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Holes and Gaps, Cognitive Dissonance and Hypocrisy

[OK, I’m all over the map on this post, but maybe some of it will spark a thought or two. I blame lack of sleep and caffeine deprivation, both. 🙂 ]

The strange thing to my eye about this post by, urm, David Post in response to an article titled, “The Monster of Monticello,” is that he uses the words of Lincoln, a man I suspect was truly decent in many ways, but also truly blind to his own hypocrisy (just one example: see the hypocrisy of the words of the Gettysburg Address spoken by someone waging a war AGAINST self-determination and the very foundational principles of federalism and the very Constitution he swore to defend) to support Jefferson’s place as a truly great champion of freedom, though his personal practices as a slavemaster were at stark odds with the principles he championed.

While I agree with Post’s general viewpoint that yes, Jefferson WAS a great champion of liberty even though he was an individual example of some of the worst practices of slavery, I’m surprised his defense wasn’t simply, “Ad hominem arguments are invalid on their face,” and just leave it at that. After all, reasonable people would agree that attacking the ideas and principles a person utters (and even fights for) by attacking their character is unreasonable, while unreasonable people will just be unreasonable anyway, so ANY reasoned argument is worthless with such.

Ad then there’s the implicit hagiography of Lincoln in the post. *sigh* I’ll not go down that path right now, but using Lincoln’s words to defend Jefferson on the matter of championing liberty is a briar patch I’d certainly not want to throw myself into, but then I do GARA about the facts of Lincoln’s exercise of power leading up to and during the War Between the States. It’s not a matter of Mr. Lincoln’s personal character but of his very well-spoken propaganda in support of his exercise of office.*

So, hypocrisy abounds, but great men can still do good. I believe Jefferson was by far the greater of the two men and has been a far, far greater force for good, but Lincoln did at least manage to kill over 600,000 Americans with his war. That alone makes him a great man in any history.

Oh, and he said a lot of really nice things, as president, that his actions as president–not as a private citizen–contradict. I’ll be happy to take his words and embrace many of them and their ideals. Just spare me from another hypocritically Lincolnesque president.

Jefferson’s slaves never had it as bad as the men Lincoln had shanghaied and sent to their deaths.

Continue reading “Holes and Gaps, Cognitive Dissonance and Hypocrisy”

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The Tightwad in Me LOVES This Site

Ecoprojecteer My paternal grandfather would feel right at home with this guy, too. (Short rabbit trail: Granddaddy could build anything, it seemed, with just hand tools, ingenuity and a little blood and sweat. “Blood and sweat? Yeh. It’s a tradition in my family that any time one of the men does a wood working, mechanical, plumbing or electrical project of any kind, SOME blood must be spilled. *heh* Oh, none of us have yet lost body parts or required surgery for our injuries, but the “blood sacrifice” tradition has held up pretty well. Meticulous care and safety equipment, etc. seem to make no difference. If there’s a knuckle there to be barked on a bolt, it’ll play doggie. :-))

Anywho, back on point, they guy has a bunch of really fun, interesting and CHEAP TO BUILD projects detailed on his site. Love it. This one inspired me to wonder if I could build a cardboard wading pool… 😉

Gottaloveit.

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Sadly…

…almost all my Grolsch swingtops that I used in putting up the “Xmas Tree” pictured below are in use (that’s “filled with beer”), so I won’t be assembling the lil “Xmas Tree” we had in 2010 this year but will decorate using the materials we used last year.

Oh, well. I guess I’ll just have to live with having a few gallons of homebrew this year.

🙂

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Semi-Random Thoughts

This A.M., during our M-Th-F “carpool”, my Wonder Woman and I had one of those “partner telepathy” things that have become more and more frequent over the years. Windshield just looked dewy, not frosted, so I just flipped the wipers for a one-wipe. Nope. “Hmm, looks like it’s a little frosty. I may have to rename today.” Pause. “Maybe I’ll call it ‘Robert'”.

