#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
Default or Deutschland uber alles
Last week, Germany launched its most aggressive attack on another country since Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Der Spiegel led with a headline titled “Griechenland soll Kontrolle über Haushalt abgeben,” which has been misleadingly translated into English as “Germany proposes Greece relinquish some fiscal powers.” A more accurate translation would be: “Greece shall give up control over its budget.”
As I have been repeatedly saying from the start, global warming has never been anything but another scientific hoax and an excuse to push global government:
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
Everything about the scientific consensus has been wrong, right down to their basic foundational assumption that CO2 levels produced higher temperatures. They don’t, and moreover, the conceptual model behind the theory has always been false.
This underlines one of my previous assertions. Science can only be trusted at the point when it becomes engineering. Which, of course, is another way of saying that science per se is not intrinsically reliable.
There are rumors abounding that the Colts have decided to pass on the contractual option they possess on Peyton Manning for the low, low price of $28 million. There is an amount of sturm und drang about it, but the reality is that the Colts aren’t going to compete with or without him year, they paid him $26 million to do nothing last year, and the history of NFL players with neck fusions is not a salubrious one.
I think Manning’s best bet is probably to retire with his health and legacy intact, even though three-quarters of the teams in the league will be interested in him. The neck issue is just too dangerous. But regardless of what he chooses to do, I know the Colts will be wise to let him walk, which I’m anticipate they are planning to do regardless of what Jim Irsay is tweeting these days.
MR has suspicions about a petty “mistake” by Bank of America:
I enjoy your blog immensely and I know many others do too, that’s why I’m writing you this email in hopes that if you’ve heard of similar stories in the past, then you can publicize them in an article or something.
I just happened to be checking my Bank of America account when I noticed a $5.00 Maintenance Fee had been assessed on one of my accounts. I called and had this fixed and they told me that it was a mistake on their part. My question is, are they making this mistake over and over again in hope of some people not noticing it?
Regardless, this has been the final straw and I will be closing my accounts with them before noon.
Any other BoA depositors noticing similar “maintenance fees” on their accounts? Considering that they are sitting on around 12% of all American deposits, an additional $60 per account per year could add up to a tidy little profit without much effort. And why shouldn’t they freely engage in such shenanigans, considering that it has been reported that the Obama administration and the Congress are planning to “punish” them for their mortgage and fraudclosure crimes by fining them cents on the dollar in lieu of any criminal or civil penalties?
The usual suspects have their sticky little fingers all over the supposed alternative to Obama too:
When Bain Capital sought to raise money in 1989 for a fast-growing office-supply company named Staples, Mitt Romney, Bain’s founder, called upon a trusted business partner: Goldman Sachs, whose bankers led the company’s initial public offering. When Mr. Romney became governor of Massachusetts, his blind trust gave Goldman much of his wealth to manage, a fortune now estimated to be as much as $250 million.
And as Mr. Romney mounts his second bid for the presidency, Goldman is coming through again: Its employees have contributed at least $367,000 to his campaign, making the firm Mr. Romney’s largest single source of campaign money through the end of September. No other company is so closely intertwined with Mr. Romney’s public and private lives except Bain itself.
I know I am shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that there is gambling taking place in the Washington establishment. It will be interesting to hear how all of the Romney Republicans who rightly deride Barack Obama as President Goldman Sachs will respond to the news that their favored candidate is owned by precisely the same corporation.
And it’s not as if Newt Gingrich is any better, being a Freddie Mac tool. You can complain about Ron Paul’s shortcomings, real and perceived, all you like. But the fact of the matter is that if you don’t support him, you are supporting more of the exactly the same thing that Obama is presently providing.
One could, of course, argue with the numbering system. There is a reasonable case to be made that George W. Bush was actually President Goldman Sachs 1.0, courtesy of his Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson.
We’re getting closer to putting the three Eternal Warriors ebooks up on Amazon. They’ll probably be sold for $1.99 each, as that appears to be Amazon’s preferred price. However, while the cover for Shadow is being prepared, it occurs to me that it might not be a bad idea to use the time fresh eyes to check for typos and formatting mishaps in the epubs that have been prepared, so if you’re interested in reading through one of them and taking the relevant notes, please let me know and specify which book you’d like to check, The War in Heaven, The World in Shadow, or The Wrath of Angels.
There aren’t just a few bad apples. They’re an intrinsically rotten fruit:
A DeKalb County family’s dog was shot and killed Tuesday night by a police officer who went to the wrong house when responding to a domestic incident, Channel 2 Action News reported. The officer went to Bobbie Currie’s home on Silva Court around 9 p.m. in response to a domestic dispute call with a possibly armed person.
The family’s German shepherd, which was chained in the garage, lunged at the officer, and was shot and killed, according to Channel 2. Currie’s husband, Anthony, told Channel 2 that the officer also pointed his gun at him and told him to put his hands up.
“I said, ‘Why [did] you shoot my dog?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’ll blow your brains out,’” Anthony Currie said.
A DeKalb police supervisor sent to the scene said the officer made an error.
