War is what Obama does best.

The War on Women. War on Poverty. Class War. Race War.

Walk up to a union member snoozing on a bus, a Latino man crossing the street, a gay cowboy poet earning minimum wage, and community organize him along with a few hundred thousand others into the latest battle in the social justice war that never ends.

"Fight for card check, for birth control, for gay marriage and illegal alien amnesty." Every time a battle is won and an election ends, a new source of social conflict is dug up and deployed for war.

As a domestic radical, divisiveness is his natural weapon. Obama isn't out to unite Americans. He isn't even out for tolerance. His game is divide and conquer, playing on fragmented identities, assembling coalitions to wage war against some phantom white heteronormative patriarchy consisting of a middle class barely able to pay its bills. 

It's governing by terrorism. The bombs are ideological. The objective is a constant state of war.

The war that never ends has been good to Obama. Its various clashes have given him two terms and very little media scrutiny. They have given him a post-American army of identity groups with few mutual interests except radical politics and government dependency.

While Obama profits from stirring up conflicts at home, making it easy for him to light some fuses and walk away, he loses from conflicts abroad.

A Reaganesque president could have turned the Syrian Civil War or Russia's invasion of  Ukraine into an approval rating bonanza. Foreign conflicts pay off politically for presidents even when they aren't involved. But that's not true of Obama who is congenitally incapable of showing strength and reacts to a foreign crisis by playing for time while struggling to resolve the ideological betrayal of using American power abroad.

Internationally, it's the KGB agent, not the community organizer, who profits from conflict. Putin plays Obama's role in the world community, dividing and conquering, doing to America internationally what Obama does to it domestically.

Obama uses a phantom patriarchy, a phantom white privilege, a phantom 1 percent, to mobilize a coalition for his own agenda. Putin, like Bin Laden and many other enemies, uses the United States as a phantom enemy to organize a coalition of "oppressed" tyrants from Belarus to Venezuela to North Korea.

Administration officials scratch their heads wondering why Putin's won't cooperate with them. It's the same reason they don't cooperate with Republicans. Their coalition of black nationalists, gay rights activists, abortion-loving professors of feminism and fist-pumping La Raza nationalists, Muslim Brotherhood front men with trimmed beards and aging Stalinists urging single payer shares little in common internally except a furious resentment and a consuming sense of unfairness.

It needs an enemy to give it meaning. Without a common enemy it will tear itself apart and die.

The same is true of the anti-American coalition that Putin has cobbled together out of Marxist dictators in Latin America, Shiite fanatics in Iran, a North Korean prep school grad who starves his people to build nukes, Ron Paul supporters convinced that every war is a CIA conspiracy and radical leftists in the US who believe the same thing. Like allying the NAACP, AFL-CIO and GLAAD; it's an odd conclave, but as long as everyone focuses on a common foe, they can all be herded in the right direction.

Obama is an adequate national community organizer, but Putin is a global community organizer.

It's not just that Obama is weak and inept. The real problem is that he's using a rulebook that Moscow is entirely familiar with because its men helped write it. The Russian authorities have generations of experience dealing with Western lefties. They know that Obama wants domestic revolution, not international conflict, and that when in doubt he will assume that America caused the problem by wrongly throwing its weight around.

The Communist leadership in the USSR turned the Western left into its hand puppets in a short amount of time. Its people hosted them, brainwashed them and blackmailed them. The KGB vets running the show now understand Obama intimately because they understood his mentors. The tactics that Obama and his people imagine are clever and innovative are a minor example of the  tactics that the USSR was using abroad before he was even born.

Obama isn't isolating Putin. Putin is isolating Obama. He's doing it in the same way that Obama did it to Republicans.

What too many liberals have failed to understand is that anti-Americanism has nothing to with America. It's not American foreign policy that's the issue. Even individual resentments and conspiracy theories, the School of the Americas, the United Fruit Company and oil pipelines, are just a spice to give the dish flavor. Anti-Americanism creates and maintains a phantom enemy.

Osama bin Laden flew planes into the World Trade Center to increase the importance of Al Qaeda. Khrushchev's bellicose posturing was intended to increase his stature at home and to ensure that the USSR would be taken seriously as a world power by framing its presence on the world stage alone with America. For Putin, conflict with America wasn't a reason not to invade Crimea, but an incentive to do just that. Russia doesn't want an actual shooting war, but it isn't worried about one.

Putin is weakened, his popularity is shaky, the energy economy that he built up may collapse and the domestic opposition shows no fear of him despite all the beatings, arrests and suspicious suicides. Crimea polarizes his domestic debate on favorable terms, between nationalists and 'traitors', and increases his stature internationally as a world leader through the simple act of humiliating Obama.

This should be familiar territory for Obama who has reacted to bad economic news by finding targets to attack. The War on Women had a lot in common with the invasion of Crimea. Both were sham wars stirred up by corrupt political figures that exploited errors made by their opposition to polarize the political battleground while distracting everyone from their own misdeeds.

Obama needs a Republican enemy to keep his people in line. Putin needs an American enemy to keep his people in line. If Obama understood this, he would also understand that Putin is as likely to work with him to defuse the conflict, as Obama would with John Boehner.

Putin and Obama are both deeply corrupt men whose former popularity has waned and are badly in need of distractions. The soft distractions of photo ops with celebrities, impromptu musical performances and hunting expeditions, won't work. So they turn to the hard distractions of war.

The threat that both men face is the same. Their people are suffering and that suffering has been caused in no small part by the culture of corruption surrounding them. Obama and Putin's friends have robbed both countries blind and the American and Russian peoples are waking up to their crimes.

That's why Putin isn’t going to play nice. Unlike Obama, his domestic political opposition isn’t in a position where it can be blamed for anything involving his regime. He can't declare that his domestic political opposition is waging a War on Women or opposes raising the minimum wage. Too much power has been consolidated for too long for gimmicks like that to work in Russia.

Instead he has to seek his wars abroad.

Obama would like Putin to go away so he can focus on demonizing the domestic political opposition. Putin would like his domestic political opposition to go away so that he can focus on demonizing America. It's the same old game by two reds with law degrees on different political battlegrounds.

Obama thinks globally and acts locally. Putin thinks locally and acts globally.

Like Al Qaeda, the Taliban and even the current loony leader of Venezuela who sends soldiers to seize electronics stores in a desperate bid to stave off public outrage, Putin is determined to score points from the post-American transition. Reducing American power and influence worldwide was a move that the foreign policy left believed would defuse tensions. Instead it has turned into a gold rush for every petty tyrant and terrorist eager to count coup by humiliating the United States.

Obama wanted a peaceful post-American transition. Instead he's getting worldwide chaos and war.

Putin seeks out a conflict with the United States for the same reason that Obama seeks one out with Republicans; he wants an easy target to beat up on to distract from the economy and political corruption. United Russia, like the Democratic Party, is a party of crooks and thieves, which survives by fighting phantom enemies for phantom causes while robbing everyone blind.

For Obama and Putin, it's not really about Crimea or birth control, the Russian language or gay marriage.

It's about power.

The World's Fair to Earth Hour marks the journey of a civilization across the sky from light into darkness. In our new post-civilizational time, we no longer celebrate human accomplishment by seeing a vision of the future, instead we turn off the bright lights of civilization and sit in the dark for an hour to atone for our electrical sins.

Earth Hour stigmatizes human accomplishment as the root of all evils and treats the lack of accomplishment as an accomplishment. For all the pretense of activism, environmentalism celebrates inaction.

Don't build, don't create and don't do-- are its mandates. Turn off the lights and feel good about how much you aren't doing right now.

Humanity is what is wrong with the world. It began with fire, then the wheelbarrow, the lever and the ax, the mason, the carpenter, the scientist, the visionary. It can end with you.

Just turn out the lights.

Environmentalism has degenerated from valuing how much the skies and the oceans, the butterfly and the beaver, the still lake and the blade of grass, enrich our humanity into a conviction that all human activity is destructive because the species of man is the greatest threat to the planet. Each death, each act of undoing and unmaking, each darkness that is brought about by the cessation of humanity becomes a profoundly environmentalist activity.

Kill yourself and save the planet. Put out the lights, tear down the city and let the earth revert to some imaginary primeval paradise free of all pollution; whether it is the carbon breath of men, dogs and cows or the light pollution of their cities.

Embrace the darkness.

While we take electric light for granted, being able to read and write after dark is a technological achievement that transformed our civilization. Animals are governed by day and night cycles. Artificial light made it possible for us to work independently of the day and night cycle. And that made our literature and our sciences, our civilization, possible.

Like all environmental gimmicks, Earth Hour is self-defeating as anything other than an assertion of identity and faith. Far more energy is consumed promoting it, than is saved by practicing it.

Websites switch to black, even though displaying black on television sets or monitors consumes more energy. Turning off electricity to entire buildings after working hours and then turning it on costs more than letting it run. And getting 90 million people across the country to turn their power on and off at a scheduled time is an energy savings disaster. And since power companies draw down on their more expensive 'green' generators first, Earth Hour actually shuts down 'green' power.

