Category: Uncategorized

VPFL Week 4

110 Mounds View Meerkats (3-1)
52 Boot Hill Bogs (0-4)

91 KING (1-3)
52 Clerical Errs (0-4)

79 Texas Chili Eaters (4-0)
64 Bane Cornshuckers (2-2)

57 RR Redbeards (3-1)
44 Gilbert Gamma Rays (2-2)

84 FavreDollar Footlongs (2-2)
42 Greenfield Grizzlies (3-1)

I’m of mixed emotions concerning the Vikings debacle on Thursday night. One can hardly be disappointed that a Vikings team starting Christian Ponder and playing without Adrian Peterson lost to an Aaron Rodgers-led Packers team. And since I’m starting Rodgers this week, I’m certainly not objecting to the fantasy points.

But still, losing 42-10 to the Packers is painful, even if it was a result that even a blind man could have seen coming. It’s also amazing how obvious in retrospect it is that Christian Ponder was not an NFL starter, not that I didn’t say so repeatedly at the time. At least this performance should quell any lingering notions that the Ponder die-hards might be harboring.

The grand crusade continues

Fred Reed on imputed transethnicism:

It was discovered that the Tloxyproctyls were an obscure tribe of some two dozen mostly naked Indians living in the Amazon rain forest and the Stone Age.  They ate only tree leaves and large white grubs found in rotting logs. Their language, unrelated to any other, consisted of twelve words, none of which meant anything. Their intellectual development was approximately that of a cassava root.

Clearly they were victims of discrimination by…by…well, that could be decided later. Now they needed political action.  Exactly why was not clear, but did not seem important.

On campus, the best instincts of the Improving Classes roared into action. Goodness raged. Further research showed a shocking lack of ‘Proctyls, as they came to be called by the knowing, almost everywhere. It was just…Wrong. At Wellesley, puzzled co-eds marched for Lesbian and Biramous Tloxyproctyl Rights. Universities established ‘Proctyl quotas.  A mad scramble ensued to recruit the unwitting Indians. The campaign was somewhat hampered by the fact that there weren’t any.

More were needed to keep the wheels of justice turning. At Princeton the Department of Black, Transaxle, and Amphibian Studies found a solution: Imputed Tloxyproctyls or, as some called the idea, Inferential Tloxyproctyly. Students of other oppressed categories, such as Lesbian, Gay, Vegetarian, Bicephalous and Transphylum students would be assigned as ‘Proctyls by imputation. The argument was that if one could be transsexual or transgendered, why not trans-ethcnicked?

The noted feminist professor Dr. Cecina Pocilga-Dworkin, whose academic credentials consisted of looking like an orangutan, said, “Race, gender, and ethnicity are socially constructed by white-supremacist capitalists to oppress the black and brown races, which don’t exist because they are social constructs. Since ‘Proctyls would suffer discrimination if there were any, we can appoint proxy Proctyls, and seek redress for the discrimination they would suffer if they existed.” Several upper-middle-class date-rape activists were chosen as stand-ins. They stopped bathing and began eating ersatz white grubs made of sashimi to raise public consciousness of Tloxyproctyl issues.

The most important thing, of course, is that the anti-racist SJW feels you know how deeply they care.

Wargaming reveals weaknesses

A USMC ops planner’s experience explains the key benefit of wargaming:

