Arkanabar's Eclectic Rants

2012-02-12T06:31:00.001-08:00

The inoffensive guy in the glasses more or less represents Rep. Lamar Smith. The things he's talking about in the third and fifth panels are provisions of HR 1981, the so-called "Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act", aptly nicknamed the "Keep Every Americans' Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act." (You can sign a petition opposing HR 1981 here.) More information from TechDirt here and here.

Studios and Samizdat

2012-02-12T06:20:00.000-08:00

Just read a couple of great articles on copyright infringment over at forbes.com: You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You and Lies, Damned Lies, and Piracy.

They both mostly cover the same ground: one of the biggest reasons that people use samizdat rather than buy content is because it is easier. The MPAA could build something like Steam or iTunes, and blow giant holes in the number of samizdat downloads. Another is that movies are grossly (and grotesquely) overpriced, both in production and for the end-user. And studios and labels are increasingly profitable, even as samizdat increases.

On so-called Piracy

2012-02-12T05:35:00.000-08:00

Words mean things. Piracy means ship-to-ship armed robbery and hijacking on the high seas, even today; witness Somalian pirates. There is piracy in the Carribean sea as well. The act involves threats to people's lives and property.

Samizdat (from "same as that") was a practice used to escape censorship in the Soviet union -- to type out a verbatim copy of a banned book, generally on a manual typewriter. It is a much better word than piracy to describe modern methods of copyright infringment, which threaten only royalties, not anyone's lives or actual property. You can expect me to use it instead. I encourage you to do the same, even though those in the networks will not, because they are beholden to the labels and studios.

What SOPA and PIPA are meant to do

2012-02-08T03:30:00.000-08:00

I just saw a headline that has put SOPA and PIPA into perspective: BTJunkie voluntarily closes file-sharing website (more from ZDNet, Loopy Gadgets, and the Guardian).

The goal of SOPA/PIPA is not to stop piracy.

It is nothing less than to put an end to user-generated content on the Web.

That's the real goal of MPAA and RIAA in all their censorship moves and DRM strategies -- to ensure they have a monopoly on distribution of entertainment media worldwide.

They want to eliminate every form of competition. They want to ensure that all independent entertainers are crushed, so that everyone who wants any sort of entertainment will have to come to them, cash in hand. They want to ensure that every musician will have to come to them, cap in hand, to sign away all of their rights and money, in order to make the move from street corner busker/ garage band/ small local club band to the big time. They want to ensure that nobody ever successfully distributes a film without the studios getting their piece of the action.

And this plays into the hands of a censorious government. Never forget that big government and big business are in bed together and feed each other. Big business wants an unfair advantage. Big government wants to control personal expression. An oppressive government cannot afford free expression; it's far too likely to express, in a way that people can easily see and share, that the government is oppressive and corrupt.

BTJunkie's self-takedown is not ONLY stifling piracy, is not ONLY stifling Linux ISO distribution (most Linux ISOs are distributed over bittorrent to save costs) ... I have no doubt that it is also stifling the efforts of many independent artists, without labels or studio contracts, to get some market share and mind share.

Telling the Truth

2012-02-02T14:23:00.000-08:00

John C. Wright posts about Christopher Stasheff, the only SF author who had the guts to put the truth about chastity into the mouth of one of his characters. Go and read it, as it is an EXCELLENT explanation of the spiritual dangers of fornication.

Sign Frank's Petition!

2012-01-29T20:30:00.000-08:00

Frank Weathers, of YIMCatholic at Patheos, has created a petition to ask that the vile HHS mandate to require Catholic institutions to directly fund gravely evil acts in contradiction of religious liberty. Go and sign. Yes, you have to create an account. Be not afraid!!

Petition page here

Incidentally, Frank has yet another one of those Catholic blogs far superior to mine.

Dolan's Jan 25 op-ed

2012-01-27T21:00:00.001-08:00

I searched around the internets, and found Abp. Dolan's Jan 25 WSJ op-ed, without hacking my way through the Wall Street Journal's paywall. Go and read it.

One thing he points out, which far too many people neglect or allow themselves to disregard, is this:

The rule forces insurance companies to provide these services without a co-pay, suggesting they are “free”—but it is naïve to believe that. There is no free lunch, and you can be sure there’s no free abortion, sterilization or contraception. There will be a source of funding: you.

There is no free lunch, anywhere. Somebody always pays for whatever you may be given. In far too many cases, it is you, in ways you will not be able to see.

The Problem with Patents

2012-01-22T15:58:00.000-08:00

Source: http://frugaldad.com

the obvious problem is that the Patent Office refuses to chuck even the most absurd applications, such as throwing a stick to play fetch with your dog, or the combover mentioned above.

SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

are the acronyms for the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act, bills currently being rushed through Congress as quickly as possible. As written, both will enable censorship of vast swaths of the Internet (like, any site that includes user-provided and/or generated content). Here's the rundown on why SOPA and PIPA are very bad ideas. That they are largely unconstitutional is a pretty good first reason.

Call and/or email your assorted congresscritters. Don't bother write at this point; envelopes are subjected to huge delays to protect Congressional staff personnel from biological and chemical weapons. I doubt even a postcard could get through in time. You can find your representative at House.gov and your senators at Senate.gov. A brief search and a couple of links will get you to a page with their office number (dial direct instead of trying to go through the switchboard) and email address.

2012-01-19T11:54:00.000-08:00

Salute to Mark Shea.

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

I've posted about the Photoshop Effect before. It is a pernicious toxic excretion of the Culture of Death that warps our sexuality.

Catholics and Libertarianism

2012-01-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

Some people think that between these never the twain shall meet. Ryan McMacken begs to differ with Six Myths Catholics Tell About Libertarians. Go and read it, so you know what the false differences are.

Are there real differences? Surely so. The Church believes it is appropriate for the State to restrain immorality such as pornography, contraception, and fornication by law. Libertarians do not. But I think a more laissez-faire state is better for the Church than any other. Certainly we would not have Belmont Abbey going to court for the right to enroll their employees in a health insurance plan which does not fund grave sins like contraception and abortion, or Christian counseling students told that they must never allow their belief that homosexual acts are gravely sinful and that same-sex attraction is gravely disordered to affect how they perform their jobs.

A more laissez-faire state would also provide a better means of obtaining Distributist ends. Distributism favors smaller enterprises, and more widely dispersed ownership of the means of production. Big corporations typically must rely on powerful governments that can override the property rights of individuals. Nearly anyone who wants a large parcel of land in any sort of urban area must get the local government to declare current property "blighted" (thus taking its value away from current owners) or use eminent domain (directly taking property from current owners) or some other trick to do so in a time and cost efficient manner. Without the county or the city or the state or whoever to force current owners to give up their property, they would only rarely be able to get really big.

But what do you think?

Let Your Voice Be Heard

2012-01-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

Salute to Fr. Z, who posted this on the 28th.

So, in association with a story about how the bishops don't want to place orphaned children with unmarried couples, the NYT posted an online poll, asking if the government is trampling on religious rights, and MSNBC posted it here. I said that they were.

Blast from the Past

2011-12-15T17:42:00.000-08:00

I have maintained for years that taking government money is bad for Christian charity. And right about the end of this article about Obamacare on Catholic Lane it would seem that Bishop Paprocki of Springfield, IL, and Steven Mosher agree with me.

Read This Book.

2011-12-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

Salute to Fr. Gordon Macrae.
Buy a copy for your pastor. Buy another for your bishop.

Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-30T18:04:00.000-08:00

It turns out OWS has a real list of real demands. Naturally, domestic press either hasn't a clue or refuses to cover it, but (according to Naomi Wolf in the Guardian whose article you should read) the top three demands are (I quote):

[G]et the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process.
[R]eform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act – the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.
[D]raft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

These are none of them entirely bad ideas. I can deal with some sort of blunting of the Citizens United ruling, even though I think the good guys won. It certainly allows the richest people or groups to give the greatest exposure to their message, but without it, many worthwhile messages were completely stifled. I would far rather we had real freedom to campaign on whatever message we wanted, as long as we were telling the truth, but for as long as honesty is entirely optional and slander and libel are completely acceptable in campaign speech, we have to have something.

Repealing the Glass-Steagall Act was a buyout of Republicans by Citigroup; John Dingell (D-MI) said that it would result in banks "too big to fail" that would have to be bailed out. But then the anti-redlining regulations were added, to help Clinton in his dream of subsidizing the housing of people who were unlikely to pay for their own homes with the Community Reinvesting Act, by transferring all the risk from the banks to the federal government. That has ALSO helped to set us on our current train-wreck financial crisis. I would like to see a return of at least the conflict-of-interest regulation that the Glass-Steagall Act act imposed.

That third item? It has my FULL SUPPORT. What they are talking about there is plain, simple, pure plunder by law, also known as corruption.

