Prufrock's Cave

O Holy Night - Luciano Pavarotti

2011-12-22T22:38:00.000-05:00

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.

Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!

O night divine, the night when Christ was born;

O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,

With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.

O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,

Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.

The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;

In all our trials born to be our friends.

He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,

Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.

And in his name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

With all our hearts we praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

In The Arms Of an Angel - Sarah McLaughlin

2011-12-22T13:59:00.000-05:00

The Birth of Christ

2011-12-22T08:25:00.000-05:00

God Enters the World of Man: The Four Spiritual Laws

2011-12-22T08:10:00.000-05:00

In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

. . . That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of the blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.), full of grace and truth (KJV, John 1:1-5, 9-14).

Image: freechristimages.org

Check Out These Christmas Sites

2011-12-22T06:45:00.000-05:00

Christmas on the Net

All Things Christmas

Santa Claus at the North Pole

How to say “Merry Christmas” Around the World

Traditions and Customs Around the World

Christmas Around the World

Christmas Traditions Around the World

Christmas Quotes

Christmas Songs
History of Christmas
The Holiday Spot

The EPA's Unconscionable War on Fracking

2011-12-21T16:47:00.001-05:00

By Jeffrey Folks
American Thinker
December 21, 2011

Jack-Booted Imbecile

The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees that "no person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." For government to harm investors in a private business by bringing false charges against that business is most certainly a violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Environmental Protection Agency, it seems, has been engaged in just this sort of unconstitutional activity ever since Obama appointed Lisa Jackson as director.

The main target of this overzealous prosecution has been companies that produce fossil fuels. Whether it be mountaintop mining, offshore or Arctic drilling, or hydraulic fracturing, the Obama EPA has moved swiftly to block new exploration and production. The bias against fossil fuels that exists at the agency would be bad enough, but the fact that the EPA may have employed illegal and unconstitutional tactics in support of its green agenda is far worse.

Over the past 50 years, tens of thousands of oil and gas wells have been drilled using hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" (6,000 recently in the Bakken shale region of North Dakota alone). During this period, only two significant cases have been brought to light suggesting contamination of sub-surface water -- both by the EPA and both involving questionable if not outright fraudulent data.

READ MORE

Liberal Rage Won't Stop the Tea Party's Rise

2011-08-13T14:14:00.002-04:00

By John Samples

CATO Institute

The Philadelphia Inquirer

August 9, 2011

The tea-party contingent in Congress drove the Republican leadership to bargain harder than it otherwise would have on last week's debt-ceiling deal. Liberals have rightly concluded that the tea party is changing political outcomes. Their response has been to equate tea-party members with terrorists.

Vice President Biden recently told House Democrats that tea-party Republicans had "acted like terrorists." And a New York Times columnist claimed that "Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people." Many people on the left no doubt take their cues from the vice president and the Times, so we should expect more such venomous rhetoric castigating the movement as an enemy of America.

Ironically, the movement being portrayed this way takes its name from an iconic event in American history. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 helped establish the principle of "no taxation without representation." And the members of the current tea-party movement clearly believe in the American system of representative government. They worked to change Congress through the election of 2010, and now they expect their efforts to bear fruit in the form of new policies

"Tea Party Patriots" — the name of one tea-party organization — is closer to the truth. Far from being enemies of America, these people believe deeply in the nation's history, promise, and Constitution.

Article

The Rat's Begin Leaving Obama's Sinking Ship

2011-07-02T16:09:00.001-04:00

By Paul A. Rahe
Andrew Breitbart Presents BIG GOVERNMENT

Ten months back, at the very end of September, I posted online a brief piece entitled Obama's Wrecking Crew, in which I drew attention to a column in The New York Post in which Charles Gasparino reported two items of interest. First, that the titans of Wall Street – men such as Morgan Stanley's John Mack, BlackRock's Larry Fink, Greg Fleming (once at Merrill Lynch), JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon, and Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein – were beginning, in private, to express grave misgivings concerning the Obama administration’s stewardship of the economy. And, second, that these insiders were also telling him that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers were complaining to them that they had almost no say in policy decisions. "Obama," these two were said to have lamented, "is acting as if he has a blank check to do what he wants, while ignoring the longterm costs of his policies."

LINK

Next time, use Fedex

2011-05-11T17:26:00.000-04:00

By Ann Coulter

Jewish World Review

May 5, 2011

The CIA stepped up the search for Osama bin Laden last week after becoming as sick of royal wedding coverage as the rest of us.

American intelligence operations located Osama by following his trusted couriers, whose names were given up by al-Qaida members during harsh interrogations at CIA black sites under President Bush.

Yes, the same interrogations endlessly denounced by the entire Democratic Party (save Joe Lieberman), the mainstream media, and an especially indignant Jane Mayer in The New Yorker.

The most-wanted terrorist in the world was living in a moldy, million-dollar mansion in a gated community just outside of Islamabad. It took the CIA five years to figure out the four-digit code to get in.

The rest of the article. . . .

Something Strange This Way Comes

2011-05-09T09:47:00.097-04:00

By Michael David Rawlings

While Obama has shown that he does not respect the rule of law, to say that the killing of "an enemy combatant" is the same thing as the killing of "a civilian" is not the rule of law, but the rule of technicalities.

Was there ever any question about what the fate of Osama bin Laden would be once we caught up with him?

Capture? Trial? Burial in the earth?

For reasons that should be obvious, given the nature and the mentality of the enemy, none of these options were ever on the table. But more to the point, Judge Napolitano, in what world do you imagine that the Osama bin Laden of this world would have ever thrown up his hands and surrendered? There was never any doubt that he would either be killed by drones or aircraft from above or by the SEALS on the ground, preferably the latter, his remains captured in one piece for purposes of identification and confirmation before being deep-twenty-thousanded under the sea. This was never a mission for the Rangers or the Green Berets, but a mission for the special forces of the Navy.

However, Judge, your other points, though muted a bit by incoherency, are valid. For example, if we are not in Libya to drive Muammar Gaddafi out of the country or kill him, why are we there? The President has yet to provide a coherent explanation for our involvement.

First the President says that we are there to help protect the civilian population, but the civilian population in need of protection is trying to oust the regime. The only effective way to protect it is to destroy the regime and its leader. Then he says that Gaddafi must go. Well, of course. But then a strike that was clearly intended to kill Gaddafi, the only sensible thing to do as he will not go any other way, was said to be something else.

It's one thing to fudge the truth about the nature of anonymous burials and the like in war, particularly in a war against an enemy whose primary means of making war is to target non-combatants. Judge, that is the propaganda of war. Such an enemy is not entitled to anything but a one-way ticket to hell.

It's another thing, however, to fudge the truth about a military action when talking to the American people. They are entitled to a coherent and truthful explanation. Our involvement in the Libyan civil war is an extended military action, not a limited, preemptive or retaliatory action. Yet the President uses language akin to that of the latter to describe what is in fact the former.

It's odd, Judge, that you quibble with the President over technicalities, more at semantics, when the real dispute with this administration goes to its habitually inconsistent posture in the war on terrorism, one adopted in order to appease a political base, mostly comprised of raving lunatics, with rhetoric that is inconsistent with certain actions.

With its handling of Osama bin Laden's demise, the Obama administration concedes that the Bush administration was right all along. Yet, it belies the logic of that action by arguing that captured enemy combatants are entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention or that of the Constitution just because they are in the custody of U.S. military forces within the boundaries of the United States' jurisdiction.

But what is the nature of that jurisdiction in this case?

I'm not aware of any decision in case law that overturned the Court's finding in the Insular Cases: the United States' tentative jurisdiction for administrative purposes is not subject to the terms of its jurisdiction for constitutional purposes. Congress' constitutional power to define "the territorial limits" and "the jurisdiction" of the United States proper is inviolable, and Guantanamo Bay does not and never has resided within the boundaries of the United States' jurisdiction for constitutional purposes.

The Obama Administration lied to the American people when it insinuated otherwise. It muddles the truth when it prattles about "man-made disasters" or suggests that our reactions to acts of terrorism and those that commit them are subject to the constraints of international law, as if the issue were one of mere criminality. Acts of terrorism are acts of war, albeit, unconventional, committed by renegades—not against the constraints of international law, but outside or beyond the jurisdiction of those constraints. In effect, Islamic terrorists have declared themselves to be non-signatory entities unto themselves. Fine. We are free to treat them accordingly.

I'm sorry, Judge, but the dispute with this administration goes to other things, inconsistency and political expediency within the larger context. I do know you to embrace the conservative perspective, but in this instance, you're just not making any sense at all.

Don't be surprised that you end up arguing against your side of things when you criticize your political opponent for the wrong thing.

Revisting an Old Story from Leftistdumb

2011-04-27T19:08:00.000-04:00

JOE WILSON: THE END OF AN ERROR

By Ann Coulter

September 6, 2006

As National Public Radio described the story behind Joe Wilson's amusingly titled book, "The Politics of Truth: Inside blah blah blah blah, A Diplomat's Memoir" (available on the $1 table in fine bookstores everywhere), in May 2004:

Last July Wilson wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times saying that this particular intelligence regarding Iraq was false. A week later, columnist Robert Novak revealed that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative.

This is like saying: "John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan; Reagan later died." Every word of that is true, but what it implies — that Hinckley killed Reagan — is false.

In the exact same way, the grand White House conspiracy promoted by Wilson and the mainstream media cites chronological events to prove causation.

See the rest of the article. . . .

Obama Releases Long-Form Birth Certificate

2011-04-27T13:59:00.003-04:00

By Susan Page and Jackie Kucinich

USA Today

See Document

Will birthers finally be satisfied? This critic doubts it. See Bluemoon's (Michael David Rawling's) detailed refutation of the birther insanity.