Back in May of 2012, I was holding an Operational Planning Team for a Major Pacific OPLAN. This was a big event. We flew in over a hundred participants for almost three weeks of work. I fought with my boss, the G5, over several key points about this OPT and I eventually was able to do things how I wanted. I spoke directly with the CG everyday during the OPT, with three formal briefs to him. Because we were a Joint Force Land Component Command for this OPT, we had players from all services and Special Forces (which is basically it’s own service.) I had interagency players, a full Red Cell, Green Cell, and Red Team. This was the biggest non-exercise event I witnessed in my three years at the MEF. And it was my FIRST OPT and first opportunity to be on the dot for a critical event. I routinely worked bast 1900 and worked past 2100 twice during the three weeks. This was BIG and IMPORTANT and we only had one chance to get it right. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I am smart enough to get help from smart people. I leaned heavily on three key personnel who had been around awhile and knew what they were doing. And they were great. We got through Problem Framing and Course of Action (COA) Development and were ready for the COA Wargaming step. The CG had settled on one COA, and we were testing it to see if it worked. COA wargaming is another area I fought with Col XXXX on and one. He agreed to let me run it my way and get out of it what I thought I needed.

So, we started the wargame. On the second (SECOND!!!) turn, the Red player took his turn and we were all face with the extremely obvious and extremely uncomfortable realization that our one and only COA was untenable. The result of 2 1/2 weeks worth of intensive work had just failed catastrophically in front of the audience. In the middle of the uncomfortable silence, broken by teeth sucking, I looked to the three officers who had been helping my so much throughout. All of them slumped their shoulders and looked away. One of them actually walked out of the back of the room. I was faced with the uncomfortable realization: “No one is going to save me.” This is the real world. There isn’t an answer in the back of the book. There is no instructor stepping in to bail you out. You are on your own and it is all on your shoulders. I looked out at the OPT and realized that my reputation, this entire event, the time and energy of over a hundred people sat on my shoulders and had no opportunity to start over and fix it. This is what it means to be a planner. It is all on you.

So, I used my favorite OPT tactic and said, “Everybody take 10!” I grabbed my two trusted agents (LtCol XXX and Maj XXX who worked closest with me, LtCol XXX will come up again in three slides) and went into the back room to discuss what we should do. They were both a little shell-shocked and no help. So, I fixed it. The problem, as it turned out, was timing. I adjusted the timing and changed the character of one force and its mission. And we recocked the wargame with the new COA. And it worked. It worked so well that, with minor modifications, it went into the plan of record. We have since referred to that wargame as the most successful COA wargame ever, because it identified a critical flaw in the COA and we were able to adjust the COA to opvercome the flaw.

The challenge, of course, is that people have to be willing to accept the information produced by the wargaming session. In vast bureaucracies like the U.S. armed forces, they are much more likely to sweep any uncomfortable information thus gathered under the carpet and pretend everything is fine, because in most cases the real world test will never come and the planning flaws will remain undetected.

It is eminently clear that the Obama administration does not have anyone advising it who is well-versed in wargaming, or rather, it is not listening to anyone who is.

What is racist

A helpful list of what is, and what is not, racist:

Things That Are Racist

1. Talking about Ebola (Salon)

2. Describing the Hong Kong protests as “clean and orderly” (Vox)

3. Pointing out that white people use heroin (Salon)

4. #BringBackOurGirls (Salon)

5. Describing Obama as “angry” (MSNBC)

6. The American Revolution (Salon)

7. Children’s books with white characters (Salon)

8. Criticizing the IRS (MSNBC)

9. Donating to the United Negro College Fund

10. Being half-white (Salon)

11. Supporting Herman Cain (MSNBC)

12. Opposing Obama (MSNBC)

13. Rocky III (Vox)

14. When black conservatives disagree with black liberals (Salon)

15. Noting that Obama has an Ivy League education (MSNBC)

16. Saying Obama likes to play golf (MSNBC)

17. Saying “Obamacare” (MSNBC)

18. Living in the suburbs (Salon)

19. Calling Obama “Obama” (MSNBC)

20. Criticizing liberals for constantly accusing people of racism (Salon)

21. “Tom and Jerry” cartoons

22. Cupcakes

23. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Things That Are Not Racist

1. Suing a fertility clinic after giving birth to a mixed race child that you wish was white* (Salon)

Of course, since I am a Native American, I think we can all agree that any criticism of me is rooted in nothing but the most egregious racism.

