Book Recommendation. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are
Divided by Politics and Religion. By Jonathan Haidt
I suppose the best compliment is that throughout this insightful
and well-written book, I kept wishing the author was present so I could
discuss, and often argue points with him. (And I suppose he was glad to be far
away.) To be fair, many of the points I wanted to argue he addressed and
resolved further on. Haidt is a self-described left-wing academic and atheist,
though of Jewish heritage. He is a Kerry and Obama supporter, a bias he is very
open about and references throughout this work. But he is also an
intellectually honest man and—so rare on today’s campuses—open to diversity of
thought, the only kind of diversity that really matters. A “Moral
Psychologist,” Haidt makes a very solid academic research effort to understand
the moral foundations of both conservative and liberal political thought, as
well as why religion is important in human societies. The book held my interest
throughout, and will be of great value to thinkers on both the right and the
left of our political divide, who will gain understanding of why they hold the
views they do, and why others hold different views. Shouters and haters, not so
much. Read through the reviews on Amazon. This book is well worth your time.
Apathy and the climate change divide – it isn’t about science literacy
Excerpt:
Are members of the public divided about climate change because they don’t
understand the science behind it? If Americans knew more basic science and were
more proficient in technical reasoning, would public consensus match scientific
consensus? A study published today online in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that the answer to both
questions is no. Indeed, as members of the public become more science literate
and numerate, the study found, individuals belonging to opposing cultural
groups become even more divided on the risks that climate change poses. (This might explain the very
human tendency to demonize those outside the favored group on all sorts of issues,
but especially those that are primarily emotional or based on inconclusive or
non-existent evidence. You can lead a ____ to facts, but you can’t make him
think. Ron P.)
Next stop for wounded
vets: Freedom Station. San Diego
Excerpt: A train station is where passengers begin a
journey, or change direction. For the past year, Freedom Station has been a
place where San Diego
sailors and Marines with broken bodies start their journey to a new life. It
looks much like many apartment complexes in old San Diego neighborhoods. A handful of
cottages circle a courtyard. But every detail is ready to pass a drill
instructor’s inspection.
Excerpt: Gov.
Sam Brownback has signed into law a bill aimed at keeping Kansas courts or government agencies from
basing decisions on Islamic or other foreign legal codes.
Excerpt: The US
again targeted terrorists operating in Pakistan 's Taliban-controlled
tribal agency of North Waziristan, killing eight "militants" in two
airstrikes.
This will get someone killed. Nice people on the left,
prating about “civility.” ~Bob. Excerpt: Last week we spent a lot of time
writing about Brett Kimberlin and the incident involving blogger Patterico
where someone spoofed his phone number and told 911 he had shot his wife. Tonight,
my family was sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner when sheriffs
deputies pulled up in the driveway. Someone called 911 from my address claiming
there had been an accidental shooting.
Obama-Ayers
connection, eyewitness account
Excerpt: Allen K. Hulton is not a household name, nor is it
his desire to have it become one. He is a man with a simple story, an account
of incidents that took place over a period of several years while delivering
mail in a Chicago
suburb. He spent about 30 years delivering mail, years that would have been
contiguous had he not served in the military during the Vietnam era.
Will the 1991
Biography Discovery Force Obama to Open the Hood?
Excerpt: Three possibilities follow the bombshell discovery
that Barack Obama was promoted in 1991 through 2007 by his professional agency
as an author "born in Kenya
and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii ." (1) Obama
untruthfully presented himself as Kenya-born. (2) Obama untruthfully presents
himself as Hawaii-born. (3) Obama had no knowledge that his bio contained the
16-year-old "error" which was corrected in April of 2007, when Obama
was gearing up his campaign for the U.S. presidency.
The cult of the
presidency is going down – and it's taking Obama with it. By James Poulos
It’s only fitting that Barack Obama, who so willingly
brought America ’s
cult of the presidency to climax, should preside over its unceremonious
collapse. Obama’s administration may well extend into the next four years. The
signs of disappointment and disillusionment with his presidency, however, are
now beginning to pile up.
SAUDIS in full
meltdown over McDonald’s toy that they say insults the prophet Muhammad
Excerpt: Saudi Arabians are furious at a McDonald’s toy
which they say mocks their prophet Muhammad. According
to a report appearing today (5/27/12) on the Arabic news website, Kermalkom.com,
the McDonald’s fast food restaurant “abused the Prophet Muhammad by placing his
name at the base of a toy that is being distributed as part of the Happy Meal,
a toy which steps on the name ‘Muhammad.’”
