Delicate Little Flower

"How big is she going to get," I asked Space Bunny. "Oh, around 70 pounds." Okay, a little bigger than her much-loved Rottweiler cross who we lost to a car two years ago, but not too much. I can deal with it. She took her Delicate Little Flower to the vet yesterday - 83 pounds of very athletic muscle.

Fortunately, she's very sweet, though her bark sounds as if it begins somewhere down around the 6th circle of Hell. It's always amusing to answer the doorbell and see the deliverymen standing 15-20 feet from the door. She's pretty, too, for a linebacker of a dog that looks as if it could eat a Doberman for breakfast.

Sounds like they need a new advisor

After the University of Tennessee administration called the cops on the UT College Republicans, check out what their advisor had to say:

"That evening, Michael Combs, the faculty advisor for the College Republicans and a member of the UT Board of Trustees sent an email to their chairman, saying, "I ask that you rescind this call for parents, family, etc., to contact their state representatives. Such action would do far more harm than any good to the university or to your cause. I also sincerely request that you not make direct contact to media outside the campus since this seems to be an internal campus issue at this point. While the media will love to use a good story to sell their papers, going to them with this concern will resolve nothing.

It's kind of hard to win when your coach is playing for the other team. That's right, CRs, if someone in authority mistreats you, suck it up and hold your tongue. Because that's worked so well for so many people in the past. Funny, but it seems that things only started happening AFTER the CRs went to the media. How on Earth could that possibly be?

VDH gets it, of course

We are not in a war with a crook in Haiti. This is no Grenada or Panama - or even a Kosovo or Bosnia. No, we are in a worldwide struggle the likes of which we have not seen since World War II. The quicker we understand that awful truth, and take measures to defeat rather than ignore or appease our enemies, the quicker we will win. In a war such as this, the alternative to victory is not a brokered peace, but abject Western suicide and all that it entails - a revelation of which we saw on September 11.

And here we all thought that World War III would be fought against the Soviets.

I wouldn't be surprised

I don't have an opinion on the matter, not having enough information, but there sure are far too many unanswered questions about 9/11. I have no doubt that the official histories of TWA 800 and the Oklahoma City bombing are completely false, and I won't be shocked if the same thing turns out to be true here. I will never, ever understand politicians.

I think I'm glad about that.

Owner-equivalent rent

Want to know how the Consumer Price Index is kept so ridiculously low? It's pretty simple, thanks to Mogambo. Housing accounts for 22 percent of the CPI. Home prices are not included in the CPI, although housing rents - which have been declining thanks to historically low mortgage rates and an unusually high percentage of home ownership - are. Furthermore, the CPI assumes that everyone rents, even though 65 percent of households own their own home.

So, you see, if you simply don't count the prices that are increasing rapidly, and you also multiply by three things which are declining in price, you can make it look as if there is only moderate price inflation of around 3 percent, even as $80 billion per month is created, borrowed and pumped into the economy. On an annual basis, that would require 9.23 percent growth of a $10.4 trillion economy just to stay even, but not even the fabulists who concocted the 8.2 percent growth claim were willing to go that far and claim that a mature economy was growing at a rate rivalling the New Asian Tigers during their explosive heyday.

I have said it before. I will say it again. GOVERNMENT STATISTICS ARE FICTION! Ideally, they would be published in the dark fantasy genre.

Vox Popoli: The Mogambo Guru for President in 2004 HQ

I've heard that too

John Curry writes a letter to WND: I've heard homosexuals say, "A person who speaks out most against homosexuality is a person who would really deep down like to share that experience and would probably enjoy it". No one speaks out against that lifestyle more than I. If what they say is true, then their lifestyle must be a choice since I've chosen not to do it in all of my 54 years.

Every single time - okay, both times - I've written a column even tangentially related to homosexuality, I've been accused of being queer myself. As Mr. Curry points out, were this true, it would simply prove that homosexual behavior is a choice, and an easily controlled one at that. Of course, I've yet to hear from an offended group as utterly devoid of logic as the queer crowd. I can't even get offended by the attacks; it's like being mauled by declawed kitten.

Hissy Queer: "How dare you say that being gay is bad! You're bad! Gay is good! You're gay! Homophobe! You're secretly gay!"
Me: "Do you even listen to yourself?"

One of these days I'll dig up an old email from the gentleman who describes himself as the father of the gay rights movement, apparently unaware of the irony, and post it here. His strategy, if you can even call it that, consists of the assertion that homosexuality is a positive good, in all ways. According to him, it is healthier than being normal, more morally pure than being normal, more ethical, etc. Which naturally makes one wonder what color the sky in his world might be. Lavender, most likely.

The other common homosexual response to criticism - aside from the inevitable butchery of language involved in the assertion of "homophobia" - is to assert that the critic is jealous. Jealous, I ask, of what? Disease, a proclivity for suicide and bad dance music? Sounds like a real party, Penelope.

The IRS is a fraud

Devvy Kidd writes: ...according to a September 15, 2003 letter from GAO (General Accounting Office) to Congressman Elton Gallegly regarding W-4’s and reporting, this little nugget of truth stands out: "Under current law, IRS does not have statutory authority to impose a penalty to enforce employer compliance with the reporting requirement. The reporting requirement was promulgated in Treasury regulations."

And yet Dick Simkanin is still in prison for a crime he did not commit and for which he was not convicted. Yes, Virginia, the Federal courts are corrupt and they are in bed with the con artists at the IRS.

I wonder how the IRS apologists manage to put any serious stock in the fact that the IRS has numerous court decisions on their side. Forget Dred Scott, recently the Massachusetts Supreme Court tried to redefine the Western concept of marriage while the 9th Circuit Court denied that the Bill of Rights applies to individuals. If your reality is defined by the courts, then I suggest that you go right ahead and get your man-slave back, marry him, and file a joint return.

How homosexuality destroys the church

Homosexuality is more than an Apollonian death cult; I'm increasingly beginning to suspect that it is, sopratutto, a spiritual disease. This chronicle of a dying church is a fractal image of the death of the Episcopalian church in America.

It's intriguing to see how homosexual hatred for Christianity is becoming more overt and intense even as it is increasingly embraced by the secular mainstream. Was it this bitter back in the old days of the closet? I don't know, but I have the impression that it wasn't that way. All sin is sin, of course, but there appears to be something deeper going on here as well. I note that homosexuals don't harbor nearly as much hate for Islam, despite the fact that Islamic society is far harsher on homosexuality than is Christian society, which only asks that homosexuals repent of their sin - as every other sinner is expected to do.

I also find the hysterical denial of the ex-gay movement to be interesting. Let me get this straight. We're to take a man's word for it that he has always been a certain way. But we are not to take his word for it if he says that he has been changed by the power of God in his life. Why, that's logic worthy of Andrew Sullivan whenever he writes on anything having remotely to do with his sexual preference. I often like his writing, but his contortions over the oxymoronic concept of "gay marriage" are almost embarrassing.

By the way, if you don't believe in God or sin, all of this is irrelevant. Regardless of the subject, I'm not interested in hearing anyone's opinion on how something in which they don't believe operates.

Inflation

From Mogambo: I keep looking at a chart of the growth in federal debt, and it is now increasing at the rate of almost $80 billion per month. Per month! Just how valuable IS a currency that is being inflated at that rate?... Mr. van Eeden writes, "The dollar is likely to fall approximately 50% from its current level. That would free the dollar denominated gold price to find its way back towards its true value of $699 an ounce (as of 2002). Given the mounting pressure on the dollar, there is virtually no chance that it will not collapse." Remember those currency crises of those foreign nations, and how Clinton and Robert Rubin and Greenspan and the IMF and all those guys, which is everybody, decided to establish the principle of moral hazard, and so they bailed everybody out by sticking the American taxpayers with the bill? You do? I knew it! I could tell by the way you grind your teeth that you remember perfectly!

Anyway, I know what you are dying to ask me: "Hey! Mogambo! Yo! What did gold do during those trying times?" I am glad you asked that question, because Mr. van Eeden, in a stroke of coincidence, provides the answer to that very question, and thus saves me trouble of getting up off of my lazy butt and actually trying to find out, and maybe end up doing actual work for a change, and then I remember how tiring that is, and I lose all interest. Anyway, he writes "The gold price in Japanese yen however, increased by 34% between 1995 and 1996. The next year the gold price jumped more than 40% in both Philippine pesos and Malaysian ringgit, and 67% in Korean won. Indonesia suffered the most during the South East Asian Crisis and the gold price, accordingly, increased more than 400%."

Remember, I was recommending buying gold at $300. Now it's at $404. Of course, I also thought the markets would go down this summer. There's one scenario that explains both going up - inflation. Don't believe the CPI. Like all government stats, it's fiction.

Top ten games

J writes: Enough of this talk of the ten best books you recommend. How about your top ten video game recommendations? You seem to be something of an expert on this subject. So let's have it, eh? This would be killer info to post on your blog, amigo. Video games are almost more important than books these days. Video game made more money than every movie studio in the world. It is video game insanity!

Most movies based on books suck. Even classics like The Fountainhead bit the proverbial big one. Lord of the Rings worked surprisingly. Your Rebel Moon book would be great high concept action movie fodder. So like I said before, don't be surprised when Hollywood comes calling. And hey, Ilana Mercer, hot or not?

