If I'm Calvinist is God Hobbes? Part 2: The "You're not the boss of me" doctrinal kerfuffle

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If you had the misfortune to read If I'm Calvinist, is God Hobbes? Part 1 of this scholarly exegesis, no - that's not right - this Rabelasian road trip, yes, much better - you no doubt will have noted several inconsistencies, non sequiters, logical conundrums and downright falsehoods. Good for you, if they're still alive, your Sunday School teachers will be so proud. Me? Couldn't care less. What concerns me is that I didn't fully explain why the Pope was so ticked at Calvin and his cranky co-conspirators. Yes, the Calvinists made a big deal of God's unapproachable, towering sovereignty but that wasn't primarily what frosted the Pope's beer mug. It was the insistence of Calvinists (and Lutherans, Zwingliites, Arians, Anglicans etc.) that the Pope had no authority from God to rule the church or compel the obedience of any Christian.

No, I'm the Pope of YOU!

I'm the Pope of you.

The "You're not the boss of me" doctrine was a direct assault on the power, perquisites and privileges of what by the 14th century had become the best gig in religion. It was such a good gig that different kings set up their own Popes to get in on all the fun. And you can understand why being a major league Roman Prelate was in such demand: you got to hang out in the south of France or Italy, A list celebrities kissed your pinkie ring, you presided over a religion that used excellent wine as it's primary sacrament, and you lived in a time where the practical definition of 'celibacy' was "sorry honey, you know I can't marry you but I'll pray that it's a boy". Sort of an all expense paid version of Porkys in man dresses. And not something to be given up just because some punk has spent too much time reading his Bible.

No, I'm the Pope of both
of you!

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And then there was the whole Antichrist thing. I mean telling the guy that cashes Jesus' checks here on earth that he actually doesn't have signing authority for those accounts is liable to put the calmest Cote d' Azur Popeboy in a state of heightened agitation. So yes, differences about the sovereignty of God, the nature of Salvation and the questionable fashion sense of wearing really tall hats all fed into the Pope's hostility.

But at the end of the day what they were really fighting over was custody of the Papal expense account.

Here is Part 3: Leviathan or What Happens When You Pick On Tommy Hobbes

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If you are an American and aren't outraged by the TSA, you're either not paying attention or you're depraved.

Which I guess means that the President and Congress are depraved.  All I can say to my Canadian friends is that if the People had any power in this shambolic Elective Monarchy we'd stop this sort of nonsense.  But we don't so we can't.

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE:

Ellen Richardson went to Pearson airport on Monday full of joy about flying to New York City and from there going on a 10-day Caribbean cruise for which she’d paid about $6,000. 

But a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent with the Department of Homeland Security killed that dream when he denied her entry.
“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others. 

The Weston woman was told by the U.S. agent she would have to get “medical clearance’’ and be examined by one of only three doctors in Toronto whose assessments are accepted by Homeland Security. She was given their names and told a call to her psychiatrist “would not suffice.’’ 

At the time, Richardson said, she was so shocked and devastated by what was going on, she wasn’t thinking about how U.S. authorities could access her supposedly private medical information.

I'm even more outraged at the regular, sinister and increasingly boorish behavior of the FBI, DEA, IRS and ATF. What is it about these three letter acronym Federal agencies. I mean WTF?

ht instapundit.com

I'm dreaming of a KGB Christmas.....

What is it with these Obami?  Did they learn their civics at the Erich Honecker School of Government?  Or did they take the Patrice Lumbamba University's correspondence course on how to shove politics down your family's throat at Christmas while making them think it's Aunt Myrtle's fruit cake?  Perpetual politics indeed.  ht instapundit.com

BYRON YORK: Why is President Obama trying to politicize the holidays?

But the first floor of the Stasi Museum is not about spying. Instead, it is devoted to the propaganda that East German bureaucrats used to foster socialist consciousness in an unwilling public. One display explains the GDR’s efforts in the 1950s to politicize what in the past had been family and religious occasions. The state sought to transform weddings, confirmations, and other personal events into “socialist celebrations,” to be “committed collectively and aimed at a confession to socialism,” according to the awkward English translation of the exhibit.
The exhibition informs visitors that the project “did not gain popular acceptance.” Amazingly enough, people didn’t want to turn their family holidays into socialist celebrations.
Here at home, this Thanksgiving brings an effort by the Obama administration to turn a day of giving thanks into a day of discussion about the virtues of national health care. On Wednesday afternoon, just hours before Thanksgiving, President Obama’s Twitter account — which has more than 40 million followers — sent out this message: “Make sure everyone who sits down with you for #Thanksgivukkah dinner is covered.” (“Thanksgivukkah” refers to this year’s rare overlap of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah.)
The president’s tweet linked to a photo of a young man sitting at a table with a turkey and a menorah. The accompanying text: “Celebrating Thanksgiving. Lighting the Hanukkah candles. Talking about health insurance. Gotta love dinners like these.”

God help us, every one.

If I'm Calvinist is God Hobbes? Part 2 John Calvin Picked a Peck of Pissed Popes

Hello, if you're reading this you will notice nothing's here.  This is because this location got  infested with low grade demons or something like that, I don't know demons.  So we cast them into a bunch of swine (or deleted them) who promptly began twerking which in my town is considered obscene.  Well, the long and short of it, we decided to just ditch this link and instead go here.  Unless you're a twerking swine.

On Imaginary Friends

In my post Back East I talked about my friend who is from 'up north' or 'back east'.  Actually he's from both and neither.  He's imaginary. I really think imaginary friends are a key underutilized resource in America today.  While small children and the psychotic make great of use of Imaginaries (that's what they liked to be called:  Imaginaries) the rest of us tend to struggle on without those pliable pals who can make any conversation more fun.

Take me, for example, I have an imaginary friend who we'll call 'Waldo'.  Waldo has a sartorial weakness in that he always dresses in the same damned striped turtleneck with messy hair and a stupid hat.  But he's my friend so I ask him to change and when he doesn't, I accept him because that's what friends do.  Waldo's job in life is hiding in plain sight which I tell him is really beneath his skill level.  But he enjoys it, the pay seems to be adequate to keep him in stupid hats and I get the fringe benefit in that knowing him so well I can always win the 'where's Waldo' game.  Life is good.

