Category: Do the Right Thing

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We Need This Man for Emperor

*heh*

Well, either him or his clone, thinking exactly as he does.

Example, a snippet dealing with education, Darwinism and Intelligent Design:

“So long as the idea of scientific method — the generation and testing of falsifiable hypotheses — is shown, I don’t have any great worries that bright kids won’t figure out their own answers to matters like intelligent design; and I don’t really care if my auto mechanic believes in his heart of hearts that he was divinely created and endowed by his creators with certain inalienable rights as opposed to his having evolved from bonobos without attention from his creator. I do worry that he knows how to read the output of the computer test equipment, and that he can figure out what the funny squeak is…

“…Mandating the “correct” position and requiring local schools to adopt that is a more dangerous principle than teaching an alternative to Darwin, without regard to whether Darwin is “really true” and belief in Darwin is so fragile that teaching an alternative would undermine belief in Natural Selection. I am not convinced that there is a school district that would teach “flat earth” as an alternative to the conventional wisdom, but if there were, I do not think the republic would fall if that were allowed. There would be ridicule and merriment and mirth, but I doubt the consequences would be much greater than that.”

Read more at the link and here as well.

Heck, go a little further than Dr. Pournelle’s very calm and reasonable argument and (BUY AND) read James P. Hogan’s, Kicking the Sacred Cow. Hogan may go to extremes at times in his aversion for Dogmatic Science practiced as a religion, not science, but he marshalls his facts pretty convincingly in an accessible presentation for laymen.

Similarly to Hogan, it really chaps my gizzard to see purely religious views presented as “science”–and conversely to see religious views denigrated because they are not scientific. As my old chemistry prof was wont to say, the two manners of approaching reality deal with entirely different sets of questions and using the thinking of “blind faith” in science is just as stupid as attempting to use scientific reasoning to prove/disprove matters of faith.

Science cannot ultimately even ask or answer real “why” questions, just as religion cannot deal satisfactorily with “how” questions. ANd people who cannot see the differences in the two manners of thinking and the sets of questions they can effectively deal with are just dumber than a bag of hammers, no matter how high their IQ may test or how much alphabet soup they may string after their names.

Trackposted to Maggie’s Notebook, Right Truth, Adam’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, D equals S, McCain Blogs, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Celebrity Smack, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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It’s the little things…

For want of a nail
the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe
the horse was lost.
For want of a horse
the rider was lost.
For want of a rider
the battle was lost.
For want of a battle
the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want
of a horseshoe nail.

It’s always the little things. But little things are often very, very large.

Take one of three very, very large things that are dragging the U.S. over the face of a precipice and down to ruin: illiteracy. No, I’m not just talking about the lack of what Mass Media Podpeople, Academia Nut Fruitcakes, edu/bureaucraps, and politicians *spit* that are the Conspiracy of Dunces intent on bringing the U.S. to ruin have redefined literacy to mean (a simple ability to laboriously decode words from print).

No, literacy is much, much more than simply being able to decode the printed page or sign ones name, as the dumbed down version our wonderful Conspiracy of Dunces would have it. It is at the very least the ability to decode those words, make sense of them and use their meaning to make rational decisions or come to an understanding of things beyond ones personal experience.

That’s simple functional literacy. And functional literacy is on the decline in the U.S. Witness all the idiots who in 2000 were too stupid to be able to follow directions in voting and caused such a brouhaha in the Florida vote count.

Worse, college graduates who are unable to understand simple directions for taking prescription meds or a newspaper editorial written to a theoretical eighth-grade level. College graduates.

But the simple, little thing of functional literacy is essential to a democratic representative republic, for when voters are too stupid to make sound choices, the government they get will be… what we have.

It’s a little thing. Continue reading “It’s the little things…”

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Heeeeere’s your sign…

Here’s a site that’s apparently been around since 2002 that I just discovered has some “tickets” for you to download, print out and leave on that car parked by a certifiable jackass the next time (like, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow… ) you see one, perhaps like this:

The site has a gallery of nearly 150 such signs of barbarian invasion…

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Mister, why are YOU here?

