Author: VD

As those who have read this blog from the beginning may remember, I have had a few run-ins with defensive atheists who took umbrage at being referred to as irrational for failing to fully embrace the sociopathy of the truly godless. In almost every case, those atheists who wrote to me criticized Christianity for being responsible for the “millions” of individuals killed by the Inquisition, which they regard to be one of the most monstrous institutions in human history.

I stated at the time that this only demonstrated their historical ignorance, as contrary to the cluelessness of the masses, historians have long known that the Inquisition was a markedly human institution, a civilizing force and one that was relatively innocent of bloodshed. This sounds like blasphemy to those who have gotten the bulk of their Inquisitional history from Monty Python instead of source material in the original Latin, but there is no certainty so self-assured as the arrogance of the ignorant. Now, copious and conclusive evidence has been released which demonstrates that these atheists are not only irrational, but downright uneducated.

In 1998 the Vatican opened the archives of the Holy Office (the modern successor to the Inquisition) to a team of 30 scholars from around the world. Now at last the scholars have made their report, an 800-page tome that was unveiled at a press conference in Rome on Tuesday. Its most startling conclusion is that the Inquisition was not so bad after all. Torture was rare and only about 1 percent of those brought before the Spanish Inquisition were actually executed. As one headline read “Vatican Downsizes Inquisition.”

The amazed gasps and cynical sneers that have greeted this report are just further evidence of the lamentable gulf that exists between professional historians and the general public. The truth is that, although this report makes use of previously unavailable material, it merely echoes what numerous scholars have previously learned from other European archives. Among the best recent books on the subject are Edward Peters’s Inquisition (1988) and Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition (1997), but there are others. Simply put, historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth….

Compared to other medieval secular courts, the Inquisition was positively enlightened. Why then are people in general and the press in particular so surprised to discover that the Inquisition did not barbecue people by the millions? First of all, when most people think of the Inquisition today what they are really thinking of is the Spanish Inquisition. No, not even that is correct. They are thinking of the myth of the Spanish Inquisition. Amazingly, before 1530 the Spanish Inquisition was widely hailed as the best run, most humane court in Europe. There are actually records of convicts in Spain purposely blaspheming so that they could be transferred to the prisons of the Spanish Inquisition. After 1530, however, the Spanish Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth.

The 763-page report states that approximately 1,250 sentences of death were meted out, around one percent of the 125,000 heresy trials, over a period of 356 years. Accounting for population differences, it was thus about one-half as deadly on an annual basis as children’s bicycles in the United States. (This about one-quarter of the 6,000 deaths usually estimated by academic historians, however the larger number refers to the entire Inquisition, not only the Spanish.) Keep this in mind the next time that an atheist wishes to lecture you on the historical crimes of Christianity. The world will be fortunate indeed if the determinedly secular experiment of the newly constitutional (if still unratified) European Union should turn out to be one-tenth as civilized as the dread Spanish Inquisition.

Responding to scattered reports of physicians nationwide using unsavory tactics to fight for state aid and lawsuit liability caps, House Democratic leadership is pitching a law that would prohibit Pennsylvania doctors from refusing to treat a patient based on the patient’s job, political opinions or litigation history.

It could be the first proposal of its kind in the United States, and it’s already drawing criticism from the Pennsylvania Medical Society, which said the law is unnecessary and would unfairly target doctors, when attorneys — doctors’ nemesis in the fight for lawsuit caps — are free to turn down clients as they please.

It is a very strange argument which insists that doctors must treat everyone. A right to free association, not to mention one’s own labor, dictates that a doctor can treat or not treat anyone he wants, for any reason. There is no moral claim to another individual’s knowledge, skills or labor, and I find poetic justice in witnessing physicians declining to treat trial lawyers, who are making a parasitic living off of them.

This is not to say that physicians are a collective paragon of virtue either. The AMA has probably caused more pain to more Americans through drastically reducing the number of medical schools and practicing doctors than almost any other organization outside the federal government. Watching the two sides battle is a win-win situation for the outside spectator – one rather hopes they will both lose.

