Bruce Springsteen Rocks

E Street Forever

Religion and IQ

I found the link on the Amazon Science Forum site

http://www.amazon.com/tag/scie.....tagsDetail

I'm not too sure what to make of it. The variation in religiosity is more or less what I would have expected, although I was a bit surprised at the UK scoring so high. However, the variation of average IQ with country seems a bit odd. I wonder if it actually measuring educational levels, or average literacy?

(sigh) Here we go again.

From a person who consider herself intelligent, it astonishes me that you believe in something that doesn't objectively exist, namely, an "IQ". Do you also believe in the tooth fairy?

I can measure the temperature in my room and so can you and we can both agree that it is seventy degrees. I can cross check with another thermometer or a thousand themometers if necessary and so can you and a thousand other people. We can establish irrefutably the fact of the temperture in my room. And, if you could do the same, if you put that therometer in my mouth-- 98.6 degees F-- another objectively established irrefutable fact. But can the same be said for an "IQ" test?

What is an "IQ" test? Whether it is the Stanford Binet, a SAT, GRE, or any other variation, it all boils down the the same thing. It is an assessment of someone else's mental acuity. Sounds pretty straight forward, until you start asking some foundational questions. Why are they doing the assessing? Who is doing the assessing? Who is being assessed? How are the assessments constructed? And so on. With only a moment of reflection, it should be more than apparent that these tests are utiliterian and sometimes psychological projections of what testor deem should be tested. Thus, in Saudia Arabia, memorization and recitation of the Koran would mark you as intelligent. In Britain, your ability to solve the Pons Asinorum would mark you as intelligent. But both of these kind of questions no where come near to assessing "intelligence"-- an undefined quality, like love and faith. It is undefined as intelligence is a subjective behavorial manifestion, like laughter or grief, not an intrinsic quality like body heat. As filters and gateways into what a particular culture regards as important, these tests are not without their use. However, it is scientific fraud to extend these tests beyond their limited purposes to comparing "intelligences" between races, sexes, religions, to other nations, across time, and to historical figures.

As to your basic question, the answer is that such comparisons are nonsense. Never has the hypnothesis that intelligence is evenly distributed across all people be they backwoods Baptists or Church of England atheists refuted. (The same is true with African hottentots and Manhatten investment bankers-- as a group, their intelligence is identical because their fundamental biology is identical.) Well, how can you explain the SAT score between Catholics and Episcopalians? Could it be that the former doesn't have the cultural advantages-- prep schools, access to tutors, summer camps, legacy parents, etc-- that the latter have? Daring thought!

I really wish people-- especially psychologists-- would put their intelligence to better use instead of dabbling in the pseudo-science and fairy tales of comparative IQs.

Before Your Criticize Someone . . .

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster Critique

Some interesting posts on Andrew Sullivan's blog on the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory.


A reader writes:

I'm an avid reader who's never written you before, but as a philosophy major and not much else, this is probably the first time I've felt (vaguely) qualified. And the sudden phenomenon of assertive atheism has me concerned too. What the defenders of the Flying Spaghetti Monster thesis'commensurability with actual theism fail to recognize is that belief in God generally doesn't have anything so "concrete" as its substance. It's not the particulars of God -- the "invisible man in the sky" imagery andsuch -- that matter. In some sense these particulars aren't the content of theist belief at all; it's the "consequences" of God -- moral compunction, cultural taboo, social phenomena that amount to a de facto eschatology, etc. -- that actually constitute theism. And when measured by adherence to behaviors consistent with this belief, atheism suddenly appears much rarer. Nietzsche recognized this; it's the reason why an insistence on overcoming Judeo-Christian ethics comes right alongside his proclamation of the death of God.

Another reader writes:

Your philosophy student reader's email did a wonderful job of finding three ways to say the same simple point: Christianity is more than an infatuation with God as Deity. I think most atheists understand and accept this and a moment's time exploring the writings of even the spittle-flecked atheist agitators shows that they understand that life still presents significant questions, both moral and existential, that religions claim to answer. Your previous reader's letter raised a similar point concerning the seeming lack of positive propositions from atheist thinkers, but the philosophy student goes a step further and insinuates that perhaps "real atheism"is close to impossible unless one can otherwise justify all of one's existential beliefs without God. Both of these readers, I think, conflate atheism with too much else. Atheism is a simple proposition: Sufficient, convincing evidence for existence of the Supreme Being(s) is lacking and claims that rely onthe existence of God for their validity are therefore false. Atheism is not the idea that morality does not and cannot exist, it is simply the idea that God does not exist. To use your previous reader's metaphor: Atheists claim we all actually live in the same country, but that our country is not God's country even though most people believe that's where they live.

$850 Billion Dollars

The Bill

Charles Krauthammer

"Look, this is one of the worst bills in galactic history. It's not only on the timing of it-as we saw from the Congressional Budget Office, more than half of the infrastructure stuff with the bridges androads will not be spent until two years hence when the recession will belikely over or coming out of it, and it will only add to inflation, not jobs. And it's the content of this. We heard earlier in Major's report, a third of a billion for contraception, a billion to states tohelp them collect child support, nursing training-all this is worthy,but it ain't stimulus.

If you look at what was left behind after last year's stimulus, $160 billion, it didn't have any effect on the economy. It left nothing behind. This bill has a fifth of a billion for grass at the Jefferson Memorial. FDR left behind the Hoover dam and Eisenhower left behind the interstate highway system. We will leave behind, after spending $1trillion, a dog run in East Potomac Park."

The Jews of the Gathering Night

Melanie Phillips

"One of the most agonising and tragic aspects of the current global wave of Jew-hatred is the prominent part played in this by Jews.

Indeed, one of the most insufferable characteristics of these Jew-hating Jews is that they claim to represent authentic Jewish morality as opposed to the supposed corruption of those principles by Zionism and Israel. They do nothing of the kind. Their claim merely advertises their profound ignorance of Jewish ethics and history, which they so badly misrepresent."

The Humbling of The Donald

Rain falls on both the rich and the poor. But it seems that the storms of today's economy has especially buffeted Donald Trump, who in the last six months is one billion dollars poorer . Trump personally guantaned a $40 million construction load from Deustche Bank for his 92-story Trump Tower in Chicago, but now wants to walk away from his obligations because of God. He wants to hide behind a"force majeure" clause, sometimes known as an Act of God. Usually, that would be invoked if there was riots, floods, and pesitilence, not a billionare's foolish gamble. He has countersued Deustche Bank for three billion. Trump has made his career on hustling banks and people. In his book Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life, he said he loved “to crush the other side and take the benefits” and mocked the banks that had lost money on loans made to him before another real estate downturn, in the 1990s. “I figured it was the bank’s problem, not mine. What the hell did I care?"

Perhaps Deustche Bank should counter-counter sue for six billion and take down this Nimrod with the squirrel hair once and for all.

The Palinization of Caroline Kennedy

On Thursday eveneing, Caroline Kennedy released a statement withdrawing her interest in replacing Hillary Clinton as a senator to New York. “I informed Governor Paterson today that for personal reasons I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the United States Senate.”

What's going on? There are reports that Kennedy has a problem with unpaid taxes or illegal household help. Other reports suggest that she wanted to spend more time with her ailing uncle Ted Kennedy. I think all of these are at best half-truths.

The truth is that the New York politicos became unhinged at the prospect of selecting a Palin-- someone such as Sarah Palin who is hopelessly out of their depth-- a superfically attractive person without the substance and steel to prevail in the hothouse of New York politics. Like Ted Kennedy when he was running against Carter for the presidency, Caroline, although winsome, is flighty and inarticulate to the point of incoherance.

