Philosophical Detective

Well Said

I was thinking about what to say about this nonsense when I read Tam's thoughts.

'nuff said, thought I.

Fitna: See it While You Still Can

This video was tricky to track down.  It keeps being removed from sites as the owners receive death threats.

We're at war, people.

Pictures

I found these photos fascinating.

H.T. Balko

Comrade J

I'm reading a fascinating book at the moment.  It's called Comrade J and it's the confessions of an ex-KGB officer.

I'll blog more about it as I read but I just wanted to mention the latest revelation.  He just talked about the biggest propaganda coup the KGB ever pulled off: getting the entire Western world to believe in the concept Nuclear Winter.

Andropov wanted to stop NATO (i.e. America) from deploying a new battery of nuclear missiles in Germany to counter the hundreds that the Soviets were pointing at Europe.  He did this by instructing the KGB to produce a "scientific report" about the supposed cooling effects of dust in the atmosphere.  This was "leaked" to the West through press releases.

Shortly afterwards another "scientific report" was released supposedly detailing the amount of debris that would be thrown into the atmosphere during a nuclear strike.

This was given to various "peace" and "environmental" organizations in the West.  Pretty soon these two "studies" were found by Carl Sagan, a strident anti-nuclear scientist who had just won massive popularity with his Cosmos series.

Sagan got together with a few other anti-nuclear scientists and they produced the "TTAPS" report where they coined the term Nuclear Winter.  Being activists they did the very un-scientific thing of conclusion first (they hated nuclear weapons) and then looked for evidence to support this conclusion while, of course, ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

A couple of real scientists looked at their report and immediately saw flaws in it so Sagan took the (then) unprecedented step of releasing the TTAPS conclusions without submitting the paper to be peer reviewed.  It first appeared in a Sunday paper supplement and from their they used Sagan's fame to hold press conferences and appear on talk shows to push their results.  They also co-opted the support of the other gangs of man-haters: the environmentalists and the "peace" activists (both these groups were are heavily funded by the KGB).

And thus a myth was born.  I still remember the protests throughout Europe in the 80s about the threat of human extinction from a nuclear ice-age.  For years there were groups of hippy womyn camped outside the American base at Greenham Common in England.  To this day people have a massively over-inflated sense of the power of these weapons.

What was most interesting to me was to see the beginnings of what is now common-place.  As described, repeatedly, by such defenders of man as John Brignell, these so-called studies could never stand up to any sort of scientific scrutiny so they are simply released to the press.  The journalists take these press releases and print them as if they were real news stories rather than the infomercials that they really are.

I don't know if Sagan's "study" was the first such propaganda pushed in this way but, if not, it's right up there with the early ones.

I'll write more about the book as I go through it but until then I can't recommend it highly enough.  I find every chapter utterly enthralling.  It's like a real-live James Bond story but without the silliness.  It's also quite scary to see how the Soviets have been undermining the West for so damn long.

I'm about half way through and the Soviet Union has just been disbanded so I'm on the edge of my seat as I find out all the things the KGB is doing after the cold war is supposedly over.  I'm sure Putin will make an appearance soon...

Parasites

This story took me way back to my childhood.  The headline sums it up pretty well:

Hundreds seeking housing money overwhelm Boca Authority

Basically, the local thieves government offered up a bunch of loot for a pack of looters and a riot broke out when the pack heard that the loot had limits.

I remembered the rush of excitement that swept the project I grew up in when a welfare brood-mare figured out a new way to get free money.  She was at the local trough welfare office when she hit upon a way to force their hands.  Claiming that she didn't even have the money to feed her offspring she dumped them on the bureaubot's desk and walked out.

By the time she got home she found a taxi, her children and a shiny check from the government.

This news spread like wildfire and soon every brood-mare was doing the same thing.  They'd take a trip into town, dump their kids and then go and get drunk somewhere.

Think about that for a minute.  These "mothers" would dump their children and go to the pub to spend the last of their welfare check.  Absolutely no thought was given to the welfare of these kids while they drank away this days burden of hours.

These people are whom we are made to bleed for.