Ms. Wolf also makes a pretty good case that the crackdowns were coordinated by the Department of Homeland Security (which department is a reason to spit upon the memory of the 2d Bush presidency if ever there was one). And as she has said, it's no wonder these people are having the $#!t kicked out of them at the behest of the federal government.

The Thinking Behind SOPA

2011-11-26T23:27:00.000-08:00

This deserves wider attention:

Some things not addressed by the video:
ANYONE may accuse a site or host of providing pirated content. When this happens, the host has five days to rectify the situation, or their whole site goes down. And there is no due process to determine if the content is legal or infringing IP laws. What's more, there's no penalty for making a false accusation.

Do you see why this is so huge a stick with which to capriciously beat people completely off of the internet that even Microsoft opposes it in its current form? Currently, it might be enforced by removing entries from domain name servers. But when that fails to completely stop piracy, enforcement will require the active blocking of IP addresses. And when that fails to completely stop piracy, it will require deep packet scanning and a complete criminalizing of all encryption not handled by the NSA.

Fundamentalism Explained

2011-10-19T04:06:00.000-07:00

In Fundamentalism and the Abandonment of Reason, Dr. Jeff Mirus explains that contemporary definitions of fundamentalism are far too self-referential to those who denigrate it. He does better, saying fundamentalism involves starting with the idea that a sacred text is clear and simple for anyone to understand, and propping that idea up by taking a few concepts from that text (either the Bible or the Qu'ran), and interpreting everything only through those ideas. In other words, it's properly a form of heresy, which is picking and choosing which doctrines and dogmas you're going to subscribe to, while ignoring the rest, and everything not visible through the distorted lenses of those "simple, clear" doctrines and dogmas is ignored.

He aptly points out that there's a secular equivalent: ideology, which presumes that all of Creation is simple and clear when you interpret it through a few fixed ideas, while ignoring everything not visible through the lens of those ideas. Of course, ideology and fundamentalism feed upon and reinforce each other. The escape is a fuller and more catholic worldview. Tolle, legge.

Straight talk about tough times

2011-10-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

The world's population is booming! Like Thomas Malthus promised, we're all doomed!

But wait. Population is booming because people are living longer, not because people are being born. In fact, in many places, there are not enough young people to care for the growing population of the elderly.

Wait, you don't think contraception has anything to do with this, do you?

Blogrollin' again

2011-10-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

I first found this article (source) echoed on John C. Wright's livejournal. Like him, I don't see how I can do any better than to repeat it in its entirety.

What is Poverty?
Theodore Dalrymple

What do we mean by poverty? Not what Dickens or Blake or Mayhew meant. Today, no one seriously expects to go hungry in England or to live without running water or medical care or even TV. Poverty has been redefined in industrial countries, so that anyone at the lower end of the income distribution is poor ex officio, as it were—poor by virtue of having less than the rich. And of course by this logic, the only way of eliminating poverty is by an egalitarian redistribution of wealth—even if the society as a whole were to become poorer as a result.

Such redistribution was the goal of the welfare state. But it has not eliminated poverty, despite the vast sums expended, and despite the fact that the poor are now substantially richer—indeed are not, by traditional standards, poor at all. As long as the rich exist, so must the poor, as we now define them.

Certainly they are in squalor—a far more accurate description of their condition than poverty—despite a threefold increase in per-capita income, including that of the poor, since the end of the last war. Why they should be in this condition requires an explanation—and to call that condition poverty, using a word more appropriate to Mayhew's London than to today's reality, prevents us from grasping how fundamentally the lot of "the poor" has changed since then. The poor we shall always have with us, no doubt: but today they are not poor in the traditional way.

The English poor live shorter and less healthy lives than their more prosperous compatriots. Even if you didn't know the statistics, their comparative ill health would be obvious on the most casual observation of rich and slum areas, just as Victorian observers noted that the poor were on average a head shorter than the rich, due to generations of inferior nourishment and hard living conditions. But the reasons for today's difference in health are not economic. It is by no means the case that the poor can't afford medicine or a nourishing diet; nor do they live in overcrowded houses lacking proper sanitation, as in Mayhew's time, or work 14 backbreaking hours a day in the foul air of mines or mills. Epidemiologists estimate that the higher rate of cigarette consumption among the poor accounts for half the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest classes in England—and to smoke that much takes money.

Notoriously, too, the infant mortality rate is twice as high in the lowest social class as in the highest. But the infant mortality rate of illegitimate births is twice that of legitimate ones, and the illegitimacy rate rises steeply as you descend the social scale: so the decline of marriage almost to the vanishing point in the lowest social class might well be responsible for most of its excess infant mortality. It is a way of life, not poverty per se, that kills. The commonest cause of death between the ages of 15 and 44 is now suicide, which has increased most precipitously precisely among those who live in the underclass world of temporary step-parenthood and of conduct unrestrained either by law or convention.

Just as it is easier to recognize ill health in someone you haven't seen for some time rather than in someone you meet daily, so a visitor coming into a society from elsewhere often can see its character more clearly than those who live in it. Every few months, doctors from countries like the Philippines and India arrive fresh from the airport to work for a year's stint at my hospital. It is fascinating to observe their evolving response to British squalor.

At the start, they are uniformly enthusiastic about the care that we unsparingly and unhesitatingly give to everyone, regardless of economic status. They themselves come from cities—Manila, Bombay, Madras—where many of the cases we see in our hospital would simply be left to die, often without succor of any kind. And they are impressed that our care extends beyond the merely medical: that no one goes without food or clothing or shelter, or even entertainment. There seems to be a public agency to deal with every conceivable problem. For a couple of weeks, they think this all represents the acme of civilization, especially when they recall the horrors at home. Poverty—as they know it— has been abolished.

Before very long, though, they start to feel a vague unease. A Filipina doctor, for example, asked me why so few people seemed grateful for what was done for them. What prompted her question was an addict who, having collapsed from an accidental overdose of heroin, was brought to our hospital. He required intensive care to revive him, with doctors and nurses tending him all night. His first words to the doctor when he suddenly regained consciousness were, "Get me a fucking roll-up" (a hand-rolled cigarette). His imperious rudeness didn't arise from mere confusion: he continued to treat the staff as if they had kidnapped him and held him in the hospital against his will to perform experiments upon him. "Get me the fuck out of here!" There was no acknowledgment of what had been done for him, let alone gratitude for it. If he considered that he had received any benefit from his stay at all, well, it was simply his due.

My doctors from Bombay, Madras, or Manila observe this kind of conduct open- mouthed. At first they assume that the cases they see are a statistical quirk, a kind of sampling error, and that given time they will encounter a better, more representative cross section of the population. Gradually, however, it dawns upon them that what they have seen is representative. When every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude.

Case after case causes them to revise their initial favorable opinion. Before long, they have had experience of hundreds, and their view has changed entirely. Last week, for example, to the amazement of a doctor recently arrived from Madras, a woman in her late twenties entered our hospital with the most common condition that brings patients to us: a deliberate overdose. At first she would say nothing more than that she wanted to depart this world, that she had had enough of it.

I inquired further. Just before she took the overdose, her ex-boyfriend, the father of her eight-month-old youngest child (now staying with her ex-boyfriend's mother), had broken into her apartment by smashing down the front door. He wrecked the apartment's contents, broke every window, stole $110 in cash, and ripped out her telephone.

"He's very violent, doctor." She told me that he had broken her thumb, her ribs, and her jaw during the four years she was with him, and her face had needed stitching many times. "Last year I had to have the police out to him."

"What happened?"

"I dropped the charges. His mother said he would change."

Another of her problems was that she was now five weeks pregnant and she didn't want the baby.

"I want to get rid of it, doctor."

"Who's the father?"

It was her violent ex-boyfriend, of course.

"Did he rape you, then?"

"No."

"So you agreed to have sex with him?"

"I was drunk; there was no love in it. This baby is like a bolt out of the blue: I don't know how it happened."

I asked her if she thought it was a good idea to have sex with a man who had repeatedly beaten her up, and from whom she said she wished to separate.

"It's complicated, doctor. That's the way life goes sometimes."

What had she known of this man before she took up with him? She met him in a club; he moved in at once, because he had nowhere else to stay. He had a child by another woman, neither of whom he supported. He had been in prison for burglary. He took drugs. He had never worked, except for cash on the side. Of course he never gave her any of his money, instead running up her telephone bills vertiginously.

She had never married, but had two other children. The first, a daughter aged eight, still lived with her. The father was a man whom she left because she found he was having sex with 12-year-old girls. Her second child was a son, whose father was "an idiot" with whom she had slept one night. That child, now six, lived with the "idiot," and she never saw him.

What had her experience taught her?

"I don't want to think about it. The Housing'll charge me for the damage, and I ain't got the money. I'm depressed, doctor; I'm not happy. I want to move away, to get away from him."

Later in the day, feeling a little lonely, she telephoned her ex-boyfriend, and he visited her.