My imaginary friend Waldo.

But the thing that makes Waldo such a valuable addition to my imaginary life is his ability to provoke and then quickly and painlessly resolve my cognitive dissonance.  For example, from time to time I become concerned about our nation and the quality of the leadership therein.  Waldo interjects that he thinks (insert obviously incompetent and supremely silly politician's name here) is really sharp and that we should listen to what the (stupid oaf) has to say.  Like friends do, I listen quietly and respectfully as my good imaginary friend makes his case.  Then when he's done, I proceed to methodically demolish his naive, ill conceived arguments one by one.  He usually gets a couple tears in his eyes during the process but I am gentle so when at the end he acknowledges my absolute correctness and his obvious ignorance it doesn't hurt him so much.  Indeed, if we happen to be with enough of my other imaginary friends he usually persuades them to hoist me onto their virtual shoulders while singing the 'Marseillaise' or 'Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier'. It's really quite moving.

Another benefit that an imaginary friend brings to the psyche is guaranteed comparative superiority.  We all struggle with self image issues:  am I smart enough?  am I good enough?  Did I really write the entire Led Zeppelin backlist and were Jimmy Page and Robert Plant really just talentless hacks who stole my future?  I know that Waldo will never upstage me.  He will never point out my weakenesses except to acknowledge how much greater his are, he will never tell me he hates me even more than Robert Plant and Jimmy Page do.  In short, he will never let me down.  And if he ever does I will imagine such cruel and unusual punishments that I will never imagine that he will imagine ever contradicting my imagination again.  Imagination wise.

I really think that if Barack Obama had had an imaginary adviser/friend he wouldn't have had such trouble with the whole imaginary 'if like your health plan, doctor, drug, life, you can keep it' boo boo.  Because compared to his real healthcare advisers his imaginary friend would have been a member of the reality based community.  I know that I couldn't imagine a scenario that left the President completely ignorant about the pending collapse of his own signature achievement.  I mean that's just ridiculous.  Not even an imaginary friend will buy that.

Think this is weird?  Well here's a whole bunch of other non- political stuff that I've written. It works just like an Ambien prescription.

Back East

I was walking in my parent's neighborhood in Houston on Thanksgiving.  With my friend from 'up north' or maybe he's from 'back east' but definitely not from 'down east' which I understand is actually further north than 'up north.'  To be honest, here in Houston which is both 'down south' and 'out west'  (unless you're from California in which case they are definitely 'back east') they really don't  have a clear concept of either 'east' or 'north'.  They get 'west' but believe that once you get to California you're really 'back east.'  Go figure.


Now in Missouri we have a much more mature perspective on dealing with relative locations.  But it wasn't always easy for us being trapped in the middle of the nation.  For a long time we fought about whether we were in the upper south or the southwest but then when we didn't secede we succeeded in getting ourselves thrown out of the south.  Which put us in the north by default except the people back east said that they were from the north and therefore we were from the west.  Which was fine because when the seceding south didn't succeed we got to stay west which we always understood to be 'cool'.  But then one day California became west which we got but then Texas said they were west too despite being south which frankly irritated us because they're a bunch of cocky bastards who are always doing stuff like that.  So in response, we invented 'mid' as in midwest.  But then the midwest got rust on its belt and we decided that we didn't want to be rusty so we kept the mid- and swapped America for west as in Mid-America.  Which sounds a lot like Central America which is really Mexico, not to be confused with Mexico, Missouri.  So when the press started worrying about Cuba, not to be confused with Cuba, Missouri making Central America go communist, we got a bit worried about our image and finally decided to do away with the relative location hooey altogether.

So now all we ever say is that 'We're here.  You're not.  Get over it.'

Which will work until the aliens come.  So if you're on your planet and I'm on your planet which is not my planet which means that I am 'off' my planet but 'on' yours, what happens when you and I leave your planet? Do you go 'off' planet while I go 'off', 'off' planet?  And when we come back to your planet do you go 'on' planet while I go 'on-off' planet?  And where is off-Broadway in all of this?

Hmm.

Think this is weird?  Well here's a whole bunch of other non- political stuff that I've written. It works just like an Ambien prescription.

The only stores that are closed on Thanksgiving are the grocery stores.

I mean WTF?

Go Horny Toads - French Lingo Update

I've always had a soft spot for the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs.  Ever since they were the   perennial doormats of the Southwest Conference - the squashed frogs so to speak.  I think it probably has to do with the fact that the only Big 12 mascot I've ever held in my hand is a horny toad.  They're a bit scratchy but if you handle a horny toad gently they will place their trust in you and rest quietly in your hand.  Try that with a Longhorn and you'll get trampled.  And don't talk to me about a Sooner.  Try and hold one of them in your hand and they're liable to go off half cocked.

So in honor of Thanksgiving.  Go Horny Toads!

UPATE:  It has been brought to my attention that I may have inadvertently committed the French literary act of 'double wonton dray'.  To which I respond that I would never knowingly do anything French, nor do I have any familiarity with deviant Oklahoma sexual practices.  And anyone from the University of Tulsa who says otherwise had better remember the severe penalties for violating their Fraternity Initiation vows.

Carthage delenda est

At the Carthage, TX Walmart reflecting on Cato the Elder's perennial admonition: "Carthage must be destroyed!".

Which seems a bit harsh.  But redeveloped? Yes.

"Carthage must be redeveloped!" Hmmm lacks punch.  I can see Cato's point.

On the road again

Trapped in my son Sam's car somewhere near Little Rock on the way to Houston.  10 hours of trees and rocks, 2 hours of rice fields and 2 hours of.....Houston. And we never ever get out of the south central sector of the country.

This is a freakin' big place.

If I'm Calvinist, is God Hobbes? Part 1: Provisionally Speculative Edition

John Calvin 1509-1564 displaying the classic

"L" is for Luthers symbol commonly used by Calvinists

mostly because it made Luther mad.  In America

the symbolism has evolved into men bearing

large foam fingers preaching a degenerate form of the faith

in crowded gladiator arenas on Sunday afternoons.  It

replaced the pagan giant foam thumb used by

the Flavian emperors to speed up the pace of play

in ancient Rome.