Homeland Security
Releases List of Keywords That Cheese Them Off
http://godfatherpolitics.com/5390/homeland-security-releases-list-of-keywords-that-cheese-them-off/
Excerpt: It took a Freedom of Information Act request and a lawsuit by the Electronic Privacy Information Center to get it, but Homeland Security has released its supposedly complete list of words that set off bells in the top secret caves of the DHS.
http://godfatherpolitics.com/5390/homeland-security-releases-list-of-keywords-that-cheese-them-off/
Excerpt: It took a Freedom of Information Act request and a lawsuit by the Electronic Privacy Information Center to get it, but Homeland Security has released its supposedly complete list of words that set off bells in the top secret caves of the DHS.
“Free Burma
Excerpt: Burma
has been at war for 63 years. There has been recent talk of progress toward
peace, but all of my sources who travel inside disagree. They say the fighting
rages on. I also made a recent quick foray inside to a Karen area. There was no
fighting in that area during the two days I was there, but the guerrillas
confirmed that combat continues unabated.
excerpt: Yet over the course of the last few decades, the
Left’s most rewarding play on language has been a not-so-subtle shift from
focusing on natural rights to focusing on “human rights.” The former are fixed
and derived from God through nature, while the latter are in flux and founded
solely upon the decisions various governments and ruling entities make
regarding innumerable definitions of freedom….
Didn’t get the “Islam is a religion of peace” memo. ~Bob.
Excerpt: For refusing to renounce her Christian faith, Julie Aftab’s
Muslim attackers threw battery acid in her face and poured it down her
throat. Aftab survived, but then she was poisoned while recovering in the
hospital and then later shot. Somehow she held on.
Testing the Chief
Justice’s backbone. By George Will
Excerpt: In one of his characteristic conniptions about
people who frustrated him, Theodore Roosevelt, progressivism’s first president,
said of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, “I could carve out of a banana a judge
with more backbone than that.” TR was as mistaken about Holmes’ spine as are
various progressives today about Chief Justice John Roberts’.
Diane Tran, Honor Student At Texas
High School
Excerpt:
The Willis High School
Australians Face Huge
Fines For Speaking Ill
Praised by Barack Obama as a model for the world, Australia ’s
highly unpopular carbon tax, set to take effect from July 1st, is set to be
policed by laws which forbid business owners from criticizing it for causing
price rises – with thought criminals who do so under threat of being hit with
huge fines of over $1 million dollars
Excerpt: The proposal is backed by China , Russia ,
Brazil , India and other
UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
more control over the governance of the Internet.
Chicago’s
African-Americans are Murdering Each Other at an Alarming Rate
Excerpt: This is happening because of our polite society’s
fear of being labeled racist, intolerant or bigoted. We simply tolerate this
carnage and refuse to identify and condemn the cultural phenomenon behind this
urban terror. Toleration of a bankrupt and vile culture is the root of the
problem. Until we face this fact we can never begin to bring any positive
change.
Excerpt: The city spent $35,043 on police officers when
President Obama stopped in Corona del Mar in February for a campaign breakfast,
and revenue officials have sent his campaign an invoice to recoup the costs. City
Manager Dave Kiff said the invoice was his idea.
Excerpt: The U.N. nuclear
watchdog has not yet given good enough reasons to visit an Iranian site where
it suspects there may have been experiments for developing nuclear weapons, Iranian media said. The Parchin complex is at
the centre of Western suspicions that Iran is
developing atom bombs despite Tehran 's
repeated denials of any such ambition. A report from the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) last week said satellite images showed "extensive activities" at Parchin. (Couple
this report with the news over the past week or 10 days. Iran Iran Israel ,
Europe , and US. They’ve gone to great
lengths to develop alliances throughout the western hemisphere (Cuba , Ecuador ,
Venezuela , Nicaragua , including a military presence in
some) to go along with their open alliances with Pakistan
and North Korea and likely
covert alliances with both China
and Russia
Party Like It’s 1978:
Governor Jerry Brown And The Same Ol’ Failed Ideas
Excerpt: As for the California
Excerpt: It's become a badge of honor Hello. My name is
Robert Wargas and I am a Racist™. No, not that kind of racist: not
the kind that, you know, actually dislikes people of other races.
Three: It’s graduation season, and prominent political and
media figures are making the rounds to give commencement speeches at colleges
across the country. The president, administration officials, progressive
members of Congress, left-wing television talking heads, liberal columnists,
etc., are spewing so many feel-good platitudes that you’d think doing so was an
Olympic event and they were training for the gold in London. The one thing
missing from these speeches is reality.