But its sponsors don't claim that Earth Hour saves energy or prevents us from polluting the globe. Like every environmentalist stunt from flying rock stars around the world on jet planes to carving thousands of statues made of ice and then leaving them to melt in a public square, Earth Hour is described as spreading "awareness".

Spreading awareness is the sole purpose of most environmental activism. Awareness spreading doesn't improve anything, but spreads the ideology that humanity is evil to make people feel guilty, outraged, hopeful or some combination of the appropriate political sentiments in the face of an imminent armageddon that can only be fought by convincing everyone to be deeply concerned by it and disdainful of everyone who stands outside their Chicken Little consensus.

It is a religious ritual for a secular religion that has no god, but whose devil is the gear and the microchip, the milk cow and the imported banana, the skyscraper and the lathe.

The WWF, Earth Hour's godmother, has learned that shrill attention seeking is a reliable fundraising method. One of the WWF's more memorable fundraising methods was an ad showing hundreds of planes headed toward the World Trade Center, to highlight just how much more important their work is than fighting terrorism. Franny Armstrong of Age of Stupid, which was promoted by the WWF, ran a 10:10 campaign in the UK, whose ads featured environmentalists murdering dissenters, including a group of schoolchildren. The ads are just ads, but London's leftist former mayor, Ken Livingstone had said of Age of Stupid, "Every single person in the country should be forcibly sat down on a chair and made to watch this film."

That is the dark side of environmentalism. The most active non-Muslim domestic terrorist group is environmental. The undercurrent of violence finds easy purchase in environmentalism's creed that the only real problem with the world is people.

No amount of turning off the lights is enough. Eventually you come around to having to turn off the people.

The Nazis were among the most enthusiastic environmentalists of their day, even the term 'Ecology' was coined by Ernst Haeckel, whose racial views served as precursors to Nazi eugenics. But while Nazi environmentalist believed that we were all animals, they insisted that some animals were better than others. Modern environmentalists believe that we are all worse than animals. In their view we are both natural and unnatural. Natural because we come from the ape and unnatural because we are intelligent. We live on the planet, but our intelligence excludes us from ever belonging to it.

Tools are our crime against nature. We make things. And we make things better. Earth Hour is our reminder to drop our tools and stop. Stop thinking. Stop doing. Just stop.

The incompatibility of productive man with the natural world is a fundamental tenet of the environmental movement. Everything we do is destructive because of what we are. We are tool builders, inventors and producers. And the environmentalist movement is aimed at convincing us to stop being these things. To turn off the lights, make do with less and march back to the caves with a few clever ad campaigns and a catchy tune.


Not only mankind must go, but all the animals that man has domesticated and bred-- cows, dogs and cats. That is why PETA kills thousands of dogs and cats a year, promotes the euthanasia of wild cats and pet spaying and its staffers have even been known to kidnap animals and then kill them. It is why the Global Warming crowd has made cow emissions into their whipping bovine.

It's not enough to kill man, tear down his cities and put out his lights. His cats and dogs and his cows and sheep must die along with him.

Environmentalism is not motivated by a love for all creatures, but by the fanatical belief in the purification of the earth from all traces of human civilization. The political leftist romanticizes the noble savage over the civilized man and its environmentalist arm romanticizes the jungle over the thousand acre farm. It prefers the the swamp to the garden, the wolf to the dog, and the tiger to the house cat.

This preference is not scientific, it is emotional, rooted in an antipathy to industrialization and human development. It wraps itself in the cloak of science, but it is a reactionary longing for a romanticized nomadic past that never existed. A way back to the lost eden of noble savages free from morality and guilt.

In the environmental bible-- man is the source of all evil. The transition from the nomadic to the domestic, the village to the city, and the craftsman to the factory, is its version of original sin.

The environmentalist began with a distaste for human civilization and the fetishization of the rural farm life of the peasant. The champions of this "naturalism" were invariably urban artists and writers from the upper classes who were enthusiastic about being in touch with nature. After them came the "Nature Fakers" crafting myths about the high moral standards of wild animals. Domestic animals in such stories were always wicked and dumb, while wild animals lived deep and spiritual lives out in the woods. And so the animal kingdom was subdivided into the noble savage and the uncle tom. 

The world was divided into two polar opposites, the green and the gray, in an apocalyptic struggle. Either man would drown the world in industry, or he would return to a natural way of life through a lethal virus (Mary Shelley, The Last Man, 1826), a devastating war (H.G. Wells), oppressive social policies (Edward Bellamy) or eco-terrorism (The Monkey Wrench Gang). The more civilization grew, the more apocalyptic the scenarios became culminating in the two great environmental myths; nuclear winter and global warming. These apocalyptic myths have served the same purpose for environmentalists as apocalypses do for all religions. They predict a time when the sinful order is overturned and the earth is renewed to make way for the faithful.

Man is the environmentalist's devil. He must be beaten, broken and subjugated. Even the animals he has bred, who are the spark of his genius, must be taken out and killed. Take away his food and his power. Blame him for the natural cycles of the planet and the inevitable extinction of species that goes on whether he is there or not. Take away his technology and his inventions. Tell him that the humblest bacteria is better than him for it is dumb and follows its natural instincts while he insists on using his mind. Take away his primacy and his learning. And then leave him in the dark.

The environmental movement is tenacious, fanatical and deceptive. Its creed is the undoing of all human progress.

There is money to be made from that, as there is in all revolutions, but beneath the inconveniences of living under an environmental regime, from dirty clothes to high taxes, while being forced to listen to the hypocrisies and false pieties of the Gorean clergy of environmentalist activists heating their mansions while the poor freeze in energy poverty, is the darker reality that environmentalism is an anti-human movement with a vicious hostility toward man and the civilization he has built.

Whatever he has built, it must destroy.

The gap between darkness and light is a profound symbol in every civilization. The light of knowledge pitted against the shadowy dark of ignorance. The light reveals, but the darkness hides.

Civilization and the moral code exist in the light of awareness, but the darkness is home to unthinking bestial things. To call for a return to the darkness is a profound act of symbolism. A civilization that celebrates a return to the darkness for even a single hour is longing for a return to a deeper state of darkness.

A darkness of the soul.

WORLD WAR GREEN

US imports of crude oil quadrupled between 1970 and 1980 while domestic crude oil production continued to fall. Not that long ago the United States was importing 60 percent of its petroleum.  Among other economic and social factors, the rise in crude oil imports aligned neatly with the rise of the environmental movement. By the seventies, environmental fanaticism was written into Federal law.

The Saudi GDP went from 4.2 billion in 1968 to over a hundred billion by 1980 and to over half a trillion today. Some of that money went to yachts, prostitutes and palaces, but much of it went into the expansion of Saudi soft power through international Islamic institutions and equally international terror.

This period would also become known as the dawn of modern international terrorism.

Between 1978 and 1991, the Saudis gave Arafat’s terrorists almost a billion dollars. They couldn’t have been that generous in 1968, but by 1980, they could easily spare the money.

The Environmentalist World War



GETTING BIG MONEY OUT OF POLITICS

One ad already running in Louisiana tells voters, “Out-of-state billionaires are spending millions to rig the system and elect Bill Cassidy. Their goal? Another politician bought and paid for.”

And who is funding the $3 million Reid ad campaign denouncing out-of-state billionaires for spending millions to influence politics? Is it grass roots Louisiana voters or local kindergarteners pitching in their pennies to stop the rampage of the billionaires?

The single biggest donor to Senate Majority PAC is an out-of-state billionaire.  Michael Bloomberg donated $2.5 million this year. Bloomberg’s priorities of banning guns, soda and salt are more at odds with the average Louisiana voter, who overwhelmingly supports the Second Amendment and eats what he likes no matter how much salt and sugar it has, than those of the “libertarian-minded” Koch Brothers.

Bloomberg vs. the Koch Brothers






FOR US IT SHOULD BE AN ISSUE

Magistrate Ron Saines said if he was hearing the matter, he would have reasonable doubt, citing ‘cultural differences’ as one factor, which would result in the charges being dismissed.

Jaffari, 35, an Afghan refugee, was convicted in Geelong Magistrates’ Court on August 22, 2013, of indecently assaulting one boy and attempting to indecently assault another.

He was placed on a two-year Community Corrections Order with 300 hours unpaid community work.

Jaffari appeared in Geelong court again yesterday, this time charged with child stealing, attempted child stealing and unlawful assault.

“He then grabbed the child’s hand and began to lead her away before she looked up, saw it wasn’t her father, started crying and pulled her hand away,” she said.

The prosecutor said, that when interviewed, Jaffari told police, ‘For us is not an issue.”

Muslim Sex-Offender Who Tried to Kidnap 4-Year-Old Girl Excused for “Cultural Differences”




Muslim Calls Anti-Genital Mutilation Hotline to Have His Daughters Mutilated




IF IT ONLY SAVES ONE LIFE...

“While we cannot stop every senseless act of gun violence, the significant rise of mass shootings across the country demonstrates that we must take steps to close the loopholes that currently exist in California,” Yee said.

Yee also authored SB 108, which would require all guns to be properly stored when not in the owner’s possession.