Ilana hot, in my book. As far as my top ten games go, this will reveal what an Old Skool gamer I am, but there you go. I'm rating them according to how much fun they were at the time they came out, not how they'd rate today. Interesting, to see how Origin and Richard Garriot crop up so often.

1. Wing Commander - I used to take my monster 386/25 to my friend's cabin for the weekend just to play it.
2. Wizardry - still play the DOS conversion of this from time to time
3. Akallabeth - burned on my brain's retina
4. Doom - we spent two days straight learning about Novell networking so we could deathmatch. It was worth it.
5. Maddens - after recovering an onside kick on the first try in 1992, I finally did it again in 2004. 12 frickin' years!
6. Ultima III - the best of a good lot
7. Ms Pac-man - wocka wocka wocka
8. US Ski Team Racing (Intellivision)
9. Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin - best of the current generation
10. Castle Wolfenstein (Muse, not id) - Schweinhund! bang! Aeigh#(*$&kk#*!

Honorable Mention: Autoduel, Joust, Moon Patrol, Lunar Lander, Demon Attack, Roadblasters, Warcraft, Aztec, Warlords II, Descent, Drol, Asteroids, 1942, Pooyan, Tron: Deadly Discs, Star Raiders, Mario 64
Overrated: Mortal Kombat, all post-Warcraft RTS, most current 3D shooters, Galaga
Just didn't get into it: Tetris, Falcon 3.0, Command & Conquer, Civilization
Best Performance: Big Chilly, 1942 on the Atari Lynx, December 1995. Flew the circuit, didn't lose a plane. The man was simply on fire.
Best Performance by a Chick: Space Bunny's Internet high score on Pooyan, 1997. A brief, but shining moment.

Back when we were in the game biz, about ten years ago, my friend and I actually designed a game concept that is eerily similar to Grand Theft Auto as a joke. At the time, the editors of Computer Gaming World thought it was far too outrageous for any publisher to even consider. Now, it's clear that we were simply ahead of our time. I suppose I should give my friend Big Kahuna-san a call with regards to my latest far-too-outrageous game concept, which, at this point, shall remain unarticulated.

By the way, here's why Space Bunny is the perfect woman: she's not only a beautiful, NFL-tolerant blonde, she also gave me a full-size Ms Pac-man machine for my birthday. And, she's the house high score holder, female division.

Fatty foibles

The problem with the rabbi's theory - that husbands are to blame for their wives getting fat - is that it offers no explanation for why so many single women do the same. It also shows a level of ignorance with regards to gym culture and its mentality. Working out, for the most part, requires desire that comes from within. Most of the men and women that I know at the gym have a bit of an obsessive-compulsive element to their nature and don't really care what anyone else thinks of it one way or another. It really bothers them to not work out, in a way that is not entirely rational. I'm informed that I approach full psychotic if I miss three days in a row.

This may have something to do with endorphin release, or the simple familiarity of habit, I don't know. But to ignore it and say that it all stems from insufficient attention strikes me as misguided. Are women such children that they can't even be held responsible for what goes in their mouth? Sure, I know that many women are allergic to responsibility, and I have no doubt that the rabbi's theory will be most welcome to them. The whole thing reminds me of sitting in a stairwell with a friend in college one day and watching a little chunker waddle down the stairs past us, lamenting that she just couldn't lose weight, while alternately taking bites from the doughnuts she was carrying in either hand. Gee, I wonder why?

I mentioned this to Space Bunny - who works out as if she might to be forced to pose for a centerfold at any moment - and she pointed out that women are a lot more concerned about what other women think of their appearance than what their husbands think anyway. Which must be true, because let's face it, otherwise she'd never wear anything but a little black dress or a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders outfit every day of the year. It's all about social expectations. All the women of our extended Bible study are married, with anywhere from one to five children apiece, and every single one of them is slender and attractive. They don't all have the flawless genetics of the Gorgeous Couple Too Nice to Hate (as much as you might wish you could)TM, but they maintain themselves in such a way that more than one friend, invited to a party or a barbecue, has wondered if there was some sort of factory where these lovely Christian women were made. And, could they place an order, please?

If she's correct and the problem is social, then I don't know what the answer is, except to choose your friends carefully. But then, that doesn't seem right either. In any case, no one but the individual herself can actually do anything about her weight, so to try placing the blame elsewhere is unlikely to solve the problem.

Some pigs more equal than others

Go ahead, make fun of the fact that several City Council members introduced a bill Wednesday to have more restrooms set aside for women. Why? Because females take longer, explained Yvette Clarke, who dubbed the legislation the "Restroom Equity Bill." "Every woman and little girl can recall a situation were they waited in a long line to use the bathroom," said Clarke, an East Flatbush Democrat and one of the main sponsors of the bill.

The law would apply to arenas, auditoriums, drinking places, meeting halls, theaters, dance halls and stadiums. Other buildings would be required to adhere to the 2:1 ratio as best as possible, with details yet to be worked out in full. "I think the courts are recognizing that restroom facilities are an essential, important service," he told the Associated Press in an interview. According to Clarke, similar bills have been adopted in at least 12 states and cities like Pittsburgh and St. Paul, Minn.

She said that the potty parity law could easily be accommodated at some facilities by the change of signs on the restroom doors. "We have fought for equal rights in employment, leadership and society," said Brooklyn Councilwoman Leticia James. "The next logical step would be to have parity when it comes to using the restroom. That is such a basic right."

A 2-1 ratio is parity? This is what left-liberal thinking has come to. They're not even embarrased to publicly make moronic statements like this anymore. This is like saying that if the Vikings and Packers finish at 11-5 and 10-6 while the Bears and Lions finish at 6-10 and 5-11, there is parity in the NFC North. Of course, considering the childish thinking of the left, I'm only surprised that the insane and unjust courts haven't proclaimed restroom facilities to be a Constitutional right instead of only an "essential, important service."

I dub thee, SuperGeek

I love this sort of thing. Because he can, that's why!

Definitely don't buy Dell

I was already down on Dell, since both my Dell laptops are falling apart despite uncommonly gentle treatment - I have an Alphasmart Dana for my portability needs, so my Dells never go anywhere. But this indicates that Dell is likely to be a card-carrying member of the Totalitarian Control Group, about which you'll read more on Monday.

As seen in the latest newsletter from SpyWareInfo, Dell sent an internal memo to its tech support minions which says in part: 'NOTICE: Use of spyware removal software may conflict with user license agreements of other applications installed on your system. Please consult your user license agreements for further information. Dell does not endorse the use of spyware removal software and cannot provide support on these products.'

Dell isn't putting the spyware on there, as far as we know, but it is actively resisting efforts to remove spyware. Why? Because Microsoft has some technology on the horizon which will make present-day spyware look downright friendly in comparison, and Dell wants to be one of the primary delivery vehicles.

Walter Williams, to the point again

One might be tempted to think that if owners were free to reject customers by race, segregation would be widespread. But that's nonsense because there's a difference between what people can do and what they'll find in their interests to do. Think about it. During the United States' Jim Crow era and South Africa's apartheid era, there was an elaborate legal structure mandating and enforcing racial segregation. Whenever you see a law on the books, your best guess is that the law is on the books because not everyone left to their own devices would behave according to the specifications of the law. After all, why would there be a need for a law saying bars or theaters cannot admit blacks if no white bar or theater owner would admit blacks in the first place?

As usual, the GOVERNMENT is needed in order to enforce something negative. Let people be free to discriminate if they wish. If you don't want to serve blacks, you should be free not to. If you don't want to serve whites, you shouldn't have to do that either. That is freedom of association, yet another Constitutional right that has been legislated away. As Walter Williams points out, most people won't find it in their interest to do so - because if they had, there would have been no need for Jim Crow or apartheid in the first place!

No good comes out of government. None. The more you think about it, the deeper you consider it, the more this becomes obvious in every circumstance. The only thing a national government is really good for is protecting against other national governments - hardly a strong case for the positive good of the concept. Fine, let's limit it to that and nothing else.

It already lost me

William F. Buckley writes: There are of course shoals out there. They are economic realities. They drain the value of the dollar and the vat of human enterprise. But there is something else to look out for, which is the credibility of democratic practice. If everybody preaches A while condoning B, you get not only inflated costs, but deflated confidence in democratic government.

Mine is pretty much at zero anyhow. I don't believe in democracy. Neither, for that matter, do you. I will take a self-professed democrat's claims of belief in democracy seriously when he advocates replacing Congress with e-voting. The technology is already here. Come on, democrats, it's time to practice what you preach.

ADDENDA: NB writes "Replace Congress and Constitutional questions before the federal judiciary with e-voting. No sense circumventing the demagogues only to leave the oligarchs in charge."

Right, good point. Let's get rid of both branches while we're at it. Since the Constitution is meaningless now, what is the point of checks and balances on the perfectly realized will of the people? We'll probably need to keep a President, just for signing treaties and declaring whatever it is we call war now, but the Imperial Judiciary is, with Congress, officially relegated to the dustbin of history.

Scoring

A few years ago, while trying to convince my coach that we needed to adopt a different attacking philosophy, I broke down the MLS statistics and determined that shots on goal, not total number of shots or ball control, had the highest degree of correlation with winning. This tended to contradict the classic idea that having a strong center midfielder holding onto the ball and directing traffic was the best way to build a successful attack. In my experience, midfielders always want to hold onto the ball far too long, sacrificing the brief window of opportunity to create the quick one-on-one opportunity that is often possible at the beginning of a counterattack.