“Funny,” she said, “I thought I’d say ‘Jack’ but then thought ‘Robert’ myself.”

Married long enough yet?

I’ve taken to putting a water-soluble dietary fiber powder in my coffee. No discernible difference in taste or texture, but I do have a rather moving experience several hours later… 😉 Maybe I should also have some jalapeño ice cream with it?

What’s the deal with The Zero? Trying out a new comedy routine or an IQ test for Republicans? “So here’s the deal: you give me $1.2 Trillion in tax hikes and I give you bupkis. Pretty good deal, eh? *wink-wink-nudge-nudge*”

If Repugnican’ts were to get brain transplants (so they can qualify as real Republicans) they’d all voice their severe disapproval of his proposals and then abstain from votes on The Zero’s them and let the Dhimmicraps OWN the resultant disasters. “See? we didn’t stand in the way of The Zero getting what he wanted, while we voiced our disapproval with abstentions. It’s not OUR mess. It’s all on The Zero and his cronies. It’s THEIR policies that have created what we have and you can blame them, not us. So there. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo.”

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Thankful, much?

I usually do a sort of semi-mini-micro-nano “deeper” than usual post for Thanksgiving. After all, our wedding was the day after, back in the day (specifically planned that way to make travel for family easier to effect), 14 years ago, around this time, my Wonder Woman was just a month and a scooch back from the dead (no, really; but not “Zombie Wonder Woman”–no), etc.

But today, I’d like to point out a little thing I am grateful for.

When I was a kid, starting sometime in grade school, everywhere we were for Thanksgiving, the B&W TVs were tuned to the Thanksgiving parades and, when food wasn’t being consumed or music being made, likely a football game or two (except my maternal grandmother’s house; she forbade the thing during such family gatherings; kids? Outside to play. Grownups? I have no idea. I was a kid. Outside. Playing.)

So, lotsa watching parades as a kid (except at Grandmother’s House!). For me, that meant, “blah-blah-blah-blah-blah–HORSES. blah-blah-blah-blah-blah–HORSES. blah-blah-blah-blah-blah–HORSES.” When I got into high school, parades meant something different: “Play-play-play-play-play–HORSESHIT! Play-play-play-play-play–HORSESHIT!”

I am thankful today that we’re going by Grandmother’s House Rules. NO PARADES.

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And a World Filled with Stupid People is Shocked! Shocked I Say! *yawn*

The headline from the subliterate British idiot (well,he’s either subliterate or deliberately deceptive, although I wouldn’t rule out both at once, yet), Nick Squires, tries to sensationalize a yawner:

Jesus was born years earlier than thought, claims Pope

Seriously, is there any literate person anywhere in the world who didn’t already know this? No, really. The error in a sixth century monk’s calculations has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the NT record of Jesus’ birth. None. Zilch. A big zero with the rim kicked off. It’s nothing more or less than a moderately interesting piece of trivia about one small aspect of one of the relatively early stages in the development of the most common Western calendar.

The article makes clear that the “years earlier” in the headline (leading people astray right there) is around two to maybe as many as seven years’ difference between Dennis the Small’s erroneous calculation and Jesus’ probable birth (most scholarship settles around four years). Oh, but do notice the idiocy in the lede:

The ‘mistake’ was made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius Exiguus or in English Dennis the Small, the 85-year-old pontiff claims in the book ‘Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives’, published on Wednesday.

WTF? Why is “mistake” in sneer quotes? And why “claims”? And why–citing the sub-title of the article, “The entire Christian calendar is based on a miscalculation… “–try to cast doubts about the “entire Christian calendar”?

It’s all about the Hivemind’s anti-Christian narrative, folks. File the information somewhere for a trivia game and move along. Nothing to see here (unless you are a history buff).

