Savage Heart

Same Smear, Different Black Man

2011-11-14T17:12:00.002-07:00

So I hear that Republican women, and some men, are turning against Cain because of these accusations of sexual harassment.

Republicans, YOU ARE FRAGGIN' IDIOTS!

The only two women with any evidence are: known serial harassment complaint filer, multiply bankrupt, called "gold-digger" by friends. It is standard business procedure for a company to pay off a complainer rather than take the complaint to court. Cain did not pay them off; the National Restaurant Association did!

Now they are back as part of a Democrat smear campaign, orchestrated out of Chicago where Cain never lived or worked . . . but Obama and his machine did and do!

If these prostitutes for Democrat smears actually had something concrete, why wait until now? Why not the last time Cain ran? Why now?

Why now?

Because Cain became the front-runner and the Democrats can't stand the thought of having to run Obama against another black man! Their race card goes out the window and they'd have to run on ... OMG! *gasp* ... the issues!

So they repeat the "sex-scandal" smear campaign they trotted out against the last high-profile conservative black man, Justice Thomas, but seeing that a single accuser failed with him, they shotgun accusations against Cain.

SSDBM -- Same Smear, Different Black Man.

And like brainless sheep, supporters flee in droves over mere accusations!

EXCUSE ME, BUT JUST HOW FREAKIN' STUPID ARE YOU PEOPLE?

Not only are you doing exactly what the Democrats want you to do, but you are showing blacks all over the country that you will not stand by a black who is being smeared!

I keep hearing all the time how the Republicans are all for blacks getting off the Democrat plantation, getting an education, becoming successful, participating in the limitless opportunities within the United States. . .

Yet when you have a living example of just that, you treat him like a leper the moment the Democrats begin their inevitable scat-flinging!

Walk your talk, Republicans!

Metropolis: All New Restoration

2011-06-25T19:19:00.002-06:00

*happy dance!*

Yes! The restored, full-length Metropolis is out! :) :) :) :) :)

Why Our Children Are Not Educated

2010-07-01T21:40:00.009-06:00

The question has been coming up rather often lately, especially amid political debates as each side wonders -- or screams -- how can the other be so utterly, blindly stupid as to believe xxxxxxxx?

The answer is, it is not the fault of "modern education." It is not the fault of "new-fangled, touchy-feely bullshit in place of the Three Rs."

It is not the fault of television, video games, violent movies, pornography, or drugs.

It is not the fault of irresponsible parents or latch-key teenagers.

It is not the fault of incompetent teachers, totalitarian administrators, or lazy teacher aides; of too much/too little education funding, too large/too small schools or class size, too many/too few after-school activities; of the economy/Party A/Party B, etc., ad nauseum . . .

Nor any of the other societal ills so often blamed for it.

Those are the result of the problem, not its cause.

I think you might be somewhat amazed at the true answer to the subject question.....

Alexis de Tocqueville's Observations on American Society by Old-Thinker News | March 31, 2008
http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker news/alexis_de_tocqueville.htm

Americans rely on authority only when they cannot do without it

"Americans are taught from birth that they must overcome life's woes and impediments on their own. Social authority makes them mistrustful and anxious, and they rely upon its power only when they cannot do without it. This first becomes apparent in the schools, where children play by their own rules and punish infractions they define themselves. One encounters the same spirit in all aspects of social life. An obstruction blocks a public road, interrupting the flow of traffic. The neighbors immediately set up a deliberative body. Out of this improvised assembly comes an executive power that will remedy the ill before it occurs to anyone to appeal to an authority..." (p. 215)

Enlightenment disseminated throughout the country

"The United States has no capital. Enlightenment, like power, is disseminated throughout this vast country. Hence the beams of human intelligence do not all emanate from a common center but crisscross in every direction. Nowhere have the Americans established any central direction over their thinking, any more than they have established any central direction over affairs of state." (p. 210)

The intelligence of ordinary Americans

"Nothing makes me admire the common sense and practical intelligence of the Americans more than the way in which they avoid the countless difficulties arising from their federal constitution. Seldom have I met an ordinary American who could not distinguish with surprising ease between obligations stemming from laws passed by Congress and obligations originating in the laws of his state..." (p. 187)

Ready made opinions

"In the United States, the majority takes it upon itself to provide individuals with a range of ready-made opinions and thus relieves them of the obligation to form their own." (p. 491)

An idea that is clear and precise...

"Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex." (p. 186)

Rise of aristocracy

"What can be foreseen right now is that if the Americans did abandon the republic, they would move quickly to despotism without tarrying for long in monarchy. Montesquieu said that there is nothing more absolute than the authority of a prince who succeeds a republic, because the indefinite powers once fearlessly entrusted to elected officials would then be placed in the hands of a hereditary leader. This is true in general, but particularly true of a democratic republic. In the United States, officials are not elected by a particular class of citizens but by the majority of the nation; they directly represent the passions of the multitude and are entirely dependent on its will. They therefore inspire neither hatred nor fear. Thus, as I noted earlier, little care has been taken to limit their power by circumscribing their action, and the range of arbitrary discretion left to them is vast. The habits fostered by this way of ordering things could outlast it. American officials could keep their indefinite power yet cease to be answerable to anyone, and it is impossible to say where tyranny would then end.

There are some among us who expect to see an aristocracy arise in America and who are already predicting exactly when it will seize power." (p. 460)

Mandatory Public Schooling: Is it a tool for Education and Enlightenment or the Creation of a "Standardized Citizenry"? by Old-thinker news | Dec. 17, 2007
http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker news/mandatory_public_schooling.htm

"A government system of education in Prussia is not inconsistent with the theory of Prussian society, for there all wisdom is supposed to be lodged in the government. But the thing is wholly inadmissible here . . . because, according to our theory, the people are supposed to be wiser than the government. Here, the people do not look to the government for light, for instruction, but the government looks to the people. The people give the law to the government. To entrust, then, the government with the power of determining the education which our children shall receive is entrusting our servant with the power to be our master. This fundamental difference between the two countries [United States and Prussia], we apprehend, has been overlooked by the board of education and its supporters." - Orestes Brownson, In Opposition to Centralization, 1839

John Dewey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey

"Dewey goes on to acknowledge that education and schooling are instrumental in creating social change and reform. He notes that “education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.”

Mandatory Public Schooling: Is it a tool for Education and Enlightenment or the Creation of a "Standardized Citizenry"? by Old-thinker news | Dec. 17, 2007
http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker news/mandatory_public_schooling.htm

"We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." - Woodrow Wilson, 1909

"John Dewey and the Chaos of Contemporary Public Education" by Gennady Stolyarov II
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Blog/?p=565

"The dismal and declining student performance at America’s public schools is no accident. Nor is the pervasive bullying by peers and repression by teachers that the brightest, best-mannered, and most accomplished students encounter in public schools today. Both are the direct results of the educational philosophy promulgated by John Dewey (1859-1952), the originator of “Progressive” education and a self-proclaimed advocate of collectivism and opponent of teaching objective knowledge in the schools. Dewey’s ideas have largely shaped the ways in which today’s American public education system works—or, more accurately, does not work."

