Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots

No child of the 70's could fail to enjoy this Cox & Forkum cartoon.

Sophistry Leads To Stimulating Discussion

Pretty good discussion going on a Telic Thoughts in response to this post:

Science and God
by MikeGene

PZ Myers has a quote from J.B.S. Haldane that he admires:

My practise as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel, or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world. And I should be a coward if I did not state my theoretical views in public. - J.B.S. Haldane

Who can argue with a brilliant scientist who has lab evidence that God does not exist? Just imagine – J.B.S. Haldane was always justified when he assumed God would not interfere with his experiments. Now we see the “scientific” understanding of God - if God exists, he should have been goofing with J.B.S. Haldane and messing up his experiments to prevent Haldane from becoming a success!

Haldane as success = God does not exist.

Darned Funny

I actually saw this on television years ago (serendipitously, since I almost never watch tv), and serendipitously, I have stumbled on it again on YouTube.

Geneva For Thee, But Not For Me

Instapundit highlights a very good point:

READER STEPHEN CLARK has a question:

A simple question asked in the context of recent events and prior discussions of the Geneva Accords: Why hasn't the International Committee of the Red Cross demanded access to the Israeli soldiers taken in Gaza and in northern Israel? The same could be asked for any other relevant organizations as well as governments who've recently been concerned with the treatment of non-uniformed combatants.

Certainly the soldier taken into Gaza is the responsibility of the quasi-Palestinian state and surely deserving of Geneva protections. Hezbollah while not a state or quasi-state has at least as much stature as Al Qaeda and it seems that the international community believes that Geneva extends to Al Qaeda's representatives; so, why would it not also extend to uniformed soldiers held by Hezbollah which, I believe, has declared itself to be at war with the state of Israel.

Because, of course, the Geneva Conventions only apply against Israel, and the United States, never to their benefit. You can look it up.

posted at 07:40 AM by Glenn Reynolds

In The Event Of The Rapture, This Blog Will Not Be Updated

Title of this post came from a comment to this Ace of Spades post:

End of Times: Strategic Think-Tank Predicted Iran May Attempt Biblical/Koranic Apocalypse Scenario
– Ace

...which looks a bit like what we're going through right now.

All to plunge the world into "blood and fire and chaos" in order to hasten the coming of the Muslim Messiah.

Gee whiz, I thought that left-wingers hated religious fundamentalists with apocalyptic messiah complex. And yet, so little mention of Ahmadinejad.

See also this interesting Ace of Spades post entitled "Arab's Letter To His Palestinian Brothers: The War Is Over, And Israel Won".

Amusing Picture Of The Day

Found this on Drudge. I guess the baby is a Democrat.

Click to zoom:

Tolerance

You'd think representatives of a miniscule 2% minority would think twice before upping the ante with tolerance-destroying tactics such as this:

A group that supports gay marriage, knowthyneighbor, has created a website displaying the names of more than 100,000 signers of a petition that calls for the state Constitution to be amended to prohibit same-sex marriage.

Knowthyneighbor's tactics are controversial, with critics alleging that knowthyneighbor is making the names of same-sex marriage opponents public in an effort to expose or intimidate them. The group's founders say they are simply promoting civic discourse.

The names of 43 Provincetown residents are listed on the website. Most of the petition signers attend St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church, which serves the Portuguese community and others in town. The Catholic Church has helped lead the fight against same-sex marriage.

One St. Peter's parishioner, Yvonne Cabral, was verbally accosted last Friday by Provincetown Magazine publisher Rick Hines after Hines learned that Cabral signed the petition, according to police.

Police Chief Ted Meyer plans to seek charges of disorderly conduct against Hines, who saw Cabral shopping and loudly called her a ``bigot," according to both Hines and Meyer. Other people who signed the petition -- and subsequently had their names posted on the same website -- said manure has been spread on their properties in recent months, Meyer added.

