Is Bing the Next Thing?

I saw a commercial for Bing.com today, the new Microsoft search engine. (It also bills itself as a "decision engine," which horrified me. But since I have some decisions to make, I went there immediately.)

"Bing" is a good choice of name. Everyone likes Bing Crosby. It's a name people warm to, no matter who has it. And it can easily become a transitive verb, as the name "Google" did, but as Yahoo did not.

The first thing I did was a video search. I wondered, will it come up with YouTube, and nothing else? Here is my first search result. It is Harvey Mansfield explaining his discovery of the thought of Leo Strauss and of the joys of ancient political philosophy. He explains the difference between the ancients and the moderns. "The modern political philosophers--even those like, say, John Locke who look rather conservative to us today--were all fundamentally revolutionaries."

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Harvey+Mansfield&qs=n&docid=884465795117&mid=CBD66E67094150C7E302CBD66E67094150C7E302&FORM=VIVR5

Yes, this is a YouTube video (I found no embedding), but there are also videos from AmericanAcademy.de, Boston College, and Comedy Central (I kid you not).

The photo is that of Leo Strauss (1899-1973), German émigré, University of Chicago professor, and the political philosopher who rediscovered the careful reading of great books, and radically confronted the problem of modernity.

The Road to Serfdom

Hayek's classic treatment of the titanic struggle between government control and human liberty resonates more truly every sad day of this era of Hope and Change. (How's that working out for you, by the way?) I'm thinking we should call it what it is--an era of Coercion and Tyranny by would-be despots.

Give a listen to this PAC ad for a startling rendering of the facts we now face in this struggle over how we are to be governed. If we don't change course, we will soon have no say in anything that comes down from on high, except to ratify it after the fact. Our lords and masters will simply dictate to us, in the manner of Latin American dictators or Iranian mullahs. And hasn't Obama been inordinately deferential to these guys by the way?

America Conforming to the 80/20 Rule

Listen to this conversation between a guy disputing his Verizon bill with a Verizon rep AND then the Verizon supervisor. The Verizon people simply cannot understand the difference between 0.002 cents and $0.002, thus they charged him 100x what they should have. In the end, the supervisor calls it a "difference of opinion"(!).



How can the republic--and our liberties along with it--survive with this sort of thing going on?

Remember Pareto's Principle, or the 80/20 rule. This rule is that a minority of input produces the majority of results. I suspect that 20% of the population is carrying the other 80%. Twenty per cent work hard. 20% are competent. 20% pay almost all of the taxes.

That is not what made America great.

*******
Harold adds:

I hope someone at Verizon has the good sense to be embarrased at this exchange, which simply has to be heard to be believed. Adam Smith famously said "there is a lot of ruin in a country", and here in this recording of mathematically challenged employees of one of the largest high-tech companies in the world, whose entire business of digital communications is based on the understanding and manipulation of numbers, is a very large example of such ruin. It is unknown how much ruin is too much--Smith did not speculate on that, but I'm pretty sure he would be horrified to look into the future and see the enlightened, educated, and scientifically advanced nation he watched being born turn out illiterates like these two Verizon employees unable to distinguish a dollar from a cent. Maybe their paychecks should be rendered in cents instead of dollars.....

Global Warming in the Darnedest Places

Global warming, if it exists at all, may be a big, inescapable black hole of apocalyptic fate. It seems that even using the Internet is warming the planet at an alarming rate.

In "Greening the Internet," CNN reports that,

Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross, an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University who studies the environmental impact of computing...estimates every second someone spends browsing a simple web site generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one....

A 2007 report from research firm Gartner, for example, estimates the manufacturing, use and disposal of information and communications technology generates about two percent of the world's greenhouse gases -- similar to the level produced by the entire aviation industry. Anti-virus software firm McAfee reports that the electricity needed just to transmit the trillions of spam emails sent annually equals the amount required to power over two million homes in the United States while producing the same level of greenhouse gas emissions as more than three million cars.

"Most people don't appreciate that the computer on your desk is contributing to global warming and that if its electricity comes from a coal power plant it produces as much C02 as a sports utility vehicle," said Bill St. Arnaud of Canarie, a Canada-based internet development organization. "Some studies estimate the internet will be producing 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gases in a decade. That is clearly the wrong direction. That is clearly unsustainable," added St. Arnaud.

People who read this and who are ecologically concerned and climatologically devoted must come to feel like young, Roman Catholic Martin Luther in the confessional. He was tormented by his inability not to sin. "I sin (produce carbon emissions) every moment of every day; I sin (produce carbon emissions) in thought, word, and deed; I cannot stop sinning (producing carbon emissions)."

At what point will these preachers of ecological doom utterly despair? Of course, when Luther despaired of his own efforts to overcome and correct his sin, he could turn to a savior: the crucified, risen, and reigning Christ who is offered in the gospel. But crusaders against global warming who find they are themselves warming the globe whichever way they turn, inescapably and ever increasingly, have no choice but suicide and to recommend the same to others.

If we see Al Gore leading streams of people to Jonestown, Guyana, it's time for intervention.

********
Harold adds:

Along with the idiotic hyperventilating over anthropogenic warming and the thought that we will somehow push the climate past a tipping point beyond which we cannot survive, comes the equally lunatic list of things such global warming is in turn causing. Here is an astonishing list of consequences someone has collected in one place for your horrified reflection, and hopefully, as David suggests, to get you to confess your sins and repent your profligate carbon dioxide polluting ways. Just the "A"s on this list will have you in Luther-like despair: Acne, agricultural land increase, Afghan poppies destroyed, Africa devastated, Africa in conflict, African aid threatened, African summer frost, aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pressure changes, airport malaria, Agulhas current, Alaska reshaped, moves, allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), anaphylactic reactions to bee stings, ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink, Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk, anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear, Arctic tundra to burn, Arctic warming (not), Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased,

Nostalgia for an America That Once Was

In these days of Hope and Change, which are increasingly short on hope but scarily long on change, and that not for the better; in these days of change, those of us obtuse enough to prefer the virtues and distinctions of a better, vanished country are feeling nostalgic for a robust America, sure of itself, and not in need of an Apologist in Chief to go round to our enemies talking softly, throwing away the stick we once wielded, and attempting to emplace a therapeutic state to anesthetize the nation's pain. There are many ways to tabulate our decline as a nation, many of which have found their way onto this blog, it being the habit, I suppose, of conservatives not only to desire to conserve what has been hard won, but perhaps to be overly suspicious of the new. David and I attempt to point out here what is worth keeping of the old (much), and what is worth accepting of the new (not much).