Mandatory Public Schooling: Is it a tool for Education and Enlightenment or the Creation of a "Standardized Citizenry"? by Old-thinker news | Dec. 17, 2007
http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker news/mandatory_public_schooling.htm

"This subject [mass psychology] will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship. Anaxagoras maintained that snow is black, but no one believed him. The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity... It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark grey. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. As yet there is only one country which has succeeded in creating this politician's paradise." - Bertrand Russel, The Impact of Science on Society (1952) page 41

"A Short Angry History of American Forced Schooling" by John Gatto
http://4brevard.com/choice/Public_Education.htm

"Readers learned in 1967, of course you and I were not among those readers, that chemical experimentation on minors would be normal procedure in the post 1967 world. That is a pointed foreshadowing of the massive Ritalin interventions which would accompany the student body of the future. Teachers were expected to function as government change agents and their trainers, ( this the first time reading this document that I realized that the expression "teacher trainer", like animal trainer, is an odd locution) the teacher trainers, were notified that behavioral science would henceforth replace academic curriculum in schools. The project identified the future as one (again I'm quoting) "in which a small league would control all important matters, one in which participatory democracy would largely disappear". Children would be made to see that their classmates, and indeed the average man or woman were so inadequate, were so irresponsible that they had to be controlled and regulated."
...
"There can be no doubt that the fantastic wealth of American big business is a direct result of school training. Schools training a social lump to be needy, frightened, envious, bored, talentless and incomplete. The successful mass-production economy demands such an audience. It isn't anybody's fault. Just as the Amish small business, small farm economy requires intelligence, competence, thoughtfulness and compassion, ours needs a well managed mass -- level, anxious, spiritless families, godless and conforming; people who believe that the difference between Coke and Pepsi is matter worth arguing about. The American economy depends on schooling us that status is purchased and others run our lives. We learn there that sources of joy and accomplishment are external, that the contentment comes with the possessions, seldom from within. School cuts our ability to concentrate to a few minutes duration, creating a life-long craving for relief from boredom through outside stimulation. In conjunction with television and computer games, which employ the identical teaching methodology, these lessons are permanently inscribed. We become fearful, stupid, voiceless and addicted to novelty.

The secret of American schooling is that it doesn't teach the way children learn -- nor is it supposed to. Schools were conceived to serve the economy and the social order rather than kids and families -- that is why it is compulsory. As a consequence, the school can not help anybody grow up, because its prime directive is to retard maturity. It does that by teaching that everything is difficult, that other people run our lives, that our neighbors are untrustworthy, even dangerous. School is the first impression children get of society. Because first impressions are often the decisive ones, school imprints kids with fear, suspicion of one another, and certain addictions for life. It ambushes natural intuition, faith, and love of adventure, wiping these out in favor of a gospel of rational procedure and rational management."

Alexis de Tocqueville's Observations on American Society by Old-Thinker News | March 31, 2008
http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker news/alexis_de_tocqueville.htm

An immense tutelary power...

"I therefore believe that the kind of oppression that threatens democratic peoples is unlike any the world has seen before. Our contemporaries will find no image of it in their memories. I search in vain for an expression that exactly reproduces my idea of it and captures it fully. The old words "despotism" and "tyranny" will not do. The thing is new, hence I must try to define it, since I cannot give it a name.

I am trying to imagine what new features despotism might have in today's world: I see an innumerable host of men, all alike and equal, endlessly hastening after petty and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn into himself, is virtually a stranger to the fate of all the others. For him, his children and personal friends comprise the entire human race. As for the remainder of his fellow citizens, he lives alongside them but does not see them. He touches them but does not feel them. He exists only in himself and for himself, and if he still has a family, he no longer has a country.

Over these men stands an immense tutelary power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasure and watching over their fate. It is absolute, meticulous, regular, provident, and mild. It would resemble paternal authority if only its purpose were the same, namely, to prepare men for manhood. But on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably. It likes citizens to rejoice, provided they think only of rejoicing. It works willingly for their happiness. It provides for their security, foresees and takes care of their needs, facilitates their pleasures, manages their most important affairs, directs their industry, regulates their successions, and divides their inheritances. Why not relieve them entirely of the trouble of thinking and the difficulty of living?

Every day it thus makes man's use of his free will rarer and more futile. It circumscribes the action of the will more narrowly, and little by little robs each citizen of the use of his own faculties." (p. 818)

Reduced to timid and industrious animals...

The sovereign, after taking individuals one by one in his powerful hands and kneading them to his liking, reaches out to embrace society as a whole. Over it he spreads a fine mesh of uniform, minute, and complex rules, through which not even the most original minds and most vigorous souls can poke their heads above the crowd. He does not break men's wills but softens, bends, and guides them. He seldom forces anyone to act but consistently opposes action. He does not destroy things but prevents them from coming into being. Rather than tyrannize, he inhibits, represses, saps, stifles, and stultifies, and in the end he reduces each nation to nothing but a flock of timid and industrious animals, with the government as its shepherd."

Mandatory Public Schooling: Is it a tool for Education and Enlightenment or the Creation of a "Standardized Citizenry"? by Old-thinker news | Dec. 17, 2007
http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker news/mandatory_public_schooling.htm

"In our dream...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way." - John D. Rockefeller’s General Education Board, Occasional Letter Number One (1906)

"American Education History Tour" by John Taylor Gatto
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history9.htm

"the new purpose of schooling—to serve business and government—could only be achieved efficiently by isolating children from the real world, with adults who themselves were isolated from the real world, and everyone in the confinement isolated from one another.

Only then could the necessary training in boredom and bewilderment begin. Such training is necessary to produce dependable consumers and dependent citizens who would always look for a teacher to tell them what to do in later life, even if that teacher was an ad man or television anchor. "

Mandatory Public Schooling: Is it a tool for Education and Enlightenment or the Creation of a "Standardized Citizenry"? by Old-thinker news | Dec. 17, 2007
http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker news/mandatory_public_schooling.htm

“Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening… The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they’re not tempted to think about any other role." - U.S. Commissioner of Education William Torrey Harris, 1889

"Against School" by John Taylor Gatto (Harpers, Sep 2003)
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/hp/frames.htm

"But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purely from fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" is the paramount virtue, rather than love, liberty, laughter, or hope. Above all, they can stem from simple greed.

There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schooling was a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in any direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the modem era - marketing.

Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, and forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same Cubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, a textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend and correspondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922 edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools are ... factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned .... And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down."

It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it.

Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.

First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there's no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves."

And now you know the answer.

Recommended further reading:

"SCHOOLING FOR HUMANITY: When Big Brother isn't Watching" by David O. Solmitz
http://www.spinninglobe.net/excerptsfh.htm

Teenscreen, a Front Group for the Phycho-Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex
http://www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html

GNISSMs

2009-11-08T13:36:00.009-07:00

Goose-stepping, Non-sapient, Ideology-blinded, Soundbite-parroting, Scat-flinging Monkey-bot.

GNISSM.

Goose-stepping -- Whether mindlessly yapping "Bush lied, people died!" or "Mega-dittos, Rush!" it's goose-stepping. Marching along, shouting stupid slogans, acting as a cog in a machine that will stomp its adherents into muck given half a chance and the slightest misstep.

Non-sapient -- Sapience requires thought. Actual thought. Reasoning. Figuring out what's true and what's bullshit; what's fact and what's fraud. GNISSMs do not think. They belieeeeeeve! They feeeeeel! No thought involved. Thought is wrong. Must believe and feel as leaders say. Must not depart from the herd!

Ideology-blinded -- Nothing that does not agree with the received wisdom of the herd is accepted. Sometimes it isn't even seen or heard. The GNISSM simply blanks it out and substitutes something that agrees with the prejudices instilled by the received wisdom. This can change in a instant, however, when the leaders decide that some particular dogma is no longer appropriate. "We are at war with Oceania! We have always been at war with Oceania!"

Soundbite-parroting -- Everything that comes out of the GNISSM's mouth is pre-digested, pre-approved, politically correct and stamped with the ideological seal of approval. Again, there is no thought, just mindless bleating of goose-stepping slogans.