In reality though Yee believed in the right to own shoulder fired missiles.

The agent told Yee and Jackson he wanted any type of shoulder-fired weapons or missiles, the affidavit says; Yee asked whether he wanted automatic weapons, and the agent confirmed he did — about $500,000 to $2.5 million worth. Yee told the agent “he saw their relationship as tremendously beneficial.”

The agent said his family in New Jersey wanted to support Yee’s bid for Secretary of State, to which Yee responded, “I can be of help to you for 10 months or I can be of help to you for eight years. I think eight years is a lot better than 10 months.”

Gun Control Senator Who Wanted to Ban Assault Rifles, Took Part in Shoulder Fired Missiles Deal





Pelosi: Illegal Alien Amnesty More Important Than Winning the Election





BEWARE THE IEDS OF MARCH

Maybe the moonshine is flowing a little more freely now that spring is here, but Muslim terrorists are practicing poor workplace safety skills and scoring a record number of own goals.

15 Muslim Terrorists Killed by Own Bombs in March




PARTY OF CROOKS

The California Senate Dem supermajority is now threatened because three Senate Dems face charges.

Federal law enforcement officials arrested two public officials in California and North Carolina and raided the office of a New York state senator in connection with separate corruption investigations on Wednesday.

Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon (D) was arrested Wednesday and charged with theft and bribery after an FBI sting operation, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

Derrick Smith was indicted in 2012 on corruption charges. He pleaded not guilty in federal court to taking a $7,000 bribe in exchange for recommending a state grant to help a daycare center.

He was expelled from the House but won re-election in 2012 pending his trial. As an incumbent, he had the backing of Democratic party officials in this year’s primary.

FBI Raids Strike Democratic Party of Crooks Nationwide




HOT AIR

In addition to the monetary cuts to the program, the number of actual Tomahawk missiles acquired by the United States would drop significantly—from 196 last year to just 100 in 2015. The number will then drop to zero in 2016.

The U.S. Navy relied heavily on them during the 2011 military incursion into Libya, where some 220 Tomahawks were used during the fight.

Nearly 100 of these missiles are used each year on average, meaning that the sharp cuts will cause the Tomahawk stock to be completely depleted by around 2018.

Obama refuses to waste money on cruise missiles for the Navy, because he thinks that there are other more important things that the Navy ought to be doing.

Increase supports energy efficiency goals directed by the DoD Sustainability Plan to meet a 37.5% decrease in greenhouse gas emission by FY 2020. Initiatives reduce fossil fuel usage by improving energy efficiency and shifting to renewable energy such as biomass, hydropower, geothermal, wind, and solar.

Obama Kills Tomahawk, Hellfire Missiles, Spends Millions on Green Energy




Fracking City has Lowest Unemployment Rate, Solar City has Highest Unemployment




ALL HAIL THE GLORIOUS PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION

The national board is dominated by two factions: the new majority, which Masters calls the “Radio Havana crowd,” and the new minority, which Masters dubs the “conspiracy and quackery crowd” — the latter group in 2010 approved a motion calling for all KPFK programs to question the “official story” of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

During an average 15-minute period, just 700 people listen to its Los Angeles station, 90.7 FM KPFK, for at least five minutes. Pacifica’s New York station, WBAI, is even worse off, with too few listeners to register on the Arbitron rankings

Board elections cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 — no small price for a network with a $13 million annual budget. The meetings themselves cost about $20,000 each to fly in 20-plus people and put them up for the weekend, and they’re dominated by bickering. Members regularly invoke Robert’s Rules of Order, and can take half an hour simply to approve the minutes of a previous meeting.

Commies and 9/11 Truthers Fight Each Other for Control of Pacifica Radio



DEAF EARS

Tomorrow will mark 12 years since our oldest son, then seven years old, and I were wounded in a suicide bombing in downtown Jerusalem.  Yehonathon had the head of a screw pass fully through his right brain, while I had two screws pass through my left arm.

American Suicide Bombing Victim Asks Obama Not to Free Terrorist Leader





HEARTS AND MINDS

According to Ghannouchi, the Muslims now faced “Crusader America,” the “enemy of Islam,” and Saddam had taken a necessary step toward unity, “joining together two Arab states out of twenty-two, praise be to Allah.”

Ghannouchi also threatened the United States. Speaking in Khartoum during the crisis, he said, ” We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world.

US Officials Attend Dinner Honoring Islamist Who Called for “Unceasing War Against the Americans





Alan Grayson Wants $20.14 for Being Called “Chief Maggot of All Liberal Lowlifes” - For the record, Grayson would like to state that Slate Magazine can vouch that he is not a circus clown.




FLIGHT RISK

Israel has continued choosing national security over political correctness. The United States would be better off doing the same thing.

Kerry Spokeswoman: Israel Discriminating Against Muslims




Obama Inc. Spent $700,000 on Global Warming Musical





HEY JOE, WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

Biden referenced former President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1894 speech titled “True Americanism.”

“Teddy Roosevelt said it better. He said, Americanism is not a question of birthplace or creed or a line of descent. It’s a question of principles, idealism and character,” Biden said.

The next sentence after the one quoted by Biden undermines his whole argument.

“Americanism is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose, not of creed or birthplace. The politician who bids for the Irish or German vote, or the Irishman or German who votes as an Irishman or German, is despicable, for all citizens of this commonwealth should vote solely as Americans.”

Biden Misquotes Teddy Roosevelt in Support of Illegal Alien Amnesty




Campus “Fat Justice” Event Blames Reagan for Plight of Fat People




GOING APE

In Bradley Graham’s By His Own Rules, it’s clear that Rumsfeld has been saying “A Trained Ape” as far back as 1970.

“The next month, in December 1970, Nixon and his aides tried to persuade Rumsfeld to take over as head of the Republican National Committee. But Rumsfeld wasn’t interested. He rejected the suggestion which he considered lacking in challenge. “A trained ape could go out there and do that, and I’ll be darned if I’m a trained ape.”

In 1986, Rumsfeld said of the budget deficit, ‘The fact that domestic spending is the real culprit, he says, should be obvious to “a trained ape.”

Rumsfeld has Been Saying “A Trained Ape Could Do Better” Before Obama was Born





Under Obama, the New Mission of the Special Forces is to Make Muslims Like Them





WE ARE THE 99.99 PERCENT

I recently asked a wealthy political donor why he was supporting Bill de Blasio and his attacks on the wealthy.

“Because inequality is a problem in New York,” he said. “The rich have gotten their way for too long.”

By “rich” of course, he meant people richer than he was—as in billionaires. Inequality in New York is all relative.

The millionaire malaise stems from a rapid growth in inequality—not just between the 1 percent and 99ers, but also between the 1 percent and the 0.0001 percent.

“You think you’re a player, flying your family first class, then so-and-so asks for your tail number, and they look at you like you’re taking the bus because you’re flying commercial,” he says.

Liberal Millionaires Complain About Income Inequality: “We are the 99.99 percent”





Obama Honors Opponent of Illegal Immigration Who Beat Illegal Aliens Crossing into US





PROG ECONOMICS TRANSCENDS PARODY

Counterfeiting is not simply a victimless crime in these conditions. It could conceivably be a service to society at large. The counterfeiter pays the grocer, who pays the farmer, who might be able to hire new employees or invest in new equipment, and everyone is better off.

… Indeed, many economists believe that the best approach for a government faced with a financial crisis is simply to create more money out of nothing and distribute it among the citizenry, essentially making all of us into forgers.

Liberals Go From Printing Money to Counterfeiting Money




THE ROUNDUP

from Edward Cline

Who's next? The League of LGBT garage mechanics? The National Association of Androgynous Pajama Boys? The American Alliance of Undecided Ethnicities? Whose feelings have been irreparably hurt by anyone not wanting to deal with some random manqué and group cipher – and reparable only if a deconstructionist, half-wit Progressive judge rules against freedom of association and forces people to deal with gays, whether they wish to or not, and to pay court costs, besides?

Lest anyone conclude that the author is "anti-gay," he would be wrong. I am neither "anti-gay" nor "pro-gay." I frankly do not dwell much on the psychological and identity disorders of others. For years I had a gay literary agent; the issue of his "gayness" never arose. Before he retired, I regarded him as the last "gentleman agent" in the business. He would have regarded throwing the "dead donkey" of his gayness at me as uncivil and unforgivably offensive. Ours was a voluntary business relationship; he liked my novels and I liked his sales track record. A business relationship based on court-sanctioned force on either of our parts was inconceivable. But that was in the 1970's and 1980's, when many current norms were inconceivable.

Such as a "gay caucus" in Congress, and gays bullying their way into St. Patrick's Day parades.

The "Gay Gestapo" and Dead Donkeys




PASS BY

The Horseman replied sensibly that his dog (named, I swear, "Dog") knew how to follow along, and that if he put a leash on him from the saddle he risked strangling the dog.

"Horse goes one way, Dog goes another. Tough on Dog, officer."

At this point, having been alerted to the Horseman, another police car showed up with another, but more senior, officer. He stood to the side a bit taking in what the situation actually was.

