El Borak's Myopia

El Borak's Myopia

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There is an explanation after all

Leon Wolf, E-Campaign Coordinator for the Save the Brownback Weasel Campaign, explains why Senator Switchback voted for it before he voted against it:

...people want to know how it came to be that Senator Brownback was heard to vote "Yes" but came to be recorded as a "No." In the Senator's words:

I wanted to signal that I am supportive of comprehensive immigration reform, but that now is not the time and this is not the bill.

The Senator did this intentionally and planned it, which is he made a point of voting first and loudly. It was intended to be a symbolic act which admittedly may not have had its intended effect on some people, but it *was* planned from the beginning.

Um, yeah. How about this: He made a point of voting first because senators vote in alphabetical order and 'B' is pretty close to the start of the alphabet. He voted loudly because it was a voice vote, which means that senators are expect to vote, out loud, when their name is called. And he voted No because it became clear, after he had already voted yes, that the measure was going down to defeat and he was not going to take the heat for standing up in a losing cause.

That sounds like a better explanation to me.

UPDATE: apparently there's a second explanation:

Though some on both sides of the issue accused Brownback of “flip-flopping” once he saw that he would end up on the losing side of the debate, the senator suggested that it was again compassion — this time for a general public deeply divided over how to deal with immigration — that drove his mid-vote change.

Brownback told Congressional Quarterly’s CQToday, “I just concluded as I was on the floor that the country is just not ready.” He added that the issue “just needs to rest for a while.”

Rather than this being some purposeful, meaningless, and obscure symbolic gesture on his part - his first explanation - he now says he "just concluded," after voting for the bill, that the country was not ready and so he switched. I'm betting that the evidence of this unreadiness was the fact that the cloture vote was going down to defeat; exactly what Brownback's critics accused him of in the first place.

So what does that mean for the first explanation? In the words of Emily Latilla: Never mind.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Compleat Failure brand trophies for losers. Sometimes your best isn’t even close.

Labels: republicans

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on a personal note...

Congratulations, Staff Sergeant Jones!

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Don't it make my Brownback blue?

Labels: demotivators, republicans

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Proverbs 22:7 Writ Large

Jeff asks a good question:

Borak, I have heard people express their concern w/china holding debt. Notes issued by the U.S are not payable on demand. They can be called early, but not demanded early...why do people think this gives other countries leverage?

In one respect, he's absolutely correct: US Treasury debt can be called early, meaning that the gov't reserves the right to buy its debt outright, usually (but not always) by issuing other debt but occasionally just printing money for it. This was the case when US interest rates dropped several times over the past decades: the government would call high-interest debt and replace it with lower-interest debt. It's good fiscal policy - like refinancing your house at a lower rate or shorter term - even if a financial bummer for those who invested in the bonds at a higher rate.

In any case, you can't simply take your T-bill in for cash like you can savings bonds; if you want money for it, you must wait until the bond comes due or sell it on a secondary market. And that is precisely the concern with a trillion dollars being in the hands of China and other less-than-friendly nations - not that they would show up at the Treasury Department and demand a trillion pictures of Washington, but that they will show up on Wall Street and say, "sell these for whatever they will bring."

You selling your $10,000 bond will put 10 grand in your pocket, but will not noticeably move the market. Selling or credibly threatening to sell a trillion dollars' worth will have hellacious effects on our national economy, not limited to a tanking value of the dollar (think $200 oil, $1200 gold, $6 gas, $8 milk in a matter of days). It would also drive interest rates thru the roof, because this enormous supply will be purchased by buyers - if at all - only at rates far higher than today, and as Uncle Sam must constantly issue Treasury debt to fund government operations, he must pay those rates*.

It is an economic weapon of mass destruction which would cause such a maladjustment in the US economy - as not just the Chinese sell, but as everyone else sells to beat the rush - that I honestly believe that war on the geographic scale of WWII would be the inevitable result of that action being purposefully taken against us. It would be that harmful.

Now, many would argue that it would be too expensive for China to ever considering doing that to us - it would destroy their own banking system along with ours - and they may be** absolutely right. But do you see what they have conceded? It is no longer we who are acting in the world, but are rather being acted upon. We are suddenly dependent upon China's cost/benefit analysis to continue existing as a more-or-less smoothly-running economy. Our fate is now in the hands of those who have their own agenda and will make their own decisions based on what it costs them to destroy us economically. So then the question becomes, "What is avoiding that worth to us?" Are we going to risk this over Tiawan? South Korea? I doubt it, and so do the Chinese, which puts them in the driver's seat.

We are a far weaker nation for having a significant percentage of our national currency and debt - the grease of our economy - in the hands of a foreign power, for exactly the same reason mentioned in the article on inflating Iran's currency. In the era of fiat national currency, he who controls the value of the currency controls the policy of the nation to that extent. So long as we think China is a good trustee of our political and financial future, then we have nothing to worry about.

* Conceivably, the Fed could keep interest rates from going to (literally) 3 digits by creating sufficient money to buy it all. The aftereffects of that much currency/credit issuance would be nearly as bad, just over a longer term. No one would borrow because it would be too expensive; no one would lend because the future of the dollar would be in serious doubt.

** "may be," not "are certainly" or "are probably."

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Land Mimes brand petards and Greek fire, for use on performance artists. Invisible casket sold separately.

Labels: economics

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Senator Switchback

(hat tip: Snoop)

The repulsive thing about Brownback is not that he switched his vote, but how he did it - once it became apparent that his side was going to lose, he switched to the side most of his supporters were on to avoid the political fallout. Right Wing News liveblogged it in all its ignobility - remember, on a vote to avoid cloture, 40 is what it takes to win:

11:12: It's hard to tell how we're doing with the way they're almost randomly calling out votes, but so far, so good.

11:14: Judd Gregg voted "yes". He didn't switch. Bingaman voted "no" though. That's a nice pick-up.

11:16: Webb went our way.

11:17: Burr voted no.

11:18: Nelson just went no. I think we got it.

11:19: I think we're over 40.

11:20: Cochran, Brownback, and Coleman all no.

11:23: Sherrod Brown and Mitch McConnell. No. We're going to win easy and now the squishes on this subject are breaking our way.

"The Squishes." That describes Senator Principle pretty well.

UPDATE: Huck found the following:

The GOP presidential hopeful, who has supported the bill until now, voted yes for cloture on the measure before switching his vote fifteen minutes later to no. A vote for cloture is an indication of support for the measure...

Brownback’s campaign has released a statement from the Kansas Republican on his vote against cloture.

“I voted against the Senate immigration bill because I am not convinced it would fix our broken immigration system and it would most likely repeat the mistakes of the 1986 reform.”

That hardly explains why he voted for it before he voted against it.

Labels: republicans

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He must have gone to one of them skools

David Brooks mistakes compulsion for freedom:

We Hamiltonians disagree with the limited government conservatives because, on its own, the market is failing to supply enough human capital. Despite all the incentives, 30 percent of kids drop out of high school and the college graduation rate has been flat for a generation.

Just when it needs a more skilled work force, the U.S. is getting a less skilled one. This is already taking a bite out of productivity growth, and the problem will get worse.

One has to wonder about the a) intelligence or b) honesty of anyone who can say with a straight face that the dropout problem in America is a failure of "the market" to supply enough "human capital" to itself. The vast majority of high school students attend (and the vast majority of dropouts drop out of) schools that are run by the government*, not the market. We have laws that tell them when they must start going to school, what subjects they must take, how many hours a year they must spend there. Their teachers are employees of the government who teach from books purchased by the government in buildings built by the government. When their sentence has been served, students are tested by the government and if they pass they are given a certificate by the government that says they have learned what the government said they should learn. To complain about the market with anything related to schools is like complaining that the market is failing to provide enough license plates or ambassadors to France.

Yet it is a dishonesty that pervades modern conservatism**. Hamiltonians (also known as "Big Government Conservatives" or in most cases, "Republicans") conflate government itself with society itself, so their solution to every problem - even problems created by the government - is more government. They are measurers and counters - collectivists - for whom reality exists only in the sum and who view individuals as "human capital" whose purpose for existence is primarily to ensure productivity growth. They are in that respect no different from the liberals and Democrats they nominally oppose, and then only, as Brooks confesses, "because their programs haven’t worked out."

Rather than being one of principle, conservatives' opposition to liberals is simply a disagreement of pragmatism, of utility - they are two trolls arguing over whether the dwarves should be boiled or roasted. And because they have no principles of limited government, the logical result of big-government conservatism is the same paternalistic, ubiquitous, soft tyranny as that of big-government liberals. But at least it will have productivity growth, folded, spindled, and filed in triplicate.

* And when was the last time you met a kid who dropped out of private school, much less home school?

** Making the answer "B."

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Faux Pearls, Turin Shrouds, Quality Manhole Covers, String Cheese, Counterfeit Canadian Dollars, Japes, Puns, and Irrelevant Comparisons, and confusing Florida ballots.

Labels: republicans

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Don Ho would have helped, too

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

Well, it's not all that difficult with questions like:

In Jesus' parable, who stopped to help a man in need?

Donald Trump
Donald Duck
Don Knotts
a Samaritan

Labels: bible

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All over but the quacking

The Bush presidency ends with both a bang and a whimper:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's immigration bill suffered a crushing defeat Thursday in the Senate, when members voted against advancing the controversial legislation...

The president, who visited the Capitol this month to push hard for the legislation, delivered a brief statement shortly after the vote saying he was "sorry" Congress could not reach agreement, calling its "failure to act" a "disappointment."

It's generally agreed that not only is this bill dead, immigration "reform" is dead for the next 2 years. It's a well-deserved victory for opponents, as well as a chance to heap deserved scorn and disrespect on weasels who poured in against the bill once it was clear that it would be defeated*.

What could be better? Just one thing - a little shorthand line in the story highlights box (though surprisingly not in the story itself) that puts this "crushing" defeat in context: "Bill was centerpiece of Bush's 2nd term." The major initiative of Bush's second term** has just been triturated, not by members of the opposing majority, but by members of the wing of his party that most solidly supported him (some holding their noses while doing so***) over the past 6 years. So barring a terrorist nuke in Toledo, Bush's presidency is over. He has broken his base, and they, at long last, have broken away from him.

From here on out, Bush will get no support from Democrats, who want nothing less than complete failure from his administration - there's an election coming up, you know. And he will get no support from the GOP, whose members will run as far from him as possible - he has no power over them now. He will get no help from Iraq, Europe, Afghanistan - there will be no foreign policy masterstrokes to rescue his faded fortunes. Bush is as of today the loneliest man in Washington. I would venture to guess that not a single White House initiative will pass Congress until President Rodham's supermajority is seated in 2009.