Americans are generally suspicious of nepotistic political dynasties. They believe that there must be more than mere name recognition. Governor David Paterson and his advisors must have concluded that Caroline would have made an embarassing replacement for Hillary.

The Bachelor Billionare

Ladies?

Childish Things

The GOP Attack Machine Kicks Into Gear

... ever towards irrelevancy like lemmings to a chasm. In politics, as in war, those who control the high ground wins. As Obama puts it: "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply."

The Cost of Obama's Inaugural

There's a lot of right-wing hoo-hah about the cost of Obama's inaugural, with claims that the inaugural cost four times the Bush inaugural of 2005. As usual, they've got the facts wrong. Bush's inaugural cost $157.8 million dollars. The $170 million for Obama's inaugural seems to be a tabloid-generated guesstimate. It also doesn't include the need for additional sharpshooters and the extra Porta-Potties for two million people. Nor does it subtract the voluntary contributions for the balls. It's all a tempest in a teapot and a small price to pay for marking the transition from the worst president ever to (I hope) the best president ever.

Media Matters

On his radio show, Lou Dobbs claimed that Obama's "inaugural celebration from start to finish will cost an estimated $170 million, and that dwarfs the $42 million spent on George Bush's inauguration just four years ago." Similarly, Brent Bozell wrote in a column: "For the record, the 'lavish' Bush inaugural cost $43 million. Final tallies are not complete, but according to some sources, like the Guardian newspaper, the Obama inaugural will cost more than $150 million." But the comparison is a false one, as the Bush figure excludes security, transportation, and other incidental costs.

The closest the Daily News came to explaining the $160 million was its noting that the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland had submitted a $75 million request to the federal government to cover inauguration costs, including security and transportation. Bottom line: The Daily News provided no facts -- no evidence -- to support its what-if $160 million price tag for the inauguration, a price tag the newspaper declared as fact in its attention-grabbing headline.

New York Times

In 2005, Mr. Bush raised $42.3 million from about 15,000 donors for festivities; the federal government and the District of Columbia spent a combined $115.5 million, most of it for security, the swearing-in ceremony, cleanup and for a holiday for federal workers.

Washington Post

The president and first lady Laura Bush, and Cheney and his wife, Lynne, planned appearances at three candlelight dinners to thank those who contributed $100,000 or more to underwrite much of the $40 million cost of the inaugural celebration, which is expected to become the most expensive in history. The $40 million does not include the cost of a web of security, including everything from 7,000 troops to volunteer police officers from far away, to some of the most sophisticated detection and protection equipment.

Do You Believe in God?

I believe. However, I reserve to myself the right to define the terms of my belief as ultimately I must be responsible for my own choices. I accept foundationally sola scriptura, the corollary of which is a radical rejection of sacerdotalism-- the theory of a mediating priesthood (be they Catholic or Protestant) between me and God-- as well as all creeds and church membership (but not church attendance, which I value).

The divide as I see it is not between belief and unbelief (or theism and atheism), but between rational, informed, self-challenging belief and unbelief versus credulous, passive, dogmatic belief and unbelief. Faith is not the opposite of doubt. Fanaticism is.

A New Era

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

Here are a few observations.

1. It remains to be seen if the New Era becomes the same marker for the Obama administration as New Deal was for Franklin Roosevelt.

2. "These things are old." It's hard for me to see how conservatives can find fault with Obama's sentiments. Obama's beef is not with conservatism but with failure.

3. Expectations are sky high. But I've never know an administration that has not had scandal and tests from our enemies. Obama tried to level-set expectations for all the challenges that lie ahead. Few people expect a quick turn around in either foreign affairs or the economy.

4. The post-partisan era of good feeling won't last long. It never does. Obama's honeymoon with the media may last longer, but even that will expire-- probably by the time the dogwoods bloom in Washington. Much rests on the administration's ability to move beyond the symbolism of the moment and make substantive progress on the two key issues of our time-- the economy and the war. The prospects appear quite grim for both.

5. All that said, this is a great day for America!

Bush Writes A Letter

It is a tradition of the president to leave a letter in the Oval office for his successor. Here is Bush's farewell.

To Mr Obamer;

I wunt ta cugrdulate yu and hop yah have a good tym lyke I did. Yah gitall kynds ov stuff wen yu are Prezidant. Yah get to play wit toyz andyah git to eet burgers wen evr yah want. Yah alsa git to tell themilitery to drop bums on any cuntry yah want. Dat is wy it is good to beprezidant.

Good Luk

Presidant Gorge Bush ll

Six Figure Jobs

Here is a list of jobs where you can earn more than $100,000 but not have a college degree.

1. Real Estate Broker
2. Air Traffic Controller
3. Small Business Owner/Operator
4. Fashion Designer
5. Plumber, Pipe Fitter or Steamfitter
6. Non-Retail Sales Manager
7. Network/Data Communications Manager
8. Construction Superintendent/Manager
9. Radiation Therapist
10. Police and Detective Supervisor
11. Ultrasound Technologist
12. Hotel Executive Chef
13. Court Reporter
14. Construction Cost Estimator

Final Reflections

I am struggling with my faith and struggling with anxiety. I am a 22 y/o married woman and I am pretty happy. Since I was around 15 I have been scared to die (I obsess over it) and have terrible anxiety and panic attacks regarding life,sickness and of course death. As a child I went to church ,had complete faith in where I was going when I died and never questioned god. As I am getting older I have so many more questions and don't have faith like a child anymore, I am confused with the meaning of life. I have been to a councellor about my anxiety, but I know the only thing that will help me is prayer and faith in the Lord. If anyone has advice on what I can do to help this fear of death/the unkown I would appreciate it so much.

The death of my mother last month has brought into focus some of your concerns.
Your feelings are real, important, and universal. When I was about your age, I had a strange near death experience that left me with a utter fearlessness of death. (It didn't make me more religious-- just less anxious.) What you would have seen is someone in a pool of blood moving like a half squished beetle. What I felt was a floating sense of warmth, serenity, and calm, a bit like when you can sleep late on a Saturday morning knowing that you don't have a care in this world for the coming day. The jagged edge between extinction and life produces all kinds of emotions, from hysteria to prayer, and I'm sure those emotions were in full force last week when the US Airways jet ditched in the Hudson river last week.

In thinking about my mother's death, I've come to a few conclusions, for what they are worth, about dying, death, and grief. First, there is nothing romantic or wonderful about dying. It's an ugly, grotesque process-- an ambush-- a nasty deal-- and strangely a mirror of birth with its humilations, sights, sounds, and smells. It is never fair and there are always loose ends. There aren’t always times to say good by. Unlike the movies, it is unlikely that you wil hear any last parting profound words. What I heard was almost too painful to recall-- barely audible grunts.

We are all looking into our grave. As Ryan White, the teenager who died of AIDs, said, “We are all dying.” In a movie, two honeymooners are standing at the rail of an ocean liner. “If I were to die tomorrow, the young women says to her husband, “I would feel that my life had been full because I have known your love.” They kiss and then move away revealing the name of the ship on the life preserver: Titanic. In my mother's case, she died of voluntary starvation in accordance with the terms of her living will, and yet, during the week or so that she lived, still retained some consciousness. It was hard for me to accept that, and as much as I honored my mother's desires, I resolved that should that ever happen to me, I want to be unconscious from the moment the living will is activated until my death.

At present US mortality rates, 25 percent of Americans die before they reach 65. The one certitude that theists and atheists accept is physical death. Man, as Shakespeare said, is the “quintessence of dust” and “men must endure their going forth even as their coming.” You are but 22 years of age, and your entire life stretches in front of you. Whether you are a theist or an atheist, it seems to me we can all agree that we can make the life we have matter by living as fully as we can each day that we have.

