Author: VD

No worries, he won’t date babykillers

It’s always somewhat amusing to see how some young women attempt to make the political personal, never realizing how it is guaranteed to come around and bite them in the behind. And I tend to doubt that the national championship- and Heisman trophy-winning multimillionaire pro quarterback is going to be overly concerned about the threat that some would-be babykiller would not date him due to his willingness to speak out against the legal murder of unborn children:

I realize I’m not the most reliable when it comes to dating guys who are totally on the up-and-up. But I draw the line at hardcore pro-lifers. I refuse to date a guy who doesn’t believe in a woman’s right to choose because I essentially view that as someone who believes women are too stupid to make decisions for themselves.

This woman is certainly too stupid to understand that a pro-life position has nothing to do with a belief concerning women’s inability to make decisions, (that would be Game and “disinclination” would be the more appropriate term), but rather, revolves around a belief that she has no right to pay people to kill other individuals. And while some pro-life men might be BETA enough to fall for this female posturing, the reality is that pro-choice women won’t think twice before dating pro-life men.

Even before I was a Christian, I was forthright about my anti-abortion position. It spawned numerous arguments, as you might expect, but it never once caused a woman to lose any interest in me. In fact, the fact that I was impervious to their waxing emotional tended to make me more attractive to them. As with most things that women say they want, politics that are in sync with her own are one of the many things that would be required of a BETA but will be jettisoned on sight should a sufficiently attractive man enter the picture.

Riding Occam’s Razor

It’s not hard to understand why Jerome Corsi’s new book from WND Books is the #1 book on Amazon and will be the #1 New York Times bestseller upon its release. Although this has surprised even the likes of the normally perceptive Instapundit, the logic is inescapable. Obama is hiding his birth certificate and other personal records because he has something to hide.

And, based on what we know of his family history, it is unlikely that he is eligible for the office he presently holds. It is perfectly possible for him to have been born in Hawaii and still be ineligible as a citizen who was not natural-born. This entire episode has been a good lesson in the limits of media power, as the entire power structure of both parties as well as the mainstream and conservative medias have been lined up against a single Internet site that just keeps asking the obvious questions. But no amount of evidence-free assertions and appeals to authority have managed to trump Occam’s Razor, which is why Corsi’s book is such a smash hit already.

Consider the two primary logical possibilities:

A) Obama is eligible and is hiding the evidence of his eligibility because questioning his eligibility makes his opponents look bad.

B) Obama is not eligible and is hiding the evidence of it because it proves he is not eligible.

Which makes more logical sense, especially in light of the fact that questioning his eligibility has now produced a #1 best-selling book and propelled a celebrity to an early pole position in the Republican primary? The logic of (A) doesn’t stand because its foundation is flawed. Questioning his eligibility actually makes his opponents more successful and popular. Therefore, Obama is either wildly inept in not releasing the information or he simply cannot afford to release it as per (B).

It is amusing to see how a savvy individual like Donald Trump have used the issue to his benefit whereas foolish politicians like Michelle Bachmann are so tied to the old power structure that they dutifully submit to the pressure of the groupthink. I once said that if Hillary wanted to nail down the presidency, all she had to do was come out against immigration. She didn’t and she blew it. In like manner, all a Republican candidate has to do to win the nomination is to be the first “serious” candidate to openly align himself with the Tea Party and the birthers, although a strong anti-immigration position would help secure the deal.

Of course, it will be a lot easier for Republicans to win in 2012 if they don’t cave on the debt ceiling, but since they will, they’ll be under a lot of fire as the economy and the deficit continue to worsen.

The joys of diversity

This is what a vibrant American community will increasingly look like. You simply cannot expect to maintain civilization by giving barbarians responsibility for upholding their share of the social fabric. As the social scientists have discovered, much to their chagrin, the more diverse a community becomes, the less contact people wish to have outside of their race and ethnicity. This is not hard to understand, given incidents like these. The problem is that European cultures tend to do nothing about obvious problems for far too long, then brutally overreact. The Western way of war is unlike the Eastern, it is total and destructive in nature rather than limited and predatory.

In other words, when the reaction finally comes, history suggests that it is going to be very ugly indeed. And the worst thing is that it will have been completely unnecessary.

A belated TIA correction

In the chapter entitled “Sam Tzu and the Art of War”, I commented that the major military strategists were, with the sole exception of the incompetent Machiavelli, silent on the subject of religion in war. As it happens, that is not entirely true. Over the last two weeks I have been reading a history written by one of the foremost theoreticians of naval warfare, and in doing so came across the following passage in A.T. Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783.