For all he'll accomplish in what remains of his tattered term, Bush might as well spend the next year and a half at his ranch coloring his memoirs. And if you're an opponent of government "solutions" to all of the nation's problems, that's about the best outcome you can hope for.

* cough, Brownback, cough. Huck informs us that: "...he gave a 'yea' vote from his seat initially, and later entered a 'nay' vote when it was obvious the bill was tanked. Torches, pitchforks, a vat of tar and a set of rails are much, much too kind for the senator at this point, I reckon." I hope both of the people who are considering voting for him for President were paying attention.

** Ignoring, of course, his aborted attempt to revamp SocSec.

*** which is not to their credit, but to their blame. Had the Conservatives inflicted this manner of defeat on Bush's first moonbat initiatives, they quite possibly could have enjoyed 2 terms of a genuinely conservative administration. But because they thought giving the President victories would help their party even as it hurt their cause, they find themselves today not only in the minority in both houses and in governorships, but facing electoral annihilation in 18 months. And I will watch with a sense of heartless mirth as their pelts are harvested by the Democrats.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Drac-Be-Gone brand vampire repellent. Hot cross buns sold separately. This product works best when applied in direct sunlight.

Labels: politics

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Why the British lost

Labels: history

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Well we've been counterfeiting our own for years

After we block the Strait of Hormuz, Peter Schweizer says we should apply to the Iranian economy what we have applied to our own:

Second, the Bush administration should consider counterfeiting Iranian currency to further undermine the economy. This is not a weapon that should be used lightly, but in this case it is simply a tit-for-tat: Iran and its ally, Hezbollah, have been fingered for counterfeiting $100 bills. Counterfeiting Iranian currency would also provide a stern warning to other countries fond of counterfeiting U.S. currency.

Wow, what a great idea. If we increased their money supply about 10% a year, like we do to ours, we could create all manner of economic dislocations: stock bubbles, rising food and energy prices, maybe even a prime-mortgage fiasco. We just need to drive their interest rates down to 1%, hold it there for 2-3 years until people stop saving and go in hock instead, then crank it back up so they're trapped - after we chance the bankruptcy laws so they cannot extinguish their debts, of course. If we kept it up, it might magically lower the value of their currency, make their exports more competitive, and allow all these new debtors to pay their loans back in cheaper currency. I can't believe we didn't think of that before. Oh wait, never mind.

Of course, what Sneaky Pete is really talking about is hyperinflation, the kind that occurred in Germany in the 20s*, the kind that drives people into abject, eat-the-children poverty and desperation, where they'll grab on to the first nationalist who promises to recover their former glory and really take it to the one who has purposely caused them so much misery**. The immediate idea, I suppose, is to make the people so miserable that they'll overthrow the government. Or something. We probably haven't thought about what comes next after what little economy exists in Iran is completely destroyed by wiping out its fiat-currency base. I'm betting it will be millions of bloated bellies that we will be directly responsible for.

And we haven't thought about that happening here, either, to be honest. We have created so much paper and electronic money, placed so much of it in the hands of regimes not unlike (and occasionally friendly to) the Iranians, that the same trick could be pulled on us with one difference: the Chinese wouldn't need to counterfeit a thing. They would simply need to demand what we own them.

* that worked well.

** known in the vernacular as "us."

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Burmese Solictor Trap brand porch trap doors. Sharpened wooden spikes sold separately.

Labels: economy

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Dude, it's totally not

ALAMOGORDO — A man stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Alamogordo with marijuana plants told officers he thought marijuana was legal in New Mexico, police said.

Charles Barnes, 24, had 67 marijuana plants in the trunk of his car when he was pulled over on U.S. 70 last week, police said.

"Dude, I totally thought weed was legalized in New Mexico," Barnes told police.

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Labels: technology

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Teaching history to the new generation

After an essay test on the military, diplomatic, social, political, and economic issues related to our involvement in WWII this morning, I'm ready for a rerun:

If World War Two had been an online Real Time Strategy game, the chat room traffic would have gone something like this.

*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.*
*Eisenhower has joined the game.*
*paTTon has joined the game.*
*Churchill has joined the game.*
*benny-tow has joined the game.*
*T0J0 has joined the game.*
*Roosevelt has joined the game.*
*Stalin has joined the game.*
*deGaulle has joined the game.*

Roosevelt: hey sup
T0J0: y0
Stalin: hi
Churchill: hi
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got **** to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol
benny-tow: haha
benny-tow: hey ur losing ur guys in africa im gonna need help in italy soon sum1
T0J0: o **** i cant help u i got my hands full
Hitler[AoE]: im 2 busy 2 help
Roosevelt: yah thats right ***** im comin for ya
Stalin: church help me
Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here
Stalin: dont be an arss
Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late
Eisenhower: LOL
benny-tow: hahahh oh sh1t help
Hitler: o man ur focked
paTTon: oh what now biotch
Roosevelt: whos the cripple now lol
*benny-tow has been eliminated.*
benny-tow: lame
Roosevelt: gj patton
paTTon: thnx
Hitler[AoE]: WTF eisenhower hax hes killing all my sh1t
Hitler[AoE]: quit u hacker so u dont ruin my record
Eisenhower: Nuts!
benny~tow: wtf that mean?
Eisenhower: meant to say nutsack lol finger slipped
paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun cocksocker
Stalin: rofl
T0J0: HAHAHHAA
Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay
Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city
*Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.*
benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself
Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL
Stalin: OMG LMAO!
Hitler[AoE]: WTF i didnt click there omg this game blows
*Hitler[AoE] has left the game*
paTTon: hahahhah
T0J0: WTF my teammates are n00bs
benny~tow: shut up noob
Roosevelt: haha wut a moron
paTTon: wtf am i gunna do now?
Eisenhower: yah me too
T0J0: why dont u attack me o thats right u dont got no ships lololol
Eisenhower: fock u
paTTon: lemme go thru ur base commie
Stalin: go to hell lol
paTTon: fock this sh1t im goin afk
Eisenhower: yah this is gay
*Roosevelt has left the game.*
Hitler[AoE]: wtf?
Eisenhower: sh1t now we need some1 to join
*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: hi all
T0J0: hey
Stalin: sup
Churchill: hi
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: holy ****holy****holy****!
*T0J0 has been eliminated.*
*The Allied team has won the game!*
Eisenhower: awesome!
Churchill: gg noobs no re
T0J0: thats bull**** u fockin suck
*T0J0 has left the game.*
*Eisenhower has left the game.*
Stalin: next game im not going to be on ur team, u guys didnt help me for ****
Churchill: wutever, we didnt need ur help neway dumbarss
tru_m4n: l8r all
benny~tow: bye
Churchill: l8r
Stalin: fock u all
tru_m4n: shut up commie lol
*tru_m4n has left the game.*
benny~tow: lololol u commie
Churchill: ROFL
Churchill: bye commie
*Churchill has left the game.*
*benny~tow has left the game.*
Stalin: i hate u all fags
*Stalin has left the game.*
paTTon: lol no1 is left
paTTon: weeeee i got a jeep
*paTTon has been eliminated.*
paTTon: o sh1t!
*paTTon has left the game.*

Labels: history

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Labels: history

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Too good not to be true

JarJarJanks fails to follow his own advice:

Do some research. Find out what Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln and other have to say about Central Banks. Find out why Andrew Jackson spent his entire presidency fighting against the Central Banks. Find out about the Rothschilds and how they came into power. Find out about Jekyl Island, the Aldrich bill.

Finally, let's see what Woodrow Wilson had to say while on his deathbed about the Federal Reserve Act (that he passed into law):

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

The last quote is beautiful because in retrospect it has turned out to be true. Progressivism seldom manages to avoid voluntarily becoming the very monster it seeks to slay, and the creation of the Federal Reserve, which is charged with maintaining the value of the dollar yet has destroyed 95% of that value since Wilson's day, is probably the finest example of Progressivism "fighting for the little guy" by placing all power in the hands of a chosen few. Rather than a fighter of inflation, the Fed is its primary engine, and we have been since Wilson's day controlled by credit. He complained about a situation and once elected made it permanent.

But the issue at hand today is not whether Wilson was odious* but rather whether he actually uttered the words above attributed to him. Even though it appears in many places that I otherwise rely on and is repeated by many I otherwise listen to, I doubt he said as much, for two reasons: context and content.

The first, context, has to do with how the quote is presented. I've seen it claimed that Wilson utterred the words, in "1919 in his memoirs," "not one year after ...the foundation of the Federal Reserve" (which would be 1914), "while on his deathbed" (as above, which would be ca 1921-4), and in a number of other times and places. But that fact that none of them is ever any more specific than "in his memoirs" (What was the name of them? On what page does the quote appear) leads me to believe that the quote is not accurate.

But the second, content, is the kicker. No politician ever admits to doing something gravely wrong, especially (as would have been the case of Wilson in 1919) when he is asking the nation for another enormous new commitment, in Wilson's case the League of Nations. Politicians want you to trust them, want you to believe they do not make mistakes, and consistently plead that if something goes wrong it's because "mistakes were made" that had nothing to do with their ideas or decisions. Wilson was no exception to this rule. In fact, were I to describe his personality in the vernacular, I'd lose my PG rating. Therefore I'll opine, in proper KJV English, that Wilson was like unto a puckered anal orifice. He was not the type to admit mistakes, especially in print or in a campaign speech.

But perhaps more importantly, in 1919 the Fed had not really caused any problems as of yet (the recession of '20 and the Great Depression were still in the future). In fact, it was not until FDR centralized the Fed that it truly became the beast it is today. So not only would Wilson probably not have said it, he would have had no reason to say it until after he was disabled by stroke and was not saying much of anything.

A number of people have attempted to track down the quote, and the most authoritative seem to think that he did not say the first two sentences, and while he may have said the last part in 1913 he was blaming someone else. A politician blaming someone else? That sounds a lot more like the Wilson we know and love** to me. Does that mean the quote is false? Well, Wilson probably never said it. But that doesn't mean it's not perfectly true.

* He was.

** I am still working on a way to blame Darfur on Wilson. I shan't publish it until the case is irrefutable. But if the head of the UN can blame humanly-caused global warming, certainly I can blame something/someone that is real.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Lyin' Your Bass Off brand photogenic rubber game fish. When you need a picture of 'the one that got away', try Lyin' Your Bass Off!

Labels: history

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Voice of the People

Billy offers some direction to the press:

"I would love it if the news was the voice of the people instead of the powerful...

"The illusion of impartiality is particularly harmful when a strong bias exists. It gives the public the impression that the conversation is much further in one direction or the other than it really is. The perfect example of this is evolution. By always pairing one evolutionist up to one creationist the news media makes it seems as though the two are equal in number and intellect."

