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Which old Bush? The Wicked Bush. Even Mr. Regression to the Mean admits that Bush is reduced to lurching about like a drunken camel with cataracts:

On those previous occasions when President Bush was saved from his own counterproductive impulses by a revolt within his own party, his defeat was actually a benefit to him. The Miers withdrawal led to the brilliant appointment of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. And an American company now owns and manages American ports.

But the parlous decision to revive the dead immigration bill and fight for it, only to see it go down to defeat again, was an act of political suicide from which this White House will not recover. On the domestic side, Bush will now only govern until the end of his term in an entirely defensive manner – through the veto and not by being a party to the passage of legislation.

In his first term, Bush had been a party leader and vote-getter so gifted that he single-handedly improved the GOP’s standing in the House and Senate in two successive elections and received 21 percent more votes in his re-election bid than he had in his maiden effort.

The failure to secure victory in Iraq is the key to understanding the administration’s second-term woes, but that isn’t the whole story. Something got broken on Election Night 2004.

The problem with this otherwise good news is that the only thing that could possibly salvage his presidential legacy now is another 9/11-style event that would whip the populace into enough of a frenzy to support an attack on Iran. Of course, thanks to the release of the CIA’s Family Jewels and Operation Northwoodsrelated historical events, we know that the smallest supposition of the mere notion of the idea couldn’t possibly even think of crossing the president’s mind.

If we’re fortunate, the worst he’ll do is focus on continuing to sell out American sovereignty to Mexico.

This example, courtesy of a commentator at TBR.cc is exactly the sort of thing I was describing yesterday when I wrote about how the intelligent who are incapable of following the arguments contructed by the superlatively intelligent insist on embarrassing themselves by reacting to those arguments as if they were made by the unintelligent… or, apparently, nonexistent.

Vox Day is calling someone else a psuedoscientist? That’s truly rich. Someday, Vox Day is going to put together a coherent argument aside from just sneering and bickering, and I’m going to have to celebrate that day as real achievement in human progress.

So, let’s break down the argument from today’s column as it applies to Richard Dawkins and see if it is coherent or merely sneering and bickering.

1. Richard Dawkins was a scientist of some reknown in the past.
2. Richard Dawkins is no longer professionally engaged in the use of the scientific method, but is now paid to use his fame and talents to popularize science.
3. Richard Dawkins has declared that although he is professionally pro-science (defining Darwinism as one of the most important aspects of science), he is anti-science with regards to Man’s behavior and socio-political structures.
4. Richard Dawkins latest book, “The God Delusion”, primarily concerns Man’s beliefs, behavior and social mores and Dawkins’s own beliefs and recommendations concerning those things. There are virtually no examples of any conventional elements of the scientific method such as observation or evidence, or even citation of scientific studies, regarding the assertions made in the book.
5. However, “The God Delusion” is marketed and sold with scientific trappings and on the sole basis of Dawkins’s reputation as a scientist, not a philosopher, political writer or theologian.
6. Pseudo-science describes that which is not science and is falsely billed as genuine science.
7. Therefore, Richard Dawkins is currently engaged in pseudo-science, even worse, he is prostituting science on behalf of his personal faith in secular humanism. That means that at this moment, he is no longer acting as a scientist, but rather as a former scientist and pseudo-scientist. Or, if you prefer, as science’s abusive pimp.

Now, you can take exception to any of the six points or the conclusion. Perhaps you can even show me where and how I am wrong. What you cannot reasonably do is to deny that a coherent argument has been made. I invite Plunge to investigate this argument and inform everyone precisely how it is incoherent, or even incorrect.

Besides, we settled this some time ago with the help of our friends in the science community. I am presently a scientist in good standing.

Determining the real Flat Earthers:

When governments attempt to regulate the balance between a limited supply of health care and an unlimited demand for it they’re inevitably forced to ration treatment.

If I was an evolutionary evangelist, I would now begin shrieking about what a horribly stupid Flat Earther Michael Moore is and how he is more than 230 YEARS behind the times. Next, I would begin passionately insulting everyone who didn’t believe that Smith should be taught in the public schools and assert that anyone who even questioned Smithian theory was deeply and profoundly ignorant.

Why don’t I do that? Because I don’t need to throw a hissy fit. I know that Smith’s Law of Supply and Demand is a fact. There is evidence of it everywhere, surrounding all of us at all times, and should I need to do an experiment to prove it, I am capable of performing a simple demonstration any time it happens to be required.

