"In holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
- President Dwight Eisenhower in his Farewell Address, 1961
"Ideology has corrupted too much of science...But in the end, the ideologues and censors can’t make dissenters go away. Popular belief in global warming is plummeting precisely because people see these tactics for the desperate impositions that they are...Stephen Meyer’s book, Signature in the Cell, is in its fifth printing and was named one of the best science books of the year by the Times of London.
The most severe harm these scientism ideologues cause is to science itself. And to think these censors and bullies smugly presume that they’re walking in the footsteps of Galileo, when in fact, they are actually the new Inquisition."
- Wesley J. Smith
Acne, agricultural land increase, Afghan poppies destroyed, poppies more potent, Africa devastated, Africa in conflict, African aid threatened, African summer frost, aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pressure changes, airport malaria, Agulhas current, Al Qaeda and Taliban Being Helped, Alaska reshaped, moves, allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), anaphylactic reactions to bee stings, ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink, Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk, anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear, Arctic tundra to burn, Arctic warming (not), Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, Baghdad snow, Bahrain under water, bananas grow, barbarisation, beer and bread prices to soar, beer better, beer shortage, beer worse, beetle infestation, bet for $10,000, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billion homeless, billions face risk, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, bird loss accelerating, bird strikes, bird visitors drop, birds confused, birds decline (Wales), birds driven north, birds face longer migrations, birds return early, birds shrink, bittern boom ends, blackbirds stop singing, blackbirds threatened, Black Hawk down, blood contaminated, blue mussels return, bluetongue, brain eating amoebae, brains shrink, bridge collapse (Minneapolis), Britain one big city, Britain Siberian, British monsoon, brothels struggle, brown Ireland, bubonic plague, budget increases, Buddhist temple threatened, building collapse, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north, carbon crimes, camel deaths, cancer deaths in England, cannibalism, caterpillar biomass shift, cave paintings threatened, childhood insomnia, Cholera, circumcision in decline, cirrus disappearance, civil unrest, cloud increase, coast beauty spots lost, cockroach migration, coffee threatened, coffee berry borer, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), cold wave (India), computer models, conferences, conflict, conflict with Russia, consumers foot the bill, coral bleaching, coral fish suffer, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , coral reefs twilight, cost of trillions, cougar attacks, crabgrass menace, cradle of civilisation threatened, creatures move uphill, crime increase, crocodile sex, crops devastated, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, curriculum change, cyclones (Australia), danger to kid's health, Darfur, Dartford Warbler plague, deadly virus outbreaks, death rate increase (US), deaths to reach 6 million, Dengue hemorrhagic fever, depression, desert advance, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, dig sites threatened, disappearance of coastal cities, disasters, diseases move north, dog disease, Dolomites collapse, dozen deadly diseases - or not, drought, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt, early marriages, early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth axis tilt, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spins faster, Earth to explode, earth upside down, earthquakes, earthquakes redux, El Niño intensification, end of the world as we know it, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, English villages lost, equality threatened, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing, eutrophication, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, pikas, polar bears, possums, walrus, toads, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, mountain species, not polar bears, barrier reef, leaches, salamanders, tropical insects) experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, fading fall foliage, fainting, famine, farmers benefit, farmers go under, farm output boost, fashion disaster, fever, figurehead sacked, fir cone bonanza, fires fanned in Nepal, fish bigger, fish catches drop, fish downsize, fish catches rise, fish deaf, fish get lost, fish head north, fish shrinking, fish stocks at risk, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, flames stoked, flesh eating disease, flies on Everest, flood patterns change, floods, floods of beaches and cities, flood of migrants, flood preparation for crisis, flora dispersed, Florida economic decline, flowers in peril, food poisoning, food prices rise, food prices soar, food security threat (SA), football team migration, footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frog with extra heads, frostbite, frost damage increased, frosts, fungi fruitful, fungi invasion, games change, Garden of Eden wilts, geese decline in Hampshire, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, giant oysters invade, giant pythons invade, giant squid migrate, gingerbread houses collapse, glacial earthquakes, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier grows (California), glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, golf course to drown, golf Masters wrecked, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, gravity shift, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop, great tits cope, greening of the North, Grey whales lose weight, Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss, haggis threatened, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harmful algae, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, health affected, health of children harmed, health risks, heart disease, heart attacks and strokes (Australia), heat waves, hibernation affected, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, HIV epidemic, homeless 50 million, hornets, high court debates, human development faces unprecedented reversal, human fertility reduced, human health risk, human race oblivion, hurricanes, hurricane reduction, hurricanes fewer, hurricanes not, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths, ice age, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, icebergs, illness and death, inclement weather, India drowning, infrastructure failure (Canada), industry threatened, infectious diseases, inflation in China, insect explosion, insect invasion, insurance premium rises, Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, invasion of alien worms, invasion of cats, invasion of crabgrass, invasion of herons, invasion of jellyfish, invasion of king crabs, invasion of midges, island disappears, islands sinking, Italy robbed of pasta, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, jets fall from sky, jet stream drifts north, Kew Gardens taxed, kidney stones, killer cornflakes, killing us, kitten boom, koalas under threat, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, lake empties, lake shrinking and growing, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, large trees decline, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful, lawyers' income increased (surprise surprise!), lawyers want more, legionnaires' surge, lives saved, Loch Ness monster dead, locust plagues suppressed, lush growth in rain forests, Malaria, mammoth dung melt, mango harvest fails, Maple production advanced, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, Meaching (end of the world), Meat eating to stop, Mediterranean rises, megacryometeors, Melanoma, Melanoma decline, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, methane runaway, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration, migration difficult (birds), migratory birds huge losses, microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, minorities hit, monkeys at risk, monkeys on the move, Mont Blanc grows, monuments imperiled, moose dying, more bad air days, more research needed, mortality increased, mountain (Everest) shrinking, mountaineers fears, mountains break up, mountains green and flowering, mountains taller, mortality lower, Myanmar cyclone, narwhals at risk, National Parks damaged, National security implications, native wildlife overwhelmed, natural disasters quadruple, new islands, next ice age, NFL threatened, Nile delta damaged, noctilucent clouds, no effect in India, Northwest Passage opened, nuclear plants bloom, oaks dying, oaks move north, ocean acidification, ocean acidification faster, ocean dead spots, ocean dead zones unleashed, ocean deserts expand, ocean waves speed up, oceans noisier, Olympic Games to end, opera house to be destroyed, outdoor hockey threatened, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise, Pacific dead zone, penguin chicks frozen, penguin chicks smaller, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts, pines decline, plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plants lose protein, plants march north, plants move uphill, polar bears aggressive, polar bears cannibalistic, polar bears deaf, polar bears drowning, polar tours scrapped, popcorn rise, porpoise astray, profits collapse, psychiatric illness, puffin decline, pushes poor women into prostitution, rabid bats, radars taken out, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rape wave, refugees, reindeer endangered, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice threatened, rice yields crash, rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, river flow impacted, rivers raised, roads wear out, robins rampant, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, rooftop bars, Ross river disease, ruins ruined, Russia under pressure, salinity reduction, salinity increase, Salmonella, satellites accelerate, school closures, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, seals mating more, seismic activity, sewer bills rise, severe thunderstorms, sex change, sexual promiscuity, shark attacks, sharks booming, sharks moving north, sheep shrink, shop closures, short-nosed dogs endangered, shrinking ponds, shrinking sheep, shrinking shrine, Sidney Opera House wiped out, ski resorts threatened, skin cancer, slow death, smaller brains, smog, snowfall decrease, snowfall increase, snowfall heavy, snow thicker, soaring food prices, societal collapse, soil change, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, space problem, spectacular orchids, spiders getting bigger, spiders invade Scotland, squid aggressive giants, squid larger, squid population explosion, squid tamed, squirrels reproduce earlier, stick insects, stingray invasion, storms wetter, stormwater drains stressed, street crime to increase, subsidence, suicide, swordfish in the Baltic, Tabasco tragedy, taxes, tectonic plate movement, teenage drinking, terrorism, terrorists (India), threat to peace, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tigers eat people, tomatoes rot, tornado outbreak, tourism increase, toxic seaweed, trade barriers, trade winds weakened, traffic jams, transportation threatened, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees in trouble, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, trees lush, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, truffle shortage, truffles down, tundra plant life boost, turtles crash, turtle feminised, turtles lay earlier, UFO sightings, UK coastal impact, UK Katrina, uprooted - 6 million, Vampire moths, Venice flooded, violin decline, volcanic eruptions, walrus pups orphaned, walrus stampede, war, war between US and Canada, wars over water, wars sparked, wars threaten billions, wasps, water bills double, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whale beachings, whales lose weight, whales move north, whales wiped out, wheat yields crushed in Australia, wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced, winds stronger, winds weaker, wine - Australian baked, wine - harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California), wine industry disaster (US), wine - more English, wine - England too hot, wine -German boon, wine - no more French , wine passé (Napa), wine - Scotland best, wine stronger, winters in Britain colder, winter in Britain dead, witchcraft executions, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World at war, World War 4, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, World in flames, Yellow fever.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his livelihood depends on not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
Dear Miss Neiman:
When Bill Moyers asked you (I'm paraphrasing), "Does life morally make sense?,” you paused a long, long time, and then you said:
"Meaning is up to us. We have to create it. If the meaning were given from the beginning, we wouldn't be free."