I think these two statements are a good example of the contradictions that the journalist must deal with in every story. For example, if we are to print "the voice of the people," then evolution stories would be very different, because according to the Pew Research Center, fewer than half the people surveyed believed in any evolution (44%) and of those, nearly half believe God guided the process. A plurality (since the evolution numbers above are a sum of two distinct categories) of people believed generally in creation (42%). According to Gallup, from '82 to the present belief in non-"guided" evolution has ranged from 9-13% of Americans while creation in present form has been steady at 44-47%. So if we are going to have the voice of the people, then the press ought to be filled with either full-on creation stories or it ought to be split half and half.

"But," one might complain, "evolution is a scientfic study in which the people don't have informed opinions as proven by the fact that they don't believe in evolution. It's the job of the press to inform them." But doesn't that kick the legs out from under the press being the voice of the people? If the press is going to rely on expertise, then the opinions of the uninformed (i.e. the people) should get very little room.

Then one must deal with the fact that science changes. If the press relies on scientific consensus, it would not have talked about continental drift for a half century after it was proposed and serious work was being done on it. That is not the way to create an informed populace.

Finally, if there's no controversy, then there is often nothing to write about. Stories about evolution in the popular press are not stories generally* about how or why it's true, they are stories about the controvery about how it should be taught in schools. In order to understand the controversy, the reader must have access to exactly the kinds of he said/she said quotations that Billy finds so harmful.

* and stories that illuminate a new discovery seldom contain a quotation from a creationist anyway.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Burmese Solictor Trap brand porch trap doors. Sharpened wooden spikes sold separately.

Labels: science

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The God of tipping footballs

Perhaps it can't hurt to ask:

DESTIN — More than 300 people with a keen interest in the Emerald Coast’s real estate market gathered Wednesday at Destiny Worship Center to ask for God’s blessing.

The Real Estate Prayer Luncheon was organized in hopes of breathing life and positive thinking into the area’s slumping housing market...

“We need to think positively and get everyone on the same page,” Duke said. “Positive things that come out of your mouth will end with positive results. If we lose hope, we lose everything.”

I guess I can't ever complain too much when people come together to ask for God's blessing. After all, the worst he can say is "No." But it does smack a bit to me - looking from the outside, of course - like the equivalent of asking God to tip footballs for your favorite team. Really big footballs perhaps, but footballs nonetheless.

We've all seen the football-tipping prayers, "Please, God, let the Vikings* win this one." And the logical result was illustrated recently on an edition of MXC where the Christians were taking on someone (ad execs, maybe?) and one of the Christians told the announcer that she was sure to win because she had asked God for help. After a nearly miraculous run, she was eliminated right at the end. When asked about it, she sheepishly responded, "Well, I guess maybe He had to go help someone else just then." And it's funny because believers should** understand that God is not going to tip footballs just because you'd like to win something that is ultimately meaningless. Besides, what would he say to those on the other side making a similar request, "Sorry, your opponent asked first"?

But aside from the fact that asking God to move a market you happen to be selling in is merely asking Him to convince those who otherwise would not buy to buy at a price convenient to you, as with a lot of impromptu gatherings of this nature, it seemed to quickly devolve into an attempted application of mental magic. "We can turn this thing around if we all think positively," as if our focused mental power forces God's reluctant hand, as if faith is some kind of a spiritual weapon we can point at God to get him to do our bidding. It's not***. Ultimately faith is a spiritual weapon that allows us to do God's bidding when it otherwise seems humanly impossible. Faith is, as it is written in Hebrews, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, and without context it sounds like we get to be the definers of what is hoped for. But I think in application (as in the examples that follow that statement) faith only "works" when our hopes are aligned with God's promises and desires.

So all that being said, will have any effect at all? I think in some cases it might - which is why I'm tiptoeing around here a bit - assuming (and this is a big assumption) there are people whom God wants selling homes and their faith gets them off dead center to do what God wants. But I suspect that God would and must have a larger purpose in mind for that individual that just earning another commission, and I suspect it would come about because of an individual change in heart, not a collective ritual - in other words, if it's done it will be done to change a life rather than a bank balance.

But is God going to move a market just so people who make a living selling houses are not inconvenienced by having to go do something else? Is he going to set aside the perfectly reasonable and predictable consequences of the human action that has caused the current slump, meaning that Americans can avoid the consequences of our foolish monetary policies and a culture of all trying to get rich by selling our houses to each other? I guess you could call me a bit skeptical**** on that count.

* Maybe it works for other teams, but not them obviously.

** and unbelievers unfailingly do

*** Why does "He's not a tame lion" spring to mind here?

*** It seems to me that God is often far more interested in teaching wisdom than in providing material comfort, and the aftermath of foolish bubbles can be a heck of a teaching tool, provided we learn the correct lessons. It is another issue altogether that we so seldom do.

Labels: christianity

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Not living up to my own standards

What's My Blog Rated? From Mingle2 - Online Dating

(hat tip: Huck)

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Worst Teacher Ever

Labels: education

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Good question

Mark P. Shea has a checklist for the perpetually aggrieved:

Ask yourself, “Am I an idiot?”

There are three basic kinds of idiots: intellectual, emotional, and moral.

An intellectual idiot is too stupid to know or find out what a word means.

An emotional idiot is too stupid to care what a word means if it stands between him and a good temper tantrum.

A moral idiot may be intellectually and emotionally sound, yet still be willing to sacrifice the happiness of others simply to file a lawsuit on behalf of intellectual or emotional idiots who don’t know what, say, “picnic” or “niggardly” mean.

If you are any of these kinds of idiot, proceed immediately to step two...

I'm always at somewhat of a loss as to how to respond to someone who looks like the first kind of idiot because I generally have a lot of pity for the genuinely stupid*. I don't want to truly offend someone even if they are only offended because they're too ignorant to know they should not be offended.

The problem is separating the first group from the second, those who are just seeking to be offended. Members of the second group learn to emulate actual offense pretty quickly. After a few years of practice they are even seemingly able convince themselves** that they have suffered grievous wrong in something that doesn't concern them at all. But the fact that they are not actually offended means that I don't feel any particular desire to appease them - in fact, I'm occasionally inclined to bait*** them just for fun. That way we both win.

So how to unravel this conundrum?

* for obvious reasons

** Why do they seek it so? It's as if there is an almost orgasmic moral rush that comes with being offended. They're like a gang of trenchcoated van drivers pretending to have puppies to show off.

*** Of course, then I might actually offend them and I don't have much of a desire to do that, either. Except for feminists. And people who hate racial mascots. And Christians who cry about oppression when the WalMart greeter says, "Happy Holidays."

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Happy Leech brand home phlebotomy kits. Due to strict anti-cannibalism laws, this product not available to trial lawyers or disciples of Margaret Sanger.

Labels: moonbats

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The tinyfication of science

Mike Bloomberg misunderestimates the limits of science:

Mr. Bloomberg's freewheeling question-and-answer session was peppered with the kind of provocative, blunt talk that could appeal to some voters while alienating others. "It's probably because of our bad educational system, but the percentage of people who believe in creationalism is really scary for a country that's going to have to compete in a world where science and medicine require a better understanding," he said in one such foray.

I'm not going to argue with big Mike's contention that our school system is bad. His city did not have the first bad schools in the US, but they have come near to perfecting the practice. But in regards to his quote, I do note that many of those who go out of their way to criticize "creationalism" - which is not even in those schools - constantly try to limit science. The problem is not that they believe that evolution is science (it is and it isn't, depending on how you're talking about it) or that creationalism is not (it's not) but how they constantly assert that science is evolution and that's all science is, and that if one doubts that the incredible variety of life on this planet is solely the result of natural forces, then one is of no use to science.

Part of this is due, to be blunt, to the creationalists' abject refusal to accept natural forces as being the only forces, and physical scientists can only study natural forces. I don't think that's an issue, because one can certainly believe that some rare historical events were caused by supernatural forces while presuming that all the forces one sees in nature are natural, just as a Ford mechanic can believe in Nissans even if they never come into his shop. But a big part of it, especially from politicians, is simply amateurs masquerading as science's defenders, and in doing so, they unfairly and unwisely circumscribe science.

But even limiting science to the purely medical sciences (as Bloomberg connects the two), it would be interesting to see how many a person who doubted evolution could do good science in. Or to put it another way, how many fields of medicine are underlain with the demand that the origin of life must have been purely naturalistic?

We could pick any number of specializations, I suppose, but since I'm lazy I'll just grab a Wikipedia list of the fields involved in medical science. And since I'm lazier, I'm going to let Wikipedia answer the question for me. I'll click through the links to the various entries, and if Wikipedia mentions evolution as part of the field (not part of a related field, e.g. neurology overlapping with psychology), we'll make the assumption that a belief in evolution is necessary to do the science*:

Anatomy (and histology and cytology) - Yes.
Dermatology (skin and skin diseases) - No.
Gynecology (female reproductive system) - No.
Immunology (immune system) - Yes.
Internal medicine (diseases of the internal organs) - No.
Neurology (central nervous system) - No.
Ophthalmology (visual pathways) - No.
Pathology (study of disease processes) - Yes.
Pathophysiology (study of not-quite-diseases) - No.
Pediatrics (children) - No.
Pharmacology (drugs) - No.
Physical therapy (restoration of body functions) - No.
Physiology - (biological functions) - Yes.
Psychiatry - (mental illness) - No.
Radiology - (medical imagery) - No.
Toxicology - (adverse effects of chemicals) - No.

So for the medicals, which ought to be fairly high as they deal with human biology, we get about a quarter (4 in 16) of the fields that require a belief in (or better yet, an understanding of) biological evolution.

In other sciences we'll find a large spread of values, because as some (e.g. biology) will obviously have an evolutionary bias, most do not deal with living things at all (e.g. accoustics, nuclear physics, and cartography). One does not need a theory of the origin of biological diversity to measure the effects of light moving through glass.

The other, more marginal** sciences are a similarly mixed bag - some that deal specifically with people (e.g. anthropology and biochemistry, but not population dynamics) have evolutionary subspecialties. Those which do not deal with humans or animals (e.g. hydrology) do not. Of course, mathematics, computer science, and the like do not either.

One could probably make the argument*** that one needs to believe in evolution in order to do good work in the minority of disciplines that deal directly with origins, but that is a very small part of science. Science's loudest defenders do all of science a disservice when they try to make that small part the whole.

* It's a poor test, perhaps, as one could certainly propose a better one, but this one is fairly objective in that I'm relying on other (presumably) expert opinions and simply counting noses.

** By which I mean that they are often not considered science because they are more freestanding (like engineering and mathematics) or are considered "soft" sciences (like economics and psychology).