The question is whether death is extinction and annihilation of all that I am. Is death a pilgrimage or a destination? “Now I am about to take my last voyage—a great leap in the dark,” said the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. What will happen to you die? Nothing, the materialist says. What will it matter if famine unchain their wrath again you, while you lie comfortable in your grave consumed by honest worms, neither dreaming nor snoring. No regrets will linger in your tomb to mingle with the larvae that batten your melting flesh.

For the Christian, it is the death of the soul, not physical death that is our enemy. “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so.” John Donne wrote. “On short sleep past, we wake eternally/And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!” To pass from life to death is not such a terrible thing. The experiment has been made countless times. We are all aware of the transitional nature of life and fame, that the seasons of life pass us by as relentlessly as autumn to winter.

Death, for all its ugliness, gives nobility and poignancy to life. When I look at a gravestone or a coffin, I sometimes think that “Therefore but for the grace of God, goes a better man than I.” Death bids us to slow down and wake up. A cabdriver pointed out to me it was a beautiful day, and indeed it was. I just hadn’t noticed it. I complain when it’s too hot or too cold, and don’t notice it when everything is perfect. For all of us, someday the electroencelogram’s sine will flatten. As the Tibetan author Sogyal Rinpoche says, “If you’re having problems with a friend, pretend he’s dying—you may even love him.” The columnist Joseph Sobran wrote that “When I consider that I am going to die someday, a thought that occurs to me more often now, I feel a sad affection for people who otherwise irritate me. I begin to appreciate them and to think of what I have in common with them. Sharp differences soften. Maybe we should begin our farewells a little earlier than we usually do.” H.L. Mencken, was perhaps unwittingly pious when he noted that “If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have a thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.”

The one thing my mother would not want me to be is to be morbid and gloomy, and she would want me and my kids to enjoy all that life as to offer-- dinners and concerts and fun with the children. And that is exactly how I plan to honor her.

To life!

The Falsehood of Metaphysical Agnosticism

Light On Dark Water: Agnosticism Is Not A Solution

"Even if I throw in my theoretical lot with agnosticism, I am nevertheless compelled in practice to choose between two alternatives: either to live as if God did not exist or else to live as if God did exist. If I act according to the first alternative, I have in practice adopted an atheistic position and have made a hypothesis (which may also be false) the basis of my entire life….

"Let us leave this question here: it is clear that the prestige enjoyed by the agnostic solution today does not stand up to closer examination. As a pure theory, it may seem exceedingly illuminating. But in its essence, agnosticism is much more than a theory: what is at stake here is the praxis of one’s life. When one attempts to “put it into practice” in one’s real field of action, agnosticism slips out of one’s hands like a soap bubble; it dissolves into thin air, because it is not possible to escape the very option it seeks to avoid. When faced with the question of God, man cannot permit himself to remain neutral. All he can say is Yes or No—without ever avoiding all the consequences that derive from this choice even in the smallest details of life. Accordingly, we see that the question of God is ineluctable; one is not permitted to abstain from casting one’s vote."

This quote is from Pope Benedict's Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures.

There's A Cat In There Somewhere

Kitty Loves the Sun and the Sun Loves Him

How To Stay In Love

Dating 101: Five Things Super-Happy Couples Do Every Day

Daily Habit #1: Talk to Each Other

Happily married couples typically say their relationships work better when they can sit down and gab one-on-one, like thinking, feeling adults.

Daily Habit #2: Flirt

Most couples realize that getting intimate every night isn't possible, let alone a worthy goal. Indeed, a 1994 University of Chicago survey of Americans' physical intimacy habits found that only about a third of adults have physical intimacy more than once a week.
That doesn't mean, though, that you can't at least talk sensually every day . . .

Daily Habit #3: Get Stupid Together Bob and Angie are ashamed to admit that the daily ritual that brings such joy to their 12-year marriage is none other than reality TV.

Daily Habit #4: Declare Your Independence

So hold on, then: Is domestic joy found in partners smothering each other in obsessive daily rituals? Hardly.

Daily Habit #5: Share a Spiritual Moment

In another University of Chicago survey, this one of married couples, 75 percent of the Americans who pray with their spouses reported that their marriages are "very happy" (compared to 57 percent of those who don't). Those who pray together are also more likely to say they respect each other and discuss their relationship together.

The Falsehood of Emperical Agnosticism

One cannot escape the conclusion that nothing is known with absolute certainty. To whatever extent we may claim that a belief is true, we must also admit, at the same time, that it is contingent upon experience and thus always subject to revision.

I can see that you are enjoying your sophomore year. Seriously, your contention that "nothing is known with absolute certainty" is provably false. Is there any doubt that the earth rotates around the sun, that blood circulates through your body, or that you will die if you ingest cyanide? On metaphysical or linguistic question, your epistomological agnosticism might have some warrent. But when applied to statements of emperical fact, your conclusion that no knowledge can be known with certainty is rubbish.

Just how do you prove what you said unless we use methods of statistics or uncertainty? On what grounds do you demonstrate that in particular- not just assert it is not the case? Sure, we seem to understand on one level that "nothing in itself" has a sort of certainty in the thinking processes. This is a consistent view- despite one can truly argue if the earth is a center of the universe of if blood circulates throughout the body (both major breakthrough discoveries of course) and there is a rumor that some taking cyanide have survived it by their strength of mind- who is to say that in some other matrix this pill could be the truth of things? I mean while we forbid division by zero it should be clear we cannot talk about such realms in a empirical or psychological manner. Or can we?

Argumentum ad matrix? Hmm. It seems to me that we live in a world where there are mirages, dreams, delusions, and madmen. But none of that negates the existence of reality separate from our impressions and emotions. That you are real-- that you are drinking soda rather than bleach-- that you will sleep tonight, perchance to dream, but wake up tomorrow in a world of real things-- is a common-sense given accepted by any creature with consciousness. Some things can be detected by external devices. This book weighs two pounds and not two tons, for example, and that weight has nothing to do with "my truth"-- a construct that doesn't exist in reality. It is what it is-- an absolute truth. And, as other people have mentioned, your theory collapses into incoherence. Is truth relative? Fine, then that statement "truth is relative" must also be relative and therefore not relative. Is truth verifiable? Fine, then verify that asssertion. Is truth falsifiable? Fine, then falsify the claim that truth is falsifiable. As alluring as your theory is, it ultimately is an intellectual dead end that puts into the same category of skepticism flat earth theorists and round earth theoritists. And also in that category is skepticism about even language itself including our ability to use symbols that each other can understand-- a claim that you implicitly reject by responding to these posts!

The Word of the Day

Snarge

The bloody goo that results from a bird/plane collision.

Each day, the Smithsonian Institution's Feather Identification Laboratory receives about a dozen packages from around the country, each containing tissue swabs of snarge for DNA analysis to identify the species of bird. The bird/plane collision data is used to improve aviation safety by having flight plans that are less likely to encounter birds and by engineering more bird-resistant planes. For example, jet engines must now be able to withstand the ingestion of an 8-pound waterfowl without failing (this is tested in the lab by firing a chicken from a cannon at point-blank range).

Photography Firsts

Fascinating firsts in photography.

Paul Blart Mall Cop

Tonight's date movie was Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Kevin James is a Segeway-riding feckless policeman-wannerbee who thwarts a terrorist gang and gets the girl. It was Die Hard or Mission Impossible with ample slapstick.

It started slowly and the plot was as predictable as a ruler. But it was fun to watch and it had its moments.

I recommend it.

Why Do People Get Addicted

I wrote that answer on this forum.

The answer is invariant reinforcement.