BTW, again: “Little Monk Dennis'” placement of the birth year of Jesus is an anomaly. Very, very few authorities, from the early church Fathers on, before and after Lil Denny, agreed with his placement, and by far the majority have come down on a placement anywhere from 4-6 B.C., by Lil Denny reckoning. So, for darned near a couple of millenia, any literate person knew what is being trumpeted in the article as “news”. Only incurious subliterates will find this to be news.

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The Petraeus Affair(s?)

I’ve not written anything here until now, though I have responded very, very briefly to email and to comments in other fora about what is now almost a capitalized event: The Petraeus Affair.

Look,

    1. Petraeus’ sexual liaison with Broadwell demonstrates a fundamental character flaw that should have been uncovered years ago: a lack of honor, demonstrated by his voiding of his marriage vows.

    2. If the “nookie calls” began while he was still in military service–as yet not actually determined–it was a criminal offense under the UMCJ.

    3. Regardless, his actions while serving in a sensitive security post were malfeasance in office. Any patzer in the security field is aware of the dangers of a “honeypot” and Petraeus was no patzer. “Unprofessional”? No, incompetent, and possibly criminally so.

If he can repair his relationship with his family, it will only be due to his family’s generosity, because nothing he can do would earn forgiveness.

BTW, for those slamming Holly Petraeus: grow up. My wife’s [an indeterminate age, but one almost indistinguishable from Holly Petraeus’ age *cough*]. She doesn’t look like she did in her 20s. Doesn’t matter. And, frankly, that sort of thing doesn’t really matter to any real man. Age happens. Grow up and deal with it.

But that leads to a more fundamental issue: the steady, inexorable destruction of honor and decency in our society, of which the general acceptance of infidelity and divorce are but one example. One hears the mantra, “50% of marriages end in divorce” all the time as though that were some sort of excuse for a false oath, a dishonorable statement of commitment. It’s also a lie, using a partial truth. Think: how many people do you know who have been divorced? How many of those have been divorced more than once? Besides, the 50% number is a chimera. The best surveys on the issue are all over the map, coming up with figures between 11% and 34% of marriages that HAVE ended in divorce.

But the meme is there and used constantly as an excuse for people being unfaithful… and as a way to lower expectations, erode commitment. But it’s just one of many excuses the termites of society put forth to excuse unfaithfulness. Go ahead. Pause a moment and come up with your own list of excuses for a married person having an “affair” or pursuing a divorce.

Now, I’m not asserting there are not legitimate grounds for divorce–there are (physical abuse, unfaithfulness*, desertion just about complete the list**). But there are NO excuses for being unfaithful to one’s wedding vows, one’s spouse that I will ever accept. Period.

Continue reading “The Petraeus Affair(s?)”

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I’ve Resisted Temptation Long Enough

For a couple of years now, I’ve been tempted to post a version of this with a brief commentary. It’s time. Our culture is so debased, now, that this is one of the BEST pieces of music to have been written recently. As music, it stands head and shoulders above ANYTHING else I’ve heard from contemporary pop culture manufactured “music” industry.

Why, the “hamster” can even reproduce pitches better than 99% (plus) of contemporary pop “music” so-called “artists”. Is it any wonder that a culture so debased that THIS would be among the best music that it produces has chosen to inflict the national government such as we now have on everyone?

‘Nuff said.

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Well, It Could Be…

Every now and then, our fairly high dollar Bosch dishwasher (which we really, really like, otherwise) will just lose its mind. Turn on. Seems to cycle and… about 90 seconds later beeps to tell us the wash cycle is finished, when it never really began. None of the troubleshooting instructions from Bosch affect it at all, but if I throw the breaker for the circuit the dishwasher is on, wait about a minute and turn the circuit back on–effectively performing a hard reset of its tiny lil brain–the thing works like a champ.

Must be an embedded Windows OS. *heh*

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Stupid Ads

Dialog from a smartphone ad:

“When you build an aircraft, you want it to go up and stay up.”

Really?!? Anyone “flying” it, and any passengers, would at best starve to death (unless they were able to get in flight provisioning).