I discussed the case with the doctor who had recently arrived from Madras, and who felt he had entered an insane world. Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined it could be like this. There was nothing to compare with it in Madras. He asked me what would happen next to the happy couple.

"They'll find her a new flat. They'll buy her new furniture, television, and refrigerator, because it's unacceptable poverty in this day and age to live without them. They'll charge her nothing for the damage to her old flat, because she can't pay anyway, and it wasn't she who did it. He will get away scot-free. Once she's installed in her new flat to escape from him, she'll invite him there, he'll smash it up again, and then they'll find her somewhere else to live. There is, in fact, nothing she can do that will deprive her of the state's obligation to house, feed, and entertain her."

I asked the doctor from Madras if poverty was the word he would use to describe this woman's situation. He said it was not: that her problem was that she accepted no limits to her own behavior, that she did not fear the possibility of hunger, the condemnation of her own parents or neighbors, or God. In other words, the squalor of England was not economic but spiritual, moral, and cultural.

I often take my doctors from the Third World on the short walk from the hospital to the prison nearby. It is a most instructive 800 yards. On a good day—good for didactic purposes, that is—there are seven or eight puddles of glass shattered into fragments lying in the gutter en route (there are never none, except during the most inclement weather, when even those most addicted to car theft control their impulses).

"Each of these little piles of smashed glass represents a car that has been broken into," I tell them. "There will be more tomorrow, weather permitting." The houses along the way are, as public housing goes, quite decent. The local authorities have at last accepted that herding people into giant, featureless, Le Corbusian concrete blocks was a mistake, and they have switched to the construction of individual houses. Only a few of their windows are boarded up. Certainly by comparison with housing for the poor in Bombay, Madras, or Manila they are spacious and luxurious indeed. Each has a little front yard of grass, surrounded by a hedge, and a much larger back yard; about half have satellite dishes. Unfortunately, the yards are almost as full of litter as municipal garbage dumps.

I tell my doctors that in nearly nine years of taking this walk four times a week, I have never seen a single instance of anyone attempting to clean his yard. But I have seen much litter dropped; on a good day, I can even watch someone standing at the bus stop dropping something on the ground no farther than two feet from the bin.

"Why don't they tidy up their gardens?" asks a doctor from Bombay.

A good question: after all, most of the houses contain at least one person with time on his or her hands. Whenever I have been able to ask the question, however, the answer has always been the same: I've told the council [the local government] about it, but they haven't come. As tenants, they feel it is the landlord's responsibility to keep their yards clean, and they are not prepared to do the council's work for it, even if it means wading through garbage—as it quite literally does. On the one hand, authority cannot tell them what to do; on the other, it has an infinitude of responsibilities towards them.

I ask my Third World doctors to examine the litter closely. It gives them the impression that no Briton is able to walk farther than ten yards or so without consuming junk food. Every bush, every lawn, even every tree, is festooned with chocolate wrappers or fast- food packaging. Empty cans of beer and soft drinks lie in the gutter, on the flower beds, or on top of the hedges. Again, on a good day we actually see someone toss aside the can whose contents he has just consumed, as a Russian vodka drinker throws down his glass.

Apart from the antisocial disregard of the common good that each little such act of littering implies (hundreds a week in the space of 800 yards alone), the vast quantity of food consumed in the street has deeper implications. I tell the doctors that in all my visits to the white households in the area, of which I've made hundreds, never—not once—have I seen any evidence of cooking. The nearest to this activity that I have witnessed is the reheating of prepared and packaged food, usually in a microwave. And by the same token, I have never seen any evidence of meals taken in common as a social activity—unless two people eating hamburgers together in the street as they walk along be counted as social.

This is not to say that I haven't seen people eating at home; on the contrary, they are often eating when I arrive. They eat alone, even if other members of the household are present, and never at table; they slump on a sofa in front of the television. Everyone in the household eats according to his own whim and timetable. Even in so elementary a matter as eating, therefore, there is no self-discipline but rather an imperative obedience to impulse. Needless to say, the opportunity for conversation or sociality that a meal taken together provides is lost. English meals are thus solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

I ask the doctors to compare the shops in areas inhabited by poor whites and those where poor Indian immigrants live. It is an instructive comparison. The shops the Indians frequent are piled high with all kinds of attractive fresh produce that, by supermarket standards, is astonishingly cheap. The women take immense trouble over their purchases and make subtle discriminations. There are no pre-cooked meals for them. By contrast, a shop that poor whites patronize offers a restricted choice, largely of relatively expensive prepared foods that at most require only the addition of hot water.

The difference between the two groups cannot be explained by differences in income, for they are insignificant. Poverty isn't the issue. And the willingness of Indians to take trouble over what they eat and to treat meals as important social occasions that impose obligations and at times require the subordination of personal desire is indicative of an entire attitude to life that often permits them, despite their current low incomes, to advance up the social scale. Alarmingly, though, the natural urge of the children of immigrants to belong to the predominant local culture is beginning to create an Indian underclass (at least among young males): and the taste for fast food and all that such a taste implies is swiftly developing among them.

When such slovenliness about food extends to all other spheres of life, when people satisfy every appetite with the same minimal effort and commitment, no wonder they trap themselves in squalor. I have little trouble showing my doctors from India and the Philippines that most of our patients take a fast-food approach to all their pleasures, obtaining them no less fleetingly and unstrenuously. They have no cultural activity they can call their own, and their lives seem, even to them, empty of purpose. In the welfare state, mere survival is not the achievement that it is, say, in the cities of Africa, and therefore it cannot confer the self-respect that is the precondition of self-improvement.

By the end of three months my doctors have, without exception, reversed their original opinion that the welfare state, as exemplified by England, represents the acme of civilization. On the contrary, they see it now as creating a miasma of subsidized apathy that blights the lives of its supposed beneficiaries. They come to realize that a system of welfare that makes no moral judgments in allocating economic rewards promotes antisocial egotism. The spiritual impoverishment of the population seems to them worse than anything they have ever known in their own countries. And what they see is all the worse, of course, because it should be so much better. The wealth that enables everyone effortlessly to have enough food should be liberating, not imprisoning. Instead, it has created a large caste of people for whom life is, in effect, a limbo in which they have nothing to hope for and nothing to fear, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. It is a life emptied of meaning.

"On the whole," said one Filipino doctor to me, "life is preferable in the slums of Manila." He said it without any illusions as to the quality of life in Manila.

These doctors have made the same journey as I, but in the reverse direction. Arriving as a young doctor in Africa 25 years ago, I was horrified at first by the physical conditions, the like of which I had never experienced before. Patients with heart failure walked 50 miles in the broiling sun, with panting breath and swollen legs, to obtain treatment—and then walked home again. Ulcerating and suppurating cancers were common. Barefoot men contracted tetanus from the wounds inflicted by a sand flea that laid its eggs between their toes. Tuberculosis reduced people to animated skeletons. Children were bitten by puff adders and adults mauled by leopards. I saw lepers with noses that had rotted away and madmen who wandered naked in the torrential rains.

Even the accidents were spectacular. I treated the survivors of one in Tanzania in which a truck—having no brakes, as was perfectly normal and expected in the circumstances— began to slide backward down a hill it had been climbing. It was laden with bags of corn, upon which 20 passengers, including many children, were riding. As the truck slid backward, first the passengers, then the corn, fell off. By the time I arrived, ten dead children were lined up by the side of the road, arranged in ascending order as neatly as organ pipes. They had been crushed or suffocated by the bags of corn that fell on top of them: a grimly ironic death in a country chronically short of food.

Moreover, political authority in the countries in which I worked was arbitrary, capricious, and corrupt. In Tanzania, for example, you could tell the representative of the sole and omnipotent political party, the Party of the Revolution, by his girth alone. Tanzanians were thin, but party men were fat. The party representative in my village sent a man to prison because the man's wife refused to sleep with him. In Nigeria the police hired out their guns by night to the armed robbers.

Yet nothing I saw—neither the poverty nor the overt oppression—ever had the same devastating effect on the human personality as the undiscriminating welfare state. I never saw the loss of dignity, the self-centeredness, the spiritual and emotional vacuity, or the sheer ignorance of how to live, that I see daily in England. In a kind of pincer movement, therefore, I and the doctors from India and the Philippines have come to the same terrible conclusion: that the worst poverty is in England—and it is not material poverty but poverty of soul.

But enough about what I think. What do y'all think?

Empowerment through Dressing Like a Harlot

2011-09-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

John C. Wright has written on a telly show set in a Playboy club. In his examination of the show and some of the statements made by one of the actresses, he makes it very clear just what women have given up by embracing contraception and postfeminism.

In Which I Emulate Tito Edwards

2011-09-22T19:24:00.001-07:00

I like what Gerald Nadal has to say about the Fr. Frank Pavone kerfuffle.

I really like what the Anchoress has to say about the Stacy Trasancos kerfuffle.

