TRON: Legacy Review

I really liked the movie. Go see it.

I will do a more detailed review soon.

That is all.

More on DREAM Act

In my last post, I said that you need to call your Senators and tell them to vote against the DREAM Act.

I just realized the most important thing to say in such a call: "this is a more important issue to me than keeping the Bush tax rates."

Make certain your Senators know how high a priority this particular issue is.

By the way, if your Senator is one of these:

ARKANSAS
Sen. Pryor (D)

FLORIDA
Sen. LeMieux (R)

MAINE
Sen. Collins (R)
Sen. Snowe (R)

MASSACHUSETTS
Sen. Brown (R)

NEBRASKA
Sen. Nelson (D)

NORTH CAROLINA
Sen. Hagan (D)

then they have already been converted to a "NO" vote. IF you call them, do it to thank them, not to harangue them on how to vote.

That is all.

Just Say "NO!" to DREAM Act

Remember to call your Senators and Representatives and to tell them to vote "NO!" on the DREAM Act amnesty.

Also, consider signing up for NumbersUSA action alerts, and to send free faxes to your elected officials.

That is all.

I Hate Exxon Mobil

Recently I got a Mobil credit card because it offered a $50 restaurant.com dining certificate (and a second if I bought more than 100 gallons of gas), figuring that I could use it to get some restaurant gift cards.

It turns out that all the gift card can be used to do is to purchase coupons that have tons of restrictions on them.

The dirty S.O.B.s got me to get their credit card by offering me something worthless. "Fill your plate," indeed.

While the offer I am sure does not meet the legal definition of fraud, it is morally dishonest to call it a "fill your plate" offer, as if what they were offering was free gift cards rather than, in essence, free coupons.

I have decided not to buy any more gas from Mobil and to boycott even their convenience stores to the extent it is possible to do so.

And I have decided to complain about it online, beccuse I have not seen anyone else do it yet.

At least all I lost was about 400 points on my Sears Citibank Mastercard (by not buying gas using it instead of the Mobil card - I got about 66 gallons before I realized how useless to me the gift card was).

That is all.

Thought on Joe Miller

As he has truly been surpassed in votes by Murkowski, and the only possible way for him to get elected is to get her ballots disqualified on technicalities of spelling (and apparently now even that will not be enough), he should concede and get on with it. Even if he would make a better Senator than she would, prolonging the recount process is not going to accomplish anything, and even if he were to prevent her from being seated on time (a la Franken), it won't really politically benefit the GOP, so there is not even a cynical partisan reason for him to hang on.

That is all.

"Paycheck Fairness" Act Fails - Good.

I think that the biggest problem with the so-called Paycheck Fairness Act is the one laid out by Attorney Lawrence Lorber:

what is going to happen is inevitably you will move toward a very rigid civil-service-like pay system, and there won't be any opportunity for significant merit-based raises... What you will have to do is assure that when you give increases you don't wind up with some sort of a pay differential, and you do that by not giving pay increases or by creating superficial promotions."

That is all.

Three Cheers for James Blunt

I never thought much of his singing, but if, as the BBC Reports, he was willing to defy General Insano's order to start World War III, then something is right with him in my book!

That is all.

Amazon vs. the TSA

Amazon recently removed a "how-to" guide for pedophiles from its elecronic book lists.

Of course, the easiset how-to book for getting away with pedophilic behavior need only contain one sentence:

"Become a Transportation Security Administration officer."

That is all.

Gay Rights-ers Real Goal: Destroy All Opposition

Christians are no longer allowed to adopt in Britain unless they surrender to secular humanist morality.

And notice the weasel words that Ben Summerskill uses to justify the policy:

"‘Many Christian parents of gay children will be shocked at Mr and Mrs Johns’s views, which are more redolent of the 19th century than the 21st.’"

Translation: Because we have got some Christians (or least soi disant Christians) to reject Biblical teaching on homosexuality, those doctrines are no longer to be considered part of Christianity. Moreover, the existence of non-traditional teachings invalidates the right to hold traditional teachings; a particular teaching cannot be considered part of your religion as long as we can get someone who claims to belong to your religion to reject it.

This sleight of hand happens frequently, when someone who criticizes a policy for violating their religious beliefs is pointed towards another person ostensibly of the same religion who supports the policy, as if that someone's belief invalidates everyone's who disagrees with him. It is as if freedom of religion only means freedom to identify as a particular creed rather than freedom to hold one's own particular beliefs.

Of course, I suppose that people who defend this policy will remind me that anyone who rejects the sexual revolution is automatically an oppressor and has no rights.

Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Lawrence Auster.

That is all.