Also, too many strikers have a tendency to go for the far corners of the goal, putting it wide or putting it over in an attempt to avoid the keeper. The problem is that any miss eliminates the chance for rebound goals, which are a significant percentage of all goals scored. I saw a great example of how to do it properly the other day while watching Paris St. Germain playing Marseilles - at the start of the counterattack, the PSG midfielder immediately passed the ball through to a striker breaking past the defense just past the center of the field. The striker drilled a low hard shot at the center of the net, which the keeper managed to block as he came out to attack the ball. The rebound, however, went right to a second PSG striker trailing the action, who easily passed the ball into an empty net. Two chances are always better than one.

The top strikers seem to understand this. Henry of Arsenal, Inzaghi of Milan and van Nistleroy of Manchester United seldom blast away at the net, but are instead content to take hard, low shots that look more like passes and are usually directly on target. Not only do they tend to score more goals than most, they also create more scoring opportunities for their teammates. Why more players and coaches don't grasp this concept, I don't know.

I couldn't convince my coach, which was no surprise. He thought the best way to attack was to dump the ball in the corner and cross it. Considering that our two starting strikers were both about 5'7", this worked about as well as you would expect, which is to say, not at all. I don't understand system-addicted coaches in any sport. If you have Randy Moss, THROW THE BALL. If you have Jamal Lewis, RUN IT. How is this a difficult concept? And is there anything more hapless than the Chicago Bulls try to run the triangle offense without Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen or a decent three-point shooter? Well, maybe Rick Pitino trying to get a bunch of lazy NBA pros to play a Kentucky-style full-court press late in the season.

Yeah, I'll get right on that

Apparently assuming that I have nothing better to do than to respond to every atheist who writes something about me somewhere, I heard from a gentleman who wondered why I hadn't responded to a short critique that not only had not been sent to me, but concluded I was only claiming to be a libertarian and that my forthright Christian stance indicated I was truly an authoritarian. Which makes sense, as long as you assume that Christian = authoritarian and ignore all Western history as well as every political column I have ever written.

Of all the critiques I have read, I believe that one takes the cake for sheer asininity. It reminds me of those theologians who want to perform an exegesis on one particular verse in the Bible while ignoring the rest of the New Testament.

I have read every email I have received on the matter of godless morality. While I have found none of them to be in the least bit convincing, I have responded at length to the most detailed and thoughtful critiques I have received and in doing so have gone far beyond the norm for any syndicated columnist. If you still believe this equates to some sort of intellectual cowardice and that slinging petty insults suffices to demonstrate your highly and independently developed ethical system, then all I can say is please consider this an invitation to go read someone who won't question your precious assumptions.

If there is an opposite of an Ideal Reader, you are mine. "There is not a God and you're stupid if you think so" is unlikely to convince anyone over the age of ten. If I ever want to embarass atheists and their claims of inherent intellectual superiority, I'll simply write a column quoting from many of the emails I received. Prior to my responses to the detailed critiques, someone complained that I was only responding to the ones that made atheists look bad; I assure you, those examples weren't even in the bottom third.

This round is over. We'll revisit it the next time I write on the subject.

Bloody right he's a hero

Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, sent out an e-mail to some 80,000 abortion-rights advocates across the country to advertise the group's effort to protect the Austin project. The e-mail references Danze by name, calls him an "out-of-control anti-choice fanatic" and accuses him of harassing local builders and threatening to blacklist them.

"As alarming as you and I find his blacklist strategy, anti-choice activists around the country consider Mr. Danze a hero and right now, they're eagerly pursuing ways to bring his harassing tactics to more communities," Feldt wrote in the e-mail. "We've got to let friends and foes alike know that, for every out-of-control anti-choice fanatic that crawls out of the woodwork, there are thousands of us ready, willing and able to defend the essential health services that Planned Parenthood clinics provide for women and families all across this country."

Color me an out-of-control anti-choice fanatic too. Or, as I would put it, someone who is extreme about not killing children in any way for any reason. Got a problem with that, Oberleutnant Feldt? Essential health services - what a crock of propagandistic Newspeak. I have zero tolerance for the executioners of Planned Parenthood. If we were willing to carpet-bomb Dresden in the interest of preventing Germans from collecting taxes from the French, should we not at least be willing to speak out in protest against abortionettes murdering children? We need more men like Chris Danze.

I have said it before. I will say it again. Calling a feminist a feminazi is an insult to National Socialism.

The post-parodic university

From Jason Steorts at National Review: Among the more colorful figures hawking their wares at American universities is self-styled "ecofeminist" Carol J. Adams, known principally for her 1999 book The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. Adams traverses the campus speaking circuit and presents a slideshow that, according to her website, addresses "the animalizing of women in contemporary cultural images and the sexualizing of animals used for food."

Yes, this is the sort of intellectual that university officials like to bring in to speak to students. The woman actually makes her living by talking about the sexual politics of meat. Forget postmodern, this is post-parody. I wonder if she's ever been to the University of Tennessee?

Good books

DB writes: My question to you is would you mind providing a list of your favorite books or whatever book/books you are currently reading? I think it would be a great addition to your blog for all of your fans/readers out here in America. I know that I would thoroughly enjoy it. I saw where you recommended some books to a specific reader on your blog site and was hoping that you could possibly expand it. I actually had another question for you in regards to your opinion of the "The Sopranos." I know you wrote sort of a mini-review of "The Matrix" awhile ago at your blog and was curious to know what you thought of the New Jersey crime family.

I'm currently reading William Gibson's Virtual Light, while Space Bunny is reading George Eliot's Middlemarch. Yes, gentlemen, she's hot, blonde and reads quality literature to boot. My ten favorite authors right now are:

Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon is so far the best book of my generation; can't wait to read Quicksilver
Umberto Eco - the dottore, the maestro. His semiotics stuff is always interesting too.
Herman Hesse - It's not as deep as it pretends, but it's still great stuff.
Arturo Perez Reverte - Mystery or thriller? Who cares.
JRR Tolkein - I like most fantasy. This is the original and best.
Douglas Adams - It's all good, but Dirk Gently is tops.
PG Wodehouse - It's always the same book. I always like it. Read for the style, not the plot.
George RR Martin - Fantasy as history. Sandkings is a great short story too.
Tanith Lee - the best pure writer out there.
Sharon K. Penman - good historical literary candy.

I have absolutely no opinion of The Sopranos, since I've never seen it. I'm not as completely TV-illiterate as I once was, but I am still more than a little out of it where the TV scene is concerned. I rather like Dead Like Me and Scrubs, but I really haven't gone out of my way to see a show since Willow got interested in that dreadful what's-her-name on Buffy and Charisma Carpenter cut her hair on Angel. In any case, I tend to find Hollywood's incessant interest in all things Our Thing to be somewhat baffling.

UT Timeline

The College Republicans have laid out a timeline of events. I really do need to have a conversation with Ms Vaughan, as there are some fairly significant dichotomies between what she's reported to have said and what the facts appear to be.

This statement made me laugh: [Maxine Thompson] states that "I have no reason to lie about receiving a call from Ron Laffitte that Friday, and I do not appreciate you suggesting otherwise."

Um, sure you do, Dean Thompson. And I bet you don't. I'm sure Bill Clinton didn't appreciate people suggesting that he had indeed had sex with that woman either. I notice that she doesn't actually repeat her assertion that she did receive a call from Mr. Laffitte that evening.

The leftward tilt

AS asks: I'd like to get your opinion as to why college campuses are such bastions of leftism. The University of Tennessee is just one of countless examples of the political leanings in the academic world. This bias, of course, is nothing new. William F. Buckley showed the world in the 1950s what campus politics were like, and atheism was in vogue for 150 yeas before that. What causes this left political leaning?

I think there's a few factors. First, those who wind up in academia are usually not the sort of people who know in undergrad what sort of career they're going to pursue, nor are they ready to handle the responsibility of a full-time job upon graduation. So, instead of working, they avoid the harsh realities of the real world by attending various stages of graduate school and they continue obtaining degrees until they are pretty much unemployable as anything but a professor. This isn't true of all graduate students, of course, but it fits the profile of the majority.

Second, the sort of people attracted to academia are abstract thinkers. There's nothing wrong with that - I'm an abstract thinker myself - but in the absence of real-world experience or a serious dedication to supporting your theories with hard evidence, it's pretty easy for the abstract thinker to divorce himself from objective reality. This is why you still have many economics professors who are avowed Marxists despite the fact that no one has taken the labor theory of value - which only happens to be the entire base and justification for the Marxist system - seriously for over 25 years. A normal person would conclude that the whole system has to be junked since the base is disproven and the model hasn't worked anywhere in more than 100 years; the left-wing academic will continue to insist that it just hasn't been applied properly, an argument they can cling to for eternity considering that Marx was incredibly vague about things.

"And then, for reasons that I won't bother to explain, the State will magically disappear, poof, and everyone will have 70 virgins!" Right, Karl, whatever, now go take a bath.

Finally, in case you haven't noticed, many professors are still emotional teenagers. They live around 18-23 year olds, they interact with them all the time, and they like to consider themselves much younger than their real age. PJ O'Rourke has a hilarious send up of this in one of his books. As with most emotion-based thinkers, strange arguments based on mythical fairness and what Thomas Sowell calls universal justice tend to appeal to them in the same way it appeals to little kids. The truth is that life isn't fair, and the most cursory reading of history will show that it never has been fair in any society anywhere. When faced with this reality, the adult shrugs his shoulders and deals with it. The child gets very upset and expects Mommy to do something about it. Substitute government for Mommy and you will get a much better handle on how the academic Left thinks. This is why you cannot expect or hope for any degree of consistency from a leftist academic; it just doesn't exist.

