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Well, the summer's over, and I hardly even saw the sun. Trapped inside, trying desperately to finish the "hairism" book, in between occasional webmastering and programming duties.
Like the foolish ant I have toiled the summer away, while the grasshoppers drank, socialized, and fiddled on their open-stages.
And now, just when I thought I could finally take a breather, I have to very quickly get up to speed on ASP.NET, for a being-redesigned website that has some of my ASP pages on it.
Sigh.
All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die —Sheryl Crow, "All I Wanna Do" (original poem)
—Sheryl Crow, "All I Wanna Do" (original poem)
Palin's husband: 1/8th "Inuit" or "Eskimo"?
Perhaps an old song of mine will help clarify:
ESKIMOS AND INUIT Eskimos and Inuit Have many words for snow But no way to say, I love you When the weather dips To thirty-five below Shivering in their mukluks No one to keep them warm Learn real quick, can't cuddle up With polar bears In a raging Arctic storm Cowboys and cow-men Ride their ponies all night long No way to fence them in Take their pardners for a spin ‘Cause you can Lead her to a watering hole But you can't make her drink Love how her blond mane Rolls down her back But she will gallop in a blink Poets and musicians Have many words for love But they have to make them rhyme So they never have the time to say That I'm so glad I met you I thank my lucky stars Girl, I think that you might be the one I love you more than my guitars Girl, I think that you could be the one Love you more than my guitars Eskimos and Inuit Have many words for snow But no way to say, I'll marry you When the mercury Hits forty-five below Shivering in their igloos No one to keep them warm Learn real quick, can't cuddle up With penguins In a raging Arctic storm You can wear a tux But ixnay on the penguins It's not the Arctic norm Eskimos and Inuit Eskimos and innuendo Eskimos and Inuit
Fantastic response by Ezra Levant to the Kanadian Human Rights Kommission.
And hmm, Integral University ... or Playboy U.
I'll bet I know which one has sexier, pink-value-meme cheerleaders....
Basically ... out of all the ridiculous religion stories—which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous—the silliest one I've ever heard is, "Yeah ... there's this big giant universe and it's expanding, it's all gonna collapse on itself and we're all just here just 'cause ... just cause." That, to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.
Trey Parker. Co-creator of South Park.
Matt Stone, on the other hand, attended (with Parker) the 2007 (James Randi) Amazing Meeting.
Cartman was also the lead singer for "Faith + 1", a Christian band he formed ... in the episode "Christian Rock Hard." He creates several "Christian" songs by taking sexually suggestive love songs and substituting romantic words such as "baby" and "darling" with "Jesus"; instead of the traditional "Christian Rock" lyrics singing about spiritual love for Jesus, Cartman sings about his desire to have actual, physical sex with Jesus. A few titles of these songs include "Body of Christ" and "Get Down on my Knees and Start Pleasing Jesus." (Wikipedia)
Incidentally,the Wayne Kramer who used to work at Randi's JREF is the same guitarist who inspired Wayne's World. If you ever want to hear an album done by a guy who can't sing to save his life, he's the one.
P.S. The LFHCfS.
P.P.S. Question: Would Alanis Morissette go down on Paul Reubens in a theatre? You oughta know....
Via SS: Obama's Hillbilly Half-Brother Threatening To Derail Campaign.
And if you wonder how I spent my weekend, too much of it involved having to listen (as a disinterested but trapped third party) to the endless bitching of a palpably stupid, sagging middle-aged cow. Just like this, but post-menopausal. The total cluelessness and loud-mouthed arrogance were exactly the same.
Speaking of which, if you've ever noticed that smart, cultured people tend to have fewer prejudices than our world's enlongated large intestines (a.k.a. rednecks) do, this is why you weren't just imagining the difference: From Higher Education and Reducing Prejudice (2000):
Building on ... earlier research, we explored why some college students are more tolerant of diversity than others, and specifically, whether higher levels of reflective thinking make possible higher levels of tolerance....