Moyers said: "How do we create meaning?"
You said: "By doing little things to make the world more just ... by trying to make the world a little more intelligible ... by trying to make the world good."
With all due respect, these statements strike me as incoherent. You say there is no inherent moral meaning in existence, and that we have to create the meaning by trying to create justice and goodness and intelligibility. But how would we know there is such a thing as justice or goodness unless these things already existed? How could we "make the world more just" unless there was objectively such a thing as justice? How could we make the world more intelligible unless existence was inherently intelligible?
From Sunday's Huffington Post article, Tea Parties Organizing, Training For 2010 Under The Radar...
For some, including important figures in the conservative power structure, Tea Parties are a reaction against a floundering Republican Party. For others, Tea Parties are a Republican Renaissance. For the many libertarians in the Tea Party movement, they are a means to bucking the two-party system. Regardless, Tea Partiers of all stripes want the same thing in 2010: electoral victory...
Many local Tea Party groups are taking the initiative to prepare for 2010 elections on their own. In at least 21 states, local homegrown Tea Party groups are already recruiting precinct leaders and providing them with formal training. Many are also hosting candidate recruitment and training seminars. Some are hosting multi-day "boot camps" for activists and candidates…
On Saturday, Glenn Beck announced an ambitious plan to turn his media megaphone into a community organizing pulpit. He already had a list of "912 candidates" and an "In or Out in 2010" challenge. Now Beck promises to step up efforts to elect like-minded politicians in 2010 by sponsoring voter registration drives and several day-long educational seminars culminating with the release of his upcoming book The Plan, which he will launch on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech in August 2010 on the National Mall. The Plan will detail Beck's 100-year plan for America. Beck's educational "conventions" will include policy-specific education, community organizer training, and Beck's personal take on history and economics…
From day one, well-funded libertarian groups have been commandeering the Tea Party movement for electoral gain. American Majority, along with their sponsoring organization, Sam Adams Alliance, and several other like-minded groups, are sponsoring a National Tea Party Convention. Local Tea Party leaders attending the convention will participate in workshops, seminars, and organizing training. Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker.
American Majority is also co-sponsoring PrecinctProject.com, along with RedState.com, to provide online training to Tea Partiers to "take back the Republican Party…"
Eric Odom, who is most often characterized as the Tea Party founder, is organizing week-long 2010 Tax Day Tea Parties across the country through his new organization American Liberty Alliance (and his former employer Sam Adams Alliance). In each city, the week will kick off with a full day of activist training on Saturday, April 10. Tax Day Tea Party protests will be held on Thursday, April 15, and the week will culminate with door-to-door voter canvassing on Saturday, April 17.
Odom announced recently that he is re-joining the GOP, but he qualified his support for the GOP by saying his new Liberty PAC (1) will not support any incumbent Republican, (2) will help libertarian candidates defeat Republican incumbents that are not conservative enough, and (3) will educate the electorate on why it makes sense for Republican candidates to be Scozzafava'd. Odom explained his plan, "Love or hate the Republican Party, it's our only vessel in the short term."
**UPDATE, DEC. 4, 2009**
"When studied with any degree of thoroughness, the economic problem will be found to run into the political problem, the political problem in turn into the philosophical problem, and the philosophical problem itself to be almost indissolubly bound up at last with the religious problem." - Opening paragraph of Irving Babbitt's Democracy and LeadershipH/T: Lawrence Auster
One of the strange oddities of Armstrong’s devious self-promo is the way her book on theology tossed in the towel on Darwinism.