The Austrian Concept of Inflationary Fed Policy in a Nutshell

A comment by "Wandarin" on one of Steve Sailer's posts:


"I'm confused by how this QE actually works in actual actuality"

Imagine a large hot-air balloon carrying a bunch of people with a gigantic hole in it. The person in charge of flying the balloon could:

a) Land, fix the hole, then take off again.
b) Keep firing the gas cannister thereby keeping the balloon in the air as long as possible before the gas runs out and the balloon suffers a catastrophic crash.

Now imagine the person in charge of the gas cannister:
a) Is responsible for the hole in the balloon and will be found out if the balloon lands.
b) Has a parachute
c) Gets money for every second the balloon stays in the air.


That is all.

Mike Adams on Anti-Bullying

I think that this article makes a decent point about the problems with the recent demand for more anti-bullying laws and/or policies on the heels of the Tyler Clementi suicide.

The major problem is that there is plenty of bullying going on against people with unpopular religious viewpoints (read: they don't endorse the sexual revolution) and many suspect that the gist of increases "anti-bullying" would simply be to increase bullying aginst the other side (because people who don't endorse the sexual revolution don't count, as Emily Nagoski reminds us).

That is all.

Paul Gottfried Defends Germany

I think that this article about Thilo Sarrazin by Paul Gottfried makes a compelling point about modern German politics; essentially, that there is a very trong element that wants German national suicide, under the pretext that anything else is a resurgence of Nazism.

Some of this may be due to paranoia directed at the Germans, but some of it I think is a willful spiteful decision to get rid of Germany in revenge for World War II.

It is high time that Germans learn to find a happy medium between ultranationalism and autoracism (hatred of one's own race), and at some point some of the laws designed to prevent a return to Nazism need to be reviewed in order to make certain that they didn't go too far in the other direction towards making self-annihilation mandatory. At the very least it needs to be realized that the proportion of the population that was exposed to Nazism is rapidly dying off from age. And, if they are going to hav laws against anything that smacks of Nazism, they should at the very least do the same thing with communism; it could be justified as a way of deprogramming those Germans from the eastern section.

That is all.

Pastors and Politics

(Be warned: if you click on the link, the comments on the page contain sound files that start playing automatically).

Doug Giles has an interesting article about what makes pastors lack boldness on social, cultural, and political issues in our climate, regardless of how much these issues impact church issues.

I think it's a good read, although I cannot agree with everything he says, and for this sort of article the Jonah Goldberg-esque cultural references are inappropriate.

That is all.

Tom Tancredo for Colorado

Dear Readers,

There is an excellent opportunity to support a candidate who is good on immigration and to get a Constitution Party candidate elected to the most prominent office yet!

Please, if you have any extra cash donate to Tom Tancredo's campaign!

-Glaivester

That is all.

Thoughts on Gays in the Military

It's finally occurred to me why leftists don't see any potential problems from having homosexuals in close quarters with other people of the same sex, including bunking together, showering together, etc., even when they are okay with segregating women and men in those situations.

It's because they are so convinced of the fundamental justice of letting gays serve openly, that any problems that may arise cannot possibly exist, because that would deny fundamental justice.

They are also so opposed to the idea of stereotyping gay men as predators that they cannot conceive of gay men acting inappropriately; any policy which would tend to protect people from a gay man who acts inappropriately is therefore unjust, and to be concerned about a homosexual the same way you would about a heterosexual automatically becomes homophobia; in effect, the lack of a double standard that favors homosexual men is considered to be discrimination.

In effect, of course, we are being told that homosexuals are more sexually enlightened than heterosexuals.

After I commented on this issue on a recent post by Thoreau on Unqualified Offerings, typical leftist joe from Lowell had a hissy fit, suggesting that I was "projeccting my own issues," that "Operating in an all-male environment where some of the men are gay is... no different from being around any other men," and overall suggesting that sexuality is not why we segregate men and women in certain situations.

Commenter Professor Coldheart was slightly more honest, in that he said that the results of putting homosexual men in close quarters with other men would be that: gay men who serve in close quarters with straight men will do the same thing they’ve done for the last ten thousand years of human history. They’ll either keep it under control, or they’ll make a pass at a guy, or they’ll find a quiet spot behind the HummVee for a combat jack. And somehow the Empire will abide.

The not-so-subtle implication here is that men who would be uncomfortable with another man making a pass at them should get over it - or put more bluntly, that we should tolerate sexual harassment if the harasser is gay.

And that is ultimately what will happen, I think. People keep telling us that homosexuals in the military hasn't been a problem for other countries, but considering how hard the government has tried to suppress information regarding the problems of putting women in certain military situations (i.e. not publicizing the number of women who are absent from ships due to pregnancy) and how little actual debate there is over issues such as the fact that certain requirements are being re-defined to accomodate women (i.e. stretchers are not operated by four rather than two people, because most women are too weak to operate half of a stretcher), and how there were attempts to present the Jessica Lynch story in a way to make women in combat seem more palatable, who here thinks that any problems that gays in the military might cause would not be suppressed, both by the countries which already instituted the rule (which are more into egalitarian fundamentalism than we are) and by us in the future.