There are just REALLY a lot of things about which we ought to think carefully before deciding not to say anything.

Anything else I should be adding to this?

Locking Out Linux

2011-09-21T16:41:00.000-07:00

I use and prefer free software, including several variations on GNU/Linux. This article suggests that operating system vendors may request (or demand) that the next version of Trusted Computing, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, be used by hardware manufacturers to lock out any OS other than the one shipped with a system board, and that acting to bypass it would be a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This one, by a Red Hat dev, has more technical and better information.

Could it happen? Certainly. Microsoft makes most of their OS sales to system manufacturers like Sony, Dell, HP, and Gateway. In fact, people are more likely to buy new hardware to handle the latest version of Windows than because their computers no longer do everything they want. Will it happen? I don't know. IIRC, Microsoft has been slapped down in court for trying to prevent people from using their computers as they wish, and suits to end this would almost surely cite that precedent.

Worth Repeating for Emphasis

2011-09-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

Salute to Marc Barnes over at Bad Catholic Blog, where I first saw the video.

I've written about this before: here and here and here and here. Feel free to review.

Shallow Atheism

2011-09-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

I was watching a John Stossel clip, "The Commandments According to Penn," in which Penn Jilette discusses his book, "God, No!" He is a fundamentalist atheist along the lines of what Mark Shea encountered here, in that he expects the Bible to be read in a flat-footed, literalist manner.

I can agree with Penn that "agnostic" is a non-term. He claims that those who do not have an active faith, i.e. one where you trust God to keep his promises, then you are for all practical purposes an atheist. I agree with that, because trust is a major connotation of "belief" as it is used in the Bible. But beyond that, his theology is absurdly weak.

One of Penn's earlier silly statements was to the effect that "anyone who doesn't run a stop sign is displaying doubt, because a real believer would expect God to save him from all harm." He's buying the argument that the devil presented in Matthew 4:6, that God will send his angels to rescue us lest we dash our foot against a stone. Somehow he not only failed to notice Jesus' reply to this, but also doctrines saying that governments have authority from God to protect us, e.g. with stop signs and traffic laws.

God wants us to choose Him. To think that we should obey Him like mindless automata (or that we are unable to choose because of God's omnipotence) is to say that anyone's love for God is actually God's act of masturbation.

A later silly statement comes in the form of a favorite atheist straw man. "If God commanded you to kill your child, would you do it? If your answer is no, you've just put love and humanity above religion." And yet from the Catholic perspective, God = Love, and Love can nearly always be used as a substitute word for God. This understanding makes Penn's argument so irrational it almost cannot be described with symbolic logic. The closest I can come is, "If A is not-A, and you fail to behave as if not-A is A, then A is not-A." God asking or commanding me to murder my child is not God, because it is not love.

Of course he'll say, "Then what about Abraham and Isaac?" First, Abraham didn't know as much about God as we do. As far as I know, God never told Abraham that human sacrifice was repugnant to Him. Second, the Midrash strongly suggest that he was convinced that God would resurrect Isaac from the dead after he had been sacrificed. And third, God has never required human sacrifice from us; the only human He ever wanted to be sacrificed was His own Son, Jesus Christ.

The first of the Penn Suggestions is this:

1: The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity, and love.

There's nothing wrong with any of these ideals, especially not love. Love is the greatest of all virtues. But to say that human intelligence, creativity, and love are the highest ideals is idolatry. Both intelligence and creativity can easily be turned against love; furthermore, those who have less intelligence and creativity are necessarily devalued by this suggestion.

Finally, I'd like to know the philosophical basis from which these ideals spring. I see a clear line of deduction from the Christian valuation of all human life made in imago Dei to Penn's First Suggestion, but as a self-respecting atheist, he ought to find some other basis.

If Penn really wants to learn about Christianity, he really ought to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Revisiting Extraterrestrial Salvation

2011-09-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

Way back in 2008 I wrote Salvation for ET?

Surprise, surprise, John C. Wright did it better, and in all likelihood long before I did.

A Splendid Course!

2011-09-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

First, go and read The Screwtape Letters and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The article introduces a course that contrasts Screwtape's recommendations to Wormwood with relevant sections of the Catechism.

Buy the Catechism

or browse it online.

buy The Screwtape Letters

or browse it online.

Download Curriculum PDF

I WANT This!

2011-08-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

Just watch:

revolights. join the revolution. from revolights on Vimeo.

Source Article

Revolights on Kickstarter

Towards More Civilized Discourse

2011-08-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

I find myself a little dismayed when I check out a blogroll and I DON'T find These Stone Walls. Father MacRae is an excellent writer, a light to the world, and a stunning example of obedience and charity while under duress. Case in point: His post entitled, Holy Hostility, Batman! He ably decries the nastiness, name-calling, spite and vituperation prevalent in a fairly large number of blog comboxes and other online communities. He makes the case that it's not enough for the blogger to refrain from such behavior; it is also incumbent upon the blog admin to prune nastiness out of their comboxes as well. In fact, this is one of the reasons I moderate comments.

(another is so that I'll have notification of some sort that a comment has actually been posted. It's not something that happens a lot around here.)

And I fully agree that one of the hallmarks of a good blog is a good community participating in the combox. But what do you think?

On computing

2011-08-03T12:41:00.001-07:00

Most people browse on Windows. I advocate free software, even for Windows users. One problem is that open source licenses allow malicious coders to download the source code, insert malware, compile it, and publish it. To counter this, I suggest looking for your free software at nonags.com, which certifies downloads as malware free and nag free. A second site that is very helpful for this sort of thing is ninite.com, which also has an app to automatically update your downloads when new versions are released. You can also use the H Security Update check to make sure all your windows software is up to date.

In other news, the Electronic Frontier Foundation released a study demonstrating that information provided by default -- namely the combination of your browser, operating system, and plugins, along with their version numbers, uniquely identify 84% to 94% of web surfers, even those who completely disable all cookies. This is one reason why I use Firefox, SRWare Iron, Google Chromium, Midori, Arora, Opera, and w3m browsers with minimal plugins, and three or four different operating systems. I use at least one of these to misrepresent itself, in order to gain access to certain websites that absolutely refuse to grant access when I don't. According to the EFF, the only likely fix is to demand that publishers remove this behavior from browsers.

On Fr. Corapi

2011-06-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

Only three really good things have been said on the matter.

First, Father Zuhlsdorf of What Does the Prayer Really Say? reminded us that a lot of what is being said is uncharitable, we don't really know the truth, and the best we can do is pray for all of those involved.

Mark Shea has decided to be quiet about it, and he has good reasons for this choice.

Jennifer Fulwiler reminds us: We don't have to worry about his previous teachings. I suggest that going forward, we may wish to examine them for an imprimatur before heeding them.

Mary Help of Sinners, pray for us!

Edit: and now a fourth, from Fr. Gordon Macrae.

Advertisers Filter Your Internet

2011-06-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

Just in case you haven't seen this yet:

Are you cool with this? If so, why? If not, why not (and what should we do)?

Maybe as this guy suggests?

You Are Being Watched

2011-05-30T18:38:00.000-07:00

It is becoming ever more clear that the only time our government cares at all about privacy is when it is ensuring you won't be prosecuted for sexual deviancy, contraception, or abortion. I recently read a description of the internet that certainly seems to apply: a borderless security and surveillance state.

So what has me going on now? I just ran across ZDNet's series on the ever-so-loathesome USA PATRIOT Act. The summary is here, and includes links to the entire four-part series. Another article there quotes Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) as saying "We’re getting to a gap between what the public thinks the law says and what the American government secretly thinks the law says," in an article titled "The 'REAL' Patriot Act is Classified." Here's ZDNet's source link. Apparently, the interpretation which the Department of Justice relies upon is classified, and cannot be debated openly in Congress without violating classification rules. And this thing has been passed more or less unchanged.

So who thinks the US government is nothing like a tyranny? Who thinks we are protected from it? Who thinks the Fourth Amendment is a dead letter?

Instead of Googling...

2011-05-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

Duck it!

I was reading DWW today, and a screenshot in the OpenIndiana review showed what looked like a search engine I wasn't familiar with: duckduckgo.com . It has just taken the place of Google Advanced in my bookmarks. It may replace Wikipedia in my bookmarks; I can search wikipedia with DDG just by using !w [searchterms] in the search command line. They've got similar shortcuts for hundreds of sites. They also have a privacy policy that is vastly superior to Google's, and their normal search methodology is to find some specialized search engine suited to your query and use that, which I think is creative, clever, and elegant.

I'm going to investigate the command syntax to see how flexible it is. I think I'm even going to make it my firefox home page. If possible, I may make it the default search in Chromium. Much to do, much to learn.

Check thou it out!

First to Exit the Blegroll

2011-05-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

I am taking down the blegroll entry for Free the Notre Dame 88, a defense fund for the 88 protesters arrested when President Obama delivered the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame . . . because all charges have been dropped!!