Traditional-age undergraduate students typically evidence reasoning that is characterized ... as "prereflective" or "quasi-reflective." Prereflective thinkers reason based upon the assumption that one gains knowledge through direct, personal observation or through authority figures. They assume that the knowledge they gain in these ways is correct and certain. Decisions or judgments made in response to an automatically activated stereotype are similar to these prereflective judgements in that they are based on the "authority" of society or common belief, assumed to be correct, and not questioned.
Quasi-reflective reasoning recognizes that knowledge claims about ill-structured problems contain elements of uncertainty. Quasi-reflective thinkers ... are more likely to recognize that a stereotype is an inappropriate criterion upon which to base a judgment....
Individuals in [the "reflective thinking"] stages accept that their understanding of the world is not "given" and requires active construction. They also see that knowledge needs to be understood in the context in which it is generated. Evidence is also explicitly used in this stage as a central criterion for evaluating the validity of a judgment....
[I]ntellectual development is significantly related to [for example] levels of prejudice toward African Americans, levels of prejudice toward homosexuals, and tolerance ... higher levels of prejudice are more likely to be found in individuals who evidence lower levels of intellectual development....
[T]here appears to be a critical level of reflective thinking ability needed for truly tolerant responses to those who are different from oneself. That is, scoring above the mean on tolerance was associated with reasoning at or above a quasi-reflective level. Strikingly, almost nobody below the mean on tolerance in our study was above Stage 4 of the model suggesting a difficulty in remaining intolerant once one becomes quasi-reflective in one's thinking....
The transition from Stage 3 thinking to Stage 4 thinking signals the shift from pre-reflective to quasi-reflective thinking. There is an important gain in abandoning "ignorant certainty" in favor of "intelligent confusion," as B. M. Kroll has put it. This transition is also precisely the movement that tends to occur during the college years.
So that's surely one reason, even aside from Marxist ideology among students and profs (i.e., aging '60s radicals), why the "excessive tolerance" of political correctness, and even things like the civil-rights movement and affirmative action, find such a natural home in the university setting: It's smart people at fairly high stages of psychological development testing out ideas among other (mostly) smart and cognitively evolved people ... and then thinking they can apply the results to the world at large. And also imagining that the uneducated, dense "proletariet" will recognize and appreciate "all the good" which the upper intellectual classes are trying to do for them!
Unfortunately for everyone concerned, the "real world" (i.e., the lower-half of our species in IQ, who don't even have the potential to complete a "real" university degree) is much more a group of people utterly lacking in reflective thinking, for whom "ignorant certainty" and prejudice is the norm. ("Pearls before swine," etc.) Even if one's stereotypes are statistically valid at that lower level of development, they could hardly be applied the same way in the mind of a redneck holder as, say, when a Steven Pinker or Steve Dutch acknowledges that most stereotypes are statistically valid.
I didn't just stumble on that study: I was actually looking for something to confirm my own observations. Wouldn't have been looking for it, though, if it hadn't been for that sagging idjit-bovine over the weekend....
Shaidle: "Harmony." "Solidarity." Satanic, heretical narcissism.
And what do we do with Satanic heretics?
I know! We defend their right to freedom of speech, so they can influence others down the same road to perdition.
Er, no, wait: Shouldn't we suppress their freedom of speech in this one short life instead, by whatever means possible, to minimize the evil they're able to do in the world against the Holy Will of God? Shouldn't we even burn them at the stake, rather than allow them to take others with them into their "Satanic heresy"?
Yeah, that's the ticket. You bring the matches, I'll get the faggots ... I mean, kindling.