Scat-flinging -- The GNISSM does not think, does not acknowledge or incorporate any information or viewpoint except that handed down by the leaders. When confronted with contrary fact or opinion, the GNISSM flings insults, snide comments, belittlements, logical fallacies, and holier-than-thou self-righteous aggrandizements that would leave the Pharisees, the thought police, and Mrs. Grundy all gaping in awe at the sheer, bald-faced, hypocritical, blind stupidity and ass-holiness of the absolutely brainless utterances.

Monkey-bot -- No thought. Pure knee-jerk reaction. Mechanically clanging its brass cymbals in an incessant, mindless robotic cacophony of party-/religion-/state-approved predigested propaganda programmed straight into the control chip in the GNISSM's head.

Or so it appears to any sapient being who has the misfortune to be observing.

All Political Power Issues From the Muzzle of a Gun

2009-11-08T12:57:00.002-07:00

And now Pelosi, et al. are going to put a gun to my head and rape thousands of dollars out of my limited income to stuff the already-over-bloated coffers of multi-billion-dollar mega-corporations in yet-another massive, fraudulent pile of suppurating bovine flop program of corporate welfare.

Bailout: Corporate Welfare. It did absolutely NOTHING to help the people trapped in exotic loans or suddenly un-/under-employed who were, did, and still are losing their homes.

Stimulus: Corporate Welfare. Except for the part where they robbed the lawful owners and gave the stocks to unions as payoff for campaign and voting support.

Cap-and-Trade: Corporate Welfare. With Pelosi and other crooks sinking millions into "green" companies that stand to make billions while people freeze to death in their dark homes.

Health Care "Reform": Corporate Welfare. Robbery at gunpoint of every individual (except the privileged few of Congress and SEIU, and millions of illegal aliens... Oh, let's call them what they are: foreign invaders!) whether or not said individual wants it, needs it, or CAN EVEN F*CKING AFFORD IT! -- for the benefit of bloated corporations from whom Pelosi and the other crooks have probably also bought massive amounts of stock.

Welcome to slavery. PCieg Heil!

Obama Test

2009-01-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

I'm an embarrassment to Barack!

I only scored 15 on the Obama Test

Original Version of "Metropolis" Rediscovered

2008-07-03T17:02:00.006-06:00

A copy of the original (long) version of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" has been found in the Museo de Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”

Key scenes rediscovered

© ZEITmagazin 2.7.2008 - 12:06 Uhr

Key scenes from Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” have been rediscovered

Last Tuesday Paula Félix-Didier travelled on a secret mission to Berlin in order to meet with three film experts and editors from ZEITmagazin. The museum director from Buenos Aires had something special in her luggage: a copy of a long version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, including scenes believed lost for almost 80 years. After examining the film the three experts are certain: The find from Buenos Aires is a real treasure, a worldwide sensation. Metropolis, the most important silent film in German history, can from this day on be considered to have been rediscovered.
....
Representatives of the American firm Paramount considerably shortened and re-edited the film. They oversimplified the plot, even cutting key scenes. The original version could only be seen in Berlin until May 1927 – from then on it was considered to have been lost forever.
....
Adolfo Z. Wilson, a man from Buenos Aires and head of the Terra film distribution company, arranged for a copy of the long version of “Metropolis” to be sent to Argentina in 1928 to show it in cinemas there.... A copy of these reels passed into the collection of the Museo del Cine (Cinema Museum) in Buenos Aires in 1992, the curatorship of which was taken over by Paula Félix-Didier in January this year.
....
Helmut Possmann, director of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation, the holder of the rights to “Metropolis”, said to ZEITmagazin: “The material believed to be lost leads to a new understanding of the Fritz Lang masterpiece.” The Murnau Foundation now sees itself as “responsible, along with the archive in Buenos Aires and our partners for making the material available to the public.”
....

So when the DVD will be out!?!?!?!?!? *bounce* *bounce* *pant* *pant* *whiiiiiiine!*

One of my all-time favorite movies? ::innoc:: Whatever would make you think that? >; }~

World Domination

2008-04-07T08:28:00.002-06:00

If the several world domination movements of today were to succeed, the human race of the future would be a One-World government of Chinese Socialist Muslims running Microsoft* and trading carbon credits in the snow.

*Pirated, of course. After all, we are talking about China.

Text of McCain’s speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council

2008-03-30T22:07:00.003-06:00

An interesting speech. One commenter made the point that McCain seems to be branding himself as a non-black, non-female Democrat. I can see where that came from, with the numerous positive references to internationalism (the US deferring to the opinions and will of other nations, euphemistic references to open borders, and stated goals of forming a world government); support for "caps-and-trades" in the cause of failed and fraudulent claims of anthropogenic global warming; and McCain's ongoing diatribe about Guantanamo.

On the other hand, McCain did manage to paint an accurate picture of the causes and nature of radical Islamic terrorism, the results and costs of abandoning Afghanistan and Iraq before they can stand on their own; the need for China and India to rein in their rampant pollution; the need for African, and other, nations to gain respect for the rule of law and the will and needs of their people; the need for China and Russia to draw back from their imperialist ambitions; and the need for all nations to rein in the overtly, and often, expressed aggression and nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran. He also made an excellent point about not relying on autocracies to fight terrorism when they have been funding it under the table.

Overall, however, McCain's speech fails the stink test. His "League of Democracies" would include many that are democracies in name, only, being little more than kleptocracies with a democratic veneer. A very thin veneer, in some cases. The US subjecting its interests to the appeasement mentality of Europe, in particular, would result in little less than the holocaust McCain predicts from Democrat policies of the same stripe. "Caps-and-trades" policies to combat global warming (Anyone checked the sunspot activity lately? Compare and contrast with the Maunder Minimum which corresponds to The Little Ice Age.) are just another page from the elitist socialist power-mongers (including McCain) who believe they should run your lives. For your own good, of course, because you -- not being of the elite -- are too stupid do run it for yourself. (Just as you -- not being of the elite -- must be subjected to fines and/or prison terms for engaging in political speech within 90 days of an election.) We can also note that McCain has been consistently against enforcing immigration laws, in direct contrast to his drumbeat about the dangers of terrorism (see alliance between MS-13 and Al Qaida). His references to free trade throughout the Americas merely reiterates and enforces this duplicity.

I could go on for pages about the failings of McCain and his hypocrisy. He hasn't been known for years (decades?) as a RINO for nothing.

On to the other interesting points of the title blog -- namely, the abyssmal ignorance of the commentors.

Assertion: The war in Iraq is illegal.

Fact: The cease-fire agreement that ended hostilities in Operation Desert Storm provided that any member of the coalition, either unilaterally or in concert with other members, could, at any time, resume hostilities should Iraq violate the cease-fire. That none chose to do so during twelve years of constant violations does not in any way invalidate this provision.

Assertion: The Geneva Conventions guarantee rights to all combatants.

Fact: They guarantee rights only to those who meet the definition of lawful combatants. They are utterly silent on any combatant who does not meet those definitions. (There are some Conventions to which the US is not signatory and by which it is therefore not bound. What, exactly, those Conventions cover, I do not know. I have researched only the ones to which the US is signatory.)

Assertion: Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaida.

Fact: Iraqi intelligence documents cast doubt on this assertion. The airplane body found in Iraq set up for hijacking drills casts further doubt on it. Iraq was not innocent of sheltering and funding terrorists: Abu Abbas, planner and leader of the Achille Lauro hijacking, was hosted in Baghdad for a decade or so. Saddam publicly awarded sums equivalent to $10,000 or more to the families of Palestinian terrorists who killed themselves in bombing attacks.

Assertion: "Enemy combatants" is a stupid Bushism.

