Missing the point is a very fine art; and has been carried to something like perfection by politicians and Pressmen to-day. For the point is generally a very sharp point; and is, moreover, sharp at both ends. That is to say that both parties would probably impale themselves in an uncomfortable manner if they did not manage to avoid it altogether. G. K. Chesterton, Utopia of Usurers and other Essays, 1917

In case you were thinking the dishonesty of our press and politicians was something new.

America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance — it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded. – Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Yeah – and methinks it has only gotten worse.

Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude toward the universe; the decay of a religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it – we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christendom today. The bad work begun at the Reformation is bearing its final fruit in the dissolution of our ancestral doctrines – the very structure of our society is dissolving.

In the place of the old Christian enthusiasms of Europe there came, for a time, the enthusiasm for nationality, the religion of patriotism. But self-worship is not enough, and the forces which are making for the destruction of our culture, notably the Communist propaganda from Moscow, have a likelier future before them than our old-fashioned patriotism.

In Islam there has been no such dissolution of ancestral doctrine – or, at any rate, nothing corresponding to the universal break-up of religion in Europe. The whole spiritual strength of Islam is still present in the masses of Syria and Anatolia, of the East Asian mountains, of Arabia, Egypt and North Africa. – Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies, 1938

Our civilization lost it’s religion (Christianity); it substituted patriotism for a while, until that went cold. Then various forms of communism became fashionable and while they still exist, the don’t really call forth any devotion. Islam, however, continues. If you wonder why some children of the West go to join Islam and fight for it, look no further than the fact that we believe in nothing…and Belloc figured this out in 1938, when Islam – as such – was completely decayed and almost entirely under the European thumb. The Muslims believe – you can say they believe wrongly, but they believe…and only those who actually believe in something stronger than Islam will survive.

Yet another Obama foreign policy success:

Iran’s state-owned Press TV is reporting that Tehran is demanding that all sanctions be lifted to proceed with a nuclear agreement.

“Our principle position is that all sanctions are lifted at once,” Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, reportedly told the network…

To be sure, for Obama this is success – because his whole plan, as far as I can tell, is to empower Iran to stand up vigorously to the United States. In the real world, things are a bit different: this is Iran seeing how far they can push Obama around. The answer: quite a lot. Obama will never, ever wake up to the fact that Iran hates us not because of Israel or the coup back in the 50’s, but because we’re not Islamist fruitcakes like the Iranian leadership.

Hillary is officially in trouble over her use of a private e mail account during her tenure as Secretary of State. But the reality is that this scandal – which is horrible and is disqualifying as far as the Presidency goes – won’t amount to much because Narrative. She’s a woman and its her turn to be President. Period. The only way the Hillary Express gets derailed is if a credible, female candidate jumps into the Democrat primary…so, if it ain’t Hillary, it will be Warren. Warren would be better for us as she’s more easily beatable (I think Hillary is, as well; but the betting line is that she’s unstoppable). No matter how bad the scandals get, the MSM will come round to be her palace guard – they have to; they can’t do other. To actually tell the full truth about Hillary is to destroy her political viability and no MSMer out there is going to risk social disapproval in DC, NYC and LA by doing that – and this includes allegedly conservative MSMers. If Hillary is to be beaten, she’ll have to beaten at the polls by a good GOP candidate. Nothing else will do it.

ISIS has bulldozed an ancient, Assyrian city but what about the Crusades? I’ve been reading up a bit on the Assyrians – a Christian people which has been relentlessly persecuted by Islam for a thousand years because they refuse to knuckle under. Even the Kurds – otherwise decent folk in the area – have it in for the Assyrians. My dream: we re-create Assyria…make it a Christian nation right smack dab in the middle of the Muslim world. Hey, if Palestinians get the West Bank, then the Assyrians get northern Iraq.

Jeb will visit Iowa but no one really cares.