See Article

Obama's Speech Was a Waste of Breath

2011-04-14T12:33:00.005-04:00

Clive Crook

On Obama's "Budget Speech" . . .

The Atlantic

April 13 2011, 3:53 PM ET

The speech was more notable for its militant—though ineffectual—hostility to Republican proposals than for any fresh thinking of its own. It was a waste of breath.

See the article.

Charles Krauthammer On Obama's Speech: "It Was A Disgrace"

The Obamacare Legacy of Centralization and Bureaucracy

2011-03-21T17:34:00.004-04:00

by Kevin Glass

Townhall.com

March 2011

The monstrous Obamacare health law was passed by the House of Representatives on March 21, 2010 and signed into law by President Obama nine days later. Nancy Pelosi said that Congress had to pass the law to find out what was in it. Despite a lengthy debate, new details trickle out seemingly daily about the destructive impact of the law. One year later, a group of conservative health policy wonks have banded together to release a book that comes as close as possible to being the authoritative tome on the full impact of Obamacare.

Grace-Marie Turner, James Capretta, Thomas Miller and Robert Moffitt are co-authors of the new book Why Obamacare is Wrong For America. Turner, President of the Galen Institute (a health policy think tank) and frequent Townhall contributor, made time to talk with Townhall about her new book, Obamacare's continuing repercussions and what Americans can do to make sure their voices are heard.

Read More . . .

The Challenge of Real Education Reform

2011-03-19T19:06:00.039-04:00

by Michael David Rawlings

The underlying problem of the public education system's ills is the peoples' lose of control, and the only cure for the problem is to send the unions and the agenda hounds packing. This problem is twofold. It is both political and structural, but stems from a misunderstanding that is widely bandied about in America and rightly countered by few.

The Warren Court attached this misunderstanding to the First Amendment when it mangled the principle of the wall of separation between church and state in the '50s and '60s. While Jefferson rightly championed a separation, he would not recommend the Warren Court's ridiculous version of the principle. Now, nearly fifty years after the Warren Court confounded it, far too many conservatives, most, if not all, liberals and even some libertarians have lost all prospective of the original intent of the First Amendment as it should apply to the public education system.

The political problem, therefore, is one of confusion and entails the challenge of building a political coalition of unwavering consensus, for the structural problem is deeply entrenched and defended by a recalcitrant mob of self-serving nitwits who are indifferent to the woeful state of public education in America and cannot be reasoned with at all.

While the political problem is self-evident, the opponents of real reform are not intellectually honest enough to openly acknowledge what they already know to be true against their seemingly irrepressible propensity to impose their cultural agenda on others. This peculiar human frailty has evolved into an art form among liberalism's cultural and political elite. While it is possible and necessary to separate church and state, it is not possible to separate ideology from education. Conservatives rightly repudiate the absurdity of the latter, yet tend to deny the urgency of the former, wrongfully concluding that just because the First Amendment does not contain a literal expression of a Jeffersonian separation, natural and constitutional law do not require it. Liberals, on the other hand, perversely insist that ideology and education can be separated in public schools as they happily fill the void left by traditional values with values that infuriate conservatives.

The Warren Court engendered the illusion that ideological tyranny in the public schools appertains to the imposition of manifestly religious systems of thought only. Since this illusion is now well-entrenched in America's political consciousness, the conservative's stance is self-defeating. While liberals are free to introduce any secular notion of reality they please with little or no resistance, conservatives are relentlessly challenged in the courts and accused of imposing their religious values, even in those instances when they are merely trying to stave off the imposition of lefty's rot.

Though most atheists don't get it, the socio-political ramifications of Judeo-Christianity show us how to institute a secular government that will secure and preserve liberty for all—theist, atheist and agnostic alike.

Most of libertarianism's intelligentsia understand that religious speculation arises from the inescapable realities of human consciousness and, therefore, understand that the idea of establishing religiously neutral institutions of education is preposterous. But some of its adherents, particularly its atheists, make the same mistake as liberals/socialists and mindlessly castigate earnest conservatives—their best allies in realizing the ideological liberty they envision. Hence, they stupidly lend their voices to those who perpetuate the fallacy that sustains the very thing they wish to end.

Conservatives need to realize that while it is true that the Lockean construct expressed in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence was directly extrapolated from the socio-political ramifications of Judeo-Christianity's ethical system of thought, this does not mean that the public schools must actively inculcate Christian values in order to preserve the Republic. The Republic will take care of itself as long as its people are not forced to subsidize the consequences of stupidity, including lefty's imposition of secular humanism and its delusions in the schools.

Libertarians need to lose their pie-in-the-sky expectations and realize that public funding for education is not going to go away anytime soon; hence, it's time for them to join enlightened conservatives in their efforts to bring about a system of universal educational choice. Empathy is the essence of apprehending the true nature of the Warren Court's judicial ploy, whereby it effectively established secular humanism as the Republic's official religion and the public education system as the Republic's church. If we are stuck with public funding of education, then let us at least have a system that promotes ideological freedom within. In other words, while privatization cannot be achieved monetarily, it can be achieved structurally.

Liberals will continue to tyrannically impose their garbage in the schools. They are a gang of demagogues abetted by mindless sheep. One does not reason with such; one defeats them by building winning coalitions.

It's time for conservatives and libertarians to lift their voices as one. It's time to join Milton Friedman, Lawrence W. Reed and others, and support school-choice vouchers and educational-choice tax credits. It's time for the people who pay the taxes for public education to take the system back from the teacher unions and the agenda hounds of leftistdumb. It's time for the people to take back what belongs to them and educate their children as they see fit, at home or in a school of their choice.

It's time that we reassert the original intent of the First Amendment: the wall of separation does not pertain to the protection of the state against being exposed to any notions of belief that might be held by the people; it pertains to the protection of the people against being disposed to adopt any foreign notions of belief that might be foisted on them by others via an instrument of the state!

Do real scientists believe in Creation?

2011-03-11T15:33:00.004-05:00

ChristianAnswers.net

The Evolutionary model says that it is not necessary to assume the existence of anything, besides matter and energy, to produce life. That proposition is unscientific. We know perfectly well that if you leave matter to itself, it does not organize itself - in spite of all the efforts in recent years to prove that it does. —Dr. Wilder-Smith

Tolerance Begins with Common Sense

2011-03-09T17:03:00.014-05:00

By Michael David Rawlings

In the piece "Religious 'tolerance' doesn't include dissent" (see below) printed in the religion section of the Arizona Republic, Scott Hunter demonstrates precisely why liberty is so difficult to maintain in a fallen world.

He begins his op-ed with the silly assertion that
"[r]eligious freedom is a misnomer", presumably because religions tend to make exclusive claims about reality. But only nitwits go about their business pretending that mutually exclusive ideas are simultaneously true. If it's sensible for Hunter to argue that there exists "no freedom within religions" then it's sensible to argue that no organized group formed around a specified system of thought about anything, religious or otherwise, is free from within. Hunter's assertion is meaningless. The title of his op-ed is redundantly meaningless. Moreover, the construct of religious freedom pertains to free association, not to any obligation on the part of others outside any given religious group. Hunter's not defending freedom at all; he's a multiculturalist thug asserting an obligation on the part of others with regard to his idiotic worldview.

Hunter also ascribes to the specious version of the Jeffersonian doctrine of the separation of church and state foisted on America by the Warren Court. The Court correctly observed that it was unconstitutional for state schools to impose the teachings of Judeo-Christianity on other-religious or non-religious persons, but then decided to resolve the matter by imposing a similar violation on all of us and needlessly instigated a vicious cultural civil war. Because it is abundantly self-evident that no institution of any kind exists in an ideological vacuum, it is abundantly self-evident that one size systems of education cannot comfortably fit all.

Instead of directing schools to provide educational choice and thereby satisfy the requirements of the First Amendment for all, the Court ordered the schools to do the impossible. While Hunter may be offended by the efforts of Christians who insist on having their cherished convictions represented in public schools, as he overlooks the efforts of those who insist on imposing atheistic notions of origins and pagan notions of human sexuality in the same—I'm offended by the tyranny of judges who insist on empowering the state to arbitrarily dictate what ideas are permissible in our schools and, perhaps more to the point, what ideas are not. . . . It is not possible to divorce religion from education, just as it is not possible to extract common sense from the Warren Court's directive.

As for the sins committed by so-called Christians in the past, Hunter conveniently overlooks the atrocities of history's murderous atheists. Enamored of the cult of statism: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot slaughtered tens of millions. The outrages of the Inquisitors and the Crusaders pale in comparison. Indeed, where has Hunter been all his life? Throughout history governments have been heavy-handedly challenging the religious "teachings of antiquity", requiring people to "produce their gods", and prohibiting them "from proclaiming" their existence. It is not religion that necessarily corrupts, but unrestrained governments that attempt to either incorporate religions or crush them. This is the real lesson of history.

Further, it is neither sensible nor scientific to hold the claims of religion to scientific standards of proof. The idea of God, for example, is not an empirical proposition. D'oh! It's a rational proposition regarding a transcendental potentiality, albeit, one that imposes itself upon our minds without us willing that it do so! Hence, the idea of God objectively exists in and of itself, and the atheist proves this every time he opens his mouth to deny God's existence. It is not unreasonable to conclude that God must be; it is unreasonable to flatly deny the existence of that which is indisputably possible. Science is a marvelous tool, but it's not an intellectual panacea. It can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the spiritual, let alone explore its potentialities.