You would think the great critic of modern scientism, and rationality, would expose the theory of Darwin. But no, that’s too dangerous: best to compromise on that issue.
We could certiainly do with a more compassionate theory of evolution, the more so since Darwin’s theory looks like an ideology designed for anti-compassion.
Armstrong is basically an atheist who is trying to keep her irons in the god fire, so she can be a religious expert.
Karen Armstrong sounds like an atheist who grew disillusioned with atheism because it leads to nasty consequences, and thus, tried to salvage God by saying that we should honor “Mystery” itself as a God-like force worthy of worship and sacrifice.
Needless to say, this perspective will not be persuasive to ANY atheist or believer.
Perhaps a few agnostics will find it compelling, and I’m sure the MSM will continue to honor her as a bold, trailblazing thinker (when she’s nothing of the sort). But I guess that’s inevitable when most people are tired of the New Atheists and the New Fundamentalists. They’ll cling to any mushy moderate, even if it’s a total clown like Karen Armstrong.
Good points. I think that theists will discover to their surprise that Armstrong makes a poor case for god.
Harvard Says Kidney Stones, Malaria Are Climate Risks
Kidney stones, malaria, Lyme disease, depression and respiratory illness all may increase with global warming, researchers at Harvard Medical School said.
One of the things that I hate about game and the world view that comes with it, is the way it paints human beings as animals. Animals prodominantly controlled by base, primal urges that we can hardly even control. But as much as I hate it I really can’t argue with it, it just makes me hold humanity in lower esteem.
To a certain extent, you’re correct. The alpha/beta/omega hierarchy that is used to classify men is based solely on said man’s sexual attractiveness. You also rightly note that society at large does this as well. There’s a reason why the number one insult feminists and women use on anti-feminist writers like myself is “you can’t get laid,” just above “you have a small penis.”
I won’t lie and say that I don’t regard a man’s sexual attractiveness as an integral part of his character. One of the goals of all life is to reproduce and pass on your genes – if you don’t have the ability to do that, you have failed at existence. The fact that reproducing is much more difficult for men then for women, as judged by the fact that less then half of the former have successfully done so throughout human history, means that the ability to get with women (and by extension spread your seed) is a quality that other people respect…
All life, from protozoa to plants to puppies, is possessed of one primary goal – survival. I separate survival into two subcategories - corporeal survival and genetic survival. The former entails staying physically alive, and the latter consists of passing on your genes to the next generation; reproduction, in other words. The Mystery Method posited a similar premise, with survival and replication being the purpose of every living entity. Every living being wants to reproduce, and will do anything in its power to accomplish that goal. This includes human beings…
While I wouldn’t argue that we humans, being sapient, are identical to chimpanzees rutting in the trees, our sentience is a tower constructed on a foundation of animal drives and instincts. The low, base urges may not be out in the open, but they’re still there and are still holding up everything else. We cannot escape our nature, we can only work with it.
This is an honest, articulate description of Game (and no, I’m not being sarcastic). But here’s the problem: By explaining some of the “inherent assumptions” of Game you reveals its flaws.
For example, you write (quite casually and confidently): “Every living being wants to reproduce, and will do anything in its power to accomplish that goal.”
Really? Read that sentence again. EVERY LIVING BEING will do ANYTHING IN ITS power to REPRODUCE.
Does that really describe yourself, Ferdinand? Does that describe anyone in this forum? It certainly doesn’t describe Elliott who describes several goals for his life – but never mentions reproduction as one of them.
Elliot is correct that the “worldview” of Game “paints human beings as animals.” And therein lies its fatal flaw.
Once you understand the truth that human beings are not mindless meat puppets manipulated by our selfish genes to survive and reproduce the appeal of Game dwindles to zero.
Game may – on some level – help a man get sex, but by harming his soul, it will ultimately lower – not bolster – his happiness.
I have no doubt that the explanations for male/female behavior game provides are true. I do hate it, believe me… My goal in trying to understand/study game is that I may rid myself, permanently, of all these wretched lies about women (which women encourage!) and cease being an emotional slave. If game can help me and other omegas achieve those humble outcomes, than game is worth its hype.
In my experience, the best way to stop being an “emotional slave” is to sever the knee-jerk response whereby a woman’s indifference to you causes “emotional slavery.” To do that, you must take ownership of your life, love yourself, and achieve a level of character that a worthy woman would be overjoyed to love.