Mailvox: Abomination and Galatians 3:28

Needless to say, I did not respond in a supportive manner:

The Galatians 3:28 Movement is a grassroots Christian movement (of all denominations) demanding civil rights and marriage equality for all people — straight, gay, of any race, of any orientation, non-cisgendered, etc.  This movement has no leadership and is completely organic.

Galatians 3:28 states:  “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Now, many people get the first part about race not being important to Jesus (but unfortunately not everyone does as there are still tons racists around).  But most people ignore the second half where Jesus explicitly denies the importance of gender. For Jesus, gender and gender differences are unimportant.

Then why do we still insist that marriage be between a “man and a woman”?  This outdated, non-Christian way of thinking only highlights gender difference, the exact thing Jesus was trying to get away from.

In other words, for marriage, your gender does not matter.  Marriage can be between a man and a woman; two men; two women;  or between transgendered people.   Jesus loves everyone.  And that is what Galatians 3:28 is all about.  Marriage equality and civil rights.

Share some love.  Spread the word of Christ.  Support marriage equality and civil rights.

Another verse springs to mind. Namely, Isaiah 5:20.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. 

One certainly can’t say that America doesn’t fully merit a plague or two these days.

Sex is a choice and age is just a number

If they think they’ve got problems now, just wait until the transagist freaks get into the act:

It had been a relatively quiet policy debate until the full-page ad appeared in the local newspaper. “A male wants to shower beside your 14-year-old daughter,” it said. “Are you OK with that?”

The ad, placed by a socially conservative group in Minnesota, was meant to snap attention to a proposal to allow transgender students to play on teams based on their preferred gender rather than the sex assigned to them at birth.

It appears to have worked. More than 100 community members flooded a meeting this week near Minneapolis, and thousands more sent e-mails. In response, the quasi-public body governing high school sports in Minnesota decided to delay a vote on a new policy covering sports participation by transgender students. Members of the board of directors said they needed more time to study the issue.

The policy, which they now plan to vote on in December, was an attempt to grapple with a question that has bedeviled many states: How do you deal with the growing number of children identifying as transgender who want to participate in the highly gender-specific worlds of high school sports and extracurricular activities?

The whole debate is blitheringly idiotic. There is no such thing as “transgender”. There are male psychological freaks pretending to be women and female psychological ruins pretending to be men. That’s it. Punto.

And to anyone who wants to argue otherwise, I will simply point out that I feel that I am 16 years old and fully eligible to play high school sports, and anyone who argues otherwise is transagist. After all, it should be obvious that the year of birth recorded on one’s birth certificate means no more than one’s sex recorded there, and “age” is nothing more than a social construct.

I know it’s hard to understand and there is a lot of controversy around
this, but to be misaged as a middle-aged man when you are actually a teenage boy
is incredibly offensive.

Other transaged feel that they are 65 and therefore legally eligible to collect Social Security. It would be outrageous to deny them their right to do so. The amusing thing about the Left is that they subscribe to all this ludicrous anti-definitional nonsense, and then turn around and call themselves “the reality-based community”. The truth is that their only connection to reality is their mass rejection of it combined with an enthusiastic embrace of perversion.

Patient #2?

A possible case of Ebola in Washington DC:

A patient with Ebola-like symptoms is being treated at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., a hospital spokesperson confirmed late Friday morning. The patient had traveled to Nigeria recently. That person has been admitted to the hospital in stable condition, and is being isolated. The medical team is working with the CDC and other authorities to monitor the patient’s condition.

Shut down air travel from Africa. Now. It’s a good thing this possible case is in DC, as perhaps the disease in the near vicinity will sufficiently alarm Congress to force ObolaObama to finally take action.

And if the CDC wants to avoid panicking the public, perhaps they should stop making statements that make them look like completely incompetent idiots.

Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
on Friday said restricting travel between the U.S. and West Africa
would likely “backfire” and put Americans more at risk of contracting
Ebola…. “Even if we tried to close the border, it wouldn’t work,” the top health official added. “People have a right to return. People transiting through could come in. And it would backfire, because by isolating these countries, it’ll make it harder to help them, it will spread more there and we’d be more likely to be exposed here.”

That’s complete horseshit. The moron may as well have painted a target in his back in the event Americans start dying from a disease that he could have, and should have, prevented from entering the country.

The incredible shrinking labor force

The BLS is engaging in the customary statistical shenanigans to produce an artificially low unemployment rate. Zerohedge explains:

While by now everyone should know the answer, for those curious why the US unemployment rate just slid once more to a meager 5.9%, the lowest print since the summer of 2008, the answer is the same one we have shown every month since 2010: the collapse in the labor force participation rate, which in September slid from an already three decade low 62.8% to 62.7% – the lowest in over 36 years, matching the February 1978 lows. And while according to the Household Survey, 232,000 people found jobs, what is more disturbing is that the people not in the labor force, rose to a new record high, increasing by 315,000 to 92.6 million!

In other words, if the BLS wasn’t monkeying with the labor force participation rate but left it at the peak level from 1998 to 2000, the unemployment rate would be 11.7 percent. Instead, we are expected to believe that in a disinflationary economy, people are actually LESS interested in working.

Universal order is restored

John C. Wright celebrates the recataloging of the Solar System and the astronomical return to reason:

Take THAT, you vile Pluto-Haters!

I, for one, rejoice that Planet X is once again a planet! I welcome our new Mi-Go overlords, I applaud the hideous and unspeakable Fungi from Yoggoth, cheer the colony of semifourthdimensional yet cowardly organisms from Palain VII while they are busily dextropobopping, acclaim the forward military base of the hivequeen creatures we call ‘Wormfaces,’ and greet the resting place of Kzanol the Slaver, who will arise an obliterate the Earth!

(Hmm … wait a minute…. I wonder if there is a downside to this ….)

Pluto is once again a planet, eight years after being relegated to the status of dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). At least, that is, according to the audience at a debate at Harvard. Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysicists (HSCFA) debated the topic “What is a planet?” The debate was needed following the confusion that arose once Pluto was deemed too small to be a planet. The defining characteristics of a planet (a round thing which orbits the Sun and has ‘cleared the neighborhood’ around its orbit) “baffled the public and classrooms around the country,” according to the HSCFA. “For one thing, it only applied to planets in our solar system. What about all those exoplanets orbiting other stars? Are they planets? And Pluto was booted from the planet club and called a dwarf planet. Is a dwarf planet a small planet? Not according to the IAU. Even though a dwarf fruit tree is still a small fruit tree, and a dwarf hamster is still a small hamster.”

I have to admit, I do very much enjoy my household. When I announced that Pluto’s planethood had been restored to the lunch table, the news was greeted with a rousing cheer.

“Hurray!”

“Wait, why are we cheering?”

“Because Pluto is a planet again!”

“Oh, okay. Hurray!”

One can learn a lot about an individual by virtue his position on Plutonian planethood. Anyone who opposes it on the grounds of the usual specious logic cited or pedantic, overly literal planetary definitions is probably an atheist, has a high Asperger’s Quotient, possesses a lamentably insufficient respect for tradition, and should therefore be regarded with all due suspicion.

As humanity did not deem Tom Thumb any less a man for being small, it cannot in good faith deem Pluto any less a planet for being miniscule or icy or devoid of atmosphere. I applaud, therefore, the result of the Harvard debate and accordingly insist that the International Astronomical Union alter its formal position on the matter.

The number of planets in the solar system is nine. It is not ten, or eleven, or eight, except in that one then proceedeth to nine.

Mailvox: more curricula wanted

Rabbi B is interested in our future plans for more material for homeschooling and personal intellectual development:

I recently acquired the astronomy materials from Castalia House a few weeks ago, and from just a cursory review it is evident that the material is going to be rigorous, demanding, and a lot of fun.  I was wondering if you had any plans top expand this area of Castalia House in the future?