Conditionally concurring opinion: It most definitely is one of the stupidest screw-ups to come out of the W. Bush White House.* The problem with this term is that It blurs the line between lawful combatants -- who are carefully defined in the Geneva Conventions, and whose treatment and rights are carefully delineated -- and those who do not meet those definitions and therefore are not entitled to the treatment and rights of lawful combatants.
*(Right up there with harping on hypothetical nuclear WMDs instead of the chemical weapons Iraq was well-documented as having, and the biological weapons it was well-documented as having the precursors and ability to make, or the legally established, well-documented right for any '91 coalition member or members to resume hostilities in response to any cease-fire violation.)

That the term never appears in the Geneva Conventions seems, in some people's minds, to mean that there is no such thing as a combatant who is not covered by the guarantees of the Conventions. Of course, if those people actually had a mind capable of anything more than parroting the latest soundbite from their elitist masters, they, too, could look up the Conventions and find out exactly who is covered. And who is not.

Just as they, too, could look up the terrorist connections of Saddam's regime, the particulars of the '91 cease-fire agreement, and a host of other information easily found in a multiplicity of sources.

But that would require them to actually think for themselves. Which they, being well-indoctrinated, sound-bite-parroting, herdbeast slaves of their elitist masters, would never conceive of doing.

Like He Said....

2008-03-25T15:10:00.003-06:00

"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the
troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the
public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his
grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a
certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to
get well." -- Booker T. Washington, 1911

Blacks Have a Choice to Be, or Not to Be, a 'Victim', by John R. Lott, Jr.

Stupid Black Men: How to Play the Race Card--and Lose, by Larry Elder

Hatreds

2008-02-16T17:23:00.007-07:00

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana

What unfortunately escapes most people is that it is not only the historical results which must be remembered, but perhaps more importantly, the historical means. That the question "could it happen again?" should have been asked by the History Channel is ironic, for it is happening again, in several forms.

The witch trials of the medieval, renaissance and colonial periods; the Holocaust; the Soviet pogroms; the "red scare" of McCarthyism; the anti-military and race riots of the sixties; the domestic terrorism of the seventies, eighties, and nineties; Asian, African and European ethnic and religious cleansings: All of these used a similar strategy.

The strategy of hate, of fear, of bypassing the thinking mind with an emotional storm that hits like a punch to the gut. Hear and react. A spinal-reflex, knee-jerk reaction that turns a society of civilized individuals into a howling mob, in the midst of which no members could recognize themselves nor justify their actions, had they any chance to think.

That is the ultimate tool of this strategy. Don't let them think. Rationality is the enemy. Emotion is the ally, the lowest common denominator.

Perhaps first codified in 1841 by Charles Mackay in his book "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," this same appeal to emotion, to the unthinking beast, has been used throughout history for social, political and religious purposes. In the twentieth century, it was further codified and again put to horrendous use.

Hitler used this concept to launch himself into power, and the world into bloodshed. His plan was clearly outlined in his book "Mein Kampf." Goebbels included ritual celebrations and entertainment, providing uplifting experiences to counterbalance the necessary atmosphere of vengeance and anger, and keep the people's emotions from becoming desensitized through overstimulation.

Bypass the mind, for not all are intelligent enough to understand a rational appeal, and any appeal to rationality brings questions about the value of the proposal from those who are. Hit the emotional buttons, get people *feeling* without thought, without questions, and they can be led or driven at whim, in any direction, for any purpose.

Any fact can be colored, weighted, shaded with meaning by choice of words, turn of phrase, or tone of voice. Keep the emotions fully engaged, and the rational mind will be trampled in the stampede -- sometimes literally, and that in itself is a "good thing." Those who can break free of the emotional reaction, who question the shaded "facts," are the ones who might turn the herd. Therefore, they must be shown as the enemy. Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, perhaps used this subversion of the intellect most effectively, turning intellect itself, as expressed by education, into the enemy -- into THEM.

Everyone can understand the emotional appeal. It's exciting -- never mind the facts! It makes the blood pump faster, makes us feel closer, more united, secure even in the face of horror, because we're all in it together.

Well, all of us except THEM. There's always a THEM. There has to be. Otherwise, what would we be united against? Even if it's a concept, there are those OTHERS who cling to it, practice it, perpetuate its abominations. THEY are responsible for our misfortunes. They must be, for we would never have done this to ourselves.

And that THEM is all-important, for there must be a scapegoat, some group which can be shown as the root of all evil. An outside force must be blamed for all the troubles, for the people must never imagine that they, themselves, are to blame. That will start the deadly cycle of introspection and self-reliance that is the doom of the manipulator's power.

Individual thought and initiative MUST be subsumed under the unbrella of the unifying goal. Those who are not with us are against us. Those who will not serve the cause willingly must be broken to the yoke, "for the good of all."

Of course, "the good of all" only includes US. We are the all; our goals and desires are all that matter. Anyone who disagrees with us must be punished -- for their own good, of course -- to break them free of their evil ways and allow them to join, or at least serve, the enlightened and deserving few.

Now, where have we heard this, recently? In the dogmatic drumbeat of damnation from religious fundamentalists. The ever-more-sensationalized cries of racism, sexism, ageism. The pernicious calls for discrimination in favor of sexual preference, disability, ethnic origin, religion, economic status. And the flip sides of those coins, that certain people must be banned from doing certain things, because "everyone knows" that they are not as capable, industrious, intelligent, trustworthy, moral, dedicated, or otherwise fundamentally as *good* as those making the accusations.

The politics of extremism, of sensationalism, of any "-ism" hold much more general appeal than any rational debate of the pros and cons of the respective positions. Which was more popular, "Firing Line" or "Jerry Springer?" Easy question -- which was more sensationalist, more appealing to the emotions.

As every marketing agent, special-interest speaker, and politician knows, it is the emotions that sway the crowd to follow someone's lead. And what more powerfully "proves" the correctness of one side's views than to have them encoded into law? Providing the means to punish those who do not or will not conform, and leaving them defenseless before the tide of mob opinion.

Hate speech laws, religion-based definitions of marriage, mandated racial and gender percentages, government control of private property defining allowable types and usages, budgets balanced on the backs of future generations, foreign policy tailored for video clips and sound bites on the evening news: All these are the results of "mandates from the people." From people whipped into a rabid mob and divorced from thought or reason.

Any who give reasons against these moves are vilified, discredited as elitists, racists, militants . . . evil. For the labeling of the enemy, reducing them to a stereotype, something not-human, faceless, the non-person, is the lock-step march of the totalitarian mindset.

It is hard to hate another person. It is very easy to hate a label. To hate THEM.

Yes, so very easy. For a herd beast. For a unthinking, unreasoning animal. Go on. Hate. Obey the siren call of raw emotion. Wallow in the bloody mire and notice only that it feels warm, that you belong to US.

Ignore that man behind the curtain -- the elitist, racist, militant thug who has turned you into a mindless slave who exists only to do his bidding.

Ignore him. Because if you notice him, you'll become one of THEM.

Democrats Demonize Republicans. Again. Must be Tuesday.

2008-01-22T03:10:00.000-07:00

"Undemocratic voter ID laws are just another part of a broad Republican effort to undermine our fundamental right to vote," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said....

Translation: Common-sense voter ID laws are part of a grass-roots effort to undermine Democrats' notorious efforts to stuff the ballot boxes, and therefore Democrats will use the standard scare tactics to attack them everywhere they are implemented or proposed (while undermining their validity through "Motor Voter" and other programs that ensure non-citizens have the IDs to vote, anyway).