It's only because of the erosion of their power by secular thought/values that Catholics in general (not Shaidle) aren't torturing and burning people at the stake today: The Inquisition and witch hunts weren't a phase they "outgrew," it's rather that the world around them changed, and they had to change with it. They'd still ban heretical thought in a second—from within their mind-control cult worldview, it would only be logical to do that. And it's only because (with some poetic justice) the shoe is now on the other foot, and they're the ones now being silenced, that they finally give a damn about free speech for everyone. Because, as it stands now, all they can do is excommunicate you, not silence you in public outside the Church, for "thinking heretical thoughts"....
P.S. If anyone tries to tell you that Eric Turkheimer's studies show that "poverty/environment causes low IQ" (rather than vice versa), this is why they're almost certainly wrong.
Following Kathy Shaidle and Ezra Levant's lead, I too hereby commit a "hate crime" in Canada:
Homosexual Agenda Wicked The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today. Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage. My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date - God and the "Moral Majority." Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage that you have caused. Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term "morality." The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, "I'm just not sure where the truth lies," or "If they don't affect me then I don't care what they do," abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority. Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is have their future aggressively chopped at the roots. Edmund Burke's observation that, "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators. Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights. Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate. Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive? Come on people, wake up! It's time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds. Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn't rooted in protecting homosexuals from "gay bashing." The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world. Don't allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centered and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities. The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it. If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It's time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake. Rev. Stephen Boissoin
Not that there's anything wrong with that....
Alright, the guy is truly out to lunch; but if we don't stand up for the rights of the lunch crowd, before you know it there goes our freedom of breakfast and dinner, too.
P.S. Idea for the theme song for the next gay-pride parade.
Wonder how Steinem, et alice., are gonna spin this:
Women are their own workplace enemies when it comes to cracking the glass ceiling, with an international study finding they are less likely to promote themselves and network than their male counterparts....
Goodson's research also found that women who had managed to climb up the corporate ladder tended to "take the ladder with them," sometimes even sabotaging the chances of other female workers seeking promotion.
This part of the study, which was conducted mainly in the United States, revealed women executives may not be as encouraging or supportive of female staff.
"This led many women in the study to actually prefer male managers to female managers, claiming men are more consistent and fair-minded than women," Goodson added. (more)
If it just wasn't for the damned patriarchy....
P.S. As usual, OB nails it about those bastard Catholics. "Christian values" as the basis of Western culture, indeed.
The New York Times still not getting it, even when it's spoon-fed to them: The Crusader.
And Deepak Chopra:
Taking LSD was fantastic. If I had not had that experience, I would not be where I am today....
I have experienced levitation. It's totally effortless; you're surprised. But after a while the surprise wears off and then it is not so interesting any more.
You tell 'em, L-S-Deepak....
And:
It had been thought only chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants shared the human ability to recognize their own bodies in a mirror.
But German scientists reported on Tuesday that magpies—a species with a brain structure very different from mammals—could also identify themselves....
"After finding this kind of intelligence in apes, many people thought it had developed once in one evolutionary line with humans at the end. The bird studies show it has developed at least twice"....
[I]t had been thought that the neocortex brain area found in mammals was crucial to self-recognition. Yet birds, which last shared a common ancestor with mammals 300 million years ago, do not have a neocortex, suggesting that higher cognitive skills can develop in other ways.
First, with Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
Racism is a universal trait, so is anti-Semitism, by the way. But I want us not to confuse a set of beliefs such as Islam, with ethnicity such as with Jews just because they are Jews, or with blacks just because they are blacks, or with gays just because it's something you can't do anything about. Whereas Islam is simply a set of beliefs. It's not "Islamophobic" to say that Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy. It's not "Islamophobic" to point to those people who use the Koran and the Hadith to conduct war and to say this is being done in the name of your religion. To do something about it, that's not "Islamophobic." That's fair....
I've read de Tocqueville, and I've read about democracy, and I've lived in countries that had no democracy, that had no founding fathers, that could not resolve, so I don't find myself in the same luxury as you. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom, because you don't know what it is not to have freedom. I haven't. I know that there are many things wrong with America, and I know there are many things wrong with Americans, but I still believe it's the best nation in the world. (more)
Then, one with Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers.