*** Of course, one would be wrong, as this guy's PhD in paleontology demonstrates. I really love the pair (Scott and Dini) who assert that the college should not give advanced degrees to those who might use them to undercut "science," by which they mean "evolution." And I didn't realize that Ph.D. stood for "philosopher of science" until I read this article.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Land Mimes brand petards and Greek fire for use on performace artists. Invisible casket sold separately.

Labels: Creationalism, science

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Labels: democrats

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Breaking News from 1700

The Associated Press discovers what Thomas Jefferson already knew:

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible -- exhibited this week for the first time -- lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history's greatest scientist.

Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law -- even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters -- and combing the Old Testament's Book of Daniel for clues about the world's end...

In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060.

"It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner," Newton wrote. However, he added, "This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."

I'm surprised that Newton's religious interest is news to the AP. In fact, Newton was a lifelong student of the scriptures* and wrote copiously about subjects historical and prophetical. And this is not something newly-discovered, either: I have in my library a reprint of Thomas Jefferson's personal copy of Newton's commentary on Daniel and Revelation, complete with Jefferson's handwritten marginal notes. Newton repeatedly claimed that he spent far more time in the Bible than on science**, which leads me to believe that the AP knows a lot less about Newton than it thinks it does.

The AP also seems less interested in Newton's thought than in making him into another of a long line of apocalyptic date-setters. Newton did not "calculate the exact date of the apocalypse" as the article's first sentence claims - just read his last quote above, Newton says exactly the opposite of what the AP says he says - but rather interpreted the scriptures in the light of later history and concluded the end was a long, long way off and probably incalculable***. Rather than the precise date of the end, Newton was concerned about the practice of setting dates discrediting the scriptures themselves in the eyes of a gullible and ignorant public - even though the scriptures warn against date-setting. That certainly seems to be a problem that continues today.

But perhaps the AP's surprise arises from the paradigm that separates faith from science and the faithful from the rational****. That paradigm, wholly a product of modern times, would have surprised Newton no little bit. For not only was he the single most important contributor to the methods and philosophy of modern science, he was a man who firmly believed that science only worked because a rational God created a rational universe that could be understood by rational men created in His image. Even if He didn't tell us when it would all end.

* The book of Daniel in particular, of which he began a lifelong study at age 12.

** Which also makes the AP's claims that his religious intensity was "little known" and that he "found time" to study Moses just a trifle silly. Perhaps "little known" just means the reporter asked her co-workers and they hadn't heard that, either.

***He did, however, insist that before the end a Jewish state would be re-established in Palestine. That it didn't happen for 300 years after he made the assertion probably made him look foolish at the time, but he who laughs last laughs best, I suppose.

**** The article notes that "The Newton papers...complicate the idea that science is diametrically opposed to religion." It's more of a meme than an idea, but don't tell Dawkins.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Stovehenge brand yard art kits for rednecks. Turn those old appliances into an astrologically significant landmark from the comfort of your trailer home.

Labels: bible, science

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and make me some pie

Labels: feminism

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Besides, how will you move it if you go balder?

Pastor Scott has a little something against tattoos:

And the No. 1 reason* for not getting a tattoo:

1. The Bible says you shouldn’t — Leviticus 19:28

“You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.” ...

Now I'll be the first one to admit I don't have a tattoo, wouldn't get a tattoo, and my wife and kids (so far as I know) don't have any tattoos. I truly don't have a horse in this race. But I think that in trying to apply the Bible to this specific cultural discussion, Pastor Scott makes the mistake of ignoring the context of this command. Moses was speaking to a specific group for a specific reason, and whether his words apply to an individual today depends upon whether that person falls into that group. It is not simply a universal prohibition.

The ban on tattoos is included in a section of law dealing with moral, ceremonial, and civil codes, so it is difficult to tell from the surrounding context into which the ban falls, preceeded as it is by "You shall not trim the edges of your beard" (a ceremonial command) and followed as it is by "You shall not place your daughter in prostitution" (a moral one). That means that his digression concerning the tri-fold purposes of Moses (which I've not included here) does not help us**.

But the command against making cuts on the body immediately preceeding gives us a hint. The Jamiesson Faussett Brown commentary points out that "The practice of making deep gashes on the face and arms and legs, in time of bereavement, was universal among the heathen, and it was deemed a becoming mark of respect for the dead...." This is followed by a commentary on tattoos itself that notes, in part, "It it probable that a strong propensity to adopt such marks in honor of some idol gave occasion to the prohibition in this verse; and they were wisely forbidden, for they were signs of apostasy..."

I think JFB is precisely correct here. The prohibition on tattooing is a religious/cultural one, designed, as were many OT laws, for drawing a distinction between the culture of Israel and that of the surrounding pagans. So at best this is an admonition against having recognized pagan symbols/advertisements imprinted upon one's body. It's probably a good idea for a Christian not to have "Cthulhu 2008" tattooed on his forehead, but I think that's as far as one can push the religious prohibition. If one is going to say that tattoos are, because of their pagan origins, always pagan symbols, that person had better not be wearing a wedding ring, which itself sports a similar pagan origin.

However, Pastor Scott is not finished. In fact, I think he is headed to considerably shakier ground:

If tattooing is “truly” wrong and not just a matter of personal opinion (if any absolutes still exist), then this action must go contrary to the Judeo-Christian set of moral standards set down in the Ten Commandments.

The commandment, “You shall not kill!” has been defined as to refrain from hurting or harming anyone including self.

Whether tattooing is "truly" wrong has not been established by a longshot. So when considering his unfathomably*** expansive definition of the Sixth Commandment, the question must immediately arise whether the tattoo is a "harm." Pastor Scott has his cart before his horse here, as rather than showing it is a violation of the commandment because it is harmful, he has declared it harmful by presuming that because it's wrong it "must go contrary" to the closest available commandment, this one against harm. In reality, a tattoo is no more physically harmful, when done properly, than coloring one's hair or cutting one's nails. Therefore the Sixth Commandment simply does not apply.

The last scriptural quotation is the weakest of all, even as it is probably the most commonly used****:

The Bible also states, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

The context of 1Cor6 is made clear by the thought that precedes the "or" in verse 19. Let's back it up a few and see if we can get Paul's complete thought:

Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take those members and join them to a prostitute? God forbid! Don't you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one flesh with her? (For Jesus said, "The two shall become one flesh.") ...

Flee fornication. Every other sin a man commits is outside the body, but he who commits fornication sins against his body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit...
--1Cor 6:15-6,18-9

"Glorify God in your body" is a command whose primary application is in regards to illicit sex. Jesus said that if you sleep with someone, you're joined - the spiritual properties of marriage are established by sexual intercourse, not by vows - and we are not to join Christ to hookers that way.

Now a lot of people want to universalize the verse and say that glorifying God in your body means you don't do anything that might cause the body physical harm, but Paul's application here is spiritual. We can probably - if we stretch it enough - apply it to pole dancing or wearing speedos in public; we cannot apply it to tattoos without presuming that tattoos are necessarily an offense to God.

That being the case, it seems to me the "biblical" admonitions against tattoos are mostly circular: they must presume that a tattoo is a moral offense in order to show from the Bible that it is a moral offense. There may be a lot of good reasons for not getting a tattoo, but I doubt "the Bible tells me so" is one of them.

* He has twelve reasons, some of which are valid, some of which are silly.

** Which is why I've not included it here.

*** For example, the Sixth Commandment was never applied this way in scripture to self-defense, which oftens harms an aggressor. Judicial corporal punishments do not fall under it either. The man is really stretching, IMO.

****Because it the most generic. It can be used to ban all manner of things, from coffee to tobacco to fat asses to anything the complainer doesn't like, but the fact remains that Paul applies it primarily to a spiritual harm one does with the body, not a physical harm one one does to it.

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Faux Pearls, Turin Shrouds, Quality Manhole Covers, String Cheese, Counterfeit Canadian Dollars, Japes, Puns, and Irrelevant Comparisons, and confusing Florida ballots.

Labels: bible

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I wanted to be Duck Dodgers

You scored as William Wallace. The great Scottish warrior William Wallace led his people against their English oppressors in a campaign that won independence for Scotland and immortalized him in the hearts of his countrymen. With his warrior's heart, tactician's mind, and poet's soul, Wallace was a brilliant leader. He just wanted to live a simple life on his farm, but he gave it up to help his country in its time of need.

William Wallace

83%

Neo, the "One"

83%

The Amazing Spider-Man

67%

Lara Croft

67%

Maximus

67%

James Bond, Agent 007

67%

Captain Jack Sparrow

63%

Batman, the Dark Knight

50%

Indiana Jones

50%

El Zorro

38%

The Terminator

33%

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

(hat tip: 3am)

Labels: Quizzes

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I call shenanigans

A committee of 10-year-olds, after performing a successful liver transplant and designing a gamma-proof shield for the space station, discovers that climate progress is a bad thing:

A small group of students at our school has been researching and studying the effects of global warming. The evidence and data we collected is so overwhelming that we have decided to write about this issue...

The United States is the leading contributor to the global warming crisis, producing one-third of the total greenhouse gases in the world, more than South America, Africa, Asia and Australia combined...

Greenland and the Arctic ice shelf are melting faster each year and will disappear in our lifetime if our fossil fuel usage continues unchecked. That melting will raise the water level of the world's oceans nearly 40 feet. Basically, Manhattan would be underwater.

Hopefully, people will understand the danger we are facing. Do Mainers want this to be our future? Although global warming is a huge pending global disaster, we all have the means to change it together.

The Portland (Maine) Press Herald assures us that authors "Hallie Repeta, Miranda Richman, Carole Grant, Jacob Austin and Gabrielle Wagabaza are fourth-grade students in Randy Bigelman's class at Portland's East End Community School."

Does anyone actually believe that a committee of fourth-graders wrote the above? Is the statement, "this article was written by 5 fourth graders" true or false? It's false. 10-year-olds don't use phrases like "if fossil fuel usage continues unchecked" or "leading contributor." They don't collect "evidence and data" nor reach independent conclusions based on such. They have no independent knowledge of scientific subjects. When they do "research" something, they are far more likely to produce work like the article on LBJ below, crude summaries of general resources. It's not because they are stupid, it's because they are young. They are also impressionable, undiscerning, and naive.

But if the fourth-graders didn't write that article, then someone else did, someone not above taking advantage of those children for political purposes. But the most important question is not "who did it?" It's "are your kids among them?"

Copyright 2007 El Borak, inc. Makers of Macarena Al brand jointless marionettes, guaranteed to dance just like the real thing. But you’ll never guess who’s pulling the strings.

Labels: education

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Captain Capitalism found this on the floor of a local public high school.