Some of the proceeding answers correctly point out to genetic (chemical/hormonal inbalances) or environmental (cultural, familial) predispositions to addiction. But the mechanism that causes people to be addicted is sporadic intervals of pleasure and pain. The key word is sporadic, as that set up the person for expectancy that overrides intentionality.

The model is as follows:

Interval #1: pain-pain-pain-pleasure-pain-pleasure-pain-pain-pain-pain-pleasure
Interval #2: pleasure-pain-pain-pain-pain-pleasure-pleasure-pain-pleasure-pain

Now, apply that to real life situation, for example, spousal abuse. The same would be true with any kind of addiction.

Day #1: abuse-abuse-abuse-gift-abuse-abuse-love-abuse
Day #2: love-love-love-abuse-abuse-abuse-gift-abuse-abuse

This is an extremely hard cycle to break. There are only two approaches that really work: #1. Don't enter the cycle in the first place-- don't marry the abuser, take that first drink, etc. as the first taste will always be pleasure; or #2. Stop cold turkey. Divorce the brute, toss the bottles, etc. I cannot think of any other way.

Andrew Wyeth

Andrew Wyeth, probably the most renowned painter in the United States, died Friday at his home in Chadds Ford, Pa. He was 91.

Last Saturday in Scottsdale, we saw a collection of Wyeth's works at a local gallery. The paintings sold for as high as $60,000. But there were pencil sketches that went for considerably less. With the exception of "Helga", all of Andrew's models have since died.

Having grown up in Bucks County, near Philadelphia, I experienced some of the same country life that Andrew illustrated at Chadds Fords. I admire his picture for his technical skill. I think Andrew superbly captures the mood of the Pennslvania country in many of his painting, with its frosty three in the afternoon late fall or early spring textures, lights, and colors. But his painting lack the humor and humanity that animates the illustrations of two of my other favorite Americans artists, Maxwell Parrish and Norman Rockwell.

A good example of Andrew's work is "Pennsylvania Landscape", painted in tempera on panel in 1942.

Free High Definition DivXs

Here

Circuit City Is No More

Due to challenges to our business and the continued bleak economic environment, Circuit City is going out of business and the company's assets will be liquidated to pay off creditors.

The process was extremely difficult and we were left with no other choice but to liquidate. Circuit City had a proud heritage of serving the public for 60 years and we deeply regret the impact this decision will have on our associates, our customers and the communities where we have operated stores and other facilities.

We had hoped to be able to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as a stronger, more competitive company and we made significant progress during the reorganization to improve our business. Unfortunately, the economic climate is so poor that we have no choice other than liquidation.

Liquidators will start arriving in our 567 stores across the U.S. over the weekend, and closing sales will start as early as Saturday, January 17. Closing sales will run as long as it takes to sell existing inventory, but are expected to wrap up by the end of March. When the liquidation sales are completed, the stores will be closed.

At the company's corporate offices in Richmond, Virginia, a small staff will remain on duty during the completion of the liquidation process; most associates will be relieved of their duties immediately.

Consistent with federal labor laws, Circuit City associates are receiving 60-days notice of the termination of their employment. Those who stay on to help with the liquidation, of course, will receive pay and benefits. Those who are dismissed earlier will be receiving pay and benefits for the 60-day period beginning January 16, 2009.

Associates at our company headquarters will be asked to come back on Monday, January 19, to find out more about their status and to retrieve their personal belongings.

How Do You Break the Loop?

In my computer engineering work, I encounter looping failures. Sometimes, a program keeps iterating without processing anything. Sometimes, there are looping conflicts between data keys that prevent table inserts. The upshot in either case is inevitable: system failure.




I see the same thing happening in our thought processes. Our ability to recall is more sophisticated than any computer as we nurse and rehearse past grievances. And with that capacity comes the potential for psychological failure ranging from the unwillingness to trust and like ourselves and others to basket-case psychosis and collapse.

Memories of unpleasant events are real to us as we evoke those memories, and it is a flight from reality to discount or minimize those memories. But it seems to me that mental health depends on our ability to contain these phantoms sufficiently so that they don't disable our normal interactions with others. A computer system that cannot forget is worthless as eventually it runs out of memory. Our inability to forget can also disable us. So how do we allow ourselves to forget episodes in our distant past that by their nature have scarred us?

A few thoughts.

I think it takes firstly an act of will. I must decide that I cannot allow this or that event from the past to warp my happiness. It takes the realization that only I can be responsible for my happiness and who I am. I think it takes conversation and in some cases professional counseling. I think it takes faith as I cannot forget until I can forgive-- not just the people or the circumstances of my pain but myself for nurturing that pain against all reason. I think it takes self-reflection-- understanding of my strengths and limitations and the sources of my unhappiness.

The consequence of all this is to execute an effective plan to move beyond the bad memories into a more positive present. And I have found that often actions must be the horse that pulls the cart of attitudes-- that I must act before I can be-- that I must pretend to be courageous, loving, trusting, and likeable for me to be courageous, loving, trusting, and likeable.

Dancing Swedish Corgi

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And Yet More Humor

History May See Lincoln-Like Greatness in George W. Bush

Cyanide and Happiness

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Pogo

Mental Health Break

Why Windows 7 Sucks

"I too have tried out the beta of Windows Vista and although it is somewhat better than Vista - it still suffers from:

* Very high RAM usage (about 2/3 that of Vista)

* Heavy UI requirements (and no classic start bar now)

* Heavy handed usage of DRM

* Lack of device support (as bad as Vista)

* Unknown cost (although Microsoft need to support their staff with this)

* IE8 is an abysmal web browser

The bottom line is that Windows 7 is based on the Vista core (with slightly more polish) but is still horrendously memory hungry, GPU intensive, (probably) expensive and the same quality control that we have come to expect from Microsoft ;) Don't forget also that Microsoft is planning to move over to a software-as-a-subscription model (so you will have to PAY every year to keep your PC working). No thanks! Sadly people are so brainwashed these days that Windows (whether 95, 98, XP, Vista, Windows 7 etc) is the only choice but there really are other choices now. You don't have to pay the Microsoft (or Apple) tax any more - you really can have legal and quality software for free and more and more people are discovering this. No this won't kill Linux on the desktop and neither will it kill Apple OS/X either. Those people who are brand new to computing will probably still buy Vista/Windows 7 (although usage of Linux based netbooks is increasing).

Those of us who THINK and CARE about efficient/non-power-hungry hardware, freedom of use (and licensing), truly secure systems and open technologies will continue to use better software than Microsoft's. Pretending to be a *former* fan of something (e.g. Ubuntu) and then saying *but I found something better* is a well known trick of Microsoft followers. You may be completely genuine - in which case I fully support you right to CHOICE and hope you enjoy your copy of Windows 7. Me I also enjoy my right to choice and will be sticking with 64 bit Ubuntu thank you very much. "

John Cockroft

Characteristics of Young Gifted Children

"How old does a child have to be before he or she exhibits characteristics of giftedness? Many parents and teachers believe that a child is gifted when school tests say they are, and these tests aren't given until third or fourth grade, if at all. The truth is that gifted traits show up in toddlers. In fact, some of them can be seen even in infants!"

More

Calvin's Snowman

A Tale of Two Charts

Could this have anything to do with this?




"Bush's Final Approval Rating: 22 Percent
Jan. 16, 2009

(CBS) President Bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll showing Mr. Bush's final approval rating at 22 percent.

Seventy-three percent say they disapprove of the way Mr. Bush has handled his job as president over the last eight years.

Mr. Bush's final approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since Gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago.

The rating is far below the final ratings of recent two-term presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, who both ended their terms with a 68 percent approval rating, according to CBS News polling.

Recent one term presidents also had higher ratings than Mr. Bush. His father George H.W. Bush had an end-of-term rating of 54 percent, while Jimmy Carter's rating was 44 percent.

