I think it's already annoying that my fiancee's car decides to lecture us with an irritating beeping sound whenever the passenger needs to unbuckle for more than a few seconds. If you like that, you'll be thrilled to know that 'progressive' inventors around the world are busy thinking of more ways to coerce you into behaving as they think you should.

It may look like an ordinary rubbish bin, but don't let that fool you. Throw an aluminum can in here and you'd be none the wiser, but try chucking a plastic bottle away, and with an angry buzz it will throw it back out at you, fans whirring to rid itself of the wrong kind of rubbish.

We already have problems trying to encourage people to throw their junk into the trash, rather than littering. This kind of response from a trash can (one of several in a row — you'll have to figure out which to use for each type of material, no doubt) certainly won't help.

You know what's really telling, here? The inventors ponder a world where trash bins would already be able to detect which "type" of recyclable material each bit is. And what's their first thought, in response to that possibility? That the trash can (or another machine, later) could automatically sort and route it to the proper compartment? Oh, no: their first thought is that the trash can could use that knowledge to heave the trash back onto the user or sidewalk, embarrassing (and possibly splattering) some well-meaning human being who didn't quite recycle 'correctly' enough.

This is the 'smart trash can', part of the 'Toward the Sentient City' exhibition in New York, which explores how our lives might change when we can embed computers in anything and everything.

They don't know what "sentient" means, do they?

This fussy recycling bin is the invention of David Jimison and JooYoun Paek, who also created a street sign that points at passersby, and a park bench which tips people off if they've been sitting on it for too long.

David and JooYoun say they want to explore what might happen if technology went wrong in the city of the future, and make us think about our attitudes today.

"It raised concerns about safety - people mentioned 'my grandmother would be hurt if she was dumped off a bench', and it also raised concerns about the homeless", says David.

Oh, only the grandmothers and homeless, eh? It sounds like their moral framework is: Dumping a employed person off a park bench? Good! Get to work you lazy person! Sitting is not for you! Go out and earn us some more tax dollars! Dumping a homeless person off a park bench? Oh no! What have we done! You poor person you! You need to sit and relax some more!

And what's the value in exploring what happens when technology "goes wrong"? (Or is that just an ad hoc explanation for a poorly-thought-through idea?) If they really wanted to explore what happens when technology goes wrong the possibilities are endless: fire hydrants which pump kerosene, car washes which use sulfuric acid, active subway turnstyles which are sharped to dismember users. (Monty Python has a few suggestions, also.)

But, again, what's the point of that? Any idiot can think of a billion devices which don't or won't work well. (A clock which shows random numbers! A television which shows nothing at all!) A challenge would be to think of improvements, not malfunctions.

'Amphibious Architecture' is the brainchild of a team at New York and Columbia universities who floated sensors and lights in two of the city's rivers, so that just by sending a text message, people can find out what's living down there and what the water quality is like.

Can the fish now also text back: "We're fine, but really annoyed by this plastic floating trash above us which keeps shining beams of lights into our eyes at night while we're trying to get some rest!"?

'Natural Fuse' by Usman Haque, a London-based architect, who created a network of houseplants attached to the electrical system, which monitor energy use - if the system's members use too much power, some of the plants are killed, but if they collectively reduce their energy use the plants thrive, increasing their ability to capture carbon, and the energy available to all.

This also makes tons of sense: if a family uses "too much" energy (thus a bureaucrat in the background is implied, deciding how much energy each is allowed, 'according to their needs'), we should kill some plants to compensate — thus reducing the amount of carbon which will be captured!

Can our new would-be masters think their way out of a paper bag too?

You've heard it. I've heard it. We've all heard it countless times recently: "Avatar" is the #1, top-grossing film of all time.

So here's a more accurate list, adjusted for the obscure concept of "inflation", wherein the value of the US dollar continues to decline as the government prints more and more bills.

The results?

"Avatar" is in 21st place — slightly less popular than both "Fantasia" and (oh, how embarrassing) a certain film which introduced everyone's favorite persona dramatis, Jar-Jar Binks.

But, to its credit, "Avatar" did slightly edge out "Mary Poppins."

Global Warmingists are in full-blown spin control. Let's take a look at what is being said; examine the calibre of argument.

Guardian's George Monbiot:

The denial industry, which has no interest in establishing the truth about global warming...

Monbiot has good motivations. In contrast, every global warming skeptic is an intentional liar, disinterested in truth.

Obligatory ad hominem fallacy: Check!

... insists that these emails, which concern three or four scientists and just one or two lines of evidence, destroy the entire canon of climate science.

Citation? None provided of course. One prominent example would be lovely.

Most people I've read say the e-mails demonstrate a willingness to distort and hide data. And indeed, they have. As these were the main scientists behind the UN's assessment, their motives and ethics indeed should also, reasonably, cast some doubt on the results.