The animal control officer, failing to see the sense of not strangling a dog on a leash tired to a horse, began a hectoring lecture on the very special ordinances of the very special town of Laguna Beach, California. The Horseman stood motionless as the scolding went on. Finally the litany of banal cop-talk was interrupted by the senior officer who evidently had less patience for the Animal Control claptrap than the Horseman. After all, if you are riding a horse from Canada to Texas in the 21st Century, you are probably not in much of a hurry.

from Gerard at American Digest





Deep thoughts by Barack Obama

You have to wonder just how weak Russia is, in Obama’s calculation. Is it so weak that it will invade the rest of Ukraine? Moldova? Estonia? Latvia? Maybe!

Obama didn’t have time to flesh out his thoughts into full doctrinal form. Is getting taken over by Russia a sign of strength? Does he stand in admiration of Crimea for being taken over, and of Ukraine for standing down? Their forbearance reflects strength.

Obama’s deep thoughts serve a useful purpose. It’s time to think seriously about weakness. Weakness takes many forms. Weakness doesn’t get much weaker than this.

...from Scott Johnson at Powerline




from Dr. Jacqueline Lang at Politichicks

What ‘word’ will replace ‘Bossy’?

It will not be a ‘word’ it will be money.  Hillary Clinton’s ability to raise a billion dollars to run for President along with Ms. Sandberg’s ability to control the media and other ‘Bossy’ women create a system that will try to influence how many American women think and cast their votes.

It’s a good bet that most American women will start following the ‘hype’ now that a billion dollars will create and have  their attention focused on the words ‘First Woman President’ instead of facts and the individual are running for office. 

Be Bossy!




GATES OF VIENNA

Muslim students, according to new statistics, now outnumber Roman Catholic students at middle and secondary schools in Vienna, the capital and largest city of Austria.

The data—which show that Muslim students are also on the verge of overtaking Catholics in Viennese elementary schools—reflect an established trend and provide empirical evidence of a massive demographic and religious shift underway in Austria, traditionally a Roman Catholic country.

The Muslim population in Austria now exceeds 500,000 (or roughly 6% of the total population), up from an estimated 150,000 (or 2%) in 1990. The Muslim population is expected to reach 800,000 (or 9.5%) by 2030, according to recent estimates.

In the current school year, 10,734 Muslim students are enrolled in Viennese middle and secondary schools, compared to 8,632 Roman Catholic students, 4,259 Serbian Orthodox students and 3,219 students with "no religious persuasion," according to statistics compiled by the Vienna Board of Education (Stadtschulrat für Wien) and published by Radio Vatican website on March 21.

As far as elementary schools are concerned, there are 23,807 Roman Catholic students, followed by 17,913 Muslim students, 11,119 "non-religious" students, 6,083 Serbian Orthodox students and 2,322 Protestants.

from Soeren Kern at Gatestone



NO TEA PARTY

Meredith at The Snark Who Hunts Back has some things to say about the Tea Party

Maybe you are sick of “settling” for candidates and representatives and senators who are less than 100% in line with your views, but I have to tell you that I would rather have 100 Senators who agree with me 70% of the time than have 100 Senators who agree with me 0% of the time.

I’m also a sick and tired of losing.

no2010 made the Tea Party think they were somehow invincible, that they could demand and get whatever they wanted and expect to get it with no compromise on the table whatsoever.

What has that gotten us?

Nothing but grief, that’s what.

I can understand her unhappiness with the way things have gone, but the real problem with Tea Party politicians wasn't an unwillingness to compromise so much as a heavy dependency on tossing red meat to the base without considering the voters and public beyond that.

Democrats tend to talk mainstream and act extreme. Republicans talk extreme and act mainstream.

While the math on having 100 Senators who agree with us 70 percent of the time sounds good, what matters is what percentage does this filter down to in actual legislation.

Having an opposition or even a ruling party that agrees with us 70 percent of the time, but compromises its way to legislating 70 percent of the way that the other side wants is a token opposition. Add on the impact of a left-wing bureaucracy that does much of the actual governing and that 70 percent doesn't mean much.

The philosophy behind the Tea Party is that a rubber stamp opposition is as almost bad as having no opposition. Looking around at where we are, it's hard to argue that the GOP as it is really more than a rubber stamp opposition even when it's in power.

I'm not calling for letting it all burn, but the current course isn't working either.




UNDER THE WEATHER

I'm feeling a little under the weather so this post and any other may contain 30% more misspellings, grammatical errors and assorted gibberish than it otherwise would.

The post-American world will be many things, but multilateral isn't one of them. There will be no world government and international organizations will be good for little except sucking up the last drops of wealth and prestige of the United States. It will be a chaotic place with everyone out for themselves.

The Cold War map of the world divided into two camps was simple and clear. The post-American
world will be a much more ambiguous place. Instead of two global ideological alliances based around two world powers, there will be three post-ideological powers, no longer global in scope, and one worldwide ideological alliance.

The United States, Russia and China are post-ideological states. Russia and China have abandoned Communism. The United States is even abandoning nationalism; to say nothing of capitalism, democracy or freedom. Its rulers cling to scraps of global leftist ideology that isolate them from their own people.

Russia and China are run by powerful corrupt elites who emerged from the old Communist order to build economic oligarchies enforced by the ruthless use of force. The United States is increasingly run by an oligarchy of ideological bureaucrats, corrupt technocrats and leftist academics that has a distant resemblance to the USSR and the PRC; but its long march through the institutions hasn't turned fully totalitarian yet. That may be less than a generation away.

Russia, China and the United States are all demographically unstable. Russia and the United States are both on track to become majority-minority countries. China's demographic disaster will be the outcome of its one child policies, gender abortion and its war on the countryside. The United States will probably weather its demographic problems better than Russia or China, because the former faces a fatal Muslim demographic takeover and the latter a conflict that will tear its society apart, but like Russia and China, the demographic crisis in the United States will be exacerbated by the lack of common bonds to see it through a period of social stress.

Russia and China will fall back into their own history, collapse and isolationism for China, barbarian rule for Russia. The United States has no such history to fall back on and its elites have abandoned any meaningful national identity that doesn't rely on pop culture and liberal pieties.

There is little to unify Russia or China except greedy oligarchies playing at nationalism. It's an unconvincing nationalism because the sons and daughters of their elites spend more time abroad than at home and sometimes even hold American citizenship. The KGB oligarchs of Russia and the Communist princes of China are as globalist as any Eurocrat. They have few national commitments. Their goals are wealth and power for their families and associates.

Unfortunately there is even less to unify the United States after the left embraced multiculturalism at the expense of exceptionalism. The erosion of everything from free speech to the free market has reduced the American Dream from individual opportunity to vulgar exhibitionism. Uncontrolled immigration has imported masses of hostile populations everywhere from Nashville to Minneapolis radically changing quintessentially American cultures and replacing them with balkanized minority coalitions who have little in common except a mutual hostility against the United States.

In contrast to the cultural vulnerabilities of the three powers, Islam, the defining global ideological alliance, lacks a superstate as the center of its empire, though it has many state bases, but enjoys the allegiance of a worldwide population larger than any of the three powers. Demographic projections continue to favor the growth of Islam over China, Russia and the United States.

It would be a mistake however to think that China, Russia and the United States are in a conflict with Islam. While Islam is in a conflict with them, each of the three powers divides Muslims into three groups; those Muslims that are within the "empire", part of China, Russia's Eurasian Union or the United States, those that are outside the "empire" but allied to it, e.g. Syria for Russia, Saudi Arabia for the United States and Pakistan for China, and those that are its separatist or terrorist enemies.

Instead of coming to terms with a global struggle with Islam, each power largely concentrates on fighting Muslim separatist or terrorist groups that destabilize its sphere of influence while arming, funding and supporting those Muslim separatist and terrorist groups that destabilize rival powers.

It is therefore simplistic to act as if America, Russia and China have a common interest in fighting Islam. While that may be true, that is not how the leaders of the three powers see it. Putin fights some Islamists while incorporating others into his allied clergy and helping still others go nuclear. The United States bombs the Taliban, but would never consider bombing their paymasters in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.

Muslim terrorists operate in all three powers, but are dismissed as unrepresentative aberrations. That is wishful thinking, but empires are shaped to fight their own kind. Islam, like Communism, is something different. It is an ideology and post-ideological powers who believe in very little are poorly adapted to fighting it. Instead many of their elites secretly admire its dedication. 

Islam emerged by taking advantage of the slow collapse of the Roman Empire. Its reemergence as a world power once again coincides with the fall of empires. Like a hyena trotting after prey, Islam is a cultural carrion eater consuming the skills and knowledge of superior civilizations to sustain its warlordism whose religious fanaticism eventually decay into decadent dynasties.

The collapse of the Pax Americana under Obama has freed up Russia and China to begin their campaigns of territorial expansionism. Obama's failure to deter Russia in Ukraine will encourage China to use force as a solution to territorial disputes in the South China Sea. These events will wake the world from the dream of the Pax Americana in which American power kept the peace in much of the developed world.