This is Part 1 of who knows how many parts.   Here is:  Part 2:  The 'You're not the boss of me' doctrinal kerfuffle  and Part 3:  Leviathan or what happens when you pick on Tommy Hobbes.  And if you find this weird you may also want to be weirded out by my 'unique' (my Pastor's words) take on God in God 1.0.

I'm Presbyterian which means that I am Protestant, 'Reformed' (my ex says 'ha ha') and subscribe (while ignoring the increasingly strident renewal notices) to the Calvinist view of Christianity. It is a point of pride among Presbyterians that we can take almost an entire paragraph to introduce our religious credentials and that's even before we get to what type Presbyterian we are. For others field identification is simpler: Baptists say they're 'saved' and 'praise the Lord' a lot, Episcopalians don't talk about God but mix a mean sacramental Martini, Pentecostals jibberjabber and serious Catholics have lots of kids. Unless you're in Utah, then they're Mormons. Atheists are by far the easiest to ID: they tend to stand alone in the corner with a sour, resentful look. Getting stuck in a conversation with a militant Atheist can drive you to sacramental Episcopalianism.

To be a Calvinist  you have to believe in Tulips, no, not the flower and most definitely not Mick Jagger, although the Rolling Stones do give off a rather Hobbesian aura.  No, I'm talking about T.U.L.I.P. which any buck-Deacon in a one horse Presbyterian church knows stands for: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints - TULIP which of course was thought up in Holland where every damn business, house or idea had to have that stupid flower in it's name.  But Calvin was French and would have described it as: dépravation totale, l'élection inconditionnelle, l'expiation limitée, grâce irrésistible, et la persévérance des saints which would be DEEGP which makes no sense so be glad that TULIP won out.  Indeed John Calvin would be Jean but for the theologians of the 17th century who thought they'd get made fun of if they studied books with a girl's name or for that matter with a French guy's name.  Branding is everything.

I guess before I go any further I should lay out my credentials for opining on Calvinist Hobbesianism:  I am what is known as a 'Dozing' Presbyterian.  There are three types of Presbyterians: Nosey, Posey and Dozy.  Nosey Presbyterians know their Bible, they tend to be preachers, teachers and older women and definitely know the difference between Calvin's Institutes and Confucius' Analects (hey anyone could make that mistake).  If you want to know what's going on in the church or anything for that matter, talk to the Noseys - they'll tell you.  And tell you and tell you.  By contrast Poseys tend to be Deacons and Elders, particularly ones that got there via the 'fast track' of ushering.  They generally look pretty impressive, having the command presence needed to shoehorn a 5 person family into a 4 person spot.  But ask them a question about faith or truth or God and they get that blank, deacon in the headlights look and their hands instinctively clutch for the stack of programs that isn't there.  But if you want to get in and out of the building quick or get money with no probing, thoughtful questions asked, the Posey Presbyterian is your man - and in the more liberal denominations your woman too. But I'm a Dozy.  We're the foot soldiers of Presbyterianism, it's Bible fodder, if you will.  Dozys can always be identified after Sunday service by the broad, reddish mark  made by resting our foreheads reverentially against the pew in front of us.  We have developed our knowledge of theology via osmosis, or more accurately dozemosis.  We make outstanding early childhood Sunday school teachers because our childlike ignorance allows us to relate to the little ones at their level.  "Yes Kaitlin, I know that when you sing Jesus Loves Me He loves you and when Connor sings it He loves Connor but I'm here to tell you that when I sing it He loves me more because I'm bigger. That's just the way He is!"

Well anyway, back to the deep thinking.  As I understand it, or in reality, probably dreamt it, a key principle in Calvinism is the Sovereignty of God or SOG.  SOG is the idea that God is really God.  Get it?  He's not your invisible buddy, your copilot, your shrink or that pious pal who runs errands for you, he's the actual freaking God, the Big Numero Uno, The Creator of the Universe who judges the quick and the dead and if you're not quick about it, He'll darn sure make you dead.  Imagine your toughest boss crossed with Santa Claus - no not the "Ho Ho Ho" part, the "he knows when you've been bad or good part".  Have that in your head?  OK? Now imagine just how many days (hours) it would have taken him before he would have fired (or called the cops on) your ass.  That many?  Remember he knows when you've been lying too, that's more like it.  That's the kind of God we've got.  You see under SOG, God calls all the shots.  Even before the pool table's been built - He knows when you've been sleeping and knows when you're awake before you've been born.  And to say that He has a 'plan' for your life is like saying that my advice to President Kennedy to buy more life insurance after I had seen his assassination and then traveled back in time to be his insurance agent was just a 'lucky guess'.  SOG is that intense.

Which is why I suppose it bugged the Pope so much.  After all, if you're the Pope you're supposed to be the 'Vicar' of Christ, meaning His representative here on Earth.  And while you are perfectly happy to have God be a hard ass the better to keep the faithless but fearful in line - you're pretty sure you don't have the chops to channel the Santa Claus role and frankly as God's Number 2, you'd like just a little more autonomy to run your own shop thank you very much.  I mean how can you really be the 'man with the plan' when everyone knows that God is already a few billion  years ahead of you.  Which is why Jean became John and got a Swiss passport: the Pope was that pissed.

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It occurs to me that it's dinner time.  And while I would never, ever sacrifice my commitment to The Truth for carnal pursuits it's just that we're having steak.  Besides I think this piece probably needs some serious quality control which is why it is called Part 1:  Provisionally Speculative Edition. To whet your appetite, I mean if the steak mention didn't do it, I've included an image of Hobbes' Leviathan to give you a sense of just how Hobbesian my world is going to get.  For what it's worth, here's Part 2:  The "You're not the boss of me" doctrinal kerfuffle.

Thomas "Tommy" Hobbes on the first 

edition of his Big Book of Leviathan.