All parties involved agree that Cabral was shopping and Hines was buying a hotdog when Hines told Cabral that she was a bigot.

Police said the matter was under investigation and declined to provide the Globe a copy of the police report.

The Rev. Henry J. Dahl, pastor at St. Peter's, heard about what happened to Cabral, and about another parishioner who said she felt intimidated after a flier was stuck on her car in the middle of the night with a list of the names of petition signers -- including her own. Dahl decided to call the police chief.

``People who signed the petition, I think they knew what they were getting into," said Dahl. ``There was a certain expectation of knowing that when you make a statement like that, there could be certain consequences that follow."

``But this was a dramatic experience," he said, referring to Cabral's encounter with Hines.

Hines said the matter was being blown out of proportion.

``I knew she signed the petition and I ran into her, and I gave her a piece of my mind," said Hines.

Hines added: ``After being pushed and prodded your whole life for being gay, you run into someone you know sees you as a second-class citizen and it's human to respond. . . . I regret that it happened that way."

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, To Bankruptcy We Go

Charles Hugh Smith has an amusing, cartoon-illustrated housing bubble post called "Welcome To Fantasyland" (you may have to scroll to find it, I couldn't find a link to the individual piece).

Fútbor, Otra Vez

A letter to the American Spectator:

Reid Collins makes good points about soccer. May I try my hand, as it were, or is that a yellow card?

Having enjoyed playing soccer so much in gym class, I determined to watch as much of the World Cup competition as I could to see if I could awaken some of that zeal vicariously. I couldn't, but at least now I think I know why.

First, the game is just so imprecise!

The very best players in the world managed to:

* Attempt passes that were intercepted about as often as not;

* Attempt head contact with the ball and get only air, about as often as not;

* Attempt shots on goal that went wide left, wide right or high, and I do mean high, almost without exception; and, second;

* Drop to the ground and writhe as if in the throes of flaming death upon contact by an opponent, much, much more often than would the best coached NFL quarterback or a major league batter plunked by a 95 mph fastball in any but his tenderest parts, or any hockey player at any level (this has nothing to do with imprecision, but everything to do with American distaste).

These results are virtually indistinguishable from the results observed on the makeshift "pitch" of McClellan Elementary, circa 1965. In the latter case, fun was had by all except Mr. Rosensteel, who could be observed rolling his eyes in disbelief at the ineptitude (and disgust at the "sissiness") rampant on his treasured playing field, as he waited patiently for the curriculum to dictate a change to instruction in more American and rewarding pursuits, even if that only meant running laps.

Daring not to venture slurs on the athletic abilities of our global community, I can only hazard that the Good Lord (or evolution, if you must) gave us hands for a reason, or reasons. One of those reasons must be to propel a ball of some description toward a goal, however defined or indirect. If He had meant our feet for such a purpose, He (or "it") would have made them prehensile. Even the strictest proponent of evolution must admit that we humans didn't get to the top of the food chain by virtue of anything done with our feet or by using our heads as battering rams.

Compare and contrast the precision of a touchdown pass, an NBA three pointer off a fast break or a slider not quite down and away on a 3-2 count with what was witnessed in the World Cup competition. These are the things Americans want to see. Many of us will even settle for a pitch to the green from deep in the bunker by Tiger Woods, or Tony Stewart threading the needle between the wall and Jeff Gordon. Good Lord, I hate to watch tennis, but it sure doesn't tolerate wildness, and the highlight reel isn't about missed shots.

We want to see strategy, tactics and execution that pay off or have bad consequences. Make a bad pass in soccer and the game drones on. Make a bad shot on goal in soccer and the game drones on, as does the utterly incessant chanting of the apparently hypnotized fans. Do anything but score in soccer and the game drones on, with intercepted passes, missed shots and extra writhing when the lads get distressed in addition to tired.

