spoken the truth on this one point. And Newt, whose motives are rational and factual, has the guts to acknowledge it publicly.

I AM SO GODDAMN TIRED OF DYNASTIC LOYALISTS WHOSE SOLE DEFINITION OF TRUTH IS "BUSH SAID IT, THEREFORE IT'S TRUE!" OR CONVERSELY "BUSH SAID IT, THEREFORE IT'S FALSE!"

Facts exist.

Facts can be observed by anyone.

If Bush happens to say something that agrees with the observed facts, well, that's sort of interesting because of its rarity, but it doesn't increase or decrease the truth of the observed facts.
  ¶ 9:38 AM

  When to hold, when to fold
While all the focus is properly on the hostages held by savage Mohammedans in Afghanistan, some interesting and hopeful things are happening within Korea itself.

Dear Leader Kim may be on the verge of quietly folding under a number of internal and external pressures. For one thing, he seems to be ill; rumors of heart attacks and long absences from public view. For another, he may be feeling the same shrinking sensation that the IRA and Qaddafi felt after 9/11. When faced with the unparalleled nastiness of Osama, other autocrats and terrorists find it hard to continue ... they must be thinking approximately: "Do I look like that? Do I really want to be remembered for looking like that? And if so, can I afford to outdo Osama?"

A new carrot-and-stick project from the South may give Dear Ronery Boy a way to save face by turning his country toward capitalism and modernity without immediately losing control. Much like the Chinese model.

From Chosunilbo:

...Ex-prime minister and a presidential hopeful Lee Hae-chan said, "North Korea hopes to establish industrial parks in Nampo, Wonsan, Shinuiju and Najin, and tourism projects in Mt. Baekdu, Mt. Myohyang and Mt. Guwol." He added it was “highly likely” that the two Koreas will agree on large-scale economic cooperation during their planned summit, which would lead to “an economic boom” in the North.

In a lecture on Wednesday, President Roh Moo-hyun’s special advisor promised the summit “will be a watershed that will end the economic division of the two Koreas and help revive the North Korean economy.”

In April last year, the Presidential Committee ... finished formulating an economic initiative for the Korean Peninsula. Its report to the president envisages developing five economic zones: a Kaesong (North)-Paju (South) zone, a Mt. Kumgang (North)-Mt. Seorak (South) zone, a Shinuiju (North)-Dandong (China) zone, and a Najin (North)-Khasan (Russia) zone.

Those crossover zones are especially interesting, offering a built-in 'gate' for learning and culture to China and the South. As Eastern Europe demonstrated, opening those cultural gates leads inevitably to collapse of totalitarian regimes. Result is not Young Democracy, just [comparatively!] decent and normal countries.

= = = = =

To be clear: The carrot is lots of money, food and petroleum. The stick is the requirement to open these economic zones.
  ¶ 8:41 PM

  Alliance update
Sure enough, Sarkozy wasn't in New Hampshire just for a vacation. Bush is going to be "taking his vacation" at Kennebunkport, and will be meeting with Sarko on Saturday. Something big about to happen?
  ¶ 10:53 AM