And a negative review/debunking of parts of the latter's Who Stole Feminism? (halfway down) ... which just goes to show you can't trust anyone. Enough of the rest of Hoff Sommers' claims ring true, and mesh with Daphne Patai's exposé of Wimmin's Studies and with my own reading of Steinem, Dworkin, MacKinnon, etc., though, that I think she's still very much worth reading. And certainly, contrary to the wishful-thinking of the reviewer in question, gender feminism is no "straw person." And it frequently does "seek to suppress" not merely internal dissenters, but even people outside of feminism whose research doesn't yield the conclusions they (irrationally) need to hear: Calling anything which doesn't fit into your ideology "sexist" will do that, almost as effectively as calling it "racist" would do.
[Gordon Lightfoot:] So we went out and in order to make the thing I had to hire a private plane to get us up to Toronto and it cost something like $680 to fly up in a Grand Commander from New York to Toronto at one o'clock in the morning and there were no peanuts left because Sly and the Family Stone cleaned the cat out the night before, so we didn't have any peanuts. All we had was a bottle of whiskey and some pretzels.
Rick: Sounds like great lyrics for a song.
Under a certification system, four years is not required, residence is not required, expensive tuitions are not required, and a degree is not required. Equal educational opportunity means, among other things, creating a society in which it's what you know that makes the difference. Substituting certifications for degrees would be a big step in that direction.
The incentives are right. Certification tests would provide all employers with valuable, trustworthy information about job applicants. They would benefit young people who cannot or do not want to attend a traditional four-year college. They would be welcomed by the growing post-secondary online educational industry, which cannot offer the halo effect of a BA from a traditional college, but can realistically promise their students good training for a certification test—as good as they are likely to get at a traditional college, for a lot less money and in a lot less time. (more)
Sounds good to me—like studying on your own for the Microsoft Certifications, and then just going in to write the exams: Every course is effectively "challenged for credit."
P.S. 16 Organic Apples and a Gallon of Gas. But of course that's lost on the Bush-loving conservatives, who can only (stupidly) see "buying local" as a "leftist moonbat" fetish.
Richard Dawkins' attack on Islamic Creationism is long overdue (via FFF):
"Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with," says Dawkins. "The Government could do more, but it doesn't want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come"....
More than 90 per cent of Muslims worldwide, according to impeccable research, reject the science of evolution out of hand. Indeed, Islamic Creationists in Turkey are funding a huge campaign to [import] bogus "altases of Creation" into European schools.
I think it would be a smashingly brilliant idea if all the liberals here in America moved to the great white north where they could live in the Canadian utopia of oppression and downright stupidity and all the hardworking Canadian citizens who think this - and many of Canada's other laws and government programs are completely pointless - move to America. It's a win-win situation since we could rid ourselves of the people who seek to emulate some of Canada's worst policies and provide refuge to Canadians who wish to live in a truly sane, free, democratic society.
Just gimme time to pack my bags....
Although, a nation based on conservative values, with no liberal checks-and-balances against their "Christian values" ... oh, fuck, next thing you know they'd be burning me at the stake.
P.S. Down With Everybody. And The War Nerd. Shit, that dude can write. I have no interest whatsoever in military strategy, but the way he explains it, it's fascinating.
I got woken up at 4 this morning by what I thought was a thunder-clap. So I reached over and pulled the USB (backup) drive out of my computer, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep.
A few minutes later, with my eyes closed, I could tell the room was getting bright. I opened my eyes, and there was red-orange light streaming in through my windows.
Geez, is it the Apocalypse already?
I got up, walked over to the windows, and looked out to see a HUGE pillar of light, several miles in the distance.
From this.