It is an interesting paradox then, or perhaps a mere irony, that a nation unhealthily in love with the New, the Next, and the Novel, has at the same time become increasingly averse to risk, seeking primarily through the magic of legislation to remove the possibility of all sorts of harms, from manufactured items to services offered, from environmental catastrophes to man-caused disasters, in the words of one of our foremost Ministers of Risk Aversion.


This month of July marks an anniversary of one of the most spectacular--perhaps the most spectacular example of risk taking by an America unafraid of risk, and this year marks a generation-defining 40th anniversary of that event. I speak of the lunar landing of July 16, 1969, prior to the birth of most of you reading this. America was a different country then than the one you know, even though most of the social and cultural pathologies we struggle with today had their genesis in the '60's. What we still had then that was superior, that has not been passed down like most of the rest of the patrimony of self indulgence bequeathed by the baby boom generation (my generation) was the confidence--and the absolute courage in the face of enormous, incalculable risk--to proclaim to the world that we would put a man on the moon before the decade was out.


In a joint session of Congress in 1961, President Kennedy announced it in these words: ‘First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.’ He went on to say, and I'm paraphrasing from memory, that "we choose not to go to the moon and the other things we are doing because they are easy, but because they are hard."


That was electrifying then, and electrifying now. We demonstrated to the world--most especially the bellicose Soviets--that our achievement potential far exceeded anything they or anyone else in the world could hope to attain. The American way--ordered liberty under law, free markets and capitalism, and the largest possible scope for individual achievement, made us the indisputable hegemon of the globe, one which could be trusted for enlightened leadership not only politically but technologically. It is one of the accomplishments that will forever define America at the height of it powers, able to lead humanity and advance human history, and only the most purblind critics dismiss the value of the space program to America's sense of itself.

I remember that July night 40 years ago when the Apollo 11 mission touched down on the moon, a gripping historical event for a teenage boy just awakening to the wider world. My authoritarian father, never one to waffle on bedtimes, or much of anything else for that matter, let me stay up to watch the epochal event on television. We could hardly believe it, floundering for words adequate to what unfolded so agonizingly slowly through the night. I understood my father in a different way after that night, having shared a first ever event in the history of mankind, watching as he showed outwardly the same pride, astonishment, and philosophical reserve I was feeling myself. The whole nation knew it was touch and go, that any number of catastrophic failures could render the transmission mute, the staticy black and white picture dark.



I was thus taken by the nostalgic and elegiac "Monochrome" (listen here, track 24), a song by a ninety's era band, The Sundays, which describes another man's youthful experience of America's greatness and history's advance in July of 1969. David Gavurin, the writer, even titled the album "Static and Silence", pointing to Monochrome as the important track on a cd mostly comprised of the usual Brit pop inanities (albeit nicely styled inanities).

It's four in the morning, July of '69
me and my sister
crept down like shadows
they're trying to bring the moon down to our sitting room
static and silence, and a monochrome vision

They're dancing around
slow puppets, silver ground
and the world is watching with joy
we hear a voice from above and it's history
and we stayed awake, all night

And something is said and the whole room laughs aloud
me and my sister, looking like shadows
the end of an age as we watched them walk in a glow
lost in space, and I don't know where it is

They're dancing around
slow puppets, silver ground
and the stars and stripes in the sand
we hear a voice and it's history
and we stayed up all night

They're dancing around
it sends a shiver down my spine
and I run to look in the sky and
I half expect to hear them asking to come down

Oh, will they fly or will they fall?
to be excited by a long late night.

Give a listen to this song, and get a feel for what America was capable of when she was confident, on the move, leading the world and history--and able to inspire people the world over.
Will America ever surpass this achievement? Not with leaders stuck in a "post" mentality--postmodern, post-Christian, post-America-as-world-leader. Parodoxically, or perhaps merely ironically, it will require a renunciation of progressivism and a resurgence of conservatism to make America a risk taker again, by reverting to the past virtues that made the true audacity of a moon landing possible.

***********
David adds:

This clip includes Kennedy's moon challenge before the joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, but also the image of the moon landing that Harold saw on TV. Read the text of it here.



"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations--explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon--if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there."

-- John F. Kennedy, Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs, May 25, 1961

Here is Kennedy's 1962 "We Choose To Go To The Moon" Speech:



"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.' Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."

-- John F. Kennedy, Rice University, Sept. 12, 1962

Funny Flair

I don't accept "flair" on Facebook (buttons that say and depict things, and you collect them) because I think they are a waste of time (along with "poking" and personality tests). But I just read my wife's flair, and I found these ones really funny.

"War never solved anything...except fascism, communism, genocide, slavery, tyranny..."

"Silly liberal, paychecks are for workers."


"No thanks, I already have a Messiah."


"If guns kill people, do pencils misspell words?"

"Sarcasm: it beats killing people."

"I notice that everyone that is for abortion has already been born. -- Ronald Reagan

The Virtual Generation and Their Corresponding Selves

My wife, Jessica, recently posted this question to her Facebook friends in her "status update" regarding the effect of electronic social networking on relationships.

Do these constant updates meaningfully communicate to the people we love, or are they narcissistic compulsions brought on by an increasingly detached and disconnected society in which real life is being submerged under a weighty flow of chat, IM, email, twitter, and other forms of virtual reality?

Her colleague at the school, Jesse Clements, gave what I thought was a wise response.

As long as one primarily recognizes the playful superficiality of this type of discourse and does not mistake it for "meaningful" communication (as so many teens do), then it is harmless and even useful. But as I begin to notice kids who think simulating the symptoms of Tourette's at each other is adequate conversation, I have to wonder whether Facebook has completely erased any sense of entire personality that, say, a letter requires one to put forth. Given my virtual nostalgia for the epistolary age, I am enticed by this new kind of exchange but find it an inadequate, fragmented reincarnation. Letters were also vehicles for the creation of persona but at least one needed to be responsible for that creation and follow up on it. The new format provides too many opportunities for teens especially to hide behind broken or borrowed signposts as they do their clothes. When they see their friends at school, no one demands--it isn't even expected--that there be a correlation of selves.

Jessica Innes (B.A., Grove City College) teaches humanities at Grace Christian Academy, a classical Christian school in Merrick, NY, on Long Island. Jesse Clements (B.A., New York University) teaches humanities and Latin. Both have graciously given me permission to post the exchange.