On second thought, I wonder why I thought this was even worthy of comment. It's like saying, "It's snowing in Colorado in January." Yeah, what else is new? Except that while the snow is a pain in the butt and will have yahoos in 4WDs acting like they're immune to the laws of physics, it doesn't have the potential to turn the country into the socialist Third-World hellhole that is the Democrats' apparent intent -- with themselves in charge, of course.

O'course, that isn't any better than the Religious Reich's intent to become the next Taliban. Or the Green-freaks' intent to have everyone living in caves -- except themselves, of course. Or CAIR's intent to turn the US into a medieval Islamic hellhole -- with themselves in charge. Or CFR's intent to abolish the US entirely and institute a One-World government -- with themselves in charge.

In fact, is there any political group out there that isn't intent on destroying the nation I gave a decade of my life to defend?

Revision of Earlier Global Warming Post

2007-03-24T19:13:00.001-06:00

An internet acquaintance pointed out to me that my reference for Greenland settlements is from a site that also has "hollow earth" speculation (which, as a retired Arctic surveyor, it took him a single paragraph to demolish). Therefore, I offer these references as somewhat more firmly grounded:

The Fate of Greenland's Vikings

It's not going to be cold enough in Siberia to...
(search 'wheat')

THE GREENLAND QUESTION

Summing Up the Junk Science

Orbiting Vaporizer Joe

Greenland Green Again?
(Tongue-in-cheek, but relevant)

Climate change: The crack of doom?
(Read the discussion below the article)

Reveille

2007-03-13T04:03:00.000-06:00

This is a great video

Hand salute.

Ready, to!

ROFLMAO!

2006-09-06T16:38:00.000-06:00

Oh, geez. Found this Nerd Quiz on my buddy's site:

And I got:

ROFLMAO!!!!

James Patrick Baen -- October 22, 1943 - June 28, 2006

2006-07-04T14:11:00.000-06:00

Here it is, the Fourth of July, nearly a week since I heard the news. It's wrong that Jim isn't here for the Fourth. He loved this country, truly supported our troops, and knew from personal experience that the American Dream is real, that it takes not government handouts, "a village," or anything but courage and hard work to turn opportunity into success. And even as I say it's wrong that he's not here today, I still can't quite believe he's really gone.

So here I sit, wondering (as I have been for nearly a week!) how to sum up eight years of knowing someone as mentor, friend, father figure, and -- finally, dream come true! -- publisher. For the two-and-a-half weeks he lay unconscious after his stroke, I kept getting flashes of an old western song: "Jim, Jim, you're riding on ahead. Oh, Jim, Jim...." Was that something telling me he wasn't going to make it?

Jim would call that "barf on a stick" as he did with all esper/psi stuff. It's one of the subjects Jim and I had to agree to disagree on. He said that all examples were empirical. Unprovable. That when I could provide reproducible, falsible evidence that ESP existed, he'd change his mind.

Now when I'm trying to figure out what to say, my mind is filking "To Sir, With Love," giving me lines like: "How do I thank someone who has taken me from rejections to reviews? Taught me how to write from wrong, weak prose from strong -- that's a lot to learn..."

Okay, a lot of actually getting published came from Eric Flint, but he admits that a lot of what he says is just repeating what Jim told him. I wish I still had all the posts and emails from Jim way back in the shadowed, misty past of Baen's Bar, when he could read stories posted for criticism. Before greedy buttheads and their lawyers concocting suits slammed the door on that. Before my hard drive crashed and sent it all into the limbo of lost electrons and jumbled magnetic imprints.

There are still imprints, just not magnetic. Electro-chemical, I guess:
Dialect is like a strong spice; a little goes a long way.
Don't encrypt manuscripts by using unpronounceable names. (Jim having spent his Army time as a ditty-chaser (morse code catcher, for non-military types), I see where that wording came from.)
Give readers the proper cues in format and narrative and they'll follow along, happily falling into reader trance, no matter what sort of strange world you're taking them through.
Don't explain. Give enough information for the reader to follow the story, but any bread-crumb trail is a promise to the reader that more info is coming, further along.

There's more. A lot more.

Jim's importance went beyond SF. Beyond publishing. He saw new things and embraced them instead of fearing them. The internet -- that amorphous, uncontrolled frontier of information exchange that terrifies most all other purveyors of intellectual properties -- to him was a gateway to opportunity. He pounced on it, developed a presence there, created a community of readers and authors like nothing else on the internet or off of it.

He saw readers as partners in the publishing business, not as marks to be exploited and thieves to be thwarted. He was honest and figured that most other people were, too. He paid his authors and figured that the readers also wanted them paid, so they would keep turning out new books for the readers' enjoyment.

Go to the Bar. Read the memories in Waiting Room and In Memoriam. Maybe you'll get an inkling of why I invested 8 years of my life in the place, and why I'm sitting here typing with tears in my eyes and a hole in my heart for someone I met in person exactly one time. Someone who, early on, told me shape up or he'd personally boot my ass off the Bar.

I shaped up. It was worth it to stay there. It got even better, as I watched Jim turn his publishing house into something that existed nowhere else -- a successful electronic publishing house -- and all of it through discussion of ideas with the webmaster, the authors, and the readers who would buy the product.

I think we surprised even him, though, when the consensus came down to increase the price of Webscriptions by 50%, so the authors would get about the same from a sale there as from a paperback. Who came up with that idea? The readers who bought only the electronic editions. They didn't want the authors shorted on royalties.

Jim was both miserly with his time, and generous beyond belief. Every one of us knew that we could pitch an idea to him, and he'd consider it. Even if he said no, he'd consider it.

There was no ivory tower. No stern, forbidding corporate fortress. Just a little round man with a white beard and twinkling eyes sitting at the head of the table, with all of us playing, discussing the latest books, and tossing ideas back and forth. Sometimes he smacked us for being unruly. Sometimes some of us returned the favor when he threw a snit. He flirted outrageously, went walking with baensidhe in the garden, and got surprised by a gold-painted Coyote in a plot to get more snippets. When he wasn't finding or inventing new book-crack to feed our habits, he'd be in the middle of arguments about science and politics, throwing a pie in a virtual foodfight, or dropping into a pun war with something so hideous we all held our noses and ran screaming.

It was grand and glorious and fun.

Then the chair at the head of the table was empty.

And so were we.

Jim,

Thank you for being where you were when you were, with a door sitting open and an invite to come in, set a spell, put my feet up and enjoy the conversation. I might not be around today if I hadn't found the Bar when I did.

Thank you for all the books, the ideas, the friends that I found there.

Thank you for the encouragement, corrections, sledgehammers to the head and boots to the ass that took me from a blindly groping wannabe to a published author.

Thank you for being you.

::Grabs a drink, steps up to the line::

To Jim! The boat has come to the dock, and Bob, Poul, and all the others are waiting at the gangplank for the new passenger.

::drinks::

::throws the glass, spraying shards all over the fireplace::

Now I'm getting snips from the title song of "Firefly." Where did that come from? "Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. (something something) I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me...."

Now it's segued into "Beyond Antares," the song that Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) sang a couple of times in "Star Trek."

Maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's another bit of "barf on a stick" telling me that when we get beyond Antares -- or maybe just to a new horizon in technology -- someone there will get a flash of twinkling eyes, a hearty laugh, "Told ya so!" and want to keep going. To find out what is beyond. To boldly go where everyone has been afraid to go, before, because they'll know that someone has already been there.

And wasn't afraid.

Happy Fourth of July, Jim. Enjoy the parades and fireworks.

We'll do what we have to to keep the home fires burning without you, and continue launching rockets up the asses of the DRM fanatics.