So here’s the interesting question to be posed to every annoying evolutionary evangelical. Do you believe National Health Care is a desirable? If they say it is, then you can tell them to shut up about ever telling anyone else that they are ignorant, since the issue was conclusively settled decades before Charles Darwin was even born.

It’s very simple. When price goes down, demand goes up and if the supply is limited, shortages ensue. There is no appealing this, there is no way to rationalize a way around it, the only solution is to reduce production costs down to zero.

Since we’re on a musical note, I might as well burnish my libertarian credentials… this song always makes me happy:

There are certain things a man is just expected to do. Open the doors, kill the spiders, defend the weak, buy the drugs.

UPDATE: And just to make Nate happy.

With all the requisite apologies to Monty Python:

Atheist Sam was a ladies man
Whose history was murky.

Chris Hitchens hit the sex kittens
Who were up for war with Turkey.

Don Richard D., on number three,
Liked girls and Louis Leakey

And the Brights began when Dennett, Dan
Was out and getting freaky.

There’s little Paris could teach Harris
Given his trouble and strife.
R. Dawkins, himself, knows how to shed a wife.

Bertrand took the mick on his own logic
When wife number two of the four got thick.

Nietzsche, we fear, was a wee bit queer
Science wasn’t the only gay frontier.

Diderot, Diderot liked the quid pro quo,
Onfray was fond of a sod.

And Christopher Hitch likes a randy bitch
I shag, ergo, no God.

Now, Dawkins is nothing more than a Darwinian machine.
A loyal little husband
But for when he spreads his genes.

VD can’t possibly take the position that Plato was a “nut job”…nor can anyone else with the slightest familiarity with Plato.

I don’t. My position is that Plato’s political philosophy is pure evil and the foundation of modern utopian totalitiarianism. I am opposed to political Platonism in all its forms.

An admiral with whom I was discussing Greek philosophy once summed it up nicely: all politics comes down to Aristotle versus Plato. In worldly terms, either the individual or the collective must reign supreme.

I also have a little treat for you all tomorrow morning unrelated to the column. It may provide some small amusement.

But I can’t find my copy of “The Road to Serfdom” anywhere. If you’ve got a copy on hand – and I know someone here does – and have about 10 minutes to spare, please let me know here and I’ll email you a request.

UPDATE – Unrelated, but unbelievably awesome!

Catkiller’s kid puts pen to paper and produces the greatest English paper ever written:

Socrates, the great Greek Philosopher, asks too many obnoxious questions frequently; and Dwight, a hilarious character from the show called The Office on NBC does too; in fact they are a lot alike. They both ask weird questions, have similar behavioral quirks, and the way they do stuff gets them pranked or sentenced to Death!

Every time Socrates asks a question and somebody answers it he always asks for deeper meaning in the answer. For example in the Chapter of Phaedo, in the book called The Trial And Death Of Socrates, Socrates is talking about the immortality of the soul. He asks a man named Simmias if he thinks that the soul will live on after death, and Simmias replies with a simple “I don’t know”, and Socrates says,” Well, why don’t you know.” Dwight acts the same way, both Socrates and Dwight always ask more of everything, which probably got Socrates dead, and will get Dwight fired at some point…. the biggest quirk that Socrates and Dwight share is saying the word “why?” every five seconds. I mean it’s like living with a six-year old with Dwight and Socrates.

The forced suicide of Socrates is lamented by many would-be intellectuals, but those who actually know their Greek history are aware that Athens would have been much better off if they had had the foresight to execute him much sooner. Anyone who manages to produce a Critias, an Alcibiades and a Plato – a tyrant, a traitor and a theorist who provided the longest-standing, still-extant, intellectual justification for tyranny – is simply not someone you want wandering around teaching the children.

Cosmos writes:

I just can’t find any reason to teach there is a God in public school, despite what parents might want.

I totally agree. Of course, I also think that the public schools should be torn down, the grounds sown with salt and the teachers and various administrators and counselors released into the wilderness with thousand-dollar bounties on their ears. Although since I don’t believe in government subsidies, even in a worthy cause, we could just send them all to the sunny socialist shores of Cuba instead.

Until that blessed day, I don’t care what is being “taught” there. It’s like worrying about what the cattle are being taught at the local meat-packing factory. Kids who can’t read or do math aren’t going to be doing much evolutionary biology or theology either.