Well, at least it wasn't a mushroom cloud ... but you can imagine what goes through a person's half-asleep head at 4 a.m., seeing something like that, with minor explosions going off every few seconds. (If raghead terrorists ever start blowing up pieces of this city, that would happen south of where I'm currently living ... so I wouldn't have nearly as good a view, from the eighth floor.)
It all reminded me of Wendell Ferguson's parody of Eric Clapton's song, Cocaine:
She don't light, she don't light She don't light Propane
He also does a great send-up of Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone:
Late last night, you took a big bite Face went white and your throat went tight 'Cause you ... didn't-chew
I was lying in bed alone (as usual) this morning. And I remembered a passage from Mark Steyn's America Alone:
In 2006, a dozen intellectuals published a manifesto against Islam and in defense of "secular values for all." The signatories included Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch parliamentarian; Irshad Manji, the Canadian writer; and Salman Rushdie, the British novelist. All three are brave figures and important allies in the campaign against the Islamic tide. But they're making a mistake: secular humanism is an insufficient rallying cry [against Islamism]. As another Canadian, Kathy Shaidle, wrote in response: "It is secularism itself which is part of the problem, not the solution, since secularism is precisely what created the Euro spiritual/moral vacuum into which Islamism has rushed headlong."
Yes, you see, it's that nasty, godless secularism (the kind that I, for one, can't get enough of) which has gotten us into this mess. Not just leftist politics, foolish immigration policies, and multiculturalism, but secularism itself, in the erosion of Christian values in favor of "secular" ones based on more than childish, millennia-old fairy tales. Into which Islam (and Buddhism, and Taoism, and New Age ideas) have "rushed headlong." Bad secularism! Bad science! If we've learned one thing from Galileo—bad, secular scientist!—it's that all ideologies fall at the same rate in a moral vacuum, right?
So how to undo the damage which Secularism and Scientism (esp. Darwin's evolution, the devil's tool indeed!) have done? Obviously, you start by returning Western society to the Christian values ... and beliefs ... on which it was founded. What could be more obvious?
David Warren:
There are saints, there are people who know that there are saints, and there are people who don't know. One should aspire to rise at least to the middle condition.
Hmm, but what happens, then, when free speech, and freedom of thought, and scientific literary threaten the precarious balance of a non-secular, Christian society full of people who know that "saints exist"? Which do you think will be the first to go: Christian values and such (imagined) saints, or freedom of speech and of thought? Which of those must go, from within the blinkered Christian view of reality, for the greater glory of God?
After all, this one life, and this one world, are small potatoes compared to all of heavenly/hellish eternity....
(More reasonably, as George Orwell said, "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent...." If you "know" that saints exist, you really don't know much at all—a decade ago, even I knew that much. Fortunately, I've learned a lot since then.)
More from Steyn:
It is, indeed, the case that when men cease to believe in God they'll believe in anything. But the anything they'll believe in is at least in part environmentally determined.
Ah, but the problem isn't that (as G. K. Chesterton put it) "When people cease to believe in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything." No, the problem is that when people stop basing their worldview and actions on evidence, rationality and science, they'll believe in anything, including an Imaginary Friend in the Sky who (they think) can hear and answer their prayers, and who won't hesitate to smite the Disobeyers of His Sacred Rulebook if they don't shape up, and soon! And that is precisely why the world needs more secularism (and science unconstrained by infantile religious superstitions, e.g., in stem-cell research), not more Catholicism.
If any Christian could "kill two birds with one stone," and "fix" both secularism and the Islamic problem today by rolling us all back to a time when free speech didn't exist, don't you think he (or she) would do it, in a heartbeat? After all, to stand up for free speech and science even when they threaten the Most Important Thing in the universe (in their Christian-cultist worldviews) would be extremely illogical of them.
What do we have to thank for the fact that Unbelievers such as myself are no longer being burned at the stake, or tortured by Good Christian Inquisitors until we convert to the One True Religion? Yes: Secular values.