That’s a question (almost) no politician will ask himself or if asked by anyone else will answer honestly.

But others can not be allowed such a luxury. From Robert A. Heinlein’s 1973 James Forrestal Memorial Lecture delivered at the United States Naval Academy:

Why are you here?

[directed] Mister, why are YOU here?

Never mind, son; that’s a rhetorical question. You are here to become a naval officer. That’s why this Academy was founded. That is why all of you are here: to become naval officers. If that is NOT why YOU are here, you’ve made a bad mistake. But I speak to the overwhelming majority who understood the oath they took on becoming midshipmen and look forward to the day when they will renew that oath as commissioned officers.

But why would anyone want to become a naval officer?

In the present dismal state of our culture there is little prestige attached to serving your country; recent public opinion polls place military service far down the list.

It can’t be the pay. No one gets rich on the pay. Even a 4-star admiral is paid much less than top executives in other lines. As for lower ranks the typical naval officer finds himself throughout his career just catching up from the unexpected expenses connected with the last change of duty when another change of duty causes a new financial crisis. Then, when he is about fifty, he is passed over and retires. . .but he can’t really retire because he has two kids in college and one still to go. So he has to find a job. . .and discovers that jobs for men his age are scarce and usually don’t pay well.

Working conditions? You’ll spend half your life away from your family. Your working hours? “Six days shalt thou work and do all thou art able; the seventh day the same, and pound the cable.” A forty-hour week is standard for civilians — but not for naval officers. You’ll work that forty-hour week but that’s just a starter. You’ll stand a night watch as well, and duty weekends. Then with every increase in grade your hours get longer — until at last you get a ship of your own and no longer stand watches. Instead you are on duty twenty-four hours a day. . .and you’ll sign your night order book with: “In case of doubt, do not hesitate to call me.”

Politicians *spit*–those self-styled elites–view such a service orientation as anathema… of course. But there is a much deeper course of service that transcends even duty, and it is a course that citizens need to at least be aware of, even if they never feel able to embrace it. It’s found elsewhere, but this, from Heinlein’s speech, is a poignant and powerful example:

… no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man …. no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.

In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it.

One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing those tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her.

But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman’s foot loose. No luck —

Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free, and the train hit them.

The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed — and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself.

The husband’s behavior was heroic, but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that’s all we’ll ever know about him.

This is how a man dies.

This is how a man lives!

Robert A. Heinlein, 5 April 1973
James Forrestal Memorial Lecture
United States Naval Academy

Do go read the entire speech.

(BTW, anyone who knows of a better posting of the speech–the one I found was on a discussion group, split between two postings–please send it my way.)

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, guerrilla radio, McCain Blogs, Adam’s Blog, Miss Beth’s Victory Dance, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, Dumb Ox Daily News, Tilting At Windmill Farms, Pursuing Holiness, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Losing Civilization

In all the meaningless babble from Obama and tear-jerking from those jerks, the Klintoons, one thing stands out: facts, reason and indeed rationality itself have no place in the methods of leftist statists. (For that matter, they have almost as small a place in the methods of right wing statists, but that’s another problem that, though similar, needs to be addressed separately.)

All this emotional manipulation recalls to mind a brief passage from Wolf Time by Lars Walker

Get them to make small compromises, one at a time. Never use reason. Use feelings, for feelings are the only truth of the soul. There are just two kinds of people, you know — idea people and feeling people. It’s the idea people who’ve gotten the world into the mess it’s in. So if they try to pin you down with logic, don’t be ashamed to resort to the weapons of the heart. Like tears. Most people… would rather surrender any principle than cause a scene.

