Some people are just wrong. March 31, 2008
Posted by Administrator in Blogging, Polls.1 comment so far
Like these guys:
Created by OnePlusYou – Free Online Dating
Now, I do try keep it clean, but am not always successful. But for them to say that this little blog is 100% clean. . .they’re not sampling everything.
APGW my blue ass and rosy cheeks March 31, 2008
Posted by Administrator in Cultural Pessimism, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Liberal Hypocrisy.1 comment so far
Look. I know this is anecdotal. I also know that to claim one year’s experience is not exactly valid in terms of a “world wide trend.”
But still. It is March 31st. I had to totally bundle up -again- to bike to work this morning. My Weatherbug says it is 23 degrees out. Average low at this time of year is just under 40. And this has been going on for weeks.
There is a trend towards warming? Well, I just might accept that, though I have yet to see the Urban Heat Island argument adequately addressed as to how it has impacted yearly measures of heat increase. Yes, I know the IPCC has quoted stat and verse that supposedly refutes it. Being trained in stats myself, I will say that I find their self-serving conclusion just that: self-serving, and not conclusive.
An example of the refutation of the heat island argument:
Ocean temperatures have climbed steadily during the past century, for example — yet this data is not affected by “urban heat islands.” Most land glaciers around the world are melting, far away from urban centers.
Right. Glaciers have been in retreat for centuries.
new research shows that the causes of Mt. Kilimanjaro’s well-documented
glacier retreat is far more complex, likely resulting from a natural climate shift that occurred more than 120 years ago, long before widespread use of fossil energy. Thus, scientific evidence informs us that the shrinkage of Kilimanjaro’s ice cap is simply part of the ebb and flow of the endless cycle of nature. This represents a perfect example of why scientific “consensus” does not equal scientific truth. And why we should not act in haste, basing our actions on scientific conclusions that have not been thoroughly examined and tested despite being widely quoted. An international team of researchers led by Georg Kaser and comprising experts in tropical weather, mountain glaciers, and paleoclimate took a behind-the-scenes look at the Kilimanjaro ice melt and answered the question, “Is man-made global warming responsible for the loss of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers?” The answer was a resounding “no.”
As for warming ocean temperatures, well, they’re not. Of course, NPR is trying to spin things in such a way as to say that the warmth has been pushed down to depth we don’t measure.
Which would be an interesting turn of science. “Warm air rises”, remember? How is it that in the ocean warm temps sink? A revolution? Or wishful thinking on Chicken Little’s part?
I vote for #2.
Meanwhile, temps this last year dropped huge.
China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn’t itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
Hm. Interesting to see how the spin doctors fall all over themselves to deal with this one.
Getting back to the origiunal issue, as far as ‘warming” being AP-caused, I’ll start listening to those arguments at the same time I start seeing the Chicken Littles abandoning their cars.
I work at a school where most of the kids are somewhat well-off, and they have their own cars and drive themselves to school, in some cases no more than five blocks. In the interests of protecting the environment, they founded a Recycling Committee that encourages the student body and faculty to recycle paper and cans.
Now, I on occasion will crumple up the odd piece of paper and toss it in the trash. These kids then get on me about not recycling. I retort that when these kids start biking to work and cease spouting acre-feet of CO2 in the air by driving their cars, then they can lecture me on trashing the odd piece of paper. Till then, they need to keep their sanctimonious mouths shut.
Never fails to make my point.
Same goes for your APGW Chicken Littles. Start biking. DO something rather than complain. Making a difference doesn’t mean whining about how others aren’t helping. Making a difference means YOU doing what YOU can right now.
Charity begins at home, people.
Of course, if cooling is in effect, I guess we better start driving those cars again, and quick, or we all might freeze to death.
Classic Illustration of the Hypocrisy of the Left March 28, 2008
Posted by Administrator in atheism, Cultural Pessimism, Liberal Hypocrisy.add a comment
via George Will.
Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.” The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives. (This is a surprise? -ed.)
• Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
• Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
• Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.
• Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.
• In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.
• People who reject the idea that “government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition.
The comment surely designed to make the Pharyngulites haul out their straw-man army is this one: ” The single biggest predictor of someone’s altruism, Willett says, is religion.“
Wow. What a bombshell. (/irony)
Will continues:
Brooks’s data about disparities between liberals’ and conservatives’ charitable giving fit these facts: Democrats represent a majority of the wealthiest congressional districts, and half of America’s richest households live in states where both senators are Democrats.