There are no short-cuts in life. You have to do your homework. Life is a perpetual school, and unfortunately – to use Dave’s analogy – Game is a pill; a drug that may boost your self-esteem in the short-run but will leave you with a hangover tomorrow. And then – when the hangover passes – you’ll be back at Square One.
Evolutionary psychology is a BS religion, not unlike randism and scientology. It tells the true believers that they are righteous and deserving.
If you feel that people are treating you poorly and there is no chance they will change, hurt them as you please.
That’s a good point, Advocatus. I’ve long believed that the quest to feel superior to the great mass of humanity is a very common and dangerous drug that can come in many forms. “Game” (as practiced by the Roissysphere) is one of those forms.
In many ways, I agree with Hegel and Marx that indeed, the Truth is Relative. But, from a position of what works for a civilization? Well… that must have elements of an Absolute Truth to it, or cultural hegemony will never arise, and civilization will never occur...
Christianity has been not too bad, because it is firmly based in the concept of Absolute Truth, and can be used to pull us back from the brink of La La Land when we get a little too insane. It is an anchor...
If you want to know why most Communist countries abolish Christianity, it is because it is firmly rooted in the concept of “Absolute Truth” which is directly at odds with dialectical manipulation...
It is for this reason as well, that the lefties are so adamant about Evolution...
Marx and Engels were extremely excited when Darwin came out with his theory, because it was the “science” that supported their political philosophy – namely, that the Truth is Relative...
Whether one believes in Evolution or not, this very important political aspect rarely gets mentioned in the debate, but it is core to the importance of a lot of philosophy about “truth.”
This is why the leftists pee their pants so quickly whenever someone begins to discuss intelligent design. If intelligent design were to be proven, it would indicate a “plan,” which would indicate the existence of Absolute Truth… and the entire political philosophy of the left would fall to bits. They need evolution to be true for more reasons than what they… so does the Creationist side… the Intelligent Design side doesn’t, however, because it is dispassionate. - Fedrz in his essay Men, Religion, and Morality
The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet…
As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:
Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more…
Here are a few tasters…If genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:
Manipulation of evidence:
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.
Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
Suppression of evidence:
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.
We will be getting Caspar to do likewise…
And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal…
Hadley CRU, established in 1990 by the Met Office, is a government-funded body which is supposed to be a model of rectitude…
If the Hadley CRU scandal is true, it’s a blow to the AGW lobby’s credibility which is never likely to recover.
With Republicans and Democrats fighting all the time and improving nothing, there's an opening for a third-party challenge as strong as Ross Perot's in 1992…
The likeliest figure to seize upon this opening is populist demagogue (and self-styled "Mr. Independent") Lou Dobbs, formerly of CNN, so let's hope a better alternative appears - or the direction of the country improves.
But, right now, the prospects are dismal. My favorite economic guru, David Smick, editor of International Economy magazine, summarized them in a speech last week at the Colony Club of New York, soon to be excerpted in Commentary magazine.
"Americans are worried," he said, "about a pending national fiscal nightmare that could doom the U.S. economy to slow growth and second-rate status. "They instinctively sense we may be becoming like Britain after the Second World War, quickly fading in relevance, our currency losing credibility, our industrial and entrepreneurial edge dulled, our people deeply frustrated"...
"Reducing unemployment to where it was before the [current] crisis may be impossible," he said. "So get ready for an American work force full of long-term anxiety - and anger."
Smick, once chief of staff to the late Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and a 1996 presidential campaign adviser to Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley (N.J.), added that the barely recovering economy is burdened by "a 300-pound backpack of personal and public debt."
"Within a decade," he said, "the U.S. will be borrowing $722 billion a year just to pay interest" on the national debt.
"We're about to enter a fiscal trap, chasing our tail just to pay off our creditors. That's the experience of Third World regimes. Their currencies lose all credibility. They suffer from high and crushing interest rates, ending up as wards of the International Monetary Fund."
Smick is an expert on all this. He's made a fortune as an international trader and he wrote a best-selling book, "The World Is Curved," on the dangers of the unregulated world financial system.
Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama ("George W. Obama") have made matters worse, he said.
"Both proposed huge new entitlements with no way of paying for them. Both are at a loss at understanding the means of creating new private sector employment opportunities...