Gregg writes: But seriously, who would tell their daughter: Honey, get a boob job and grow you hair out, and you can get more dates. Every women is someone elses daughter. Sorry Vox, but you are giving very poor advice, unless I missunderstand you.

Who would tell their daughter that? Anyone whose daughter is unhappy with her progress in mate-finding and is also cognizant with the way the world operates. First, is the statement true or not? Second, we’re not talking about 15 year-old girls here, we’re talking about 30-something women who have more than a decade of unsuccessfully doing it their own way under their belt and whose basic assumptions about the elements of attraction are clearly in direct violation of that which has long demonstrated proven appeal to men.

Now, I could have easily added ten other elements, but I was simply going with the two most obvious things. The idiocy of dismissing superficialities as unimportant is profound, as one cannot start with anything but superficialities here. And obviously, if a woman is happy with her life and does not want to attract more masculine attention, this advice would not apply to her.

Consider two women. Similar builds and facial structure, both dressed similarly in a silk blouse, short skirt, and heels. One has short hair, no chest, a degree from Brown and works at a law firm. The other has a long mane that reaches to her posterior, a Casta-lian chest, a certification as a personal trainer and works as an aerobics instructor. I would bet that if given the choice between the two, nine out of ten men would choose to ask out the latter, including 9/10 Ivy League-educated lawyers.

In fact, most of the less-educated men wouldn’t consider asking out the first woman at all, correctly reading, (consciously or subconsciously), her signals that she doesn’t want to date anyone “beneath” her. And what is a breast augmentation – $5k and a week of recovery – compared to the $100,000 and six years that go into obtaining an advanced degree that runs a real risk of hurting a woman’s chances of finding the sort of man she wants to marry. Law firms hire secretaries too, after all, and if you want to meet young executives, you’ll probably meet more as a nanny for a CEO’s family than you will by becoming yet another middle manager yourself.

I’m not saying that things should ideally be this way, I’m only recommending accepting the world as it actually operates. Pragmatism and practicality have their places, and the Search for the Other is one of them. What is the conflicting principle anyhow, the right of everyone to be considered equally attractive? Please.

Owen Harries writes in the American Conservative: To the critics, the belief that democratic institutions, behavior, and ways of thought can be exported and transplanted to societies that have no experience of them is profoundly mistaken. While the United States can provide an example to emulate, democracy is not a commodity that can be exported, or a gift that can be bestowed. To be viable, political institutions and political cultures require a long, organic, indigenous growth, and to attempt from without a sudden dislocation of what exists is more likely to produce unintended consequences than intended ones.

Supporters of the policy tend to regard all this as defeatist, an elaborate rationalization for doing nothing. Liberty, they assert, is a universal value, every society and culture desires it. To work for its realization through democratic institutions is not to impose anything, but merely to remove impediments and to render assistance in a learning process.

In terms of achievability, the trump cards in the hands of those who favor the policy and usually the first cards played are the examples of post-World War II Germany and Japan. But neither is particularly valid or relevant. The German and Japanese peoples were utterly defeated and crushed at the end of that conflict, and there were no surviving institutions or centers of opposition. In Iraq today the population is considered liberated, not defeated and deprived of rights. Second, Germany and Japan in 1945 were genuine nation states with homogenous populations and a strong sense of identity. This is true of few of the possible candidates for democratization today. Most of the states of the Middle East are artificial creations, arbitrarily carved out by Western powers. Third, and most important, before falling into the hands of extremist regimes, both Germany and Japan had considerable experience of the rule of law and civil society, as well as some significant experience of democratic practice. They had well-educated populations and substantial middle classes. Again, none of this is true of most of the targeted states today.

Another American experience seems much more relevant. Long before the United States became a global hegemon, it was a regional hegemon in the Caribbean. From the end of the 19th century it dominated the region and intervened as it saw fit. It occupied Haiti for 19 years, Nicaragua for even longer. Yet to this day the region has not produced one genuine, stable democracy. Nor was the United States to lay the foundations for a viable democracy during the three decades that it ruled the Philippines.