Though religious superstitions may abound, religion persists—not because of man's superstitiousness, but because of the undeniable potentialities of human consciousness and the limitations of man's physical senses. While Hunter may confound the cause of religious speculation, he does not escape its demands any more than the rest of us do. He is merely an unwitting contributor to a peculiar body of religious mumbo-jumbo (atheism) and a pseudo practitioner of the scientific method.

"Religions claim to teach tolerance", he writes, "so why do they not want to tolerate criticism." Really? All religions teach tolerance? Hmm. Well, let this piece stand as a criticism of Hunter's religion, a dissension from the ridiculous tenets of his faith, such as it is.

* * * * *

Religious 'tolerance' doesn't include dissent

By Scott Hunter

Religious freedom is a misnomer. There is no freedom within religions.

The few moderate churches are an exception, as most religions in the world are immersed in centuries-old traditions they refuse to change. Most religious authority is tyrannical and dictatorial, and dogma reigns absolute. The fundamentalists of all sects dominate religious discipline. Religions tolerate no dissenters, critics or disbelievers.

For many centuries, Christians exterminated those who believed in other religions or rejected Christianity. One only needs to read the history of the Christian pogroms against the Jews, the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades, which were campaigns to annihilate Muslims and wipe out Jewish settlements along the way.

The first man to translate the Bible into English was slaughtered. Religious activists burned witches in Salem. Christian fundamentalists still assassinate those who disbelieve in their Bible (shooting abortion doctors), and Islamic clerics command the deaths of journalists and others who they believe insulted their beliefs.

Because of the separation of church and state in the United States, numerous sects and cults have risen, many of which were established to extract money from individuals under the guise of religion. And because of this separation, our government has been hesitant to get involved.

Although we supposedly have freedom of religion in this country, there is no freedom within religions nor is there freedom from religion. Many of our largest religious denominations are continually attempting to extend their religious beliefs into our schools and governments. Attempting to force prayer or the Ten Commandments into schools and government has nothing to do with schools or prayer. They are just brazen demands to solidify their religious beliefs into every aspect of society.

Religion may have served a purpose in society when the unknown included every part of life's existence and neither life, death nor disease was understood. But this is the 21st century, and it is now time to challenge the teachings of antiquity. The world is inundated with religious propaganda, and The Arizona Republic disseminates such misinformation in its weekly religious sections.

The media, in all fairness, should equally present both arguments for and against religions. Religions claim to teach tolerance, so why do they not want to tolerate criticism?

There have been tens of thousands of books written about religion. Many of these books attempt to explain, interpret or understand the ancient writings in the bibles of the world's religions. There have been millions of sermons, articles, booklets and magazines directed toward such interpretations. Dozens of men and women have created their own religions and have claimed that their god has spoken to them in person and that they have received special messages. Certainly, if the gods can appear and directly communicate with the man on an isolated mountaintop, they can appear again and address 50,000 of us in one of the major ballparks.

Thousands of years ago, when the original bibles were assembled, people already were demanding that religions produce their gods. The writers were intelligent enough to respond to this by placing God's appearance after death, in the distant future or demand "belief by faith."

These are times of show and tell. Religions should be required to actually produce their gods, angels and devils or be forever prohibited from proclaiming that there are such beings. It is ridiculous to continue the publishing of thousands of books whereby man will give us his interpretations. If gods will simply appear, we will need no further explanations. The gods should speak for themselves. I for one would enjoy listening to a debate among the various gods, where each is arguing as the only true God.

*Scott Hunter is former director of the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity, is a midlevel executive in corporate retailing and is chief executive officer of his own business.

Is Atheist-Think "Hardwired" for Irrationality and Statism?

2011-03-07T19:16:00.001-05:00

by Michael David Rawlings

Is atheist-think "hardwired" for irrationality and statism? In other words, how do we explain the fact that the vast majority of atheists embrace the inherently irrational, self-contradictory supposition of relativism, which almost invariably leads to the oppressive or even totalitarian politics of the statist?

Aside from the obvious stupidity of asserting that there exist no absolutes except the absolute that there are no absolutes, and, therefore, the absolute that there are no absolutes is absolutely false (an objection that does not rise up and overthrow the view that reality is ontologically and epistemologically absolute!): most relativists are merely the brainwashed products of post-Enlightenment, governmental institutions of education and socialization, which arbitrarily preclude certain aspects of reality.

They don't even know they've been brainwashed, as they foolishly believe that relativistic modes of thought and behavior are the very essence of open-mindedness, free-thinking, fairness, freedom, tolerance or whatever. But of course relativism is utter nonsense. For not only is it impossible for the relativist to explain how two or more diametrically opposed ideas could all be true at the same time and in the same way within the same frame of reference (i.e., true in any objective sense), he cannot and does not behave as if such a thing were objectively possible either. He's just delusional, a Pavlovian-conditioned dog barking rhetoric that is not only falsified by the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness, but by the societal imperatives of human interaction.

The inherently tyrannical applications of relativism are imposed, variously, under the guise of political correctness, multiculturalism or, if you please, inclusionism, with the latter, relative to its origins, being a heretical theological construct of assimilative reconciliation, something of which the space cadets of collectivism are almost universally unaware. It is all about the imposition of an essentially Marxist or materialist collectivism that suppresses individualism and free-association. It's adherents are just a gang of relativist thugs imposing their ideology on the rest us as they imagine themselves to be individualists and pretend that the typically hateful, ugly and decidedly non-inclusive rhetoric and behavior they leverage against non-conformists was something other than what it really is. Tyranny. Injustice. It is the sort of thought and behavior that inevitably leads to theft and murder.

But not all atheists (Christopher Hitchens, for example) eschew natural law, i.e., the political implications of the Golden Rule, the mandates of classical liberalism. Their metaphysical delusions aside, essentially they embrace what is, relative to their ontological convictions, an artificial absolute that would limit the power of the state and that of the collective against the demands of inalienable human rights, which include the protection of private property and, subsequently, the officially unfettered expressions of individualism and free-association. In other words, they consciously eschew a literal application of materialism to the realm of human interaction.

Behold the irrationality and the tyranny of the brainwashed: "Another Atheist's Unexamined Thought Processes: A Close Encounter of the Raw Kind."

Public Employee Unions

2011-03-07T03:32:00.005-05:00

Dr. Walter E. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics

According to the Department of Labor, most union members today work for state, local and federal government. Close to 40 percent of public employees are unionized. As such, they represent a powerful political force in elections. If you're a candidate for governor, mayor or city councilman, you surely want the votes and campaign contributions from public employee unions. In my view, that's no problem. The problem arises after you win office and sit down to bargain over the pay and working conditions with unions who voted for you.
ARTICLE

Lawmakers at Impasse Over 7-Month Budget; Redirect Focus to Benefit Programs

2011-03-06T18:43:00.000-05:00

FoxNews.Com-Politics-U.S. Senate
March 6, 2011

WASHINGTON -- President Obama isn't serious about dealing with government spending and the deficit, the Senate's top Republican argued Sunday as lawmakers took to the airwaves to shout past each other about where and how much spending to cut in the government's wildly bloated budget.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that after a number of conversations with Obama and Vice President Biden, he is not optimistic the president will take the opportunity provided by a Republican-led House to look for areas of compromise on spending cuts.

"I was hopeful that we would step up to the plate here, if you will, and use this divided government opportunity to do something big about our long-term problems. I don't have any more complaints about no conversations with them. I've had plenty of conversations with them. What I don't see now is any willingness to do anything that's difficult," McConnell said on NBC's "Face the Nation."

The Rest of the Report. . . .

Voices of Moderation

2011-03-06T02:16:00.009-05:00

By Thomas Sowell

Feb. 23, 2011

Jewish World Review - Insight

Moderation—at least verbal moderation—is suddenly in vogue.

President Obama's rhetoric has moderated, even if his policies and practices have not. Among Republicans, voices of moderation are warning that the party cannot win elections without having a "big tent" and reaching out to Hispanics, for example. Recently, talk show host Michael Medved has suggested that Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin should moderate their attacks on Obama.

Moderation is fine — if it is not carried to extremes. But some moderates seem to think that it is always a good thing to tone down your words. Yet history shows that muffling your message can mean forfeiting many a battle to extremists.

No one has had more of a mixed and muffled message than Senator John McCain, which is why Barack Obama is President of the United States.

Republican moderates warn their fellow Republicans that they need to move away from the Ronald Reagan approach, in order to attract a wider range of voters. But Ronald Reagan won two consecutive landslide elections — and he couldn't have done that if the only people who voted for him were dedicated conservatives.

THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

Alanis Morissette

2011-03-06T01:21:00.003-05:00

The Debate with Labsci Continous. . . .

2011-02-21T17:39:00.026-05:00

The problem here is, that you continue to make assertions as to the bias and dishonesty of those who understand evolution. Most scientists understand evolution, and realise that it is the best explanation of the differences and similarities between all living things on Earth. It meshes neatly with other sciences, such as genetics, medicine, dentistry, paleontology, archeology, geology, chemistry, physics and any others you could name. —Labsci

Actually, anything can be brought into line with the theory. There’s really nothing “meshy” about it. Anyone of those fields could do without it, especially physics. Evolutionary theory makes few predictions, and in truth the sort of predictions it makes are historical in nature. They are made in hindsight, wherein something or another is observed and then (viola!) the evolutionist proclaims that's exactly what the theory would expect or predict. (The expectations of Creationism can do the same thing, and you might see that if you were to rid yourself of certain assumptions about the nature of the biblical record and the baggage that has been piled on top of it without due consideration.) Anything can be brought into line with a tautological mechanism of “what survives, survives”. Both environmental change and mutation are random; the product of two random variables is a random variable. The arguments that have been made by some including the likes of Dawkins to the contrary are nonsense. And that’s problematical for any attempt to account for the conservation of any ensemble of genetic characteristics that might affect transmutation.