During the century before the Peace of Westphalia, the extension of family power, and the extension of the religion professed, were the two strongest motives of political action. This was the period of the great religious wars which arrayed nation against nation, principality against principality, and often, in the same nation, faction against faction. Religious persecution caused the revolt of the Protestant Dutch Provinces against Spain, which issued, after eighty years of more or less constant war, in the recognition of their independence. Religious discord, amounting to civil war at times, distracted France during the greater part of the same period, profoundly affecting not only her internal but her external policy. These were the days of St. Bartholomew, of the religious murder of Henry IV., of the siege of La Rochelle, of constant intriguing between Roman Catholic Spain and Roman Catholic Frenchmen. As the religious motive, acting in a sphere to which it did not naturally belong, and in which it had no rightful place, died away, the political necessities and interests of States began to have juster weight; not that they had been wholly lost sight of in the mean time, but the religious animosities had either blinded the eyes, or fettered the action, of statesmen. It was natural that in France, one of the greatest sufferers from religious passions, owing to the number and character of the Protestant minority, this reaction should first and most markedly be seen.

It is hardly news that religion was one of the causes of the Thirty Years War, as it is one of the very small minority of religious wars registered in the historical record, and indeed, is generally the second piece of evidence provided in support of the atheist claim that religion causes war. But while Mahan doesn’t contradict my argument that religion is of no significant strategic or tactical utility in warfare, he does make an interesting point about how religion neither naturally belongs nor has a rightful place in the area of foreign policy.

Now, I would argue that events have shown that Mahan is mistaken about religion not having any place in foreign policy considering the obvious inability to draw a bright line between Islamic religion and Islamic politics; the two are one and the same and as the West is once more learning, one ignores the theology of a religion of the sword at one’s distinct peril. Even so, it is worth noting that on one of the very rare occasions when a military strategist has been moved to comment upon religion, he has done so in a manner that indicates religion is very seldom connected with warfare in any capacity, causal, strategic, or tactical.

Ironically, one of the two men he credits with bringing an end to this unusual period of religious warfare was not only a Christian, but a prince of the Church as well. Mahan credits King Henry IV and Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu with creating a tradition of French statesmanship that reduced religious strife in the name of state unity. Whether this was ultimately to the advantage of the French people or the continent of Europe that eventually lay prostrate under Napoleon’s legions is, of course, entirely debatable.

Book review: The Married Man Sex Life Primer

I have posted a review of Athol Kay’s new book at Alpha Game. It’s well worth reading by men and women alike, regardless of whether one is actually married or not. For a different perspective, albeit a similar conclusion, the Hawaiian Libertarian has also posted a review of the book.

Those who have been following the saga of Alpha Game’s resident omega or simply doubt the efficacy of Game may also be interested to read the results of his first-ever successful date at the age of 28. And finally, I answer Susan Walsh’s questions regarding whether gender equality in the bedroom inhibits arousal and explain why feminists are not merely anti-sex, but downright anti-sexy.

Prediction #7: Home prices

NAR released its March numbers:

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $159,600 in March, down 5.9 percent from March 2010.

That certainly didn’t take long. From my 2011 economic predictions: The national median existing-home price will fall below 160k from the present 170,600..

This is an interesting tidbit from the report: “NAR’s housing affordability index shows the typical monthly mortgage principal and interest payment for the purchase of a median-priced existing home is only 13 percent of gross household income, the lowest since records began in 1970.”

And yet many people still can’t afford to sell their homes, much less consider buying new ones. I’ll be getting into the updated details of the inflation vs deflation debate sometime in the next week, but keep in mind that continually plunging real estate prices despite easy money and historical affordability are not an indicator of inflation. And before anyone starts yammering about gold prices – do you seriously think I’m not aware of them when I was recommending it at $300? – here’s some homework for you. What is the ratio of the size in dollars of the global gold market versus the size in dollars of the U.S. residential real estate market?

The peril of the popular intellectual

No matter how copiously one cites the pertinent studies which purportedly prove your assertions, there is always the danger that someone might actually take your ideasthe ridiculous ideas of someone else you have popularized seriously enough to put them to an empirical test:

On his 30th birthday, June 27, 2009, Dan had decided to quit his job to become a professional golfer.

He had almost no experience and even less interest in the sport.

What he really wanted to do was test the 10,000-hour theory he read about in the Malcolm Gladwell bestseller Outliers. That, Gladwell wrote, is the amount of time it takes to get really good at anything — “the magic number of greatness.”…

The Dan Plan will take six hours a day, six days a week, for six years. He is keeping diligent records of his practice and progress. People who study expertise say no one has done quite what Dan is doing right now.