What Professor Coldheart implies, and what I think the military will do, is ultimately make an unofficial policy that anyone making any charge of a homosexual behaving inappropriately will be immediately labeled homophobic, and be punished for it. The effect of this will be that a certain amount of same-sex sexual harassment will be unofficially required to be tolerated, and any objections will be seen as bigotry. Anything that gets in the way of egalitarianism will be crushed, and concerns about harassment will be swept aside the same way that they were largely swept aside by feminists when it came to Bill Clinton.

That is all.

Short Manifesto

It has come to my attention in recent years that many of the problems facing the U.S. are not the result of well-meaning fools; rather they are the deliberate result of a hostile elite class whose goal is the destruction of traditional society and the delegitimization of all traditional institutions, and indeed the destruction of the historical American peoples. These devastations are to be replaced with a semblance of radical individualism (not in terms of individual liberty but in terms of a lack of restraining social mores), the equalization of all forms of relationships, and the importation of hostile alien populations.

In the end, the destruction of the institutions by which society is formed will lead to the functions of such institutions being taken over by the state; where social mores restrained behavior now we will only have force of law. No distinction will remain between personal morality and criminal/civil law, as all moral objections to things which are not expressly prohibited by law will be effectively banned.

The most potent weapon I think that conservatives now have in their arsenal is contempt. The first step to confronting the enemy is to realize that he is the enemy. He* certainly sees us as such, and so we should not believe that we can make him friendly. We can certainly behave civilly towards him when the situation warrants, and when confronted with new people who are on the other side, we can give them the benefit of the doubt. But once a person sides with the enemy, and explicitly sees us as the enemy, we must not make the mistake of seeing him as a possible friend.

If someone announces that they have no interest in the preservation of traditional American society, they should be denounced. Any claims that we are being racist or intolerant should be met with "if you want to do away with my society, why should I care about your feelings?"

Above all, we need to realize that we are defenders; we are the ones who have been attacked. We are reacting to an attempt to delegitimize and to destroy us, and we should not have to apologize for that.

That is all.

*I use "he" here as a generic personification of all leftism, not aimed at the gender of the writer of the particular piece I am referencing.

Naked Leftism

Checking out Alas, I came to this piece.

I think it is very instructive in understanding the leftist mindset, and why the supposed beacons of "tolerance" are so willing and eager to try to destroy all dissent. Does anyone doubt that if this woman were in charge, being an evangelical Christian would be criminalized and all who dissented would be sent to re-education camps?

Q. When does a liberal believe in tolerance?

A. When he isn't the one in power.

That is all.

Holland, Stop Prosecuting Geert Wilders!

Randall Parker and Dennis Mangan take the Netherlands to task for their persecution prosecution of someone for simply standing up for his own country against incompatible invaders.

That is all.

On Joseph Sobran's Death

I think the best way to remember Mr. Sobran (whom I know only from reading his writings - I never had any contact with the man) is to remember some good quotes from him. To the extent that he contributed to my political development, it was through the use of one-liners that summed up principles I believed in but had never been able to express so succinctly. He could get to the heart of issues in a way that allowed me to describe and defend my worldview from some of hte more vexing attacks. So here are a few that I remember:

"I’ve always believed there’s really no such thing as a double standard. When people appear to apply a double standard, it means they are actually applying a hidden single standard — one they don’t want to admit."

"I guess the label that suits me best is reactionary utopian. I want to go back to a better world that never quite existed." (This one is especially apt, because it allows a conservative to admit that he thinks we have lost something that we need to get back without having to fight the old "the good old days weren't perfect!" retort).

(from the same article as linked above) "You know you’re politically homeless when you go to a John Birch Society dinner and you feel you’re surrounded by well-meaning liberals. "

"Notice that the Tenth Amendment is one of the few passages in the Constitution in which the Federal judiciary hasn’t discovered reservoirs of penumbras and emanations. I wonder why."

(btw, yes, I am aware of some of the more - unsavory aspects of Mr. Sobran's writings - but now is not the time to dwell on them).

That is all.

New Link

Due to a request, I am now putting "Satellite News," a blog concerned largely with issuess relating to artificial satellites, on my blogroll.

That is all.

NO AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS! STOP THE DREAM ACT!

Lawrence Auster has a post on how to contact your Senators to tell them to block Harry Reid's attempt to put the DREAM Act into the Defense Reauthorization bill, as well as comments on why the DREAM Act is a terrible and dangerous bill.

Click here to read about it and to find out what to do.

I would connect you to the NumbersUSA site, but their pages appear to be having difficulties loading. I am presuming that this is because of increased traffic, which I think is a very good sign.