Hobbes is represented as the giant

King at the top.  This image is 

considered to be the earliest example

of a "Selfie" extant.  It will not surprise you

that Hobbes was generally considered by

those who knew him to be a 'pompous ass'.

Well I guess I'd rather be called a liar than a fool

ER, “NOW?” Polls: Obama’s Incompetence Now Twinned to Mendacity.

Hattip Instapundit

Ask not who the clock ticks for Barack, it ticks for thee.

And the ticks sound out doom, doom, doom

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/obamacare-deadline-democrats-congress-100289.html?hp=t1_s

The Democrats lack of republican modesty

One of the keys to building and sustaining a republic is the willingness of the various political actors to exhibit small r republican modesty in their exercise of power.  This is because republics, not having any other institution on which to fall back on such as a monarchy or established church cannot afford to let partisan extremism undermine it's legitimacy.  The Roman republic was ultimately destroyed after years of partisan extremism because its leading lights finally concluded that they literally could not afford to lose power.  So Caesar crossed the Rubicon.

The Democrats keep forgetting this.  Remember that Obamacare was imposed on a party line vote that used a number of 'innovative' parliamentary tricks (oh, and a boatload of less innovative lies).  Then the Obami began picking and choosing which bits they were going to implement in direct violation of the law's language. Now the Obami are delaying next year's enrollment until after the midterm election (a month late) so that no one will have access to next years prices which are sure to soar based upon the current state of the fiasco.  Wapo has the story:

Incredibly, we learned that the Obamacare open enrollment period for 2015 will be pushed back one month from the original start date of Oct. 15, 2014. This means that people will not be able to see what their insurance rates for 2015 will be before Nov. 15, 2014. Hmm, what’s happening in that one month that could possibly make this odd delay make sense? Oh yeah, America is holding national elections on Nov. 4, 2014. 

On top of this Harry Reid - perhaps the sourest, least appealing figure to be the Majority Leader in history - has traded the integrity of the Senate's filibuster for a tawdry mess of Appeals Court pottage against the advice of most of Washington's legislative adults both right and left.  And for the pies de la resistance, Obama has agreed to a loopy interim deal over nukes with the Mad Mullahs of Iran.

The Dems increasingly remind me of a Toddler who 'want do it myself!' despite lacking the skills or judgement to get the job done.  In their flailing efforts at self preservation they are tearing at the links and sinews that we need to hold the Republic together.  And to quote a shallow and deeply irresponsible politician:  "Yes we can" screw this country up.

Aren't there any adults left on the Dems side who can sit these 'cats down and tell them to chill?

Apparently the Obami are pissed about this healthcare foofera

Really Pissed.

"There's a term of art that the Obama White House uses to describe its neurotic supporters who instantly race to the worst-case scenario: They are known as 'bed-wetters.' Two months into the dysfunctional life of healthcare.gov, however, that seems a perfectly appropriate physiological reaction."--Franklin Foer, The New Republic website, Nov. 24

Hattip Best of the Web

The problem with 'standard' English

I read a good article in Spiked decrying the proliferation of adolescent neologisms and arguing for ''standard" English.  But I have to confess that I am conflicted by the concept.

One of the reasons is probably attributable to my experience with a certain type of English language reactionary. In 1968 I was a 7 year old Okie attending my first day at the English School of Abu Dhabi - hell it was the only school in Abu Dhabi. I asked to go to the 'bathroom' and was curtly told there there was none. I found that this was literally true a bit later while changing my urine soaked shorts. But never fear, I triumphed in the end: I consulted carefully with my father, marshaled my facts and the next day strode boldly up to the teacher and shouted "we beat you in a war". And I could tell by her expression that it stung.

In a just world I would have been borne out of the classroom on the shoulders of my cheering classmates like a Bedouin Mr. Chips except that I happened to be the only American in the bloody school. So instead some of the bigger lads beat me up after class. Behind the 'lavatories'. And to this day I remember wondering as the blows were raining down "what in the heck does pooping and peeing have to do with volcanoes?

Obama's 'suckers' deal with Iran

On the theory that the best thing to do when you're getting your ass whipped is to do something else so profoundly stupid that it will distract the whippers, Obama has gone and signed truly dumbass deal with the Mad Mullahs

Can you say radioactive legacy? I knew you could.

Duck and cover.

How 'bout that Heaven!

I've been thinking about heaven.

I don't think I'd like gold streets - they'd get pitted and I just think that it's the wrong aesthetic for a street.  I also really don't want a mansion - had one of those in an earlier life and they're a pain in the keister to maintain.  What I want is a loft on the top floor with a pool where all I have to do is think of what I want and gorgeous, intelligent women go get it for me.  That would be cool.  But perhaps heaven is like Douglas Adam's legendary planet manufacturer Magrathea where you're heart's desire in the way of planet-ware can be fulfilled, no matter how disgusting (think purple jello planet with tasty fried locusts and sumo wrestlers doing the backstroke).

But I think the most interesting thing about heaven - well, aside from God, Jesus, the angels, the cherubim, seraphim and the bottomless pitcher of perfect Pina Coladas - will be who's there.  Or more to the point, who's not. As I understand modern reformed theology, it is Jesus the Christ who separates the goats from the lambs.  Just looking at their SV (Sinicculum Vitae) you would not be able to tell Billy Goat from Little Lambikins.  So as much as it may appeal to my sensibilities, there is not likely to be a Nazi Room at Satan's Palace where Adolph and the boys reprise all their choicest brutalities on themselves.  As a matter of fact it is a point of reformed pride that there is not an (un)Goddamned thing we can do to save ourselves.  Perhaps the only reliable way to tell the damned from the elect is that the damned will tend to be screaming.

Which raises a rather ticklish question:  will we remember them?  The damned I mean.  Because presumably there will be a lot of them, they will be in a really nasty pickle (if not, then Jesus most certainly committed the sin of advertising 'puffery') and at least some of them will be people that we knew.  I sort of imagine that as we arrive at the Pearly Gates and get checked in there will be a kiosk where we can use Godgle to search for loved ones who've gone before - or perhaps they'll be there to greet us.

