Points to Ponder:
The relationship between authority and personal judgment may be described as dialectical. That is to say, the two are neither identical nor separable. Our personal convictions about what is right and wrong are at least partially shaped by what the community and its leaders have taught us, and on the basis of those convictions we determine whether to follow the community's authorities in a given instance. To the extent that we have been successfully socialized into the community, our free and spontaneous judgments about right and wrong tend to coincide with the rules and expectations of the community. [Avery Dulles, SJ]
Friday, November 30, 2007
The Storm Cone:
(By Rudyard Kipling)
This is the midnight-let no star
Delude us-dawn is very far.
This is the tempest long foretold-
Slow to make head but sure to hold
Stand by! The lull 'twixt blast and blast
Signals the storm is near, not past;
And worse than present jeopardy
May our forlorn to-morrow be.
If we have cleared the expectant reef,
Let no man look for his relief.
Only the darkness hides the shape
Of further peril to escape.
It is decreed that we abide
The weight of gale against the tide
And those huge waves the outer main
Sends in to set us back again.
They fall and whelm. We strain to hear
The pulses of her labouring gear,
Till the deep throb beneath us proves,
After each shudder and check, she moves!
She moves, with all save purpose lost,
To make her offing from the coast;
But, till she fetches open sea,
Let no man deem that he is free!
(By Rudyard Kipling)
This is the midnight-let no star
Delude us-dawn is very far.
This is the tempest long foretold-
Slow to make head but sure to hold
Stand by! The lull 'twixt blast and blast
Signals the storm is near, not past;
And worse than present jeopardy
May our forlorn to-morrow be.
If we have cleared the expectant reef,
Let no man look for his relief.
Only the darkness hides the shape
Of further peril to escape.
It is decreed that we abide
The weight of gale against the tide
And those huge waves the outer main
Sends in to set us back again.
They fall and whelm. We strain to hear
The pulses of her labouring gear,
Till the deep throb beneath us proves,
After each shudder and check, she moves!
She moves, with all save purpose lost,
To make her offing from the coast;
But, till she fetches open sea,
Let no man deem that he is free!
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Miscellaneous Threads Worth Reviewing:
Just a few as time is too short to say much at the present time...
Poll says Chavez loses Venezuela referendum lead
I have two predictions on the above thread's information. First of all, Chavez will do whatever he can to not lose on the referendum including cheat to "win." Second, supporters of Chavez -not a few of whom are deluded enough to think that Bush "stole" an election in 2000{1}- will care about as much as Washington state Chavez supporters cared about the fact that the corrupt King County election machine stole the governors election from Dino Rossi in 2004.{2} The evidence for the latter dwarfs the former like Snow White dwarfed Sneezy but it goes to show the sorts of unethical double standards that many activist sorts will go to in propagating their particular weltanschauung.
Digging out more CNN/YouTube plants - Abortion questioner is declared Edwards supporter (and a slobbering Anderson Cooper fan); Log Cabin Republican questioner is declared Obama supporter; lead toy questioner is a prominent union activist for the Edwards-endorsing United Steelworkers (Michelle Malkin)
Nicely done Michelle!!! Does anyone care to bet that theClinton Cable News Network will not allow Republican declared questioners at the next Democratic Party debate???
Planet-saving madness (Christopher Booker)
None of this is a surprise -indeed readers of this weblog know that we pronounced on the global warming matter some time ago{3} but it does not hurt to remind readers of this considering the magnitude of the confidence trick many are attempting to pull with the so-called "global warming" schtick.
Notes:
{1} And no to any Bush Derangement Syndrome readers of this humble weblog but there were no presidential "stolen" elections in either 2000 or in 2004. The Supreme Court made the correct decision under the law in 2000 with the blatant crime being the activism of the Florida Supreme Court on that matter.
Yes we all know that the vote to stop the recount was 5-4 for Bush, but there is more to the story than that. For example, 2 of the 4 who sided with Gore concurred with the majority that there was no uniform standard of vote counting and that there were constitutional issues in what the Florida State Supreme Court was requiring. Further still, one of those justices who concurred with the majority but did not vote with them was a personal friend of Al Gore and therefore he arguably should have recused himself. With such a recusal of course a 5-3 vote on the matter would have taken place. (4-3 if Scalia had recused himself also though the connection he had to Bush was far less solid.) In other words, 7 of the 9 justices concurred on the problems in Florida but had a plurality of views on how to remedy the problem.