Harry Truman had previously had the lowest end-of-term approval at 32 percent, as measured by Gallup."

Ragging Shostakovich Symphony Number 5

The Ragging

Who Would Jesus Smack Down?

Here are excerpts of an article in today's New York Times Magazine. It profiles "New Calvinist" Mark Driscoll, the "cussing pastor", who disdains "prohibitions of traditional evanglical Christianity. Taboos on alcohol, smoking, swearing and violent movies have done much to shape American Protestant culture-- a culture that he has called the domain of "chicks and some chickified dudes with limp wrists." Moreover, the Bible tells him that to seek salvation by self-righteous clean living is to behave like a Pharisee."

It appears that to Driscoll's way of thinking, it doesn't matter what you do, so long as you believe the right things. Among those right things is contempt for women and gays.

It wouldn't surprise me if Driscoll turns out to be flaming gay. It wouldn't be the first time that a fanatical authoritarian turns out to be a homosexual.

For all their cutting edge, I must say that their church has the ugliest splash page I've seen anywhere. Here is my advice on how to re-tool their site.

Feed Burner Help

From Google

What Kids Say They Need From Their Parents

1. Demonstration of being loved, wanted, and cared for.

2. Say and show love (boys especially!)

3. You will always want them in your lives.

4. That they matter and they are always cared for. Not with materials things but with time, a touch, and a look.

5. Be clear what rules, values, and espectations are. Don't assume that they know.

6. Want boundaries-- boudaries keeps them safe.

7. Demonstrate you care expecially when there is conflict.

8. Care about their health and welfare before behavior.

If I Cannot Be Thin . . .

Israel and Hamas: Cutting the Gordian Knot

The Gordian knot refers metaphorically to a bold stroke that solves an intractable problem. In the last two weeks, almost 1,000 people have died in the war that Israel has waged on Hamas in response to terrorism. Most of those who have died were Palestinian and most of them civilians.

Is there anything that can cut the Gordian knot in the conflict in the Middle East? There was a time when most people assumed that the tensions in Ireland, South Africa, and in Viet Nam were problems without solutions. But all human problems have a life-span, although sometimes the time frame is generations. Eventually, institutions develop that mitigate the ancient furies and memories. But equally inevitably institutions fragment and collapse as identity politicans coalese around new grievances.

It seems to me a lasting solution will probably involve some of these elements.

1. A recognition that lex talonis -- tribalistic habits of revenge-- is no solution, where it be an eye for an eye or your family and all your relatives for an eye. This recognition has nothing to do with morality, despite the fact that the land of Israel was the greenhouse for three major religions. It will come out of necessity, a pragmatic recognition that there are limits to revenge, as they breed resentment and create the conditions for tougher opponents. This was one of the rueful epiphanies to the Nazi leadership as they conducted their Final Solution. In Israel's case, there is also the demographic inevitability and reality-- that Palestinians are having more children than Israelis.

2. A recognition that the West cannot be an honest broker in this dispute. Mediation will most likely have to come through nations that have no dog in the fight, such as the People's Republic of China or Africa. But why should such countries get involved? I don't have a good answer to that, other than eventually they may see it is in their national economic and security interest to get involved. The United States' unofficial alliance with Israel and boots on the ground in two Islamic countries takes away its credability to play a meaningful role in a resolution to this problem.

3. Resettlement, perhaps in the Middle East or perhaps even to Muslim South Asia. The Isreali state was founded by displaced persons from Europe fleeing the fascist persecution. I doubt that this solution is acceptable to anyone, but I include for consideration.

4. A one nation solution. A Palestiniean state. But I don't see how this will address the underlying tensions between two different cultures with such a legacy of hatred.

5. A two-nation solution. Gaza is one nation and the West Bank is another nation. Even more unlikely a solution. From the Palestinian's point of view, this would create a divide and conquer hegemony from Israel.

6. Integration with neigboring countries. Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan. Not a solution, in my view. Neither countries would like a radicalized, poor beachhead into their own country.

7. Federalism with Israel. Integration into Israel with allowance for the distinct culture represented by the Palestinians. Israel will reject this idea for the same reason that Jordan and Egypt would reject integration into their countries.

8. Modus vivendi in combination with a United Nations force with enough power to keep the peace while efforts are made to insitutionalize Israeli and Palistinean desires for security and peace. This gets into issues of Israeli sovereignty. However, I think this is probably the most workable solution, although it is far from a perfect one.

Your solutions are simplistic and wishy washy. Israel is an independent state.

Perhaps. But what is the alternative? A permanent state of war? A final solution? Without doubt, both options appeal to many people who will die in Israel in the coming days.

Even if this escalates into Armagedon, what then-- what about Armagedon plus one year?

As I mentioned in my post, Israel is on the wrong side of the demographic time bomb, and sooner or later there must be some kind of accomodation as new Islamist terrorists are getting born every day on Israel's soil, one of whom may someday acquire the means for Israel's destruction. And, the most realistic scenerio is an accomodation that eventually favors a radically anti-democratic, anti-secular, anti-Western Islamic state within the boundaries of Israel. That is the shape of things as they will be, if the present trends continue, I believe. As a Zionist, it isn't what I want. Bt it is what will be, unless there is some kind of a overaching, permanent solution.

As a tactical question, I'm willing to concede that Israel had no choice but to move against Hamas in Gaza. As a strategic question, this may indeed prove to be a pyrrhic victory for Israel. Israel may have just planted the seeds of its own destruction. I see no leaders with the stature to effect change between Israel and Hamas, and there is ample incentive by fanatics on both sides to keep the turmoil going indefinitely.

War in this case isn't the failure of Middle Eastern politics and dipomacy. It is the flower of Middle Eastern politics and diplomacy. But that is true only in the tactical sense, as war, like some kind of Frankenstein monster, eventually will turn on its master. It does so because war eventually weakens the state and erodes trends towards democracy and secularism. It also randomizes outcomes and misallocates and destroys resources, including, obviously, people. But, presently, the short-term view is that the rewards for war by both sides outweighs the costs of war. So war must continue.

What you are seeing right now in my opinion is the equivalent of the Tet offensive-- a military victory for Israel but also a propoganda defeat as well, which might be much more significant and a turning point in the history of the life of Israel as a sovereign nation.

Violence begets violence, and though the Middle East the violence that Israel is inflicting against school children in Gaza is beamed into the TV sets of countless living rooms radicalizing yet another generation. But few people-- including folks like you-- have the inclination, will, imagination, or authority to break the cycle of bloodshed that will cause yet more bloodshed to little Jewish boys and girls to the hundreth generation.

I believe that Isael is making two assumptions that predicates its belligerance. 1. The the United States will continue its de facto military alliance with Israel; and 2. The Israel can dominate with its military capability any combination of enemies that may align against it at any given time. As to point one I think the intention is there, but there are other forces that may prevent the United States from rescuing Israel in its moment of peril. As to point two, the increasing sophistication of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons will render that assumption invalid. I wouldn't bet the fate of Israel on either of those assumptions.

A solution will only reveal itself when the pain of not having a solution becomes too great for Zion. We're not at the point yet. But one day the Israelis will clamor that the rest of the world do something to preserve their existence and identity.

That time will come. Guaranteed.

A real middle east peace plan?

1) Israel takes over the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.

2) Egypt gives the Sinai Penisula to the UN. UN sets up Sinai Mandate to govern Sinai Penisula.

3) So-called "Palestinians" moved from West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip to Sinai.

4) Saudi Arabia pays $500 billion to turn Sinai into a productive area.

5) Israel builds a massive wall along their border with Sinai and Lebanon. Think "Great Wall of China".