That’s the “logic” that dominates those who want to rule by blinding the electorate… or by simply using the already existing willful blindness of the sheeple who predominate in the electorate. *sigh*

It doesn’t help to point out that the emperor has no clothes on if all the emperor has to do to “win” the encounter is to call down the wrath of the people for making so hurtful an accusation (with appropriate tears and whinings about being victimized by so rude an observation).

Or better yet, have others point out how rude it is to note the emperor’s nudity, as in the case of Barry Hussein Obama-Winfrey supporters claiming racism whenever anyone asks probing questions of fact of Barry Hussein Obama-Winfrey or “shock!* happens to mention his middle name. (Why? Isn’t it his name? Oh, that’s right. Reality doesn’t matter, just reality-based fantasy.)

The end result of abandoning reason to emotional blackmail is barbarism… or worse. At least barbarians have to learn to deal with cold harsh realities.

I suppose now I should address the same kinds of behavior in Repugnican’t politicians *spit*, but my mind’s feeling dirty right now just thinking about the obscenity of the Left.

Another brief passage from Wolf Time before twc fades to black for today…

Some time back the courts, understanding the nature of the times we live in, accepted the establishment of a new class of law — the Hate Crime. This was their first official recognition that there are some ideas that simply cannot be tolerated in a free society; that it is our right and duty to root out certain kinds of thought.

Ah, yes. When thoughts become criminal, only criminals will think…

*sigh*

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Throwing Your Vote Away?

This brief article, at Credenda Agenda, transcribed from the print-only issue of 1996, says some powerful things to the 2008 election while speaking of the Dole-Clinton contest back in the day. For example,

Just so you know, not “throwing your vote away” is accomplished by voting for someone who solemnly covenants with us to destroy the nation slowly, rather than wickedly doing it right now.

I’ve been thinking about this observation while contemplating the possible matchups:

Juan Mexicain v. The Hildebeast

Juan Mexicain v. Barry Hussein Obama-Winfrey

…and it seem to me that there’s no possible way to avoid “throwing away my vote” in any possible matchup for the presidency.

My only route through this thicket seems to be to concentrate on lower, state and local and even Congressional, races and let the presidency just go to hell in a handbasket.

Unless… unless None of the Above were on the ballot.

Trackposted to Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Nuke Gingrich, Woman Honor Thyself, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Tommy

Rudyard Kipling’s “Tommy” seems a timely comment on the Marines/Berkeley brouhaha, especially given the Code Pink pleas for help from Marines when they felt threatened by a passing motorist…

“While we were at the protest in Berkeley from 12 to 4 PM a white volvo drove by and a man spat upon code pink. They chased him down the street and got into a verbal altercation. The police were NO WHERE in sight. That’s not the best part, ready for this? Medea Benjamin yelled and I quote “Marines!” she actually yelled for our help because this man had stepped out of his car. Lol. I even asked her if she was yelling Police and she told me “I said Marines” then put her arm around my friend Allen (the Marine vet) Ironic?

An old story. Kipling’s commentary on the same sort of behavior is telling: unappreciative civilians disrespecting those who serve in the military are nothing new. The tag line is remarkably reminiscent of a Roman Centurion a couple of millennia back… (see “More”)

Tommy

I went into a public-‘ouse to get a pint o’beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:

O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s “Thank you, Mr. Atkins,” when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-‘alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”;
But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide,
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.

Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.

Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy how’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.

We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;

While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind,
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.

You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country,” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
But Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!

Continue reading “Tommy”

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Another “Dog Bites Man” Yawner

You’d think we’d learn our lesson: there is nothing newsworthy in a Dhimmicrappic candidate consorting with terrorists, enemies of the people, criminals, whatnot. No, such behavior is only “newsworthy” if it is committed by a Repugnican’t candidate.

So it is No News At All that the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind is almost completely ignoring the fact that close associates of B. Hussein Obama-Winfrey are still quite proud of their bomb-setting days in the Weather Underground.