Remembrances of Jim's life will be held at Trinoc*Con in Raleigh, NC Saturday, July 22 and Lacon IV, the Worldcon, in Los Angeles, CA in August. The organizers of Dragon*Con, Atlanta, GA on Labor Day weekend, have also set aside a time block for it.

In lieu of flowers, etc., Jim's surviving partners and family ask that you buy a copy of The World Turned Upside Down and give it to a teenager or donate it to a library in his memory.

Links:
John Ringo
Banana Slug
Quilly Mammoth
Sea Wasp
Brown Kitty
capriciouspixi
Hal G.P. Colebatch in American Spectator

Photo by David Drake, December, 2000, at Jim's computer upstairs of the staff workspace in Rollsville.

Never Forget!

2005-09-11T21:06:00.000-06:00

While we deal with the effects of Hurricane Katrina, let us never forget the significance of today's date.

America Attacked
Pentagon Memorial
America Attacked (Mirror Sites)
Lest We Forget
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: ATTACK ON AMERICA

CDs of the flash movies are available. "America Attacked" info is here, "Pentagon" info is at the end of the movie.

Update: Housing for Those Displaced by Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-11T20:31:00.000-06:00

Another source of housing offers can be found at The Witches Voice. Check the sidebar, "Katrina Relief Notices...", right side of center frame.

These offers include several that will accept pets.

The Arrogance of Global Warming Enthusiasts

2005-09-11T19:08:00.000-06:00

Unbelievable. It's simply unbelievable that someone who speaks of history knows so little of it. Bill McKibben states:

For the 10 thousand years of human civilization, we've relied on the planet's basic physical stability.

Sure, there have been hurricanes and droughts and volcanoes and tsunamis, but averaged out across the Earth, it has been a remarkably stable run.

If your grandparents inhabited an island, chances were that you could too. If you could grow corn in your field, you could pretty much count on your grandkids being able to do likewise. Those are now sucker's bets -- that's what those predictions about environmental refugees really mean.

Yet while speaking of "10 thousand years of human civilization" he seems utterly unaware of that history within the past 1000 years. To wit: there was a mini-ice age only about 800 years ago, and world temperatures have yet to recover to their previous level.

Oh, yes. Say Greenland and people think of arctic conditions. And that has been the case for ... oh, around 800 years or so. Yet the Scandinavian colonies there were wheat producers. Then world temperatures dropped and the colonies were either abandoned or wiped out.

Strange, isn't it, that none of the "global warming" purveyors ever mention that. Guess it's one of those inconvenient little facts that would show their "It's all the fault of humans!" strident bellowing to be the unmitigated bullshit that it really is. No grant money in saying, "Oh, yeah. And by the way, global temperatures are just recovering from a recent dip. Geologically speaking, a cold breeze blew through the room."

There's no feeling of control over anything in that, either. And considering that such purveyors want everyone to do what they say to prevent the disasters they're predicting, I'd have to say that control mentality is a large part of their makeup. Not to mention the sheer arrogance of believing that tiny little humans can control the cycles of the planet and solar system. These bozos think they can play god.

Reducing pollution is a good thing, in and of itself. But Chicken Little cries of "The sky is falling and WE'RE the cause!" is so utterly infantile, I wonder why so many people take it up. Unless all those people just feel so insignificant that they have to come up with something to blame themselves -- or others -- for, so they can feel like they matter.

Had humans never evolved here; had we never discovered physics or chemistry; were we still living in the "idyllic" "state of nature" (see Hobbes!) that some of these morons claim we should, the planet would still go through cooling and warming cycles. It would still have ice ages and warm periods. It would still spin through space with total disregard to the mites crawling on its surface, doing its own thing in accord with the laws of the universe.

So how do these zealots get so much press for their doomsday predictions and claims that it's all humans' fault? Are that many people really so stuck in an inferiority complex that they'll listen to doomsayers just to feel special, when the facts of recorded human history are right there to show the lie?

And what really, truly pisses me off is how the Chicken Little Priests of Doom have subsumed pollution reduction into their junk science about global warming. They can't just say, "Hey, folks! 'Don't shit where you live' is a really good philosophy to follow!" No, they wrap it up with loud and unceasing cries of "Disaster! Disaster! We are the owners of the One Truth! Listen to us and us alone or there shalt be disaster!!!"

Then the people who don't believe their proselytizing bullshit likewise discount the real message that polluting is a Bad Thing (TM). Something widely known decades ago and accepted on its own merits.

Idiots. Morons. Arrogant, self-aggrandizing control freaks who want to claim they are gods.

Housing for Those Displaced by Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-05T16:03:00.000-06:00

Giving credit where credit is due, the hard-left activist group MoveOn.org is doing some concrete good in this matter. They've set up a site to find housing for the displaced at HurricaneHousing.org. It originally focused on areas within 300 miles of the damaged areas and the Houston Astrodome evac center, but the displaced are already being moved out to other states to relieve the overcrowding. I'll note that the US Salvation Army has this as the direct link on their website.

Other sites are:
Katrina Volunteer and Housing Opportunities
Adopt a Storm Family

And a word to the wise: I have seen numerous complaints on the internet that the Red Cross kept about 90% of the some $1 billion it collected for 9-11, allocating it for "research projects" instead of sending it to the people the donors intended to have it. Many now refuse to donate to them because of this, and are instead sending their donations to the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities,
America's Second Harvest and other charity/relief organizations.

If you decide to donate to the Red Cross, earmark your donation specifically for the relief effort, so it doesn't get stuffed into a slush fund, instead.

Idiocy caused major problems in New Orleans

2005-09-05T15:11:00.000-06:00

Bill on From the Swamp found an article on Federal Computer Weekly that explains the lack of communications in New Orleans. The police radio network was set up at locations below sea level, without power to run the generators in case of main utility failure.

Go read both. Bills' summation is as good as anything I could say.

This is idiocy, pure and simple. The persons who allowed this fiasco are directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds or thousands of people.

He Said It Better Than I Could

2005-08-25T05:49:00.000-06:00

Found a December 2004 Front Page Magazine interview of Steven Vincent that clearly illustrates the problem with the mainstream media's biased language:

Words matter. Words convey moral clarity. Without moral clarity, we will not succeed in Iraq. That is why the terms the press uses to cover this conflict are so vital. For example, take the word ?guerillas.? As you noted, mainstream media sources like the New York Times often use the terms ?insurgents? or ?guerillas? to describe the Sunni Triangle gunmen, as if these murderous thugs represented a traditional national liberation movement. But when the Times reports on similar groups of masked reactionary killers operating in Latin American countries, they utilize the phrase ?paramilitary death squads.? Same murderers, different designations. Yet of the two, ?insurgents??and especially ?guerillas??has a claim on our sympathies that ?paramilitaries? lacks. This is not semantics: imagine if the media routinely called the Sunni Triangle gunmen ?right wing paramilitary death squads.? Not only would the description be more accurate, but it would offer the American public a clear idea of the enemy in Iraq. And that, in turn, would bolster public attitudes toward the war.
...
The most despicable misuse of terminology, however, occurs when Leftists call the Saddamites and foreign jihadists ?the resistance.? What an example of moral inversion! For the fact is, paramilitary death squads are attacking the Iraqi people. And those who oppose the killers--the Iraqi police and National Guardsmen, members of the Allawi government, people like Nour?they are the ?resistance.? They are preventing Islamofascists from seizing Iraq, they are resisting evil men from turning the entire nation into a mass slaughterhouse like we saw in re-liberated Falluja. Anyone who cares about success in our struggle against Islamofascism?or upholds principles of moral clarity and lucid thought?should combat such Orwellian distortions of our language.

Thank you, Steven. We'll miss you.

"And that, in turn, would bolster public attitudes toward the war."