6) On other side of wall into Sinai and Lebanon is a 2 mile wide DMZ patroled by a third party with no stake in what happens in the middle east. (Think Chinese troops)

7) Vatican takes control of Holy Places in Jerusalem with guarentee that all Holy Places with be open to all pilgrims regardless of religion.

8) Israel explicitly states they will try to acquire no more territory in the Middle East. This pledge is invalidated by any attack by the Arab Countries on Israel.

There you have it, Middle East Peace in 8 steps.

I like your plan. It makes sense when you look at the vastness of Saudi Arabia in comparison to the small area of land that people are fighting for. I could see a UN mandate carved out of the coast of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea many times larger than Gaza and the West Bank.

The way I would approach it as follows.

1. In for a dime, in for a dollar. If I were the Israelis, I would use this opportunity to eradicate root and branch all terrorists and supporting institutions throughout Gaza, Israel proper, and the West Bank, far more aggressively than they are doing now, irrespective of world public opinion, using basically the British suppression of the communists in Malaya in the early 1950s, followed by ...

2. Your plan, plus assurances of fair treatment and democratic representation to minority segments, with incentives for minorities to migrate.

But I see no leaders interesting in this kind of pragmatic thinking. They just want to keep waving the bloody flag while their kids die year after year forever.

I Don't Want To Set The World on Fire

Time To Take Away Your Christmas Tree!

$1,000 Homes For Sale

Radical Cheap Homes

"In places like Detroit and Cleveland, banks are unloading rundown homes for next to nothing. And they're tremendous bargains, even after factoring in renovation costs.

Buying homes like these is certainly a leap of faith; they're generally not in the best of neighborhoods and they're often surrounded by many other vacant and deteriorating homes. Still, some of these neighborhoods may turn around and provide residents with good, dirt-cheap housing."

Dead Folks Will Warm Your Toes

Dead People Will Provide Heat to Crematorium Facilities

"If you’re dead and worried about the carbon emissions created from your cremation, relax. The Swedish town of Halmstad has a solution. After an environmental review showed that Halmstad’s crematorium was pumping too much smoke into the air, the facility’s director decided to re-use heat from the cremations to warm up the crematorium’s buildings."

Why You Shouldn't Eat Next To A Doctor

Bacteria on doctor uniforms can kill you.

"The problem is that some medical personnel wear the same unlaundered uniforms to work day after day. They start their shift already carrying germs such as C.diff, drug-resistant enterococcus or staphylococcus. Doctors' lab coats are probably the dirtiest. At the University of Maryland, 65% of medical personnel confess they change their lab coat less than once a week, though they know it's contaminated. Fifteen percent admit they change it less than once a month. Superbugs such as staph can live on these polyester coats for up to 56 days."

Falling Asleep

Cuteness.

David Weidenmoyer: 1965-2009

David Weidenmoyer passed from this life at his home on January 1, 2009.

Mr. Weidenmoyer was of the Protestant faith and was a Dialysis Technician with DaVita Dialysis Center of Ocala, FL. Mr. Weidenmoyer moved to Ocala from Berlin, NJ in 1991. He enjoyed Country music, Bob Dylan, and The Grateful Dead. He enjoyed playing guitar and singing Karaoke. He is survived by his mother Edith Weidenmoyer of Ocala, FL; sister Joyce Wik and husband Paul of Downingtown, PA.; sister Kathleen Bommer and husband Wayne of Laurel Springs, NJ; brother James Hamilton and wife Anna of Pine Hill, NJ; and sister Valerie Lindsay and husband Craig of Cedar Brook, NJ; and many nieces and nephews.

He was predeceased by his father, Roy Weidenmoyer in 2001.

Frances Stewart: 1923-2008

Frances Marie Stewart died Monday, September 15, 2008 at her residence after a long illness. Public visitation begins at 2:00 PM Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at Miller Funeral Home, 13th & Main Ave. with the family present from 5-7. A private family committal will be at 12:00 Noon, Thursday at Hills of Rest Memorial Park with a public memorial service to follow at 2:00 PM at First Baptist Church. In lieu of flowers memorials may be directed to the Heartland House or the Shrine Transportation Fund.

Frances Marie Stewart was born April 29, 1923, in Beyer, PA, to parents who came from Italy through Ellis Island along with two brothers and a sister. Fran was the 8th of 11 children. Her family and she were very Mediterranean in their way of thinking, talking and doing for others. She always had a hug and kind word for everyone she encountered; be it family, friend, acquaintance or perfect stranger that she thought needed it. She will be remembered as full of love and concern for others. Her family traditions were extremely important to her….spaghetti at every birthday celebration.

Frances was united in marriage to David Stewart on October 18, 1957 in Sioux Falls. Fran was a loving homemaker and wife to David; a dedicated mother to Melody; grandmother to Melissa (Mike), David (Julie), and Ann (David); Nana to seven great grandchildren - Max, Dunnavin, Franne, Zoe, Ben, Margaret Ann, and Peter; and sister to surviving siblings Mary Deluca, Frank Attilio, Tony (Helen) Attilio, and Viola Gett.

Her parents, brother’s Floyd, Ernest, Peter and John and sister’s Jean and Pauline preceded her in death.

How To Turn Your Child Into A Drug Addict

1. Castigate. Don't affirm.

2. Lie to your child about little things and big things.

3. Don't respect your child.

4. Be their friend, not their parent. Indulge them.

5. Don't give them values or traditions.

6. Set goals that they cannot reach.

7. Don't be curious about their friends or hobbies.

8. Let them always live in the now and not have them worry about their future .

9. Don't inspire them to do their best.

10. Rationalize or ignore their bad behavior.

The Great Satan's Cat

Is there no end to the madness? Those terrorists have gone too far. They have now spoken ill of Bush's cat.

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Islamic militants posted sarcastic comments on an extremist Web site Tuesday ridiculing a recent announcement by First Lady Laura Bush that the family's cat had died.

But on Tuesday, one commentator, called Dark-Side, sarcastically urged followers to offer condolences for the cat.

"For God's sake, could someone tell us where the wake is to be held?" the online commentator wrote.

The first lady's office said Monday that the family's 18-year-old cat, named India, died Sunday at the White House.

We Are Born To Die

Father Richard John Neuhaus, the editor in chief of First Things, authored the following reflections on dying and death eight years ago. Today, he is facing his own death. Here are some excerpts.

We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is already underway. The work of dying well is, in largest part, the work of living well. Most of us are at ease in discussing what makes for a good life, but we typically become tongue-tied and nervous when the discussion turns to a good death. As children of a culture radically, even religiously, devoted to youth and health, many find it incomprehensible, indeed offensive, that the word "good" should in any way be associated with death. Death, it is thought, is an unmitigated evil, the very antithesis of all that is good.

Death is to be warded off by exercise, by healthy habits, by medical advances. What cannot be halted can be delayed, and what cannot forever be delayed can be denied. But all our progress and all our protest notwithstanding, the mortality rate holds steady at 100 percent.
Death is the most everyday of everyday things. It is not simply that thousands of people die every day, that thousands will die this day, although that too is true. Death is the warp and woof of existence in the ordinary, the quotidian, the way things are. It is the horizon against which we get up in the morning and go to bed at night, and the next morning we awake to find the horizon has drawn closer. From the twelfth-century Enchiridion Leonis comes the nighttime prayer of children of all ages: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord my soul to take." Every going to sleep is a little death, a rehearsal for the real thing.