Culture of Death, World of Lies

2011-05-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

So, Planned Parenthood is ~~complaining about~~ hysterically denouncing any attempts to deny them their place at the federal trough, claiming that millions of women won't be able to get mammograms from them any more. But is that so?

Planned Parenthood provides breast examinations, in which the doctor, nurse practitioner, or unlicensed employee feels you up to see if there are any palpable lumps. But that's not the same thing as a mammogram, which is an X-ray of your breast tissue.

Women In Crisis

2011-04-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

Go read this. Do it now. There is nothing I can say that will do anything but detract from the message, other than telling you that you will be glad you did.

video blogrollin

2011-04-13T21:59:00.001-07:00

So Marc over at Bad Catholic (see the blogroll) has created a video that he's really proud of for a scholarship competition, promoting the Rite of Reconciliation. I like his video, and you can find it on his blog.

But he likes the following video better, and wants it to win. I understand why PERFECTLY. Watch.

Joyously stolen!

2011-04-11T15:13:00.000-07:00

From xkcd, alt text and all:

Nolan Chart

Disaster is Disaster

2011-04-11T14:20:00.001-07:00

I've seen opinion pieces talking about how nice it is that so much destruction has occurred in Japan and elsewhere; now we can all get rich helping them clean up and repair!

Walter Williams rightly calls that Economic Lunacy. Nope, the people in Japan are poorer now, and as a result, they are going to have to buy replacements for their homes, cars, clothes, and infrastructure, instead of producing other useful goods. More goods means more wealth and lower prices.

Another example of economic lunacy, by the way, is complaints about the trade deficit. The trade deficit is balanced, CENT FOR CENT, with a foreign investment SURPLUS. It means that foreigners are putting capital into our companies. Furthermore, it means that we are richer than the people we're importing from. Here's a sane explanation:

Oh, woe!

2011-04-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

How could I live without filing taxes?

The song is available for free download AND BROADCAST from the Center for Small Government.

On Feminine Beauty

2011-04-09T16:50:00.000-07:00

for reasons I don't intend to go into atall, I went back to Waiterrant today. I started from the beginning, clicking through his first few posts until I got to one entitled Leftovers. In it, the Waiter discusses what makes a woman beautiful and desirable, and some of the truly horrific damage some of them do to themselves in pursuit of the Main Stream Media norm of physical perfection, which is utterly divorced from reality. If you doubt it, watch the video.

Deo gratias, my wife is sane. She may not be aware of the Photoshop effect, but she does know how her skeleton is shaped. She eats like a human being, not a famine victim. I love her, she is as beautiful as she could be, and our marriage is a deluge of God's grace into my life.

The Military-Industrial Complex In 5 Minutes

2011-04-07T03:40:00.000-07:00

Salute to the Western Confucian.

Subsidies everywhere. Blech.

On Fr. Corapi

2011-04-06T19:55:00.001-07:00

I'm not really very familiar with Fr. Corapi. I've seen the video of his conversion story/ testimonial regarding Reconciliation. (Search Fr. Corapi's conversion on YouTube; you'll find it.) But I am aware of a lot of people who dearly love his preaching.

Obviously, I'm writing about the accusations made against him. What do I (or anyone not involved in the case) actually know?

Nothing.

Is it possible he's guilty? Of course; consider the case of Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, another priest noted for holiness with a pretty broad following, who confessed to some wrongdoing.

Is it possible he's innocent? Absolutely. My inclination is to think that his innocence is more believable than his guilt. And unlike Fr. Euteneuer, he claims innocence.

By all means, the best advice is that Fr. Corapi gave in his adamant denial of guilt: pray for ALL of those involved.

Entirely a propos of this, Fr. Gordon MacRae has a post about this. Fr. MacRae knows full well what happens when you fight this sort of allegation. Also a propos is this 2003 article, by a man who ought to know more about what goes on in court when one of the clergy is accused. I urge you to go and read them both.

New Site

2011-04-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

I've put a new site in my Catholic Links sidebar, the Magis Center of Reason and Faith, which explains how recent advances in cosmology and physics provide strong support for the ontological proof for God, which has been discounted and marginalized ever since Immanuel Kant. Read and enjoy.

The Draft Is Coming

2011-03-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

Salutes to The Western Confucian, leading me to Terry Nelson's Abbey Roads and thence to Catholic Citizens of Illinois.

Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt is convinced that the Armed Forces are about to severely curtail the religious liberty of orthodox Christian chaplains, by forbidding them to denigrate or oppose homosexualism in any way, shape or form, except perhaps from the pulpit. He cites this document. On p24 of the memo (30th page in the PDF) we find

If a chaplain is unable to reconcile serving with or caring for gay and lesbian Service members with his or her faith, the chaplain may request that the relevant endorsing agency withdraw its ecclesiastical endorsement for him or her. This would trigger an administrative separation under DoDI 1304.28.

And on pp50-51 of the memo (the 56th and 57th pages of the PDF) we find

Service members remain obligated to follow orders that involve interaction with others who are gay or lesbian, even if an unwillingness to do so is based on strong, sincerely held, moral or religious beliefs. As expressed in the Manual for Courts-Martial regarding a Service member’s obligation to obey orders: “the dictates of a person’s conscience, religion, or personal philosophy cannot justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.”
Ser v ice members may, in appropriate circumstances and within the limitations of law and policy, express their moral or religious beliefs regarding sexual orientation. However, Service members may not make statements detrimental to good order and discipline and must obey lawful orders. Service members who feel that their religious beliefs regarding homosexuality require religious accommodation, may request such accommodation of that belief under DoDI 1300.17.

From this, he concludes that any attempt to counsel gays to abstain from homosexual behavior or suggest that it is a sin will be construed as "statements detrimental to good order and discipline" with the only available recourse being administrative separation (for the chaplain).

Now look at this post from Marc at BadCatholicBlog, claiming 45% of the military is Catholic. And every chaplain ever to win the Congressional Medal of Honor has been a devout and orthodox Catholic.

Insisting that Catholics deny one of the truths of their faith could well blow a giant hole in enlistment and re-enlistment. But this failure to retain volunteer troops will do nothing to dampen our leaders' craving for empire. And when the volunteer army can't carry the load any more, you can bet they will return to the draft.

I am Not Alone

2011-03-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, I made the case that "government charity" is an oxymoron. Now Doug Bandow (whom I admire) has made the argument too, and better than I did.

It's About Time!!

2011-03-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

National Organization of Women Puts Respect For Women Ahead of Leftist Solidarity

Part of the reason they had to call out a leftist confrere like Bill Maher is that nobody has let ANY right wing commentator or politician get away with stuff like that for a very long time.

I'm A Man

2011-03-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to the redoubtable Simcha Fisher, whose blog "I Have to Sit Down" (see Blogs I Like in the sidebar) is always a delight, for leading me to this interview she did. It includes some insight into how to deal in a Catholic, Christian manner, with same-sex attraction. Read and enjoy.

And also to What Lies Beneath, a meditation on the true nature of Reality that is so often hidden from us. Read and enjoy that too.

Nuclear Insanity

2011-03-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

The real insanity when it comes to nuclear power is the delusional and deceptive demagoguery and discourse which surround it. Here is some antidote, provided by the most admirable David Warren.

I love the Rev. Know-It-All

2011-03-21T11:12:00.001-07:00

Here's a man I admire, because he has taken his stand for a liturgy by the rubrics. More importantly still, he has stood up for the life of the unborn. More important still, he has stood up for valid theology. See it all in Part 19 of A Short History of the Hootenanny Mass. I can recommend the entire series with a whole heart.

You may wish to argue my priorities. I agree with Father Z, good liturgy is good for the world. But lives are more important than good liturgy. And the truth about God is the most important thing in the world.

Halleluja, We're Being Attacked!

2011-03-19T03:45:00.000-07:00

Read the American Papist's most excellent story here.

tl, dr? A couple of gay billionaires are spending millions of dollars to undermine the Church's teaching on marriage, family, and sex. They give it to organizations like Dignity, New Ways Ministry, and the like -- basically anyone who'll say, "We're Catholic, and it's time for the Church to deny truths she has guarded under the power of the Holy Spirit for millenia!"

Why is this good news? It means we're actually having an effect.

Make no mistake, though, we oughta be mad as hell that Catholic-haters are trying to remake Holy Mother Church into their own image.

EUREKA!!

2011-03-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

One of my heroes is Dr. Stanley Williams, PhD. When his series, "Trying to Fly With One Wing" was posted at Catholic Exchange, I was enthralled. I sought it eagerly, as it seemed one of the finest bits of apologetics I had ever encountered. Eventually it disappeared from CE, and then from the entire web, as far as I could tell.

But now I have found it again! First at CatholicLane, where they are up to part 4, and then after some googling, on a blog devoted entirely to the series. I am thrilled to find it available once again, and I'm making sure it's in my sidebars.