Labels: education

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Hope Springs Eternal

Labels: vikings

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Perspective

Max Raskin delivers news from the near future or the distant past - I can't tell which:

WASHINGTON – In a surprise decision bound to become a landmark case of the 21st century, the Supreme Court today ruled, eight-to-one, against the Constitution. In Bush v. Constitution, the issue before the court was, "whether the Constitution’s antiquated espousal of ‘liberty’ and ‘checks and balances’ should definitively establish the powers of federal government."

The case was brought up after President Bush filed an injunction against the document because of what he called, "the dangerous undermining of the War on Terror by the Bill of Rights." ...

It's satire*, of course, but it does illustrate a rather interesting parallel and a supreme irony that I first noted in the Decider's second year in office: Dubya, so hated by Progressives, is the reincarnation of Woodrow Wilson, the darling of Progressives. Wilson was not only the first President elected** as a Progressive, he was the worst President the US has ever had. Yet many who look to him as a hero are the type to complain that GWB is the worst ever, especially on the grounds of warmongering and the resultant abuse of domestic constitutional protections***.

So take a walk with me through the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, progressive Democrat. We shall find some parallels with today and a few contrasts. But I think one thing we will find is a sense of perspective.

The year is 1913. Historian Woodrow Wilson has just been sworn in as President of the US. A Democrat elected primarily because of a nasty split in the GOP, Wilson has very little government experience (he was governor of New Jersey for 2 years) and no foreign policy experience. But he has a lot of ideas, big ideas that he will see implemented one way or another.

After the important task of re-racially segregating the federal government, Wilson's first term was was taken up by creation of the Federal Reserve System, passage of tariff reform, and implementation of the income tax. At first relatively innocuous (1% on only "the richest Americans") 6 years later it would feature a 77% top marginal rate. He would also "take on" big business, first by establishing a commission to watch them but eventually by funneling millions of dollars' worth of government contracts to them when he essentially took over the US economy in preparation for an unnecessary war.

Through 1916 the US had remained mostly neutral in regards to WWI. Wilson loved the Brits, but he could not get too close without alienating German and Irish immigrants in the US since both groups hated the Brits but were part of the Democrats' core support. Wilson's re-election campaign slogan**** was "He kept us out of war." A month after he was re-inaugurated - and no longer beholden to voters - Wilson went to Congress and asked for a declaration of war, so that by pursuing war the world could "be made safe for democracy." Then as today, not everyone was happy with war. Then as today, that was considered dangerous to the war effort.

Modern civil libertarians are rightly concerned about such presidential malfeasance as the creation of strange legal designations (e.g. "unlawful enemy combatant") that allow the government to hold and prosecute Americans without respecting constitutional protections. Wilson had the same problem for the same reason, and not being one who grasped the importance of a good acronym, his Patriot Act was called the Sedition Act of 1918.

Wilson's Sedition Act banned criticism of the government, threatening to imprison anyone who might "utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States...". Secret societies sprang up, encouraged by the government, to spy on neighbors, and J. Edgar Hoover (yeah, the same one) collected 150,000 names in a secret government database. The government even refused to deliver mail to those deemed radical or disloyal.

The Supreme Court, in an abominable display of reading incomprehension, found the act constitutional. In that sense, the "story" above is not a story about the future, but the past, not about Bush, but about his spiritual father.

So here's a little perspective:

Elective War on behalf of Democracy and Purple Thumbs:

Bush: Iraq & Afghanistan, 4000 Americans dead.

Wilson: WWI, 120,000 Americans dead.

Spying and suppression of internal dissent:

Bush: PATRIOT Act. 500-1000 arrests, foreigners and 1 American at Gitmo, some extraditions and expulsions. Illegal wiretaps, databases (Terrorist, 500k), "aggressive" questioning. Denial of air travel. Regulation of speech in airports.

Wilson: Sedition Act: 10,000 arrests resulting in lengthy prison terms, some extraditions and expulsions. Illegal wiretaps, databases (Hoover, 150k), "aggressive" questioning. Denial of mail service. Regulation of speech everywhere.

The parallels are enlightening. In each case, you have an inexperienced president who gets the nation involved in an unnecessary war in the names of freedom and democracy. Each concentrates power not only in the executive branch, but increasingly within the person of the President himself. Each passes (with help of a captive Congress, both houses of which are controlled by the President's party) significant legislation that watches citizens, snoops around their stuff, keeps list of those deemed dangerous. Each equates (or at least their partisans equate) support of the war effort to be evidence of patriotism, each uses legal maneuvering to deny what courts will later consider constitutional rights. Where Bush spies, Wilson spied, where Bush collects names, Wilson collected names.

But the perspective is even more enlightening. Compared to Wilson, Bush is a piker. There is nothing Bush has done that Wilson did not do before him and nothing Bush has done that Wilson did not do twice as efficiently, effectively, or blatantly. If Bush uses fear of terrorism, Wilson used the Red Scare twice as well. Where Bush runs deficits, Wilson's were 5x as big.

This is in no sense a defense of Bush: there is not a vote I've cast in my life I regret more than the one I cast for Bush in 2000. But it is to say that those Progressives who hate Bush only think he's the worst President in history because they lack perspective. They have not seen what a real Progressive can do.

But we'll all see what she can do soon enough.

* Sometimes the line between satire, history, and prophecy is a blurry one.

** TR was a progressive but was not elected as one.

*** And we won't even get to globalism/internationalism. There is more, but it's just more of the same.

**** though to be fair, Wilson never himself uttered the words.

Labels: history, politics

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Git-er-done

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Rebel Moon has been mailed

Those of you who have copies coming should look for them early next week.

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I always wondered what happened to Biff...

(hat tip: 3 o'clock am)

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From the Mail Bag

Lhamilton888 has a bone to pick with my stolen graph:

When i clicked on the nobeliefs.com link, I had to search a long while before I finally found where the graph appeared.

The graph is embedded at the end of a commentary titled: The Myth of Christianity Founding Modern Science and Medicine (link embedded in title) But of course you must have known that because that's the only place where the graph appears. You didn't even supply the link to the actual article which gives the proper context of the graph. Shame on you.

Good evening. Actually, that's not the only place the graph appears, as I picked it up at myconfinedspace.com, which shows that it is circulating the net without commentary. Thus it is at least possible (if not likely) that the average reader will encounter it first without its commentary; that's one reason I didn't refer to the original article (though I probably should have linked to it anyway). Another is that, frankly, any article that claims "Just because some Christians did scientific work or that the Church helped fund scientific research has nothing to do with the founding or even the advancement of science," is frankly not dealing with reality very well. One might as well say that just because Americans do science and their government funds it, that doesn't mean that America has anything to do with the advancement of science. One cannot propose a "Christian dark age" of a millennium in the chart while admitting in the article that the Christians were doing and funding science - therefore my issue was primarily with the graph and especially its assertion that without the Christian Dark Ages, learning would have continued. While it would be fun to take the original article apart, my purpose was to deal specifically with the graph, which I think speaks pretty well for itself by itself.

The author also explains that the graph is approximate, yet you never mentioned that.

Yes, the author claims that the graph is approximate, yet it is no such thing, for as I mentioned it doesn't measure anything at all, or as the author himself admitted in the article, "The scale of scientific advancements show no numbers because we have no numbers to go by." How can one approximate nothing? If one has no numbers yet purports to show trends of nothingness, what does one chart but the writer's own bias?

Instead you make accusations about it being propaganda and you associate the site with some guy holding a sign that says, "If Jesus Returns. Kill Him Again." Wow!

Wow indeed, because the chart IS propaganda. For example, the article states that, "When Constantine established orthodox Christianity in 325 CE (at the Council of Nicaea), scientific investigation virtually stopped." Yet look at the graph, the century from 325 to 425 shows a climb to the highest pre-fall point on the chart, continuing an unbroken streak that had lasted 500 years. So which is it? And for what reason does it go up but to give the incorrect impression of a greater fall*? That's propaganda.

Though actually, he's correct in the article, and possibly even understating the case. During the late Roman Empire much learning had already stopped. That was due, however, to the increasing crumbling of the Empire and to the seizure of every free denarius to its defense, not to the new religion. As Gibbon said of the late Roman poet Ausonius, "The poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age." The most original things Ausonius wrote were re-hashes of Virgil**, a poet 5 centuries before him, a trend not limited to literature and one I noted in my original commentary.

The picture was, of course, carefully chosen to illustrate an attitude on display throughout nobeliefs.com. For example, it concludes in the article, "Should we admire Jesus?" that "the Biblical Jesus ... orders killings, and threatens to kill children." If someone truly orders killings and threatens to kill children, it is unreasonable to suspect that some would wish to impose a capital sentence on such a menace to society? I know I would.

But of course it concludes such only by engaging in some of the poorest biblical exposition imaginable. For example:

Not only does the Bible claim that Jesus came to set man at variance against members of the family, but he demanded that anyone wishing to become a disciple must hate them:

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. -Luke 14:26

A few desperate apologists attempt to dismiss this verse claiming that the word 'hate' here really doesn't mean what it says. The problem with this approach boarders (sic) on complete deception and the ironic dismissal of the Bible and Biblical scholarship. The word 'hate' here comes from the ancient Greek word 'miseo' which means hate (from the primary 'misos' [hatred]). If any synonym could substitute for this word, it would come from a word like 'detest,' 'loath,' or 'despise.' Moreover, virtually all Bibles translate the term as hate. To deny this intent means to deny the Bible and the alleged word of Jesus.

Now whether I'm desparate or not is irrelevant to the fact that though Jesus is recorded in Greek (though he probably spoke in Aramaic), his culture was Jewish, which has plenty of room for figures of speech, like this one:

And [Jacob] went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated... - Gen 29:30-31.

Same word, and yet the context clearly shows that "hated" is relative and can mean "love less," or to place in a position behind, which is precisely Jesus' point. Understanding Jesus' words is a matter of placing them in their cultural context, an exercise that seems beyond the interest of the author. It also ought to be mentioned that we have a complete dearth of stories of good Christians killing off their parents in their newfound familial antipathy***. Apparently they all failed to understand Jesus as well as our modern detractor does.

The article makes a lot of sense but YOUR propaganda disguised the intent of the commentary and makes some rather unhistorical claims. If anything 1400 A.D. was far less advanced than before Christianity took over. Again, shame on you.

Now whether it was "far less advanced" or not (and it was in some ways and not in others) is irrelevant for the simple reason that you're ignoring the socio-political context of the barbarian invasions that lasted well into the 12th Century and which alone provide a perfectly reasonable explanation for the dearth of learning in much of Western Europe throughout the period****. However, if I have made "unhistorical claims," I invite you to expose them. Don't worry, you'll get a front-page hearing, unedited.