While conservatives tend to regard giving as a personal rather than governmental responsibility, some liberals consider private charity a retrograde phenomenon — a poor palliative for an inadequate welfare state and a distraction from achieving adequacy by force, by increasing taxes. Ralph Nader, running for president in 2000, said: “A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.” Brooks, however, warns: “If support for a policy that does not exist . . . substitutes for private charity, the needy are left worse off than before. It is one of the bitterest ironies of liberal politics today that political opinions are apparently taking the place of help for others.”
“You cannot give what you do not have.” But liberals believe exactly that. Take from others so that this may then be given to others.
Pony up, Kos, Myers and The Goracle. Charity, as they say, starts at home. Show is what it means to give of one’s needs, and perhaps the rest of us will listen to your clarion-call of Bigger Government Will Solve Everything.
Furthermore, Messers. Myers/Dennett/Dawkins: Put your money where your mouth is. Show us how being committed, humanist atheists results in a more charitable, giving and loving culture.
A cold day in hell, and so on.
Paul Scofield, Requiscat in Pacem March 21, 2008
Posted by Administrator in Drama, Requiscat in Pacem.2 comments
The English Canon has lost one of its true giants. Paul Scofield, one of the leading lights of the English stage, died Wednesday, March 19 at age 86 after a battle with leukemia.
Hailed by numerous peers and critics as one of the greatest actors of our time, Scofield did not take the steps to transform the success he had on the stage for success on the silver screen. This “failure to go to the next level” has mystified some of Hollywood’s more materialistic observers. But it is very much in keeping -even logical- for a man who sought not for fame and adulation, but rather desired to show his greatness mostly to audiences and to devote himself to his family.
Scofield was noted as early as the ’40s as an actor blessed with preternatural gifts; a gravelly yet adaptable voice (Fred Zinneman described it as “a Rolls-Royce starting up”) and a tall frame that he could fit into any role. His portrayal of King Lear of 1962 is hailed by many (including Corin Redgrave and Sir Ian McKellen) as the greatest Shakespearean performance in memory history.
It was his performance of the merry yet morally upright Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons that garnered the attention of Hollywood, as Fred Zinneman’s production of the play into a film garnered the film Best Picture, and Scofield himself Best Actor. Yet Scofield sent a clear message that fame was not his interest, as he skipped the Oscar ceremony and Dame Judith Hiller accepted Scofield’s award in his name. Scofield himself went back to the stage.
He had stated clearly that fame was not an interest.
Despite his international fame, when the curtain fell, Mr. Scofield hopped the commuter train back to his family. He did not often mix socially with theater people. At home, only 10 miles or so from his birthplace, was his wife, the former Joy Parker, an actress he married in 1943 and remained with for 65 years, until his death; a daughter, Sarah, and a son, Martin. They all survive him.
“I decided a long time ago I didn’t want to be a star personality and live my life out in public,” Mr. Scofield once said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to wave personality about like a flag and become labeled.”
He refused a proffered knighthood, stating that if one is going to be given a title, “. . .what’s wrong with Mister?”
From A Man For All Seasons, while being confronted by Cardinal Wolsey.
A humor PR shot with director Ken Branagh from Henry V
As King Lear, quite possibly from his epic 1962 stage performance, directed by Peter Brook.
If there was any doubt that Scofield had no interest in larger fame, his treatment of the role of Salieri in Peter Shaeffer’s Amadeus had to put it to rest. Scofield’s Salieri on stage was just as powerful as his Thomas More from 20 years previous. And like More, Hollywood wanted to transfer Salieri and Mozart from the stage to the screen. The role was offered, and Scofield absolutely balked. He said there was no way he was going to take months away from his family again. The role was given to F. Murray Abraham, who then won the Best Actor Oscar in 1985 by mimicking Scofield’s stage performance.
He did sometimes come back to the screen, playing Judge Danforth in The Crucible, the troubled French king Charles VII in Henry V and Mark Van Doren in Quiz Show. (Robert Redford directed Quiz Show, and the story goes that he wanted only Scofield for the role of Charles Van Doren’s erudite and innocent father, and Scofield was extremely reluctant to take the role. Redford had to engage in more than a little beseeching to get Scofield to acquiesce.) Any screen performance you may see with Paul Scofield shows him an actor with marvelous range and an unavoidable tendency to steal whatever scene he might be in.