Of course there are certainly some proponents who are anti-religious: championed by the likes of Richard Dawkins, but their science is impeccable and elegant. —Labsci

Trust me, there’s nothing “impeccable and elegant” about the prospects of abiogenesis to which he must necessarily appeal.

Nothing visible is going to happen in so short a time as 200 years in the laboratory. If a fly changed into anything other than a fly, it would blow evolution out of the water, and falsify it completely. —Labsci

Yes, I do understand that, Labsci. I’m glad to see that we agree, sort of. My point with respect to fruit flies had to do with this statement: “[m]any micro evolutionary steps equals macro evolution.” At various points along the way, evolutionary theory entails a common ancestry of branching transmutations. You imagine a biological history consisting of an unbroken chain of natural cause-and-effect, mostly driven by the mechanism of natural selection, and believe that this scenario provides the “best explanation of the differences and similarities between all living things on Earth.” I see a biological history consisting of a series of creative events and episodic extinctions, and believe that this scenario provides the best explanation for the abundance and vast variety of life, and expect that all forms of terrestrial life would necessarily share certain genetic and morphological characteristics, including the inherent ability to affect adaptive variations within. The evidence would look the same either way.

In accordance with your confirmation of my point about fruit flies, we can’t observe speciation beyond the “micro-evolutionary steps” and, also, we don’t see an abundance of obvious transitory forms in the fossil record, so what is Darwinism (the gratuitous insertion or extrapolation of a common ancestry) ultimately based on if not a materialistic naturalism? There's nothing in the observable and quantifiable compositions and processes of biological systems that is at odds with the fundamentals of Creationism. Hence, as for the regnant scientific community’s a prior bias, what is the substance of this "sand" you claim Creationism is built on?

In my opinion, it follows that the post-modern Catholic Church prematurely and unnecessarily conceded creation ex essentia, just as the pre-scientific Church errantly adopted Aristotelian cosmology. (The Bible does not recommend a literal geocentric cosmology, by the way.) While the latter is understandable, the former is not, and neither of them are biblically justifiable.

There is no need to “modernize” the Bible. The ancients' pre-scientific conception of the universe is not relevant to biblical inerrancy, much less the pre-scientific expositions of empirical phenomena that might be attributed to the Bible by misguided believers and non-believers alike. God’s word stands and stays; it’s surety is not subject to the passing conceptual fads of imperfect and half-blind creatures.

While the Bible does make some scientific claims, it is not a scientific treatise and never has been, except in the minds of some. I’ve never thought of Creationism as being anything more than a general exposition of origins against the backdrop of original sin and the problem of evil. Beyond that, God has simply left the details of scientific inquiry to us. Learned, post-scientific hermeneutics has no problem with the idea that Creationism is not a scientific system of thought, but merely a general set of guidelines by which we may properly understand the essential meaning of the empirical data.

And there’s no ideological tension between the Bible and the Big Bang theory, if that’s what you’re imply. On the contrary, it is more suggestive of creation ex nihilo than steady-state theory, though as Lemaître himself rightly observed the appearance is not necessarily conclusive of anything in that regard.

You say that evolutionists play games with words and categories. . . . —Labsci

They do, at least with respect to the fossil record and the politics of education. As for the latter, they behave like rabid fundamentalists with little regard for the liberty-sustaining prohibitions of natural law. To my mind, whether they be ultimately right or wrong, that makes them a seriously dangerous threat to civil society, and this is especially true of the atheists among them given their tribal predilection for statism in history.

And evolutionists are playing a game of conceptual hide-and-seek when they claim that the classical construct of irreducible complexity in and of itself has been debunked. Refuting Behe’s ill-considered application of it to biochemistry—a half-baked version that fails to anticipate the obvious possibility of degraded systems or their isolated components performing less efficient or alternate functions—is of no consequence. (Incidentally, I wrote Behe about that possibility back in ’96 after reading his book. Sure enough, well, you know the rest. . . .) Properly rendered, irreducible complexity does not dispute the plausibility of diminished systems, it illustrates the implausibility of complex systems arising by blind luck. That has not been debunked by anyone. Behe should have paid more attention to the essential quality of Paley’s formulation and the prerequisites of Kant’s.

In other words, in the classical tradition, irreducible complexity obtains to the rise of organization from chaos, not to any potential degradation of function. The former entails an uphill battle in the midst of a chaotic collection of precursors vying against conservation. It has to do with the problem of anticipatorily formulating the overarching function of an interdependent system of discretely oriented parts, each contributing to the sum of a whole that could not have orchestrated its own composition from the ground up.

Further, and now comes the slight-of-hand that impresses no one but bleating sheep, evolutionists themselves do not refute Behe’s straw man with the paper biochemistry of evolutionary theory. The theoretical mechanism of natural selection does not compose complex machines by systematically stripping them of their parts. Instead it must build them without a blueprint and do so in a sea of competing precursors, once again, vying against conservation. It’s not the other way around. Miller can illustrate the alternate functions of degraded mousetraps all he wants; that does not demonstrate that the mechanisms of evolutionary theory are the cause of the comprehensive functions of complex integrated systems.

But the sheep go “bah, bah, bah.”

Debunked?

What kind of scientific term is that anyway? The matter cannot be resolved syllogistically or analogously. It’s a matter of experimentation and falsification.

Now you see it. Now you don’t.

In other words, ultimately, it’s not even a matter of morphology. It’s a matter of accumulating information, not only against a tidal wave of difficulties that rebuff conservation, but against the whims of a genetic material whose sequences are not arranged by any chemically preordained bonding affinity, but by extraneous forces. And to mind that means nothing of particular interest could arise in the first place without the intervention of an intelligent being. I trust that we at least agree on that point, given that you are an theistic evolutionist. Why would you recommend the prattle of an atheist savant who must necessarily override the putative distinction between the vagaries of abiogenesis and the calculi of evolutionary theory?

The Evolution Corner: Another Debate

2011-02-19T23:04:00.026-05:00

Labsci and I debate evolution. . . .

* * * * *

I appreciate the reasonableness of your tone. The typically sneering attitude that most evolutions direct at those with whom they disagree is tiresome. I prefer the former, and I’m always happy to respond in kind. Moreover, I appreciate the subtle sarcasm of the following, for when it is done well. . . .

Sorry, but I agree with her. Except the 99.9%. It's probably just 99%. But I think you get the picture. —Labsci

Followed by. . . .

Most creationist sites do, in fact, give false information about science, in particular evolution. Claims that micro evolution occurs but macro evolution does not just display[s] an ignorance, rather than dishonesty, about the fact that there is no difference between them apart from the time over which they occur. Many micro evolutionary steps equals macro evolution. Sometimes little physical change is evident, sometimes a lot of change. —Labsci

First, with regard to the Creationist’s perspective, the correct term is “micro-speciation”, not “micro-evolution”. But that’s just one of those honest errors. And while millions of fruit flies have undergone micro-speciation in the laboratory, not a single one of them ever underwent macro-evolution. They remained fruit flies. There is a vast difference between change within and transmutation. The rest is just talk, the party line of evolutionary theory.

And that’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? We have before us the idea that all species evolved from a common ancestor. That’s all you’re really saying; i.e., you’re merely restating the theory’s fundamental assertion, one that is driven by yet another idea, the underlying metaphysical presupposition of a materialistic naturalism. It is absurd to call the rejection of these ideas an “error”; it goes to the essence of the dispute.

The evolutionist assumes that the paleontological record necessarily entails an unbroken chain of natural cause-and-effect speciation. There’s nothing necessary about it. And given the complexity of life and the fact that the paleontological record overwhelming reflects, not a gradual appearance of an ever-increasingly more abundant and varied collection of species, but a series of abrupt appearances and extinctions of fully formed biological systems, it is not unreasonable to argue that we are looking at a series of distinct, creative events orchestrated by an intelligent being. The record would look the same.

The Catholic Church, the Pope, should have never conceded this to what is ultimately an atheistic materialism.

The arrows that evolutionists scratch on charts between illustrations of species that are alleged to be directly related are not found in the paleontological record. They are the gratuitous additions of a theoretical model. To characterize my interpretation of the evidence as an “error” begs the question and mistakes the arrows for something they are not, i.e., the artifacts of observable empirical phenomena and the established processes of physics and biochemistry. With all due respect, the only error on display here is one of logic, and it’s not mine.

Pointing to a small handful of groupings of allegedly related lineages consisting of an equally small handful of intermediate forms, which is the best that evolutionists have ever been able to come up with out of millions of fossils, does not impress me (just like I'm not impressed by this ruse of rhetorical preemption: "[a]ssuming they are not dismissed out of hand by anti-evolutionists"). The number of changes required and the degree of complexity involved, for example, in the enterprise of transforming a land animal to a sea animal, or vice versa, are immense. Just how many transitional forms are we talking about here? Such a splash didn’t take place in one dive. It involved every system—skeletal, respiratory, digestive, reproductive, circulatory, integumentary, lymphatic . . . the transitional migration of a snout into a blowhole on the top of the head! Are we talking about thousands of transitional forms? Tens of thousands? Multiply that by millions of species.

I’m well acquainted with the rhetoric that evolutionists invoke with respect to the dearth of plausible intermediate forms, like how we would not expect “to find . . . half-bat/half-bird [intermediate forms] in the fossil record.” Oh? And why not? The early Darwinists, including Darwin himself, certainly expected them and were perplexed by their absence. And what is Neo-Darwinism anyway, really, but a collection of attempts (including punctuated equilibrium) to explain why we don’t see them. It was and remains a serious problem for the theory, one which evolutionists themselves are actively trying to resolve. It’s just that the theory’s leading lights tend not to talk about it frankly or very often. The rest is just double-speak. In the meantime, they think to turn this problem into a smear against the skeptics who raise it, that is, against those who keep resurrecting the bone they want to keep buried. Moreover, in spite of the standard meaning of "change" in evolutionary theory, with which I am well acquainted from a purely theoretical perspective and do understand what you mean, a scheme of common ancestry necessarily does entail transmutation. Yours is more of the same sophistry.