The end of the Pax Americana also means the end of international law. Instead of a post-American world ushering in a stable multilateral order, it will revert back to a chaotic Lord of the Flies situation in which no single power will predominate, but in which any country or militia that can seize a piece of land or a natural resource will go ahead and do so. For the first time in generations, the First World may wake up to discover that it is once again living under Third World rules.

Those most immediately affected by the decline of the United States will be the Asian and European countries that outsourced their defense to the United States after WW2. Japan has a limited time in which to turn around its economy, demographics and military to be able to face down China.

Europe was able to turn inward without having to make the hard choices and its elites were even able to drag the United States into implementing their vision internationally. But that is coming to an end. Libya may have been the last such war and the American contribution to it was limited. 

The European Union may implode in the coming years, but whether it does or does not, Western Europe will continue to be defined by the quarrels between the UK, France and Germany. The various other players have never been anything other than places to put factories, launder money or import cheap labor from. The rhetoric of the EU is a paper shield that will protect the economies or territories of the smaller and weaker nations.

Europe, unlike the United States, has not been known for its altruism, and its nations face a crippling combination of problems. Europe suffers from Japanese birth rates, Russian demographics, Chinese corruption and American economics (though it would be more accurate to say that America suffers from EU economics.) Despite its size and population, Europe does not have an optimistic future.

A European Union will be too dysfunctional to do more than fight amongst itself. Europe apart will have nations capable of making an impact on the world stage, but it will be a limited impact. European countries are, despite their rhetoric, more concerned for exports than human rights. Israel will always be a cheap and easy target, but that will have as much to do with the rising power of the Gulf as with latent antisemitism. Toothless sanctions will occasionally be imposed to limited effect.

Russia will not stop with Ukraine and NATO will dissolve, officially or unofficially. It may stay around and limit itself to providing humanitarian aid internationally while expelling Poland and any countries that Russia is likely to want to add to its collection. More likely it will be replaced by some European Union entity that officially performs the same function, but unofficially does little except provide troops for UN peacekeeping operations.

The budding Russian empire will find that fighting a new wave of Muslim insurgencies in formerly peaceful republics will consume too much of its time and energy. The soldiers who will march on the scattered pieces of the old red empire will be Muslims and the Eurasian Union will become a Muslim empire with a handful of churches. Like Rome, its fall will come at the hands of its own barbarians.

Iraq and Afghanistan will not prove to be as psychologically devastating to Americans as Vietnam, but they will help discourage further deployments overseas. Severe military budget cuts and a campaign against the warrior culture will leave the military in no shape for anything except peacekeeping missions. The United States will face escalating domestic unrest, less from militias than from gangs, terrorism and the economic collapse of entire cities. It will no longer be in a position to act abroad.

None of this has to happen, but it will if the same bad decisions continue to be made. If eight years of Obama are topped by eight years of Hillary, this is where we will end up. If the European Union continues to drag down the continent, if multilateralism continues to be the great obsession of the elites, if bad economics and bad strategy continue destroying nations, then this will be one of the better outcomes.

The civilized world faces economic, demographic and military crises that it has a limited time frame in which to meet and resolve. If it fails to do that, the civilization in which we have grown up and which we have known all our lives will die and a long interregnum of darkness will follow in its wake.

It's unfair to expect Obama to do anything about Ukraine when his biggest priority is convincing twenty-somethings to buy worthless health insurance policies by appearing on online comedy shows and deploying his March Madness bracket.

The Obama Twitter feeds are filled with desperate pleas to buy ObamaCare; harnessing every memeworthy bit of internet detritus from cat pictures to twerking in the hopes of convincing  healthy young people who don't want health insurance to buy it anyway.

On March 17th, Obama's Twitter linked to a statement on Ukraine and then it was back to "There's only 14 days to get coverage." It's currently down to 12 days. It's like holiday shopping, but with a $6,000 deductible.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn) went to Ukraine, called Russia's invasion a "weak" and "panicky" reaction to Obama's strength, and then announced plans to speak about the "Between Two Ferns Effect". The "effect" is the sheer awesomeness of Obama's appearance on an internet comedy show to promote ObamaCare.

It's that kind of 21st century thinking that sets Barack apart from Vladimir's quaint 19th century hunger for territory. While a former KGB agent wastes time conquering countries, a former community organizer focuses on selling nationalized health care to young invincibles through a website that works about as well as a Soviet Yugo.

Putin's power rests on a shaky energy industry, but Obama's power rests on ObamaCare. Kerry scoffed at Russia's invasion as so 19th century. In the 21st century, power doesn't come from land or armies, but from online popularity. Online popularity took a radical Illinois State Senator and turned him into a world leader. Online popularity is the WMD that the State Senator is convinced will save ObamaCare.

Putin has a weakness for staged photo ops circulated over the internet, but they are more like Kaiser Wilhelm II chopping pre-cut logs while yearning for the return of the German monarchy than Obama's self-deprecating attempts to be all things to all people. The Russian government has no use for irony; it leaves such things to the opposition. In the post-modern America, leaders claim absolute power while making self-deprecating jokes. They discard the rule of law and then hawk nationalized healthcare in infomercials for an effect more surreal than a crony capitalist KGB man with a law degree taking off his tailored suit and $500,000 Tourbograph watch to play Great White Hunter.

Putin poses on horseback, in a wetsuit, in a hang glider, finding ancient urns in the sea or shooting tigers. Obama poses playing with a lightsaber, makes an unimpressed face with McKayla Maroney and unveils his March Madness picks. The Russian dictator strikes heroic poses straight out of the 19th century, while Obama struggles to hold the unstable attention span of 21st century millennials . Obama's poses are no less absurd than Putin's, but they are self-consciously absurd. Putin is playing the part of the great leader, while Obama disguises the enormous power he wields by acting more like Ellen; a talk show host endlessly cracking jokes and posing for goofy selfies.

It's easy to laugh at Putin's posturing, but Obama's public image is no less cynical. Both men are instinctive totalitarians with backgrounds in Marxism and little respect for the rule of law. Obama is a creature of a more modern media age catering to a demographic which prides itself on skepticism, at least where Western religion or nationalism are concerned, while being as gullible as any of the old ladies clutching red portraits of Stalin in Simferopol when it comes to the progressive agenda.

The difference between the two centuries and the two men is a matter of misdirection. Putin enhances the public perception of his power while Obama downplays it. Putin's base likes their red meat raw while Obama's base prefers a soy burger that looks and tastes exactly like meat so that they can have an ersatz imitation of the real thing that preserves their moral superiority. Putin's base values strength while Obama's base waters down their abuses of power with the appearance of cleverness and humor.

Obama delivers Putin's totalitarianism in soy form. It looks a lot like a burger, but it's really just an Asian legume. It looks a lot like tyranny, but it falls apart when confronting an actual tyrant. It's easy to raid guitar factories, lock up anti-Muslim filmmakers and send the IRS after political opponents, but that sort of pettiness is an ordinary day in Russia which just banned lacy underwear. The EPA, USDA and even the IRS are no match for Russian teenagers packing those dreaded assault rifles.

Obama's Mean Girls strategy for Putin is to make him unpopular. The various White House responses talk of isolating Russia. But Obama needs Russia to isolate Iran. He needs China to isolate Russia which will become inconvenient when China starts a shooting war with Japan. Obama can't isolate everyone. He can't isolate anyone. He has just now gotten around to kicking Syria out of the US after Russia and China prevented him from isolating Assad.

The Hills and Big Brother are poor models for international diplomacy. While Obama is figuring out how to convince Russia to stop talking to Iran and China to stop talking to Russia and everyone to stop talking to North Korea, these countries are moving their own agendas forward by doing things, instead of by tweeting them. 

The social network strategy for Russia will work about as well as it did for Syria or for ObamaCare. In the postmodern 21st century, Twitter mobs can destroy the lives of individuals who make racist jokes, but they're no match for a conquering army. The Facebook nerds who steal elections, the Twitter social justice activists who spread privilege checking hashtags, the Tumblr diarists who churn out memes about microaggressions are as useless as their leader.

Progressive nerd bullies are as vicious online as they are impotent in real life. Obama's plan to make Putin unpopular while he gobbles up countries isn't a brilliant show of strength; it's a passive aggressive display from the cyclist-in-chief who excels at putdowns, not at takedowns.

The left has been getting its own way for so long that it has forgotten that the Colbert Report isn't real life, that snide remarks are no substitute for strength and that there are some men who are not afraid of being mocked by Saturday Night Live.

The 21st century post-modern power that the left puts so much into isn't an evolution, but a devolution. It's a collapsing civilization's response to its own decline. The ironic poses of our post-modern dictators are a distancing effect for a culture that suspects sincerity but takes humorous denials at face value. The more indirect the path between motive, assertion and action, the more self-aware the modern totalitarian politician must be. And it is this show of self-awareness that is prized above all else including integrity, ethics and truth.

Romney was so despised because he was monotone, a black and white figure who said what he meant instead of layering it through infinite levels of irony. The age of the counterculture would have considered him a square. The grandchildren of that age saw him as equally unhip for his sincerity. The post-modern politician is serious by being unserious, he navigates deftly between jokes, personal narrative and the core message. He sells a brand, rather than a policy. An identity rather than an idea.