Where Are The Manly Men For Public Office?

It is sad that it takes a woman these days to tell a man how he ought to behave. Dorothy Rabinowitz tells us "What Sanford Should Have Said" (Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2009).

"I come before you in what is clearly a predicament, but without, I hope any pretense. There's no pretense in having an affair -- affairs are real, very compellingly so. There are lies, yes -- to one's wife and family and staff -- but that's a different story. And while I'm on the subject, let me say the only apology I plan to offer in public is to the members of my staff I left in confusion about my whereabouts with nonsense about hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

"I have no intention of babbling about mistakes, or about problems of exhaustion and stress that could have led to my affair -- and no intention of standing here, like so many dolts before me, looking vacant and miserable, as though I'd just come through some kind of punishment camp that left me brainwashed.

"I had an affair, not an overnight encounter -- and an affair, as you ladies and gentlemen of the media know -- is about falling for someone in a way that makes you forget about everything and everyone else. It's true for men, it's true for women.

"I knew what I was doing, and, yes, I loved it, and all its pains, too. That is an affair. It works till its over, and the price can be high. I don't expect to allow that price to include talking about this to the media, or answering their idiotic questions about how my wife feels, or whether I've talked to my children, or whether I can still imagine myself a contender for the presidency.

"Furthermore, I've seen too many breast-beaters in my situation deliver public apologies to their wives and children before crowds of reporters. I have no intention of taking part in any such bizarre -- not to mention shameless -- spectacle. A man who apologizes to his wife and children, who holds forth tearfully about having betrayed them, for media consumption, is, anyway, too lacking in dignity to hold public office of any kind.

"So let's understand this. I plan to straighten my tie, button my jacket, maybe buy a new suit, and go forward to do what I have to do. Life's complicated, ladies and gentlemen, but there's work to be done. I'll have nothing further on this, count on it.

"All the best."

Rabinowitz knows what a manly response to the situation would be because, as a woman, she knows what a woman admires in manliness.

Now that Hillary Clinton has fired off her last round, are there any men left to take command in America? Let's not look to Sarah Palin to save us.

Memories of Canada

Another Dominion Day has come and gone. It is what foolish people tell us we should now call "Canada Day." The folks at The New York Times who wish that Canada would absorb America, and not the reverse, featured statements on their op-ed page from eleven Canadians on what they miss about their country ("Our True North"). Most of it is grumping about America by politically leftist Canadian expats.

Rick Moranis simply despises everything associated with whatever remains of British North America.

David Rakoff, an author, misses all the free stuff from the government. Perhaps I misread him. Perhaps it’s the moral superiority of having a government that treats its citizens like men who still live at home, and whose mothers still cook and clean for them. The generous welfare state. Other than that, he misses a particular mint that you can’t get here. A great nation indeed.

Sarah McNally, a bookstore owner, misses Canadian literature (which of course she can read in the United States). She says there is a national conversation in CanLit that you don’t see in American lit. But that's because Americans know who they are. Canadians are constantly in anguish about their identity. But if you reject your founding principle, i.e. British North America as a unique and noble project, an interminable identity crisis is sure to follow. It is interesting that, despite the superior worth of this literature and its importance to Canadians as a people (supposedly), she says that it “probably wouldn’t exist without government support.” What does that indicate about the sustainability, or even the reality, of Canada as one people? All the same, the government tells Canadians who they are supposed to be and what they’re supposed to like. I don’t miss that.

In a likely unintended political faux pas, Lisa Naftolin, a creative director, expresses her fondness for a Britishism, the “u” in color. She likely understands holding onto that "u" as an act of defying American cultural imperialism. What she doesn't see is that for the last fifty years and into the foreseeable future, Canada has three, and only three, models from which to choose for its identity: America North, British North America, or post-modern Euro-North America. Led by its left-wing intellectuals, Canada has chosen the Euro-model, and so is following (though not mirroring) Europe in its economic, moral, spiritual, and demographic problems.

Musician Melissa Auf der Maur, after mentioning cheese and pâté, recalls fondly the Canadian cultural mosaic in contrast to the evil American melting pot. The concept of the cultural mosaic as a national virtue was invented by the Trudeau government as a way of defusing the French-English conflict. In the 1970s, my high school taught us this like a catechism. They told us that we are not two nations, but a blend of many nations. As result, however, we became no nation. Americans are more of a melting pot because they have noble and ennobling principles worthy of embracing: political, economic, and religious liberty. It has nothing to do with ethnic food, traditional clothing, and folk music all of which people are free to cultivate and, much to everyone's enjoyment, they do.

Sean Cullen, a comedian, misses hockey highlights, “the height of civilization.” It is said that Canadian culture can be summarized in two words: hockey and beer. Perhaps an overstatement.

Malcolm Gladwell of The New Yorker (I should have known that a man named Malcolm could not have been born in the U.S.A.) misses the “true” account of the American regime and it’s founding history. According to this view, George Washington, Patrick Henry, and John Adams were just “ungrateful tax cheats.” The revolution had nothing to do with the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence. Isn't it strange that such a hoax could produce such an energetic and world-transforming nation?

Kim Cattrall’s career as an actress is finished. All she did was remember childhood games on beached logs, and failed to make any political point about global warming, acid rain, American economic imperialism, or anything like that.

Tim Long, a writer for “The Simpsons,” misses Canadian snow, but he has to throw in a jab at American health care (which people travel from around the world to use, by the way). In the end, he has one of the best reflections.

When I was a child, it wasn’t unusual for my 15-minute walk home from school to begin under clear skies and end in a blizzard. I remember once, when I was 8 years old, stumbling into my house, my hair covered in powder and my eyelashes frozen together, and screaming, “Why do we live here?!” My mother took my face in her warm hands and said, “Because it’s where people love you.”

Bruce McCall, a writer and illustrator, and A.C. Newman, a musician, miss certain foods. For Newman, it is Dai Ching bean curd or bean sprout chow mein, unobtainable in their familiar perfection outside Vancouver. McCall misses the Coffee Crisp chocolate bar, and he supplies a delightful appreciation and history of the confection. These are honest men. Aside from friends and family and particular terrains, food is what people really miss from their homelands. The rest is mostly political trumpeting, which in this article is all from the left.