Why I Don't Fear China

2011-03-02T09:01:00.000-08:00

It's hard to make war when everyone is old: China, damage of one-child law points to "risk of collapse"

If there is to be another great, horrendous conflict, it will likely be Humanae Vitae Catholics with Quiverfull evangelicals on one side, and such Islamic societies that reject contraception and abortion on the other.

In Which I Remain Too Lazy to Create Content of My Own

2011-02-17T11:03:00.001-08:00

I refer you to this column by David Warren. Tolle, legge. It is a delight.

In Which I am Too Busy to Create Content of My Own

2011-01-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

so I refer you to this post by Simcha Fisher. She ably demolishes what is in truth a presentist attack upon George Washington.

In related news, the NAACP requested that a national boycott be made upon the city of Charlotte, NC, because they had the nerve! the effrontery! to allow the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board to make up for snow days by scheduling classes on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Why, that's proof positive that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools are the center and pinnacle of racism in America today!

Do you think for a moment there will be similar protests, should they go and do it again next month, on President's Day? My respect for Dr. King is enormous; he took a principled stand against evil at great cost to himself. This makes me wonder if the NAACP is verging towards idolatry. Dr. King was a man and a hero, not a god.

David Warren

2011-01-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

David Warren is quite possibly my favorite journalist alive today. He has been writing, lately, on "What is to be done?"This column is the one where he hits it way, way out of the park. Go and read it.

NOW.

These Stone Walls

2010-12-30T20:17:00.001-08:00

These Stone Walls has just been added to my blogroll. It is composed on a rather flaky word-processor typewriter in a New Hampshire penitentiary by a priest who will in all likelihood remain in prison until (if) he reaches the age of 108. He will serve this sentence of 67 years because he maintains his innocence. Had he admitted guilt, he would have served no more than three years, and perhaps no more than one.

I just started reading this blog about four or five hours ago. It is absolutely RIVETING. I should have been in bed two or three hours ago. I am having a very difficult time leaving it alone. Part of this is because Fr. Gordon Macrae is demonstrating tremendous Christian charity in outrageously trying and difficult circumstances. I recommend him and his writings very highly.

Yet Another Blogrolled Video

2010-12-03T22:45:00.000-08:00

This one came to my attention via Dr. Sanity (she's in the sidebar; I'm too lazy to look up the link right now).

This video is one of those XtraNormal videos of little to no artistic merit, beyond the dialogue. This one intends to be very informative on the subject of quantitative easing, and it by and large succeeds.

Proof Of God's Grace

2010-12-01T15:46:00.000-08:00

that people would come together to do this:

I would have LOVED to have been there for it.

Salute to Fr. Longenecker.

Forced Intimacy

2010-11-24T04:23:00.000-08:00

I would be very surprised to find out my reader(s) are unfamiliar with outrageous molestation of passengers by TSA agents. (I could get more links if I wanted. Check out Google Search 1 and Google Search 2).

Imagine how you feel about that sort of personal violation when you fly. Now imagine it as part of your living arrangements -- something to which you are subject 24/7/365.

That's what military life is going to be like if/when Obama repeals the prohibition on gays serving in the military.

By the way, this is NOT an original thought. I owe it to this article on CE.

A Clarion Call for Subsidiarity

2010-11-22T20:41:00.000-08:00

There's a reason that David Warren's column is in my bookmark and my blogroll. He is an excellent writer who defends the moral, the true, the just, and the beautiful.

Here is a case in point. You should go read it.

And since Mr. Warren doesn't have commentary on his site, come back here and comment.

A Blast From the Past

2010-11-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

This was originally posted August 7, 2007. I got to add a reason, and it's so AWESOME I had to repost the whole thing with the new reason at #37.

The Top 100 Reasons Burt Gummer is Better than MacGyver

Americans have a fascination with how-to, and even more so with improvisational technology. The popularity of shows like "This Old House," "Junkyard Wars," "Battle Bots," and yes, "Tremors: The Series" all reflect this fascination. But, of course, the first show to use improvisational technology as a gimmick was "MacGyver."

But let's face it. MacGyver was nowhere near as cool a character as Burt Gummer, the tough guy of "Tremors." Nothing about the show was as cool as "Tremors." And so, in tribute to Burt Gummer and all the people who've composed and posted their lists of the top 100 reasons why the original and Next Generation Star Trek captains, first officers, science officers, chief engineers, and doctors are better than each other, I'm posting this.

I know, I don't have 100 reasons. But hey, I came up with 30 all by myself in a day or two, and a couple more while typing this up, so I'm sure there must be at least that many. Maybe my four readers, if they've seen both "Tremors: The Series" and "MacGyver" could add some more.

37. There would never be anything like this for MacGyver.
36. Two words: Excessive force.
35. There is absolutely nothing contrived about Burt Gummer.
34. When Burt Gummer meets an obvious nutcase, he says so.
33. Burt Gummer is a serious opponent, while MacGyver is only an annoyance.
32. When something's out to kill Burt Gummer, he kills it first.
31. Other people actually want to be like Burt Gummer.
30. Burt Gummer has backups and reserves of everything.
29. You can readily believe that Burt Gummer could survive naked in the wilderness with nothing more than a Leatherman.
28. Burt Gummer remains devoted to his first wife.
27. Burt Gummer cynically uses the forces he hates against each other for his own benefit.
26. "Tremors: The Series" is nothing like "Knight Rider."
25. Burt Gummer doesn't have hateful animated middle-aged chain smoking DMV clerks lusting after his body.
24. Burt Gummer is not politically correct.
23. Burt Gummer worries more about his own welfare than that of his foes.
22. Burt Gummer likes weapons and is proud of it.
21. The people who turn to Burt Gummer for their safety are nearly as clever, inventive, and tough as he is.
20. Burt Gummer doesn't have to narrate himself to get his exposition done.
19. Burt Gummer's 4 wheel drive would eat MacGyver's Jeep Wrangler for breakfast.
18. Everyone in Burt Gummer's community is a working entrepreneur.
17. Burt Gummer would never wear his hair in a mullet.
16. Burt Gummer can inspire even lifelong federal bureaucrats to take decisive and necessary action in a crisis.
15. Burt Gummer isn't a pansy.
14. Burt Gummer tries simple solutions first.
13. Burt Gummer doesn't need a Babe of the Week to prove his manhood. (warning: that link is to TVTropes!)
12. When Burt Gummer gets stuck with a youthful twerp, he turns the situation to his advantage.
11. Burt Gummer is famous, but he doesn't let it go to his head.
10. Burt Gummer treats lethal menaces as such.
9. Burt Gummer and his neighbors cooperate well, in spite of their diversity and individualism.
8. Burt Gummer doesn't take unneccessary risks.
7. Burt Gummer knows Hollywood tough guys for the idiots that nearly all of them are.
6. Burt Gummer works for a living.
5. Burt Gummer makes contingency plans.
4. Burt Gummer lives in an environment that would kill MacGyver.
3. Burt Gummer sniffed out a secret underground lab from hundreds of miles away by following graboid tracks.
2. Nobody could ever just slug Burt Gummer.
1. One word: GUNS.

If you have more to suggest, oh please oh please DO. If you want to debate any of these, go ahead. But if you want to post the top 100 reasons why MacGyver is cooler, post on your own blog. I'll link to it here. I'll even give you a freebie: If anyone said "maggot DNA" on MacGyver, Mac would point out that maggots are the larval form of flies.

Subsidiarity in Anticorruption

2010-11-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

I've been reading my way forward in the Uncubed webcomic archives. It's an autobiographical comic by the creator of PC Weenies. He described an encounter with the corruption that is endemic to India here.

When you live in a land where the law rules, as I do, it's really easy to forget that not all lands are so blessed, or the grave harm such corruption does, especially to the poorest of the poor. Imagine having to pay a month's wages to get a doctor's appointment, or a license to do business, or to run a charity, or to get your neighborhood connected to municipal utilities. This is the sad reality in many poor and developing parts of the world, where the Judeo-Christian ethic of government employees owing service to the polity has never taken hold.

I found in the comments a link to a Boston Globe article (which is well worth reading, btw). The article details anecdotes of 5th Pillar's efforts to fight bribery by giving people, especially the extremely poor, zero rupee notes to hand over when a bribe is solicited. There are three significant differences between the zero rupee note and the 50 rupee note: the denomination goes from 50 to 0 (obviously); it is printed on only one side; and the 0 rupee note includes a phrase that the bearer “promises to neither accept nor give a bribe” in place of a claim of legal tender.

Seriously, what is not to like about this? It takes the struggle directly to the people who are most seriously harmed by graft, making it a wonderful act of solidarity with the poor; it does so with a powerful appeal to conscience; it works without government intervention; it's remarkably inexpensive; there are (as yet) NO reports of it not working; and it doesn't get anyone in trouble.

Same Sex Marriage -- Why Not?