You're practicing exactly the type of misrepresentation of history that the commentary addresses. No wonder why people think Christians are dishonest. I see now why your site is called Myopia.

Indeed I think not. I took the graph as I found it and displayed both its historical ignorance and the propaganda value that it had. I have also (I think) answered your accusations. I would therefore invite you to take any historical fact that I asserted, either in this piece or the last one, and show the world what an ignorant bumpkin I am. I suspect you'll have a tough time, however, for if the author of the original article concludes that we have no numbers to go by, you'll probably have a tough time finding better ones. And I'm certain you'll be unable to construct a more illustrative chart than the original. Good luck.

* That the chart is giving an impression to the reader significantly undercut by the commentary is but another reason to ignore the article and focus on the chart.

** and the only person outside his social circle he mentioned in any poem was a 16-year-old Germanic slave girl that he slept with, complete with a cold, clinical description of her deflowering. And even that was stolen piecemeal from Virgil.

*** Killing Mom and Dad has never been a big part of the "zeal of the newly converted."

**** If I'm wrong, all you have to do is show a similar society that continued an unbroken path of technological or scientific growth immediately following its collapse.

UPDATE:

Mr. Hamilton responds:

That's about the most evasive and sad response I've heard in a long time.

Moreover, your belief that Christianity took over before the fall of Rome speaks wonders about your ignorance of history.

I have only two quotes (both from the article) and one question:

When Constantine established orthodox Christianity in 325 CE...

The destruction of the library of Alexandra (the greatest learning center in the world) and the murder of Hypatia by Christians in 415 CE, marked the beginning of the Dark Ages.

So which is a larger number, 325 or 415?

Labels: history

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How long will she stay that way?

There's a new Nancy in town, this one a Democrat who sounds like a Republican*:

"The Senate immigration bill was a deeply, deeply flawed proposal, and I'm glad it has finally landed in the political graveyard,'' said freshman Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan. "America needs enforcement, not amnesty.''

Nancy's my Rep**, which is the only reason I care to wonder how long that conservative attitude will last once we get a Democratic president. It's not that Nancy is not saying what she believes, I'm quite sure she believes it and is personally very conservative. That she has been so even to the point of being ripped on over at Puffington shows that she has some guts. She also beat a Kansas legend in Jim Ryun by running a hell of a campaign, much of it with a populist conservatism that appealed to enough Kansans that she won big. She's no liberal.

But she will be. Oh, it'll take a few years, probably, assuming she's re-elected. But with no constituency for conservative Democrats she's in a nearly impossible position: she must either be a liberal in a Red State or be a conservative in a blue party. She's already on the bubble, one of those seats the GOP will throw everything at to get back. I'm already getting election literature of Ryun*** and you can bet that he'll be well-funded this time around. If she's too conservative, the Dems won't spend the money to keep her. But if she's too liberal, the smallest red shift (which is 4-6 years off most likely) will bounce her. She does not have the name recognition or political muscle of Kansas' other Democrat, Dennis Moore, who was a popular DA before running for Congress. Nancy will have to rely on organization, and she's no longer the insurgent but the target of insurgency. That costs money.

With no natural national constituency, what's a conservative Democrat to do? Take the money and Run, Nancy, Run.

* As opposed to a Republican who always sounded like a Democrat, Nancy LANDON Kassebaum, the former school board member who made it to the Senate on on the strength of her father's name (thus the capitalization, which is how it seemingly always appeared on her yard signs). Dad was former governor Alf Landon, the second in a long line of liberal Republican losers-to-FDR. She voted against Robert Bork, then had the audacity to say publicly that if she had been the deciding vote, she would have supported him. Then after promising to serve only two terms, she allowed herself to be talked into running for a third. in other words, she was an opportunist whose few convictions were neither clear nor dearly held.

** I even got an invite to be one of her friends on MySpace. Wow, I sure was honored.

*** Which I am ignoring.

Labels: democrats

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Is it Christmas yet?

I just returned from a book sale in St. Louis where I managed to pick up a couple extra copies of Vox Day's "Rebel Moon." I know there are a few Vox fans here, so for any who haven't read it and want a copy (gratis) claim one in the comments and then drop me your mailing address via email (my address is on the left).

First two to speak up get 'em, the rest of you will have to be satisfied reading my old review.

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For Huck

Just returning the favor...

Labels: demotivators, immigration

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Buy this credit or we'll kill this tree

Ebay's Carbon Crediteers make us an offer we can't refuse:

Help stop global warming, we have a 200+ acre property on the pacific coast north of San Francisco California. For every customer who sends $50 we will plant a baby redwood tree in their name. Each year you send an additional $50 to assure that the tree grows and is taken care off properly...

We could develope our property into a Discount super store, or a Lumber mill but we choose to take the option of environmental preservation and offer to our fellow Americans the opportunity to give something back to the land which has given so much to us.

What a frigging scam*. So the going price is $50 for a redwood, and $50 a year to ensure that it's "taken care off (sic) properly." I guess that means if you don't pay your money some year, they'll kill it**.

Oh, not quickly or right away. That would be letting you off too easy. No, the first month after your $50 is due, you get a nice little reminder printed with soy ink on recycled paper. "Did you forget? Your tree needs your help." The second month it's the same, but with fewer smiley faces or uplifting adjectives.

But then it gets nasty. The third month you receive in the mail photographs of a dozen burly lumberjacks and a clinical description of the logging process. Also enclosed is a hand-written note from your tree begging you in the name of all that is carbon neutral to rescue it. It smells faintly of pine and has little sap tearstains all across it.

You don't hear anything for a couple of months, and you think they've gone away. Maybe you forgot. Your redwood hasn't. One day in the mail you receive it, a small box with a photograph of your tree. And a piece of branch! Oh, Sweet Lorax, they've cut off a branch and sent it to you! But your tree is not dead, the note informs you, it is merely suffering as no tree in a century has suffered*** because you don't care enough about it to pay your $50. Did I say $50? Now it's $100. You forgot interest and late charges.

The next box comes all too soon, and you tremble as you open it. Inside are no photos and no notes. There is merely a bill. Oh, and a 40' of strip of redwood bark dripping with sap. Dear Gaia, they're flaying your tree alive! Can you feel the pain? You caused that pain, because you don't care $100 worth to save it! Oh yeah, interest and late fees. $200. And the next year's payment is due as well.

Finally the last box comes. It's been a year, you haven't paid, they are done with you. Yes, the complete root system is in the box, dirty and torn with chain marks left over where they ripped it from the pure earth. There's a photograph as well.

Wow, that's a nice deck, huh?

* My wife and I (mostly my wife, to be honest) just finished planting 100 trees on our acreage as we do every year. I can't believe I never thought of auctioning the resulting carbon credits on Ebay. $5,000 down the drain, this year and every year hereafter. I'm such an idiot.

** Isn't that what they do with those little Filipinos you can adopt for 20 cents a day? What if you stop paying? "Apesadumbrado, Consuela, su patrocinador es demasiado barato. Usted morirá."

*** and from the photo you are certain they are giving your tree just enough water to keep it alive and conscious, the bastards. And what's with the butane torch? How could anyone be so cruel?

Labels: environmentalism

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Wow, is THIS liable to be misinterpreted...

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The Problem of Joseph's Bones

J. Field lays down a plumb line:

Moses was not the author of the Torah - God was. He dictated the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Most of the "problems" found in the Torah by those who promote the Documentary Hypotheses can be explained if you look at God as the author.

For instance, one of their main complaints is that Moses is described as a humble man and a humble man wouldn't describe himself as such*. However, if you look at God as the author, He can describe Moses as a humble man.

Also, the reason for the different versions of the same story in Genesis, such as the creation story is to tell people not to take these stories literally. None of the stories in Genesis should be taken literally.

The end of Genesis is a convenient cutoff for the history/mythology line, I suppose, but there's one problem. Apparently Moses didn't get that memo:

Genesis 50:25 - And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.

Exodus 13:19 - And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for [Joseph] had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.

We don't have an issue to deal with because Moses in Exodus repeats the words of Joseph from Genesis as if they were to be taken literally. Instead we have a bag of old bones to deal with, a physical artifact that bridges the chasm from mythology to Moses. If no story from Genesis is to be taken literally, whose bones are these? And why would Moses assert real bones belonged to a person he knew to be mythical**? If they are, as Moses states, Joseph's bones, then there must be a Joseph and he must have died in Egypt, and he must have come from the place to which Moses is heading.

In short, to take Exodus historically we have to take at least part of Genesis the same way, or we must insist on the non-literalness of an unremarkable story that is the most straightforward explanation of the physical existence of Joseph's bones in Egypt***. But if we have a real Joseph, then we have established the historicity of 40% of Genesis (the last 20 chapters). If we have 3 more historical generations - Joseph must've come from somewhere, after all - then we have established the historicity of more than 70% of it (the last 36 chapters).

So from that point, where can we make a non-subjective cutoff from history to mythology? I don't have an answer to that question, but I'm pretty sure it's more complex than just picking the end of Genesis, convenient as that might seem at first glance.

* The easy solution (and I think the correct one) to that particular conundrum is that one of the later copiers of Moses' writings inserted that as explanatory material. That doesn't take JEDP at all, nor should it trouble those who believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch.

** Or didn't know to be mythical. To assert that God first revealed Genesis at Mount Sinai is to assert that Moses left Egypt after quoting the mythical words of a mythical man that had not been revealed yet. That would mean that God created for Moses a mythology of Joseph that was in synch with what Moses had made up - he must have made it up if Joseph did not exist and God had not revealed his myth - for the Hebrews previously. Sorry, that makes very little sense to me.

*** Most JEDP scholars understand this perfectly well, which is why they deny the historicity of any of it. That option is not open to J. Field because he has already posited a real Moses, which presumes an historical Exodus.

Labels: bible

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How atheists see history

Labels: history

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Yes, I realize it's not *all* atheists

But it is a certain subsection, represented by those who create sites such as nobeliefs.com or those who carry stupid signs.

So just for fun (and because I'm tired of dealing with the end of the Civil War and with Reconstruction) here's why the line graph above is simply propaganda, rather than a serious argument about anything.

1. It lacks definition. The left side purports to measure "Scientific Progress," yet before modern times (or at least the rise of modern science) there was no such thing. Yes, there was learning about the physical world, but it was not systematized and there was no "philosophy of science" whatsoever. One could, of course, substitute "Cultural Advancement" or "Cumulative Knowledge" in its place, but that just wouldn't be as fun, would it? It would also be fatally subjective.