The betting is that Roberts will rescue ObamaCare, again. I’m pretty sure he will – because the Ruling Class gotta Ruling Class. Remember, the GOP leadership doesn’t want to do away with ObamaCare, either. No one does – except the majority of the American people, and we don’t count. Until we get a President and a Congress with real back bone for revolution, we won’t get anywhere. So, to work with a will in 2016 and beyond.

The Lee-Rubio tax plan is mostly good stuff – but it isn’t revolutionary enough for my taste. I dig the whole idea of essentially putting large amounts of American middle class income into a gigantic tax haven as that will starve the government beast…but I want some punitive taxes on those elements of the rich who use their money to punish the rest of us with things like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. A tax reform proposal which is marketed at ending “loopholes for the rich” but which in reality takes away the tax exempt status of all those liberal political hit groups masquerading as non-partisan social services organizations is a great place to start.

With that in mind, the “two” in a “one, two” punch against liberalism is going after the mis-named and misbegotten “higher education” industry:

Understand that the purpose of modern American “education” is not to educate students. It is primarily to provide cushy, subsidized sinecures for liberal administrators and faculty while, secondarily, providing a forum to indoctrinate soft young minds in the liberal fetishes du jour. Actually educating students is hard, and a meaningful education is anathema to liberalism. In the liberals’ ideal world, the universities would simply fester with leftist nonsense and not even bother with trying to teach their charges anything at all. And today, it’s pretty close to being the liberals’ ideal world…

Take away the government subsidies for this monstrosity and we’ll deal a death-blow to the left – it cannot be calculated just how much money and political influence the left obtains from their control of “higher” education. Safe behind college walls, liberals sally forth to destroy the society which subsidizes their attacks. If we were at least getting educated citizens out of it, that would be something – but a college degree, outside the scientific disciplines (and increasingly even there) is a sick joke. A mere credential which allows a numbskull to enter the Ruling Class and start screwing everyone who works for a living.

Thank goodness Obama vetoed Keystone – if he hadn’t done that, Buffet wouldn’t be set to collect some insurance money on one of his oil trains blowing up.

And from David Burge (@iowahawkblog):

We don’t have a government, we have a sh***y third-rate cow college student council with nuclear weapons.

The Baltic Dry Index has reached a 29 year low: here’s the “we’re all gonna die” take on it and the “no worries” view. I lean towards the former – it just can’t be good when an index like this crashes through the floor. On the other hand, the central bankers have been astoundingly successful in keeping up appearances since 2009 and I have no idea how much longer they’ll be able to do it. I expect a Dow above 20k before it crashes…on the other other hand (all conservatives being three-handed mutant lizard people, after all), I have started to hear radio ads urging people to take out home equity loans and to start getting into house flipping…which is just what I heard in 2008. So, make of it what you will.

News story says Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli air force jets if Israel tried to strike Iran’s nuclear program. I don’t know if its true – don’t know if its completely mythical or absolutely true or if its just someone who heard an Obama official getting really mad and saying something along these lines. However: if it turns out to be true, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. In geo-strategic terms, the American left has hated the state of the world since 1991 – since the USSR fell, that is, and left the United States as the world’s sole super power. It just isn’t fair that there’s no power on earth which can restrain the United States, ya dig? A nuclear-armed Iran will re-balance power in the Middle East…just as a rebuilt Russian Empire will re-balance it in Europe and a powerful China re-balances it in east Asia. All else being equal, our liberals prefer a world where the United States is forced to be circumspect in world affairs…the enemy (who is only an enemy because of our crimes/errors, per the left) must be able to stand up to us. A nuclear-armed Iran is a feature, not a bug, in liberal strategy. Once it exists, they’ll be able to say, “well, there’s nothing we can do so we’ll need to go the route of peaceful co-existence and detente with Iran (Russia/China)…”. Anyone who wants to oppose Iran will be accused of wanting 24-hour-round-the-clock nuclear holocaust and dismissed from the debate. Look for ISALT (Iran Strategic Arms Limitations Talks) to start in 2018 or so…

Rep. Peter King (RINO-NY) has had it with the “delusional wing” of the GOP. Hey, Pete, guess what? We’ve rather had it with you. Why don’t you become a Democrat or Independent and leave us alone? If we’re doomed to defeat without the likes of you in the party, then we’ll sing proudly of our defeat.