I have damned few heroes in my life. James Garner -despite his politics- and Paul Scofield are just about it as far as contemporary public personae go. Those are -were- really the only two actors I would have been deeply honored to meet, and now one of them is gone.
Paul Scofield, Requiscat in Pacem.
The Fullness of the Dawkobot Kool-Aid March 14, 2008
Posted by Administrator in Apologetics, atheism, Cultural Pessimism, philosophy.4 comments
(WordPress is being idiotic, so there are no links available for this post. I will either post actual URLs you can copy and paste, or you’ll have to Google particular names.
Not that you need to, you’ve seen them before)
I have actually mixed the Kool-Aid, took a good look at it, poured myself a glass, held it to my lips and taken a taste.
I cannot drink it. The lack of nutritional value, combined with the overwhelmingly bitter odor of almonds prevents me from swallowing the Dawkobot Kool-Aid.
I’ve watched Richard Dawkins lecture (http://www.glumbert.com/media/calltoarms). I’ve watched him debate with a liberal theologian from the Anglican Church (http://www.glumbert.com/media/dawkinsbishop). I’ve read some of his latest screed as presented at a speech in Wisconsin. (http://www.madison.com/tct/news/276768)
Without question, the man is a brilliant biologist like his fellow Kool-Aid imbibers PZ Myers and Larry Moran. He is also a witty, incisive speaker. There is much to be admired about the man in terms of scientific intellect. Much the same may be said about his fellow thinkers Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. They are all bright men in their correct fashion.
But as philosophers, they are all frightfully and dangerously amateur and misled, and as proponents of public policy, they are as ominous in their idealism as the worst Torquemada or Hitler.
As for the realm of philosophy, I cite Dawkins from his most recent article listed above:
Dawkins joked that he’s not absolutely positive there is no God. “Only in the sense that I’m not absolutely positive there is no large china teapot in orbit in the solar system.”
No one can actually disprove the existence of a celestial teapot, he said, “which means we all technically have to be agnostic about the teapot. But in practice we are all ‘ateapotists,’ ” he said to laughter.
He is, in his snarky upper-class British twit fashion, poking fun at religion by reciting a variant on the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The short version of this long-useless argumend against the existence of God is that we an imagine any sort of nonsense -unicorns in our backyard, flying spaghetti monsters, teapots in orbit- and to simply imagine them, while perhaps difficult to disprove, is insufficient to prove that they DO exist. Since the likelihood is so minimal as to be non-existent, we are safe in assuming that they in fact do NOT exist.
The debunking of this argument however, is really quite simple. In each case of the unicorn, or the spaghetti monster, or the orbiting teapot, the creator of the myth in question is dealing with constructs already very familiar to the human psyche. Each is made up of ideas that we as humans have already experienced.
But in the case of the Creator, of an all-powerful, all-good, perfect being in God, we are talking about a construct that is alien to our experience. There is nothing in our experience that is all-powerful; certainly nothing that is all-good, and perfection doesn’t even exist in nature (ask the high-speed photographers if they can capture the perfect “King’s Coronet” that is possible at the instant after a drop of milk falls into a perfectly still bowl of milk. It is possible, but it has never been captured on film.). Despite this lack of experience, our collective souls yearn for it, and on some level therefore must have experienced it. When else but before the fall?
Dawkins himself in his talk with the Bishop of Oxford (which is, by the way, an almost absurdly polite and deferential conversation. Both antagonists hold to their native positions, but are unfailingly polite and understanding of the other) admits that there must be some form of “other”, similar to what Einstein hinted at, but he refuses to admit this is God, or that religion in any way leads to this “other.” I have suggested elsewhere that Dawkins was having second thoughts about his atheism. I wish I’d had access to his talk with Oxford at the time. I still believe I am correct, but as CS Lewis was too stubborn to admit to Catholicism due to his traumatic upbringing in Ulster, so too Dawkins out of stubborn habit will never admit to the existence of what even his ossified conscience is hinting at.
Regardless, Cambridge, Morris and Toronto biologists need to stick to what they know, and keep the hell out of philosophy. They have shown themselves to be abundantly unqualified.
____________________________________________________________________________________
As for acting as framers of public policy, the Dawkobots take their orders from Richard Dawkins, and those orders are disturbingly Orwellian.