That brings me to my other point. What's the point of having a ninety-minute game with limited substitution on a field bigger than a football field, when so many games must be decided by shootouts? I have no clue what that's about, but it has to be great for concession sales.

I can also hardly believe that these well-conditioned athletes can't bear the pansy hits that send them into histrionics on the grass. I think they just get tired and milk the so-called "hits" for a break. In sixth grade, guys like that just stayed away from the ball, but at the level of the World Cup, that would hardly do, would it? Would it help to pad these guys more fully?

I could go on with some speculation about how the success of any country's soccer team seems to vary inversely with that nation's war record and leadership in the defense of freedom, but I don't feel like looking it up. However, seeing Italy and France playing for the championship raised the issue in my mind. I stand prepared to be corrected.

Americans aren't used to the imprecise, lollygagging style of soccer. We don't have hours long dinners, months long vacations or siestas at noon. We got to be the most productive nation on the planet by means of strategy, tactics and execution, and we didn't tie our hands behind our backs or reward those with thick skulls, except for boxers. Even then, how many of the great heavyweights have come from the rest of the world?

Sure, put the World Cup on TV. Take the kids to practice and games. Support your local high school or college soccer team. On the other hand, don't feel guilty because you 'just don't get it' about soccer at the 'highest levels'. After all, it looks pretty much like soccer at the lowest levels.

-- Mark Fallert
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

'What For' Given

Excellent.

We Could Use The Entebbe- Era Israel Again

Good FrontPageMag piece, includes this retrospective about the Entebbe raid:

Thirty years ago on the night of July 3rd and morning of July 4th in 1976, Israeli commandos flew into the heart of Africa to the old terminal building at Uganda's Entebbe Airport and in a lighting operation freed 103 hostages.

Some 250 passengers had been hijacked a week earlier aboard Air France Flight 139 en route from Athens to Paris by the Marxist-Leninist PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Once in control of the plane, the terrorists diverted the flight to Idi Amin's bloodthirsty dictatorship, after refueling supplied by the already veteran terrorist regime of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. The terrorists gradually released most passengers, retaining only those with Israeli passports or Jewish surnames plus the Air France crew of Captain Michel Bacos, who refused to abandon any of his charges.

The German and Arabs hijackers – this was a comradely joint project of Baader-Meinhof and the PLO – demanded the release of jailed Palestinian terrorists in an assortment of Israeli and European jails and threatened to start murdering the hostages if their demands went unmet. With the passengers captive in the middle of a seemingly inaccessible African tyranny, there was no reason to suppose anyone, the Israelis included, would have any choice but to cave in.

Instead, only hours before the deadline, Israeli commandos flew the 2,500 miles to Uganda in four C-130 Hercules military transport planes, taking the terrorists and their Ugandan enablers entirely by surprise. The terminal building holding the hostages was stormed, seven of the ten terrorists were killed, along with about 40 Ugandan soldiers, and all but four hostages were safely spirited away. The Israelis neutralized Amin's air force to avoid a catastrophic pursuit by Ugandan pilots, eleven of their MIG jets being destroyed on the ground. All Israeli commandos returned alive but for their field commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu.

A United Nations Security Council debate had achieved little but it did at least provide a platform for a denunciation against the terrorists and their supporters by Israel's UN Ambassador, Chaim Herzog, while Israel basked perhaps for the last time in international acclaim and sympathy for resolutely fighting terrorism. No international police action had procured the hostages release and no one had been able to offer Israel more than tea and sympathy. As so often before, the Israelis had demonstrated that they relied on no one except themselves to fight for their own.

Medawar, Eden, and Ulam Are Just A Bunch Of Bush Voting Theocratic Morons

Men of their caliber have no place commenting on the feasibility of Darwinian evolution. After all, they don't have degrees in evolutionary biology.