I see my family from time to time. My friends have grown up, become family men, and set off on divergent paths. The familiar places have all changed. Toronto's downtown is more crowded, and the University Theatre where I worked as a blue-jacketed boy is gone. Georgetown isn't 1971 anymore. There's no going back.

But I miss Toronto fish and chips. Tender, flaky Halibut encased in thick, crisp, golden batter. Greasy, floppy fries. Also fresh, baked Whitefish from Lake Huron. Yum. Heaven, though its glory and chief delight is Christ himself, is nonetheless described as a banquet. I pray that the feast involves these Canadian delicacies.

But as for this world, with eyes turned now toward the fourth of July, I am grateful to be in the land of liberty and I would not have it any other way.

TKC Grads Hit the Presses

Two recent graduates from The King's College in New York City have shown up in prominent print this week.

Anthony Randazzo (Class of 2008) published "The Myth of Financial Deregulation: Government action caused the economic crisis, not the free market" in Reason Online: Free Minds and Free Markets (June 19).

For the past nine months, Wall Street critics have painted a damning picture of the housing bubble as the product of deregulation and reduced governmental oversight. To read the Obama administration's new financial sector regulation overhaul proposal, the government didn't have anything to do with the current crisis. According to this view, our economy wouldn't be facing a recession with almost 10 percent unemployment if the government had been more involved with the market. This picture is about as historically accurate as the famous portrait Washington Crossing the Delaware. ...

The core problem of the regulatory proposal is its view of the causes of the crisis. Everything is built on a belief that the market failed and that deregulation created a system of excessive risk and irresponsibility. Ironically, it was government action that created incentives for financial firms to be less risk adverse, not a lack of regulation. As Washington prepares to debate regulatory overhaul this summer, it is more important than ever to wrestle the myth of deregulation to the ground.

Given all the talk of deregulation, you would expect to find dozens of deregulating laws put in place over the past few years. Surprisingly, there have only been three major deregulatory actions in the past 30 years. Ultimately, the data points to bad regulation as complicit in the creation of the financial crisis, not deregulation.

Those three major deregulatory actions were the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 (co-sponsored by then-Rep. Charles Schumer, as Randazzo nicely observes), and of course the 1999 Glass-Steagall Act.

Anthony Randazzo is a policy analyst for Reason Foundation. Read his Reason archive here.

David Lapp (Class of 2009) gives us "For Better or for Worse: When Marriage Vows Get Creative" on the Houses of Worship page of the Wall Street Journal (June 19). (I have previously cited Mr. Lapp in my obituary for Richard John Neuhaus for his words introducing Rev. Neuhaus at his King's College Interregnum address.)

In this custom-made vows market there is plenty of opportunity for mockery, although it is also easy to dismiss the writing of one's own wedding vows -- or farming them out to professionals -- as a harmless exercise, just another way for a couple to personalize their love for each other....

But let's imagine for a moment that, instead of reciting the oath that his 43 predecessors have taken, President Barack Obama had insisted at his inauguration on personalizing it, perhaps replacing "I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States" with the more flexible "I will try as hard as possible to do the job of president of the United States." That sounds a little more natural and honest, he might have argued: How does he know if he'll always be able to live up to his word? Besides, he might have stated, "The traditional oath is what every other president has said. I want mine to be original."

We, the people, would have been outraged -- and rightly so. The very specific words our Constitution requires the president to recite demonstrate the gravity of the obligations he assumes. They can't be reduced to the whims of one person.

Lapp draws attention to the place of marriage within a larger community, and, in a Christian context, within a covenant community. Also, he points out, he vows people write for themselves often reflect their own immaturity. The vows certainly express who they are as a couple, but they do not express who they should aspire to be, drawing on the wisdom of those who have preceded them in marriage, some of whom are present at the ceremony. "The more casual attitudes toward the vows are probably a symptom of our more casual attitude toward marriage."

I"m glad he was able to give Dietrich Bonhoeffer some spotlight, who told one couple, "it is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love." Words to the wise.

Lapp presents this practice of writing your own vows as something new. But I seem to recall that it was featured on an episode of All In The Family in the early 1970s when it became faddish. Certainly the practice of shopping for vows on the Internet is new. That reduces wedding vows to the level of a greeting card sentiment. Do people even know what a "vow" is?

So there you have it: two Christian philosophico opinion shapers for the twenty-first century.

The Health Care Power Grab and the GOP

The Congressional wheels are turning to give us a government-run health care system before year's end. Everything the Obama administration is planning seems to threaten to smother what is left of our liberty, squander our prosperity, and lay us prostrate before our enemies abroad. The health care issue is no exception.

George Will argues that the President, like his party, has a "dependency agenda" ("The Stealth Single-Payer Agenda," Washington Post, June 21, 2009).

Why does the president, who says that were America "starting from scratch" he would favor a "single-payer" -- government-run -- system, insist that health-care reform include a government insurance plan that competes with private insurers? The simplest answer is that such a plan will lead to a single-payer system. ... The party of government aims to make Americans more equal by making them equally dependent on government for more and more things.

Will brings out the dishonesty in President Obama's rationale's for this government initiative: competition for a system with 1300 providers competing with each other, and coverage for the 45 million uninsured, almost all of whom are either illegal aliens or could get coverage if they wanted it, whether by enrolling in an existing program or just buying it. Yuval Levin and William Kristol expand on this in "Dare To Defeat ObamaCare." President Obama said recently: " One of the options in the exchange should be a public insurance option...[because] if the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and keep prices down."

Levin and Kristol point out what should be obvious to everyone.

It's an interesting statement. We had thought that the role of government was to set rules for honest private competition, which does keep prices down and improve products. And there are reforms that could improve the important rule-setting role government should play, and could increase private competition and transparency. But Obama wants government to be one of the competitors--in the alleged interest of honesty and price reduction. When has a government alternative produced these results?

Consider where this argument leads. Why not a government bread company to keep food prices down and keep food producers honest? Why not a government construction agency to keep home prices down and home builders honest? Why not as parallel government auto industry? Oh, but we have one of those. And a financial sector too. Obama's deceitfulness is disheartening, but only to those who expected better from him.

The Obama plan is so shrouded in terrors that not only does no Republican support it, but several Democratic Senators have positioned themselves against it, and it is opposed also by the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, and AHIP, the association of insurance providers.

If ObamaCare fails to pass, Levin and Kristol see then a window of opportunity then opening up for a market-based Republican alternative, one this is more consistent with and even supportive of American liberty.