“Subsequent investigation determined that the actual address that he was looking for was actually across the street,” DeKalb police Lt. Dane Cunningham told Channel 2.
The officer is not facing disciplinary action pending an internal investigation, Channel 2 said.
I don’t despise the police because one of them happens to be an idiot who can’t read a street address, is needlessly abusive, and is intoxicated with his government-granted license to kill. I despise them because they ALWAYS defend their evil “brethren” and refuse to hold them accountable no matter what they do. They have no honor and they refuse to be held accountable for even the most despicable actions.
At this point, I would be far more confident having to rely upon the actual Mafia than in the badge gang. It’s no longer any mystery why the annals of military history are rife with examples of the dreadful behavior and cowardly performance of police units.
Even street criminals usually don’t shoot dogs. Especially not dogs that are tied up and can’t possibly hurt them.
AA asks about a new study purporting to demonstrate that religion only benefits people where it is a free rider:
What do you think about the newly released study that claims that religious beliefs only make people happier due to cultural factors? According to the new study of almost 200,000 people in 11 European countries, people who are religious have higher self-esteem and better psychological adjustment than the non-religious only in countries where belief in religion is common . In more secular societies, the religious and the non-religious are equally well-off.
“The results suggest that religiosity, albeit a potent force, confers benefits by riding on cultural values,” study researcher Jochen Gebauer of Humboldt University in Berlin and colleagues wrote online Jan. 5 in the journal Psychological Science.
Do you think this study indicates the truth or is there any other valid reasons why religion creates better lifestyles for people in need of purpose?
My initial assumption is that this study is the usual propagandistic garbage put out by pseudoscientists who are dishonestly attempting to bolster their preconceived opinion with a false sheen of science. No doubt it is the sort of quasi-scientific study that purports to “prove” that all conservatives are racist, low IQ child molesters and therefore all decent human beings have no choice but to vote for Nancy Pelosi.
[Stops to read the referenced article about the study.]
Bingo. Here is the money quote:
“Gebauer and colleagues wanted to know if larger cultural forces contribute to the well-being of spiritual sorts. They turned to eDarling, the European version of dating websites like eHarmony or Match.com. Users of eDarling answer a question in their profiles about how important religion is to them; while setting up their profiles, they also complete psychological surveys asking them how “calm,” “cheerful” and “content” they feel, among other measures of happiness, life satisfaction and self-esteem.”
No doubt in their next study, Gebauer and his colleagues will report the astonishing news that contra all the media reports, there is no epidemic of obesity in America as only two percent of the women on eHarmony report themselves to be “overweight”. Not only is the ridicuous study entirely based on a notoriously unreliable form of self-reporting – it’s a DATING SITE, for crying out loud – but it contradicts many studies based upon more concrete metrics for measuring psychological health, such as alcoholism, suicide rates, and prescriptions for drugs used to treat depression.
Here, for example, is a study that uses the objective measure of hypertension as a metric and directly contradicts the conclusions of the eDarling-based study.
“With the help of a large Norwegian longitudinal health study called HUNT, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) were able to find a clear relationship between time spent in church and lower blood pressure in both women and men.
“We found that the more often HUNT participants went to church, the lower their blood pressure, even when we controlled for a number of other possible explanatory factors,” says Torgeir Sørensen, a PhD candidate from the School of Theology and Religious Psychology Centre at Sykehuset Innlandet (Inland Hospital). “This is the first study of its kind in Scandinavia. Previous research from the United States has shown that there is a possible link between people who attend church and blood pressure.”
In fact, if we are to take dating site science seriously, we can conclude that there are other, more important factors in making people happy. For example, OKCupid relies on the same sort of self-reporting “science” and concludes that women’s self-confidence increases with weight and age.
“Curvy women pass skinny ones in self-confidence at age 29 and never look back. They also consistently have the highest sex drive among the groups.”
So there is the scientific utopia of which so many secularists dream. Obese and godless old women rutting confidently, and often, with each other. Oh sweet Sappho! Do you understand the significance of this? Do you realize what this means? There is now a scientific basis for Lesbian Dorito Night!
One of the things I find so eminently fascinating about atheist evangelicals is the vast gulf between what they say the believe concerning science and evidence and their observable behavior. The hypocrisy they reliably reveal is not only every bit as great as that exhibited by the likes of Jim Bakker, it’s actually far greater because they engage in it much more often than the average shamed televangelist. Ever since Freud, we have been told that religion is injurious to the individual. Ever since Jean Meslier, it has been asserted that religion is deleterious to society. And we are still hearing this despite the fact that all the evidence, documentary, testimonial, and scientific consistently demonstrates that religion is good for the individual and a significant positive for society.
And yet, despite literally hundreds of years of evidence directly contradicting their blind faith in the benefits of irreligion, evangelical and militant atheists are still extolling the promised wonders of their sexy, secular science fiction society. And they are doing so even as its reality begins to take shape around them:
Lying, adultery, drug taking, breaking the speed limit, drink-driving, and handling stolen goods are all seen as more acceptable than they were at the turn of the century, it suggests. Disapproval of so-called “low level dishonesty” has [decreased] irrespective of social class, income level or education, according to research by Essex University. Integrity levels were slightly higher among women than men but the most significant variation was by age with noticeably higher tolerance of dishonesty among the young.