The deeper truth is that, as Dennis Prager points out, "Wisdom begins with fear of God." Few in academia have either.

Curiouser and curiouser

I sent the following questions to Ms Edee Vaughan, the faculty advisor of the UT Issues Committee. Her answers should be very interesting, for reasons I shall divulge soon.

1. How were the emails sent by Mr. Rubinstein, Mr. Comstock and others reported to the Office of Student Conduct on November 14? Who did you contact at the OSC when you reported them?

2. How were the emails "misconstrued"? What is the proper way to construe the comments about shooting ragheads in the face, torturing Mr. Khalsa and the professed liberal bent of the Issues Committee?

3. Which students were "sentenced" to sensitivity training at the ICmeeting on November 17? What was the disciplinary procedure involved in the sentencing, and what, precisely, is sensitivity training?

4. What students were at the IC meeting on November 17? Was Justin Rubinstein at the meeting?

5. Were you at the IC meeting on Monday, November 17?

From the mouth of the horse's ass

Here's one of the actual emails from the now-famous University of Tennessee Issues Committee, not the most infamous one, but the one that I thought was most perfectly illustrative of the mind, such as it is, of the campus left. It was CC'd to the entire committee, which goes to show how smugly assured these jokers happen to be. The literary quality of an email should never be judged as harshly something that is written for public scrutiny, of course, but I nevertheless find some of the word choices to be so bizarre as to suggest semi-literacy. Somewhere, an English teacher is weeping. Rock on, comrade.

Subject: RE: Issues in the Beacon
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 16:49:09 -0500

fortunately someone brought a beacon to work today, so i got to see our GLORIOUS front page coverage of carlson. i was disappointed to see that the issues committee wasn't mentioned anywhere in the article, but nevertheless it was great coverage. apparently the guy who wrote the article is aware of his mistake and he has apologized for not mentioning the small detail of HOW tucker came to the university unfortunately my thirst to see the issues committee's name in print was satisfied on page five.

like most of you, i spent much of my day drafting a letter to the editor in response to the piece. however, i probably spent more time thinking about what a little brat this guy is and what i would do to him given the chance--torture that would put the spanish inquisition to shame, etc--but ultimately i don't think it would do any good. he simply isn't worth any more of our time. i think it goes without saying that we shouldn't be talking to him as much about what goes on within the committee. as he mentioned, he did apply to the committee and he was rejected (largely due to his closed-mindedness and attitude). during the interview he did ask questions about our budget and its source, which we revealed to him because it's public information that he wouldn't have to search hard for. however, it's obvious that he acquired this info (and other info) about us purely for his own interests in bashing us. as witnessed in his past bashings of campus committees, responses to his opines only warranted further insane and unfounded bashings. the WCC found that out the hard way.

i think we can learn from their situation and instead not reply to the absolute bullshit that this guy writes. to paraphrase, i make no allusions as to what this email is. this is not an attempt to change a single rejected applicant/op-ed writer's mind. this is a desperate plea to tell you that i think we're doing a fucking incredible job as a committee.

rock
--[name withheld to protect the asinine]

Caught, can I get a witness

From a College Republican at UT:

Edee Vaughan, the faculty advisor for the IC, [University of Tennessee Issues Committee] has lied to both the news media and administration about corrective actions that she took in the wake of those emails. Vaughan claims that she reported the emails to the Office of Student Conduct as soon as she read them (the day after they were emailed), and that in the next IC meeting (three days later) she took the entire committee to task for its inappropriate responses, and "sentenced" the offenders to sensitivity training.

We have found a student on the committee who is willing to swear that these are ALL lies -- that the sole purpose of the meeting was to discuss how to respond to the negative publicity, and that NO rebuke or reprimand of any kind was given to the authors of those emails. There was NOTHING said about sensitivity training -- just a reminder that they should be careful to avoid expressing those kinds of sentiments via email, because something might be "misconstrued."

Yes, misconstrued. I seem to have heard that somewhere before.... It sounds as if the spin operation was already in effect by the time I spoke with the student head of the IC.

Where credit is due

I seldom watch Fox News, and I certainly don't agree with Neal Gabler very often. But I did agree with something he said with regards to the divide between American liberals and conservatives - namely, that the ideological differences are not to be resolved with a few minutes discussion since they involve radically differing views of human nature, history and diverse other elements. It was a pleasant surprise to see that Mr. Gabler is clearly capable of deeper analysis than the average talking head, for whom "bipartisan" is a virtuous concept.

Still, Mr. Gabler's summary of the conservative mindset was incorrect. He said that conservatives wish to protect business and wealth from the people. This is a significant error, as it reveals how Mr. Gabler believes people = government. This, in 21st century America, is quite obviously no longer the case, assuming it was ever true. This is also why leftists have such trouble admitting that their ideological counterparts quite regularly use the government to kill large numbers of the people. For them, the concept creates terrible cognitive dissonance. How can the people kill themselves? And why would they?

The answer, of course, is that the two are not synonymous.

You've come to the right place

A&J write: Umberto Eco, respectable as he is, misses the point. Which books will survive, and in what edition? Over the years, I have watched libraries systematically dump "useless old books" to be replaced with post-modern literature(it hurts to call it that). To my own pleasure, I have bought many great volumes for a song. These books will not be available to the general public before long -- they will all be held in private libraries and very large university librabries, among other places. Just try to go to your small public librabry and find Gibbon, Newman, Chesterton. Won't happen.

As a request, (okay I have two) I have a 14 -year-old son with a new and blazing hot interest in good science fiction. He has asked me several times if I would ask you to recommend some good books to start reading. Would you have a moment to reflect on the age-appropriate ones, keeping the hoochey koochey to a minimum? He figures you are an expert on sci-fi taste, and doesn't want to waste time on junk. And for me, I am always looking for authoritative histories, secondary source-type...like Kitto's "The Greeks." These help me collect original sources and give me ideas to work with when teaching.

I don't know what your son has read already, but here's a few obvious recommendations for your son:

The Giants Trilogy by James P. Hogan
Foundation (only the first three) by Isaac Asimov
Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein
Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Robert Heinlein
Dune by Frank Herbert
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Neuromancer by William Gibson

For you:

Citizens by Simon Schama
Daily Life in Ancient Rome by Jerome Carcopino
Shakespeare's Kings by John Julius Norwich, also books on Byzantine Empire
The History of the Crusades by Stephen Runciman

Sempre un piacere

Take a fairy tale, like Little Red Riding Hood. The text starts from a given set of characters and situations -- a little girl, a mother, a grandmother, a wolf, a wood -- and through a series of finite steps arrives at a solution. Certainly, you can read the fairy tale as an allegory and attribute different moral meanings to the events and to the actions of the characters, but you cannot transform Little Red Riding Hood into Cinderella. Finnegans Wake is certainly open to many interpretations, but it is certain that it will never provide you with a demonstration of Fermat's last theorem, or with the complete bibliography of Woody Allen. This seems trivial, but the radical mistake of many deconstructionists was to believe that you can do anything you want with a text. This is blatantly false.

The text is open, but it's not THAT open. And the good news is that books will survive.

Orders of magnitude

Here is an example of why the government should NEVER be given any kind of planning power. This is the sort of thing that von Mises was talking about when he came up with the concept of the impossibility of socialist calculation.

At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion," wrote Steven Hayward and Erik Peterson in a 1993 Reason article. "The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $12 billion by 1990 (a figure that included an allowance for inflation). This was supposedly a 'conservative' estimate. But in 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 billion."

In what other field of human endeavor can you be off by more than 1200 percent without suffering any consquences. Even in sports, the GM who can't manage his salary cap can't expect to keep his job.

Stud-in-chief

I have my reservations about President Bush. I didn't vote for him. I won't vote for him in 2004. However, I think his gesture of visiting the troops at the front-line is worthy of praise. It's easy to denigrate this sort of thing as a PR stunt, but there's a reason that the 2nd Division's motto is "Follow Me". Say what you will about the man, but he is a leader of men. To denigrate him based on his personality is not necessarily unfair, it is, however, foolish.

I just wish I had a better idea of where it is that he truly hopes to lead us.

This sort of thing is just one aspect of what concerns me:

Nondefense spending has skyrocketed under Republican control of Congress and the White House, and critics say the outlays will hit the stratosphere with the passage this week of a drug entitlement for seniors. The Congressional Budget Office reported that nondefense spending rose 7 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, nearly double the 4 percent discretionary spending caps that President Bush insisted Congress honor.

Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, nondefense spending has leapt 13 percent — 21 percent if spending on the war on terrorism is included. And he is poised to become the first Republican president to sign into law a new federal entitlement: the $400 billion Medicare expansion to cover prescription drugs.

You're not immune, gentlemen

Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Central District of California Florence Marie Cooper,
District Judge, Presiding D.C. No.
CV-99-13100-FMC

When these events occurred, July 10, 1998, it was clearly established that the amount of force Bybee says Erath used in handcuffing her was excessive, and a reasonable agent in Erath's position would have known that such conduct violated the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., Hansen v. Black, 885 F.2d 642, 645 (9th Cir. 1989) ("[T]he officers used excess force on Hansen by unreasonably injuring her wrist and arm as they handcuffed her."). Agent Erath, therefore, is not entitled to qualified immunity on summary judgment as to Bybee's excessive force claim.