The Fraudulence of
Obama
Excerpt: In arguably the most important speech of the
campaign, the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa in 2007, Obama said, “[Lobbyists]
have not funded my campaign, they will not work in my White House. ”Upon taking
office, Obama made quite a show of announcing new ethics rules barring
lobbyists from working in the administration on issues that fell under their
lobbying bailiwick. Yet Obama immediately allowed waivers for lobbyists working
on issues that fell under their lobbying bailiwick.
excerpt: A United States Circuit Court of Appeals panel of judges handed a
decisive defeat to the ACLU this week that stated
the Central Intelligence Agency doesn't have to
release documents regarding its use of waterboarding, or a photograph
of the suspected terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, taken
around the time that he was subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques.” This
was yet another defeat suffered by the American Civil Liberties Union in
its anti-anti-terrorism battle with U.S. intelligence and law
enforcement agencies.
Kids with Cell Phones: Record Your Socialist Teachers! By Doug Giles
Excerpt: This week audio surfaced of a North Carolina teacher, Tanya Dixon-Neely
(black), berating 13-year-old Hunter Rogers (honky) for criticizing president
Obama (hate crime). Neely said Rogers
could be arrested for slandering Obama. What a crock! Children cannot be
arrested for criticizing Obama—at least not until his second term when we will
truly see our First Amendment rights vanish like a pack of raw wieners at
Rosie’s house.
Obama Should Blame
Himself, Not The Court
excerpt: Sometime in the next month, the United States
Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of Obama's individual mandate,
the provision forcing everyone in the United States to buy health
insurance. Based on how badly this provision was defeated in the oral
arguments, it will likely be struck down as unconstitutional. If the law's most
popular provision, the ban on excluding pre-existing conditions, is also struck
down, Obama has nobody to blame but himself.
Excerpt: The Soviet Union is gone, al-Qaida is decimated,
and Iran
may never acquire nuclear weapons. But don't get too relaxed. If you're looking
for reasons to be anxious about world peace, China offers an abundance. It's a
huge country with a growing economy, an expanding military and ongoing disputes
with several neighbors.
It's payback time: don't expect sympathy – Lagarde to Greeks: Take responsibility and stop trying to avoid taxes, International Monetary Fund chief tells
Excerpt: The International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up
the pressure on crisis-hit Greece after its managing
director, Christine Lagarde, said
she has more sympathy for children deprived of decent schooling in sub-Saharan
Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Athens .
‘Welcome home’ Vietnam
Excerpt: A lot of very brave men fought nobly in that
conflict, only to return home to be treated with scorn and disrespect. (I still
remember my own reception while out-processing at Oakland Army Base in California following my second Vietnam tour,
when we were warned, “Don’t wear your uniforms into town.”) (A very well
qualified historian and war veteran does a superb job on reviewing what went on
during the war, and after, and why it's still critically important for people
to begin to understand the truth of that history and its actual lessons. --Del )
Obama's re-election
campaign - the thrill is gone: Willie Brown
The president's trip to the Bay
Area last week made it painfully clear that the Barack Obama re-election
campaign has lost its mojo. There was no life, no personality, no memorable
line or moment and no real enthusiasm in the entire fundraising foray. In
short, there was no buzz.
Name Ban Sparks
Excerpt: Tribes on two Oregon Indian reservations this week
protested a new rule by Oregon
education officials that bans public schools from using Native American imagery
in team names and mascots. Dumb Redskins don’t know what’s good for them.
Bureaucrats need to call in a real injin, Liz warren, to explain it to them.
~Bob.)
The Spirit of Geert
Wilders: A foreword to Wilders’ Marked for Death. By Mark Steyn
Excerpt: When I was asked to write a foreword to Geert
Wilders' new book, my first reaction, to be honest, was to pass. …
And then I took a stroll in the woods, and felt vaguely ashamed at the ease
with which I was willing to hand a small victory to his enemies. After I saw
off the Islamic enforcers in my own country, their frontman crowed to The
Canadian Arab News that, even though the Canadian Islamic Congress had
struck out in three different jurisdictions in their attempt to criminalize my
writing about Islam, the lawsuits had cost my magazine (he boasted) two million
bucks, and thereby "attained our strategic objective - to increase the
cost of publishing anti-Islamic material." (Lots of good thoughts in
here. About standing up for freedom and the right of Western culture to exist
and not let itself be morphed into something less free. --Del )
Bring Back Stigma: Treat
men like Desmond Hatchett, father of 30 welfare children, as creeps they are.