(Evolutionists talk in meaningless circles like this all the time as if no one would notice and as if those who do are idiots.)

I don’t understand it? Perhaps you don’t understand the nature of the skeptic’s objections. Aside from the convoluted rhetorical shenanigans, there’s nothing rocket-sciencey about the theory. You’re merely repeating yourself once again—invoking the same presuppositions, begging the question.

I don’t buy it! It’s as simple as that. And let me save you the trouble of repeating another logical fallacy with an excerpt from a piece that I wrote just recently:

Evolutionists who argue that if I’m right than the paleontological record proves the Deity to be a deceiver are merely repeating themselves once again, i.e., reasserting their presupposition in a most dogmatically unscientific manner. They’re making a theological argument—for crying out loud!—as if God had to use evolutionary processes. These things fly right over their heads. My retort: “The evidence would look the same; you’re merely deceiving yourself, as you imbue brute forces with magical properties to achieve amazingly complex feats and arrogantly spurn the obvious.” —Michael David Rawlings

As for the rest of your shaky assertions in support of anecdotal claptrap and your failure to grasp the essence of my point, see link.

The Debate Continues. . . .

Some Random Thoughts on Classical Liberalism

2011-01-20T17:44:00.015-05:00

By Michael David Rawlings

John Locke (limited government, self-determination, private property, natural law) and Montesquieu (separation of powers, checks and balances) are the preeminent influences on the Founders—especially Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton and John Jay.

John Locke extrapolated his political theory from Judeo-Christianity's concept of free will.

Jefferson was a Deist who frequented Baptist services for some reason, not an atheist as some claim.

The overwhelming majority of the Founders were Christians. Adams and Washington were Christians, for example, though Washington's Christianity was apparently influenced by Masonic philosophy.

It is true that most of the more prominent among them were Deists, something out of which dishonest or ignorant leftist ideologues think to make a lot of hay. But it's all nonsense. The sense in which America is a Christian nation goes to the fact that its founding socio-political philosophy is derived from the ramifications of Judeo-Christianity's ethical system of thought, with its unique conception of free will, entailing a negative liberty (individualism), rather than a positive liberty (collectivism, i.e., lefty's agenda).

Though the Founders bickered among themselve, sometimes bitterly, over the extent to which individual liberty should prevail, though some were Deists and some were Christians: all of them rejected the democratic theory of classical republicanism in favor of constitutional republicanism precisely because the ethical system of the classical Deist of the Enlightenment Era and that of the Christian were one and same: hence, the socio-political philosophy of the classical liberal are one and the same.

Among the Founders preeminent concerns was to protect the Republic against the instability of democratic collectivism's "majoritarianism" (i.e., "mob rule"): hence, the rule of law, not the rule of men; the rule of the unbridgeable, inherent human rights of life, liberty and the security of private property against an overweening State driven by the mob. Jefferson's "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is merely an eloquent paraphrase of Locke's triadic construct.

The rights of man do not legitimately flow from the State, but are endowed by the Creator. Statism is idolatry, the tragic state of man when he gives himself and his God-given rights over to the collective will. These rights may not be legitimately abridged without creating a state of war with the God of nature and His natural law. Within nature—pre-society—men are free to believe and decide, to dispose of their property as they would within the moral constraints of free will. Men form societies and governing bodies "in order to secure those rights" against the fallen condition of man's beastly inclination to violate the moral constraints of free will.

The only legitimate form of government is that which is erected by the consent of the governed, wherein the fundamental rights of man are protected from those within the body politic who would violate the terms of the social contract (criminals or domestic enemies) and those from without who would destroy the infrastructure of the social contract (foreign invaders).

Hence, the purpose of limited government is to protect the fundamental rights of man, including the protection of private property, which is the foundation of liberty and the bulwark against tyranny. The fundamentals of the socio-political philosophy of America's founding are individual liberty, self-determination, the promotion of private enterprise, private religious decision and the free and open practice thereof; freedom of association, freedom of the press. . . .

Leftist academicians and the brainwashed among us (those churned out by an illegitimately collectivized public education system) will tell you that are nation's governing principles were derived from classical paganism—the thinkers of the Grecian democracies and the Roman Republic. Bull! The only thing we take from them is the theory of democratic government, as opposed to monarchism or oligarchy, and the exposition of the three, distinct aspects of government—the executive, the legislative and the judicial. The rest is purely the natural law and the science of governmental constraint expounded by the classical liberalism of the Enlightenment Era for a stable and just democracy.

Do not be deceived by the statist collectivists of secular humanism. That is the road to tyranny.

Obama Socialism

2011-01-20T16:52:00.000-05:00

The ESCALA sensation

2011-01-20T16:35:00.006-05:00

Live and Let Die - Live

Album Version

Palladio

Kashmir

Chi Mai

Adagio for Strings: Some of you might remember this piece from The Elephant Man

WE THE PEOPLE - SEE IT NOW!

2010-10-30T23:01:00.004-04:00

The Cranberries: Only the Most Brilliantly Innovative Pop in the Last Twenty Years

2010-08-19T09:24:00.001-04:00

The Official Bluemoon-Wisenheimer Express Playlist

Bluemoon's 10 Best TV Comedies of All Time

2010-08-14T18:27:00.017-04:00

10. "THE BOB NEWHART SHOW" (1972 - 1978)

The dry-witted stylings of a Chicago psychologist and his wisecracking friends.

9. "EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND" (1996 - 2005)

The show that's not about the kids.

8. "THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW" (1961 - 1966)

The situation comedy series about a sketch comedy series and more.

7. "THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW" (1960 - 1968)

Small town eccentrics and hilarity.

6. "ALL IN THE FAMILY" (1971 - 1979)

Blue-collar, comedic bigotry and meatheads.

5. "SOUTH PARK" (1997 - )

Four boys and a town of lunatics.

4. "THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW" (1970 - 1977)

Who can turn the world on with her smile?

Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

Well it's you, girl, and you should know it.

With each glance and every little movement you show it.

Love is all around, no need to waste it.

You can have the town - why don't you take it?

You're gonna make it after all.

3. "ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT" (2003 - 2006)

If you could choose the family you were to be born into . . . you wouldn't choose this one.

2. "THE SIMPSONS" (1989 - )

D'Oh!

1. "SEINFELD" (1990 - 1998)

The show about nothing . . . that is to say, the show about four narcissistic neurotics.

The Gang: Kramer, George, Elaine and Jerry

Hello, Newman!

Morty Seinfeld

Helen Seinfeld

Frank and Estelle Costanza

Mr. Peterman

Uncle Leo

David Puddy

Susan Ross

Mrs. Ross

Mr. Ross

Mickey the Midget

Jackie the Lawyer

. . . and The Soup Nazi

The Obama Recovery

2010-08-01T17:00:00.000-04:00

Overpopulation and Other Bogeymen

2010-06-03T12:19:00.004-04:00

By Michael David Rawlings

There is plenty of room and resources on earth to sustain current and future population estimates. The problem on earth is not and never shall be any scarcity of resources, but the scarcity of liberty. In other words, the real problem has always been corrupt and tyrannical governments with their confiscatory taxation and their invariably incompetent intrusion into the management of the production and distribution of resources.

Of course the hysteria over the supposed apocalyptic climate changes due to carbon emissions is a politically driven hoax . . . a grab for power by statist swine, pseudo-scientific blather fueled by government-funded grants. And the target: control of the production and distribution of resources. Gee. Who'd a thunk it? Of course that hoax is unraveling, increasingly seen for what it is, just like the other leftist, politically motivated screeds of recent decades came to be know for what they were and died away: the population bomb of the '60's, the global cooling of the '70's (laughing out loud), the impending nuclear winter of Reaganism, that is to say, the President's determination to end détente with that monstrous paper tiger and bury it with our technological and economic might. (The left will never forgive Reagan for defeating the Soviet Union and demolishing their fable of a perpetual coexistence.)

But the facts of science and socio-economics, the lessons of history, common sense, the true nature of the human condition and the real motives of those who despise the alleged chaos of free markets: all these things are lost on the brainwashed among us—especially the murderous barbarians of pagan-past, that is to say, the tree huggers, the earth worshipers, those who would reduce the human race, the divine spark, the planet's greatest and only creative force, to a pack of parasites. These are the "enlightened" breed, their heads full of mush from leftist media and academia. They are idiots. They live under the delusion that all is a zero sum gain. The fact that technological advances in genetics, engineering and energy—the essence of food and other resource production—are virtually unlimited is lost on them. They are the mindless sheep cheering on the elite that seek to stifle these advances or block the expansion of energy exploration, development and production. In short, they are the self-fulfilling prophecy of doom and gloom in the midst of plenty. Visionless, unimaginative slugs.

The truly worrisome threat to the world in terms of continued progress and, therefore, plentiful resources is the failure of the indigenous peoples of the Western World—the epicenter of scientific, economic and political progress—to adequately reproduce themselves.

The real threat is under-population!

President Obama and Colonel Sanders: They Got a Thing Going On. . . .