III. CONCLUSION

The district court correctly determined that Agent Erath is not entitled to qualified immunity on summary judgment as to Bybee's excessive force claim. The district court also correctly determined that Agent Erath is not entitled to qualified immunity on summary judgment as to Bybee's claim that she was unlawfully detained for 30 minutes in overly tight handcuffs that caused her pain. As to these claims, we affirm the district court's summary judgment denying Agent Erath qualified immunity.

I imagine agents for various Federal and state revenue agencies are going to start sweating once they realize the implications of this decision... if they're not immune here, they're probably not immune for the vast panoply of laws and Constitutional rights that they are violating and breaking every day in the course of their job. A government of laws, not men with guns and badges? Whatever shall we do?

The next thing you know, people will stop paying taxes that they don't owe!

Good onya, Lynne Meredith. One agent down, only 36 to go. Boy, the IRS sure needs a lot of agents to subdue one woman and a few teenage girls, don't they!

Got any doubt

...about the courts being crypto-fascist Star Chambers? It's ironic that Hollywood, in their fear of offending Islamic terrorists, love to portray bad guys as neofascists now, never mind the fact that there are plenty of the real deal already situated in the three branches of government.

"He [Judge Moran] has also warned me (by relaying a message through my attorneys) that I should be careful about what I say on my website and my email messages. He did not specify what specific speech I should be careful about. If and when he does specify what speech I should be careful about, I will let everyone know, assuming, of course, that letting everyone know what speech I am supposed to be careful about is not the kind of speech the Judge says I need to be careful about. Stay tuned."
- Joseph Banister

And here I always thought that we had Constitutionally protected freedom of speech. Such an odd thing to say, Judge Moran, especially for one presumably sworn to uphold the Constitution. And are you such a moron, judge, that you believe any true American is going to let you railroad him into jail while keeping his mouth shut like a good little victim? We're Americans, [reference to genetically unsound reproductive activity deleted], not Russians, Ukranians, Chinese, Jewish Germans, Rwandans, Bosnians, Sudanese, or Slavs, and we don't bow down to anybody except God - and some don't even do that.

Just answer the questions

I find it intriguing that the courts and pro-IRS sycophants will readily talk about how frivolous the following questions are, and how they reveal a total lack of legal understanding on the part of the questioner, but then stubbornly refuse to answer any of them. If the questions are so frivolous and simplistic, then just answer them! Sure, it may be frivolous and simplistic for me to ask you what 2+2 is, but for you to answer that Leibniz answered that question back in 1680 does not tell either a) the answer is 4; or b) you know the answer is 4. In fact, an answer like that makes me rather suspicious that you have no idea what the answer is. That, or you are terrified of what the implications of saying "4" will be.

1) Should I use the rules found in 26 USC § 861(b) and 26 CFR § 1.861-8 (in addition to any other pertinent sections) to determine my taxable domestic income?

2) If some people should not use those sections to determine their taxable domestic income, please show where the law says who should or should not use those sections for that.

3) If a U.S. citizen receives all his income from working within the 50 states, do 26 USC § 861(b) and 26 CFR § 1.861-8 show his income to be taxable?

4) Should one use 26 CFR § 1.861-8T(d)(2) to determine whether his “items� of income (e.g. compensation, interest, rents, dividends, etc.) are excluded for federal income tax purposes?

5) What is the purpose of the list of non-exempt types of income found in 26 CFR § 1.861-8T(d)(2)(iii), and why is the income of the average American not on that list?

6) What types of income (if any) are not exempted from taxation by any statute, but are nonetheless “excluded by law� (i.e. not subject to the income tax) because they are, under the Constitution, not taxable by the federal government?

And what is the response from the IRS to these six questions? Read it for yourself and see if you consider it a reasonable and credible answer. I submit that the following parody is a reasonable summary of the current situation:

Prosecutor: "Where were you on October 7th, at 5:20 p.m.?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Prosecutor: "Were you at Fred’s house that day?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Prosecutor: "Did you know Fred?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Prosecutor: "Is this your knife?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Prosecutor: "Can you explain why your fingerprints are on the knife?"
Defendant: "I didn’t kill Fred, and your accusation is frivolous."

Let's just say that on the day that the IRS goes on trial before the American people, I don't expect it to survive long.

Jonah goes off the deep end

I very much enjoy Jonah Goldberg's columns. But his most recent one, opposing the Defense of Marriage Amendment, is a howler of logic.

"The second problem with consequentialism is that it often works on the false assumption that we can know what the consequences will be. The last great constitutional disaster was Prohibition. The 18th Amendment was supposed to get Americans to stop drinking booze. People made straight-line predictions that if you made hooch illegal, people would stop drinking it."

This argument would make sense if the Defense of Marriage Amendment prevented individuals from being homosexual. In which case, it would probably not be called the Defense of Marriage Amendment, but something like the Defense of Unstable Teens Questioning Their Orientation Amendment. But homosexuals are not running around getting married despite the law, in fact, there are vocal segments of the homosexual community which are appalled at the very notion of monogamous queer commitment, which flies in the face of the more radical elements that have tended to drive the gay agenda in the past.

From a conservative and Republican perspective, I would think Mr. Goldber would support the DMA as a political wedge issue, if nothing else. But then, Republicans are too busy getting excited about selling their political souls to the AARP to spend much time lining up behind the one issue that will ensure political victory for the next generation and beyond.

It makes no difference to me. I see no reason why the government should be involved in any way, shape or form. Remember, conservatives, the State had no power to permit divorce until it was given the power to marry. Expanding government power on behalf of your own interests will ALWAYS come back to bite you in the end. This has been obvious since the days of Marcus Aurelias; it has been true since one man first held power over another man.

Jonah, they're here and they're queer. They don't want to get married. That's not what it's about.

Flashers

One of the most baffling decisions in the history of Man is the decision to REQUIRE Flash or some other form of technoglitter on your visitor's computer before you allow said visitor to access any information on your web site. I'm not a paleotechnoid UNIX guru who still insists on command line text-based Internet browsing, but I'm also not interested in anything that requires me to download megabytes of extraneous nonsense when all I want is the few bits of data that make up a company's telephone number.

The fact that the company hired a web design company to make pretty pictures bob, dip and weave neither impresses me nor makes me more likely to buy their products. In fact, the attempt to force me to install useless software on my machine in order to watch the pretty pictures only assures that I'm not going to visit their web site.

The Red Sea

From the Mogambo Guru: "I think that I am getting the hang of using a calculator and would like to, you know, show off a little bit, so I had an interesting session with a calculator. But for some strange reason, whenever I multiplied $38 billion a week times 52 weeks in a year, I got a wrong answer. Guess what I got? I know you are going to laugh when you see it, and remember that the calculator was obviously broken, as I kept getting the answer $1.976 trillion! Seeing a number that huge is like getting hit with a sledgehammer to the skull, as you realize that no sane person would voluntarily plunge his own country farther into debt at that rate - and I am talking about amassing debt to the tune of 20% of GDP here!"

$38 billion in new Treasury debt this week. Which is basically $2 trillion a year. Keep in mind that the annual US economy is only $10.4 trillion. That's where the 8.2 percent growth is coming from - growth by debt. This can only be paid off by inflation, so you would be wise to buckle your seatbelts.

Mogambo, you've got one vote for President. Mine.

Killing those fucking ragheads

Anti-Islamic hate speech? No, actually it is yet another example of the open-minded toleration practiced on campus these days. After writing an editorial on the dearth of conservative speakers being brought in by the university-funded Issues Committee at the University of Tennessee, a conservative activist who happens to be a Sikh was slagged rather viciously by the Committtee members who thought their email was secure.

"like most of you, i spent much of my day drafting a letter to the editor in response to the piece. however, i probably spent more time thinking about what a little brat this guy is and what i would do to him given the chance--torture that would put the spanish inquisition to shame" said one devotee of tolerance.

Another tireless activist for world peace concurred, suggesting ""...if you see one of those ragheads, shoot him in the fucking face."

Being somewhat technologically illiterate, these left-wing advocates of civil discourse were unaware that they were sending their emails to conservatives who did not share their desire to commit violence and torture on those whose opinions differed from their own. Now, how many times do I need to tell everyone - download GPG or PGP and encrypt your bloody email!

I actually had a brief chat with the head of the Issues Committee. She sounds like a very nice young woman, but she's obviously just beginning to learn the rules of the game. After telling me that some statements had been "misconstrued", she mentioned that she'd need to talk to her advisor first. Fair enough. I'm looking forward to hearing how they should have been construed. The Left does so love to twist the language; for a polyglot like myself, it's always a pleasure to view the contortions.

UT Deans Brown and Thompson are a little more experienced. Neither one is in the office today. I'm so shocked! At least they can give thanks for a timely Thanksgiving holiday.

What income tax

Does this sham of a court case sound anything like a government that is confident of its position before the law and Constitution? No way. The man was jailed for six months pre-trial for the "crime" of not withholding income tax from his employees, and the judge is not only shamelessly manipulating witnesses, but refusing to allow the jury to even look at the income tax code! No wonder the jury smelled a rat. I just wonder if the one hold-out from acquittal was a plant or had an IQ below 60.