It’s not exactly a secret that the middlebrow Gladwell is completely full of it. His books appeal primarily to the half-educated, -1 to +1 SD intellects that soak up information insufficiently critically to notice the unsound foundation upon which most of his conclusions are based. Of course, Readers Digest created a small empire catering to the tastes of such readers, so there are not only a lot of them, but they tend to read more than the norm in search of that feeling of intellectual self-improvement that Gladwell sells so effectively.

It should be interesting to hear Gladwell attempt to explain away the inevitable failure of his thesis. Perhaps he’ll even get another best-selling book out of it.

One week

Before the Republican Party caves again:

Federal borrowing is on pace to hit the legal limit on the national debt in less than a week. As set in a law passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama on Feb. 12, 2010, the legal limit on the national debt is $14.2940 trillion. As of the close of business Tuesday, according to the Daily Treasury Statement released at 4:00 pm today, the portion of the national debt subject to this legal limit was $14.268365 trillion. (The total national debt, including the portion exempted from the legal limit, was $14.3205 trillion.)

This left the U.S. Treasury with the authority to borrow only an additional $25.635 billion before it hits the statutory debt limit.

Of course the Republicans are going to cave. Even the normally credible Sen. Paul has said that he would vote for raising the debt ceiling just this one last time so long as Democrats promised that they would contemplate considering the possibility of thinking very hard about pretending to cut federal spending at some point in the distant future. Rep. Cantor has staked out a similarly tough position preparatory to waving the white flag.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP “will not grant their request for a debt limit increase” without major spending cuts or budget process reforms.

Got that? Process reforms. Major process reforms! I feel much better now. Surely the economy is saved!

You can count on Sam

You may recall that I stated in TIA that Sam Harris is intellectually irresponsible, and “fails to do even the most rudimentary research into his chosen subject”. You can count on him to make fundamental factual and logical blunders that undermine his arguments or at least demonstrate his carelessness; when I read a Harris piece now I don’t even pay attention to his conclusions, I simply look for the incorrect assumption upon which he has based the argument. I am seldom unable to find it right away. Lest you think my observations are too harsh, note that is that the quote below was taken today, April 21, 2011, from Sam Harris’s amusingly inept attempt to “deflate the myths” about atheism on his own web site, more than four years after the piece appeared in the L.A. Times. This tends to demonstrate that it is unwise to rely upon a notoriously sloppy historical illiterate to set the record straight.

3) Atheism is dogmatic.

Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity’s needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous. One doesn’t have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs. As the historian Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71) once said: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

What I find so tremendously amusing here is the fact that neither Sam Harris nor any of his godless coterie of intellectually challenged fans has realized at any point in the last five years that Stephen Henry Roberts never said anything of the sort. In fact, there is no evidence that Stephen Henry Roberts was even an atheist; the only information from his biography concerning his religious faith suggests that he was an Anglican Christian at the time of his marriage. But had Harris ever so much as scanned TIA, he would have known that the fallacious One Less God was constructed by one Stephen F. Roberts, not the deceased Australian historian.

“2) Logical error. In Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris borrows from Stephen F. Roberts in challenging Christians with a variant of the One Less God argument. He informs Christians that they reject Islam in “precisely the way” that Muslims reject Christianity, which is also the same reason he rejects all religions. So, either Harris believes that the Christian God exists and is a powerful spirit of evil or he doesn’t know what is almost literally the first thing about Christian theology”
– The Irrational Atheist, p. 117.

Harris actually devotes the first seven pages – nearly 8 percent – of Letter to walking through the hapless One Less God argument without ever a) noticing that it is both logically and factually incorrect, or b) crediting it to its author. Or even to the individual he incorrectly believes is its author.

And so we see once more that it doesn’t matter if one is discussing large historical matters or very small ones, it is easy to prove that the leading atheists can very seldom be trusted to have even the most basic facts correct. In itself, the confusion of one Stephen Roberts with another isn’t a big deal. But when such a mistake is combined with a large quantity of similarly careless mistakes that repeatedly lead to incorrect conclusions, it amounts to a serious pattern of unreliability that needs to be taken into account when considering the man’s arguments.

Can’t say I didn’t warn you

About the technofascists at Apple:

This is sort of a big deal. Apple is, without your consent or any warning labels, logging all of your iPhone’s location data and then transferring it over to your computer when you backup or sync your iPhone. The information is easily accessible — unencrypted and in a standard database format. (The option to encrypt is there, though I haven’t tested whether this option obscures your location data.)

Upshot? Any program you install or anyone you let on your computer could access this data, giving that program or that person full access to where you were and when you were there.

Check out the link. They have a map they were able to make of one of their employee’s locations. This is pretty egregious and is likely to have some unexpected ramifications. Just to give one example, given how popular iPhones are with women, it shouldn’t be hard to see that this “feature” is going to lead to more than a few divorces and breakups in the near future.