2010-11-10T10:47:00.001-08:00

Salute to Mark Shea, who only posted the first of these videos on his blog. I'm going to post all 4, which is nearly an hour of video, strictly on the strength of his recommendation; I have yet to watch them through.

The World of Salamanca by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

2010-10-27T15:35:00.000-07:00

The World of Salamanca by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Go and read. Salute to The Western Confucian.

This is just way too cool to limit to my twitter feed.

On Vampires

2010-10-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

Never mind what I have to say about vampires. You should DEFINITELY go and read what John C. Wright has to say about vampires. Salute to Mark Shea.

Greens jump the shark!

2010-10-05T16:33:00.000-07:00

Salute to the Western Confucian.

Here's the video. Greens did this themselves, without any prompting, with the idea that this is funny, and you'll agree. Be advised, it's nearly as violent as photos of aborted children.

There's commentary on Lew Rockwell and James Delingpole's Guardian blog.

EDIT: Some thoughts of my own....
the murders are portrayed as essentially inconsequential by those who do them. And they do them immediately after lying about the consequences. These things point out first, the value that the AGW types put on human life; second, their respect for the rule of law; and third, their commitment to honesty.

Pressure your senators!

2010-10-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

Leahy and Hatch, two longstanding proponents of nearly any legislation that restricts freedom, have come up with a real doozy: S. 3804, the the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (THOMAS link). There is an online opposition group, Demand Progress. Their front page links to stories from nearly a dozen sources.

I urge you to call and write your senators, and tell them to oppose the bill. No need for details, just tell them "OPPOSE S. 3804, the the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act." No point in getting verbose, all your senator will get is a report telling how many have written, called, and emailed in on each side of the issue.

Still More Blogrollin'

2010-09-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

Deo gratias, Dr. Sanity has returned to the Blogosphere. In my typically inattentive manner, I failed to notice for nearly a month.

The whole content of her first post since April is this YouTube Video, deftly showing the contrast between President Obama, and one of his predecessors in the Oval Office, to whom his followers are fond of comparing him.

On Tattoos

2010-08-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

Salute to Catholic Analysis, whose post regarding the whole thing you should read here.

Twitter can't hold everything

2010-08-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

At least, I imagine it can't ... like embedded videos. Salute to this post by the Western Confucian. Like him, I stand with Hayek.

Twitter

2010-08-21T11:36:00.001-07:00

I loathe Facebook. And frankly, not everything I find interesting on the Web, that I'd like to see shared, deserves a full blog post.

Hence, my Twitter feed. It may be found to violate Twitter's terms, in that it's a place I expect to post a bunch of links, and not so many "status updates."

Profoundly Irrational

2010-07-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

I don't look in on Catholic Analysis anywhere near so often as I should. Case in point: I did not read this article until it had been up for 20 days.

The Ruling Class in America

2010-07-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

This very long article describes the real political divide in America as well as anything I've read in quite a while. I urge you to check it out.

And I decided to post the link and suggest you read it before I got anywhere on this post on Mark Shea's blog, where I first found it.

Abortion's immorality

2010-07-16T23:10:00.000-07:00

Abortion, for this discussion, shall mean the direct and intentional killing of a human organism prior to birth. It is permissible only under the same circumstances as any other direct and intentional killing of a human being, namely, when the one killed is a direct threat to the life or liberty of one or more other human beings.

I submit that the life cycle of any sexually reproducing organism begins at the zygote stage. Further, it is absurd to conflate a zygote with an oocyte, e.g. by calling it a "fertilized egg." Gametes do not undergo mitosis. They do not develop. They either join, male and female, to create a new and unique organism, or they die.

A zygote is a new and unique organism. The only thing that separates it from an adult is sufficient time and a suitable environment. Claiming that any subsequent stage of development separates those human organisms with human rights from those without would be assigning those rights on the basis of arbitrary criteria. As there is no excuse for denying a zygote human rights, there is no excuse for killing one.

The Appeal of Twilight

2010-07-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

salute to Mark Shea.

If you want to understand where the appeal of the Twilight "saga" comes from, go read this page. The writer is spot on, albeit a bit coarse in his language.

And he's funny.

See also my post on vampires.

For the Children!

2010-06-21T04:43:00.000-07:00

It's really easy for me to discount anyone who claims that they are working "for the children!" It's a favored battle cry for people that all too often appear more interested in disassembling families, and deconstructing family structures, than of people who actually love children.

And yet, that is EXACTLY for whom Defense of Marriage Advocates are working. Read the article.

For that matter, so are those opposing Artificial Reproductive Therapy.

You aren't going to find anyone that loves children more than the Catholic Church.

On CE Today

2010-06-01T04:18:00.000-07:00

First, The Origins of the Red State/Blue State Divide, which actually explores three paradigms of family over the course of history, and what has historically led to the adoption of each. It's really good stuff, go read it. The implications regarding how government intervention in society winds up affecting overall societal morality, are important for liberty.

Second, an article discussing The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency. Read the article, read the book.

I have something great to reveal!

2010-05-30T04:10:00.000-07:00

Go here.

Salute to the Catholic Cavemen.

Immigration Reform

2010-05-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I've managed to create a bit of a stir over at The Lair of the Catholic Cavemen, in the immigration debate.

Here's the first post, where I asked of Simplex Vir, "What would you have us do?"

And here is his reply. My response has been submitted to their combox, where it belongs. If you plan to chime in, do so respectfully, and bear in mind that comments submitted belong to the blog's administrator, to do with as he pleases.

Gargantuan Privacy Breach

2010-05-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

Watch this video. You will find out how common it is for nearly all types of confidential information to be released without a thought or care by those who are supposed to keep them secure.

edit: that video's gone. Here are some others:

More Blogrollin'

2010-05-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

I was checking out this video about a Corpus Christi festival having to do with baby-jumping (embedded by Mark Shea here; salute to the Western Confucian). After it was over, a list of related videos came up. The one which piqued my interest was the Photoshop Effect. It ably demonstrates just how far the images we see of celebrities (especially women) are removed from reality. I've written about this before.

It is an aspect of the Culture of Death, which obsesses over sex divorced from new life, empty and stagnant. The goal of sex is not self-giving, but self-gratification, and the means is to meet some arbitrary, unhealthy, and exaggerated physique commonly called "sexy".

More and more evidence that mental health and self respect are greatly enhanced by ignoring the main stream media.

Pill Round-up

2010-05-17T06:08:00.001-07:00

Today, I found The Pill's Dirty Little Secret -- namely, that it is an elective risk for premenopausal breast cancer.

It cites a column posted on CNN by Raquel Welch, first brought to my attention by the Western Confucian. The column, It's Sex o'clock in America openly laments the irresponsibility, grave immorality, and bad behavior that the Pill enables and encourages.

Cui Bono?

2010-05-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

Who, besides providers and irresponsible fathers, benefits from the status quo on abortion? A study of that question is the subject of this article.

Cosmetics and pharmaceutical manufacturers use the flesh of aborted children as commodities. Everything I've ever said about embryonic stem cells (especially this) applies in this situation. There's a reason I've compared people like this to vampires. As PrairieHawk says in the comments of the article, it's cannibalism.

Good stuff.

2010-04-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

I have just gone and read Bishop Slattery of Tulsa's homily at Solemn High Mass at the National Shrine. I recommend it to you.

I have been mightily discouraged by the passage of the health care bill. Bishop Slattery's words have encouraged me. I do not know precisely how events will unfold. I expect to suffer, and I will seek to have my suffering help sanctify this world. That is my part to play in bringing about Christ's final victory. God help me.

How To Have An Austrian School Economy

2010-01-31T08:18:00.000-08:00

Salute to the Western Confucian. Full article at A Conservative Blog for Peace. Actual text by Bishop Williamson of the SSPX.

Excerpted are the seven commandments of Austrian School Economics:

Thou Must Earn.
Thou shalt not spend more than thou earnest.
No state may make too many rules.
No state may tax too much.
No state may spend its way out of a recession.
No state may print its way out of a recession.
No state may employ its way out of a recession.

Seem like very solid rules to me. I wish we had a government that would follow them.

Best of 2009

2010-01-02T09:50:00.000-08:00

I've been looking over my writing here in 2009, and sort of wondering, "How will I ever find enough stuff I think is good enough to go into a post like Best of 2008 and Best of 2007?

So I was doing something largely unrelated, namely, browsing Conversion Diary, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but this post. The goal? To pick One Thing from last year.

Well, here it is: Supply, Demand and Price. It started out as a gigantic wall of text, but (Deo Gratias!) I split it up into six more easily digested hunks. It's in my list of Oft-Cited Quotes (see the sidebar, near the bottom).

Per the usual request, here is a link back to the Mr. Linky List.

The Cold Heart of Obamacare

2009-12-30T18:29:00.000-08:00

Salute to A Shepherd's Voice. Read the full column, by Nat Hentoff, at the Cato Institute.