Meanwhile, the corrupt IRS-federal court cabal has moved its "hearing" of former IRS agent Joe Banister to a military installation, to which all public access is forbidden in direct contradiction of Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft, 303 F.3d 681 (Sixth Circuit 2002). I imagine that the IRS-FC cabal would argue that the hearing isn't "quasi-judicial". And they're correct. It isn't judicial at all. I'm only surprised they're not holding it at Guantanamo Bay.

We are quickly moving towards the point where the income tax fraud is unmasked for all to clearly see. The IRS-FC cabal is getting increasingly desperate. The fact that they find it hard to win even when the decks are stacked will make them even more vicious until the light of truth sweeps them away altogether. By the way, someone with more time than me needs to create a repository of all these court transcripts for future use and reference. When someone does so, please let me know the link.

Amazing depths of ignorance

Evan Thomas - he of third generational Communist fame thanks to Miss Coulter and professional coward Al Franken - is quoted by Brent Bozell as saying: "I really don't get this whole debate ... anything that promotes commitment between couples, and helps the institution of the family, is a positive thing."

Meanwhile, "A Wirthlin poll from last spring for the Alliance for Marriage found 63 percent of Hispanics and 62 percent of blacks favored a constitutional amendment defending marriage." As I mentioned on Monday, this is why Hillary is sitting this one out. Forget the war, forget the economy. All Bush has to do is wave a little flag called Defense of Marriage Amendment - which no Democratic presidential candidate can support - and the ethnic minorities will desert in droves.

Sometimes the secular media reminds me of my dog. He sees what is going on around him, but has absolutely no idea why. You see, Evan, Christians are generally not huge fans of what the Bible calls abomination. If you're suprised by the overwhelmingly negative reaction to gay marriage, I'm sure you'll be shocked beyond words at their attitude towards the UN overseeing a Nobel prize-winning peace treaty signed in Jerusalem.

Oh, and there's a better way to promote commitment and preserve families. It's called abolishing no-fault divorce. Better yet, pass a law forcing the courts to automatically assign custody of the children to the non-filing spouse if they request it.

We've got the tea

Cal Thomas writes: The time when the Republican Party stood for something worth standing for is over. The "G" in GOP might as well stand for government. Smaller, less intrusive government with less spending and lower taxes is the stuff of history books and fond memories for a party that once had a purpose. But Republicans, having tasted power, are now drunk with it. Like the Democrats before them who became inebriated with the wine of success, Republicans now seem interested only in preserving their elective offices.

Truly there is less than a dime's worth of difference between the two parties.... Is it time for another revolution yet? Who's got the tea?

The Libertarians have it, Mr. Thomas. In shiploads. You are either for the use of government to control individuals or you are against it. If you are against the use of government to control individuals, instead of simply guarding their unalienable rights, you should not support the Republican party. Yes, Republicans are better than Democrats. So what? Democrats are better than Communists, but that's no reason to support them.

It's about Charlemagne

Of course the Euroelite permitted France and Germany to break the stability pact. The EU is not about economics, for all that it descended from the Common Market. A free trade zone was just the rationale for getting the ball rolling. The whole point is to restore the empire, and allow the heirs of Charlemagne to rule over Europe. This was Napoleon's dream, Hitler's dream, and is now being quietly, but methodically implemented by the faceless grey men of Europa Uber alles.

At least we have a new word

As in, I love him - though not in a Goodridge way.

8.2 percent

I don't buy this number either. Not in the least. It's called inflation, people. Get used to it.

Fred Hickey, editor of The High Tech Strategist says, "Over the past couple of weeks, I've listened to scores of tech company conference calls. In nearly every case, from Cisco to Foundry to Motorola to CDW, the story was the same - their best customer was the U.S. government."

Gee, I'm shocked. Apparently, compassionate conservatism is the kinder, gentler way to nationalize an economy.

The eye that never sleeps

As the US government claims to be building democracy in Iraq, they appear to be engaging in a little Constitutionally suspicious behavior at home as well. Deux Ego had an interesting experience yesterday.

Yes, I support the war on those who have declared war on us, or at least I will should we ever get around to declaring war as the Constitution demands. No, I do not support many of the questionable actions of the US government performed under the cover of war-making.

When did we change the name of the country to the Union of Sauron's Affiliates?

The fundamental metaphor

To translate it into UNIX system administration terms, the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz. society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand anything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack.
- Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon

This signifies nothing about Mr. Stephenson, of course, as it is usually a mistake to identify a character, even the protagonist, with the author. But it is an interesting notion, and at least tangentially related to some of the points I have made with regards to belief systems, or the lack of them.

Mailbox - the violins wail

JH writes through the tears: Even though I proudly identify myself as a liberal, I absorb as much right wing media as I can and reading your column is always good for a laugh. I notice that your bio refers to you as a "Christian libertarian". Can you please tell me where in any Christian doctrine it says that its acceptable to call names like "Lizard Queen", "snob", "cold-blooded", or (and this is my favorite) referring to someone as being "in the direct matrilineal line of Lilith, daughter of Asmodael, Hell Baron of the Seventh Circle". I attended years of Catholic school and every time I called names like that I was told to go to confession. I know that for those of you on the right its all right to think this way about Hillary Clinton because she's the epitome of evil, but I forgot liberals think the right is evil and the right just thinks that liberals are mistaken. Congratulations on raising the state of debate in America.

Since JH is confused, let me explain that my column on WorldNetDaily is an op/ed column, wherein one is expected to engage in op/ed rhetoric. Everyone knows what rhetoric is, I hope? Although I generally prefer logos, using pathos occasionally is fun and a nice change of pace. The state-of-debate point cracked me up, since editors at some of America's largest newspapers have complained that they can't follow my references or the complex sentence structure that I favor and asked if I would please - ahem- make it more accessible. I suppose JH is only reading my column since he's bored with Maureen Dowd's constant delving into Plato, Goethe,Calvino, Nietszche, Open Text, Open Source, and, of course, the Conscript Fathers.

Perhaps I should imitate Paul Krugman and just make things up on the fly:

PK: President Bush's budget will cause ten million jobs to be lost next year!
Krugman Truth Squad: Um, Paul, the budget covers the next decade. So, even if you're right, which you aren't, that's one million. As in, ten divided by ten?
PK: (freezes for a long, uncomfortable moment like a deer caught in the headlights before trying to bluff it out) How dare you question my math, fool! Don't you know I am a professor of economics? At Princeton!
KTS: So, is this Quantum Economics or something?
PK: You hateful bigots, you are stalking me! (bursts into tears)

When did I ever write that liberals are mistaken? Sure, they're mistaken about what they call themselves, as they are anti-liberal. BTW, I never even write liberal, I only use left-liberal as a partial concession to the perverted parlance of American politics. I do think left-liberals are mistaken with regards to their fundamental assumptions, which I think tends to reveal their functional - and quite frequently, actual in the IQ sense - stupidity. I also believe that their ultimate goals of egalitarianism and one-world government are deeply and profoundly evil. I do not, however, believe that JH is very familiar with my column. He's clearly conflating me with other writers of the Right, although he does appear to know enough to avoid referring to me as a conservative.

It amuses me how America's left-liberals believe they can run around calling everyone stupid,hate-filled bigots, then yowl like wounded kittens every time someone writes something insufficiently adoring about the object of their idol worship. Don't bring it if you can't take it, Penelope. And stop blubbering, Paul!

An interesting exchange

One of my secular political sisters-in-arms, DN, (she's an atheist Libertarian) wrote:

Your article regarding atheists is being discussed at the Secular Web. Thought you might want to brave the flame.

VD: Thanks, checked it out. Very little interesting there, as I've responded at length to two far more lengthy and significant critiques on the blog. By the way, please feel free to tell Anti-Creedance Front that I'm a full-contact martial artist. He's welcome to try giving me a wedgie any time he likes.

Yes, I must confess, I didn't read the thread until after sending you the link. I was then embarrassed. Lesson learned. I'll pass along the wedgie challenge. :)

I suspect DN is at least an occasional reader of the column. She knows perfectly well that I don't hate her, or atheists in general. I will say, however, that the Secular Web forum dwellers definitely appear to fall squarely into the highly irrational category. I will survive the flame.

Now there's a howler

Somehow, in writing my most recent article on Hillary, I managed to forget that she defeated Rick Lazio, not Giuliani. Thanks to reader ST for pointing this out. I've corrected the error, but the general point remains. She's TCU two weeks ago. Who has she beaten?

Of course, now that I've realized that my editor's mind is clearly occupied elsewhere, we can have some serious fun!

There they go again

"The British Left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilization against Adolf Hitler and worshipped the other [master of] genocide, Josef Stalin. It has marched for Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Andropov. It has slobbered over Ceausescu and Mugabe. It has demonstrated against everything and everyone American for a century. Broadly speaking, it hates your country first, mine second."
- Frederick Forsyth

Thank you, Jay Nordlinger of NRO, for bringing this appropos indictment to our attention. Think about it, all you self-righteous left-wing lunatics. Look at who your predecessors have supported in the past. Do you notice any pattern there? Maybe, just maybe, you might want to reconsider the accuracy of your Marxian analysis.

It reminds me of a great line from Spawn, when the demon looks at three would-be devil worshippers and laments: "why do we get all the idiots?"

But blame Shub-Niggurath on Lovecraft

Dr. DF writes humbly: Please enlighten me, o great mensa man. I've looked on Dictionary.com and encyclopedia.com and even used the Boolean feature; nada. It sounds Greek, but since you invoke some mention of Hell, I'm guessing some Dungeons & Dragons?