Even if you were to exclude every line of evidence that could possibly be disputed – the proxy records, the computer models, the complex science of clouds and ocean currents – the evidence for man-made global warming would still be unequivocal. You can see it in the measured temperature record, which goes back to 1850...

Monbiot oddly links to an article which undermines his own contention, noting that the temperature record he cites "draws heavily on CRU analysis. CRU supplied all the land temperature data." Monbiot also doesn't mention the HARRY_README.TXT file, which shows said land temperature data was apparently totally unreliable and irreproducible. Nor does he mention the CRU's odd "loss" of all known historical temperature data when asked to release it. Nor subsequent evidence that CRU and NOAA cherry-picked Russian and Canadian land station data.

The article he links also admits: "The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics." So Monbiot cites this article as proof of the reliability of the historical temperature record, but the article its implies it's probably fried? Has he read his own best evidence?

... in the shrinkage of glaciers and the thinning of sea ice...

Which glaciers? The most recent revelation is that the many of the "shirking" glaciers in question most certainly aren't. Which sea ice? Actual scientific records show it's roughly holding steady since 1979.

... in the responses of wild animals and plants and the rapidly changing crop zones.

Which "responses"? Examples please?

No other explanation for these shifts makes sense...

Ah. No other theory makes sense, so it MUST have been CO2. Boy, that's science in action, isn't it?

Never mind that global CO2 was hardly being affected by industrial sources back in 1850; also never mind recent evidence pointing to no net change in atmospheric CO2 since 1850 (article recently renamed to make conclusion seem more ambiguous) .

The third observation is the contrast between the global scandal these emails have provoked and the muted response to 20 years of revelations about the propaganda planted by fossil fuel companies. I have placed on the Guardian's website four case studies; each of which provides a shocking example of how the denial industry works.... Nothing exposed by the hacking of the Climatic Research Unit's server is one tenth as bad as the least of these revelations.

1. The implicit logic here is "I can find someone who lied against global warming, therefore it's true"? Huh? I thought he opposed such fallacies.

2. Please, by all means, read the examples. It's pretty tepid stuff: a coal company wants to "reposition global warming as theory"! (Al Gore or UN officials would never do the converse, right?) A single AGW-skeptical scientist received some funding from an electric power consortium? (No pro-AGW scientist has ever received money for supporting global warming, surely? — how about every single one with a government grant?) A think tank published a list of global-warming-sceptics which included some incorrect names (yet the UN's list of signatories has the same problem — scientists who disagree, like Dr. Chris Landsea, cannot get their names removed.) And finally, horror of horrors, a man of some influence in the Bush administration, skeptical of AGW, was found to have indirect links to Exxon! (Did Monbiot even notice that Jeffery Immelt, CEO of GE, who stands to make billions from confirming global warming — is also one of Obama's top advisors? No, that's nothing compared to a minor Bush official's influence.)

As I imply with the counter-examples noted above, the opposite cases are far more pervasive and lucrative — if Monbiot thinks such influences can corrupt a scientific position, he should be overwhelmed by the temptations which could lead one to a pro-warming stance. But it seems he's utterly blind to such.

3. None of this rises to the level of supposedly objective scientists — whose work supposedly forms the entire world's "consensus" position — destroying, losing, and hiding inconvenient evidence.

Elsewhere, Monbiot charges:

They stoutly ignore far graver evidence of falsification and fabrication by their own side, even when there is smoking gun evidence that their champions have secretly taken money...

Um, I'm not "ignoring" such evidence at all. I just don't see how some petition having a few false signatories on it does anything to negate the head of the UN's IPCC taking money to say that glaciers were melting when, in fact, they weren't. The later sheds doubt on a specific "finding", the former does nothing of the sort.

They make no attempt to hold each other to account or to sustain any standards of truth at all.

The four examples Monbiot gave were fairly obscure; I follow this debate pretty closely, and I'd never heard of any of said incidents, much less been influenced by them before they were "exposed". And the behavior he cites is mostly ethical (e.g. there's nothing immoral about a company wanting to argue its case in public) so I'm not sure what's to condemn in most cases. And, contrary to his "no accountability" claim, the case he cited with a clear, intentional ethical conflict — the Bush administration official — was actually fired. (Again, does he read his own stuff?)

Guardian's Fred Pearce offers a few more attempts:

If those journalists had read even a few words beyond the soundbites, they would have realised that they were often being fed lies.... The most quoted "climategate" soundbite comes from an email from Prof Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, to Prof Mike Mann of the University of Virginia in 1999, in which he discussed using "Mike's Nature trick" to "hide the decline". The phrase has been widely spun as an effort to prevent the truth getting out that global temperatures had stopped rising...