I submit that we’re far less likely to succeed in creating viable “democracy” in Iraq than we have been in Haiti. It was a bad idea from the start, a fact which is becoming increasingly obvious even to the administration’s allies and cheerleaders. History is not an inevitable force, but one ignores it at one’s peril. Drawing the correct historical analogies is always an imperative.

Last month, representatives of WTP went to the National Archives to pull the correspondence of the Office of Chief Counsel for the Treasury Department and for 1913 through 1917. The index of records showed the records were available for 1903 through 1912 and for 1918 and after. However, the index contained the statement “No Longer Available,” for the years 1913 through 1917.

At the same time, the researchers requested the correspondence for the House Ways and Means Committee for 1916. What was received was a box with a large, but empty envelope marked “Retained.” The researchers found additional instances of record deletions where, despite the fact the records appeared available in the Archive index – it was discovered after the record group was physically “pulled” from deep storage in the archives, that it was EMPTY.

It is inconceivable – and intolerable — that the official records documenting the planning, strategizing and legal communications of the Department of Treasury and congressional committees during the implementation of the single most oppressive and controversial function of government known to Americans are simply “No Longer Available.”

Management level archivists at NARA were unable to explain these gaping holes of missing records In effect, individuals, in explicit violation of federal law, have, since 1992, been systemically DELETING evidence from the official records of this nation – in an attempt to rewrite history – and to conceal the fraud that has been perpetrated by our government for almost 90 years.

I’m just wondering at what point even the choir of tax cheerleaders is going to start getting suspicious that there is, in fact, something deeply fishy going on with regards to the Federal income tax. It’s already well-documented that the 16th Amendment wasn’t ratified by the states, that Title 26 was never passed as positive law nor signed by the President, and now all the relevant correspondence for the Congress and the Treasury Department for that important period are learned to be missing. It’s difficult to argue “it’s the law” when it is becoming more and more apparent that it isn’t, and never was, the law.

Passion turned to agony early Wednesday morning when a 43-year-old St. Paul woman locked in a kiss with her boyfriend bit off an inch and a half of the man’s tongue, according to police.

43 and still not married. Hard to believe, isn’t it. I imagine they won’t be putting up any mistletoe at her office party this Christmas.

Yesterday’s games went according to what appears to be the usual form – one team won as expected, the other surprisingly drew. I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see England put Switzerland down without any trouble – Wayne Rooney is incredibly solid for a kid who’s only eighteen – but Croatia really deserved to beat France instead of settling for only a point. Trezeguet definitely handled the ball on France’s second goal and I don’t know how the Croatian striker managed to put it wide from four feet out in the final seconds. France doesn’t deserve to go through but they almost surely will, along with England, which will easily shut down Croatia. The English defense is much better than their French counterparts, as I’ve always thought Silvestre was suspect and Desailly, as much as it pains me to say it, is looking as if his long and distinguished international career should have ended before this tournament.

For today, I like Sweden to upset an Italy that lacks Francesco Totti, as the selfless passing and aggressive runs of Ljungberg and Larrson will be difficult for the Azzurri to stop if they can’t dominate the ball-control time. In the other game, Denmark should provide a second Scandinavian spanking to Bulgaria, which looks entirely overmatched. If Italy can’t get a draw today, they could be in real danger of failing to go through. I can’t even imagine the hysterical conspiracy theories that will be flying around if Sweden beats Italy, Denmark beats Bulgaria, followed by a Swedish loss to Denmark. Good times, good times.

Eugene Volokh writes: Women think a lot — much more than men — about how they can become more attractive, and are willing to do a lot to try to become more attractive. Don’t know what to do about that, but there it is.

I agree that women think a lot more about it, but I’m not entirely sure that they actually do any more about it. One problem that I see with both men and women is that both sides seem to spend almost zero time thinking about what appeals to the other sex.

A few months ago, I was talking to two different single 30-something women. Both are well-educated and have good jobs, (one is an architect, the other is a mid-level manager at a glamorous company in NYC), both are flat-chested and have short hair but are otherwise attractive, and both have trouble getting dates. And both were astounded and distressed to hear me say that not five men in one hundred cared about either their education or their jobs.