By James Bacon
Desmond Hatchett,
of Knoxville , Tenn. ,
has petitioned the state of Tennessee
for relief of his child-support obligations. It seems that the 33-year-old
minimum-wage earner has to divide 50 percent of his earnings with the 11 women
with whom he has fathered 30 children. While some of his children receive as
little as $1.49 per month, according to media reports, the sheer number of
offspring add up to an oppressive burden. You will never hear about the
able-bodied Hatchett and
his many progeny when liberals and progressives wail about the
increasing poverty and disparity of incomes in the United States . (Nancy Pelosi's
daughter is an aspiring film producer. She made this video (aired on Bill
Maher's show [!]) which has caused quite a stir in the "progressive"
community.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2kGPdxkofo
I imagine her mother was furious. Cordially, Larry Greenberg)
Obama signs
authorization for MARTIAL LAW!!
Because if you lived, as I did, several years under Nazi
totalitarianism, and then 20 years in communist totalitarianism, you would
certainly realize how precious freedom is, and how easy it is to lose your
freedom. – Milos Forman, (This just came to my attention... and it got my
attention, but good. Ability to declare martial law at any time, on whatever
pretext the President cares to employ? If this was passed while Bush was in the
White House, imagine the huge headlines and the screaming on every major TV
channel. Why in hell would Congress pass this? –Del. I haven’t seen commentary by the usual
anti-Obama pundits, will withhold judgment for more info. ~Bob.)
Excerpt: Iran has
significantly stepped up its output of low-enriched uranium and total
production in the last five years would be enough for at least five nuclear
weapons if refined much further, a U.S. security institute said. (ISIS
is being mentioned more and more often in the coverage of Iran ’s nuclear
efforts. I think they should be taken seriously. The last possible time to stop
Iran
is right now. If we haven’t the means or the will to do that, then we’d better
make plans to deal with the consequences—and, there WILL be consequences. Many
thanks to those foreign policy geniuses, Obama and Bush. Ron P.)
Why Jeremiah Wright
Matters – Still. By Larry Elder
Excerpt” Obama, in 2007, described the 20-year
father/son-like relationship this way: "What I value most about Pastor Wright
is not his day-to-day political advice. He's much more of a sounding board for
me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as
possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and
stress that's involved in national politics." But Wright is off-limits.
(And Rev Wright still visits the White House... 3 times last year. It seems
they're still close. --Del )
Vulture Capitalism?
Try Obama's Version A profit-driven economy is preferable to one run by
political favoritism. By Kimberley
Excerpt: Even as he's been busy with the day job, he's found
time to moonlight as CEO-in-Chief of half the nation's industry. Detroit, the
energy sector, health care—he's all over these guys like a cheap spreadsheet.
Like Mr. Romney, Mr. Obama has presided over bankruptcies, layoffs, lost pensions,
run-ups in debt. Yet unlike Mr. Romney, Mr. Obama's C-suite required billions
in taxpayer dollars and subsidies, as well as mandates, regulations, union
payoffs and moral hazard.
As Predicted--
Democrats Abandoning Obama, By John Ransom
Excerpt: Love is always being able to tell liberals I told
you so. Ok, I don’t know if it’s love exactly, but man it sure does
feel good.
He’ll say anything
--Bam unleashes Joe Biden, By Rich Lowry
Excerpt: Joe Biden is performing a public service, God love
him. Out on the stump, he renders the case for President Obama’s re-election in
all its populist crudity.
No dulcet tones. No faux sophistication. No charm.
Higher-level traces of uranium found in Iran
Excerpt: Parsi said the Obama
administration has mustered political will "to exhaust all options"
before the only choice left is military. He notes that negotiations between
adversaries in other instances have been painstakingly long, citing the U.S.
and Vietnam talks and the negotiations to end conflict in Northern Ireland. (…)
But David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and
International Security, a group devoted to stopping the spread of nuclear
weapons, said, "the clock is not very friendly at the moment" with a
nervous Israel in the backdrop and a high-stakes political atmosphere with the
Obama administration facing "aggressive Republicans" in an election
year. "Obama doesn't have years and years," he said. "He has
weeks and weeks." (It seems the Iranians are not enriching to the 20% necessary for “medical
uses,” but 27%—just over one third
higher. The Iranians claim it’s an equipment problem “that can’t be
helped.” I think they’ve succeeded in playing out the clock on us. Don’t be
shocked if they test a weapon soon—just hope it isn’t tested here. And, pray
our forces in the Middle East are up to date on their equipment and training
for dealing with a nuclear battlefield. Ron P.)