Ezra Levant "wins." But—
"This censor approved what I wrote," he said. "His decision is not that I have freedom of speech. His decision is that I have his approval. I'm not interested in his approval. The only test of free speech is if I can write what he disapproves of with impunity. That's what freedom of speech is, to piss off some second-rate bureaucrat like Pardeep Gundara and know that you have the right to do so, because you're in Canada, not Saudi Arabia."
Geez, just when you thought it was safe to go back to that Muslim bakery:
Poisoning the Infidels with Feces in UK and US.
But if you throw a Koran in the toilet ... they'll scream bloody murder.
Oh, and the inauguration of Take a Nigger to Lunch Day.
Mmm, I'm hungry for fried chicken and watermelon already....
P.S. Does Immigration Cause Madness? (We Know The Answer For Christian Clergy). Just in case you were thinking of taking the bus through Manitoba in the near future....
Peter Watson, Lost in the swamp of modernity:
What shocked me were my interviews with scholars of non-western cultures. Here, I am referring not only to western specialists in the great non-western traditions, but scholars who were themselves born into those traditions—Arab archaeologists or writers, economists and historians from India and China, poets and dramatists from Japan and Africa. All of them—there were no exceptions—said the same thing. In the 20th century, in the modern world, there were no non-western ideas of note.
There is no Asian equivalent of, say, Darwin, no African Max Planck, no Arab Freud, no Japanese Picasso or Matisse. When it comes to ideas, the modern world is a western world, a secular world of democracies, free markets, science and self-governing universities.
There are important Chinese writers and painters of the 20th century; and we can all think of significant Japanese film directors, Indian novelists and African dramatists. There is a thriving school of Indian post-colonial historiography, led by Gayatri Spivak. Distinguished non-western scholars and writers are household names, at least in smart households: one thinks of Edward Said himself, Chinua Achebe, Amartya Sen, Anita Desai, Chandra Wickramasinghe. But, it was repeatedly put to me, there is no 20th-century Chinese equivalent of surrealism, say, no Indian philosophy to match logical positivism, no African equivalent of the French Annales school of history. Whatever list you care to make of 20th-century innovations, be it plastic, antibiotics and the atom, or stream-of-consciousness novels, it is overwhelmingly western....
The whole "project" of postmodernism is designed to promote the "other," the non-western, the unorthodox.... Overall, throughout the 20th century, the non-western traditions lagged far behind the west in the realm of new ideas. Postmodernism itself is a western notion....
Neither China nor Japan has produced ideas to match its size or population; nor have the many non-Muslim states of Africa. India, with its burgeoning software sector, Bollywood and its clutch of literary heavyweights, is beginning to stir, but many of its stars seem to spend all or some of their time in the west. Only in that way, it appears, can their own intellectual fulfilment be complete....
Colonialism cannot shoulder all the blame for this, nor can one particular religion. In the realm of ideas, China and Japan are as much underachievers as the Arab and African worlds. At the same time, the evidence is incontrovertible: there is a link between civilisation and intellectual achievement; there is a link between intellectual freedom and political freedom, between the ability to change, on the one hand, and scientific advance, technology-based prosperity and intellectual satisfaction, on the other.
Bummer, eh?
And, by the way, what exactly was the "Christian" (esp. Catholic) reaction to the members of Monty Python exercising their freedom of speech nearly thirty years ago in The Life of Brian?
The (alleged) representation of Christ proved controversial. Protests against the film were organized based on its perceived blasphemy. On its initial release in the UK, the film was banned by several town councils—some of which had no cinemas within their boundaries, or had not even seen the film for themselves. A member of Harrogate council, one of those that banned the film, revealed during a television interview that the council had not seen the film, and had based their opinion on what they had been told by the Nationwide Festival of Light, of which they knew nothing. As recently as 2008, the mayor of the Welsh town of Aberystwyth (Sue Jones-Davies, who played Judith Iscariot in the film) was still trying to remove the local council's long ban of the film.