He's right that "hide the decline", in context, referred specifically and only to truncating a series of tree-ring data, so that the resulting graph wouldn't show a downward trend after 1961. But, um, shouldn't that alone be a troubling indication of cherry-picking? Not for a true believer, apparently.

I don't think most the media, pro- or con-, realizes this distinction (and thus aren't "lying" but are merely mistaken) — which may not matter much anyway, given the other subterfuges revealed in the letters, and subsequent exposures of IPCC fraud...

Kevin Trenberth of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, to write: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." ... Unlike Jones, Trenberth's remark from October 2009 was indeed about the slackening of the warming trend that some like to interpret as cooling.

Um, no: technically, what we have is an absolute drop in temperature (normally termed "cooling"!) which some like to interpret (wrongly) as a "slackening of the warming trend." If you have a peak in 1998, then by definition, temperatures have fallen since then. This isn't some odd usage specific to global warming: it the the normal meaning of all the words we're using here. Fred Pearce wishes to avoid such, apparently.

That much is agreed. But Inhofe and other sceptics latched on to Trenberth's "travesty" phrase as a revelation that scientists were trying to keep cooling secret because it undermined their arguments about global warming.

Um, no, again. The shocking point is that Trenberth was privately admitting there's cooling, and admitting it doesn't agree with the models; it wasn't predicted at all. This, in turn, casts significant doubt on the reliability of the touted computer models which supposedly "prove" future warming trends. Which would indeed certainly "undermine" their position — I don't see what's dishonest about that at all.

In another case George Will, celebrated in some circles as an intellectual, told ABC's This Week programme that Mann had said in an email that he wished to "delete, get rid of, the medieval warming period". No such words appear anywhere in the emails. What Mann actually said was that "it would be nice to try to 'contain' the putative 'MWP'". Some bloggers suggested this amounted to extinguishing it from the data record. But an intellectual like Will should have known that, in this context, "contain" means to understand its dimensions...

Oh! Yes, I see now. That's the usual usage: when you "contain" a phenomenon, it means to understand it! Like when the CDC says we should "contain" an outbreak of disease, they mean they only want to "understand" it. Someone should really inform the dictionary people, as they seem to think it means "keep within limits"; "to prevent from advancing". (Stupid dictionary people!)

And never mind that Mann's now-widely-discredited hockey-stick graph is a textbook example of getting rid of unwanted effects: "Jan Esper, David Frank and Robert Wilson (EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 2004) further argued that the fatal flaw with Mann, Bradley and Hughes' temperature reconstruction is its incorrect representation of longer-term trends. They observed that the statistical methods used inappropriately remove trends over long time periods."

No, nothing to see here! Move along.

Mann explained as much to anyone who asked. Verdict: not guilty.

Oh, Mann said that he wasn't working to hide the medieval warming trend? Gee, I guess that settles it completely! Forget completely what independent research demonstrated, above. How can you argue with steel, vice-like logic like this? Case closed! I'm sorry I ever entertained a single doubt!

Too bad "deniers" aren't afforded the same assumptions of good faith and intentions.

Bookworm has a very nice piece, saying pretty much everything I'd want to say on the subject, about the difference between "Freedom of Religion", and the "Freedom from Religion" — a coercive, non-liberal concept which many on the left (in my direct experience) wish to see become the law of the land.

An enduring theme in my little world is the war between "science" and science. This idea is not new, but I seem to have gotten the narrative entirely backwards, given that I think "science" is the usual view of the "scientific" and activist establishment, held more for social, religious, monetary, and altruistic reasons than due to evidence.

One bit of "science" which has been foisted on us since the Carter administration was the belief that we had to have a universal, federal 55-MPH because it saved lives. What extensive researched backed up this idea before it was implemented on a national scale?

Er, um...

Today, 33 states have limits of at least 70 mph. A dozen allow 75, while Texas and Utah both authorize 80. Far from becoming less safe, U.S. roads experienced a decline in the fatality rate year on year as these limits began to rise. In the final days of 55 mph, the fatality rate stood at 1.73 deaths for every 100 million miles traveled. According to the latest U.S. Department of Transportation data, that rate dipped by a third last year to an all-time low of 1.16.

This improvement in morality rates isn't, apparently, a mere artifact of better vehicular lifesaving technologies, but seems to correlate with fewer accidents:

On Oct. 1, 2007, the speed limit on a 37-mile stretch of Interstate 85 was increased to 70 mph. The Washington Times requested accident data to evaluate the impact. Although Virginia Department of Transportation officials caution that it is too early to draw a scientifically reliable conclusion, the preliminary data are encouraging. There were no more deaths on the higher-speed section of highway, and the percentage of severe crashes declined slightly.