Now, what is interesting to me is how women know that men love long hair and large breasts – you seldom see a stripper or a porn star without them – and yet few women will seriously consider the first option, still less the latter. Now, no woman should go in for elective surgery unless she really wants to upsize on the topside, but it amazes me how these dateless wonders will sneer at the “tacky stripper hair” of the girl that every man on the street is trying, and failing, to avoid noticing. As I told both women, if you want more attention from men, grow your hair and get a boob job. If you don’t want to do the latter, I completely understand. But at least grow your hair out.

By the same token, I don’t understand how many guys will continue to act like delicate china tea saucers when they’ve been witnessing their bold and brash counterparts date more women in six weeks than these shrinking violets have in six years. Or fail to shave and put on a decent outfit – be it cowpoke gear or Armani, depending on your surroundings – instead of going with the I’m-out-of-college-but-you’d-never-know-it-to-look-at-me look.

I conclude that many of both sexes are simply lazy. As one of Volokh’s contributers said, we want sexy to be us instead of doing what the evidence suggests works. On that note, I take my leave, as it suddenly occurs to me that I am in rather dire need of a shower.

Andrew Sullivan is quoted by Jonah Goldberg: But it’s time to say something very clearly: Bush’s endorsement of antigay discrimination in the U.S. Constitution itself is a deal-breaker. I can’t endorse him this fall. Like many other gay men and women who have supported him, despite serious disagreements, I feel betrayed, abused, attacked…. I will be excoriated by the same people who always denounce anyone who doesn’t toe the Democratic Party line. “What took you so long?” they sneer. Hope, engagement, principle are my answers. I do not regret trying to make conservatism safe for gays. It’s still possible to be in favor of small government, low taxes, a tough foreign policy, and to be a proud gay man. My principles haven’t changed. Nor will they anytime soon. But when a president allies himself with forces that really do want to keep gay people in jail, therapy, or the closet, it’s time to break off. The deal is broken. And no amount of rationalization can make it whole again.

The thing that is so typically stupid about Sullivan – who, with Michael Kinsley, ludicrously regards himself as above all conflicts of interest – is that if he were truly a conservative, he could easily justify a break with Bush over the president’s implacable assault on small government. But, as always, Sullivan is guided by his abnormal desires above all else. As NRO’s Katherine Lopez correctly predicted: “I do wish Sullivan would save time and come out for Kerry now. In just a matter of time he will come up with the rationalizations, but it’s taking him painfully long to get on with it.”

“I feel betrayed, abused, attacked….” Notice how Sullivan’s feelings guide his philosophy. I have far more respect for Michelangelo Signorile than I do for Andrew Sullivan. It’s one thing to be hopelessly and reliably wrong, it’s another to be constantly flailing about in a state of complete cognitive dissonance. It will be a relief to everyone, including Mr. Sullivan himself, when he finally pulls a David Brock and returns to the left’s warm maternal fold. He’s been a counterfeit conservative from the start, not unlike the man he now so dramatically abjures.

Here’s a pair of questions for the Greek Choir. If the IRS is simply following the law, how is it possible that Notices of Lien, which contain the words “there is a lien”:

a) contain no information about where the lien can be found, its identifying number, or the court order that established the lien?

b) usually cannot be found in the list of liens and Federal Tax Liens maintained by each of the 50 states?

In fact, using the service’s method, one can easily place an identical “notice of lien” on any other property-owning individual in one’s favor as long as one has the individual’s name, address and social security number, since the counties do absolutely no fact-checking before they record their notices. If this is not illegal for the IRS, it is clearly not illegal for anyone else. This is why some counties are beginning to maintain a separate category of “notice of lien” which are not to be heeded by third parties as genuine liens must be.

The same thing holds true of Notices of Levy, however, one usually doesn’t know about the notice until the bank has already sent off the money, and at that point it’s too late. No doubt this is why the service harbors such distaste for foreign banks, as they refuse to provide such collection cooperation.