Karl Rove lists many of these criticisms of the government's health care reform proposal in "How to Stop Socialized Health Care: Five arguments Republicans Must Make." Above all, he says, the power grab would be irreversible. In "ObamaCare Isn't Inevitable," he shares the results of a Resurgent Republic poll that shows Americans generally satisfied with their health coverage, and suspicious of a government run health system and the significantly higher government spending that would attend it.

Americans are increasingly concerned about the cost--in money and personal freedom--of Mr. Obama's nanny-state initiatives. To strengthen the emerging coalition of independents and Republicans, the GOP must fight Mr. Obama's agenda with reasoned arguments and attractive alternatives. Health care must actually be an issue that helps resurrect the GOP.

This leads us to Roberta Herzlinger's paradoxically titled article, "Why Republicans Should Back Universal Health Care" (The Atlantic, April 13, 2009). At first glance she seems to be making her peace with some form of government run health plan, but in fact she merely shows how the Republicans can pitch a market based system as universal coverage--and do it truthfully--and save the country at the same time. "With one brilliant foray, Nixon converted the massive threat posed by the isolated China into an asset, secured a favorable mention in history, and stripped the Democrats of a key issue. By embracing their own brand of universal health coverage, Republicans can do the same."

The health insurance system is approaching crisis proportions.

• "millions distort the efficient allocation of labor in our economy by opting for jobs in dying, big companies that offer health insurance, rather than productive ones in small companies that do not."

• "our employer-based health insurance system forces American businesses to pack our massive health care costs ... into the cost of their exports, a huge albatross in a globally competitive economy"

Though most Americans want a better system, and employers would love to be free of the responsibility for providing and paying for employees' health benefits, the public nonetheless has "substantial concern about the Democrats' reliance on universal coverage through a government-controlled system like Medicare." In view of the cost of a government-run, Medicaid style program, the public is also concerned about the inevitable rationing of services. Herzlinger points out that, "the truly sick constitute only 20 percent of health-care users, but account for 80 percent of health-care costs," and so the sick are "a politically vulnerable target for cost control through rationing."

In addition, either doctors will flee the country or people who would otherwise become doctors will choose a more lucrative profession, leading to a doctor shortage and waiting lists for everything from general practitioners to surgery.

There will be far less money for research. "Venture capitalists will find it too risky to invest in markets where one payer controls prices."

So Herzlinger tells the GOP to seize the opportunity to "offer a consumer-controlled universal coverage system, like that in Switzerland."

• "the Swiss choose from about 85 private heath insurers"

• "the Swiss poor shop for health insurance like everyone else, using funds transferred to them by the government"

• In that system, "The sick ... pay the same prices as everyone else in their demographic category"

The bottom line: "This consumer-driven, universal coverage system provides excellent health care for the sick, tops the world in consumer satisfaction, and costs 40 percent less, as a percentage of GDP, than the system in the US."

For more on Herzlinger's efficiency producing, consumer driven, liberty oriented proposal, see my post from February 2008 on Herzlinger's books and her address at The King's College, "Hope for the Health Care Mess."

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Global Warming Debate

When I was in high school, a friend of mine who was distressed about all social and political conflict and human suffering in the world once asked, "Why don't we get six or seven scientists together, figure out what's wrong with the world, and then just do what they say?" Perhaps we could take a trial run at that proposal with something that pertains strictly to natural science. The question of climate change, its nature, direction, and human consequences, should do just fine. Kimberley Strassel in The Wall Street Journal and Paul Krugman in The New York Times both recently summarized what we know about this issue, appealing to the discoveries of esteemed scientists.

So they must agree on the what's what of the matter, right? Uh, no. They could not be more sharply divided. Indeed, Paul Krugman calls opposition to the Waxman-Markey energy bill that the House just passed "treason against the planet" ("Betraying the Planet").

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.

He states our situation in the gravest terms: "we’re facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself;" and he asks,"How can anyone justify failing to act?"

Kimberley Strassel is not so unsettled over the matter ("The Climate Change Climate Change"). She denies that this is a conflict between scientists and global patriots on the one side, and opportunists and know-nothings on the other.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

Scientists have found that climate change has stalled and disasters have not materialized. Political leaders have been sobered by the economic crisis and are reassessing the panic.

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

With this much passionate disagreement over climatology, I would not expect much consensus from a commission of scientists studying moral and political matters. Perhaps scientific inquiry is not as separable from moral and political issues and the passions that attend them as we would often like to believe.

Take a second look at Harold's post to which I added a response, "Baby, It's Cold Outside!" We reflect on Australian geologist and mineral economist Viv Forbes' caution, "What we need to fear is a return of the cold, dry, hungry ice ages."

Harold adds:

It seems the Aussies are far enough out of the way to be safe from the cloud of miasma surrounding the climate debate hussled up by European and Amercian socialists. Two other Australians, Ian Plimmer (a scientist and author) and Senator Steve Fielding are mentioned in a great piece by Robert Tracinski, "Could Australia Blow Apart the Great Global Warming Scare?" .

Plimmers book, Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, The Missing Science, is just about to be published in the US. It looks to be the one to read to get the arguments straight. Fielding was sceptical of the warming science, and decided to take a look for himself. Would that our own legislators had the intellectual curiosity and honesty to follow the actual science.

As to David's rumination, "Perhaps scientific inquiry is not as separable from moral and political issues and the passions that attend them as we would often like to believe" see Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions where he argued strongly for the "sociology of knowledge"--i.e., that scientific inquiry is not in fact seperable from the passions, morals, and politics of the scientists.

David adds:


A student has just directed my attention to this at The Heritage Foundation: "An Inconvenient Voice: Dr. Alan Carlin."

Ever hear of Alan Carlin? Probably not, and that is the way the Obama Administration wants to keep it. Dr. Carlin is an Environmental Protection Agency veteran who recently wrote a damaging report, warning that the science behind climate change was questionable at best, and that we shouldn’t pass laws that will hurt American families and hobble the nation’s economy based on incomplete information.

Despite its promise to put science above politics, the Administration has suppressed Carlin’s report, banned him from writing or speaking about climate change, told him to forget about attending any meetings that addressed his main job function—climate change—and gave him a new assignment: updating a grants database. One supposes that, by dedicating its distinguished scientists to data-entry tasks, Obama’s EPA is able to free up true-believing interns to do its research.

Here is a CBS News report of the suppressed report and gag order.