From Evolution News And Views:

Mathematicians and Evolution

As recently highlighted here, mathematics is an academic locale where scientific skepticism of Neo-Darwinism can survive the current political climate! Discovery Institute recently received an e-mail from someone commenting on the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism List where over 600 Ph.D. scientists from various fields agree that they are "skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life." This skeptic of evolutionary-skepticism e-mailer wrote "I'm a mathematician and certainly am NOT qualified to support such a statement. Only evolutionary biologists are qualified to respond here." While the Dissent from Darwinism list does contain individuals trained in evolutionary biology, the question remains "Is the objection valid?"

The truth is that mathematics has a strong tradition of giving cogent critique of evolutionary biology. After all, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is fundamentally based upon an algorithm which uses a mathematically describable trial and error process to attempt to produce complexity. Population genetics is rife with mathematics. In fact, one criticism of the alleged transitional fossil sequences for whales is that they represent evolutionary change on too rapid a timescale to be mathematically feasible. It seems that there is no good reason why those trained in mathematics cannot comment on the ability of the Neo-Darwinian mutation-selection process to generate the complexity of life.

One of the best known mathematical forays into evolution was the 1966 Wistar Symposium, held in Philadelphia, where mathematicians and other scientists from related fields congregated to assess whether Neo-Darwinism is mathematically feasible. The conference was chaired by Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Medawar. The general consensus of many meeting participants was that Neo-Darwinism was simply not mathematically tenable.

The proceedings of that conference, Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (Wistar Institute Press, 1966, No. 5), reports various challenges to evolution presented by respected mathematicians and similar scholars at the conference. For example, the conference chair Sir Peter Medawar stated at the outset:

"[T]he immediate cause of this conference is a pretty widespread sense of dissatisfaction about what has come to be thought as the accepted evolutionary theory in the English-speaking world, the so-called neo-Darwinian Theory. ... There are objections made by fellow scientists who feel that, in the current theory, something is missing ... These objections to current neo-Darwinian theory are very widely held among biologists generally; and we must on no account, I think, make light of them. The very fact that we are having this conference is evidence that we are not making light of them."

(Sir Peter Medawar, "Remarks by the Chairman," in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (Wistar Institute Press, 1966, No. 5), pg. xi, emphasis in original)

Various scientists, including some mathematicians, proceeded to comment about problems with Neo-Darwinism:

"[A]n opposite way to look at the genotype is as a generative algorithm and not as a blue-print; a sort of carefully spelled out and foolproof recipe for producing a living organism of the right kind if the environment in which it develops is a proper one. Assuming this to be so, the algorithm must be written in some abstract language. Molecular biology may well have provided us with the alphabet of this language, but it is a long step from the alphabet to understanding a language. Nevertheless a language has to have rules, and these are the strongest constraints on the set of possible messages. No currently existing formal language can tolerate random changes in the symbol sequences which express its sentences. Meaning is almost invariably destroyed. Any changes must be syntactically lawful ones. I would conjecture that what one might call "genetic grammaticality" has a deterministic explanation and does not owe its stability to selection pressure acting on random variation."

(Murray Eden, "Inadequacies as a Scientific Theory," in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (Wistar Institute Press, 1966, No. 5), pg. 11)


"[I]t seems to require many thousands, perhaps millions, of successive mutations to produce even the easiest complexity we see in life now. It appears, naively at least, that no matter how large the probability of a single mutation is, should it be even as great as one-half, you would get this probability raised to a millionth power, which is so very close to zero that the chances of such a chain seem to be practically non-existent."

(Stanislaw M. Ulam, "How to Formulate Mathematically Problems of Rate of Evolution," in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (Wistar Institute Press, 1966, No. 5), pg. 21)


"We do not know any general principle which would explain how to match blueprints viewed as typographic objects and the things they are supposed to control. The only example we have of such a situation (apart from the evolution of life itself) is the attempt to build self-adapting programs by workers in the field of artificial intelligence. Their experience is quite conclusive to most of the observers: without some built-in matching, nothing interesting can occur. Thus, to conclude, we believe that there is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged within the current conception of biology."