That is all.

Christine O'Donnell

Although I haven't heard much from her recently, I do remember watching Christine O'Donnell on Bill Maher's old program on ABC.

While I was never impressed overly much by her, I do think that anyone who can make Karl Rove blow a fuse is worth something.

The "dabbling in witchcraft" thing should, I think, blow over. O'Donnell has long since repudiated witchcraft and is an evangelical Christian, so I have a hard time believing that her previous experiences are going to turn off conservative Christian voters once it is clear to them that she has been redeemed from her past sins. The whole point of her "dabbling in witchcraft" comment was to indicate that she recognized that it was a bad thing and now avoids these things.

As for Rove, his big problem is that whatever his reservations about her were during the primary, to continue to harp on her deficiencies after her nomination is counter-productive. He seems almost determined to make certain that she loses because she beat the guy he wanted in, and that is bad sportsmanship. I saw Bill Kristol on a Fox News show, and his treatment was far more savvy, admitting to her problems, and that he would have voted for Castle as more electable, but then saying that she actually had a much better chance than we have been told and stating that he would support her in the general election no question.

Not that I mind Karl Rove criticizing the nominee; but if he does, it should be for substantive issues of policy that he wants her to change her position on, or, if he does want her to lose, it should be because of severe policy differences that make him prefer the Democrat. What makes Rove's treatment of her so bad is the fact that (a) it is not as if he has huge policy disagreements, and (b) it seems more driven by resentment over her defeating Castle than over a concern about her performance were she to be elected. His attitude seems to be "I said she was unelectable, and by God, I will make certain that if nominated she WILL be unelectable!"

That is all.

Florida 2000 Blog Postings by Nick Stix

Here,
here, and here are some really great articles about the misrepresentations that some leftists have made about the 2000 election problems in Florida.

That is all.

Quote for the Day:

If a woman walking around a locker room full of naked men isn’t sexual harassment, then the term means nothing more than yet another feminist power play.

- Nicholas Stix on the Ines Sainz "scandal"

That is all.

Thought on Liberalism and Islam

It has occurred to me that regardless of one's thoughts about Islam specifically, there is something strange in the liberal conviction that all religions can be "domesticated" to be liberal-friendly. One underlying current of all the talk about "Islamophobia" is the idea that "true Islam" is perfetly compatible with liberalism because in the end, all religion is the same, except for the extremists.

People who make the claim that all religious beliefs are the same, or that they all say pretty much the same thing, actually reveal that they have no respect for religion at all. In the end, they believe in secualr humanism, believe that it is so obvious that secular humanism is correct that everyone, deep down, really believes in that (or at least all people of goodwill), and that all religions ultimately boil down to secular humanism, and that what the official doctrines say really don't matter.

In short, most people who worry about "Islamophobia" do not take religion seriously (not just that they disbelieve the doctrines, they reject the notion that those doctrines have any real importance to those who believe in them), and therefore the concept that religious beliefs can be dangerous (as opposed to only extremists on any belief being dangerous) is foreign to them.

In the end, a lot of people assume that people of faith are no different than, e.g., Star Trek convention-goers, and therefore that differences in religious doctrine, rather than representing different beliefs about objective reality, are nothing more significant than opinions over whether or not the tie-in novels should be considered canon.

That is all.

New Link

I have just added a link to my blogroll to the blog "Today World News," a blog that contains interesting new stories from around the world. It isn't anything particularly political, it seems, but rather a nice aggregator if you are looking for interesting random stories of the day.

That is all.

New Book on Women in War

It has occurred to me that one problem that conservatives have in the culture war is that the leftists have most of the resources devoted to supporting their ideas on cultural issues, e.g. same-sex "marriage." One of the great things about the internet is that we can use it to find obscure sources that tell the other side of the story and then get the information that can be used to argue our case factually.

Kingsley Browne has an excellent tome, Co-ed Combat: The New Evidence That Women Shouldn't Fight the Nation's Wars, that I have recently discovered that explodes the myth that gender equality in fighting war is beneficial. It not only uses thought experiments, but actually presents evidence that disproves the assertions of the other side, cites specific cases where gender integration has caused problems, and points out how evidence that goes against the idea of gender equality is systematically pushed under the rug.

Click on the link above and buy a copy from Amazon, and support Glaivester with a referral fee!

That is all.

Shirley Sherrod vs Rodney King

A reader at VDARE points out that the famous Rodney King tape was more heavily edited than the Shirley Sherrod recording. But we aren't supposed to remember that fact, are we?

That is all.

Whites are Always Evil

When a white man kills immigrants, we are supposed to blame anti-illegal immigration rhetoric:

Hate Crimes Tied to Immigration Debate?
Subtitle: Civil Rights Group Says Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Driving Increase in Hate Crimes

When a black man kills white people, we are supposed to focus on white racism.