Being addressed like this makes it far more likely that I'll lose the Mensa reference than all the attempted slights. Seriously, it gives me shivers. Anyhow, Asmodael was simply a combination of Asmodeus and the common angelic form X-ael. I wanted to imply a name of some netherly weight, without invoking the much-overrused Prince of Darkness himself. Seriously, to judge by Hollywood, you'd think the poor Devil had no legions of fallen angels to do any of his work for him.

Believe it or not, I wasn't much of a D&D guy. More Akallabeth, Castle Wolfenstein and Wizardry. Except for: "Free Trader Beowulf... calling anyone....."

In any case, we apologize for the inconvenience.

Strange Semantics

This is the second response to The Irrational Atheist selected, from one SS. It is noteworthy primarily for correctly ascertaining that the Socrates quote actually had nothing directly to do with the subject of atheism, but more on that later. I'm not sure if the person who wrote this emailed it to me, or if someone else did, regardless, it was certainly one that demanded answer. In this case, SS is quoted in full in italics, my reply to SS is in bold.

So, someone has decided to trot out the hackneyed, unsound argument that because atheists don't have God, they don't have any (rational) foundation for morality or ethics. Woohoo! You have to wonder if these people read! I mean at all. The name-dropping doesn't convince me. Let's go through this, paragraph by paragraph, and see if there's any substance in there.

Name-dropping shouldn't convince one of anything, except that the author does, quite obviously, read. This introductory paragraph is typically meaningless chest-beating, but the last sentence indicates that SS is willing to give it a fair shake. Let's do it.

Paragraph 1: Ummm... ok

Likewise.

Paragraph 2: It's important to remember that the people doing most of the murdering in France were Christians. Most of the intellectuals, atheist or Christian, who had championed Enlightenment ideals, and were still alive when the terror began in France, were disheartened and distanced themselves from it. Ironically (given what this paragraph says), one of the few intellectuals to continue championing the Enlightenment, and to even excuse the terror, was Kant, a Christian. Remember that the Enlightenment was not, for the most part, an atheistic movement (primarily, it was an attempt to reconcile Christian and secular/scientific values). Furthermore, France wasn't the only place where the Enlightenment played out. The United States was the other, and I don't see this article mentioning the success it had here.

Some massive and unsupported assumptions here. Since atheists almost uniformly consider the deism of the Enlightenment as a significant step in the evolution of modern atheistic philosophy, I think it is odd, if not dishonest, to suddenly attempt to turn around and classify their deist heroes as religious men philosophically akin to evangelical Christians. Do Rousseau, Diderot and Voltaire truly belong to the party of those they regularly attacked? While Maximillian Robespierre did execute the avowedly atheist revolutionary leader Jacques-Rene Hebert for desecrating the altar at Notre Dame and creating a cult of Reason - hmmmm - he was no Christian. He was, rather, a deist, the very sort of quasi-religious man that atheists wrongly claim most of America's founding fathers were in an attempt to portray the early United States as a non-Christian nation. Read the Cult of the Supreme Being, which was inspired by Jean-Jacque Rousseau's deistic philosophy, and which Robespierre pushed the National Convention to adopt as France's official religion in the place of Roman Catholic Christianity, to get an insight into his thinking.

As to America, it was founded by a very different group of men. Of the 250 Founding Fathers, only a tiny percentage, between 3 and 7 individuals, were deists or irreligious. There were more Founders involved in founding the American Bible Institute than can be credibly called deists, much less atheists. 27 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence held seminary degrees or Bible school degrees and their affiliations with various Christian denominations were as follows: 34 Episcopalians, 13 Congregationalists, 6 Presbyterians, 1 Baptist, 1 Roman Catholic, and 1 Quaker. I submit that it was this divergence of allegience - between reason/deism and Jesus Christ - that accounts for the tremendous difference between the two revolutions.

Admittedly, it would be beneficial to have a better understanding of the religious affiliations, or lack thereof, of the French National Assembly and the Committee of Public Safety to support my claim. But given the strong degree of anticlericalism and the enthusiasm with which the openly religious were slaughtered, and the bloody fruit repeatedly harvested by those anti-religious ideologies that claim inspiration from the French Revolution, I stand by my assertion, pending specific information to the contrary. I would certainly welcome any research in this regard, as Simon Schama's Citizens and A Tale of Two Cities represents the greater part of my familiarity with the French Revolution. It is also nothing more than an assumption to claim that the Jacobins or the National Assemblymen were Christian, especially given that SS provides no information with regards to a single Jacobin's religious affiliation or claim of submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is a huge failure of logic for SS to assume that every individual in a Christian-dominated society is necessarily a Christian himself. By his logic, future historians might well wrongly consider him to be a Christian.

Paragraph 3: Again, pretty much everyone in the west, Christian, atheist, or whatever, puts his or her faith in science. The linguistic division of labor does require faith, but it's a pragmatic faith, and in the west, a ubiquitous one. The example in the blog (age of the earth) is interesting. I imagine most non-scientists are agnostic about the actual age of the earth, though they think it's quite old. And of course, one doesn't need to be a specialist to have good reasons for believing this (fossilized bones of animals that no longer exist, for example, is a good reason for thinking that the Earth has been around for a while, and there are plenty more). It's fairly trivial to show that all rational arguments are based at some point, in their explicit or implicit premises, on assumptions that cannot be verified. This doesn't make them irrational. Of course, the bulk of specialized science is irrelevant to most atheist's beliefs systems, and probably unknown completely, so parts of this are wholly misguided (or dishonest, it's hard to tell which).

Following the example set by HG, SS misses the point, though not as completely. He assumes that most atheists have far more information and have spent more time thinking about their belief systems than I have usually witnessed or heard them claim. One does not have to have perfect knowledge to be rational, but to use two common examples, one has to at least know what evolution or the big bang actually is in order to claim that it is the foundation upon which one's rational belief system has been constructed. Furthermore, the fact that one's faith is pragmatic and ubiquitous does not make it any less faith, or prove that one has reasoned one's way to the conclusions it provides.


Paragraph 4: I'm not sure this faith is either as blind as the religious faith (which also generally relies on experts, but is also non-demonstrable, whereas most science, outside of particle physics, is demonstrable). "Childlike" makes no sense here, either, but hey, at least it's in keeping with the tone of the article. How is it childlike, again? I'm not sure how it's irrational, either. Appeal to authority? I suppose, but it's not really that in the sense that the fallacy with that name is meant to discourage, and since most science is demonstrable, it can be rationally evaluated even by non-experts, though they presumably won't have all the facts. Also see the comments on Paragraph 3.

More failures of logic. The fact that it is demonstrable does not mean that it has been demonstrated to the believing individual. Furthermore, how can SS claim that religious faith is non-demonstrable? The Bible is no less a historical document, by any historian's standard, than anything recorded by Arrian, Herodotus or Thucydides. Indeed, the history of archeology is rife with examples of where the archeologists of the day have been wrong and the Bible has been subsequently proven more reliable by comparison - Hittites, anyone? And then there's the so-called myth of the Assyrians, too. How quickly these scientists forget! Also, many Christians will openly declare that God's power has been demonstrated to them - apparently SS is not only willing, but eager, to dismiss their testimony out of hand. Childlike, of course, is a sarcastic reference to the most perfect, unquestioning form of faith as defined in the Bible. And he's not sure that I read?

Paragraph 5: We don't? How can you know this? Is God the only good reason? Might we come up with other systems of values that lead to similar humanist conclusions? There's no argument in the article that we can't, and since plenty have, the burden is on the author of this article to show how these fail.

There is no argument that no atheist can, my argument is that the overwhelming majority of atheists can't, haven't, don't and won't. Ayn Rand has come up with a rational system of sorts. Utilitarianism, for all its lack of believability, is another possibility. However, I know many atheists and exactly none of them subscribe to either - and most are completely unfamiliar with both. In fact, none are even able to say much about their own moral systems, except to make banal claims such as "killing people is obviously bad" and assert self-evidence where none exists. Furthermore, my understanding is that the atheist position is generally that the burden of proof is on the theist to prove that God exists, not the atheist to prove that he does not. Why the sudden reversal here? Because, of course, SS' case is weak and he knows it. Is it a coincidence that the purportedly independently-reasoned moral system of the average Western atheist usually happens to mimic, almost precisely, the Judeo-Christian ethic in which he and his parents have been raised? I do not find this credible.

Paragraph 6: This paragraph seems to apply to both most atheists and most Christians (and the majority of people in general). People tend to be fair-weather moralists. I don't know any atheists who argue otherwise. Atheists don't think that not believing in God makes them less human, less prone to human fallibility.

The Christian who is a fair-weather moralist falls far short of the Biblical standards as laid forth in the Bible. The same is not true of the atheist, who simply modifies his individual moral system to match with his desires - if he is rational. The last statement is demonstrably untrue. I received many emails from atheists expressing the notion that they are better people, more altruistic, more moral and of a higher ethos because they do not believe in God. I suspect that like others who have emailed, SS needs to take more consideration of the vast breadth of the cognitive spectrum of the godless.