(Marcel Schutzenberger, "Algorithms and Neo-Darwinian Theory," in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (Wistar Institute Press, 1966, No. 5), pg. 75)

These are potent arguments from academics qualified to assess the mathematical ability of a random / selective process to produce complexity. While evolutionary biologists and other types of biologists can yield many insights into evolutionary biology, scientists other than biologists, such as mathematicians, are most certainly qualified to comment on the feasibility of Neo-Darwinian evolution.

Well, no, they're obviously not. They have not undergone peer review and passed muster with the folks at Panda's Thumb, and Talk.Origins.

The Utter Horror

Joel Stein has an unwanted flag planted on his lawn (in fairness, it's definitely uncool of the real estate agent that did this).

Lileks has some fun with Stein's column:

On a related note, as long as I’m feeling screedy: It’s the hapless and jape-free Joel Stein, writing about finding a flag planted on his lawn. (Via Villianous.) It’s called “Eek! A flag on my lawn,” which suggests that the entire column was dictated from a chair on which Mr. Stein stood, shifting from leg to leg in panic. Anyway, he dithered about how to dispose of the flag, until

my wife, Cassandra, got sick of this conversation. So she plucked the flag out of our planter and threw it away, not even in the recycle bin. This is a woman who hates both political parties.

I’d say she hates a bit more than that. We continue:

It threw me into a moral tizzy. Why didn't I want a flag in front of my house? Why didn't I ever have one before?

Substantial moral issues rarely manifest themselves in a tizzy, but we are in Eek! Territory. In any case, he probably didn’t want a flag in front of his house because he regarded them as the rightful property of gray-haired buzz-cut men named Ed with watermelon bellies and white T-shirts who gave Joel a friendly nod, but always made him feel as though they knew he couldn’t tie a decent knot, and only shined his shoes for funerals.

Would it be wrong to, late that night, assume that my next-door neighbor would enjoy two flags outside his house?

If a blunter axe ever split an infinitive, I’ve never seen it. We learn next the mysterious origin of the contagion; it’s from a realtor with a name that’s feelin’ fresh:

Massengale told me that in the town she grew up in near St. Louis, most people kept a flag up all year. Even though I've seen tons of neighborhoods that do this, I've never actually lived in one. I've also never lived in a neighborhood that had those flags reminding you of the holidays and seasons.

Those flags.

Note: they don’t remind us of the holidays, they exemplify the holiday. And as far as I know, no one puts out a flag on behalf of a season. Not even wabbit season.

In fact, I've always looked down on those places.

That’s the key line, right there. Not because he admits to looking down on people who put up a flag on the Fourth; that’s hardly unusual in the thin moist demographic stratum he occupies. It’s not that they don’t like the flag, necessarily, and it’s not that they don’t enjoy the Fourth, but put the two together and people might get the wrong idea. No, what amused me was the sight of a writer who’d burrowed so far up the aperture of his warm narcissistic cocoon he has no idea how he comes across. I have liberal friends who fly flags without apology or worry, because they’re Americans, because it’s the Fourth, because they love their country, and because they don’t believe that trinity is the property of the other side. Which it isn’t. When it comes to struggling to get the flag on the pole just right, we’re all in this together. But to Mr. Stein, these are people to be looked down upon. Places deserving of a sniff and a snort. Cringe, O Banner-deck’d exurb jingo-huts, at the withering Looking Down Upon, exacted with bone-dry scorn by a professional thinkerator.

Who continues:

If you need semaphore to inform each other that it's going to get hotter in the upcoming months, nobody is putting a magnet school in your community.

I can imagine the patented Hugh Hewitt death-by-literal-interpretation radio interrogation:

HH: My guest is Joel Stein! Joel. you said people put up flags to tell each other that the weather’s getting warmer. Do you really believe that?