To be fair, I do suspect the 55-MPH speed limit saved fuel, though (another motivation for its Carter-era promulgation). And who cares about a few lives being lost as long as fewer gallons of gasoline are consumed?

... which, come to think of it, also reminds me of another favorite bit of traffic "science" — red-light cameras — in this way:

How the change does make a difference is that it prevents the majority of motorists from being preyed upon as a revenue source through speeding tickets.

One of the things I hated about the sitcoms of the late '70s and early 80's were the laugh tracks. Jack Tripper or Maude would say something plainly and patently unfunny, and, from somewhere, an unseen chorus of hysterical laughter would erupt.

Funny thing is, I think I also heard people laughing during classic comedies like "I Love Lucy" and "Bewitched", but, if so, it never bothered me. Perhaps such shows had actual, live studio audiences doing the laughing. Or maybe it was canned, then, too. In either event, I probably didn't notice as much because the laughter had never before functioned as a substitute for being funny.

Likewise, I would suspect that perhaps some of SOTU applause during the Bush years was scripted (or perhaps not, who knows). But it wasn't as jarring, because I remember it as being at major points, points which made sense, and which I expected Republicans — or even both parties — would agree.

But if you want to understand the level of sincerity behind applause at the recent SOTU, all you have to do is listen to, and think about, the uproarious standing ovation this particular set of promises brought:

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.

Roars of applause

It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.

More roaring applause

Look at the second line: these are the exact same kinds of weasel-words he used on the same subject during the campaign. What do they mean? What did he say? Is he in favor of offshore drilling? Were Democrats applauding that? Or was he going to make a "tough decision" to oppose all such drilling? Which would create jobs, how, exactly?

Nobody knew. Nobody could have known. The sentence has no content; it promises precisely nothing and thus requires (contrary to what it claims for itself) no bravery at all. Yet it brought loud applause and shouts of acclaim. Which were obviously as genuine as Maude's laugh track.

By the way, I agree with him about nuclear power — if he means it this time. But even that silver lining has a cloud: that reminds me of the one thing, in retrospect, I agreed with Jimmy Carter about too. Not a positive association.

Like a bad sitcom, much of the rest of the SOTU was similarly phony. Obama characterized the debate, and desire of the American people (contra JFK) as concerned only with what their country can do for them. Obama apologized (and only in a minimal way) as a way of insulting someone else. Obama promised things he had no power to deliver. He engaged in demagoguery while pretending to oppose such tactics. He misrepresented the sincerely-held positions of others.

For example, on our dismal economy:

Third, we need to export more of our goods. Because the more products we make and sell to other countries, the more jobs we support right here in America. So tonight, we set a new goal: We will double our exports over the next five years, an increase that will support two million jobs in America. To help meet this goal, we're launching a National Export Initiative that will help farmers and small businesses increase their exports, and reform export controls consistent with national security.

We're going to double our exports? In only five years? During a recession? (The moment of judgment conveniently falling, most likely, during someone else's term.) Really? How? By having a committee (NEI) do something? What? He says they'll "reform export controls". Really? What, are we preventing someone from exporting something right now? Or is that code for either punishing imports, or punishing companies which outsource? Both actions would cause us to shed jobs; this is anti-economic nonsense.

Young Americas portrayed as a generation of greedy, entitled people, with their hands out:

To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer-subsidies that go to banks for student loans. Instead, let's take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants. And let's tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only ten percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after twenty years — and forgiven after ten years if they choose a career in public service. Because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.

Nobody should go broke because they went to college? Huh? So I should be able to go to school as long as I want, in any subject, regardless of how irrelevant, and never have to pay it off?

Of course, he's not really saying that. A loan should only be forgiven if I then work for the government! This is particularly ironic given that government workers are paid much more (easily 20% more) than private-sector equivalents for the same work. In short, he's saying that if you become a part of the left-wing establishment, a permanent Democratic constituent, we'll give you a free education, too. (At the bank's expense, no less.) If not, well, good luck with that.

Since when was greed a bad thing, eh?

The obvious effect of this will be, of course, to make student loans harder to obtain. The subsidies he complains about exist to lower the cost of such loans. Now he's telling banks they're also going to risk losing the whole loan if the student majors in Art History or Feminist Theory and ends up working as a janitor, or starts working for the Department of Motor Vehicles. The cynic in me wonders if the effect is intentional: so that he can then complain about the scarcity of student loans, blame the banks more, and demand unlimited free college education like (cough) France has.

And again, on healthcare:

Still, this is a complex issue, and the longer it was debated, the more skeptical people became. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people.

We, the American people, were much stupider than he ever imagined. He used too many big words. He didn't appeal enough to our greed. He takes his share of the blame for us being so dense. Bad us!

Please, Mr. Obama, condescend to us a bit more! ...