I’m shocked. Shocked, I say. It should not be so! Why isn’t this news being trumpeted abroad by the Communist Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind? These terrorists were (are) heros to the Podpeople from the Mothership orbiting Uranus… You’d think they’d want to bring forth that such heroes of the people *cough* are close associates of B. Hussein Obama-Winfrey!

Nope. Not news. It’s such a natural order of events that it’s one big yawner to the Mass Media Podpeople’s Hivemind.

(Oh, for those of y’all who think that it ought to be reported as news news–you know, of importance for the electorate in general to know that B. Hussein Obama-Winfrey is close associates with terrorists–you just need to get a life. That’s not the twisted way the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind works… It’s muuuuuch more twisted than even this twisted presentation of it. “News? What news?” )

h.t., Obama’s Terrorist Friends, STACLU.

Trackposted to A Blog For All, WayWard Fundamentalist Christian, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Right Truth, The Pink Flamingo, Oblogatory Anecdotes, Cao’s Blog, Pursuing Holiness, and Chuck’s Place, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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“Snow” Day Again

Late start today. Not that the whole county shut down, but since my Wonder Woman had a “snow” day, I’ve kept things close in and we’ve worked on a little advance Spring Cleaning. I’ve been in storage areas of my office that haven’t seen the light of day for years. Two whole drawersfull of stuff I simply dumped in a box for later sorting (and yes, I will do that!) and labeled, “Junk from 2 drawers”–*heh*

Once whole LARGE file cabinet drawerfull of ancient floppies. Need to sort through them all, archive (and enter into database that’s stored in the same place!) all the data I should/want to keep and burn to multiple CDRs or a couple of (duplicate) DVDs for archiving, then format or toss (or even archive, sorted and labeled) the floppies in a more easily accessible fashion.

To give you an idea: I have 3.5″ and 5.25″ floppies going back through all the DOSes to about DOS 3, back further to TRSDOS floppies–and even some Mac software/archives.

That stuff really needed sorting out!

(My paper files were mostly sorted some weeks ago.)

Then, there’s the “surface” storage… shelves and such like. Most of the old music, language, history, etc., books have already been boxed (and labeled and etc.), but there’re still five very, very full shelves of books n such that need sorting out.

Then, of course, I need to clean and sort out the bookshelves in the living room for refiling with previously boxed books…

This Spring cleaning thing is pretty heavy stuff (book boxes, get it? :-))!

Oh, well, at least I had some “deck beer” to lighten the load. (“Deck beer”–over-sugared some beer for bottle conditioning. Temnps outside have been mostly below freezing for a while… so, placed a bunch of bottles of this beer outside for conditioning after only 3 days. It’s all turned out very, very good. Whatta save!)

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Hobson’s Choice

“A Hobson’s choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered, and one may refuse to take that option. The choice is therefore between taking the option or not taking it. The phrase is said to originate from Thomas Hobson (1544–1630), a livery stable owner at Cambridge, England who, in order to rotate the use of his horses, offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in the stall nearest the door—or taking none at all. It is analagous to the expression ‘my way or the highway’.”1

Well, the presidential field is narrowed even further, it seems. Now, we have a choice between candidates who want to drive the country off a cliff to its doom at 120mph and candidates who want to drive the country off a cliff at a sedate 75mph…

Not really much of a choice.

Makes the case for striving to see congresscritters, state and local pols elected who give a damn about more than just their own personal power and their “Surrender, America!” ideologies. (And if you think for one minute Juan McCain’s “surrender America’s sovereignty at the borders” position isn’t fundamentally the same as the other candidates’ “Surrender America” positions then you are sadly deluded.)

Look closely at candidates for Congress, for state and local offices. Vote “Hell no!” against those whose positions fail to defend the U.S., your State or locality against the evils of alien invasion and… invasive government. Vote for people with the [intestinal fortitude] to tell “Surrender America!” judges, executives and bureaucrats to take a quick ride on the express train to hell.

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