Conn. Gunman: 'I Wish I Could Have Killed More People'
Subtitle: Girlfriend of Connecticut Gunman Who Killed 9: Racial Harassment 'Would Make Somebody Go Crazy'

More from Steve Sailer:

Did the Hartford Massacre victims have it coming?
More Pavlovian News Analysis
Breaking News!

from Lawrence Auster:

The Big Lie, in its efflorescence
Eight whites murdered for their “racism” at Connecticut beer distributorship

from Dennis Mangan:

The Media's Anti-White Agenda

from Nicholas Stix:

Family: Racism caused Conn. gunman to snap

That is all.

Shirley Sherrod

First of all, I should say that I am appalled by the use of a selectively edited recording to impugn Ms. Sherrod's character. Racial McCarthyism is racial McCarthyism, and what was done to her was wrong, and to the extent that Mr. Breitbart's involvement in this involved a reckless disregard for the truth or worse, involved delberatley misleading people, he shuld be held in contempt.

Having said that, James Fulford has an interesting article on VDARE where he points out that Ms. Sherrod still is not exactly an unobjectionable figure, even if we have no reason to believe her to be racist.

I also think that his assertion that Breitbart should, under the liberal interpretation of the Constitution, be immunized from libel suits is a very good starting point to discuss the limits of free speech as it relates to relaying deliberately false information, or of information that was deliberately underchecked.

None of which i to say that she should have been let go for the statement she made, or for that matter for any radical political views she might be accused of having; as long as the job is civil service rather than appointed, her political views do not make firing her on false pretenses any more justifiable, nor should she be fired for her views (in the latter case, it would be different if she were a political appointee, e.g. secretary of HUD).

But the idea that she is not radical or objectionable at all may not stand up to close scrutiny.

That is all.

Let's Play a Game

The next time that Lawrence Auster has a post about Alt Right or that Dennis Mangan has a post about Jewish influence on American politics, how long do you think it will be before the other posts a response? I say six hours.

That is all.

Is Jewish Hypocrisy vis a vis Israel and the U.S. Really that Prevalent?

Recently, Dennis Mangan put up a post decrying a Jewish writer who said that Israel really didn't want friends who were nationalists. That is, who supported the right of their own nations to exist rather than just supporting Israel's.

This brought up an issue which is becoming somewhat bigger on the paleo, nationalist, and white nationalist right. Are Jews mostly hypocrites who want one standard for Israel and another for Gentile countries?

While it certainly is a convenient stand to take, and while blaming the decline of white America on Jewish perfidy creates an easy target, I think that the case for this is weaker than it may initially seem.

The problem is that while there are Jews who very strongly take Israel's side on any foreign policy issue, and Jews who very much want to disempower whites and replace them in order to multiculturalize every white country on the planet, they are by and large not the same Jews. Plenty of leftist Jews dislike Jewish Israel as much as they dislike white America and/or Europe. M.J. Rosenberg of TPMCafe comes to mind.

Anyone advocating a "one-state solution" where Israel would have to stop being a Jewish state is essentially wishing to do the same to Israel as the open borders crowd wants to do to the U.S.

And many of the more pro-Israel Jews are also very pro-U.S. Take Don Feder, for instance, who has described himself as "to the right of [Ariel] Sharon on Zionism, [and] to the right of Pat Buchanan on immigration and Americanism,"

The pro-Israel anti-white America (and Europe) position is taken largely by a small number of neocon or noeoliberal Jews. The reason why this has been picked up on as representative of Jewish hypocrisy in general is probably because paleoconservatism is, to a great extent, a reaction to neoconservatism. This has caused a much greeater focus on neoconservative positions than on the positions of any other sector of the political landscape. It has also caused a focus on non-neocons who take a position that is similar to that of the neocons on either Israel or the U.S., and assuyming essentially the neocon position on the other subject - or, alternately, combining each of the two positions (pro-Israel and anti-white America) one each espoused by two different Jewish people, and assuming a level of hypocrisy from that, as if both being Jewish meant that their opinions were, in essence, the opinion of one person.

In short, I think that the idea that Jewish positions are driven by different attitudes towards Israeli ethnic policy and U.S./European ethnic policy is not that applicable to most Jews.

That is all.

Obama Administration Tries to Stop Arizona from Punishing Illegal Immigrant Employers

So the Feds won't do the job, and now they are trying to stop anyone else from doing it?

I thought that punishing employers was what the liberals said we should be doing.

I especially liked this part:

A separate Arizona law penalizing employers of undocumented workers would "disrupt a careful balance that Congress struck" in the 1986 federal immigration act, the Justice Department told the court in a filing Friday.

What balance? There was an amnesty, and then no enforcement.

