Category: Uncategorized

On conservative bikini “scandals”

The Other McCain points and laughs at liberals attempting to create scandals out of very little fabric:

Conservatives are not only smarter and more patriotic than liberals, we’re also better-looking. It’s high time we stopped letting liberals get inside our heads and tell us that it’s some kind of “hypocrisy” for conservatives even to acknowledge the existence of sex.

It is true. Even when liberal girls start out pretty, they rapidly end up making hags of themselves. There’s something about being angry and self-righteous all the time that seems to warp a woman’s face as well as her soul. Meanwhile, Cassy Fiano explains the liberal thinking, such as it is, behind these “scandals”.

They like to paint conservatives as frigid, dried up, ugly old prudes, and of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth. And they hope that showing pictures of a conservative — or their family members — in bikinis will mean that other conservatives will be outrageously outraged. They’re always shocked when bikini photos do not, in fact, derail conservative candidates’ campaigns.

It seems that more than a few left-liberals have failed to understand that the American Taliban metaphor was, in fact, a metaphor. So, chalk me up a supporter of pretty conservative women in bikinis. However, I find libertarian women to be the most attractive. They’re smarter, more interesting, and much more fun than their pretty conservative counterparts.

Blowing more futility

For once, I agree with Megan McArdle:

If you want to know why us libertarian types are skeptical of the government’s ability to prevent housing market bubbles, well, I give you Exhibit 9,824: the government’s new $1000 down housing program. No, really. The government has apparently decided, in its infinite wisdom, that what the American economy really needs is more homebuyers with no equity.

While McArdle wouldn’t know what a real libertarian was if Murray Rothbard’s zombie bit her on her bony ass – she actually voted for Soebarkah – she is correct to point out the madness of this homebuying incentive program. It does not help the economy to encourage more poor people to buy homes they cannot afford to buy and take out mortgages on which they will almost surely default.

Glenn Reynold’s succinct summary is more astute: “These people are idiots. Idiots who’ve been entrusted with nuclear weapons, and their economic equivalents.” Of course, this insane program might not exist if “libertarians” like Megan McArdle hadn’t voted the people who created it into office.

Men work more

Although I very much doubt this “news” is going to suddenly bring about an end to feminist whining, much less feminism itself:

The long night of modern feminism might be about to end. A glimmer of light is flickering in the encircling gloom. A study published this week by Dr Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics has found that men do slightly more work than the women they live with when employment and domestic work are measured together.

This is the first time I can remember in 40 years that an authoritative study on a key issue of so-called gender politics has come out with a self-evident truth that runs directly contrary to orthodox feminist ideology. The fact that it has been written and published by a woman makes it even more delightful.

Clearly Dr. Hakim doesn’t understand how social studies involving gender work. If the data shows that men work more in total, then quite clearly paid work outside the home shouldn’t count. The rule is always that whatever permits women to pose as the victims of patriarchal male oppression must be the relevant metric. If a man travels via ox-drawn cart on a business trip to train coal miners in Minsk the proper way to break rocks with a pick while the woman stays home watching their 23 year-old daughter, the correct interpretation is that he has enjoyed a paid European vacation while she has slaved away caring for the children at home.

If, on the other hand, a woman flies to Miami to lie on a beach with her old friends from college while the man stays home to care for their five children under the age of two, the correct interpretation is that he’s been having a grand old time sitting at home drinking beer and watching television while the poor woman is absolutely worn out from an exhausting week of being dragged to all sorts of social activities in which she most certainly did not want to participate. (Roissy, of course, would put a different spin on why she’s so worn out, but that’s beside the point here.)

The lesson is this: solipsism is best avoided, because it makes you look insanely stupid to anyone who isn’t equally solipsistic. But that somehow never stops the feminists.

The limited debate

The NYT doesn’t know what a real deflationista is:

The split between the chief economists, whose work helps inform trading strategies recommended to investors by their firms, echoes a broader and sometimes fiercer debate among academic economists and commentators about the threat posed by deflation and what the government’s response should be.

According to the deflationistas, as they are nicknamed, a new round of stimulus spending by Washington is urgently required to stave off a Depression-like cycle of falling prices and wages that is difficult to reverse once it is set in motion.

Inflationistas, by contrast, worry more about the effect that additional government borrowing could have on the recovery. With the budget deficit expected to hover around $1 trillion a year for the next decade, they say, interest rates could eventually surge, making borrowing — and goods — more expensive. A double dip, they say, is highly unlikely.

This isn’t a genuine inflation vs deflation debate, it’s merely an intra-Keynesian one that completely misses the points made by the hyperinflationists and the true deflationists alike. A true deflationista is someone like Bob Prechter, who has long predicted that neither fiscal nor monetary policy can possibly prevent deflation brought about by the collapse of credit. The real debate – although it is more a question than a proper debate – is whether the central banks can print money faster than credit collapses in a fractional-reserve, debt-money system.

Given that there is $53 trillion in total credit market debt compared to $8.6 trillion in M2 and the mainstream deflationary fears have been caused by total credit merely remaining flat for the last two years thanks to the heroic debt-creation measures of the Soebarkah administration and the Federal Reserve increasing M2 at an annual rate of 5 percent, the outcome increasingly appears to favor the real deflationist camp.

Corrupt like a senator

Washington beats the market:

A 2004 study of the results of stock trading by United States Senators during the 1990s found that that Senators on average beat the market by 12% a year. In sharp contrast, U.S. households on average underperformed the market by 1.4% a year and even corporate insiders on average beat the market by only about 6% a year during that period. A reasonable inference is that some Senators had access to – and were using – material nonpublic information about the companies in whose stock they trade.