JS: Well, no, it was, a joke, maybe not the greatest, although -

HH: But that’s what you wrote. Tell me, why do they put them up on Labor Day? To tell neighbors it will soon get cooler?

JS: Again, no, it was a joke. I suppose they put them up to celebrate socialists getting them a new three-day weekend, or something.

HH: But you think people who put up flags are stupid, because they won’t get magnet schools. Do you think magnet schools should only go in neighborhoods were no one puts up a flag?

JS: Again, Hugh, you’re reading too much into it –

HH: I’m just reading what you wrote. How many houses have to put up flags before you assume the neighborhood is too stupid for a magnet school?

And so forth. He concludes:

So the reason I didn't want to put a flag outside wasn't because I disapprove of our international policies. It was because I didn't want to associate myself with the other people who put them up, and with their unquestioning, tribal, us-versus-them, arrogant mentality. Though I love being American, I don't want to proclaim it as the sole basis of my identity.

I suspect, perhaps unfairly, that “I love being American” is as deep and profound a statement as “I love the warm feeling of freedom I get when I pee in the pool.” Not that he would want public urination in a communal locale to be the sole basis of his identity, of course, but that’s how I see him now: one guy bobbing in the water, alone among many, a private smile on his face, thinking: like I’m the only one.

Hanging a flag is a sign of an unquestioning, tribal, us-versus-them, arrogant mentality, eh? FDR would have stood up from his wheelchair just to walk across the room and slap you silly.

Frisch Incident Summed Up

American Spectator article is as good a quick summary as I've seen.

Going All Nomad

Mark Shea coins a new term in this post:

I wrote that I try to be no more scrupulous than the Church. For this reason, frankly, I also just. do. not. care about so much that vexes Traditionalist types about the liturgy. If it's reasonably celebrated with reverence, I'm not going to get a twisted bowel if the music sucks or there's a banner in the sanctuary. I'm here to worship God, not to go all Nomad and sterilize imperfection.

Star Trek (original series) reference, if you didn't know.

These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For

The Berkeley comedian George Lakoff seems to be of the opinion that politics is really all about Jedi mind tricks. He thinks that Republicans excel at these, and that Democrats need to learn the secret. His latest book attempts to sell the concept: "If you are not free to take your neighbor's money, then are you truly free?" You see, American is all about freedom, and the socialist Dems and their redistributionist thievery is the true essence of this freedom.

Anthony Dick at NRO reviews the book.

excerpts:

Lakoff’s approach to politics makes him a pioneer of what might be called “clinical liberalism.” Instead of engaging conservative arguments directly and seriously on the merits, he treats conservatism as an affliction that needs to be cured. Thomas Frank took a similar approach in his recent book What’s the Matter With Kansas?, in which he essentially took it for granted that Republican policies are bad for most people, and then puzzled over why these people continue to vote for Republicans anyway. One way to resolve this paradox is to divide conservatives into two rough taxonomic categories: the small elite of evil geniuses who spend their days spinning sinister plots, and the masses of ignorant dupes who can be tricked into following them. Conservatives can thus be diagnosed as either evil or stupid — masters of sinister language manipulation, or hypnotized victims of it. In either case, Lakoff wants to conclude, their ideas can be dismissed out of hand.

Lakoff’s latest proposed cure for the common conservative is on display in his new book, Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea. Reading it, one has to struggle mightily to suppress the impression that the author is an intellectual charlatan who specializes in passing off banalities as genuine insights. The book is a conceptual muddle, with a persistent strand of historical inaccuracy; Lakoff’s popularity is an indictment of his admirers.

A few short sentences from the book capture Lakoff’s central argument: “Freedom and liberty are progressive ideas that are precious to Americans. When the right wing uses them, it sounds as if aliens had inhabited, and were trying to take possession of, the soul of America. It is time for an exorcism.” Lakoff is thus claiming that leftists are the guardians of the traditional American idea of freedom, and that conservatives are using their dark arts to try to trick the American people into embracing a new and dangerous definition of freedom.