"Both offered the big Wall Street banks an incredible $700 billion in taxpayer funding with no stipulation that the banks lend the money, which today they are not doing."
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Smick says, is trying to keep the economy afloat by holding down interest rates - but all that means is that big banks borrow at zero, invest (often overseas) at 3 percent or 4 percent, make huge profits and refuse to lend to small U.S. businesses, which create 70 percent of new jobs… Smick agrees that the moment is ripe for a third-party candidate - "a problem-solving, no-nonsense leader who can come to Washington to clean out the swamp created by both political parties."
"We need to reignite America's fires of innovation, daring and confidence. If the current crowd in Washington lacks this vision, the American people, I can assure you, will find someone who has it"...
There is an opening. Help wanted.
The phrase God of the gaps refers to a view of God as existing in the "gaps" or aspects of reality that are currently unexplained by scientific knowledge...
The term "God of the gaps" is sometimes used in describing the perceived incremental retreat of religious explanations of physical phenomena in the face of increasingly comprehensive scientific explanations for those phenomena. An example of the line of reasoning starts with the position that early religious descriptions of objects and events (such as the Sun, Moon, and stars; thunder and lightning) placed these in the realm of things created or controlled by a god or gods. As scientific explanations were found for observations in the realms of astronomy, meteorology, geology, cosmology and biology, the use of supernatural explanations for phenomena was progressively reduced, occupying smaller and smaller 'gaps' in knowledge…
One example of such an argument, which uses God as an explanation of one of the current gaps in biological science, is as follows: "Because current science can't figure out exactly how life started, it must be God who caused life to start." Critics of "intelligent design", for example, have accused proponents of using this basic type of argument.
Darwinist: I.D. isn’t science. And if it’s not science, it isn’t true.
I.D. Proponent: Isn’t science the quest for truth about life and the universe?
Darwinist: Only if that quest is done within a materialist framework.
I.D. Proponent: But what if that quests needs to go OUTSIDE the materialist framework?
Darwinist: Then it’s not science. And thus, it's not true.
Employee: Boss, I have a great idea. Instead of using typewriters, why don’t we start using computers? Computers are a lot faster and better.In the private sector, that boss would never survive. How much longer can Darwinism survive?
Boss: Do computers use a mechanical process?
Employee: Well, yes – but what makes them better is their use of information technology.
Boss: We can’t use information technology.
Employee: Why not?
Boss: Because it’s outside the realm of mechanics. We decided a long time ago that work – by definition – can only be a mechanical process. Information theory (or any form of “mind”) must be ruled out.
Employee: Um, but computers are a lot better than typewriters! With computers, we can do twice as much work in half the time!
Boss: Sorry, get back to your typewriter.
"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself." – Ayn Rand
Ladies, if you think it’s unfair that we get to determine what we find attractive in you, keep in mind that it’s also unfair that you get to determine what you find attractive in us. We can’t help our dicks any more then you can help your pussies. This is the Age of Flesh, where the desires of the loins rule all. I don’t make the rules, I just point them out.
"If you look historically, every great republic has died over fiscal issues. That is the biggest moral issue of our time." - Senator Tom Coburn
Religion will presumably survive as long as we are recognizably human. What will it look like, though?
In a thoughtful closing chapter Wade peers forward into the possible future of religion. He thinks that traditional religion has lost too many of its bouts against modernity and rationality, and needs some radical reworking if it is to fulfill human religious yearnings as it used to. He asks: "Is there not some way of transforming religion into versions better suited for a modern age?" If there is, can we discern the shape of whatever rough beast is slouching towards Bethlehem?…
The various attempts to establish "ethical religions," from Emerson's Transcendentalism to Scientific Buddhism, have in any case fallen flat, offering only cold temples to their followers. A transformed religion, Wade tells us, must "touch all the senses and lift the mind … find a way to be equally true to emotion and to reason, to our need to belong to one another …" The transformation, he says, needs to be similar in scope to the transition from hunter gatherer religion to that of settled societies.
What may actually happen, it seems to me, will be a partial reversion to Paleolithic styles. The dissolution of the power relations that prevailed until just a generation or two ago — hierarchies of class, race, sex, age, and behavioral inclinations — has returned us to the egalitarianism of our remotest ancestors. Perhaps our religion will likewise regress.
Such a regression, if it occurs, will only be approximate. We are not now what we were then.