2010-05-15T18:29:00.004-04:00

Bluemoon's Top Ten List: Hitchcock

2010-05-09T14:30:00.118-04:00

1. VERTIGO - 1958

2. REAR WINDOW - 1954

3. REBECCA - 1940

4. SHADOW OF A DOUBT - 1943

5. NORTH BY NORTHWEST - 1959

6. NOTORIOUS - 1946

7. PSYCHO - 1960

8. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN - 1951

9. THE BIRDS - 1963

10. THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY - 1955

THE OTHER GREAT FILMS:

LIFEBOAT - 1944

ROPE - 1948

FRENZY - 1972

DIAL 'M' FOR MURDER - 1954

TO CATCH A THIEF - 1955

SABOTEUR - 1942

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH - 1956

SUSPICION - 1941

SPELLBOUND - 1945

THE LADY VANISHES - 1938

YOUNG AND INNOCENT - 1937

THE 39 STEPS - 1935

SABOTAGE - 1936

Epic Boobs

2010-05-09T11:19:00.001-04:00

Talking Heads

2010-05-09T11:06:00.003-04:00

Burning Down the House

Blind

Heaven

Take Me to the River

Psycho Killer

Once in a Lifetime

Houses In Motion

Road to Nowhere

Wild Wild Life

And She Was

(Nothing But) Flowers

Girlfriend is Better

This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)

Found a Job

Life During Wartime
Memories Can't Wait

Obama, the mesiah of hopey-change

2010-05-09T11:00:00.000-04:00

We Are Not Ashamed; Are You?

2010-03-07T15:27:00.002-05:00

Carrying and reading the Bible, I Am Not Ashamed. . . .

By Nathan Tabor
Canada Free Press
March 5, 2010

School administrators in Texas face a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of three students, accusing the school district of refusing to allow children to carry or read the Bible. The lawsuit, filed in Houston, alleges that a teacher pulled two sisters from class after discovering that they were carrying Bibles and threatened to have them picked up by child-welfare authorities.

Another teacher told a pupil he was not allowed to read the Bible during free reading time and forced him to put it away, the lawsuit alleges. The boy also was required to remove a Ten Commandments book cover from another book, the lawsuit states.

“My daughters called me, were hysterical, and said, ‘Mama, they took our Bibles and called them garbage and threw them in the garbage and then threatened to call Child Protective Services,’ ” said Deborah Bedenbender, 37, a Willis homemaker.

ARTICLE

The Democratic Party is Destroying Itself

2010-03-07T15:01:00.002-05:00

As Obama’s ratings keep sinking faster than a wet Koran in a toilet. . . .

By Daniel Greenfield
Canada Free Press
March 6, 2010

The Republican party is destroying itself. That’s the message you’ll see repeated in media outlet after media outlet. That is the liberal talking point that has been spread throughout 2008 and 2009 by the press over and over again. It’s the one they’re still repeating now, even as the Tea Party movement has gone from a populist movement that the media ignored and then smeared when they couldn’t ignore it anymore, to a national force in politics. It’s the mantra that they’re still chanting even as so many Democratic congressmen are departing that it almost feels like a coup.

ARTICLE

We’re All Right-Wing Bastards Now

2010-03-07T14:47:00.002-05:00

—that is, if the NEA’s logic is to be believed.

By Larry Sand

The City Journal: Soundings

Winter 2010; Vol. 20, No. 1

National Education Association: A Plague on Education

On the final day of the National Education Association’s convention last summer, its outgoing general counsel, Bob Chanin, gave a speech for the ages. After sharing fond recollections of his 41 years as the NEA’s top lawyer, he switched gears and started lobbing grenades at “conservative and right-wing bastards,” including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. The NEA and its affiliates, by contrast, were “the nation’s leading advocates for public education and the type of liberal social and economic agenda that these groups find objectionable.” Chanin’s glowing portrait of the NEA was wildly wrong, of course, but so was his characterization of the union’s opponents. People of all political stripes—not just right-wing “bastards”—are starting to realize that the single biggest impediment to education reform is the NEA itself.

ARTICLE

Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

2010-03-04T08:59:00.000-05:00

By Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara

Investors.com

You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.

Read More

A New Mexico Firestorm

2010-02-24T13:34:00.010-05:00

Bon appetit!

The Santa Fe Plaza, New Mexico Chili Cook Off: Judge #3 was an inexperienced chili taster named Frank who was visiting from Springfield, Illinois. The original judge called in sick at the last moment, and Frank happened to be standing at the judge's table asking for directions to the Coors Light truck when the call came in. He was assured by the other two judges (native New Mexicans) that the chili wouldn't be all that spicy. Besides, they told him, he could have all the free beer he wanted during the tasting, so he accepted the challenge and became Judge #3. . . .

Scorecard notes from the event:

CHILI # 1 — MIKE'S MANIAC MONSTER CHILI

Judge # 1 — A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick.

Judge # 2 — Nice, smooth tomato flavor. Very mild.

Judge # 3 — Holy crap, what the hell is this stuff? You could remove dried paint from your driveway. Took me two beers to put the flames out. I hope that's the worst one. These New Mexicans are crazy.

CHILI # 2 — EL RANCHO'S AFTERBURNER CHILI

Judge # 1 — Smoky, with a hint of pork. Slight jalapeno tang.

Judge # 2 — Exciting BBQ flavor, needs more peppers to be taken seriously.

Judge # 3 — Keep this out of the reach of children. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich maneuver. They had to rush in more beer when they saw the look on my face.

CHILI # 3 — ALFREDO'S FAMOUS BURN DOWN THE BARN CHILI

Judge # 1 — Excellent firehouse chili. Great kick.

Judge # 2 — A bit salty, good use of peppers.

Judge # 3 — Call the EPA. I've located a uranium spill. My nose feels like I have been snorting Drano. Everyone knows the routine by now. Get me more beer before I ignite. Barmaid pounded me on the back.  Now my backbone is in the front part of my chest. I'm getting sh*t-faced from all of the beer.

CHILI # 4 — BUBBA'S BLACK MAGIC

Judge # 1 — Black bean chili with almost no spice. Disappointing.

Judge # 2 — Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish or other mild foods, not much of a chili.

Judge # 3 — I felt something scraping across my tongue, but I was unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds? Sally, the beer maid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. This 300 lb. woman is starting to look HOT . . . just like this nuclear waste I'm eating. Is chili an aphrodisiac?

CHILI # 5 — LISA'S LEGAL LIP REMOVER

Judge # 1 — Meaty, strong chili. Jalapeno peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive.

Judge # 2 — Chili using shredded beef, could use more tomato. Must admit the jalapeno peppers make a strong statement.

Judge # 3 — My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off my forehead.  I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted, and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her that her chili had given me brain damage. Sally saved my tongue from bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher. I wonder if I'm burning my lips off. It really ticks me off that the other judges asked me to stop screaming. Screw them.

CHILI # 6 — VARGA'S VERY VEGETARIAN VARIETY

Judge # 1 — Thin yet bold vegetarian variety chili. Good balance of spices and peppers.

Judge # 2 — The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, garlic. Superb.

Judge # 3 — My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous, sulfuric flames. I crapped on myself when I farted, and I'm worried it will eat through the chair. No one seems inclined to stand behind me except that Sally. Can't feel my lips anymore. I need to wipe my butt with a snow cone.

CHILI # 7 — SUSAN'S SCREAMING SENSATION CHILI

Judge # 1 — A mediocre chili with too much reliance on canned peppers.

Judge # 2 — Ho hum, tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can of chili peppers at the last moment. I should take note that I am worried about Judge #3. He appears to be in a bit of distress as he is cursing uncontrollably.

Judge # 3 — You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I wouldn't feel a thing. I've lost sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My shirt is covered with chili, which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are full of lava to match my shirt. At least during the autopsy, they'll know what killed me. I've decided to stop breathing. It's too painful. Screw it.  I'm not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air, I'll just suck it in through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.

CHILI # 8 — BIG TOM'S TOENAIL CURLING CHILI

Judge # 1 — The perfect ending.  This is a nice blend chili. Not too bold, but spicy enough to declare its existence.

Judge # 2 — This final entry is a good, balanced chili—neither mild nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge #3 farted, passed out, fell over and pulled the chili pot down on top of himself. Not sure if he's going to make it, poor fella. I wonder how he'd have reacted to really hot chili?

Judge # 3 — No report.

The Dude be Dancing, Yeah!

2010-02-16T11:11:00.004-05:00

Why Was Ronald Reagan the Greatest President of the 20th Century?

2010-02-06T17:55:00.002-05:00

by Burt Folsom
February 6, 2010
Andrew Breitbart Presents Big Government

No president of the 20th century had a more positive and enduring influence than Ronald Reagan, who was born 99 years ago today. Other presidents, from Wilson to FDR, exceeded Reagan in their impact, but much of it was negative. Sure, they won wars, but they almost destroyed the American economy as well.

Reagan, by contrast, won the Cold War and also revived the American economy from decades of abuse. He was successful both at home and abroad.

READ MORE

Happy Birthday, Gipper!

The Road Review: Cormac McCarthy Adaptation Takes path of Least Resistance

2010-02-06T15:39:00.007-05:00

The much-anticipated, much-overlooked film of 2009

By J. Hoberman

New Times

Directed by John Hillcoat

Written by Joe Penhall
Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy
Starring Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, and Robert Duvall.
Rated R

The Road, Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning, Oprah-endorsed post-apocalyptic survivalist prose poem—in which a father and his 10-year-old son traverse a despoiled landscape of unspeakable horror—was a quick, lacerating read. John Hillcoat’s literal adaptation, which arrives one Thanksgiving past its original release date is, by contrast, a long, dull slog.

READ MORE

The Cars

2010-02-06T13:38:00.003-05:00

My Best Friend's Girl

Let's Go

Magic

Shake it up

Tonight She Comes

Good Times Roll

Just What I Needed

Drive

You're All I Got Tonight

"Moving In Stereo" and "All Mixed Up"

What's Wrong with 'Retarded'?