I also liked this part:

The Arizona law, passed in 2007, subjects employers to stiffer penalties than federal law and lacks safeguards that Congress provided against employment discrimination, government lawyers said.

Screw the antidiscrimination laws.

That is all.

The Problem with Gays in the Military - or, is Homosexuality More Enlightened than Heterosexuality?

*

A reader at VFR lays it out:

Congress is now moving to admit open homosexuals to the military. We're told that homosexuals are no more likely to engage in sexual misconduct or harassment than heterosexuals. That's debatable, but so what? Heterosexual men in the military don't bunk down and shower with the women. But homosexual men will indeed bunk down and shower with the other males if Obama gets his way. Ditto for lesbians and the other females. There would be universal outrage if heterosexual male soldiers demanded to shower with naked female soldiers, but naked male soldiers are expected to shower with homosexuals who might desire them. Female soldiers are expected to shower with lesbians.

And he sums it up in a way that no one ever has before (at least to my knowledge):

What we're being told, indirectly, is that homosexuality is a more enlightened form of sexuality... Heterosexuals can be barred from situations where sexually improper behavior might result, but homosexuals cannot. Indeed, they have a right not to be barred.

That is all.

Tax Striker vs. Illegal Immigration

Nicholas Stix at the VDARE blog has a good point.

Every single argument that is used against immigration enforcement can also be used against paying income taxes. Likewise, people who seem to insist that deportation should be treated under criminal justice presumptions rather than civil ones (that is, that people should be considered legally here until they are proven illegal) never seem to put the same thinking into filing out individual income tax forms.

While I do not advocate "tax striking" it does seem to me that as a thought experiment it provides a good counterpoint to those who demand amnesty for illegal aliens, and reveals their hypocrisy when they couch their terms in the impossibility of enforcement or in the unconstitutionality of effective enforcement.

That is all.

Thoughts on Rand Paul

Update: Lawrence Auster says that my assumptions on Rand Paul not knowing this question was going to be asked beforehand are incorrect. I will have to check this out more, as I have been rather busy and haven't had time to check everything out as fully as I should have. More on this as I check it out.

But yes, if he knew this was going to come up he should have %%#&&*^!! well prepared for it.

Original entry:

I pretty much agree with Rand Paul's assessment that extending anbtidiscrimination laws to private business is bad. I do think that Lawrence Auster's distinction (scroll down to the fourth, and as of now, last, comment by Auster ("LA") to see him make his point) between employmenbt and service (i.e. that people could be allowed to discriminate against people in hiring them for a job, but still be legally forced to accept them as customers) has some merit, although I never thought of the issue that way before.

I think that people who criticize Paul for stepping in it are somewhat correct. Having said that, Paul's problem is not, as Unqualified Offerings' Thoreau suggests, that Paul focused on the wrong aspect of racial issues with liberty to deal with. He didn't choose this topic, it was thrust on him. On the other hand, Paul could talk more about issues where his philosophy would disproportionately help black people and emphasize that, as a way of reducing the impact of issues such as this - in fact, it would be a good idea to have done so early on as a "vaccination" against issues like this later.

I think that Lawrence Auster has a much better point, that Paul (a) should have prepared for such questions in advance, and (b) should have avoided hostile forums until he had prepared.

That is all.

Thoughts on the Upcoming Movie MacGruber

Aside from the fact that the film is a parody of a TV show that ended 18 years ago, the fact that the TV trailer for the movie contains not one, but two jokes about "number two" gives me grave doubts about this movie.

That is all.

Sorry for Lack of Posts

Sorry. I've been worn out the past few weeks. I will try to get up a few posts this next week. I have big post about Austrian economics that I have saved as a draft, but I haven't added to it for a while.

That is all.

Astronomy Suggestions

Anyone else think that they should rename the constellation Orion "Mortar and Pestle?"

That is all.

Finally, a Snappy Comeback

I have finally figured out a snappy comeback to one of Krugman's anti-Austrian fallacies. This makes me happy, because my previous efforts against him took practically a thesis to explain.

But I finally figured out the snappy answer when he asked the question again in a blog post today:

The Austrian view is that unemployment in a slump results from the difficulty of “adaptation of the structure of production” — workers are unemployed as resources are painfully transferred out of an overblown investment-goods sector back into production of consumption goods.

But this immediately raises the question, why isn’t there similar unemployment during the boom, as workers* are transferred into investment goods production?

This is a variation on a question he asked previously:

And now as then, the whole notion falls apart when you ask why, say, a housing boom — which requires shifting resources into housing — doesn’t produce the same kind of unemployment as a housing bust that shifts resources out of housing.

The simple answer:

During the boom, resources are transferred into investment goods production from savings, not from production goods investment. During the bust, there were no more savings, so the transfer had to come from decreased investment.

*It makes more sense if you assume that Krugman meant "resources" here.