More could be said but the constitutional problems in Florida with the vote counting -to say nothing of 50,000 military absentee ballots which were ignored and the military vote for Bush would have been at least 70%- presented a problem that could not be resolved during the waning days of an election cycle when the results have to be certified by a fixed date. Besides, Bush had already won four recounts anyway. There is no rational way to conclude that Florida was "stolen" in 2000 when all the factors above among other ones are taken into account.
As for Ohio in 2004, the irregularities there were no different than what happens in a lot of states though I do not recall the Democrats calling for investigations into the election oddities in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin which were if anything more suspicious than Ohio. Oh yes, they won those states so there could not have been voting irregularities!!!
{2} A few threads were written by us on that event at the time which are noted here from oldest to newest:
"Grand TheftAuto Election" Dept. (circa December 5, 2004)
A Reluctant Rerum Novarum Prediction That Has Unfortunately Come True (circa December 23, 2004)
"Grand TheftAuto Election" Dept. -The Saga Continues (circa December 30, 2004)
On the Washington GovernorsHeist Race and Other Tidbits (circa January 16, 2005)
{3} On the Fraud of "Global Warming" With Greg Mockeridge and Kevin Tierney (circa April 16, 2006)
Just a few as time is too short to say much at the present time...
Poll says Chavez loses Venezuela referendum lead
I have two predictions on the above thread's information. First of all, Chavez will do whatever he can to not lose on the referendum including cheat to "win." Second, supporters of Chavez -not a few of whom are deluded enough to think that Bush "stole" an election in 2000{1}- will care about as much as Washington state Chavez supporters cared about the fact that the corrupt King County election machine stole the governors election from Dino Rossi in 2004.{2} The evidence for the latter dwarfs the former like Snow White dwarfed Sneezy but it goes to show the sorts of unethical double standards that many activist sorts will go to in propagating their particular weltanschauung.
Digging out more CNN/YouTube plants - Abortion questioner is declared Edwards supporter (and a slobbering Anderson Cooper fan); Log Cabin Republican questioner is declared Obama supporter; lead toy questioner is a prominent union activist for the Edwards-endorsing United Steelworkers (Michelle Malkin)
Nicely done Michelle!!! Does anyone care to bet that the
Planet-saving madness (Christopher Booker)
None of this is a surprise -indeed readers of this weblog know that we pronounced on the global warming matter some time ago{3} but it does not hurt to remind readers of this considering the magnitude of the confidence trick many are attempting to pull with the so-called "global warming" schtick.
Notes:
{1} And no to any Bush Derangement Syndrome readers of this humble weblog but there were no presidential "stolen" elections in either 2000 or in 2004. The Supreme Court made the correct decision under the law in 2000 with the blatant crime being the activism of the Florida Supreme Court on that matter.
Yes we all know that the vote to stop the recount was 5-4 for Bush, but there is more to the story than that. For example, 2 of the 4 who sided with Gore concurred with the majority that there was no uniform standard of vote counting and that there were constitutional issues in what the Florida State Supreme Court was requiring. Further still, one of those justices who concurred with the majority but did not vote with them was a personal friend of Al Gore and therefore he arguably should have recused himself. With such a recusal of course a 5-3 vote on the matter would have taken place. (4-3 if Scalia had recused himself also though the connection he had to Bush was far less solid.) In other words, 7 of the 9 justices concurred on the problems in Florida but had a plurality of views on how to remedy the problem.
More could be said but the constitutional problems in Florida with the vote counting -to say nothing of 50,000 military absentee ballots which were ignored and the military vote for Bush would have been at least 70%- presented a problem that could not be resolved during the waning days of an election cycle when the results have to be certified by a fixed date. Besides, Bush had already won four recounts anyway. There is no rational way to conclude that Florida was "stolen" in 2000 when all the factors above among other ones are taken into account.
As for Ohio in 2004, the irregularities there were no different than what happens in a lot of states though I do not recall the Democrats calling for investigations into the election oddities in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin which were if anything more suspicious than Ohio. Oh yes, they won those states so there could not have been voting irregularities!!!
{2} A few threads were written by us on that event at the time which are noted here from oldest to newest:
"Grand Theft
A Reluctant Rerum Novarum Prediction That Has Unfortunately Come True (circa December 23, 2004)
"Grand Theft
On the Washington Governors
{3} On the Fraud of "Global Warming" With Greg Mockeridge and Kevin Tierney (circa April 16, 2006)
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
The Road Not Taken:
(By Robert Frost)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(By Robert Frost)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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