I suppose they’re just all super-skilled econ-savvy investors, but their performance during the ongoing financial crisis argues convincingly against that.

Darwinianism and evolution

The vehement objections of those who believe in the evolution of the species notwithstanding, there can be no doubt that Darwinianism is a religious cult of faith. This is a simple and provable matter of observable evidence. But the key is to understand what “Darwinianism” means, for as is all too often the case, the atheists who subscribe to Darwinianism engage in their usual bait-and-switch by hiding their philosophical beliefs behind a false veneer of science. So, when the Darwinian denies that belief in the ever-mutating biological theory of evolution by (probably) natural selection is a religion, he is absolutely correct. And yet, the denial is irrelevant. This is because the Darwinian cult has its foundations in the biological theory, but cannot legitimately be conflated with it.

Consider one of the first great prophets of Darwinianism, Herbert Spencer, who stated that “Evolution can end only in the establishment of the greatest perfection and the most complete happiness.” In Revoking the Moral Order, David J. Peterson writes:

Spencer taught further that society embodied a self-perfecting process…. Using his own “scientific” methodology which he dubbed “reasoning by analysis” he concluded that creating the ideal man biologically was analogous to bringing about the ideal state of society; a realization of utopia.

Herbert Spencer, if you do not recognize his name, was the founder of “Social Darwinism”, which has absolutely nothing to do with the heartless, Dickens-era capitalist connotations applied to it today. It is, instead, the religion to which today’s New Atheists and progressives subscribe. This means it is entirely correct to describe a Darwinian as possessing “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe”, or in other words, as possessing religious faith. However, keep in mind that the mere belief in the theory of evolution by (probably) natural selection is not alone sufficient to make one a Darwinian. That requires a belief in evolution-driven progress towards an eventual end of one sort or another.

To say that a fish evolved into an amphibian is to be an evolutionist. To say that Man has evolved beyond traditional morals is to be a Darwinian. The distinction is an important one, as is least a biological quasi-science whereas the latter is nothing more than a secular religion.

A sign of an indication?

In which we are informed that the Lizard Queen is now making noises about resigning from Obama’s Cabinet:

Hillary Clinton raises prospect of resignation. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has complained of the tiring natue of her job and said she will step back from the role before the end of Barack Obama’s presidency.

R writes: “I admit it doesn’t actually surprise me that it is so far playing out as you predicted.”* So far, so good, anyhow. I have no doubt that Hillary will resign, most likely before the end of the first term. Of course, the much more interesting question is if she intends to step back from the role in order to bring about that end to Mr. Soebarkah’s presidency.

*“it is clear that he [President Soebarkah] is likely to be extraordinarily vulnerable if the Lizard Queen elects to strike against her current boss. The first indication that she intends to do so will be a growing chorus of elite Democratic opinion against Obama’s conduct of the war… the more significant indicator would be her resignation from the Cabinet next year.”

Marriage flames out

What a surprise that an orientationally-challenged judge should just happen to come down on the orientationally-challenged side:

The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.

Yes, it’s just TREMENDOUSLY astonishing that he decided the Founding Fathers seriously intended to enshrine homogamy and polygamy as Constitutional rights. It’s pure fiction. But on the plus side, the coming battle between gays and feminists is shaping up to be the most amusing battle between two left-wing constituencies since scientists thought there might be a gay gene. Given the certainty of this decision going to the Supreme Court, it’s no wonder Obama is trying to pack it with lesbians.

I’m just wondering who’s got next, the bigamists, the polygamists, or the animal lovers. But at the end of the day, it’s little more than one more check in the societal collapse column. This should, however, have serious implications in November as the Republican grass roots begin the push for a Constitutional Amendment in defense of marriage.

Against God and homeschooling

What a surprise. A man who is dependent upon government “education” handouts is a proponent of totalitarian school law:

I am not a fan of homeschooling; in fact, if I had my way, I’d make it illegal. Too often it’s an excuse to isolate kids and hammer them full of ideological nonsense, and in a troubled public school system, it doesn’t help to strip students and money from a struggling district — it should be part of the social contract that we ought to provide a good education to everyone.

Of course he would. PZ is a conventional godless fascist of the early 20th century variety. Totalitarians always oppose everything that strengthens individual freedom and poses a potential rival to the secular religion of the state. There is a very good reason why the Nazis banned homeschooling in 1938 and “Free education for all children in public schools” is the tenth pillar of the Communist Manifesto, while it is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution or the English Common Law.

UPDATE – I realize some of my critics, especially those partial to Pharyngula, find it difficult to believe that PZ is really as stupid as I consider him to be. Perhaps this quote will help them understand that I am not exaggerating in the slightest. And try to remember, PZ isn’t a scientist or a professor at an elite university, he’s an ex-scientist who hasn’t published in years and now teaches at a former community college. “When I told PZ Myers that in order for everyone to be equal we would have to make the smart people stupid. His response was to tell me that instead everyone should be educated. In order for everyone to be equal through education, we would have to force everyone to understand university level biology. Not only that, but everyone would have to understand university level mathematics, university level physics, university level English, and so forth.”

Equality through education. The amusing thing is that PZ’s idea of a solution is one of the concepts used to bring about the dumbing-down of American education in the first place. The clueless professor doesn’t even grasp the basic concept of the lowest common denominator, probably because he is too close to it. Nor does he understand that educators cannot educate intelligence any more than basketball coaches can coach height.