There is no such thing as a Catholic child, there are only children of Catholic parents, Dawkins said. “I think it is a form of child abuse to speak of a 4-year-old child as a Catholic child or a Protestant child or a Muslim child. There is no such thing as a Protestant child. There is no such thing as a Muslim child.
Meaning, of course, that such horrible practices as forming the faith of one’s child ought to be outlawed. He has signed a petition at one point that advocated exactly this, but later repudiated it for fear of a backlash amongst the more rational of his sycophants (an oxymoron, I know. . .but let it lie for now).
Mark Shea has characterized Dawkins as evil, not just stupid. I have to disagree. Dawkins is stupid- dangerously so- in terms of philosophy and public policy.
But no man is inherently evil. He may believe in evil practices, but that does not make him the devil.
Though come to think of it, this sort of logic gives Hitler a pass as well.
Rachel Lucas March 13, 2008
Posted by Administrator in Blogging, Humor.add a comment
She has no idea who I am, but I’m putting in a plug for her anyway. Take a look at the dog on her title bar, then read the caption.
See if that doesn’t make you laugh.
Then check some of her go-for-the-throat prose.
Mmmkay. Behold the thought processes of true liberals. I know it’s unlikely since I live in Texas, but I so deeply wish some of these turdeaters would come to my city. I’d have to be sure to find them as soon as they landed because they wouldn’t last long on the ground here, and I would like to capture their beatings on video.
Yes, my daily reading list just got a little longer.
HT: Anchoress (who else??)
Spitzer by picture March 11, 2008
Posted by Administrator in Idiots, Liberal Hypocrisy.add a comment
Proposed caption: This is the face of man who stuck his ass into a steel-toothed spring trap.
Proposed caption: Cuckolded wife thinks: “Not only do I have to show my betrayed ass on national TV with this silly twit (and WHO is the skank that actually slept with this ugly fool?), but his ass is TOAST when we get home. And next year, I am SO soaking him in the divorce settlement. I’d call him a tool, but because I have to give my own show of support to his philandering, holier-than-thou, hypocritical ass I suppose I’d just be quiet.”
In all honesty, she is a tough woman to stand up there with this twit, and my heart does go out to her. There can be few things more humiliating than public recognition of your having been cuckolded.
But I have no sympathy for Spitzer. None. Only idiots and monkeys are so stupid as to not keep it in the pants.
Political Correctness shoots itself in the foot March 11, 2008
Posted by Administrator in Cultural Pessimism, Idiots, Liberal Hypocrisy.add a comment
It seems that the Episcopal Church, in a fit of self-righteous arrogance, has seen fit to say to any financial organization it does business with to demand of those same organizations that it diversify their boards; making sure that those boards are culturally and ethnically diverse.
In short, make sure that the boards have token non-whites.
The recent proxy filing by Zimmer, a Warsaw-based orthopedics company, included a shareholder proposal from the church asking the company to take more steps to diversify its board of directors, “all of whom are white males.” The church pointed to the “cozy clubbiness” that too often has characterized U.S. corporate boards.
Slight problem. They sent this notice to a board who had a member named Dr. Augustus White. White, doncha know, is a black man.
Idiots.
The parade of sanctimonious political correctness marches on.
via Mark Shea and MidWest Conservative Journal.
Eliot Spitzer shows us the moral consistency of the Democrats March 10, 2008
Posted by Administrator in Cultural Pessimism, Humor, Idiots, Liberal Hypocrisy, Politics.add a comment
Delicious irony, anyone?
Federal prosecutors have unsealed an affidavit that details a rendezvous in a Washington hotel room last month between a prostitute and a client who a source tells CNN was New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
The affidavit does not mention Spitzer by name, but a source with knowledge of the case said the subject identified as Client 9 is the governor.
The Clinton campaign immediately began sponging Spitzer’s name from the Senator’s campaign website.
The bit then tries to tar Romney with the same brush, having scrubbed all notice of Idaho idiot Larry Craig from their website.
Which is a tad disingenuous, as Craig never endorsed Romney for President, nor did Romney seek Craig’s endorsement.
Ladies and Gentlemen, our Evil Party at work, fighting viciously amongst one another while committing various perversions.
Too bad the Stupid Party is only microscopically better.
A Whole Lot About Mostly Nothing 