So say I get to Pearly Gate Intake Station Bravo and look around "gee, where's uncle Al?", the Seraphim First Class holding the door shrugs, St. Peter turns to one of his Cherubic (really!) assistants who looks rather sheepish and behind an absolutely adorable, chubby little hand points downward.  So Pete turns back around "I'm terribly sorry Mr. - he looks back down at his clipboard in a maneuver designed to convey to me just how really really insignificant I am - Reeves but your Mr. Uncle is not here."
"Well then where is he?  In hell?  I mean I buried him so I sure hope was dead"
"I'm sorry we don't have any information on any other eternal destinations, if you would please move along".  Which would upset me because uncle Al had the best collection of dirty jokes...um, well never mind.

So:  if you get to heaven and find out that some of the ones that you loved and cared about were 'not there' what are you to make of it?   And since the God who is hosting the greatest hootenanny of all time is also slipping away during breaks in the action to check on 'the rest' of the 'operation' what do you think of Him?  I mean it's one thing to mourn what happened to poor old Uncle Al but another thing altogether to find out that your new bestie is what is happening to poor Uncle Al - again and again and again.....  How secure in your salvation can you really be when its author and guarantor is also the Universes' premier concentration camp commandant?  And after he's already told you that you are at the party purely on his sufferance and whim.  But you kids have a good time!

Knowing something of remorse and fear I can tell you that to me it wouldn't feel like heaven at all.  It would feel both tragic and terrifying.  So I'm assuming God, being perfect and all, has planned for this eventuality.  And as I reflect upon it, I think he has two broad options for dealing with the "Uncle Al" problem.  Change us or change the reality around us.

He could change us in two different ways:  The first is selective memory removal.  All references to Uncle Al and the other 'detainees' would be excised from our memories.  They would cease to exist as would the experiences that we had with them.  This would certainly solve the problem but only at the cost of making some new ones:  first of all what if Thomas Edison was a 'detainee'?  Does that mean that ixnay on the ightbulblay?  If Bob Gibson is getting a slow roast do the Cards have to give back his World Series wins?  Tricky.  And there is the 'big O', the real objection to memory removal.  In a real sense 'I' am only 'me' because of the sum total of experiences that have accumulated in my wetware and have informed the development of my soul.  Getting rid of Uncle Al doesn't just do violence to his memory, it gives me the soul equivalent of serious brain damage.  Without the memory of people and the role they played in my life can I really say that what is left is still me?

But never fear, there's a second me modification option: drugs.  Or more accurately the uber euphoric Joythatpassesallunderstanding better known by it's street name "Joy" or "Whee".  Perhaps the elect will experience such overwhelming Joy all of the time that the lack of Uncle Al will cease to matter.  "Uncle Al? who gives a shit, gimme another hit!".  Then again, perhaps not.

The other option to 'solve' the problem could be to change reality around us. For example, simply eliminate our memories of all other humans, replacing them with a billion redaction dummies doing the same things but having no identity in our memory banks so we can't miss them.  Or alternatively God could populate heaven with Icthus 2000 cyborg replicas of all of the damned.  So Uncle Al would appear to me just the way he did back in the day except for his sudden inability to tell a single dirty joke.  "But I could still feel bad about my dog Boots, where's he?"  "OK, dogs too, dammit."  But I don't really think that God would disguise the reality around us.  That would make him a big fat liar.

So we're back to changing me.  And the thing that these 'solutions' have in common is that they violate or obliterate the integrity of 'me'.  If I can't remember or am drugged to not care then in a real sense am I still me?  And if not who's been saved? (I always imagine that this is the scene from the movie where Ronald Reagan discovers that he had lost his legs: the "where's the rest of me" moment) And that doesn't even begin to deal with the question of sin.  Do I have free will?  Can I sin?  If so, how is heaven different than earth?  If I have no free will, can't remember or am drugged not to care and am systematically duped it stands to reason that what has been saved is not 'me' but a me shaped mannequin who God puts in a new pose once in a while'.  And if that's the case then I wouldn't want to be in Jesus' shoes when he gets the call from the Advertising Standards Board - can you say 'false and misleading?'

And there's another, even bigger problem: Even if there is some other option that miraculously skirts all of the free will and Uncle Al issues, then why didn't the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent perfect God use the same tech to rescue the world when Adam and Eve did their big awshit?  Why produce 60 billion (!) stiffs with all their pain and sin if you already know how you're going to solve the problem?  Time crunch? The mother of all procrastinations? Or was the solution still a bit buggy at Redeemer labs when Eve committed the most disastrous single act of nagging in human history?

Oh well, I'm sure God has it all worked out.  After all he's not only perfect, he's becoming more wonderful every day in every way.  Hey! Who's been putting crap in my coffee?

Well, whaddya expect?

Krauthammer points out that the Obami led by the hat bearing boo boo hero John Kerry are caving to the mullahs just as our decade long strategy is paying off.  I would mock Kerry for his French style capitulation but the French are already ripping him a new one.

This administration is neither particularly  competent nor particularly pro American or pro West. Even less so than French socialists! They are behaving precisely as one would expect. It's just one more bloody mess to clean up after the lightbringer rambles off to his golfing retirement.

Fore!

http://m.nationalreview.com/article/364542/our-suckers-deal-iran-charles-krauthammer

Call 'em Bernanke coins

Private currencies like bitcoin thrive only when markets begin to lose faith in the "full faith and credit" of government issued money.

And honestly, who can blame them? As Prof Reynolds always says: they'll make us all beggars 'cause they're easier to please.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/22/bitcoin-prices-reach-so-high-users-can-f

"All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds"

If you've been following this blog for some time (thanks Mom!) you'll know that I grew up in Indonesia and had some shameful interactions with children who had Kwashiorkor, a disease of malnutrition where it is estimated that two thirds of its victims don't live to see adulthood.  That story is here feel free to read it, it doesn't make me look very good.  In it I admitted to feeling great shame and asking God for forgiveness for my callousness.  But while I wasn't too hard on myself, I think I let some other people off of the hook far to easily.