21st century branding is obsessed with the deft positioning of images and causes, but its practitioners are unable to apply the deft hijacking of memes to sell health insurance to the equally deft maneuverings of armored vehicles and armed men in Crimea. They have become social media shut ins, expert at navigating the narrow bubbles of online and offline elitist social networks, but blink in confusion when they are pulled away from the computer long enough to see lines of troops moving into another country.

The men and women in charge of our countries understand how to smear and to demean, how to build Twitter followers and tell self-deprecating jokes. They can't build a website, but they consider actually making things beneath them. They are critics of the culture, social justice commentators, public intellectuals who can make anything into propaganda, but can't hammer a nail into a board.

They treat every problem like an online debate. They assemble allies, pile on enemies, troll the opposition and then declare victory. But winning a debate doesn't make the tanks go away.

"The world has seen through Russia’s actions and has rejected the flawed logic behind those actions,” Joe Biden declared. That might be a winning line in a Facebook debate, but it doesn't do anything to move Russian forces out of Ukrainian cities.

Accusations of flawed logic, spell checks and saying, "You said literally when you meant figuratively" will not move a single piece of Russian armor out of Crimea.

Making Putin unpopular, a task already accomplished when he joined the organizers of the St. Patrick's Day parade and the Boy Scouts in refusing to jump on the gay rights bandwagon, is an impotent display of postmodern soft power. Meanwhile the failure to stop Putin will make him more popular in the places that truly matter, where no one buys ObamaCare and no one is impressed by accusations of flawed logic.

Putin has demonstrated to Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Syria and China that America is weak, that it has become a nation living inside its own imagination, and he has shown Eastern Europe and the rest of the world that America is a bad friend while Russia is a dangerous enemy.

Obama's 21st century world is an imaginary place whose virtual territories depend on real infrastructure and energy. Underneath the glittering cities in the sky where everyone is part of a virtual community are the real roads and cities of stone and steel that can be taken by anyone with enough men and determination to capture them.

The Facebook strategy can sell health insurance, but it can't make ObamaCare financially viable. It can sneer at Putin, but it can't do anything to change the real world equations. The left has confused the overlay, its commentaries and memes, for reality. It has come to believe that The Daily Show is real news, that Obama is a real leader and that a Twitter hashtag is real power.

The Russian soldiers in Crimea are a reminder that, as Mao said, "Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." The Western left has forgotten the simple truth that no Eastern leftist has ever become decadent enough to forget. Power does not come from the "Two Ferns Effect" of self-deprecating irony, but from the Russian guns in Crimea.

The reemergence of Cosmos could not have come at a better time, not because it has something to teach us about science, but because are living in Sagan's world where real science is harder than ever to come by.

Carl Sagan was the country's leading practitioner of the mythologization of science, transforming a
process into a philosophy, substituting political agendas for inquiry and arrogance for research. Sagan was often wrong, but it didn't matter because his errors were scientific, rather than ideological or theological. He could be wrong as many times as he wanted, as long as he wasn't wrong politically..

Science has been thoroughly Saganized. The vast majority of research papers are wrong, their results cannot be replicated. The researchers writing them often don't even understand what they're doing wrong and don't care. Research is increasingly indistinguishable from politics. Studies are framed in ways that prove a political premise, whether it's that the world will end without a carbon tax or that racism causes obesity. If they prove the premise, the research is useful to the progressive non-profits and politicians who always claim to have science in their corner. If it doesn't, then it isn't funded.

"Science" has been reduced to an absolute form of authority that is always correct. The Saganists envision science as a battle between superstition and truth, but what distinguished science from superstition was the ability to throw out wrong conclusions based on testing. Without the scientific method, science is just another philosophy where anything can be proven if you manipulate the terminology so that the target is drawn around the arrow. Add statistical games and nothing means anything.

This form of science measures itself not against the universe, but against the intellectual bubble inhabited by those who share the same worldview or those who live under their control. It's not a bold exploration of the cosmos, but a timid repetition of cliches. The debates are as microscopic as this miniature pocket universe. Discoveries are accidental and often misinterpreted to fit within dogma.  Progress is not defined not by the transcendence of what is known, but by its blinkered reaffirmation.

This isn't science or even scientism because it has little basis in the scientific method. Like all progressive authority, it now derives its credentials from membership in an expert class and advocacy on behalf of a victim class. Global Warming research covers both quotas. On the one hand everyone ought to shut up and listen to the scientists, as long as their message conforms politically, and on the other hand everyone ought to shut up and listen to the victims of Global Warming. Connect the two and you have the basis of progressive authority.

The mythologization of science isn't new. Its chosen hero, "The Man Who Was Right When Everyone Was Wrong", defying ignorance and superstition with the torch of knowledge is an old archetype. But the mythologization of science has outlived the rationality that once gave this figure meaning. The Men Who Are Always Right aren't right anymore because they use the scientific method, but because they use science as a priesthood to prove the rightness of progressive policies.

In the collective language of the progressive internet, science has become an absolute. Science proves everything. "Because Science." "15 Ways Science Shows You're Stupid". "How You Can Be Smarter With Science". But this vision of science as an absolute, a post-modern abstract oracle, is less true than it ever was. Science is a state of uncertainty. Researchers discover new things by questioning what they know. A theory is another stop on a journey, not an ideological safe harbor.

The animistic spirit of science, the technocratic muse of a secular age, is superstition wrapped in a lab coat. The worship of the expert class is no more credible for PhD's than it is for witch doctors. It's a sure way to convince the worshiped to swap out their old risky methods for an air of omnipotence.

Science works as a process that utilizes a set of tools. It does not innately confer superiority on anyone. A scientist who does not utilize the scientific method is as much use as a carpenter who cannot make chairs or a plumber who cannot fix toilets. A science that exists as a fixed absolute, whose premises are not to be questioned, whose data is not to be examined and whose conclusions are not to be debated, is a pile of wood or a leaky toilet. Not the conclusion of a process, but its absence.

It isn't science that gives a thing legitimacy, but the processes of thinking and testing that do. The only authority worth mentioning is also worth questioning. That is as true of science as it is of government. An authority that answers to itself, that derives its power not from an open system, but from a closed system is a tyranny and prone to a failure-denial cycle in which each failure is then covered up by greater abuses of power until the resulting disaster can no longer be covered up.

The science of the "Science is settled" crowd isn't an open system of skeptical inquiry, but a closed system of centralized authority funded and controlled by special interests, beholden to political agendas and intolerant of dissent. It has the same relationship to science that the various People's Democracies had to democracy.

The response of the science settlers to the serious questions that have been raised about their unscientific advocacy has been to demand a more closed system, to hide more data, to urge newspapers to stop printing letters from anyone who questions Global Warming and to even propose the imprisonment of Warming critics.

This isn't the confident attitude of a field that believes it has the facts on its side.It's the authoritarian response of panicked overlords who have become too comfortable with their routine of morning show alarmist appearances and the rushing flow of grant money paid to stave off the apocalypse.

Bad science often pays better than good science. There's more money in unveiling an invalid research study that is sure to show up in 200 newspapers tomorrow and start a a new diet craze the day after than a methodically researched piece of work that demonstrates that staying healthy is a matter of hard work and other elements that are outside an individual's control.

There's more money in predicting an apocalypse that can only be stopped with trendy progressive policies than the recognition that environmental debates are complex and often come down to a tug of war between competing interests. Reality doesn't pay. Politicized and prostituted science does.

The mythologization of science, like the cowboy movie, always had a loose relationship to reality, but still derived from it, dressing up reality, rather than entirely displacing. It has now become the idealization of a murdered ideal by the people who murdered it.

Science has become a substitute religion for secularists who imagine that they are more intelligent than religious people because they are more skeptical, when in reality the things that they are skeptical about are the ones that don't touch on their own unexamined and unquestioned beliefs.

Like the old joke about the Communist who boasts that like the American he too can shout, "America is worthless!", challenging someone else's dogma is not skepticism, it's antagonism. This attitude has leaked into the scientific community which eagerly rushed out to condemn opponents of vaccination, but has much less to say about the pervasive culture of fraud in medical research.

The Cosmos crowd have always been eager to mock televangelists predicting the end of the world, but have little to say about Sagan's equally bogus predictions about the end of the world. They made science into a culture filled with 'awe and wonder'  as if the universe were their own private church, while jettisoning the rational inquiry and reasoned debate.

There is nothing to cheer about the return of Cosmos. It's not science, instead it's more of the popularized punditry that distorts science into an absolute dogma with a cynical agenda.

Progressives Summarized

SUPERSTAR

There is no Obama administration. There is an Obama campaign. And that campaign is part of an organization built around a single figure; Obama Inc.

Obama Inc. has more in common with the type of organization built around a celebrity like Beyonce than a conventional political organization. It can handle everything from fundraising, branding to viral marketing, but like the inner circles of top celebrities, the most influential person in the organization is the one who can soothe, pamper and cater to the celebrity’s mercurial personality.