Kimberley Strassel has given this injustice and public disservice even greater attention in "The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic" (Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2009). "The global-warming crowd likes to deride skeptics as the equivalent of the Catholic Church refusing to accept the Copernican theory. The irony is that, today, it is those who dare critique the new religion of human-induced climate change who face the Inquisition."

Dr. Carlin earned a B.Sc. in physics from CalTech and a Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T., and has been working in public policy since 1967.

In the comments section of this Heritage Foundation post, Tim from Australia writes:

Do you think that the alarmists have a good case ? This is the answer you get when you ask them for the evidence:
1) “Your not a scientist, therefore you have no right to ask the question”,
2) “There is something morally wrong with you to even to ask the question. Your putting us all at risk”.
3) “The time for debate is over”.

There never was a debate. The real problem here is poor thinking in the western world. We simply don’t tolerate any debate anymore. Instead governments attempt to outlaw dissenting voices or at least condemn them. That’s what happens when the media becomes the de facto policy makers. It’s really very simple;

1) Media scares public with doomsday stories
2) Political parties assess public mood by focus groups and polls
3) Political parties make policy based on results

I hoped Obama would be a leader but it seems like he just looks like one. Where’s the substance?

If a janitor at the EPA wrote a piece supporting doomsday global warming scenario he would be held up as expert of some repute. No doubt he could be sighted for his/her historical studies of the increasing water levels in the toilet bowl.

These global warming skeptics in scientific academia now know what Christians are suffering who question the frail dogmas of the evolution establishment.

Waxman Markey Malarkey

In case you haven't heard, the global warming/carbon tax/21st century energy/giant leap forward cap and tax bill passed the House of Reprehensibles tonight, otherwise known as the Waxman Markey bill. If implemented, it will destroy this country's economy. Chances are slim that it will pass the Senate, but it is a non-zero probability, as the eggheads say. That means we are still very much in danger from the misdirected thinking, false science, ill will, and libido dominande (lust for power) of members of our own government. The Democrats, led by the One, intend to reduce this nation to the level of just one of 191 nations on earth. No manifest Destiny, no American Exceptionalism, and no more status as lone super power. We are on the way to becoming the most populous banana republic on earth, with corruption and demagoguery second to none. Give Barack and the Nancy Boys that much; they are bringing to their anti-Americanism the American predilection for swinging for the fences, going all-out. If you are shooting for a corrupt regime, pull out all the stops! More is never enough! If some is good, more is better! Like some kind of crazed craps player, they are trying to run the table, jamming into law legislation no one has read. How many time bombs do you think might be hidden in a 1200 page bill that no one has read? Is this outrageous to you?

How does any of this line up with our constitution, let alone the natural rights philosophy that underpins it? This is tyranny and usurpation, and the direction should be clear to all by now. No good has ever accrued from having a government with this much power. Our constitution was the pathbreaking innovation that formed a turning point in history. Madison's sacred fire of liberty is being systematically smothered under the wet blankets of unconstitutional intrusions and outright power grabs like the energy bill just passed, the upcoming health care legislation, and the fait accompli of government control of the auto and finance industries.




Give a listen to the Heritage Foundation's analysis of this mess, along with Rush Limbaugh's commentary. And then call or write your Congressman.

Your Children Will Arise and Turn You In

In an earlier post, "Life Under the Regime of Science," I shared this MasterCard "Priceless" ad to which Jonah Goldberg in The National Review drew my attention. It features a child instructing his father in how to shop in an environmentally responsible way. But the father is not asking for the advice. The cute child is presented as wiser than his young, unshaven, slightly goofy looking father who we are supposed to believe is clueless and careless. "Making dad a better man: priceless."



A reader in Ottawa, Canada, alerts us to a similar ad that was aired in our neighboring country to the north where individual liberty is viewed as a dangerous notion among those who think only politically pure thoughts.



Mr. Glennie shared these insights:

In Canada here, there are `public service announcements' that feature the `scientist' / TV host / environmental nut David Suzuki.

In this spot, Suzuki is seen sitting (in a treehouse, apparently in the middle of the night) with a group of children, who are letting him know how they are `reducing their carbon footprint.'

Then, one of the children whispers to Dear (Leader) David: `Jimmy's parents don't believe in conserving...'

Beyond the obvious question as to why a 70-year-old man would be in a treehouse at night with a group of children unrelated to him, it shows the totalitarian mindset behind present-day `environmentalism'.

After all, the lad isn't informing on "his own" parents, but those of someone else.

It is startling that neither Suzuki, the producers of the spot, nor yet the energy company that subsidizes the production cost, would have stopped to think about these things.

There is an interesting little detail they throw in. When one of the children addresses him respectfully as Dr. Suzuki, he interrupts and insists that she call him "David," and then the conversation continues. Why would Powerwise* take this extra step in undermining adult authority among children? (This "Call me David; Mr. Suzuki is my father" attitude is common enough as it is.)

*According to their website, powerWISE is funded by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, Ontario Power Authority and local distribution companies.

Iran Truly Rocks the Vote

This is a moving video and musical tribute to the Iranians who are protesting for their democratic rights in Tehran.



People don't invest this level of passion and bloodshed only to call it day and resign themselves to a sham democracy. With the right leadership, this uprising could bring significant change and introduce an enduring spirit of liberty that previously was dormant and unaware of its strength. Notice that the protests involve everyone from university students to middle aged women swinging handbags.

Chatham House and the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland has released an analysis of the disputed (let's say it: "stolen") Iranian election poetically entitled, "Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election." Here is a summary of what they discovered:

• In two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100% was recorded.

• If Ahmadinejad's victory was primarily caused by the increase in voter turnout, one would expect the data to show that the provinces where there was the greatest 'swing' in support towards Ahmadinejad would also be the provinces with the greatest increase in voter turnout. This is not the case.

• In a third of all provinces, the official results would require that Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, all former centrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of former reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two groups.

• In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas. That the countryside always votes conservative is a myth. The claim that this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces flies in the face of these trends.

Note: "Whilst it is possible for large numbers of voters to cast their ballots outside their home district (one of 366), the proportion of people who would have cast their votes outside their home province is much smaller, as the 30 provinces are too large for effective commuting across borders. In Yazd, for example, where turnout was above 100% at provincial level, there are no significant population centres near provincial boundaries."

CNN reports on it here.