Paragraph 7: A value parasite? How so, again? Because he worked with the ethics inherent in his culture? Umm... who doesn't? In addition, I'm not sure the author knows what "post-facto" and "rationalization" mean, given that atheists may actually use things like consequentialist (including, perhaps, utilitarian) or altruistic considerations in determining their behavior. I imagine these things can even become internalized and automatized (they certainly seem to be in most of us), just like any other ethic. One might even argue that Chistians (and other types of believers) use similar considerations, and that their theological justifactions are "rationalizations."

A moral parasite, because the atheist is not only making use of a moral system to which he does not subscribe, but his individual modifications, taken in the collective and writ large upon the society, have the effect of poisoning it. Hence the ongoing secularization and decline of America. Who doesn't? Among others, Christians are commanded not to. "Be in the world, but not of it." Not that all, or even most succeed, but the extent to which evangelical Christians freak out those of the tolerant, PC secular media ethic demonstrates that many do.

I should have said "ex post facto" of course, but after the fact rationalization is exactly the way in which I believe most people naturally behave. I don't believe that most people determine their behavior, I believe that most people act first and think later. I find that even those who really try very hard to think first are usually too influenced by their momentary desires to perform a truly rational analysis. Everyone does this, Christians included, and I'll freely admit that some of the worst rationalizations I've ever heard have come from Christians attempting to justify their anti-Scriptural decisions based on Scripture. But in the Christian's case, this is clearly wrong and is usually condemned quite strongly by fellow Christians.

Paragraph 8: "I am saying nothing new here." No, you're not, not even close. Socrates was an atheist martyr (he wasn't really an atheist, but we'll claim him if you don't want him)? Hmmm... I wonder if the author has read the Republic. Taking that quote out of context is odd, here. It' be interesting to see if the author knows what comes next (this quote is part of a section containing one of the most interesting metaphors in Plato, leaders as physicians, and a discussion on marriage and breeding... I'm not sure if many atheists adhere to the ideas stated in this section of the Republic, and the ones who do are not alone - Eugenics was big among Christians in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century). Of course, Plato has been more influential in Christian theology and philosophy than anywhere else, and his elitism has often been a difficult to reconcile part of his political thought in all philosophical circles.

Yes, you can have Socrates. I don't believe his theistic protestations, and my reading of him is that a) the god of whom he spoke was his reason; b) the absence of gods and the ur-deity of Man was an important part of the secret wisdom. The quote, as SS and a few others with the eyes to see have seen, was totally unconnected with the subject and I used it as both a key to understanding the article as well as a test designed to weed out the lesser lights - I have not only read the Republic, but I consider it central to understanding most 20th Century ideologies. The deeper point, since I have no objection to making it clear to those who have bothered to follow the debate, is that while my argument can be rightly viewed as a defense of a religious worldview, it is not only neither new nor Christian, it is in fact synonymous with and an important part of the atheist elite's justification for their right to rule over society. And for older, non-atheist elites as well.

Paragraph 9: Religion has been used as a means of control throughout history, by the religious as much as the areligious.

Seneca said it was useful. Socrates, Voltaire and I all happen to believe that it is necessary. I believe it is almost always necessary for individual morality just as it is necessary for the morals of society, and that we are beginning to see the results of allowing the once-secret knowledge to spill out over the masses. Fortunately, in my opinion, most modern atheists are irrational, intellectually lazy moral parasites, which tends to reduce the impact given a Judeo-Christian society. Nevertheless, the post-Enlightenment world has already witnessed the bloodiest and most brutal century in Man's history. Atheists may believe this to be a coincidence; I have already stated that I do not. And as more people turn their backs on God, worse will come. The irrational atheist says never again, I say it is inevitable. And somewhere, the rational atheist asks, why should I not?

Paragraph 10: I don't know what to say to this. It's true, but irrelevant to his points about atheists. See comment on Paragraph 9. Still,

It is not irrelevant. The fact that Voltaire, hero of atheists everywhere, should greatly fear the consequences of permitting atheism to take root amongst those inequipped to handle its implications, is directly relevant to my opinion that rational atheists are likely to lead humanity to the grave. At the very least, this should encourage an atheist to consider the likely implications of his non-belief, not only for him, but for the world around him.

Paragraph 11: This is, of course, nonsense. Most atheists who have the courage to, using the language of Nietzsche, create their own tables of values now that God is dead and we can no longer use His, are not sociopaths. Granted, most atheists (and non-atheists) do take the easy road, and stick within the value systems within which they were socialized, for the most part, but this isn't necessarily irrational, and the opposite of doing so isn't sociopathy. Do most atheists not reflect on their ethical beliefs/values? I imagine that's true, but the same goes for everyone else. I don't know many atheists who would claim that atheists, as a group, are any different in this way from the rest of the intellectually lazy population.

Here SS unwittingly concedes much of the argument, despite his many protestations above. He may not know many atheists who claim this, but I do. I also have the emails to prove it. And it is irrational to "take the easy road and stick within... value systems". Irrational is defined as not rational. Rational is defined:

[adj] having its source in or being guided by the intellect (distinguished from experience or emotion)
[adj] of or associated with or requiring the use of the mind
[adj] consistent with or based on or using reason

Simply doing what everyone around you is doing, believing what everyone around you believes does not have much to do with any of these definitions, much less constructing a coherent and independent moral system. It may be reasonable to do as everyone else does in order to keep from drawing attention to yourself, but you can hardly argue that you are guided by reason, since herd animals do the same. As for sociopathy, I have no research on this, but I'm quite confident that there are more serial killers lacking religious faith than are committed Church-going evangelical Christians. As before, any non-anecdotal information to the contrary is welcome.

Paragraph 12: This is nonses, as well. Since we know from history that the Enlightement's guillotine was as much or more a Christian tool as it was an atheist one, and since the Holocaust of Nazi Germany was carried out, primarily, by nominal Christians, one wonders why they're attached to the "path of the philosopher" and attributed to atheists. For Christian-perpetrated holocausts, by the way, we don't need to look back at the Inquisition. The Balkans, or present day Africa, will do fine.

The Jacobins were not Christians, by any stretch of the imagination, as has been already discussed. Notice the choice of "carried out" and "nominal", since the Holocaust was conceived and led by atheists who explicitely desired to wipe out Judeo-Christianity. If a nominal Christian does something, it is a real stretch to assign his motivation to a faith he may not even have. The Inquisition accounted for 6,000 deaths in 356 years; hardly a Holocaust. Europe - including the Balkans, is no longer considered even nominally Christian, and the conflict there is ethnic, not religious, at any rate. Post-colonial massacres in Africa have been ethnic when they have not been socialist or Islamic; as to the pre-Colonial era, one needs to know the religious affiliation of the colonial leaders to make any such statement. SS turns out to have a very poor grasp of history.

I don't know of any studies demonstrating that the incidence of human rights violations is higher among atheists (percentage wise or in absolute numbers) than among the religious, and I doubt that if such a study were conducted we would find such a difference. This would be much more interesting if the author had actual facts/data/studies to back it up. The author is right in that the consequences of breaking away from the culturally and psychologically solid foundation of western religion is very difficult, and the consequences can be painful. Since Nietzsche, much of philosophy has attempted to build a foundation for ethics after the symbolic death of God. Some of it has been successful, and some has not. It's interesting that most atheistic philosophical movements in the 20th century have criticized science as often or more often than they've criticized religion. Rational or scientific realism is on as shaky a ground as religion, among atheistic philosophers. I wonder if the author knew this?

I agree, it would be more interesting. Maybe when I have a team of 14 researchers, I'll do just that. There is, however, the many incidents of democide committed by atheist socialist mortacracies, which in a relatively short period of time has amassed a body count unparalleled in human history. I find it intriguing that atheists are now attempting to deny any connection between Communism, socialism and atheism, when for many years atheist intellectuals were arguing for the obvious superiority of the godless State. Also, while I very much agree that for many Leftists, the State serves as a sort of god - or to paraphrase Schumpeter, there is no god but History and Karl Marx is its prophet - the State as God metaphor is a very questionable escape device for the atheist uncomfortable with the murderous results of godless state rule.

I did not know that rational realism is on as shaky a ground as religion. Philosophy is only a tertiary interest of mine at best, which is why I seldom write on it. But it is an interesting intellectual development. I left off SS' final paragraph, which is primarily an inaccurate summary of my argument and more chest-beating.

Linux and the dolce vita

I'm still running quite happily on Red Hat 9, blogging this blog with Mozilla Firebird, and writing both my columns and novels using OpenOffice 1.1. No operational problems, although I still have to switch back into Windows to hotsync my Alphasmart Dana, which has sadly turned out to be far too flaky to trust with important data anyhow. In other words, I don't bother much. There's not much to talk about, really. My machines run, I write, that's pretty much it.

I still have to get the house network finished off, but I'm waiting to try SUSE 9.0 and Mandrake 9.2 first. Other than games, there's nothing mission critical that needs to be done, just a few minor issues. Does anyone know a good way to convert .wdb or .csv files into .vcf that can be read by Evolution? I've tried two different methods so far - never got csv2vcard working properly with Ruby and everything, and a web-based form system did convert the file, but did so poorly.

No big deal, I'm just not in the mood to type all of my contacts in again.

Intellect in the machine

Here's a random thought. People have theorized that as the complexity of computers increases, it is likely that some form of machine intelligence and self-consciousness will appear. At what point, however, can we say that this is unlikely, and that it is more logical to assume that intelligence and consciousness cannot be created through technology? When a brain-like network has as many connections as the human brain, but no self-consciousness? 10x? 100x? I don't have an answer, I'm just wondering.