The worst thing is not the sorrow or the loss or the heartbreak. Worse is to be encountered by death and not to be changed by the encounter. There are pills we can take to get through the experience, but the danger is that we then do not go through the experience but around it. Traditions of wisdom encourage us to stay with death a while. Among observant Jews, for instance, those closest to the deceased observe shiva for seven days following the death. During shiva one does not work, bathe, put on shoes, engage in intercourse, read Torah, or have his hair cut. The mourners are to behave as though they themselves had died. The first response to death is to give inconsolable grief its due. Such grief is assimilated during the seven days of shiva, and then tempered by a month of more moderate mourning. After a year all mourning is set aside, except for the praying of kaddish, the prayer for the dead, on the anniversary of the death.

In The Blood of the Lamb, Peter de Vries calls us to "the recognition of how long, how very long, is the mourners’ bench upon which we sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship-all of us, brief links ourselves, in the eternal pity." From the pity we may hope that wisdom has been distilled, a wisdom from which we can benefit when we take our place on the mourners’ bench. Philosophy means the love of wisdom, and so some may look to philosophers in their time of loss and aloneness. George Santayana wrote, "A good way of testing the caliber of a philosophy is to ask what it thinks of death." What does it tell us that modern philosophy has had relatively little to say about death? Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, "What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent." There is undoubtedly wisdom in such reticence that stands in refreshing contrast to a popular culture sated by therapeutic chatter. But those who sit, arms linked in undeluded friendship, cannot help but ask and wonder.

All philosophy begins in wonder, said the ancients. With exceptions, contemporary philosophy stops at wonder. We are told: don’t ask, don’t wonder, about what you cannot know for sure. But the most important things of everyday life we cannot know for sure. We cannot know them beyond all possibility of their turning out to be false. We order our loves and loyalties, we invest our years with meaning and our death with hope, not knowing for sure, beyond all reasonable doubt, whether we might not have gotten it wrong. What we need is a philosophy that enables us to speak truly, if not clearly, a wisdom that does not eliminate but comprehends our doubt.

There is nothing that remarkable in my story, except that we are all unique in our living and dying. Early on in my illness a friend gave me John Donne’s wondrous Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. The Devotions were written a year after Donne had almost died, and then lingered for months by death’s door. He writes, "Though I may have seniors, others may be elder than I, yet I have proceeded apace in a good university, and gone a great way in a little time, by the furtherance of a vehement fever." So I too have been to a good university, and what I have learned, what I have learned most importantly, is that, in living and in dying, everything is ready now.

From Father Neuhaus's final entry in "The Public Square" in the new (February 2009) issue of First Things that reached my mailbox on Friday, the day after his death.

As of this writing, I am contending with a cancer, presently of unknown origin.... I am grateful beyond measure for your prayers storming the gates of heaven. Be assured that I neither fear to die nor refuse tolive. If it is to die, all that has been is but a slight intimation of what is to be. If it is to live, there is much that I hope to do in th einterim.... Who knew that at this point in life I would be understanding, as if for the first time, the words of Paul, "When I am weak, then I am strong"? This is not a farewell. Please God, we will be pondering together the follies and splendors of the Church and the world for years to come. But maybe not. In any event, when there is an unidentified agent in your body aggressively attacking the good things your body is intended to do, it does concentrate the mind. The entirety of our prayer is "Your will be done"-not as a note of resignation but of desire beyond expression. To that end, I commend myself to your intercession, and that of all the saints and angels who accompany us each step through time toward home.

Middle-Aged Women Playing With Dolls

Many people like to stop and play with newborn babies, but now some adult women are playing house with fake babies. Some women are even going as far as taking day trips with the fake babies to the park, out to eat, and even hosting birthday parties for them.

Forty-nine-year-old Linda is married with no children of her own. Now, she says she feels like a mother because she has Reborns -- dolls made to look and feel like the real thing.

I don't make the news. I just report it.

Bush's Destruction of Conservatism

"This is by way of a friendly response to the estimable Jay Nordlinger, Senior Editor at the likewise estimable National Review. Jay wrote a strong column yesterday openly saying what I’ve been hearing many conservatives express tacitly ever since the election. Reflecting on the media’s disgraceful distortion of the characters of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, he wrote: “It seems to me that the Left has won: utterly and decisively. What I mean is, the Saturday Night Live, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher mentality has prevailed. They decide what a person’s image is, and those images stick. They are the ones who say that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo. And the country, apparently, follows.”

I’ve been hearing and reading prominent conservatives and Republicans say nearly as much on television, in print and in private conversation ever since the election. They say Sarah Palin can never make a comeback. They say the fight for small government has been lost. They say we can’t have immigration reform that protects our borders. They say we have to distance ourselves from “embarrassing” commentators like Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.

No, no, no, no. What the right is experiencing at the moment is a phenomenon called “cultural para-stimuli.” You can read all about it in Tom Wolfe’s wonderful novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. It’s sort of like peer pressure on steroids. It was discovered by Nobel Laureate Victor Ransome Starling, who found that when he surrounded normal cats with cats whose behavior had been bizarrely altered by brain surgery, the normal cats began acting like the crazy cats all around them.

That’s us–surrounded by the mainstream media. So steeped are we now in their lies about our representatives, their ridicule of our commentators, their demonizing dismissal of the causes we know are just, that we’ve begun to adopt their attitudes toward ourselves! And perhaps chief among the lies they’ve sold us is the lie that they’ve won, that the media are theirs for good and all, and that Americans are going to be hoodwinked and brainwashed by their constant barrage of misinformation forever.

Andrew Laven's analysis is nonsense.

He has been been bushwacked by his support for a president who talked conservative values but walked liberal values, even while sheep-like conservatives continued to support the president. So, by supporting the president, they ended supporting nation building, unfunded mandates, preemptive wars, torture, executive overreach, and massive budget deficits-- all of which has established a precedent of policy for Obama.

Don't blame the media. If you are looking for blame, look in the mirror, if you supported in any way this hapless simian of a president. Politico's Joel Kotkin said it well. "Over the past eight years, Bush has done more to undermine conservatism than all of the country's college faculties, elite media and Hollywood studios put together... Conservatism's core values rested on notions of a strong national defense and free market economics. Bush has punctured these ideas in a way that transcends the effects of historically anomalous scandals such as Watergate or Clinton's extramarital affairs. Bush has not only dinged the conservative car, he has totaled it."

Thanks to Bush and folks like Andrew, Rush, and Anne, the time of the conservative has come and gone. And so, for the next generation, Democrats have only to point to the Bush (along with Anne and Rush) as the very flower of conservatism and the Bush record on the economy and foreign relations as to what conservatives will do should they ever again get control of the levers of executive power.

Coulter is smarter than all you left wing retards combined. And that's why you hate her so much.

She is indeed smart. But you are so wrong that I hate Anne. She has smitten me for I attribute the Democratic victory in no small part to Anne, perhaps good for 50 electoral votes. I consider her the face of Republicanism. The first president I ever voted for was Ronald Reagan. I would vote for another Ronald Reagan. But so long as voters have the image of Bush, Hannity, Dobson, Palin, O'Reilly, Rove, and Coulter on their brainpain as an accurate representation of the world view of conservatism, the Democratic Part will prevail. Americans as a whole are moderate and pragmatic, and the extremism and ideology of the past eight years will suffice to keep the Democrats in power, no matter how incompetent or scandel-ridden the Democrats are or may be.

Anne is the gift that keeps giving.

How To Make $6,000,000

Solve the Millennium Prizes. The solution of each is good for $1,000,000 @.

1 P versus NP
2 The Hodge conjecture
3 The Poincaré conjecture
4 The Riemann hypothesis
5 Yang–Mills existence and mass gap
6 Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness
7 The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture

Russian Grigori Perelman did solve the Poincaré conjecture, but declined the prize and now lives jobless with his mother.

Cool? Gross?

Harvesting cat fur to make sweaters.