The Iranian government could have engineered a squeeker, but not such a close one as to require a recount. However that would have called into question what they see as the obvious superiority of the theocracy as it stands. It should be loved by the people of the Islamic Republic, and so they could not stomach rigging any outcome other than one that clearly expressed that love. But, of course, given the obvious and widespread popular dissatisfaction with the government, their overstatement made the lie utterly transparent, the uprising inevitable, and the ferocity of the uprising deep and sustained.

The video is set to Pat Benatar's "Invincible," the theme song from the film, "The Legend of Billie Jean" (1985). Music and words by Simon Climie and Holly Knight. The song appears on "Seven the Hard Way" (1985) and "Best Shots" (1989), a compilation album, as well as the film's soundtrack. (I have not seen the film and I do not plan to see it.)

These are the lyrics

This bloody road remains a mystery
This sudden darkness fills the air
What are we waiting for?
Won't anybody help us?
What are we waiting for?

We can't afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It's a do or die situation
We will be Invincible

This shattered dream you cannot justify
We're gonna scream until we're satisfied
What are we running for?
We've got the right to be angry
What are we running for?
When there's nowhere we can run to anymore

We can't afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It's a do or die situation
We will be Invincible
And with the power of conviction
There is no sacrifice
It's a do or die situation
We will be Invincible

Won't anybody help us?
What are we running for?
When there's nowhere,
No where we can run to anymore

The song then repeats itself.

Perhaps thirty years after Komeini's Islamist Revolution history will repeat itself, but more constructively.

The Voice of the Iranian Uprising

Photo: YouTube

I recall the revolutionaries of 1979 saying to America, "The blood of our martyrs drips from your fingers." The shooting of Neda Agha-Soltani on Saturday turns what were no doubt Ahmadinejad's own words thirty years ago back at himself.

Neda (her name in Farsi means "the call" or "the voice," which is inconvenient for the regime) was a young woman in her twenties, engaged to be married, attending the protest with her father. She was gunned down by the government that should have been protecting her life and liberty. The blood streaming from her body has become a symbol of a nation suffering under a tyrannical government.

After her death come the reverberations of the Shi'ite mourning cycle. Robin Wright of Time Magazine reports:

The cycles of mourning in Shi'ite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat — a way to generate or revive momentum. Shi'ite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the Shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles.

Read the front page report in The New York Times: "In a Death Seen Around the World, a Symbol of Iranian Protests."

The Return of Christian America Again

Marvin Olasky's* cover article in the recent World, "The Sixth Wind," responds to recent (gleeful) speculation at Newsweek that Christianity in America may be coming to the close of its 400 year history (Jon Meacham, "The End of Christian America," April 4, 2009).

Olasky sees Christianity not as dying but as catching its second wind. More precisely its sixth wind. The first was the pilgrim faith that met our shores in the earliest colonies. The second and third were the First and Second Great Awakenings (1730-55; 1790-1840). The fourth was the revivals emerging from the Civil War and transforming the cities in the late nineteenth century. The fifth he says came when "Billy Graham and others came to the fore amid threats of nuclear war." This is what I would call the Evangelical Awakening. Since the modernist controversy and the Scopes trial in the 1920s, Bible believing Christians had withdrawn. Under the leadership of Carl F.H. Henry (Christianity Today), Harold Ockenga (Fuller Seminary), and Billy Graham, Evangelicals re-emerged, re-engaged, and re-produced (both naturally and evangelistically). I am unaware that it had anything to do with nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, Olasky claims that American Christianity is now getting its "sixth wind."

Meacham cites a decline in religious identification among Americans, but this is simply a function of nominal Christians who were raised in the Eisenhower generation's "comfortable pew" of the old mainline churches finally conceding that, truth be told, they are actually atheists and agnostics. Those who were religious before and now more committedly religious. What Meacham has uncovered is actually a greater religious polarization in society.

The good news is that Christians will stand out more strikingly in Christlikeness. This is what Jon A. Shields found. He is assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and the author of The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right (Princeton University Press, 2009). He confesses, "although my liberal Protestant upbringing initially made me feel out of place hanging out with conservative Christians, I found them disarming, gracious, and more misunderstood than I ever imagined."

John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief at The Economist, and Adrian Wooldridge, the British news magazine's Washington bureau chief, have is co-authored God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World (Penguin Press, 2009). Undistracted by the personal animosity that blinds some to the obvious, they recognize the social utility of Christian faith and the Christian churches. Christianity "helps suburbanites to form communities in the atomized world of the Sunbelt . . . ordinary people all over America to deal with the problems of alcoholism and divorce, wayward children and hopelessness . . . the hard-pressed inhabitants of the inner cities to deal with the chaos that surrounds them."

On a more personal and passionate level, however, Wooldridge objects to atheist dismissal of Christian faith, even though the does not profess the faith personally. "Christians are the people looking after the homeless, the drug-addicted. Where is the atheist homeless shelter? Atheists are only interested in themselves."

Wooldridge is not surprised that "God is back" and that accordingly, atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are in a publishing panic. In a World interview with the two Economist authors, he says, "The extraordinary thing about American religion is its capacity to reinvent itself and reassert itself."

Terry Eagleton is a distinguished English professor at the University of Lancaster in the UK. He has recently published Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (Yale University Press, 2009) and is scheduled to give the Gifford Lecture in March 2010 entitled "The God Debate."

"Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?" Eagleton's answer: Nothing else—not science, not reason, not liberalism, not economics—works. He concludes, "If ever there was a pious myth and a piece of credulous superstition, it is the liberal-rationalist belief that, a few hiccups apart, we are all steadily en route to a finer world."

Olasky also cites the return of literary critic A.N. Wilson to humble trusting in Christ.

Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti. To my shame, I believe it was this that made me lose faith and heart in my youth. It felt so uncool to be religious. With the mentality of a child in the playground, I felt at some visceral level that being religious was unsexy.

Olasky then concludes eloquently and encouragingly.

Christianity's ride through 2,000 years, and in America for 400, has always been a roller coaster: up and down, slow and fast, sometimes sideways, always planned by God but unpredictable for man. The first time around a roller coaster is terrifying for children. They do not know that a power beyond them is in control. ...

The apostle Paul was not unduly impressed by temporary ascents and descents. His confidence did not depend on which emperor was in power or who the next emperor might be. He knew that a benevolent reign would allow more to hear the gospel, but a hard reign would create inspiring testimonies that would show how the gospel sustained believers amid pressure—so Christ's cause would win either way.