Lakoff is mercifully clear in explaining what his “progressive” conception of freedom includes: “Freedom is being able to achieve purposes,” he writes, “either because nothing is stopping you or because you have the requisite capacities, or both.” He elaborates with a barrage of italics: “Freedom is the freedom to go as far as you can in life, to get what you want in life, or to achieve what you can in life.” This, he explains, means that freedom has a significant positive component: “Freedom requires not just the absence of impediments to motion but also the presence of access. . . . Freedom may thus require creating access, which may involve building.” What Lakoff is describing, in other words, is a type of “positive freedom,” in the sense that it requires the provision of certain goods and services to citizens to ensure that they have the capacity to achieve their goals. On this view, you aren’t “free” unless you have been provided with what you need in order to be successful.

...

By the time Lakoff gets to this point, it hardly comes as a surprise that his conception of “freedom” has boiled down to nothing more than a left-wing wish list of big-government programs. As you wade through his book, you steadily develop the sense that it is something quite different from a serious analysis of the concept of freedom. It is instead a how-to guide for left-wing rhetoric — an exhibition of how progressives can manipulate language to advance their political agenda. At one point Lakoff boasts: “You give me a progressive issue, and I’ll tell you how it comes down to a matter of freedom.”

Here Lakoff reveals his grand design: to show his fellow left-wingers how to perfect the very type of sophistry that he claims the Right has used so effectively. In an effort to harness the emotional force of the term “freedom,” he’s willing to twist the word’s meaning to serve his political ends without any concern for the underlying truth: How has freedom actually been understood throughout American history? How do most Americans understand freedom today? What is the most sensible way to define freedom, apart from partisan goals?

...

The American Revolution was fought in the name of liberty, conceived as a basic type of freedom quite different from the one Lakoff describes. The freedom of the American Revolution was understood as liberty in the negative sense, defined by the lack of external interference and the absence of tyranny. The Founders had no interest in a sprawling welfare state. The Constitution was carefully crafted to limit the scope of government, the powers of which were narrowly defined within a federalist framework. There wasn’t even a provision for a federal income tax — it had to be added by constitutional amendment in 1913.

Perhaps because he is dimly aware of such uncomfortable facts, Lakoff occasionally attempts to account for them by portraying his “positive freedom” as simply a more robust and updated version of the original American ideal — much like the “living Constitution.” But in fact, the Founding Fathers anticipated the possibility of a government powerful enough to provide substantial entitlements to its citizens — and they were adamantly opposed. In 1787 Thomas Jefferson explained that “the policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.” The Founders were wary of government power because of its coercive nature and its susceptibility to abuse; as George Washington famously wrote, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

...

People who don’t have food or health care or education have not been deprived of freedom. What they lack is not freedom but material goods and services. This is a matter of vocabulary, not ideology. The court of common word usage simply rejects Lakoff’s claim that being free means having the capacity to achieve one’s aims. It would be wrong, for example, to say that Lakoff lacks the freedom to write an insightful book about politics. What he lacks is the ability.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

TenNapel Turns 40

And ruminates.

Darned Near Not A Parody

Just a shade too daft to appear in Time Magazine rather than The Onion. Maybe in a few more years, though. H/T Mark Shea.

Colbert On Religion

Amusing.

Monumental Ludicrosity

John Hawkins highlights one of the most credulous, downright stupid pieces of experimental reasoning I've ever seen. Might as well say that because you can't get a sunburn from a lightbulb, sunburns are impossible. Or, as a commenter to Hawkins' post said:

I have a toy electric race car which is 1/60th scale. It moves at 20 mph. Hence, it would be very easy to build a full size electric car that travels at 1200 mph. But since such a car doesn't it exist, what I conclude is that oil companies are engaged in a nefarious conspiracy to prevent high performace electric cars from reaching the market.