More and more Walker to Reagan comparisons are being made, and I’m seeing the point. Liberals called Reagan the “teflon President” because nothing stuck to him. Now, in the fevered mind of the left, this meant that Reagan was horrible and corrupt but they could never get the American people to see that. The reality is that Reagan was incorruptible and thus liberal slanders just rolled off him…when you are innocent, you genuinely can laugh off nonsense. Liberals are doing everything they can to slander Walker – they are already deep into just making stuff up and seeing if it flies – but it isn’t sticking. One thing I’ve always enjoyed is liberals who come across a conservative they just can’t beat no matter how hard they try.

Venezuela’s crazy commie dictatorship does some crazy, commie stuff…

Gas prices have been spiking – worst in California but whenever non-Californians hear bad economic news from California, we just laugh: its your own darned fault, California – you really thought that Jerry Brown was going to make things better? Geesh! But, it is also bad news in general…a lot of the not-quite-dead-glow on the U.S. economy for the past couple months has been from lower gas prices…

I guess the Germans felt the need to brush up on their anti-Semitism. Can’t get too far behind the French, huh? Hitler’s mindless tome is to be re-released in Germany for the first time since World War Two.

In a bit of entirely unrelated news, the religion of peace does a little bit of literary criticism.

Jeb wants to be our 2nd choice for 2016 – meaning we conservatives. Sorry, Jeb; at best you’d be my 8th or 9th choice…and if its between you and Hillary, what is my reason for voting?

I had written an article on the 21 Martyrs in Libya – but I couldn’t get it right. Then I tried dipping my toes into the “Does Obama Love America” debate, and that didn’t come out right, either (spoiler: I don’t think he really does). I’m kind of at a loss – but I also feel we are in a great change in America…and it has to do with the combination of the 21 Martyrs and Obama being someone who isn’t over fond of America. I don’t think that America in 2017 will be quite what Obama hopes it will be.

That said, just a few things:

Want a name for your residential high-rise? Stay away from “Torch“.

The State Department, fresh off of hash-tagging our enemies into submission (I mean, Boko Haram brought back the girls, right?), has now put out a snappy website designed to get on top of “violent extremism”. Violent Extremism is bad – but only really, really bad – and politically useful – when it can be assigned to straight, white, Christian, American males who live in fly-over country. A lot of people are upset about this, but really it’s been the liberal MO for a while now – to soft-peddle the really bad actors while massively exaggerating the involvement of their particular, political opponents with the tiny, tiny number of home-grown bad actors in the United States. But, I’m sure that State Department presentation will get the whole problem licked in no time…

Greece and the EU come to a sort-of agreement on continued bail outs. Why? Because for all their white-hot rhetoric, the new, leftwing government of Greece is peas as a pod to the rest of the European Ruling Class. Some day a genuinely populist movement might gain power in an European country and tell the Eurocrats to pound sand, but that day isn’t today.

ObamaCare continues to be the complete nightmare of a worthless program we all said it would be.

Condi Rice leads a crowded field to replace out-going Senator (and numbskull) Barbara Boxer. Rice might be a very good fit for California – a bit socially liberal, fiscally conservative…smarter than all the Democrats in California combined. We’ll see if this comes to be.

Shocking News! Brazil’s experiment in socialism isn’t ushering in peace and prosperity.

Plurality of Democrats think Obama should just ignore the law – a very solid majority of Obama thinks he should, too.

Very widespread global warming activity going on. We here in Vegas are sitting at about 72 degrees and we’re just laughing and laughing and laughing…

First up – global warming hoax update:

Arctic sea ice has reached the largest December extent in a decade. Government experts will of course not acknowledge this, because their funding and reputations depend on a misinformed public and Congress.