In New York, screenings were picketed by both rabbis and nuns ("Nuns with banners!" observed Michael Palin) while the film was banned outright in some American states. It was also banned for eight years in the Republic of Ireland and for a year in Norway (it was marketed in Sweden as "The film so funny that it was banned in Norway").
So, as you can see, Catholic conservatives aren't at all like the "moonbat left" when it comes to censoring things that offend them.
"Cracker?" [Holds out bag of Sesame Blues, being careful not to break, fold, spindle or perforate the Sacred Lord within....]
Never trust the politics of anyone who's found the One True Religion. If they think clearly on one issue, they'll get a dozen others woefully wrong, and you will not be welcomed for attempting to bring reason and science into their World of Holy Irrationality. On the contrary, they will throw you overboard at the first opportunity, free speech be damned.
Just ask the members of Python....
If anyone tries to tell you that Canada's immigration system works better than America's does, this is why they're wrong:
At the same time as overall immigration numbers are reduced, Borjas also recommends putting greater emphasis on highly skilled immigrants. In fact, he recommends that the U.S. adopt a method similar to the Canadian point system for selecting newcomers. His conclusion that our system "works" where the American does not, however, is based on 1980 statistics. These outdated figures show that the newest immigrant arrivals in the United States earned about 28% less than natives, whereas in Canada they earned only 16% less respectively.
Had Borjas used more recent Canadian data he would have found that we too have followed the trend in accepting a greater proportion of unskilled migrants. By 1995, recent immigrants were earning 40% less than other Canadians and we were experiencing many of the problems he has identified in the U.S. While we continue to receive many immigrants with impressive qualifications, the larger numbers and declining skill levels of the lesser qualified have caused an overall decline in immigrants' ability to contribute to the economy.
Likewise:
Quite a few Americans argue that Canada's points system, which in theory rewards immigrants who have skills, speak the national languages etc. etc. is something the U.S. should emulate. But the practice is very different. Stoffman relates a conversation with U.S. economist George Borjas: "He was disappointed when I informed him ... that the skilled portion of Canada's immigration intake was down to 23%. "Why did it shrink way down?" he asked from his Harvard office. "Why did the Canadians allow this to occur?" Because the Canadian program had been taken over by its clientele, I said, who insisted that the family class be expanded."
"He was disappointed when I informed him ... that the skilled portion of Canada's immigration intake was down to 23%. "Why did it shrink way down?" he asked from his Harvard office. "Why did the Canadians allow this to occur?" Because the Canadian program had been taken over by its clientele, I said, who insisted that the family class be expanded."
"I was a thorn in the side of NOW from the beginning," says [Tammy] Bruce, who describes herself as a "gun-owning, openly gay, pro-choice, pro-death penalty, liberal feminist who voted for Ronald Reagan." Bruce's recent [2001] book, The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds, details her disillusionment with the women's movement, which she describes as "socialism masquerading as feminism, group rights as opposed to the individual." (more)
Hmm, I'm gonna have to read me some-a that lady's books.... And of Phyllis Chesler, too:
When I testified before the Senate earlier in December [of 2005] about Islamic gender apartheid, one Iranian feminist said: "Finally! An American feminist leader who is not willing to abandon us to her theories of cultural relativity"....
From a cultural and religious point of view, many Muslims have been relentlessly brainwashed against all non-Muslims and empowered to express themselves, often violently, when they feel shamed or dishonored. Systematic, normalized, but strenuously denied child abuse within Muslim and Arab families may also lead to a "paranoid" world view in which The Other is always blamed for one's own suffering. From a psychological point of view, most Muslims have been raised in shame-and-honor societies in which they have learned to blame others, preferably outsiders—never themselves. Consequently, their cultural skins are very thin; they lack the habit of introspection; and they are disinclined to take individual responsibility for their own mistakes. Above all, they have been trained never to criticize their own leaders, but to scapegoat the Jews and westerners for Arab and Muslim suffering.