The mainstream media quickly decided that showing footage of people jumping from the burning World Trade Center towers on 9-11 would inflame public opinion, and therefore that footage was never again to be shown. Likewise with the various pictures and videos of terrorists shooting and beheading civilian prisoners. Yet the pictures from Abu Ghraib were plastered all over the airwaves and front pages for weeks on end, and the ACLU sued the Department of Defense to get even more pictures and video released under the Freedom of Information Act.

It seems that only those things that undermine public attitudes toward the war are acceptable "news."

The Best Way to Lie is to Tell Only Half the Truth

2005-08-22T14:47:00.000-06:00

In Mainstream news media suffer collateral damage from Iraq war, Ron Hutcheson of Knight Ridder attempts to justify the coverage of the Iraq war by the major news media. I say justify, because that is the overall tone of the article, and of Hutcheson's own wording. (He uses the standard media term "military insurgency" for those who are murdering Coalition troops, Iraqi police and military, and Iraqi civilians, rather than calling them terrorists, which they are. The only "insurgents" in Iraq are the left-over Baathists who are trying to put themselves back in power, and the dupes who follow Sadr and the other "leaders" who want to set themselves up as the next Saddam and don't give a flying shit about Iraq as a nation. According to Iraqi reports, the majority of the terrorists aren't Iraqis, and therefore aren't "insurgents." Nor, as they have no command structure as defined by the Geneva Conventions on Warfare, are they "military." They are terrorists, pure and simple.)

While the article does give time to those who see the current mainstream coverage as overly negative, it gives much more time, and its conclusion, to those who support the coverage as entirely proper.

Media experts note that the journalist's job is to report what's happening and why, not to rally support, and that news judgment requires assessing which facts are most important. If schools are being rebuilt, that's a news story, but if the society they're in is being blown apart by civil war, that's a bigger news story.

"If events go well, that's what you report. If things are going poorly, that's the reality," said GWU professor Livingston, who's lectured at the National War College. "If bombs blow up and bombs kill Marines and kill soldiers, that's an important story, and covering that is not bias."

U.S. journalists will always focus on lost American lives, media experts said, because that's the most direct link between Americans at home and the war overseas.

"That's the nature of journalism. And it's the nature of combat," Wyatt said. "To criticize the media for covering combat in wartime is like criticizing the sun for coming up."

BUT!!! That is not what the criticism is about. The criticism is that the media are using sanitized, PC terminology -- "military insurgency" vs. "terrorists" -- that express an inherent bias on the part of the reporters. The criticism is that only the negative is being shown, and the new schools, local governments, roads, power plants, and all other improvements are being left out. The view of the mainstream media, therefore, is that the bombs and mortars are the entirety of the reality and that things truly are going poorly. Of course, the view from the anti-war segment is that the media is using overly sanitized reporting by not further emphasizing the negative.

In contrast, the view of the troops and NGO workers who have been there and reported their experiences on blogs and small presses, and the view of numerous Iraqi bloggers, is that the bombs and other murders are only part of the reality. The improvements to infrastructure, social integration, government, police, and other movements by Iraq toward full independence and self-sufficiency are the much more important part, and are the majority of the reality.

"War is a complex thing, and you're going to have different realities from different perspectives," said Steven Livingston, an Army veteran and political communication professor at George Washington University in Washington. "What you see depends on where you stand."

Therefore, the media need to find another place to stand and see what is actually going on, before they presume to tell the world that their myopic, sensationalist view is the total reality.

Self-fulfilling E-piracy

2005-08-15T16:42:00.000-06:00

Stephen wrote:
"Look at J. K. Rowling. She could have sold thousands, maybe millions of e-copies of the latest Potter, not to mention the earlier volumes, but she's so worried that someone will steal them that she refuses, thus guaranteeing the result she fears."

J. K. Rowling and her publisher refused to release an electronic edition of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, claiming that it would be illegally copied and shared as soon as the first legal electronic copy was purchased. Despite this ... I'll be polite and call it "caution" ... electronic copies began appearing immediately after the book's European release -- some a chapter at a time, as the buyer read the book and scanned it to upload. The first half-dozen or so chapters were available online before the book's release in the US.

Does anyone honestly think internet publicity harmed this book's sales figures? Yeesh! Those who download an illegal copy tend to fall into certain categories: those who are checking out the book to see if it's worth buying (After the gaping plot holes in the last book, I can easily see where some would want reassurance that they wouldn't be getting another turkey); those who wouldn't buy the book anyway because they haven't the money; those who wouldn't buy a legal e-book anyway because they object to the asinine DRM/time limits/other limits that infest the vast majority of e-book releases; and those who wouldn't buy the book anyway because they're just too, too "l337" and only an illegal scan will satisfy their over-inflated egos.

Meanwhile, those who would eagerly buy an electronic edition have been left in the cold ... except for those illegal (usually error-riddled, sometimes malware-infected) scans. Talk about leaving money on the table! Failing to satisfy the demands of a market niche means that someone else will satisfy it.

Electronic editions -- when done right -- have the potential to increase sales of the hardcopy edition. Some readers will get both for convenience: one to read on a device when away from home, and one to stick on the bookshelf, loan to friends, hand to a child, or whatever. Some flat-out prefer an electronic edition for any number of reasons.

Too bad Rowling didn't give more thought to her own words:

Richard wrote:
"This is especially ironic when considered in conjunction with the emphasis she places on the idea that the prophecy only has power because Voldemort gave it power. Voldemort feared the boy the prophecy foretold, and in attempting to get rid of him, created him. JKR feared piracy of her works on the internet . . . . ."

An interesting rip

2005-07-08T00:35:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I don't have cable and can't watch O'Reilley, but from what I've heard, he's pretty biased. Here's a total rip of him and his latest book (site referred to me by a clanmate on Aardwolf Mud. See sidebar: favorite websites).

Maddox comes across as an asshat on a lot of his stuff, but this one had me snickering almost non-stop. While Fox News presents more-balanced reporting than other mainstream news outlets do, it does have a decided slant on its editorial stuff. I'd say that's because the other media outlets have the opposite slant, only they won't acknowledge it. :p Anyway, enjoy the review. If you're not a total asshat in the opposite direction, I bet you'll be chuckling, too.

Protesting Reality

2005-07-04T14:15:00.000-06:00

Protesters march outside the premiere party for the 'Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs' exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles June 15, 2005. The protesters said the ancient king was black and therefore the modern face reconstruction is an inaccurate portrayal of him as an Egyptian. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Modern reconstruction, my ass. [Now-dead link deleted :p ]. Newsflash! Egypt was Egyptian! Its pharaohs were Egyptian! That's not a hard concept to grasp. Yet here are a bunch of militant idiots trying to arrogate to themselves the history of another people, instead of celebrating their own. What, the Nubian Kingdom and Axumite Empire aren't flashy enough for them? Are they ashamed of Shaka Zulu?

"A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself." -- Malcolm X.

Poetic... No, Lyrical Justice

2005-06-30T23:27:00.000-06:00

(Received in email from my brother)

ALERT: Are you as OUTRAGED as I am about the Supreme Court's recent decision, allowing city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another? In "Kelo vs. City of New London", five Justices (led by David Souter) ruled that "eminent domain" allows any local government to TAKE anyone's private property if the government will generate greater tax revenue -- or any other economic benefits -- when the land is developed by the new owner.

If you AREN'T outraged, then you're not paying attention!

These black-robed dictators have now virtually destroyed individual property rights in the United States. Ignoring the U.S. Constitution AGAIN, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that local governments have the "right" to seize private property to make way for private commercial development such as shopping malls.