That is all.

Books on the Austrian Theory

Looking through my bookmarks, I found this old piece by Jeffrey Tucker.

Some interesting reading material, and also a good insight as to why the Austrian Theory can seem like such a light bulb in the darkness of modern economics.

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Real Good Quote

If the crowd is overwhelmingly white, it's not because the Tea Party has a problem with people of color. It's because so many people of color have a problem with limited government.

-Mark Davis

Thanx and a tip o' the hat to James Fulford on the VDARE blog.

That is all.

Why I Oppose Cap-and-Trade

Chris Roach has an excellent post detailing why reducing greenhouse gas emissions the way the government wants us to is likely to be unrealistic and why better approaches are needed, even if global warming is a serious issue.

Meanwhile, I am certain the the environmentalists are still simply confident that somehow if we ban the use of carbon, solar energy will suddenly become cheap and efficient, or else they welcome a return to horse-and-buggy days.

That is all.

French Not Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys But Pork-Eating Resistance Pigs (The Title Makes Sense in Context)

The VDARE blog has an interesting video of French people standing up against their dispossession in their own country.

That is all.

How Rude of Them to Be Alive When No One Wants Them

Apparently, in an attempt to prevent them from becoming too numberous and taking over, Jordan is rescinding the citizenship of some of its Palestinian people, although the excuse is that it will somehow prevent Israel from preventing them from returning to their homeland when that pesky conflict is finally resolved (any day now).

This does actually point out one of the big problems in the idea of "transfer" as a solution. Who is going to take them, or do you give a damn if the Palestinians topple the current Jordanian government.

It seems to me that no one wants the Palestinians, which leads to the inevitable question of how are they going to be dealt with? I have a feeling that the general feelin throughout the entire Middle East is probably something along the lines of Lord Farquaad's famous statement about Shrek,

Now really, it's rude enough being alive when no one wants you.

Is there any solution?

Of course, there is for the U.S. Stay out of the whole business. This one's not our problem.

That is all.

A Nation of Cowards

Based on recent events, I have decided that on balance, it would be a good thing to add "Nation of Cowards" to my blogroll. It takes a comment by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and turns it around (making it more accurate in the process).

I don't necessarily agree with everything the blogger does (and sometimes he is a little more impolite than I would be, especially in his "moments of racial levity"), but overall I think that his voice is worth hearing.

That is all.

Ban Him from Wal*Mart, Don't Prosecute Him

If the kid who made the stupid declaration in Wal*Mart gets prosecuted, it is a grave injustice.

Don't get me wrong. What he did is despicablke, and Wal*Mart is within its rights to ban him from its property.

But if he wasn't using a non-public phone, I don't see him having done anything illegal.

Wal*Mart has every right to say "go away and don't come back,"* but to get thelaw involved in this way is stupid.

That is all.

*But if the situation were reversed, does anyone think that they would be allowed to ban a black kid for saying things like this against white people?

Trent Lott- Fired for Being Right (About Strom Thurmond)?

According to Charles Mills, he was.

I find the idea that racial tensions were actually thawing in the South prior to the Brown v. Board decision to be interesting,

On the other hand, I've heard it claimed that vagrancy laws were implemented in the postbellum period largely to re-enslave blacks. Whether or to what extent this was still true in the period immediately preceding the Brown decision I do not know, however. In any case, I suspect that Mills probably would underemphasize the role of such things, while traditional historical interpretation would overemphasize them, underemphasize progress that blacks were making prior to federal intervention, and overemphasize the positive impact on black civil rights that federal intervention had.

(This is, of course because the current zeitgeist is in favor of centralized intervention to secure their goals - federal when necessary, but preferably global).

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Homeschoolers as Refugees

Amid the bad news about European persecution of homeschoolers is the good news that the U.S. has granted some German homeschoolers asylum.

Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Karen Kwiatowski on the LRC blog.

That is all.

Oy Vey....

The guy I voted for for President recently wrote this column.

I can't believe it.

This is really stupid.

Whatever our beefs with the IRS, ramming planes into buildings is wrong, not just a tragic act. I do not think that it is at all unreasonable to call Joe Stack a terrorist, although I will agree that it does not appear that he is part of any organized movement.

Also, we need to remember that he set his family home and fire, perhaps trying to kill his family.

We should not be looking for excuses for him. What he did was wrong. As satisfying as the idea of hurting some bueaucracy that is frustrating you may be, it is not the answer. Letting "desperation" drive you to killing innocent people is just wrong, no matter how many self-justifying speeches you give.

And Chuck, no matter how much you hate the IRS, this is not an event that should be used as a platform for criticism of the IRS.

That is all.

The Brisco County Olympics

Ever hear that tune they play at the Olympics and wonder what it is?

It's the theme song from the 1993-1994 TV series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.