I thought it might be nice to make more material of comparable quality available.  It may be possible that more specialized subjects such as writing, rhetoric, Latin, logic, and economics would prove appealing.  In my experience, many home schoolers tend to be relatively weak in these areas, most especially writing and rhetoric.  The material wouldn’t have to be added all at once, but could be introduced gradually to assess interest and receptivity.  Perhaps there would be a way to gauge what topics would be of interest and provide material accordingly.

Even if materials couldn’t be made available, suggested reading lists for a variety of disciplines (literature, history, mathematics, sciences, philosophy, etc) and for different age groups could be posted, not unlike the reading lists on the VP site.  Obviously, you have a better grasp of what is marketable and worth your time and effort, but I for one would love to see more educational materials of comparable quality made available.

We do indeed intend to produce more material for the Castalia Homeschool line. At present, we are working on three curricula: Newtonian Physics, Military History, and Economics. The latter begins thus:

Economics is an intellectual discipline, a field of study, and a body of knowledge. It is not, however, a science, despite the best efforts of economists to establish it as one. While it has historically been called “the Dismal Science”, the truth is that economics could be more accurately described as “the Grand Illusion”.

Science is a process that requires testing, repetition, and the production of reliable, predictable, and testable results. But due to its dynamic complexity and its enormous scale, economics does not readily lend itself to either testing in a lab or repetition outside one. And because of the tremendous complications of all the human preferences and decisions necessarily involved, the predictions generated by economic models seldom prove to be even remotely reliable. Even on the rare occasions that they appear to be initially correct, economic theories often cease to hold up well over time.

Does this mean that economics is without value or that it is a waste of time to study it? Not in the least. Economics only provides us with a very limited ability to understand the chaotic complexities of human interaction, but even a faint glimmer of light is precious in a room that is otherwise pitch-black.

We actually hoped to have Physics and Economics out this fall, but events and ambitions conspired to thwart us. The problem is that Stickwick and I are both, in addition to being rather busy, more than a little iconoclastic. Which means that we’re not entirely comfortable with any of the basic textbooks available and therefore feel the need to write our own. Fortunately for me, Tom Woods has a fairly solid Austrian textbook which was released under a license that is essentially open source and will permit me to remix it to stress what I feel is important as well as to incorporate some additional elements, such as the important and groundbreaking work of Robert Prechter on social mood, Steve Keen on supply and demand, and Ian Fletcher on free trade.

Most of the homeschool curricula presently available rely upon works that were written more than fifty years ago and fail to take into account any of the lessons we have learned in recent decades about the effects of globalization, mass immigration, and credit bubbles. And the intrinsic problem of relying upon a book called Whatever Happened to Penny Candy should not be difficult to understand when even those of us who are middle-aged cannot remember a time when candy cost only one penny.

I don’t know exactly what Stickwick’s issue with the physics textbooks were, but I trust her judgment entirely in such matters and was quite happy to accept a delay in the release of the Physics curriciulum in exchange for an original textbook. It will, I am entirely certain, only improve the end result.

The Military History curriculum is being written by Dr. James Perry. A first look at the quality of his work can be seen in the forthcoming RIDING THE RED HORSE, as he has contributed a lengthy piece on Soviet strategy in Asia called “Make the Tigers Fight”. I was very impressed with the work that Dr. Perry did on the reasoning behind the strategies of WWII in the Pacific, as he pointed out some aspects that had previously eluded me despite my being a lifelong WWII enthusiast, and I am confident that his curriculum will be a solid one. Tom Kratman is an advisor on it, so I shall be very disappointed if there isn’t at least one lesson devoted to military occupations and the utility of crucifixion in pacifying defeated populations.

On the subject of Castalia House, we have a new author announcement today.