And I know that with all the lobbying and horse-trading, this process left most Americans wondering what's in it for them.

Yes! That's precisely it! I was worried I wouldn't be given enough free stuff! It wasn't that we were concerned that we'd leave our nation poorer or more in debt. It wasn't that we were concerned about what would happen to the poor people below us on the economic ladder — would can't afford health insurance as it is, much less with a new mandate and threats of IRS seizure. And I certainly wasn't concerned we were instantly passing multi-thousand-page bills, written by special interest groups, that no-one else had read! No, I personally wanted a larger cash payout.

But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.

Um, remember what the Republicans have been saying, until they're blue in the face, about tort reform, lowering barriers to interstate competition, allowing pre-tax purchase of insurance, subsidizing insurance for the poorest workers, and getting rid of state mandates which raise insurance premiums?

No, he's never heard it. And he will never hear it. Because this is another utterly disingenuous, throw-away line meant to imply the opposite of reality: that his plan is the only game in town. It is, in short, a lie. He's not at all interested in examining other ways of getting to the requirements he states.

Now, even as health care reform would reduce our deficit, it's not enough to dig us out of a massive fiscal hole in which we find ourselves. It's a challenge that makes all others that much harder to solve, and one that's been subject to a lot of political posturing.

Um, isn't promising that massive new handouts will "reduce our deficit" precisely the sort of "political posturing" he pretends to be opposed to here?

I could go on this way for hours. Nearly every paragraph contains some falsehood, some fantasy, some plan which will do precisely the opposite of what it claims, or some backhanded insult to anyone who didn't toe the line. I have no idea how this played with most listeners, but I hope they're finally getting wise to such tactics.

Things went horribly wrong in Portland, Oregon:

Officer accidentally used pepper spray on burning man

The first Portland Police officer to arrive on the scene of the man who set himself on fire Wednesday outside the Nicholas Ungar Furs store accidentally used pepper spray in an attempt to put out the flames instead of a fire extinguisher, officials at the Portland Police Bureau said Thursday.

Police said the officer, who was nearby, saw 26-year-old Daniel Shaull from Kansas on fire, parked her patrol car, went to her trunk and accidentally grabbed pepper spray used for riot control instead of the fire extinguisher.

Wasn't the police officer breaking the law, not to mention violating his human dignity, by trying to save his life in the first place? Hasn't Oregon decided that suicide is fundamental right? Perhaps he traveled all the way from Kansas for that very reason?

Maybe "self-immolation tourism" will be Oregon's next big growth market?

Could cross-market with organic gardening needs.

Telegraph:

Disney has been praised for breaking down barriers by featuring its first black princess in the film The Princess and The Frog. Oona King, who was Gordon Brown's senior policy adviser on equalities and diversity, is not satisfied, however.

"You never see disabled people," the former Labour MP complained to Mandrake at a screening at the Mayfair Hotel in London. "When are you going to see a Disney film with a disabled character in the lead role? Tell me that."

Yes. I think "Beauty and the Beast" would have been so much better if Belle had been confined to an electric wheelchair. And, um, doesn't "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" count? Or wasn't he handicapped enough?

Probably hard to set a believable action/fantasy film in the middle ages with a quadriplegic hero.

I was subjected to stand-up comedy Friday night. I say "subjected to" because I love the form, when done (what I consider) well, but you have to know the right place and people. Otherwise it tends to devolve to one part cleverness, two or three parts obsession with bodily functions and sex.

Politically, stand-up comedy seems to generally re-enforce whatever leftist dogmas are in vogue. Friday night was filled with contradictions. I heard how terrible it was to oppose gay marriage in California, and lots of jibes at Denver's alleged discomfort with racial differences. Message received: It's bad to hate or look down people who are different than you.

Um, except not: The comedians also relentlessly made fun of Wal-Mart shoppers, particularly arguing that many of them were handicapped — mocking the distorted forms of people with clubbed feet, the mentally retarded, etc. Well, yes: generally people with infirmities have trouble making as high an income, so they tend to shop at stores which will give them more affordable merchandise. Meaning Wal-Mart. (Har har.) The Duggers were also mentioned, and Christians in general came up for repeated comedic thrashings.

The message, overall?

So, yeah, it's bad to hate. Except, um, this group over here. Look how stupid they all are. And this other group. Wow, are they stupid. And hateful. Because they don't like people who are different than themselves. Unlike me. Gosh, I hate them for that.

The crowd loved it.

America sleeps as Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, poised between two possible futures, and being shown dreams — well, nightmares, really — of potential Christmases to come, with a glimpse at our own tombstone.