Here in Las Vegas, there is a chance we’ll have a light dusting of global warming on New Years Eve.

Does it seem like politics are stupid? You know, where the debate is about absurd, asinine things put forth by shrieking nincompoops? I think it is intentional – it is impossible to win stupid arguments. You can’t have a rational debate over an irrational proposition…this, I believe, is a tactic of the left: Keep it Stupid. The more we have people shouting stupid slogans, the less actual debate goes on, the more time the left has to grind their policies through the bureaucracies and courts.

The Washington Post notes that the Islamic State is not very good at State-building:

In the Iraqi city of Mosul, the water has become undrinkable because supplies of chlorine have dried up, said a journalist living there, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his safety…

Which tells you this: ISIS is in control in Mosul…and I think, for the moment, that is ISIS’ main plan. Sure, they are putting out propaganda showing themselves in a good light (and I think the beheading videos are classified under “happy talk” propaganda in ISIS), but the real goal, for now, is absolute power…they’ll worry about drinking water once the infidels are smashed. I get the feeling that WaPo is tut-tutting here…as if a bloodthirsty tyranny judges its successes based upon whether or not there is day care available. We’re losing the war against this ideology because we are refusing to think in war terms.

As we suspected: Fast and Furious was about getting stricter gun control. You know, get guns out there, blame the gun dealers for it, put restrictions on gun dealers…

Noted on Twitter: every winning GOP ticket since 1928 has had a Bush or a Nixon on it. So, we’re doomed.

Hands Up, Don’t Shoot – its entered the popular mind. Another great example of just how well the Big Lie works.

Liberal stupidity continues – Minnesota plans to eliminate gender gender distinctions in sports…leading to either a 200 lb boy tackling a 90 lb girl, or the banning of anyone weighing more than 90 lbs playing football…or a ban on football (which would probably be a liberal goal these days).

Apparently, Dear Leader is not to be offended – be nice if next time there’s a GOP President that the Presidential kids are actually off limits.

How about we just leave Ferguson burned down? We can call it the Barack H Obama memorial ruin.

Very interesting article by Robin Hanson:

How much does merit contribute to success? A rosy view is that success is mostly due to merit, while a dark view is that success is mostly not due to merit, but instead due to what we see as illicit factors, such as luck, looks, wit, wealth, race, gender, politics, etc.

Over a lifetime people gain data on the relation between success and merit. And one data point stands out most in their minds: the relation between their own success and merit. Since most people see themselves as being pretty meritorious, the sign of this data point depends mostly on their personal success. Successful people see a rosy view, that success and merit are strongly related. Unsuccessful people see a dark view, that success and merit are only weakly related…

And then James Joyner puts his two cents in:

…While lots of very successful people will acknowledge that luck played a large role in their success, most will point to the real merit that got them to where they are. They worked harder, were more persistent, delayed gratification, and otherwise behaved more admirably than their peers who were less successful. And, for the most part, they will be right on those scores while overlooking the extent to which luck also factored in.

Of course, defining “merit” and “success” will be controversial here, with reasonable and intelligent people disagreeing, sometimes quite broadly, as to what they mean. Several of Hanson’s commenters, for example, treat possession of extreme talent, even “genius,” as evidence of merit when it’s just as easily dismissed as luck. It’s not obvious why being extremely smart is any less a matter of happenstance than being pleasingly tall or attractive…

I don’t know – perhaps I haven’t met as many successful people as others have, but I don’t see many successful people acknowledging that luck played a role in their rise. And by “luck” I mean any particular factor which was outside of the individuals control – and this includes who your parents are, what sort of people you meet, etc. Most people I’ve met who have had the easy route to the top appear convinced that they really merited it all. To take the most egregious recent example, I get the distinct impression that Obama believes he’s President based upon his meritorious actions…even though I can’t think of any he’s done, other than being a good father to his daughters, which is a very meritorious thing, indeed, but hardly something to set him apart and raise him to the most powerful office in the world.