2010-02-06T10:49:00.004-05:00

By Paul Shlichta
February 6, 2010

American Thinker

If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. —Confucius, Analects

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel

I admit that it's fun watching an adroit manipulator of political correctness get hoisted with his own petard and be forced to meekly eat his words. But to be fair, Rahm Emanuel's use of the word "retarded," and the general use of that word for someone who is (in P.C.-ese) "intellectually challenged," is inoffensive and honest.

First of all, the context shows that Emanuel used the word in a reasonable way. He was dismissing a proposal that the administration attack moderate Democrats in public ads. He was simply pointing out the stupidity of publicly offending people you want as future allies -- which is in fact a stupid thing to do. And he said it privately, not as a public insult. It took a backstairs gossip to make a public issue of it.

Next, his use of the "f-word" is lamentable but common in the debased milieu of politics, especially Chicago/White House politics. Nowadays, as someone once explained about the British use of "bloody," the f-word merely means that a noun or adjective will follow. I was brought up to believe that it should be avoided as being offensive to ladies. However, NOW does not seem to have complained -- perhaps because, as Judge Craig put it a century ago, they have ceased to be ladies but not yet learned to be gentlemen, and they probably use the word themselves. So let's give a reluctant pass to the f-word.

READ MORE
See the Washington Post Report

Obama's dangerous denial

2010-01-05T18:29:00.003-05:00

By Charles Krauthammer

Jewish World Review Jan. 1, 2010 / 15 Teves 5770

Behind the Culture of Terrorism Denial

2010-01-05T18:26:00.001-05:00

By Daniel Greenfield Sunday, January 3, 2010

Canada Free Press

The same political correctness that necessitated ignoring Hasan's hatefilled ravings toward the United States as another uncomfortable incident, would have snapped its jaws shut in an instant on any straight talk about terrorism.

Why Time Passed Obama By

2010-01-05T18:20:00.001-05:00

The magazine's choice for Person of the Year says it all

by Rex Murphy

The Globe and Mail/Opinions

Climategate: You should be steamed

2010-01-05T18:14:00.000-05:00

By NEIL FRANK

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Jan. 2, 2010, 4:28PM

Hurricane Chief: Probe Climategate

Newsmax.com

Sunday, 03 Jan 2010 05:11 PM

Delusions and Duplicity

2010-01-05T16:22:00.064-05:00

by Michael David Rawlings
See comments on Revisions and Divisions

While not sure, I gather you believe it impossible for the government to remain neutral in matters of religion. I see it differently. A government can refrain from promoting any religion, whether Christianity or any other, without thereby necessarily endorsing secular humanism or, as I've heard others assert, atheism. Though you voice support for the principle of separation of church and state, your argument appears to negate the possibility of separating church and state and suppose instead that we are doomed to a perpetual competition over which religion(s) will enjoy the government's favor. —Doug Indeap

I'm saying something that has apparently never occurred to you in all your life. Drop the rhetoric. Stop the rote regurgitation of formula.

Think.

There is not and cannot be any such thing as an institution that exists in an ideological vacuum. It is not unconstitutional to use tax dollars to present academics from the perspective of a specific religious school of thought. Such a thing does not in and of itself constitute an establishment of religion . . . unless there is no universal, ideological freedom within the system in terms of choice. Where there is no choice, an establishment of one ideology or another exists, suppressing the free expression/exercise of all others. That's what's unconstitutional. There is no such thing as a constitutional, one-size-fits-all system of education. You have been deceived. The leftist cabal of the Warrant Court knew this, even if you don't. They knew they were establishing a collectivist system of education in violation of individual liberty and free-association, even if you don't.

What? You're saying that the teaching of literature or history or science, for example, can be accomplished without the benefit of context, ideological perspective . . . interpretation? You're living in a fantasy world where elephants take flight and monkeys sing Cole Porter show tunes.

Only a private system of education—totally free of government involvement—could ever be constitutional according to your logic, not mine, but you don't see that because you think the impossible is possible. Or are you merely pretending not to hear the millions of voices in this country who are fed up with the leftist hegemony in the state schools? I say that if the government is going to be involved in the education of the Republic's people then for obvious reasons the system must allow for universal school choice. In order to satisfy the demands of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the nation's education system must be either exclusively private or private in terms of choice.

There is another alternative. There is no need for squabbling over ideological turf. Open your eyes and your mind.

Your concept of separation with its tortured version of the Establishment Clause is not that of Madison or Jefferson, it's that of the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, that of socialist Western Europe, where once again as I write this the children of Christian parents are relieved of custody by the state for fleeing the state schools and teaching their children at home.

I say that both teachers and students should be free to express/exercise their personal ideological convictions at any time they please in the schools, while you insist that the practice of the fundamental rights of persons of traditional religious conviction be regulated. In the meantime, what are the non-religious teachers and students doing in the schools? Discussing the lint in their bellybuttons?

Laying aside, for the moment, the fact that conservative professors and students are constantly hounded by politically correct speech codes imposed by leftist thugs, we generally understand that imposing the sort of artificial prohibitions against ideological expression, as you propose, in terms of time and place, on professors and students at the collegiate level is absurd—in both private and public institutions. Why is this sort of thing not absurd at the elementary and secondary levels of education?

By and large, prior to the Twentieth Century there was no public education system. Parents educated their children at home or collectively as they saw fit. There's no provision in the Constitution providing for the establishment of a government institution of education. Beyond upholding the principles of natural law, the constraints of commonsense and decency, the government has no right to tell parents what they may or may not teach their children—anywhere, anytime or in anyway. Period.

You're arguing that once the government directly involves itself in the process of educating our children that parental consent and authority go out the window. How could that be? So now, suddenly, certain ideas or worldviews that were always freely and openly taught and served to inform the modes of interpretation and expression of human thought and endeavor are officially prohibited? The unfettered, free-market place of ideas, ideological competition, ends at the school doors? Well, at least, apparently, at the doors of elementary and secondary public schools. Right?

Nonsense. Tyranny. Suppression. Collectivism. Fascism. Marxism. Paganism. Atheism. Darwinism. The thuggery of leftist swine. The cult of global warming. Mother Earth. Leftist environmentalism. Sensitivity training. Self-esteem training. (Touchy-feely rot.) Sexual immorality and condoms passed out under the guise of sex education. Obama touting socialized medicine in the schools, preaching it to young, impressionable minds, a captive audience. The trash of the jackbooted pimps and whores of secular humanism.

Now you see it, now you don't.

Look, either government systems of education are in and of themselves unconstitutional or ones that do not provide for universal school choice are unconstitutional. Pick one. Start living up to your fancy rhetoric or admit that you're a statist bootlick prattling Orwellian doublespeak. Stop pretending to be an American patriot—"full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse"—when the only freedom of expression you're willing to protect in the schools is that of your own and your fellow travelers.

(Is that who you really are? If not then. . . .)

Choice, Sir. Choice. That's what I'm talking about. Read Milton Friedman's Public Schools: Make Them Private. Out of the general fund for education take your share and educate your children as you see fit—at home or in a school of your choice. Take off that straitjacket you're wearing—cut loose, break out, get free.

The Dude be Dancing, Yeah!

2010-01-01T06:45:00.003-05:00

Ten New Reasons Why Obamacare Can Still Be Killed

2010-01-01T06:40:00.001-05:00

By Phyllis Schlafly

New reasons emerge almost daily as to why Obamacare can and must be defeated. . . .

Revisions and Divisions

2010-01-01T06:35:00.013-05:00

by Michael David Rawlings

By the late 1950s, Americans were no longer almost entirely guided by the Judeo-Christian worldview, and challenges to the teaching of Christian values in the public schools began to be heard by federal courts. Plaintiffs had two principal grievances: (1) school prayer directed at the Christian deity, and (2) school-imposed biblical instruction. (It was not until 1980, however, that the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law that required the state's schools to post copies of the Ten Commandments in classrooms.)

The Warren Court, never one to miss an opportunity to engage in a little social engineering and ever-ready to grab more power for the federal government, happily accommodated the plaintiffs by ignoring historical practice and the original intent of the First Amendment. This was accomplished by tossing out the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause and superimposing a twisted version of an old idea onto the Establishment Clause.

The Jeffersonian doctrine known as the Wall of Separation between Church and State, we were told, does not pertain so much to the protection of the Church against the impositions of the State, as much as it pertains to the protection of the State against being exposed to the religious notions of the Church. That the Court's version of the doctrine is not that of either the Jeffersonian or constitutional expression was irrelevant to the Court.

Apparently, the First Amendment's new meaning imbued federal judges with the omniscience to discern for the rest us the difference between those ideas that were religious and those ideas that were not. In other words, judges would direct the schools' curriculum, not the people. By this, however, the Court did not mean to suggest that it was legal for public school teachers to invade American homes and scream obscenities at children, just whisper them into their ears in the public schools.

Hence, the Warren Court resolved a serious problem by further exacerbating it. After correctly observing that it was unconstitutional for state schools to impose the teachings of Judeo-Christianity on other-religious and non-religious persons, the Court decided to settle the matter by imposing a similar violation on all of us. Instead of simply recognizing that the people who pay the education system's bills should be free to educate their children as they see fit, at home or in a school of their choice, the Court opted to ignore original intent altogether, especially as it pertained to parental consent and authority.

