Morning Tea with a Dollop of Philosphy

This is a long read by John C. Wright, but well worth it.

Do not be deceived: Leftism is an enigma. We need a theorem that explains not one or two aspects of Leftism, but all their traits.

*snip*

If you say that chastity leads to happy marriage as cause leads to effect, the Modern Liberal will stare at you blankly. If you say paying unwed mothers to have bastards discourages wedlock, they will call you a racist. If you say applauding, defending and supporting the terrorist Palestinians against the innocent Israelis encourages terrorism, they will shriek like mad harpies. They think that to come to an unflattering judgment about any other man or race of men is not just rash and rude, they think it is evil, a type of bigotry, a hate crime.

They have taken a whole area of human thought, namely, everything embraces in ethics, politics, morals, economics and history, and declared it all sacred, off limits, and forbidden to be thought about.

In the memorable phrase of Sayet, they have defined reasoning as a hate crime.

H/T: Vox Day

Fancy, Funny, Frivolous and Fabulous

From the always wonderful Letters of Note, the best job application ever.

Enjoy.

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave "V" words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land's-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.

I have just returned and I still like words.

May I have a few with you?

Robert Pirosh

The Cain-Gingrich Debate

I didn't watch this live, because two great SEC games were on; this video is courtesy of The Right Scoop.

Latest Hip Saying on the Web

A high school buddy posted this on Facebook a couple of days ago. Since then I have seen it in several comments on blogs.




Oh, ain't it clever?

In a recent conversation with my son, he said that he thought it was wrong for politicians, such as George W. Bush when he was President, to invoke their religion on others. I asked him what he meant. I explained that what we today call morals are really the lessons of human experience. Since religion for many centuries was the center of society and education, the lessons were passed down by religion and thereby gained their "religious" connotations. My son immediately understood that these lessons were necessary to have a functioning society, and he understood the connection with religion. He then knew why shunning something for no other reason than it was tied to religion was short-sighted.

But people do it anyway. They would rather modern society figuratively re-invent the wheel again and again rather than listen to the knowledge passed down to us by some long-dead people.

Many people believe that the way to demonstrate their open-mindedness is to shut down those of a particular view. Re-evaluate? Yes -- but reject for the sake of rejecting, why? It seems especially sad when much of what religion can teach us is of more value than what secularization can teach us.

Notice that this sign does not differentiate between Judeo-Christian values that try and teach people to work for both the personal and common good and the so-called "values" of a certain other religion that is trying to bomb the world into the 12th century.

A sad state of affairs.

How About Some Anthropology?

This is one of my favorite blogs. Do I understand everything they're discussing? Haha, I wish! Still, I find the material fascinating, and I love reading their discussions. Concerning interbreeding between ancient human populations:

It's important to note how important this insight is. Modern human populations are mutually interfertile, but it is generally assumed that beyond a certain point of genetic divergence interbreeding is impossible for both anatomical and genetic incompatibility reasons.

But, if we accept the possibility of interbreeding even between very divergent populations, then where do we stop? It's possible that H. sapiens himself is the product of such interbreeding.

Interesting family tree, innit?  I found myself giving each of them a name...Uncle Billy Bob Bubba is the guy on the far left.  Oh, and the picture isn't from the article linked above; in fact, the people who post there would probably tar and feather me for attaching it to such a serious and weighty subject.  I'm naughty that way.