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As far as the situation in Gaza goes – every drop of blood spilled is the responsibility of Hamas.  They are the people pledged to the destruction of Israel; they are the people who make the rockets to be fired pretty much at random into Israeli territory. Until Hamas gives up that sort of nonsense, the war is their fault – as are all the deaths, on both sides. As an aside, I don’t trust Hamas’ word, at all – so stories and pictures of alleged Palestinian deaths mean precisely zero to me.  Unless and until a completely neutral third party (and the UN and the MSM are not neutral, third parties) verifies such deaths, I put them in the realm of “possible” rather than actual – understanding, of course, that if there have been civilian deaths in Gaza it is (a) Hamas’ responsibility in general and (b) often deliberately and purposefully Hamas’ responsibility as they put their military forces right behind women and children – because they are cowardly terrorists and know no other way to fight.

A bit of a global warming hoax update:

If you are lucky enough to be reading this from the comfort of your blankets, it might be best to stay there, as Brisbane has hit its coldest temperatures in 103 years.

Not since July 28 1911 has Brisbane felt this cold, getting down to a brisk 2.6C at 6.41am.

At 7am, it inched up to 3.3C.

Matt Bass, meteorologist from BOM, said the region was well below our average temperatures.

“If it felt cold, that’s because it was, breaking that record is pretty phenomenal for Brisbane,” Bass said.

“The average for this time of year is 12C, so Brisbane was about 9C below average, it is pretty impressive really, to have the coldest morning in 103 years is a big record.”

Impressive, indeed – I’m sure that Al Gore and the rest of the science-denying anthropogenic global warming fanatics will soon get on their private jets to fly around the world telling us to cut our carbon emissions.

For the zillionth time, Attorney General Holder proves that he is a racist:

Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday he and President Obama have been targets of “a racial animus” by some of the administration’s political opponents.

No, Eric, we don’t like you and your boss because you are a pair of corrupt, stupid, arrogant jerks.  Really has nothing to do with your skin color, at all; that you think it is the result of white racism proves you are a racist – figuring that white people have a built-in racial animus is a racist belief.

“Smidgen” apparently means “so much that it slops over“:

The two items in question are ones which we’ve already discussed here. One – perhaps the most damning in recent months – was the shocking (meaning, not shocking) revelation that Lerner had previously told her co-workers that, “we need to be cautious about what we say in emails” and wanted to know if instant messaging texts were recorded.

The second was the oh-so-understandable “misunderstanding” about whether or not she had printed out any of her e-mails. And let’s face it… who can be sure what was meant when somebody asks you if you printed something? Did they mean “print” the documents, or print print the documents? It’s all terribly confusing.

Lerner, et al know they are completely secure as long as Obama is President – but they’ve got to be worried that a GOP just might manage to get into office in 2016 – and the statue of limitations will not have expired come January 20th, 2017. Now, to be sure, our RINO half will be wanting us to MoveOn…but there’s still that chance that the next President might decide to review all this…and if he does, then a very large number of highly placed bureaucrats and elected Democrats will be going to jail.

Well, heck – it looks like we do leave people behind.

When McCain says the borders aren’t secure, you know you’ve got a problem.  Remember, I’m the amnesty supporter here…but we’ve really got to deport a very large number of people in order to just make it clear that you can’t just waltz in here without so much as a “by your leave”.

If you’ve heard the stories about Gaza not having bomb shelters, then think again: Gaza does have bomb shelters – for the bombs.  The people?  F ’em; the more that die, the better it is for pro-Palestinian propaganda.

Did you know the GOP might win the governorship of Hawaii?  Hope and Change might work out for us, after all.

Reid continues his career as an acute national embarrassment.

Media bias – its a feature, not a bug.

If the economy is in good shape, why as U.S. power usage flat lined since 2006?  As an aside, there are 20 million more people in the United States than there were in 2006.