2. It lacks measurement. Note that while the bottom axis is deliniated by years, the left axis is unnumerated. In other words, though the lines go up and down, they do not measure anything*

3. It lacks historical accuracy. There was no smooth transition, for example, from Egypt to Greece. At the point (ca 700bc) where Greece seemingly takes the knowledge baton from Egypt, Greece was itself arising from the Greek Dark Ages, a 300-500 year period of reduced culture, writing, and learning that followed the collapse of the Mycenaean culture ca 1200bc**. A dark age is, in fact, a normal and oft-repeated cultural stage that follows the inward collapse of any major culture so long as it is not immediately subsumed into one bigger. Ask the Olmecs, if you can find any.

4. It uses misleading nomenclature. It was not smelly, hairy Christians who crossed the Rhine on Christmas of 406 and ripped pagan Rome asunder, but rather smelly, hairy Suebi, Vandal, Alani, and Burgundian pagans who fled the pagan Huns into Christian Rome. The fall of Rome was not "Christian," nor was the Dark Age that followed. The collapse was so total because those pagans, uncultured and unlearned, destroyed what was left of Rome and there was no nearby civilization strong enough to pick up the pieces.

In 500, Europe was anything but Christian - in fact, it is arguable that Ireland, always outside the Roman sphere, was the only Christian nation in the West. England was pagan but for the Welsh clinging to its West coast. The areas under the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Alans were pagan and unlettered. Only Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and a center of Greek learning, was still Christian. It would be a full 5 centuries before Western Europe was Christianized again and longer before it was at peace sufficient for learning to be institutionalized. And they still had the Vikings to deal with.

5. It uses misleading lines (I). Each of the lines (cultures) shows an upward trend until a large downward break in 410/476. In fact, rather than Greece "rising" until ca 100bc, its Golden Age, under Plato, Socrates, and Alexander was 2-3 centuries in the past. Same with Rome, as its Golden Age (under the Five Good Emperors) occurred 200 years before Alaric precipitated Rome's final fall. The height of Roman oratory was reached a half millennium before the fall, with Caesar and Cicero flourishing in the first century BC. Its Republican government had all but died in the civil wars of Sulla and Marius in the prior century. There was no rise into Rome's fall; it had been in a multi-century meltdown when the last Emperor was forcibly retired.

6. It uses misleading lines (II). To propose that the period of 500-1500 was flat displays an incredible historical ignorance. In spite of the fact that Europe was a swirling couldron of unwashed barbarism for much of that time, learning continued in the unlikeliest of places. The monastics, clinging to rocks off the coast of Ireland or huddled in the mountains of Switzerland, preserved and improved horticulture, metallurgy, and other sciences, but most importantly, they preserved Greek and Latin, copying the classics and eventually teaching the whole continent to read again. By the 12th Century, European universities were being founded. By the 13th, Christian friar Roger Bacon was founding the modern scientific method. By the 14th, Christian friar William of Ockham was sharpening his razor. By the time the line on this chart starts to shoot up again, scholastics had already reinterpreted and improved Aristotle's works, created motion sciences, applied mathematics to nature, and in short, founded modern science. This even with the Black Death knocking off half the population of Europe.

To place 1400 on the same technical, cultural, or scientific level as 500 is simply ignorant. To call the whole period a "Christian Dark Age" is simply dishonest: the Christians were not only the only ones who knew anything, they were the only ones learning, teaching, or reading anything. Might as well blame your car crash on the ambulance driver when he shows up.

7. It assumes historical determinism. To propose what the world would be like if Rome never fell is the stuff of pulp novels; no one knows what "would have happened." But to assert that has there been no "Christian Dark Ages***" Rome would have shot directly into the Renniassance is foolish. Rome was a culture based on stasis - civilization meant doing well what those before you had done. In all probability never by itself would it have scaled that height - after all, it had 1174 years to do so and did not.

Had there never been any Christ or Christians, Rome still would have fallen - its fall was economic, political, and demographic, not religious. But had there been no Christians - no Bedes, no Bacons, no Alcuins, no Newtons - there would have been no one with the ability or the resources to pick it back up.

In short, the "hole" doesn't exist because the story in which it plays such a prominent role is fiction, not history. It is but political propaganda, and silly propaganda at that. Only someone who purports to believe nothing could believe something so foolish.

* other than the preconceived notions of the chart's creator.

** Doubtless this was caused by Moses leaving Egypt or something.

*** Read: no Christians.

Labels: history, science

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Wait! There's one now!

BLITZER: What is a "rich person," Senator Edwards?

EDWARDS: I don't know if I know what a rich person is.

Labels: democrats

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Dr. Paul on The Daily Show

(hat tip: Garling Gauge)

Labels: republicans

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I understand the temptation

As much as it pains me, I'm going to defend religious liberals, a little:

Both Judaism and Christianity assumed that the Pentateuch -- the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) were written by Moses, as the Bible itself states. However, in recent centuries, alternative authorship has been proposed. The documentary hypothesis is now accepted by essentially all mainline and liberal theologians.

I hate JEPD, just hate it. In short, JEPD is the theory of authorship under which Moses was not written by Moses, but by a handful of others over the centuries whose handiwork we can "discover" by careful analysis of the scriptures. A duplicate verse here, a different name for God there, and pretty soon we have an hypothesis* that Moses is not necessary at all. And it's not just the OT. The NT has its own hypothetical** documents with "Q" being the most famous example. It seems that any time there seems an insoluble problem in discovering documentary relationships, there's some liberal theologian willing to make up a source to save the day.

After tonight, I'm a liberal. Oh, the humanity!

It actually has nothing to do with the Bible but with Nennius, that psychotic 9th Century Welsh historian whom it seems to be my fate to follow. And the story goes something like this...

I mentioned earlier today on Joel's blog that I ordered a copy of the Venerable One's Historia Ecclesiastica last week. It arrived today. And though I'd been thru my online version, having a deadwood edition really allows one to focus the study, right? Right. Anyway, tonight I'm trying to decipher to what extent Nennius relied on Bede in his sections covering Roman Britain. That ought to be easy enough: Bede wrote a century before Nennius, so anywhere they agree, Nennius copied from Bede***. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Problem multiplied.

The Problem is essentially this:

a) From Caesar to about 400ad, Bede covers these subjects: Caesar, Claudius, Lucius, Severus, Diocletian, Alban, Arius, Maximus, Pelagius.

b) In the same period, Nennius covers Ceasar, Claudius, Lucius, Severus, Carausius, Constantius, Maximanus, Maximus.

c) In the areas they both cover (Caesar, Claudius, Lucius, Severus, Maximus) their facts are nearly identical.

d) The areas Bede covers that Nennius does not (Diocletian, Alban, Arius, Pelagius) are primarily religious (persecutions, heresies, etc.)

e) The areas Nennius covers that Bede does not (Carausius and Constantius) are purely secular (not to mention of questionable historicity).

So here's the ish: Nennius obviously copied Bede in certain areas, because Bede wrote first and their words (the subjects covered and the way they are covered) are for the most part identical. But Nennius didn't copy Bede in areas where he ought to have, like the Pelagian Heresy, which was addressed in Bede by the very Saint Germain who gets 3 later chapters in Nennius with nary a mention of the very heresy that brought him to Britain.

So
a) why doesn't Nennius copy Bede in those sections, and
b) Where does Bede get his information, since the Angles (and Bede is English) don't arrive until long after all this happens?

And I found myself proposing a hitherto-undiscovered British source to explain it, one that covered political but not Church events (e.g. Caesar's invasion, Severus' wall) that was used both by Bede and by Nennius. There is no documentary evidence that it exists, yet only it can explain why Nennius seems to follow Bede politically but not religiously even though Nennius obviously had an interest in things religious.

And in doing so, I'm right in the camp of religious liberals, who seek to explain exactly the same types of "problems" in the scriptures by proposing documents for which there is not a shred of actual documentary evidence.

So I can see where they are coming from. Truly, I can. Their Documentary Hypothesis, which seems to undermine the integrity of Moses' writing and the writings of Luke and Matthew, turns into a necessity as soon as one wishes to explain the sources of the information they have.

But rather than making me a religious liberal, it has caused me to rare back on what the "obvious" solution is, a hypothetical document and with that a process that caused it to come into being. Because I think they are wrong, I find myself doubting that I am correct when I do the same thing to comprehend a similar issue. In short, it's too easy a solution.

But I do understand them now. Not agree with, not at all. But perhaps I am a little less critical of their motives. Isn't that itself a worthwhile outcome?

* I think there's a better answer - at least for Genesis - that being the Table Theory.

** "hypothetical" being the operative word here. There is not a shred of documentary evidence that any of these exist, yet scholars spill barrels of ink agruing over their most mundasne details and they are accepted as fact in most press accounts.

*** The parallels with the Synoptic Problem ought to be obvious, but if they're not, they'll have to wait for another day.

Labels: bible

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I'd almost pay money to go in

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Senators Doddering

That other guy from Connecticut explains why he should not be President:

BLITZER: Thank you, Senator, but the question is: What would you do right now to reduce the price of gasoline?

DODD: Well, what we've offered already, in fact, and that is, of course, we ought to be saying here that when the price of a barrel of oil gets beyond $40 a barrel, where there's plenty of profit here, that those dollars ought to be returned to the consumers in a rebate or plowed back into the research that would allow us to develop alternative technologies.

But the real way to get away from this here, our dependency on that kind of fuel is causing us serious problems across the board. So it isn't just a price of fuel issue here, it's also depending upon polluting technologies that are going to cost us so much..

To be honest, I just left that last paragraph in there because it makes no sense whatsoever. All the key words are there, but I just can't manage to figure out what he's saying or promoting. Whenever I read something like that, I'm sure somebody here is a doddering old man, and I'm always just a little afraid it's me.

But his answer in the first paragraph is of interest: If we want to lower the price of gasoline, we'll just take all the money over $40 a barrel and give it away. Make no mistake, it's a price cap, because no one is going to set a price where they just give it all to the government. The price of oil will be, in the US, $40. It's also an incredibly stupid price cap, because we depend on the largess of foreigners to fill our gas tanks. How full are those tanks going to be when we offer $40 a barrel for oil and the Chinese offer (as of today) $63. That Dodd believes that he has the power to set the price of oil, a worldwide market, by simply passing a law proves that he should be kept as far from laws as possible. And from anything more complicated than a screwdriver.

There are, of course, two correct answers to Blitzer's question, and I do note that the Senator* who followed Dodd got one of them: "There's nothing I would do as president to lower the price of gasoline right now." He was also honest enough to admit that the "carbon tax" that all the other Dems were throwing around would raise the price of gas. Of course it would. But all that said, "nothing" is a perfectly valid answer to what the president ought to do**. He just gets half credit because that's not really his answer: he would not lower it because he thinks it ought to be higher.