Oministration is
perfidious and immoral
Any trust one might have had in the common
sense and propriety of the Obama administration is forever dead. The
shameful outing of the heroic Pakistani Dr. Shakil Afridi who led US
intelligence to Osama bin Laden's "in plain sight" lair is
inexcusable--even in an administration that wallows in its self-glorification.
In a kangaroo trial, Dr. Afridi was sentenced to 33 years. He'll
probably be murdered there unless he is quickly ransomed by Congress. Working
for US intelligence or simply befriending US citizens is fraught with danger in
much of the world, especially so in Pakistan. Why would anyone now want to risk
his life to help defeat jihadism? One must imagine that even Americans in
intelligence services will be looking for more loyal employers. As has been
noted many times by me and many others, our enemies disdain us and our friends
don't trust us anymore. Who could blame them? Cordially, Larry Greenberg
Excerpt: The Afghan Taliban confirmed that their deputy
governor for Nuristan province was killed in a US airstrike. The Taliban
announced the death of Jamil ur Rahman (or Jamil al Rahman bin Sa'adullah) in a
statement released on May 23 on the Pashto-language section of Voice of Jihad,
and then again on May 25 on the Arabic-language section, according to the SITE
Intelligence Group.
Nanoscale vacuum transistors – way cool, but still not as pretty as a
glowing 12AU6
Excerpt:
But transistors weren’t better in all respects. Electrons move more slowly in a
solid than in a vacuum, which means transistors are generally slower than
vacuum tubes; as a result, computing isn’t as quick as it could be. What’s
more, semiconductors are susceptible to strong radiation, which can disrupt the
atomic structure of the silicon such that the charges no longer move properly.
That’s a big problem for the military and NASA, which need their technology to
work in radiation-harsh environments such as outer space. (Faster than current
transistors or integrated circuits, resistant against EMP and gamma radiation,
and less weight; what’s not to love? But, the stuff we struggled to learn in
electronics schools back in 1965 still won’t really apply. If one of these
things fails, you can’t repair it because it’s too small. If repair is practical
at all—and, it may not be—it would have to be in components large enough
to see with the naked eye. So, how practical these turn out to be is likely to
depend on how its cost compares to other ways of doing the same job. Ron P.
Well, I never believed that stuff about “holes”—the absence of an electron—weighting
twice what an electron weighs, but moving half as fast. If I got that right. That
was awhile ago. ~Bob.)
The Glory of Vietnam
Excerpt: The curtain is about to go up on a series of events
to mark the 50th anniversary the Vietnam War, but the Boston Globe is
reporting that the plans to celebrate America’s Vietnam veterans “are
sputtering.” It reports that few events are planned and “crucial corporate
sponsorship is nonexistent.” Most veterans, it reports, “have not even heard
about the effort.” The Globe quotes a veteran Marine Corps captain, Phillip Jennings,
as saying the problem is “leadership and motivation.” There is “no real
direction,” he says. “There is no champion of it at the Pentagon or the White
House.” (Nice commentary. I wonder who wrote it. --Del)
Counting
Palestinians. By Shoshana Bryen
Senator Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) has offered an amendment to the
FY 2013 funding bill for the State Department that would require the Department
to provide two numbers to Congress: 1) the number of Palestinians physically
displaced from their homes in what became Israel in 1948, and 2) the number of
their descendants administered by the United Nations Relief Works Agency
(UNRWA). [1] Palestinians are the only people for whom refugee status passes
along through the generations (a condition adopted by the UN in 1965 over the
objection of the United States), so they are also the only refugee population
that grows exponentially over generations rather than declining as the original
refugees pass away and their descendants become citizens of other
places. (The only refugee population in the world, in fact in the history
of the world, that has made that status hereditary in perpetuity, are the
Palestinians. One can understand, if disdain, the motives of the UN for doing
so, but one must condemn the US for perpetuating and funding the big lie. Sen.
Kirk is trying to upset the status quo (is this not unseemly for a conservative?).
We can expect the Obama administration to ignore this initiative, even if the
Senate votes 100-0 to approve. Cordially, Larry Greenberg)
U.S. officials among
the targets of Iran-linked assassination plots
Excerpt: In November, the tide of
daily cable traffic to the U.S. Embassy in
Azerbaijan brought a chilling message for Ambassador Matthew
Bryza, then the top U.S. diplomat to the small Central Asian country. A plot to
kill Americans had been uncovered, the message read, and embassy officials were
on the target list. (So, Mr. President, how’s that reset, open-handed soft power
approach working for you? ~Bob.)
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