Instead of allowing that a culturally diverse and changing society would require a new means of allocating funds for education in order to satisfy the requirements of the First Amendment for all, the Court elected to enshrine a one-size-fits-all scheme. Instead of requiring the nation's schools to honor the constitutional rights of all their students or close their doors, the Court chose to expel the "Miscreant," known as "God" to many, who had instigated all the hullabaloo in the first place. Hence, it would not be the state schools that would have to change their ways or go, it would be the people, millions of Americans, who would have to compromise their most cherished convictions under the new hegemony or take their convictions and get out.

The Court effectively and quite consciously established secular humanism as the official religion of the state and established the public education system as the state's "church".

But the Warren Court did not so much overthrow the First Amendment as much as it turned it on its head and, thereby, created a whole new legal conundrum, one that constantly pits faction against faction in an unending battle in which no one's rights or concerns can ever be fully realized. It is for this very reason that the increasingly heated and bitter debate over the content of our schools' academics continues to rage right up to this day. This fiasco is the direct result of the Court elevating what had only been up to that time a homegrown and locally operated system of education, one that was mostly non-existent before the 20th Century, to a federally mandated and administered regime. This "nationalization" of the education system subsequently alienated an even greater number of Americans from their rights and needlessly instigated a vicious cultural civil war.

But the irresponsible behavior of the Warren Court should not surprise anyone. Being that the leftist does not grasp the truth about human nature and about the nature of things, he's the consummate meddler who's forever jumping into the private affairs of others, never merely encouraging, but ever obnoxiously insisting upon their participation in the next, great utopian love fest. He does not have the good sense to allow that Americans should decide for themselves with whom they would sleep.

It is readily self-evident that no institution exists in an ideological vacuum. Thus, if the underlying ideology governing the academic fair offered in today's public schools is no longer Judeo-Christianity, what is it? Where in the Constitution is the federal government delegated the power to define for you or me what does or does not constitute religious training? How could such a power not effectively render the First Amendment meaningless? Does the First Amendment protect the individual's perspective or that of the state?

Why is it a good thing when Christians are taxed to support the propagation of secular humanism in the public schools, but a bad thing when others are asked to spare a few lousy dimes to provide children transportation from a public school to a parochial school just a few miles down the road for instruction on matters that, according to idiotic leftists, the public school cannot provide? Why does the public education system not violate the constitutional rights of Christians when the teachings of Moses, Jesus Christ or the Apostle Paul cannot be taught, but the atheistic drivel of Darwin, Freud or Nietzsche can? The leftist, over whose head the outrage of his own suggestion flies, responds by telling the Christian that he is free to send his children to whatever type of school he pleases. But if the Christian "chooses" to flee the insults of public schools, he must necessarily leave behind the tax dollars he is compelled to fork out for an education system that is fundamentally hostile to him!

And what about the far too many bombed out prisons that pass for schools in America's larger inner cities? Why do wealthy leftists adamantly oppose initiatives that would extend the same kind of educational opportunities enjoyed by their children to the children of the impoverished?

No one should wonder why such an inherently unjust system turns out such a mediocre product. After all, this is the same system in which precious time and resources are now wasted on nonsense like "conflict resolution" and "sensitivity training," the sorts of things that give leftists goose bumps and the rest of us indigestion. In truth, these are merely the insipid alternatives to "thou shalt not."

No one should be surprised by the stupefied looks that appear on the faces of so many youngsters these days when they are asked to respond to the most elementary questions about the history of their own country. "Abraham . . . who?" At your local high school, you might be told by students that Shakespeare is a racial slur or some dead white guy from New England who wrote the Bible. Should some of them tell you that a declarative sentence is something a judge gives you for car jacking or slapping your ho, don't show alarm. Just calmly nod your head and slowly back away.

Today, five out of ten high-school graduates cannot name their nation's capital, its first president (for crying out loud!) or the three branches of its government. Half of them cannot read at an eighth-grade level or solve a quadratic equation.

But not only are far too many of our young people woefully ignorant about their nation's history, confused about its cultural influences, functionally illiterate and mathematically incompetent—they cannot think for themselves either.

We should not be surprised by the inarticulate gibberish that flies from so many young lips these days when in the name of "diversity" an entire generation has been deprived of the world's truly great ideas. But our young scholars haven't starved . . . well, not entirely. Instead they've been fed the tripe of the restylized ideas—or is it the delusions?—of old that have buried many a nation and have mired the rest in tyranny. The fact that so many young people these days are under the impression that their generation is especially free and open-minded is both tragic and comical. As the illogic of "inclusionism" has rendered so many of them incapable of distinguishing the difference between concepts like self-identity and self-determination or between tolerance and acceptance, today's youth comprise the most robotically conformist and spitefully narrow-minded generation that America has ever produced. Despite the multifarious clothing fashions and hairstyles sported by them, an alarming number are unwittingly marching in lock-step unison toward the illusions sported by totalitarianism. Regardless of the stated reasoning behind the arguments of their antagonists, epithets like bigot, homophobe or fascist fly from their lips as thoughtlessly as a dog licks its genitals.

We should not be surprised that so many young people these days regard Judeo-Christianity's commonsensical mores with derision when they are constantly fed the claptrap of pseudo-intellectuals who airily postulate that the observance of such courtesies only serves to undermine one's self-esteem and inhibit the free expression of one's true inner self. Whatever happened to the understanding that the ideals of Judeo-Christianity led the way toward the democratization of the Western world?

Finally, why should anyone be shocked by the kinds of outrages that have been launched against our society by post-pubescent psychopaths like Dylan Klebold when the theories of intellectual barbarians, their breath reeking of hopelessness and despair, are incessantly whispered in the ears of our children as they are bombarded, without benefit of context or consequence, by filth and violence from every quarter of our society?

Why are the babies burning? Why is there silence in heaven?

2010-01-01T06:30:00.007-05:00

Public Schools: Make Them Private

by Milton Friedman

Our elementary and secondary educational system needs to be radically restructured. Such a reconstruction can be achieved only by privatizing a major segment of the educational system--i.e., by enabling a private, for-profit industry to develop that will provide a wide variety of learning opportunities and offer effective competition to public schools. The most feasible way to bring about such a transfer from government to private enterprise is to enact in each state a voucher system that enables parents to choose freely the schools their children attend. The voucher must be universal, available to all parents, and large enough to cover the costs of a high-quality education. No conditions should be attached to vouchers that interfere with the freedom of private enterprises to experiment, to explore, and to innovate. . . .

Read more . . .

Abortion Distortion Destroyer!

2010-01-01T06:25:00.001-05:00

Obama: A Republican Plant?

2010-01-01T06:20:00.007-05:00

Andrew Breitbart Presents BIG GOVERNMENT

Obama: A Republican Plant?

By Bob Parks

Many of us had no idea the Republican Party had it in them, but to devise and implement such a plan was ingenious. Think about it; party leadership acting totally inept while a charismatic young Democrat presidential candidate captures the imagination of the normally lethargic youth vote, captures the senior vote, women, and even sends a thrill up the leg of the media.

And within a few short months after attaining the presidency, he conducts himself in a manner (personally and in office) that had not only invigorated his political opponents, but has them so energized they take to the streets and even march on The Capitol (more than once). One would have to conclude Barack Hussein Obama is either the most politically clueless president ever, or… is really a stealth Republican destroying the Democrat Party from within.

Is Barack Obama a Republican plant?

Read more . . .

Johnny Cash

2010-01-01T06:15:00.001-05:00

Hurt

Personal Jesus

Man Comes Around

I Hung My Head

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

(Leona Lewis's version)

Sam Hall

Give My Love to Rose

Walk the Line

Ring of Fire

Why Me Love?

Folsom Prison Blues

A Boy Named Sue

Man In Black

American Thinker

2010-01-01T06:10:00.005-05:00

12/31/10

The Left's End Times

by J Robert Smith

Lefties have long mocked Christians on the fringe for proclaiming the imminent end of the world and the coming of God. Yokels, bumpkins, knuckle-draggers, Bible-thumpers, crazies, and zealots are but a few of the epithets that have been hurled at End-Times Christians.

It's therefore more than a little ironic—perhaps divinely ironic—that many of these same oh-so-worldly liberals have come to embrace their own version of the end times. Theirs, though, hasn't a hint of the divine in it; that would smack of the wrong sort of primitivism and violate their steadfast secularism and their claim to upholding down-to-earth science and ideology.

Read more . . .

The Rot At Duke—And Beyond

2010-01-01T06:10:00.003-05:00

by Stuart Taylor Jr.

Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009

National Journal Magazine

Much of academia appears to have a disregard of due process and a bias against white males. . . .

You might think that a university whose students were victims of the most notorious fraudulent rape claim in recent history, and whose professors—88 of them—signed an ad implicitly presuming guilt, and whose president came close to doing the same would have learned some lessons.

The facts are otherwise. They also suggest that Duke University's ugly abuse in 2006 and 2007 of its now-exonerated lacrosse players—white males accused by a black stripper and hounded by a mob hewing to political correctness—reflects a disregard of due process and a bias against white males that infect much of academia.

In September, far from taking pains to protect its students from false rape charges, Duke adopted a revised "sexual misconduct" policy that makes a mockery of due process and may well foster more false rape charges by rigging the disciplinary rules against the accused.

Meanwhile, none of the 88 guilt-presuming professors has publicly apologized. (Duke's president, Richard Brodhead, did -- but too little and too late.) Many of the faculty signers—a majority of whom are white—have expressed pride in their rush to judgment. None was dismissed, demoted, or publicly rebuked. Two were glorified this month in Duke's in-house organ as pioneers of "diversity," with no reference to their roles in signing the ad. Three others have won prestigious positions at Cornell, Vanderbilt, and the University of Chicago.

Read more. . . .

2010-01-01T06:05:00.003-05:00

Obama, the Marxist christ

2009-12-28T10:58:00.005-05:00