Like my Church. I went to a rock ribbed Southern Baptist missionary church:  Kebayoran Baptist, sang in the choir, did the youth group, you name it, I did it.  My best friends were M-Ks, missionary kids.  Yet I do not recall one sermon or statement talking about the KK kids that all of us saw outside our own gates.  Yes there were missionary appeals for the poor, yadda, yadda.  But no one dealt with the poor dying ones in front of our nose.  I've defended myself by reminding everyone that I was just a teen, but I know that's a crock.  And if it's a crock  for me, how much more for my Parents? and if for my Parents, how much more for the Pastors and Elders of the church?  And if for them, then how much more for a supposedly 'merciful' God?

The world we have is the world God made and allows to exist. He could change it at any time. God is not required to 'tolerate' anything. He doesn't need to 'take the good with the bad' or the 'roughs to get the smooths'. He can have any outcome he chooses and any outcome that happens he's seen in advance and therefore has willed. That's because the notion that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God can just 'let' something 'happen' is logical baloney (or perhaps even liverwurst than that). So the outcome that exists with starving street children and thuggish rich kids must be the one he likes most. As Voltaire's Pangloss would say of God's creation: "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds" God must really dig our pain.

So how 'bout it God?  I've apologized.  Don't you have something to say?  C'mon, at least be a man about it.


Horrified by all of my libertarian polemics?  Here's a compilation of my non political, non economic pieces for those nights when you have insomnia.

Sarah Silverman, we love your Lady Parts, it's the rest of you we can't stand.

Lots of feminist ladies claim that men are afraid of 'lady parts'. See the silliness at the link.  As a former red blooded American teen male I can assure you that this is false.  We adore lady parts, so much that we want to behold and caress them all the day long.  We think you women are actually the ones frightened of your own bits of tackle. After all you're always hiding them and slapping us if we try to touch.

I forgot the absolute best part of the story: there's a new website to promote lady parts. It's called from V to shining V. Which is funny because I never noticed any shining.  But if there was it sure would be handy in bed.  "There it is"!

It's stories like this that wiped out the parody industry and energized the "adult" entertainment industry: "get your hands off my shiny lady part, you'll get fingerprints on it!".

The real key to Patient Protection and Affordable Care (Acting)

Every health care service that patients pay for out of pocket has falling real prices.  Every health care service that insurance pays for has rising real prices.  Knowing that fact what would you do to protect patients and help make care more affordable?  In other words if you were the "Lightbringer" seeking to "fundamentally transform" America (at least in a way that makes more Americans happy), how would you PPACA?

Here is general healthcare price inflation relative to the Consumer Price Index (incidentally, I believe this includes the falling price sectors that are not insured so the insured sector price inflation is probably somewhat higher). It's not a pretty picture.

Contrast that with what has happened to the price of cosmetic surgery which customers pay for out of pocket with their very own money earned by their own widdle hands:

So it turns out the venal, self serving purveyors of tummy tucks, boob jobs and Nancy Pelosi's fright mask are actually less thieving than the selfless servant surgeons and physicians who care so deeply doing 'real' medicine..  Boy I wish we could get the humanitarians to care a little bit less and compete a little more on price, don't you?

But this is just one sector.  It's not real medicine.  OK, lets take a look at laser eye correction surgery, known as Lasik.  Lasik is not paid for by most insurance plans, yet once again its prices have fallen relative to the general price level.  It seems that evil capitalists have gotten a hold of the sector and applied their black magic to it.  Foul spells like:  scale economies, experience curves, specialization, automation, discounting, price discrimination and (gasp!) the profit motive.  The result:  a lot fewer lasik practitioners with much higher productivity and velvet for their patients.  You know it was just this sort of vile capitalist behavior that Barack Obama was elected to stop!

You'll note that average pricing includes a major technological innovation that improved quality and safety yet at the end of the day, average prices remained the same in nominal terms even with the better procedure factored in.  Suffice it to say that other ophthalmologic procedures paid for by third parties saw their nominal prices soar.  Presumably because they were "doing it for the children", God bless 'em.  Here's a good summary of the above.

So eyes, skin, boobs, 'big deal', how about something really important like hearing?  The hearing aid market is largely a senior citizen market and Medicare does not cover it.  Historically hearing aids have been custom fitted by audiologists and cost $3,000 the pair with lush margins for both the audiologist and the hearing aid manufacturers.  Today with the advent of smart phones perfectly functional hearing aid apps are selling for $3.99 and can be linked with any manner of inexpensive in ear speakers.  See here.

Imagine how much they would cost if the 'lightbringers' had organized a 'socially responsible' 'Universal Hearing Program'?

At some point the politicos need to recognize that they have no idea how to manage supply, demand and pricing for health care services (or any other damn thing for that matter) and instead allow as much as is humanly possible a true market to function where only truly catastrophic health care events are covered by insurance.  It's only when consumers can make valid trade offs between all of their consumption options and pay for their choices with their money that disciplined markets that optimize cost, quality and innovation exist.  Of course to do this would require the Obami to repudiate almost all of their 'reform' and reimplement and extend the W. Bush insurance reforms that they just superseded.

And given the absolute swingeing chaos that Obamacare has become we might get what we need done simply because the insurance market collapses.  

Modern American debtors prisons or so why did we have a revolution anyway?

There evidently are tens of thousands of Americans in prison because they can't pay their debts.  And governments routinely seize (steal) the assets of people who have been convicted of no crime. Indeed some of them are targeted for prosecution based upon the extent of their unencumbered assets and their lack of social or political pull. And of course, there are hundreds of 'crimes' that do not require mens rae or criminal intent. .

So, can someone explain to me precisely why we had  a revolution? It seems that the only state abuse we don't have from the old country is droit du seigneur. Well actually that's not true: Bill Clinton, JFK and LBJ practiced it with "vigah" (or is that vigger?) and W probably did before he found Jesus (his was definitely vigger). And BHO prefers droit du golf. 

I warn my children about the police and the "officers" of the court ten times more often than about criminals. And I worry 100 times more. Because a criminal just about has to kill you to destroy your life.  All the authorities have to do is convict you of one of thousands of increasingly random 'felonies' and your life prospects collapse. And in our plea bargain hell, 98% of the time they'll get  you to plead guilty to avoid truly cruel and unusual imprisonment which is now the norm. And they alone among the nation's armed and dangerous can kill you and get away with it. 