If you want to peer into one possible future — a future advocated by those who view Europe as a model for the US — one only need read the daily (insane) goings-on being reported in the UK. Today's bit of political-correctness-on-steroids weirdness:

When she ran the ad past a job centre, she was told she couldn't ask for 'reliable' and 'hard-working' applicants because it could be offensive to unreliable people. 'In my 15 years in recruitment I haven't heard anything so ridiculous,' Mrs Mamo said yesterday. 'If the matter wasn't so serious I would be laughing out loud.

'Unfortunately it's extremely alarming. I need people who are hardworking and reliable - and I am pleased to discriminate in that way. If they're not then I really can't use them. The reputation of my business is on the line. 'Even the woman at the jobcentre agreed it was ridiculous but explained it was policy because they could get sued for being dicriminatory against unreliable people.

Once upon a time, "discrimination" was a positive word: quality merchandise was advertised as appealing to "discriminating" buyers — that is, people who had the ability to distinguish between a good product and a pile of trash. Or so the appeal went, anyway. During the civil rights struggle, the problem ("bigotry", actually, or "prejudice" — meaning to "judge before") was also called "racial discrimination" — a fair term, since what mattered (e.g. one's fitness for a job) was being ignored in favor of that which didn't (skin tone).

Now, people simply reflexively jump whenever the word "discrimination" is used. Yes, indeed, the woman above hopes to "discriminate" between people who would work hard and those who wouldn't. That must be evil, right? She's drawing distinctions, and treating applications as though they might not all be equal. Well, of course. That's what sane employers do.

This once-helpful word is used like a truncheon even in the US. People opposing same sex marriage are demonized because they "discriminate" based on the gender-parity of the two potential "parents" which might result from the union. And indeed, they do. But, as in the example above, the substance of the debate is thus hidden: How did society end up enshrining committed male/female unions with the word "marriage"? What societal benefits did this form of union confer, that it warranted a special word, and special protections, that others didn't? Where is the evidence that forcibly undoing that ancient distinction will be generally helpful to society, rather than harmful?

And didn't we come out of a huge financial crisis which was caused, at least in part, by a desire to stop lenders from "discriminating" between those who were most likely to be able to afford a particular mortgage, and those who couldn't? Weren't we trying to get banks to treat both kinds of applicants equally?

The example above demonstrates that, at least among the PC crowd, the word "discrimination" (like "tolerance", another helpful word, corrupted) can indeed act as a powerful thought-stopper. I hope this story gets around — shining a light on this absurdity will hopefully make people stop and think a bit more the next time they hear "discrimination" thrown around.

I have an odd fascination with illogic. There's something about watching a human brain, or collection of them, malfunction which is both sad and interesting — both, because the brain in question can't see it happening.

I was never a huge Charles Johnson fan. Back when everyone in the rightosphere was saying, "Oh, you've gotta read LGF!", I somehow just never saw the same thing in his website. I don't know where the disconnect was (what I was somehow missing, I assume) but quite a number seemed entranced by LGF.

That said, I was never particularly a critic either. In recent years, his site seemed obsessed with creationism, as if there's some sort of parallel threat from (a) extremists who want to blow up buildings and force me to convert to their religion, and (b) a Baptist who attends a church potluck dinner where most those attending think the earth is several billion years younger than it really is. That's an odd sort of myopia (paranoia even, perhaps?) I see among a certain breed of New Atheist, but, well, each to their own. I don't care too much, as long as he doesn't go as far as Sam Harris (or Richard Dawkins), and recommend the extermination (or mere criminalization) of those with whom he disagrees.

I mention him because I'd heard rumors that Charles had sort of "melted down", and was curious what his reasons were. Reading his own charges, and responses from those he seems to have attacked, I'd suspected such criticism had merit. The latest correspondence (if you can call it that) between radio talk show host Dennis Prager, and Johnson's subsequent response, I think, illustrates perfectly what's gone wrong.

I won't do a blow-by-blow, but the pattern is the the same each time. Johnson attacks by accusing "the right" of (for example):

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, etc.).

Prager responds by saying: "Uh, who are these people?", and:

Associating the American right with fascism is done only by leftist ideologues and propagandists, not by serious critics. It is akin to calling everyone on the left a Communist.

And Johnson replies:

Dennis is familiar enough with the principles of logic and debate that I know he'll understand when I say that this is the first of many straw men that he throws up to make light of what I wrote. This straw man argument — that I've accused everyone on the right of the things I wrote in that post — is completely false, and if you read carefully, it's obvious that I deliberately wrote the entire post to avoid making such blanket accusations.

The odd thing about all this is that Johnson continually appeals to logic while invoking clear fallacies. You can read for yourself that Prager only characterized Johnon as "associating the American right with facism", which Johnson clearly has done. Yet Johnson then tries to turn Prager's response into a claim that Johnson has said "everyone on the right" has said or done X, when Prager has said no such thing.