Valerie Jarrett’s role as CEO of Obama Inc. confuses those who expect a more conventional arrangement. Jarrett is less Dick Cheney and more Colonel Parker or Helen Kushnick; a powerful enigmatic figure ruthlessly dedicated to her star whose power comes from his dependency.

Valerie Jarrett, the CEO of Obama Inc.





Muslims: Halal Lunches in School are a Constitutional Right




SHAM WOW

Car salesmen get to stay on the lot. Obama has become a door-to-door insurance salesman. His appearance on "Between Two Ferns" was humiliating not because the leader of the free world was taking part in a lame comedy routine, but because Obama was doing it to sell a product. Presidents have gone on Leno, Letterman and Saturday Night Live, but they have never sat awkwardly cracking jokes in the hopes that a few young people would stop by their website and bail them out by buying some of what they're selling.

The Insurance Salesman-in-Chief

“F___ you, Mr. President, you piece of s___t used-car salesman.  From my heart and soul, f___ you.”

ObamaCare Defender Forced to Try ObamaCare.




INEVITABLE

Only 1% want her because she would be “good for the common people”. 2% fantasize that she’ll help with the economy.  1% hope she’ll “end the wars”.

Only 5% of Americans Want Hillary as the “Best Choice” for President




New York Times on Mitt Romney: “Just Plain Bossy”






American Power Under Obama in 1 Photo




Minneapolis Lesbian Police Chief Dons Hijab for “Hijab Day”




MOVE OVER, HARVEY MILK

Phelps did more than anyone to make opposition to homosexuality seem as toxic as possible by picketing the funerals of soldiers with anti-gay slogans. There probably wasn’t a more inspired way to make anti-gay sentiments seem as unacceptable as possible.

If the Phelps clan had deliberately set out to implement gay marriage in America, they could not have chosen a better method and who is to say that they didn’t.

Fred Phelps: The Unsung Hero of the Gay Rights Movement





Ukraine Asks for Military Aid, Obama Offers MREs





TRIGGER WARNING

Last spring, Oberlin College canceled classes after claims that someone dressed in a KKK robe was seen walking outside. It apparently turned out to be a woman in a blanket.

Oberlin College has published an official document on triggers, advising faculty members to “be aware of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression,”

But Oberlin, which is affiliated with CAIR, does overlook some far more serious threats when they come from Muslims.

During a 45-minute tirade, Yedes told An that “in his culture, he could have had the female department chair killed because of his perceived mistreatment by her in postponing his tenure,” the lawsuit claims.

Oberlin College Allows Muslim Prof to Violently Threaten Female Professors





THE BEST IS YET TO BE

Seven men from different parts of the city brawled in a third-floor suite that houses the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety around 12:30 p.m. Friday, department director Devone Boggan said.

He said all of the men involved in the melee are enrolled in the office’s “Operation Peacemaker” fellowship and happened to show up at the office at Richmond’s Civic Center at the same time unexpectedly.

The ONS director said he sees the unarmed brawl as a sign of progress, since the young men involved all have a history of gun violence.

City with 36% Unemployment Rate Now has Highest Minimum Wage in California





LIVING METAPHOR

McKee-Umar appear to have had the classic abusive relationship. And the relationship between a Muslim illegal settler and a UK official seems to mirror the abusive relationship between Muslim immigrants and the UK.

UK Immigration Judge Who Let Illegal Criminals Stay was in Abusive Relationship w/Illegal





HEART OF THE PARTY

JFK won Macomb County, Michigan in 1960 by 75 percent. In 1980, Reagan won it by 66 percent. This heart of ‘Reagan Democrat’ country was closely split by Gore and Bush and Bush and Kerry… until Obama won it 53 to 45 in 2008 and by 51 to 47 in 2012. 

The Republican Party’s fate in 2016 will be decided in places like Macomb County. It will be decided by white men and women earning $20,000 to $50,000 a year. It will be decided by working families struggling to get by and searching for answers from a government that keeps betraying them.

Too many Senate Republicans act like members of a globalist party who legislate while detached from the concerns of ordinary working Americans. McCain, the GOP candidate in 2008, and the most aggressive GOP proponent for amnesty in the Senate, whose daughter has made a career of “outreach” to her own class of hip young wealthy people, represents the opposite of what the GOP should be doing.

Choosing American Workers over Amnesty






TO BOLDLY GAS WHOM NO ONE HAS GASSED BEFORE

Syrian Muslims can’t even get along with each other, how will they get along with non-Muslim space aliens? 

Syria Takes Time Out from Mass Murder to Launch Space Program





PROGS DEFEAT PARODY AGAIN

The effort for a food studies minor began with nine faculty members applying for and receiving a Mellon grant, White told me. After expected approval at the April curriculum committee meeting, courses should be available in the fall semester in several departments, including economics. A biologist and Chinese language expert will jointly offer a course that explores the development of Chinese cuisine, and the role of lactose intolerance. In the English department a course will investigate food imagery in Toni Morrison’s novels.

Ice Cream Social Justice: “Critical Food Studies” Comes to College





PROGS YET TO DISCOVER FIRE

“Wood may be one of the world’s oldest building materials, but it is now also one of the most advanced,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Building stronger markets for innovative new wood products supports sustainable forestry, helps buffer reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and puts rural America at the forefront of an emerging industry.”

An emerging industry of… wood. I’m pretty sure carpentry has been around for a while. I don’t know how much time you have to spend in Washington to believe that building things out of wood is an emerging industry.

...from the comments

liz •

It's an "emerging" technology because it has just now emerged in their stunted brains. The other obvious stuff - like flammability, etc., still hasn't emerged into their highly intelligent and perceptive grey cells yet.

Daniel Greenfield   •

They haven't discovered fire yet. It's a technology still to emerge.

Alphamail •

“The White House launched a new campaign to sell its global warming agenda to rural America: “sustainable” buildings…..made out of wood to lower carbon dioxide emissions.”

We can’t wait for this new WH campaign out here in rural America because in between clinging to our guns and obsessing over our Bibles it never occurred to us we could actually make barns and homes and fences and casks and…well…most
anything out of wood.

Now all us dumb ass rednecks can tear down those old cast iron houses and stop burning plastic in our fireplaces…oh, and those nasty aluminum toothpicks.

I wonder if we’ll be using the same trees as he thinks money comes from?

Daniel Greenfield  •

But wait... this is advanced wood. It's innovative and emerging. It's probably made with special advanced Fair Trade technology.

It doesn't come from a tree. It's produced by an organic 3D printer lovingly programmed with extracts from Joe Biden's biography and Neil Young's music.

Obama Spending $1 Million to Fight Global Warming with Wooden Skyscrapers





American Jewish Congress VP: Hillary’s Israel Speech Full of Lies




THE HEIGHTS

In his letter, Kamal wrote of his desire to exterminate Americans. “My restless aspiration is to murder as many of them as possible, and I have decided to strike at their own den in New York, and at the very Empire State Building in particular.”

So obviously the Empire State Building’s security people are entirely within their rights to be concerned when Muslims begin behaving strangely.

Empire State Building Denies Muslim $5 Mil Shakedown Attempt




Obama Dispatches Biden to Poland to “Send Message” to Putin - I hope he didn’t give it to Biden or it’s lost forever.




THE NERVE

More damningly, “Wahl did not return several voice and text messages sent to her cellphone.” A woman didn’t return Max Blumenthal’s voice and text messages? She must be one of those evil Cold War neo-conservatives!

Max Blumenthal Now Shilling for Putin





BRAVELY TAKING TO HIS FEET, HE BEAT A VERY BRAVE RETREAT

Obama dismissed the notion that Putin was acting “out of strength,” telling the San Diego station the annexation of Crimea was an action taken “out of weakness.”

Let’s recap.

Putin conquers countries out of weakness. Obama is unable to stop him out of strength.

Obama Says Putin is Weak, Agrees to Let Him Conquer Ukraine




Kerry: “We Hope President Putin will Recognize that None of What We’re Saying is Meant as a Threat”





HISTORY BY HOWARD ZINN

Again, Andrew O’Hehir clearly knows nothing about the draft riots which were…

A. Very much an issue of class since one of the core issue was the ability of the wealthy to pay to avoid the draft.

B. Was a German-Irish series of staged riots by the Democratic Party for political purposes targeting Republicans

C. Not remotely an attempt to get in good with the Anglo-Protestant, but were targeting Anglo-Protestant Republicans who were seen as preferring Black Protestants to white Catholics

Crazy Salon Racist Rant: “How Did Irish-Americans Get So Disgusting”

The story of Islam is a murder mystery. It's not a murder mystery that asks who did it, but when it will end. The detective peering through his magnifying glass at a curly hair caught in the door isn't  wondering who did it. He already knows who the killer is. The great mystery is how to make him stop.

This isn't a story about right and wrong. In the terrains of tribe and clan that the murderers come out of, whether they are raised in a village with two goats and a well or a mansion overlooking a major city; Right is power and Wrong is not having power.

A man is right because he has power. A woman is wrong because she doesn't. A Muslim is right because he has power. A Christian is wrong because he doesn't.

When a woman has power and a man doesn't, the man has been dishonored. When a Christian has power and a Muslim doesn't, the Muslim has been dishonored.