Mr. Hentoff has an excellent stinger line: "We do not elect the president and Congress to decide how short our lives will be. That decision is way above their pay grades."

More Blogrollin'

2009-12-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

Fr. D would make me look bad, if I figured there was any standard to which I thought I should hold myself. You really should go read his post on tragic circumstances. It's far better than anything I expect to write, except by the grace of God.

World of Lies

2009-12-10T16:10:00.000-08:00

I hear enough of Rush Limbaugh to know he has adopted "the World of Lies" as a new catchphrase. That certainly seems to apply to Planned Parenthood; witness this article.

From the comments, and though I regard RICO as bad law, I agree with this:

I realize that, under the current administration, this is highly improbable but I do believe a case could be made to charge PP, and all their officers, under the RICO statutes. They constitute a continuing criminal enterprise (hiding knowledge of, and facts pertaining to, crimes), they fraudulently receive government funds under various titles, and they conceal their activities by operating under multiple entities, perceived as independent though controlled by a single, overarching, entity which controls the direction and methods used within the organization. Going after the individual offices for their trangressions, regardless of how serious, is akin to prosecuting street level drug dealers, whilst the kingpins operate with impunity. -- Reilly

Government Intervention and High Prices

2009-12-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

I found this article, by Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson at Grove City College. He discusses the history of meddling with prices, and how it raises costs. It's worth a read. But in the first comment, along comes this, from Joe DeVet:

[T]here’s a moral dimension to messing with markets which is often overlooked in Catholic discourse about “social justice.” We Catholics proclaim a “preferential option for the poor”, but as the discussion goes on, many other competing “social-justice” goals tend to get in the way. We see a problem like the loss of the family farm, and we figure we’ll subsidize plowing crops under and killing piglets for the sake of the farm. We see a minority who don’t have health insurance, and are tempted to think remaking the whole health system will help those few.

At the end of the day, we may have helped SOME poor in the short term, but have harmed all the poor in the longer term. Prices are higher and goods and services more limited as a result of the interventions. The rich (includes you and me) are inconvenienced; the poor actually suffer. They don’t just “feel” poorer, as the author states, but ARE poorer.

So much for the “preferential option.” Bearing this in mind, we need to recognize that it is not only a bad idea to intervene in markets the way the current administration is trying to do, it is actually sinful.

The Death of Peak Oil

2009-12-06T05:58:00.000-08:00

Good News On Two Fronts. Salute to the Western Confucian.

The story relates two things: first, how a Russian scientist, Vladimir Kutcherov, was able to manufacture methane and other hydrocarbons -- some much like petroleum -- by mimicing conditions of the Earth's mantle. He combined iron, water, and calcium carbonate (limestone) at about 30,000 atmospheres, and got hydrocarbons. He hypothesizes that oil and natural gas are the products of geological processes having nothing to do with dinosaurs or other fossils. This is supported by rumors that some North Sea and Gulf of Mexico fields once thought dry are producing again (see the comments on that post). The second part of the hypothesis is that fluid hydrocarbons make their way to the surface through deep cracks in the crust. Map those cracks, and you'll find petroleum and natural gas.

If he is right, what does this mean?

First, it means that we will not run out of oil and natural gas until the Earth's core freezes solid. The argument for deadlier, lightweight cars is at least partly a fraud, as are those for mass transit.

Second, it means that oil exploration will become vastly more efficient and widespread. Instead of 20% of exploratory wells striking oil, it will be more like 70%. And many areas once thought to have no promise could have lots of oil. We may well find oil on every continent except Antarctica ... and maybe there as well.

Third, it means the number one ally of violent jihadism is going to be the NIMBY syndrome. Make no mistake, the primary exporter of violent jihadism is Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi Muslims, and they are financed by petroleum. If energy independence is going to get much more widespread, their share of the petroleum market will precipitously decline.

Just Having Some Fun

2009-12-05T14:54:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to grow up in Detroit, where I could get CBC-TV Channel 9 out of Windsor in the final years of Wayne and Shuster's career. Enjoy all 20 minutes of "The Brown Pumpernickel," a really fabulous example of their work.

It's a real shame, but comedy like this has become very rare. Wayne and Shuster were literate, measured, decent, and very very funny. Indecency sprawls everywhere in our modern culture of death, of course, which is a crying shame. It will take near universal rejection of pornography and smut to change that, and though I pray for it, I don't really expect it any time soon.

But that isn't the only thing that has changed. Television itself encourages a short attention span (and the internet even more so); see this article on The Art of Manliness. Somebody who finds the opportunity cost of paying attention to something for ten minutes is never going to get all the way through even as fluffy a classic as "The Three Musketeers," let alone "Summa Theologica," or the Vatican II documents. And because he is impatient, he will not become literate.

We hear "the medium is the message" so often it has become cliche, but it is cliche precisely because it is true. And the medium definitely controls the message when it comes to social networking sites: When "Know Thyself" Becomes "Show Thyself".

If I have anything to say about telly, facebooking, and the like, it is this: do not let your interest in such things become idolatry. The means of human communion God has given to us from out of antiquity -- family, church, community -- are, in the vast majority of cases, going to be best. And if you rely exclusively on media which by their nature eliminate the gestures, postures, tones of voice and facial expressions that make up so much of human interaction, you really are missing out on a great deal. You can strengthen your relationships by visiting people, or by getting out some paper and a fine pen and writing a letter. It requires more effort, but aren't those you love worth effort?

Rectification of Names

2009-11-28T08:40:00.000-08:00

"A is A," as Mark Scott used to say. Much of the immorality being advocated today is promoted by one of two lies:

"A is not-A": "A human zygote/ embryo/ fetus is not a human being. Using taxes to reallocate wealth is not theft. An incestuous marriage is not immoral. Self-defense is not a legitimate use of a gun. Licensing is not rent seeking. The Catholic Church is oppressive. Women are the same as men."

"not-A is A": "Homosexual marriage is marriage. The pregnant man is a man. Government health care is free. Minimum wages protect the poor. Abortion is a right."

Both lists could go on, and on, and on, and on. This is one of the topics that the Western Confucian regularly posts about -- The Rectification of Names. Some have suggested that Rectification of Names proposes that if you get language right, all else will follow, but that's not right, any more than saying the Confucian Rule ("Don't do unto others what you would not have them do unto you") is the same as the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"). Rather, the Rectification of Names proposes that if language is wrong, then nothing else can be right.

The Fort Hood Massacre

2009-11-13T19:12:00.000-08:00

The thing that struck me right off the bat about the incident, is just how long it took for anyone to show up that could shoot back at Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. This is an Army base -- a fortress, for crying out loud! Where were all the people with guns?

Arkanabar's Eclectic Rants

Studios and Samizdat

On so-called Piracy

What SOPA and PIPA are meant to do

Telling the Truth

Sign Frank's Petition!

Dolan's Jan 25 op-ed

The Problem with Patents

SOPA and PIPA

Catholics and Libertarianism

Let Your Voice Be Heard

Blast from the Past

Read This Book.

Occupy Wall Street

The Thinking Behind SOPA

Fundamentalism Explained

Straight talk about tough times

Blogrollin' again

Empowerment through Dressing Like a Harlot

In Which I Emulate Tito Edwards

Locking Out Linux

Worth Repeating for Emphasis

Shallow Atheism

Revisiting Extraterrestrial Salvation

A Splendid Course!

I WANT This!

Towards More Civilized Discourse

On computing

Blogrollin #78

On Fr. Corapi

Advertisers Filter Your Internet

You Are Being Watched

Instead of Googling...

Blogrollin again

First to Exit the Blegroll

Culture of Death, World of Lies

Women In Crisis

video blogrollin

Joyously stolen!

Nolan Chart

Disaster is Disaster

Oh, woe!

On Feminine Beauty

The Military-Industrial Complex In 5 Minutes

On Fr. Corapi

New Site

The Draft Is Coming

I am Not Alone

It's About Time!!

I'm A Man

Nuclear Insanity

I love the Rev. Know-It-All

Halleluja, We're Being Attacked!

EUREKA!!

Blogrolling number... 65. I checked.

Why I Don't Fear China

In Which I Remain Too Lazy to Create Content of My Own

In Which I am Too Busy to Create Content of My Own

David Warren

Blogrollin via Conversion Diary

These Stone Walls

Yet Another Blogrolled Video

Proof Of God's Grace

Forced Intimacy

A Clarion Call for Subsidiarity

A Blast From the Past

The Top 100 Reasons Burt Gummer is Better than MacGyver

Subsidiarity in Anticorruption

Same Sex Marriage -- Why Not?

The World of Salamanca by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

On Vampires

Greens jump the shark!

Pressure your senators!

Still More Blogrollin'

On Tattoos

Twitter can't hold everything

Twitter

Profoundly Irrational

The Ruling Class in America

Abortion's immorality