God help us every one.

Crucial last jobs report before 2012 election was faked

It turns out that the Census bureau (who conducts the monthly household employment survey) fabricated the survey results for households it could not reach.  And it just so happens that the employment report in question was the last one before the 2012 election and it further happens that this 'special' month had an 'amazing' reduction of unemployment from 8.1 to 7.8 percent.  A result contradicted by other macroeconomic indicators. At the time Jack Welch, Rick Santelli and others openly questioned the number but were shouted down by Obama's Press Choir singing the progressive Hallelujah Chorus.  Awfully damned convenient, don't you think?

For the sake of the Republic, I hope that the Obami are the ones who initiated this because as was true in the IRS scandal if it turns out that the Federal Civil Service are becoming independent partisan operators in our politics, then the Republic is in desperate trouble.  I don't think my leftward friends understand just how the deck is stacked in their favor.  Almost the entire public workforce, from the Feds, States, Cities, Schools, Universities you name it is Democrat.  When Democrats are in power they help them, when Republicans are, they resist them.  But heretofore it's been rather passive behavior that befits their status as 'non-partisan'.

But now it appears as if our 'servants' may be actively manipulating our politics and indeed our data to promote Democrat electoral success.  If  this is the case and continues, it will eventually mean the end of the Republic.

The only silver lining in all this for Conservatives is that the officers, non coms and combat troops of our military are overwhelmingly and resolutely conservative.  And Christian.  Which is why the Obami have been running a rather massive purge of 'politically unreliable' General Officers.  It won't work, Barry.  Because unlike the FBI, DEA, IRS or Census Bureau, the Officer Corps has honor.  They're willing to die for the country, but not lie for you.

And I thought I judged women by their looks

Women live in a tough world - evidently they are constantly judging each other's appearance:

To see how female students react to a rival, researchers brought pairs of them into a laboratory at McMaster University for what was ostensibly a discussion about female friendships. But the real experiment began when another young woman entered the room asking where to find one of the researchers.

This woman had been chosen by the researchers, Tracy Vaillancourt and Aanchal Sharma, because she “embodied qualities considered attractive from an evolutionary perspective,” meaning a “low waist-to-hip ratio, clear skin, large breasts.” Sometimes, she wore a T-shirt and jeans, other times a tightfitting, low-cut blouse and short skirt.

In jeans, she attracted little notice and no negative comments from the students, whose reactions were being secretly recorded during the encounter and after the woman left the room. But when she wore the other outfit, virtually all the students reacted with hostility.

They stared at her, looked her up and down, rolled their eyes and sometimes showed outright anger. One asked her in disgust, “What the [expletive] is that?”

Most of the aggression, though, happened after she left the room. Then the students laughed about her and impugned her motives. One student suggested that she dressed that way in order to have sex with a professor. Another said that her breasts “were about to pop out.”

I don't think that I can recall a single incident in my life where I had that type of conversation about a man.  Now, about a woman, yesireebob.  But of course my assessment was a bit different than the mean girls.

I also found this disturbing:

Studies have shown that women’s ideal body shape is to be thinner than average — and thinner than what men consider the ideal shape to be.

Don't do it ladies!  Stop before you diet again.

Intergalactic Adverse Selection Coming to a Country Near You

Hospitals want to sign up their sickest uninsured patients for O'care. If they pull it off then there will really no reason for most Americans to buy health insurance. See link below.

It will leave the insurance market a smoking Obama shaped ruin.  Of course this will probably happen anyway.

Sigh.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/will-hospitals-buy-aca-insurance-for-their-uncovered-patients.html

Models are not reality - Minimum wage example

Scott Sumner put together a good chart showing the correlation of unemployment rates with minimum wages in Europe.  The chart shows that price and demand vary inversely.  What a shock.  Inevitably the first commenter claims that Scott is wrong. There must be another explanation because 'rigorous empirical models' 'show' that minimum wages have no effect on employment.

I am always wary of people who cite ‘rigorous’, ‘empirical’, ‘models’ as evidence for real world phenomena. Particularly when we have hundreds of truly empirical studies using real historical data from all over the world that confirm that demand for labor varies inversely with its price (like every other bloody commodity whether legal or banned) .

Models are crude representations of reality not reality itself and reflect the modelers particular biases. Many of the models are funded by governments. Governments like power and control so the models tend to show top down state manipulation of basic variables as ‘working’.

It’s always amusing to see one of the model ‘faithful’ confronted by actual, you know, facts. They stutter, their face flushes, for a moment their mind is blank. Then years of statist catechisms kick in and they announce with the vigor of a true believer that their God The Model is true and even more importantly is ideologically righteous and therefore it’s reality that has is wrong.

Hallelujah, Amen.

Flailing, flailing under the bounding main!

Or should that be circling, circling 'round the political drain?

The DC cognoscenti have begun talking about O'care repeal in order to save the Dems scrawny necks. (see link below) But wasn't this the moral equivalent of something or other or at least somebody's essential whatsit? I'm sure I heard from my Lords that to even talk about postponing this was tantamount to terrorism or Nazism or something pretty darn nasty.

And now its never mind?   Aren't THE PEOPLE worth more than a few wrung Pelosi necks? Hell, I'll even wring 'em for you.

It'll be fun.  Wringing, wringing all the Pelosi necks!

http://www.nationaljournal.com/against-the-grain/why-obamacare-is-on-life-support-20131118

President Obama hasn't just jumped the shark, he's jumped his base

This morning the host on  NPR game show "Whaddya Know?" brutally mocked President Obama for what seemed like an eternity.  At first the crowd sounded uncomfortable ("Are we allowed to mock the lightbringer, when he stumbles and smashes the light?" but they laughed anyway.

Seen in the USC student section at the USC Stanford game:  Stanford supports Obamacare.

Ouch baby, very ouch.

POLITICO: “I don’t know how he f—-ed this up so badly,” said one House Democrat who has been very supportive of Obama in the past.