We're always being told that if we give up just a little more we'll cure poverty.  Have a look at this Wikipedia entry about The Great Society's "War on Poverty".  In 1964 they spent $1 billion to end it.

Several decades and $trillions later we have more "poor" people than ever.  You see, it's not for lack of opportunities that these people are poor.  It's simply the fact that they don't care.  About anything.  Every minute of their lives is simply another moment to be killed until they die.  That's all there is to it.  It doesn't matter how caring, compassionate or whatever the bleeding hearts are.  These parasites aren't interested in self improvement, just new ways to shut off their minds and they will cling, desperately, to any excuse they are given for such behavior by the latest sociology professor/politician/preacher.

Radical

I went to Georgia Tech the other night to listen to Dr John Lewis talk about the need for a war with political Islam.  In the lecture he proposed two responses to an attack on American soil and compared the results of these responses.

The first was the response to the Pearl Harbor attack and the second to 911.

He showed how one led to victory in about 3 years followed by 60 years of peace and how the other has no end in sight.

It was interesting, though obvious, stuff and I'm glad I went.  The real interest was in the "question and answer" period after his hour-long lecture.  The first person invited to ask a question got up and gave a 15 minute speech on the value of Islam.  He started this tirade by questioning Dr. Lewis's mental state and then went on a mostly incoherent ramble through the wonderful additions to civilization that Islam provides.

The next person called Dr. Lewis "criminally insane" before launching into a 15 minute speech on the value of Islam.

Then the next.  And the next...

After nearly three hours of this I, and several others, just got up and left.  I mean, it was interesting to observe this sort of pathology first hand but it really gets tiresome in a hurry.  I only stayed that long because I wanted to see how Dr. Lewis handled it.

It didn't take too long for me to see that he was, in effect, appeasing them.  He wanted to appear "fair and balanced".  He didn't want to be accused of "stifling debate" etc.  But, this wasn't a debate.  Each of the goons that gave a speech had obviously not listened to a single word Dr. Lewis has said.  They'd prepared their speech and their conclusions to his before they'd even set foot in the building.

As an aside, it was interesting to see how each of them said the same things.  It was obvious they'd all been spoon-fed the same talking points.  Even more interesting is how these anti-American tirades (which I've also been subjected to in Oslo by white leftists) all share the same language - the language of the American left.  They can't even originate ire.  Irony, anyone?

There is absolutely nothing to be gained by engaging such people in a reasonable conversation.  They abandoned reason years ago and all you're doing is wasting your time by going through the motions with them.  Well, there is something to be gained.  The need for armed guards to be present at a lecture on a university campus.

Instead of sitting on a stool and listening thoughtfully while some parrot spouts phrases it has been taught I'd recommend Pat Condell's approach:

It's quite frightening that what he says is considered radical today.  We need more of this, not "dialogs".  There is no dialog with barbarians from the 7th century.

More teh Funny

I love this website.  It's one of the only ones that i visit daily without fail.

Funny

This is too funny.  Professor Umbridge would happily run the California "education" system.

H.T. Rational Jenn

The Wrong Question

People will argue back and forth about whether to lift the travel ban on Cuba for Americans.  One side will say the ban hurts the people of Cuba, one will say it helps them.

That's not the point.

No one has a right to stop me going somewhere except the owner of the property I'm standing on.

That's the beginning and end of it.

Euphemisms get in the way of this simple fact.  Arguing for freedom by appealing to the "social benefit", for instance.

And here we see people joining the system to beg for their freedom using the language of the slave masters.

Unfortunately, even the preachers of the second Renaissance can be just as wrong.  Why must someone submit to a "screening process" at "designated government checkpoints"?  The right to move is the right to live on one's property.

These property lines are the only lines that matter on a map.  Sanctioning our master's desire to tell us what to do won't lead to freedom.

The Law

The law is an ass.  Any ethical system that leaves one unable to decide if sending an innocent man to jail for 26 years is wrong cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called ethical.  It's amazing how years of college can blur this simple fact.

Of course, when I clicked to add a comment to this effect, I saw that Billy Beck had already won the thread in the first post so I didn't bother.