This is very weird to watch, because Charles is repeatedly accusing Dennis of invoking a straw man argument, while, in fact, doing exactly that. And, as I noted above, he apparently can't see he's doing it.

As I said, I won't bore you with the rest of it; it follows the same pattern:

1. Johnson characterizes "the right", by and large, as doing X (that is, after all, what saying "the right" means — not that it's true of every member of the set, but that it's a fair characterization of a dominant trend within the group)

2. Prager responds by questioning how Johnson's specific examples can be applied broadly to the right in the US. ("I looked them up... The BNP is the British National Party, a racist group that in the last U.K. general election received 0.7 percent of the popular vote. So what?") [I'd also note the BNP is actually leftist, not rightist, as is commonly asserted.]

3. Johnson accuses Prager of a straw man, wrongly claiming Prager said Johnson said every member of "the right" must have done X. Johnson also blames bloggers for the content of their comments section, or says they once "supported" (as in, apparently, once stood near, or talked with) some group he dislikes.

One of the first things I see "going", that is, malfunctioning, in the society around me is a selective inability to handle simple generalizations. Someone will say, for example: "Democrats support a larger government", and an irate Democrat will respond with: "That's not true! I'm personally against it!" Of course, the PARTY does indeed have beliefs and preferences, and certainly a larger state is a big part of their program. The fact that certain supporters sometimes disagree, but vote for them anyway, doesn't negate that.

These people behave (at moments) as if we're supposed to refrain from all generalizations, and never say things like "Dogs have four legs" (when, of course, some dogs have lost a leg, or were born without one), "Ice cream is cold" (because, of course, some of it, somewhere, has melted), "Democrats want big government" (because some people call themselves "Democrats" while wanting smaller government), etc. Yet they, themselves don't refrain from such generalizations, and seem to understand how to correctly parse them as long as the subject isn't their particular "hot button" issue.

Second, concerning guilt-by-association: My rather-small workplace produced no less than three representatives to the Democratic National Convention. I also would hope that my own efforts there have contributed to the bottom line, thus helping, at least in part, pay the salary of these three individuals. And I have certainly eaten with them, and spoken sociably with them. If they posted here, I'd let their comments stand. (These are the sort of links Johnson is drawing to assert people "lent support to" fascists.) So did I thus "lend support" to the election of Barack Obama? Using the standards Johnson seems to be applying, I'd apparently be guilty of such.

Um, whatever. If such a standard can produce the result that I "lent support to" Obama's presidential campaign, then said litmus test produces nearly meaningless results. In short, another fallacy.

As usual, my follow-up question is: what causes a mind to go wrong in such a way? Often, I suspect it's something to do with deeply-held religious-like beliefs; perhaps in Johnson's case it has something to do with his atheism and fixation upon American Christians. Note, again, I'm not saying all atheists are subject to such, nor that Christians are immune from such illogic either: just that I'd guess that his obsession against creationism and sudden illogical turn against the right aren't utterly disconnected.

Is Johnson concerned about support for fascism? He should learn a bit about its historical manifestations, if so. As I see it, European fascism involved an obsession with blaming "bankers" and "capitalism", a cult of personality, relentless demands for change, a desire for socialist benefits and health-related regulations, and deep sensitivity for the environment. As Goldberg documented, it was a "middle way" between extreme socialism and capitalism, which co-opted corporations for state goals rather than outlawing them directly.

Good thing nothing even remotely like that is happening in the US right now.

Except with, um, Ann Coulter.

Heard, minutes ago, that Coakley had conceded, and that Brown had won in Massachusetts. (Note the lack of a final "e" before the s.) So I went to Google News to check coverage, and what is their top story?

Massachusetts race wasn't a referendum on health-care reform

No, of course it wasn't. Not all. Nothing to see here, move along everyone. Forget announcing Brown won: let's go directly into spin mode.

Oh, while we're at it, what brilliant justification does our would-be tourguide to reality provide for his analysis?

The first thing to say is that while those of us who are Washington insiders may be focused on health reform, the country has its mind on lots of other things. First and foremost is a lousy economy that has resulted in lots of lost jobs and lost wealth, a big spike in the federal deficit and big budget shortfalls for state and local governments. Combine that with lousy weather, another terrorist attack, a never-ending war in Afghanistan and an earthquake that may have just killed 200,000 people and you don't have to be George Gallup to figure out that Americans might be in a grumpy mood and might want to take it out on the politicians and parties in power.

Ah yes, the voters (stupid unthinking things that they are) were in a grumpy mood and threw a temper tantrum. Because of, y'know, the bad weather, Haitian earthquake, and all. Without thinking, they took off of work, made their way to the polls, stood in line, and then cast their ballots — all in a blind, unreasoning fit of pique.