There is only one answer for dishonor, death. Kill the one who has dishonored you so that you may feel powerful again. The men with the magnifying glasses will call it extremism, but it's so much simpler and so much more complicated than that.

The powerful need not compromise. They have honor. Those who have no power but do not compromise also have honor. The extremist does not compromise whether in power or out of it. Therefore he always has honor. The extremist is willing to die for the power and honor of Islam.

Islam is never powerless, but is always compromised in some way short of perfect purity. 

Perhaps it fails to drive out all the non-Muslims and doesn't force women to cover their eyes. Or maybe it tolerates chess and kite flying. Even the crudest Salafist finds some human norm short of total and complete extremism. He compromises and the seed of that compromise gives birth to a movement that will not compromise even on that.

Each Islamic movement carries within it the seeds of its own extremist counter-movement and that movement too will carry its own seeds of death. The Islamic revolution devours its own children forever for honor's sake.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Absolute honor is the search for absolute power. A power so pure that it transcends the human means necessary to achieve that glorious end. A purity so total that it will elevate the smuggled cocaine, the rapes and murders, the torture and the broken oaths, to the golden truth that the ends of Islam justify all its mangled means.

The murderer kills because he wants power. He goes on killing for honor's sake. When the blade slips or the victim pulls a gun, then the murderer skulks off into the night nursing his grudges and pledging that he will return or his children will return or their children, for the sake of his honor, on and on through the ages.

This is what the media calls a cycle of violence, but it would be more accurate to call it the cycle of honor.

The whole thing may have started because the murderer wanted a goat, a gold coin or a wife, but it continues because it is now a matter of honor. A moment ago the murderer only wanted a gold coin, but having failed to obtain it, he will not leave off for all the gold coins in the world. Murder transmutes the gold coin into honor. The motive no longer matters. It is all about the end now.

The more the murderer is resisted, the angrier he becomes. The failure to kill forces him to take refuge in myth. He begins inventing glorious stories of his battles complete with poems and epic battles. There are sacred deaths with drops of blood falling like jewels and doves ascending into the sky. Every man becomes a lion and every enemy a monstrous eater of children. Eventually the story becomes his whole reason for being. It is a tale that is passed down through the tribe until countless of the murderer's descendants derive their identity from the story. Until they are all murderers.

Having been thwarted, the murderer cannot stop. The failure to kill has left him powerless, no better than a woman or an infidel. It causes him to doubt the worth of his religion and his people. It robs life of its sweetness. The only way to heal his trauma is to finish what he started. The only way for him to be at peace is to be at war.

Speak to him of peace and he will not listen, except as a ploy for finishing the unfinished murder. Peace is for the powerless. To desire peace is to admit to weakness. It is to give in to the prosaic mortality of the ordinary life. Before he began to kill, the murderer might have been satisfied with the ordinary life, but it is no longer good enough for him.

Nothing will do but the knife and the blood and the screams.

The murderer will lie about wanting peace, but he will not make peace. To lie in order to kill is honorable, but to live in peace is not honorable. Peace narrows the borders and closes off horizons. What was once a green territory that the grandchildren or great-grandchildren might overrun in a hundred years is suddenly forever lost and forever foreign.

How can he be asked to make such a terrible concession?

You might as well ask the sailor to stay on the land and the explorer to put up his feet in front of the fire. The murderer isn't a mere murderer, he is a romantic at heart, and whether he lives in a mud hut or a tacky palace decorated with giant portraits of himself, in secret he imagines himself a sultan or an emir. And if not him, then his children or grandchildren.

The land he sits on is merely land, he wastes it for the most part. He may write poems about the beloved land, but it isn't the land he loves, but the idea of conquering it, killing for it and dying for it. And when there is no need to do any of the three, then like an amorous adulterer of the soil he goes seeking for other lands to conquer, to kill and die for.

This is his story and the myth that governs his life. He is not a builder. In his part of the world, it is the slaves who build. It is the men who have no power and no honor who work a set schedule, lifting bricks and arranging girders.

Nor is he a farmer, that too is work fit only for serfs. He makes a decent merchant, cheating and being cheated in turn in a ritual mercantile combat. In a pinch he might be a shepherd, wandering the hills aimlessly, and watching his flock nibble the sparse desert grasses down to a wasteland, killing and eating them when it suits him like a little grubby god.

Whatever his profession, he fancies himself a warrior and the kind of war that he prefers is the raid. Village against village. Riders against caravans. Hijacked planes against skyscrapers. If he wins, then he gains honor. If he loses then he gains honor by vowing vengeance, for even the worst of losers can always hang on to his honor by threatening to kill the winners.

And that is where the murders become a mystery, at least to those detectives whose little magnifying glasses can make out the grooves on a thread, but not the distorted rage on a murderer's face. The more they try to convince the murderer to stop, the more he kills. There is a pattern here, but unlike carpet fibers and footprints, it is not one that they can understand.

The men with the magnifying glasses want their lives back. So does the murderer. And the only way he can get it back is by taking theirs. The institution of the feud has lapsed in their world, but it is the defining one in his.

Both detective and murderer are trapped in a cycle, but the murderer has a way out. All he has to do is kill them. The detectives cannot do the same thing. There is no room in their rational world for such a crude solution.

They try to break the cycle with words. He tries to break it with bombs and bullets. And the cycle of violence continues.

Failure goads the murderer. The more he fails at killing, the more he aspires to it. On his tenth attempt he is ten times as motivated as on his first attempt. Like all people he has his ups and downs, but he always keeps on trying harder.

Each time he fails, he tells himself that the game wasn't fair, the other side broke the rules, rigged the contest and undermined him. He spins complex conspiracies of spies and saboteurs in which the mind of the enemy is as convoluted as his, and that only fuels his outrage. How dare his victim plot so cleverly to undermine his own murder! Outraged, he spins his own convoluted plots, playing Wiley E. Coyote to an oblivious Roadrunner who is occasionally baffled to learn that he is alleged to have controlled every major public figure in the Middle East or seeded the Nile with trained sharks.

"Sure," says the murderer. "You didn't expect him to admit it, did you? I wouldn't in his place."

The murderee takes on an outsized importance until he represents every obstacle that the murderer has ever faced in his life. Whatever crimes the murderer commits, he is certain that the murderee has committed even more of them. The murderer's dark side steps out of the shadow and takes on the role of his victim so that the act of murder becomes an act of purification that purifies nothing for the dark forces that the murderer tries to kill are still inside him even while his victim bleeds on the floor.

Eventually the murderee fills the world. Rushdie was only a minor writer until a series of random events caused his name to come to the attention of a shaky Iranian leadership looking for a scapegoat. And then Rushdie became an obsession for the Iranian regime. Rushdie filled their world. Likewise the average Muslim did not spend any time thinking about the Jews, who were always despised, but like most non-Muslims, weren't of consequence. Having conquered their lands and their persons, they could go about ignoring them, aside from the usual thefts, murders and assorted cruelties.

But then the honorless Jews, the sons of apes and pigs, defeated armies far stronger than them. The murderers were robbed of their honor. And when the murderer is Muslim and the victim is non-Muslim, then the honor of the murderer is the honor of the whole Muslim world.

There can be no peace now. Not tomorrow or in a thousand years. Not with the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, the Galilee and the grimier parts of Tel Aviv. Nothing will do but for the murderers to finish what they started, the aborted murder, the unfinished crime and the unconsummated honor killing to end all honor killings. Nothing will do but death.

A murderer will forgive many things. You may kill his son and rape his daughter, so long as the blood price or the honor price changes hands. You may do the same with all of his many relatives and their relatives, as is so often the case in these dirty little wars that are really packs of murderers roaming and raiding, firing at each other and falling back, and then waiting for the mourning women to come out and wail over the bodies of the dead. You may even cheat him as much as you like, for he will probably cheat you worse, even while you fancy that you are coming out ahead.

But what you cannot do is take away his honor.

Do not mock the murderer's gods, for they are his power, or refuse his hospitality, for it is how he shows that he has more than you, or make him feel small and weak. Do not give him charity or show him mercy, for no matter how effusively he thanks you, in his heart he feels the sting of the humiliation that you have inflicted on him.

Though he may smile afterward, he will never forgive you for it, the insult will go on chafing his heart until it overflows with that species of black blood that tastes of bitterness and death.

The House of Saud has never forgiven the House of Washington for helping aid its power. It draws a blood price from it every year, but it cannot rest until the House of Washington falls. So too all alliances with infidels must one day end in betrayal or death. There is no room in the green country of the horizon for two tribes to rule. Nor is there room in the inner palaces of honor with their bejeweled tapestries and arabesque curves for a helping hand. The Sultan and Emir, like Allah, can have no antecedent. Like Mohammed, he must be the final revelation of power over a powerless world.

And the murderer? He cannot sleep. The man he tried to kill has filled his world. Once he wanted gold or goats, but now it is honor he wants.

In his bed, the murderer dreams of killing a man whose who humiliated him by refusing to die. The murderer rolls over and smiles.

Tomorrow, he will kill. Tomorrow, he will regain his honor.