Paul from prison told the Philippians that "what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel." Paul told the Corinthians that "in all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy." What afflictions has the church in America faced that we should be grumpy pessimists?

*Full disclosure: Marvin Olasky is my boss (Provost) at The King's College in New York City. But, really, I could call his article fit only for composting and he wouldn't care.

Being Blunt on Obama

Lou Pritchett is the renowned former VP at Proctor and Gamble and author of Stop Paddling and Start Rocking the Boat. Here is his open letter to the President. (Both Snopes and Urban Legends say it is authentic.)

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett

Read Jonah Goldberg's nod of qualified approval here.

The Iranian Nuclear Game Plan

We had no indication that there was any difference between the candidates in the recent Iranian Presidential race on that country's nuclear program, but now that Ahmad I'm-A-Dinner-Jacket has secured the office for another term (which in The Islamic Republic is not the same as winning the election, apparently), dealing with Iranian nuclear ambitions becomes a matter of all the more serious foreign policy planning.

John Bolton in last week's Wall Street Journal thought through various scenarios ("What If Israel Strikes Iran?").

Whatever the outcome of Iran's presidential election tomorrow, negotiations will not soon -- if ever -- put an end to its nuclear threat. And given Iran's determination to achieve deliverable nuclear weapons, speculation about a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear program will not only persist but grow....Consider the most-often mentioned Iranian responses to a possible Israeli strike:

1) Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. "Iran would be risking U.S. attacks on its land-based military."

2) Iran cuts its o wn oil exports to raise world prices. "An Iranian embargo of its own oil exports would complete the ruin of Iran's domestic economy by depriving the country of hard currency."

3) Iran attacks U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. "[D]oing so would risk direct U.S. retaliation against Iran"

4) Iran increases support for global terrorism. "If Washington uncovered evidence of direct or indirect Iranian terrorist activities in America...even the Obama administration would have to consider direct retaliation inside Iran."

5) Iran launches missile attacks on Israel. This would "provoke an even broader Israeli counterstrike, which at some point might well involve Israel's own nuclear capability."

6) Iran unleashes Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel. This would "argue for simultaneous, pre-emptive attacks on Hezbollah and Hamas in conjunction with a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities."

This seems like a no win situation for Iran, yet the Islamic Republic will proceed with its nuclear program, Israel will eventually destroy it, and then Iran will do little in response, and Arab states will (privately) cheer.

Life Under the Regime of Science

Photo: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The conquest of nature, first proposed by Francis Bacon 400 years ago, has opened up marvelous possibilities. Here is what I gleaned from some recent breakfast reading.

From the Economist:

"The National Ignition Facility: On Target, Finally" (May 28, 2009) opens with the question, "What do you get when you focus 192 lasers onto a pellet [frozen hydrogen] the size of a match head and press the “fire” button?" The National Ignition Facility at the Livermore Labs "is designed to create conditions like those found in stars." For "three thousandths of a second...it has a power of 500 trillion watts, about 3,000 times the average electricity consumption of the whole of planet Earth."

Each laser pulse will begin as a weak infra-red beam. This is split into 48 daughter beams that are then fed into preamplifiers which increase their power 20 billion times. Each of the daughters is split further, into four, and passed repeatedly through the main amplifiers. These increase the beams’ power 15,000 times and push their wavelengths into the ultraviolet.

The pellet itself contains a sphere of deuterium (a heavy form of hydrogen, with nuclei consisting of a proton and a neutron) and tritium (even heavier hydrogen, with a proton and two neutrons) that is chilled to just a degree or so above absolute zero. The beams should compress the sphere so rapidly that it implodes, squeezing deuterium and tritium nuclei together until they overcome their mutual repulsion and fuse to form helium (two protons and two neutrons) together with a surplus neutron and a lot of heat. If enough heat is generated it will sustain the process of fusion without laser input, until most of the nuclear fuel has been used up.

From the conquest of nature "out there," the editors of the Economist turn to the conquest of nature "in here," that is, human nature, as though it's really just all the same thing.

"The Behavioural Effects of Video Games: Good Game?" is a report on two studies, one from Iowa State University and the other from Ludwig-Maximilian University in Germany, that examined the relationship between playing video games and either violent or helpful thoughts and behavior depending on whether the games were themselves violent or "pro-social." We are told, "There is a body of research suggesting that violent games can lead to aggressive thoughts, if not to violence itself." In one Iowa State experiment, "those who spent the longest playing games which involved helping others were most likely to help, share, co-operate and empathise with others. They also had lower scores in tests for hostile thoughts and the acceptance of violence as normal." In another experiment by the same researcher involving games with helping others as their theme, "three to four months later, those who played these types of games the most were also rated as more helpful to those around them in real life."

The idea behind these studies is that if you can get children to play socially cooperative games, they will grow up to be socially cooperative people. Well, yes, but there are broad limits. Human nature is not so malleable as these researchers may hope. But you don't need expensive university research to tell you that if you occupy most young people's attention with violent video games, especially if the games are realistic, and even moreso if they put the player in the place of a criminal as hero, you will inherit a generally more lawless and criminally violent society.

Once the science of manipulating children for political ends advances sufficiently, they can be used to help control their unreconstructed parents.

In The National Review, Jonah Goldberg draws attention to this MasterCard "Priceless" commercial in which a child tries to make his father "a better man" ("The Littlest Totalitarian," June 8, 2009--not available online; buy the magazine).



It presents the child as wiser than and morally superior to his father who is unshaven and looks rather thoughtless and irresponsible. Of course, as MasterCard presents it, human virtue consists in living in an environmentally responsible way and leaving as small a so-called carbon footprint as possible (or at least making fashionable gestures in that direction). If children are for the most part more virtuous than their parents, it is because they learn the cutting edge of enlightened morality from their public school teachers and their Saturday morning cartoons.

Goldberg's political warning is this:

The idea of enlisting children to the Cause is as fashionable today as it was under Robespierre. To crack the bunker walls of the family and seduce the children has always been a top priority of totalitarians, hard and soft. Progressives love to elevate the sagacity of children...because doing so gives children all the more authority when they parrot the talking points of the latest progressive fad.

Goldberg evokes unrehabilitated common sense in his closing remark: "If the man in the ad were a better father, he would have scolded his kid for the disrespect and demanded to know who was teaching him such crap."

That's not science, but it's full of wisdom nonetheless. Perhaps science has its limitations and "it's place."