Ooh! I know! I know! Pick me!

Why are we subsidizing the creation of a ruling class?

It's no secret how elite schools and universities get 'elite'.  They do so by obsessively recruiting the cognitive and financial rich. The little "eagle eggs" (that is what the Vice Principal at my kids posh grammar school called them, honest) start their school or university life on third base (sorry about the US sports reference, I can't do cricket analogies, it's my lousy education). When they score a run, the school or university proudly claims that they were instrumental in helping the little tyke 'hit a home run' when all the brat did was take a base.  

This is rather funny because I think many elite schools actually deliver low levels of value add because their raw material is already fairly refined. Does anybody seriously believe that the entering class at Chicago would suffer any serious economic or social harm if they didn't get to Hyde Park?  And some absolutely dreck public schools may actually add more value because the delinquents are so far down. Just looking at which school has the cleverest students really tells you nothing about how good they are at improving a child's life chances. Although I'm sure there are a lot of crap public schools just like there are a lot of crap public anythings.

The real obscenity (and perhaps this is more US than elsewhere) is that elite schools and universities spend huge sums helping the cognitively super rich get richer while molding them into an elite social class in partnership with the financial super rich. Mind you, these are charities that are given massive tax subsidies to increase inequality and concentrate power in our society. 

Don't get me wrong, I believe Harvard and Eton and the rest of them can do whatever the hell they want - they're greedy little sows so they'll probably just go on gobbling up more power and status and wealth until they burst. However, the government shouldn't be subsidizing this profoundly elitist enterprise.  Let the Richie Richs' - both cognitive and financial pay for their own finishing schools.

Either that or let them take on a real challenge:  adding value at the bottom of the cognitive barrel.  Now that takes brains.

Chronicling the deterioration of the progressive mind and the NYT

Progs used to have some economics chops and conscience, now all they have is the will to power.  Read the two editorials on minimum wage, both from the NYT one from '87 and one from today.  Of course relatively few people read the NYT today and even fewer believe the Gray Granny anymore.  But clearly the bland bitch has had a few small, brain damaging strokes in the last 36 years.  Or they have "Upperwestsideheimers" Disease - a condition that causes them to forget reality and replace it with fashionable leftist fantasy and confabulation.  Koch brothers!!

1. From 1987, “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00“:

Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market. A far better way to help them would be to subsidize their wages or – better yet – help them acquire the skills needed to earn more on their own.

An increase in the minimum wage to, say, $4.35 would restore the purchasing power of bottom-tier wages. It would also permit a minimum-wage breadwinner to earn almost enough to keep a family of three above the official poverty line. There are catches, however. It would increase employers’ incentives to evade the law, expanding the underground economy. More important, it would increase unemployment: Raise the legal minimum price of labor above the productivity of the least skilled workers and fewer will be hired.

The idea of using a minimum wage to overcome poverty is old, honorable – and fundamentally flawed. It’s time to put this hoary debate behind us, and find a better way to improve the lives of people who work very hard for very little.

2. From 2013, “Redefining the Minimum Wage“:

Over the last half-century, American workers have achieved productivity gains that can easily support a $15-an-hour minimum wage. In fact, if the minimum wage had kept pace over time with the average growth in productivity, it would be about $17 an hour. The problem is that the benefits of that growth have flowed increasingly to profits, shareholders and executives, not workers. The result has been bigger returns to capital, higher executive pay — and widening income inequality.

Efforts by the states and the federal government to raise the minimum wage are an important way to counter that dynamic. But they must be seen as modest and partial steps in the direction of fair wages. Other steps include more progressive income taxes, enhanced rights to form unions without retaliation, and government job-creation programs, because a tighter labor market would force employers to compete for workers.

Fast-food workers, Walmart employees and staff of federal contractors have all been agitating recently for higher pay from profitable employers. They deserve raises, and they deserve to have the federal government behind them.

A chart that needs no explanation

I have come to the conclusion that those who support drug criminalization are worse than racists and homophobes.  After all no on is in prison for being a different race or gay.  We need to ostracize these cruel, evil people.  Here's a short film documenting the destruction they have wrought.

History in the Making: Obama's Obamacare Collapse Press Conference

Progressivism's Stalingrad, el Alamein and Midway all rolled into one.  Key viewing tip:  when his lips are moving that means he's lying.

Tar and feathers? Sorry, these gun totin' thugs need a Texas Necktie Party

Our fearless protectors are absolutely out of control.  They've become the primary threat.  The clean and decent ones better do something quick before they're all swept away.  I warn my kids about the police about 100 times more often than I do about criminals.  And I think I need to increase the ratio.

Give Us Cash or Lose Your Kids and Face Felony Charges: Don’t Cops Have Better Things to Do?! “Imagine getting pulled over while on a family vacation and having small-town cops accuse you and your family of being drug couriers. Then imagine hearing that you have two options: Fork over your cash and continue on your vacation or face felony charges for money laundering and child endangerment, in which case you go to jail and your kids get handed over to foster care. That’s what happened to Ron Henderson and Jennifer Boatright while traveling through Tenaha, Texas, a town that regards piracy as just another way to raise revenue.” Tar. Feathers.

UPDATE:
It turns out that Tehana is one of these truly criminal towns.  I googled the town and found this, this, this, and this on the first page.  C'mon honest Texas Cops, I know you're out there.  Clean up your messes before you get cleaned up.

Hattip Instapundit.com

Laws, we don't need no stinking laws

The Lightbringer is bringing us post-Constitutional government and bless his heart even YEEAARRGGGHHHman Howard Dean is noticing.  Hattip: Instapundit.com

DAVID HOGBERG: ObamaCare a ‘Surreal’ Trainwreck. “How bizarre has Obamacare become? Well, bizarre enough that for the first that I can remember, I find myself agreeing with Howard Dean. As you’ll see in the clip below, Dean questions whether President Obama has the legal authority to allow people to keep their health plans. . . . But, as has often been the case with Obamacare, the president will disregard the law. Finding myself in agreement with Howard Dean is surreal. So is watching a president ignore the rule of law with impunity.”