A Photograph

A Frozen Bubble Explodes.

A Promise

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

Girly Man Hinglish

"I'll eat wasabee on my dude. Cook the Chicanos day, mucho caliente. Mutton goes yay."

Leon Panetta to the CIA

Point /
Counter-point

The left and the right appear to be receiving the Panetta appointment to the CIA with mild approval, not despite of his lack of intelligence credentials but because of his lack of intelligence credentials-- he is non-witty, to use CIA-speak.

The Daily Kos views it as an innoculation by someone not effected by the CIA culture of rendition and torture. The National Review views him as a political craftsmen who will respond to national policy rather than to aging insider spooks.

Change is coming to The Firm.

Postcards to Myself

... my thoughts, both philosophical and quotidian, my hopes and despairs, the dramas and the preludes to dramas in the great play of life, with words that are as clear as a cat's cry on a midnight wind.

Screibt und fanscreibt-- write and record.

I shut my eyes to see, I close my ears to hear.

Three rules for keeping a journal-- a conversation and sometimes an argument with myself-- a mental playpen-- a book of days.

1. Never cross out.
2. Never tear out a page.
3. Date every page.

And, finally, one more important rule, for which you ancestors will thank you after they have finished giggling.

4. Always write down the good stuff!

My mother kept a diary for seventy years. I've been journaling now for twenty years. My scribblings may not be gems of the most sacred truth. But they are intoxicating to me. They also remind me of the transcience of most of my worries.

A journal gives me the last word on all things, a place to relate to myself without blushing, a repository of my dreams, delusions, and furies.

I also sketch a lot in my journal-- places, animals, and people-- usually while I'm waiting for the kids or sometimes when sermons start to drag. It helps me to really observe rather than merely record, as I would with a camera. That's why drawings are almost always more interesting than photographs. Later, I sometimes color them with colored pencils.

Tomorrow is another day.

My Resolutions

“Time catches up suddenly to us all,” the comedian Garrison Keillor writes. “One day you’re young and brilliant and sullen to your elders, and the next you’re getting junk mail from the American Association of Retired Persons and people your very own age are talking about pension plans and the prostrate. A sense of mortality should make us smarter. Life is short, so do your work. You spend more time attending to music and art and literature, less time arguing about politics. You plant trees. You cook spaghetti sauce. You talk to children. You don’t let your life be eaten by salesmen and evangelists and the circuses of the media.”

In that spirit, here are my resolutions for 2009.

I will put first things last.

I will study a sunset.

I will discover a color.

I will memorize clouds.

I will be amphibious.

I will listen to my kids more and to politicans less.

I will ride into the high country.

I will savor.

I will enjoy.

I will hope.

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter---and the Bird is on the Wing.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Won't you be my valentine?
I will be thine!

To life!

Yuppies, Puppies

Ha!

President Bush's Exit Interview

Frank Rich's "A President Forgotten But Not Gone"

Here are some excerpts.

The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Bush’s presidency found that 79 percent of Americans will not miss him after he leaves the White House. He is being forgotten already, even if he’s not yet gone. You start to pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is. It stretches from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven for toxins under his passive stewardship.

Iraq burned, New Orleans flooded, and Bush remained oblivious to each and every pratfall on his watch. Americans essentially stopped listening to him after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, but he still doesn’t grasp the finality of their defection. Lately he’s promised not to steal the spotlight from Barack Obama once he’s in retirement — as if he could do so by any act short of running naked through downtown Dallas. The latest CNN poll finds that only one-third of his fellow citizens want him to play a post-presidency role in public life.

Another, far more elaborate example of legacy spin can be downloaded from the White House Web site: a booklet recounting “highlights” of the administration’s “accomplishments and results.” With big type, much white space, children’s-book-like trivia boxes titled “Did You Know?” and lots of color photos of the Bushes posing with blacks and troops, its 52 pages require a reading level closer to “My Pet Goat” than “The Stranger.”

This document is the literary correlative to “Mission Accomplished.” Bush kept America safe (provided his presidency began Sept. 12, 2001). He gave America record economic growth (provided his presidency ended December 2007). He vanquished all the leading Qaeda terrorists (if you don’t count the leaders bin Laden and al-Zawahri). He gave Afghanistan a thriving “market economy” (if you count its skyrocketing opium trade) and a “democratically elected president” (presiding over one of the world’s most corrupt governments). He supported elections in Pakistan (after propping up Pervez Musharraf past the point of no return). He “led the world in providing food aid and natural disaster relief” (if you leave out Brownie and Katrina).

With this level of self-regard, it’s no wonder that Bush could remain undeterred as he drove the country off a cliff. The smugness is reinforced not just by his history as the entitled scion of one of America’s aristocratic dynasties but also by his conviction that his every action is blessed from on high. Asked last month by an interviewer what he has learned from his time in office, he replied: “I’ve learned that God is good. All the time.”

Once again he is shifting the blame. This presidency was not about Him. Bush failed because in the end it was all about him.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons

A feel-good chick flick. I recommend it. It's the haunting fantasy of a man who ages in reverse from about eighty to a newborn infant, set between 1918 and the Katrina hurricane.

My favorite line: "You need to let go when you're at the end."

Tribute to My Mother

(On Christmas day, I flew out once again to Lancaster for a memorial service for my mother at Calvary Fellowship Homes. I wrote this out in a journal that my mom had bought for me five years earlier. This is slightly longer than what I said on Saturday, because of time limitations.)

Silent night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright.

On Christmas eve two days ago, in the courtyard of our church, along with hundreds of others, I held a burning candle. In this twinkling sea of light, my thoughts went back three decades as we sang "Silent Night." My sister and I were visiting my parents on school break in Malaysia where my mom and dad were missionaries. In our Christmas in July, we had no evergreens. But we had gifts and food and love and laughter.

And I recall that we sang "Silent Night." That song reminds me that just as one baby can change a world, one person can make a difference.

"O death, where is thy sting?" My mother's long, meaningful life gives answer to that question00 that her life has touched so many people.

In April, mom suffered a stroke. She spoke only with great effort. To prompt conversation, Anne asked mom "Were you ever a tree climber?"

"Of course," mom replied. "The higher the better." And high aspirations have indeed marked mom's life-- vocationally, socially, and spiritually. In the early years as a missionary, she wrote the following Life Goals.

"1. To get to know my God more and more.

2. Then to allow God to live His life through me to others for His glory."

One of her goals was to accept "the discipline of sepration from the children." Tears of homesickness would scald my cheeks as I watched my parents leave me at the boarding school and home. It was only years later that I realized that my mother had the same tears. And so she dedicated the last quarter century of her life largely to her children with her loving counsel, her wise encouragement, and in her involvement in our lives and the lives of her grandchildren.

Among the last words mom spoke to me were these. "Ever since you were a baby, I have loved you. Good by, dear Philip."

Mom lived for Jesus without condition, but she was my mother as well and that is how I shall always remember her.

Aglow with His spirit, my mother brough sparkle and joy to the lives of countless people in the nine decades of her life. It is perhaps appropriate that mom should leave us at this time when hope springs afresh, love flows from heart to heart, and joy leaps at every song.

Mom once said to me that three things he liked: cats, hard work, and music. And the music she liked the most was Christmas music. For many years, mom performed in the church's cantata and, in the last year of her life, she looked forward to seeing the Christmas pageant at Sight and Sound. Among the songs she sang was "Silent Night". For it puts into a few words the love of her life and the goal of her life.

Silent night, holy night
Song of God, loves pure light
Radient beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at thy birth
Jesus, Lord at thy birth

So, while I do miss mom, I know she would not want me to be sad. And, if she were here, my mother would tell me and each of us that "all is calm, all is bright"