I loved it when I was a freshman in high school (the only year it was on).

See it here.

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Sorry for Lack of Posting

I am getting adjusted to a new job that I started two weeks ago.

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Nothing New Under the Sun

Found from link on WorldNetDaily:

Is Mona Lisa really a self-portrait by Leonardo Da Vinci?

I remember a big brouhaha over this in 1986, so it isn't exactly the new, groundbreaking theory that it is proclaimed to be.

That is all.

More on Haiti

If you would like to give, but wish to give to an organization that is concerned with Haiti's spiritual as well as physical poverty (I think that Pat Robertson is more correct about Haiti's spiritual state than the secular majority wish to give him credit for), Advancing Native Missions is taking contributions:

Advancing Native Missions is combining with other Virginia agencies to rush practical aid to the Haitian people through native Haitian Christian ministries. Please help. We need your gifts by cash, check, or credit card for the costs.

Click here and then on the "GIVE RIGHT HERE" link to give.

We have an opportunity here I think to spread the gospel and to bring a lot of suffering people to Christ.* There is a short window, though, I think, so we should do all we can NOW.

That is all.

*Crass to think of this disaster as an opportunity? No, crass that we didn't care until now.

Thoughts on Scott Brown's Pick-Up

Is it a racial code? Not exactly.

It is, however, a class code.

The point of the "pick-up truck" is for Scott Brown to identify himself with blue collar workers, despite not being a blue collar worker himself. Yes, he is primarily trying to be identified with working class whites, but his interest is more in being identified as their champion vis a vis snobbish white collar sorts (which is the implication that is desired whenever the term "liberal elite" is used). Put another way, he is saying "I may be white collar, but I have blue roots."

This is also the tack used with Sarah Palin, and at least in her case, I found it rather grating (and to the extent that Scott Brown played the same cards as Palin, found it grating for him as well). This is not because I have anything against blue collar workers, or think that they are not capable of being politicians. What I find grating is the constant emphasis on this identification rather than on the actual issues.

I will admit that I have not followed enough of Scott Brown's campaign to know how much he talked about actual issues. I am under the impression that he did so enough to be a reasonable candidate.

The problem with Palin, however, is that her identity and her life seemed to overwhelm any particular ideas she had, and those who swooned at her did so for identity politics reasons rather than due to any actual issues.

In this way, Palin was in many ways similar to Obama, and those who mock him as the "Obamessiah" should be careful (as many have not been) not to venerate Palin in exactly the same way.

That is all.

Helping Haiti

I personally would recommend giving to the Salvation Army.

That is all.

Na, NA, na-na, na-na, the Senator is, A CENTERFOLD!

So Scott Brown has won in Massachusetts.

If you Google "Scott Brown Cosmo" you will get the meaning of the title.

It will interesting to see if and how this alters the Senate.

Obviously, this is a message to the Democrats, and an indication that they need to be careful lest they get repeats of this in November.

On the other hand, I don't think that we can say with certainty what that lesson is, as much as everyone would like to say "the Democrats need to listen to my preferences!"

That is all.

Martha Coakley: Bitch Who Should Never Be Elected to Anything

Dorothy Rabinowitz has the details of Ms. Coakley's involvement in the Amirault miscarriage of justice.

Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Lawrence Auster.

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I Have a New Job

Good news, I have a new job, so I won't be unemployed past the end of the month.

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Cool Quote

From Lew Rockwell as noted on Wikipedia:

I never liked Martin Luther King, Jr. I thought he was a fraud and a tool. But when he turned his attention to the evils of the U.S. war on Vietnam, I began to like him. That's also when the establishment turned against him, and soon he was murdered.

That is all.

Goode Family Reminder

Comedy Central.

Tonight.

10 pm EST/9 pm CST

That is all.

They Don't Get It

Ampersand argues that refusing "marriage equality" dilutes marriage by causing places to adopt "marriage lite" for homosexuals, which arrangement is then by necessity extended to heterosexuals, diluting marriage.

Supposedly, this is ironic, because marriage would be less so diluted if traditionalists gave in and let marriage extend to same-sex couples without a fight.

The problem, as I said more than four years ago, is that extending marriage to same-sex couples by nature turns it marriage itself into "marriage-lite."

The problem ultimately comes down to that the people who want to redefine marriage really don't understand that expanding the definition of marriage changes what marriage is. They view marriage as some unspecific contract, so there is no reason to restrict it to opposite-sex couples. That it is not an unspecific contract, and that extending it to same-sex cou[ples makes it moreso this, and that this changes the definition of marriage for everyone, cannot enter their brains.

As Lawrence Auster would say, they have no sense of transcendence. (At the very least, they have an underdeveloped one).

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More Goode News

10 pm Monday/ 9 CST on Comedy Central.

That is all.