I’m not sure if it is more amazing or amusing that the academics who produced the report, who are most likely advocates of secularism if not outright atheists themselves, fail to connect the observed phenomenon to the obvious. Instead, they cast around for ridiculous explanations. “We think it is because their role models are not very good.”
And why might that be? The idea that a society can simply abandon one of its central foundations with only minor consequences is absurd on its face. Genetic science has amply demonstrated the powerful limits on environmental modifications to human nature. Atheists can continue to produce a panoply of illogical arguments meant to decouple morality from God, but scientific observation, historical analysis, and thousands of years of philosophical exploration clearly demonstrate that this cannot be successfully done.
Scott Taylor explains why what was bad in A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons is very likely only going to get worse, assuming that George Martin manages to publish another book in A Song of Ice and Fire:
Writers have a window of ‘perfect’ production, and although it’s much more forgiving than the 4 years of an athlete, it still exists. I mean, there’s a reason you know famous works by authors and yet don’t know what they’ve done in the past 20 years of their lives until their obituary is plastered all over the internet.
There comes a time where you need to retire, you need to hang up your cleats, or in this case, your keyboard, and sail into the sunset. It sucks for everyone, sure, and it’s sad to see them go, and yet isn’t it more horrible to pick up an author’s latest work and think ‘wow, what happened?’ Wouldn’t you rather remember them in the light when their words could do no wrong and each sentence was linguistic gold?
I’m going push my argument with some stats and let you be the judge. Inside these stats you’ll see I’ve included a defining award, and I’ve done this because typically an award showcases the very best of an author’s work, thus, that should be the barometer for the high point of a career.
Let me give some examples:
Michael Moorcock [Born 1939]: Definitive series Elric 1965-1979, Nebula Award Behold the Man, 1967. Prime writing years Age 26-40.
Orson Scott Card [Born 1951]: Definitive series Ender 1985 – Ongoing [but can you name a book after Xenocide, 1991?], Nebula Award Ender’s Game, 1985. Prime writing years Age 33-40.
Stephen King [Born 1947]: Definitive series [Fantasy] Gunslinger 1982-Ongoing, Bram Stoker Award Misery 1987. Prime writing years Age 30-50 [ending with The Green Mile].
Piers Anthony [Born 1934]: Definitive series Xanth 1977-Ongoing [I dare you to name all 36 current volumes!], Award Nebula Nomination A Spell for Chameleon, 1978. Prime writing years Age 32-52.
J.R.R. Tolkien [Born 1892]: Definitive series Lord of the Rings 1940+ [written], Published 1954, Award International Fantasy Award 1957. Prime writing years Age 40-57.
Arthur C. Clarke [Born 1917]: Definitive series Odyssey 1968. Hugo Award 1956 ‘The Star’, Prime writing years Age 40-55.
Robert Jordan [Born 1948]: Definitive series Wheel of Time 1990-Ongoing [Jordan died in 2007 at age 58], Locus Award Nominee Lord of Chaos, 1995, Prime writing years 40-50 [before the wheels came off Wheel of Time].
Isaac Asimov [Born 1920]: Definitive series Foundation 1942, Award Nebula The Gods Themselves, 1972, Prime writing years Age 22-65….
This could go on until the cows come home, but the essence of it breaks down to a set of years that ‘most’ great writers produce their best work, which is typically sometime between age 35 and age 55, a very comfortable twenty year window. Yes, yes, all points can be argued, all dates debated, but remember I’m talking as a whole.
The above is an average, but I believe my point is sound, that being that A Game of Thrones was written in Martin’s prime. Martin was born in 1948, so in 1994 he was 46 which pretty much puts him smack dab in the middle of his prime years. You add 17 years to that publishing figure for the release of A Dance of Dragons and all of a sudden you’ve slipped WELL past your golden creative window to the age of 63 [even the great Asimov was just doing novellas at this point in his life].
It’s hard to argue with his conclusions. There are the occasional exceptions, but I remember being simply confused when I read Caesar’s Women by Colleen McCullough, the fourth in her Masters of Rome series. While I enjoyed the first three, the fourth was almost as if it was written by a different writer. I never read Caesar, the fifth book, and while I did pick up a copy of The October Horse – great title, incidentally – it was almost unreadable from the start and I put it down almost immediately. McCullough was born in 1937, Caesar’s Women was published in 1996, three years after Fortune’s Favorites, when she was 59 years old. This suggests that somewhere between the age of 56 and 59, she lost her ups. Or her fastball, if you prefer baseball metaphors. Regardless, it’s quite in keeping with Taylor’s theory.
This is discouraging as a reader of Martin’s work, but I actually find it somewhat encouraging since the first volume in Arts of Dark and Light will be published while I’ve still got another 15 or 20 years left.