This tendency makes many Muslims and Arabs uneager to hear—or, for that matter, tell—the truth. The blessed exceptions are usually imprisoned, tortured, and murdered either by their own families or by the state.
And Howard Rotberg:
I have learned that the groups that I always thought would protect authors in Canada, such as PenCanada, the Writers Union, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Freedom to Read, and others, only want to protect authors whose views fit their ideologies.... If a writer is pro-American or pro-Israeli, he or she is outside their area of interest. Very few of these organizations would even answer my emails....
I have learned that many of those in the NGOs, the public sector unions (who now dominate the Canadian labour movement), the schools and universities and even many traditional Canadian churches (the ones that are in decline) all want to fancy themselves "progressives", and rather than pay from their pockets for social justice at home, the easier way to be progressives is to criticize Israel. And how much easier is it to criticize some country or group of people who won't threaten to chop your heads off for that criticism. No matter what is done by the Palestinians or on behalf of the Palestinians, I will be seen as a bad and intolerant guy by these progressives for "hurting the feelings" of some Muslim somewhere. Accordingly, I have been shunned by the very organizations and individuals who claim to be furthering the right of freedom of expression and other fundamental freedoms. So, for those of us who love our freedoms in Canada, our first priority should be to expose those who claim to be progressive and pacifist, but who ally themselves with Islamo-fascists who abuse their own people and train their children to hate and to kill Jews, in Israel, and now worldwide.
And, from Reitz and Breton's The Illusion of Difference (p. 21):
A study conducted in Toronto in the late 1970s found that negative attitudes toward racial minorities were significantly related to religious affiliation. Those who reported no religion had the least negative views; Jews, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and members of the United Church were in an intermediate category; and Baptists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians were the most likely to express negative views of racial minorities....
Ah, but you could've guessed that, eh? Just another stereotype that turns out to be true.
Clark ... argued that Canada is less nationalistic than the United States because Canadian society has encouraged the retention of diverse ethnic cultures in order to differentiate itself from American society and thus protect Canadian independence: "Efforts to check American influences in Canadian cultural life ... involving the strengthening of the supports of ethnic group loyalties.... Paradoxically, the security of the Canadian nation has depending upon discouraging a too strong Canadian nationalism." (p. 23)
Like I said.
[W]hatever the motive for intermarriage, the likely effect of intermarriage is to weaken the attachment to ethnicity. (p. 51)
P.S. I've never tried to install Linux. This is why. (The closest I've gotten to it is that I worked for half a year with a world-class cracker who had written one of the drivers for the Red Hat distribution of Linux. He was also bipolar, and blamed programming for having caused that. He was probably right.)
There are things you don't even need to try, to know that you won't like them. Linux is one of them: underdocumented, bad-usability software written by geeks, for geeks, is truly the spawn of the devil.
Erm:
The British ... were amused by the ritual quandary surrounding the decision of which umbrella the king [of Burma] should use, but nothing bemused them more than the status accorded the white elephant. The "Lord White Elephant"—or Sinbyudaw—commanded social status second only to the king in the hierarchy of the royal court. Sinbyudaw were treated with reverence and had white parasols held over them wherever they went. Young white elephants were even suckled by women in the royal court who considered it a great honour to feed the elephant with their own milk.
So you can see why it would be so imperative for Kipling's East and West to meet: Where else were we going to get wet nurses for our zoos ... and British royal palaces?
P.S. As a die-hard Red Sox fan, let me just say: Good riddance to Manny "Piss-Break" Ramirez.
Stop the presses!!!
Creationists fake fossil, stupid conservatives eat it up.
PZ Myers explains.
P.S. Real casts of dinosaur tracks. Makes a great Christmas gift for that special mammary-glanded mammal in your life. And Pinker vs. Lakoff. Steve wins hands-down, of course.