And so, in reality, do the rest of them, the doddering evasions of the other senators notwithstanding.

* At least I think he's a senator. I never heard of the guy before last night.

** The other valid answer, of course , is to reduce prices by strengthening the dollar. That would probably be the only solution, if by solution we mean that oil prices actually drop. The rest of the Democrat answers are simply schemes to put more money in the pockets of government.

Labels: democrats

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t0rbad> so there i was in this hallway right
BlackAdder> i believe i speak for all of us when i say...
BlackAdder> WRONG BTICH
BlackAdder> IM SICK OF YOU
BlackAdder> AND YOUR LAME STORIES
BlackAdder> NOBODY HERE THINKS YOURE FUNNY
BlackAdder> NOBODY HERE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR STORIES
BlackAdder> IN FACT
BlackAdder> IF YOU DIED RIGHT NOW
BlackAdder> I DON"T THINK NOBODY WOULD CARE
BlackAdder> SO WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT FAG
*** t0rbad sets mode: +b BlackAdder*!*@*.*
*** BlackAdder has been kicked by t0rbad ( )
t0rbad> so there i was in this hallway right
CRCError> right
heartless> Right.
r3v> right

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Sloppy, sloppy

CBS News makes a mess out of a piece of good news:

(CBS/AP) A man described as one of the world's most prolific spammers was arrested, and U.S. authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail.

Authorities say since 2003, Robert Alan Soloway, 27, has clogged millions of computers around the globe with billions of spam e-mails, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker. They charged him with 35 counts of fraud, identity theft and money laundering...

Prosecutors say Soloway used computers infected with malicious code to send out millions of junk e-mails since 2003. The computers are called "zombies" because owners typically have no idea their machines have been infected.

Well which is it, millions or billions? Of course, it's possible that CBS doesn't know, but they could at least use hyperbole consistently. After all, there are only 3 orders of magnitude separating 2 itertions of pretty much the same sentence.

And just because I'm in a nitpicky mood* tonight, I'll also point out that infected computers are not called zombies because of the ignorance of their owners any more than vampires are called undead because they can turn into bats. Maybe they can, but that's not how they got the name. Infected computers are called zombies or "bots" because they are at least in part under remote control of a person other than their primary owner - that doesn't change based on whether their owners know of the infection or not.

I do wonder about the use of identity theft statutes to prosecute this guy, but not having read the brief or the law I'll not say more about that. I'll just be happy that my inbox may see a marked decrease in garbage emails.

* Though I wouldn't even have picked on it were it not for CBS News using such objective descriptions as "ritzy apartment" and "expensive Mercedes" elsewhere in the article.

Labels: technology

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Prooftexting

"The Bible Stands Against Alcohol," so I read. And while the exposition seems to be written by someone for whom English is a second language*, the idea is clear enough: the Bible is always and everywhere against drinking it.

Those who know me are probably not surprised I disagree. In fact, I just poured myself a tall cold rum and Coke and settled in for a good Friday night reading session. What better subject to write on than this one**? Now what annoys me is not that someone disagrees with me - I'm more than happy when people do, because in opposition I find inspiration for cogitation - but that they believe, as too many do, that by flinging a bunch of verses, out of context, at a subject, they can discover and deliver everything God says about that subject.

In fact there are quite a few such verses on the list, and at the risk of boring my most faithful readers, whom I truly adore and appreciate for their ability to put up with my bizarre obsession with things biblical, I'd like to lay a few of them out. The purpose of this is not to "prove" the writer wrong as if this were a competition, but rather is to illustrate a dangerous habit of the lazy and uninformed Christian: prooftexting, throwing out a sentence from the scriptures while completely ignoring the context, subject, object, and audience, and presuming all those while pretending that this sentence is an absolute command for everyone everywhere. You'll see what I mean when I get to them.

Here's a caveat, however: I'm going to pick on the easiest ones. And the reason for that is not that they are simple to defeat, but that they best illustrate the dangers of prooftexting, the main one being that you are liable to have your lunch handed to you by anyone who actually bothers to look the verses up. Because some of my best friends are Jewish (and you know who you are) I'll be sure to include a number of Tanakh texts, though to their credit Jews - and Catholics - tend to be a lot more reasonable*** about the subject at issue.

So anyway, here goes. You'll be able to check whether I'm being honest with the page by clicking thru, but if you don't, then believe me that I am reproducing the verses exactly as they are presented. I will cut a few of them short in the interest of space, but please believe that I am trying to be fair with the writer. First up is the first verse:

There is nothing from outside of the man, that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear."
- Mark 7:15-16

I don't know if I'm more astonished or aghast that this verse leads the charge. Truly. Because this set of verses has nothing to do with alcohol, but is actually a response of Jesus to Pharisaical criticism of his disciples' slovenliness. They were criticized for not washing their hands, to which Jesus replied that it was not a religious offense. Things going into you do not defile you (make you unholy or unclean), but things - by this he means words and actions - that come out of you. Can we apply this to alcohol? I think we can, but not in the way the writer assumes.

...for he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine nor strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb - (Luke 1:15)

Exercise for the student: What is the first question to ask when one is presented with a verse like this? As the Irish scholastics would reply, "Not hard." The first question, "Who is 'he'?" And the first part of the answer is, "John the Baptist." The second part is, "no one else." That John the Baptist would never drink does not mean that no one else will ever drink, which we will illustrate by skipping forward a few verses:

For John the Baptizer came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard; a friend of tax collectors and sinners'
- Luke 7:33-34

John didn't eat bread or drink wine; we know that from the angel's instruction to his parents and from Jesus' description immediately above. But what is Jesus saying? He is *contrasting* himself with John. I know this is a hard concept for some, but there's a certain parallelism here that we'll flesh out:

"John came eating no bread/the Son of Man came eating." What have we here? A contrast. John ate no bread - that was part of his gig, which to be honest was to illustrate to the Israelites that appearances didn't matter, they would reject both John and Jesus. But what did Jesus do in contrast? He ate bread. So far so good, because no one seems to be against bread.

Now, "John came drinking no wine/the Son of Man came drinking." I'll let the reader work out the contrast there, in full consideration of the specific charge leveled at Jesus. And I should not be surprised if he reaches the conclusion that the passage teaches the opposite of "The Bible stands against alcohol."

By this point, the Chosen People are feeling left out, so let's jump back to Proverbs 31:4-7. We've all heard of a "Proverbs 31 Woman." Let's talk about a Proverbs 31 King:

...it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes to say, 'Where is strong drink?' lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the justice due to anyone who is afflicted.

Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish; and wine to the bitter in soul: Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

I've separated the 2 parts into 2 parts because here we again have a contrast. It is not for whom to drink wine and why? It is not FOR KINGS to drink so they don't PERVERT JUSTICE. This is a perfectly good, if restrained, limitation on the use of alcohol. None of us would want to be tried for a crime before a judge who had been drinking. If we want to expand it, we might reasonably say that drinking at work is not a good idea for anyone. The same principle applies to another verse from the list, Lev. 10:9 ("Drink no wine nor strong drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the Tent of Meeting..."). It was a command to the priests to not drink while performing their vocation. Good advice, that.

But, but, but, there's another verse, because there are some who SHOULD drink. Who? The dying and the bitter, the frustrated and the poor. Drink can bring forgetfulness or at least release from the chains of the now, and here we have a command that some should be given drink for the very release which drink brings. While remembering that the purpose of a proverb is to state a truth rather than give a command, it is still difficult to conclude that this verse makes the Bible stand against all alcohol always and everywhere. For at least some, drinking is an acceptable escape.

Sticking with the OT, we find an interesting quote in the Law of Moses:

Then shall he that offereth his offering unto the LORD bring a meat offering of a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of oil. And the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering shalt thou prepare with the burnt offering or sacrifice, for one lamb.
- Numbers 15:4-5

How this is to be constued against alcohol I don't know, because we can conclude that the Hebrews were commanded to produce wine, if only for sacrifice to God. But there is an interesting command (Deu. 14:24-26) that goes with that and which applies to people for whom the traditional place of sacrifice was to be made was too far away:

And if the way be too long for you...Then you shall turn (your sacrifice) into money...And you shall spend that money on whatever your heart desires, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink...and you shall eat there before the LORD your God, and you and your family shall rejoice."

So not only could you sell your sacrifice for money, but you could buy Captain Morgan with it and have a celebration. It's again hard to see how this is "against alcohol." But it is easy to see how the Bible is for rejoicing.

One final one, from Proverbs again (Chapter 4) and we'll let it go. This one illustrates the biblical limitations on wine and why the Prohibitionist is incorrect in his biblical argument:

Don't be among ones drinking too much wine, or those who gorge themselves on meat: for the drunkard and the glutton shall become poor; and drowsiness clothes them in rags.

Here we have a parallel, those who drink "too much wine" and those who "gorge themselves on meat." Must the Christian be a vegetarian because of this verse? I have never seen anyone promote it as such. So then does the problem not lie in "too much" rather than the thing there is too much of? The Christian is to be just as concerned with gluttony as alcoholism, and the minute he speaks out about overeating in a church full of fatassed Americans, that minute he can be taken seriously for using this verse against alcohol.

But what about positive verses? All we've done here is shown that the verses presented against alcohol are not against it per se but against inappropriate or excessive drinking. Isn't there some positive? I believe there is****: Gen 14:18-20. It occurs immediately after Abraham rescues Lot from the four kings (bandits) who have captured him. On his way home, Abe is met by Melchizedek- whose ministry Jesus' is favorably compared to in the Book of Hebrews (Chap. 5). An interesting thing happens:

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And Melchizedek blessed Abram, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which has delivered your enemies into your hand."

Here we have a priest of God, meeting with a man of God, to celebrate an act of God, and what do they drink?

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

The point is that a long list of verses, devoid of both thought and context, may shock and awe, but they do not a good argument make. One can make a decent argument against drinking on the part of the Christian - though it's obviously one with which I disagree - but one cannot truly make a good biblical argument for *anything* unless one is willing to respect and explain the context, who is being spoken to by whom under what conditions and why. If that still supports one's argument, then great. In this case context, IMO, not only defeats the argument but shows the Christian making it to be both lazy and ignorant.

* This is not a cheap shot. Read the page. I simply do not know what "here are quite a few biblical references where it states it as test of the nation" means, if anything.

** NO! I'm done with housing I tell you, done.

*** Whether it's because they know they know less and therefore speak less I don't know. Baptists on the other hand (and I are one) tend to know less and speak more. It's apparently an occupational hazard of knowing ahead of time that everyone else is wrong.

**** Actually I believe there are a large number, but this one will have to suffice.

Labels: bible, christianity

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