You read that right. It doesn't matter if your family has lived in your home since you were 11 years old -- if the local government decides that they could make more tax dollars by putting in a mall, too bad for you and your family.

Even Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said in her dissent to the ruling, "Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

But, the Supreme Court has spoken, so that's the end of it, right? Nothing can be done to expose this ruling for the TRAVESTY it really is, right?

WRONG. As a matter of fact, there IS something that can be done -- we can take this ruling to its logical conclusion, and show Justice Souter and his ilk who are sitting there in their ivory towers, far removed from us "common" folk, just what their "legal theories" are doing to US.

So, in keeping with what has now been deemed "constitutional", a private developer has contacted the local government in Supreme Court Justice David Souter's hometown in New Hampshire, asking that the property of the judge be seized to make room for a new hotel, to be named "The Lost Liberty Hotel".

According to WorldNetDaily.com, Logan Darrow Clements faxed a request to the town of Weare, N.H., seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road, the present location of Souter's home.

Wrote Clements: "Although this property is owned by an individual, David H. Souter, a recent Supreme Court decision, Kelo v. City of New London, clears the way for this land to be taken by the government of Weare through eminent domain and given to my LLC for the purposes of building a hotel. The justification for such an eminent domain action is that our hotel will better serve the public interest as it will bring in economic development and higher tax revenue to Weare."

Ah, poetic justice is served. And YOU can help serve it to Justice Souter.

TAKE ACTION: This is not a prank. The town of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter, Mr. Clements can begin his hotel development -- and we can begin the process of *reversing* this travesty of justice. He already plans to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be used to raise additional capital for the project.

FINALLY, these tyrants in black can "face the music" and actually EXPERIENCE what they're putting the rest of us through! Click below now to send a message to all five members of the town of Weare's Board of Selectmen at once, asking them to see that "Justice Is Served" by implementing Souter's decision and putting a hotel on HIS property:

http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=7771381&type=CU

NOTE: Yes, like Clements, we're aware of the apparent conflict of someone who is strongly opposed to the Kelo decision using it to purposely oust an American from his property. "I realize there is a contradiction, but we're only going to use it against people who advocated" the Kelo decision, Clements told WorldNet Daily. "Therefore, it's a case of retaliation, not initiation."

Be sure to send this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help see that "Justice Is Served" in this outrageous decision to destroy private property rights! Thank you!

Sincerely,

William Greene, President
RightMarch.com

What was that, it takes vile-age?

2005-06-27T04:10:00.000-06:00

A while back in an internet discussion, I made a pronouncement about the stances taken in Hillary Clinton's _It Takes a Village_. Afterward, I was utterly ashamed of myself because I hadn't actually read the book; I'd based my statements on reviews I had read. So I went to the library and checked it out.

It has taken me weeks to slog through its constant moralizing and redundancy, not to mention the strawman arguments, and the unbelievable arrogance of someone raised as upper-middle class comparing her childhood condition to that of those raised poor. To give credit where it's due, she does give passing notice of that arrogance, and there is actually some good information on child rearing in there. Taken as a guide for government action, however, it more closely resembles a manifesto for totalitarian brainwashing. At the end, I found that my earlier pronouncement had been..... spot on, after all.

What really had me gritting my teeth was the afore-mentioned moralizing in the face of the behavior commonly found among the Left. To give a few examples:

The talk:

"Even if dealing with political issues that have serious moral implications, we must be careful to avoid demonizing those who disagree with us, or acting as if we have a monopoly on truth." -- Hillary Rodham Clinton, _It Takes a Village_

The walk:

"At the Democratic National Convention, Janeane Garofalo -- comedienne, talk show host and liberal pundit -- called me a 'house Negro' and a 'fascist.'" -- Larry Elder

"Hi there you in-bred, flag-sucking, OxyContin-popping, Faux-News-watching, Apocalytic-yearning, Hummer-driving, election-stealing, jobs-exporting, Halliburton-loving, terrorist oil-guzzeling, insider-trading, Iraq-lying, Goose-stepping, Right-wingnut missing-links." joefree1, Democratic Underground

In the 20th century, it was Nazi Germany. In the 21st, it is Republican America. -- Alexander's sig line, Daily Kos

"I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth." -- Hillary Rodham Clinton

The talk:

"Our democracy has survived for more than two hundred years because at cricical junctures a majority of the people and their representatives resisted the lure of extremism.... The willingness to compromise in the interest of maintaining stability enabled our nation to become not only a world power but also a pluralistic society promoting unprededented tolerance for individual rights and freedoms." -- Hillary Rodham Clinton, _It Takes a Village_

The walk:

"We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech." -- Kathleen Dixon, director of Women's Studies, Bowling Green State University, Ohio

Remember: there's no sense in talking to them. Talk to your base first, the middle second, and the amoral and lying right never. -- cdreid's sig line, Daily Kos

"A trial and conviction of the Bush Admistration is the only way forward. The only way for America to live with its conscience. Charges: 1. Murder 2. Genocide 3. Crimes Against Humanity." dArKeR, Democratic Underground

"The average SUV driving, carb-guzzling, anti-intellectual American deserves this government." -- Paul Goodman, Daily Kos

"There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda." -- Hillary Rodham Clinton

So, let's see how well Hillary and her fellow travellers adhered to her stated standards of conduct:
Avoiding demonizing those who disagree with you?
Nope.
Avoiding acting as if you have a monopoly on the truth?
Nope.
Resisting extremism?
Nope.
Showing willingness to compromise?
Nope.
Promoting tolerance?
Nope.

What, you say it's the pot calling the kettle black? It's more like the soot calling the kettle black. A caucasian "liberal" makes racist slurs against a black conservative -- at her party's national convention, no less -- and is applauded for it. (I remember the news report.) A conservative who did anything like that would be excoriated and expected to wear and flagellate themselves with chains of guilt heavier than those of Marley's ghost! Don't believe me? Go mention Strom Thurmond on a "liberal" message board and watch the villifications fly. Mention Robert Byrd and the KKK, however, and watch how fast that's excused because he's now politically correct.

"Political correctness is not the end of human liberty, because political correctness does not have power commensurate with its aspirations. It is essential, however, to understand those totalizing ambitions for what they are. O'Brien's re-education of Winston in 1984 went to the heart of such invasiveness. "We are not content with negative obedience.... When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will." The Party wanted not to destroy the heretic but to "capture his inner mind." Where others were content to command "Thou shalt not" or "Thou shalt," O'Brien explains, "Our command is `Thou art.'" To reach that end requires "learning... understanding [and] acceptance," and the realization that one has no control even over one's inner soul. In Blue Eyed, the facilitator, Jane Elliott, says of those under her authority for the day, "A new reality is going to be created for these people." She informs everyone of the rules of the event: "You have no power, absolutely no power." By the end, broken and in tears, they see their own racist evil, and they love Big Sister." -- Alan Charles Kors, _Thought Reform 101_, REASON * March 2000

See the blog header for my view on political correctness. The modern version is the invention of the "liberals," and the focus of their agenda. And they dare to call the conservatives fascists and Nazis. Gods help us if they ever do gain power comensurate with their aspirations, because they have shown above what they'd do with it. PCieg Heil!

And I got spammed!

2005-04-04T04:06:00.000-06:00

In celebration of my first blog entry, some moron decided to inflict me with spam for prescription medicine (which I deleted.) Yay. Yippee. Yahoo. Which latter is definitely what spammers are. As well as microgenitaled acephalic coprophagic parasites.

Now watch. This one will get spammed, too.

First Post

2005-04-04T03:25:00.000-06:00

Hi, y'all.
I have a blog. Yay. I'll probably find something to bitch about later.
Bye, y'all.