This is the exact same narrative that California newspapers trotted out when voters rejected the state's massive spending hikes last year: they're just stupid little two-year-olds, crying and acting out irrationally.

Well, I guess we've been warned what "those of us who are Washington insiders" — as well as their editors at WaPo and Google — think of anyone who doesn't knuckle under and "get with" their latest brilliant program for us.

All sarcasm aside, I *love* the way he closes; you can almost hear him plugging his ears, squinting his eyes, and trying to make the impending reality go away!!!!:

There are lots of reasons other than derailing health reform why normally liberal Massachusetts voters might want to send an angry signal to the state's political establishment....

Sunspots! Vampires! Cosmic rays! Invading alien body snatchers!

For Democrats in Washington, the danger now is not that they will ignore the election returns, but that they will misread them and sound a premature retreat from a historic and game-changing opportunity.

Oh yes — great advice! In a perverse way, I hope Congressional Democrats follow his lead and try every twisted trick they can imagine.

I do think there are reasonable arguments which can be made against, say, waterboarding. I just don't see them, often...

A thoughtful Jonah Goldberg writes:

I'm pretty reluctant to wade back into the torture/waterboarding debate again myself. I don't much like the idea of waterboarding captives and, given my druthers, I'd be perfectly happy if the US never did it again (ideally because it never needed to)....

But I still have big problem with how the "is it torture?" argument tends to dominate these debates. Torture is a taboo word, and for good reason. Like incest, bigotry or, in some circles, censorship, the word torture separates good from evil, right from wrong. Once we decide something is torture, we end the debate over what the right policy should be. The right policy is to never torture.

That's one reason why supporters of waterboarding reject the term torture, preferring "enhanced interrogation methods" or some such; because conceding that it's torture is like surrendering. It's also why opponents of waterboarding are so intent to win the argument that it is torture. I don't doubt they believe it, but they also recognize that the taboo value of the term is their strongest weapon against the practice. They certainly aren't going to win much ground trying to muster sympathy for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed....

Absolutely right. One of the things which bothers me most about the "torture" debate is the way most anti-"torture" advocates seem to exude moral unseriousness.

Take waterboarding, for example. One can argue — plausibly and respectably, I think — that waterboarding constitutes a form of torture. Yet only a tiny fraction of the "enhanced interrogation" (three individuals, if I'm not mistaken) has involved waterboarding. Opponents of "torture" have refused to provide a clear alternative boundary, and seem to have lumped every possible form of discomfort — including loss of sleep, uncomfortable quarters, a woman pretending to have menstrual blood on her finger — in as well, all apparently equally being "torture." I'd like to see those who complained about torture actually elucidate a detailed, alternative vision. Is it the current protocol, where we grant a captured terrorist the same Miranda rights a US citizen receives, and can only use promises of a short and/or cushy incarceration as a carrot to exchange for intelligence? Are they willing to own up to the results of that vision?

And are they willing to countenance a similar application of "torture" being applied domestically? Isn't being handcuffed thus also a form of "torture"? How about being made to wear rather un-warm prison garb and sleep on very thin mattresses? And surely solitary confinement is "torture" as well. Is that really a slippery slope they're prepared to unleash on our domestic law enforcement organizations? If not, again, where is that line?

Another example of moral unseriousness is the failure to admit that such techniques have been successful at times. "Oh, they only get the person to tell you want you want to hear!" It's true a person can be coerced into signing false confessions. But, if so, how could the accused produce accurate information they didn't know just to please their interrogators? The morally-smug armchair critics I encounter assert no such thing has ever happened, apparently to avoid giving a serious, responsible answer to the very-real "ticking bomb" scenario.

An additional hallmark of moral unseriousness is the demonization of all who disagree — which is another primary anti-"torture" tactic. Yes, of course: there are no reasonable people who could ever fail to come to your precise conclusion! They must certainly be acting out of bad motives. (What bad motives? We never hear. They just unaccountably want to embrace evil.)

Yet another apparently thoughtless argument is that if we "torture" them, then they'll torture our people if captured. Answer: Um, have you seen the video of Daniel Pearl's death? Are you aware of how our CIA guys were treated when captured in Lebanon? Are you aware the extremists are already in favor of mass murder, writ large? Are you aware of the way the Taliban treated people, long before 9/11? Are you aware terrorists put rat-poison laced nails in suicide bombs to ensure innocent men, women, and children will suffer as long as possible before dying?

Perhaps this argument could be made more effectively, but, as it stands, I have trouble accepting detailed psychological models of terrorists from people who seem completely unaware of the nature and past behavior of such.

And then there's the ultimate point, which Jonah, to his credit, raises — a point which has always seemed kind of obvious to me, and yet which seems to invite a quick topic change whenever I raise it. (Jonah has seen the same reaction, apparently...)

No one has ever explained to my satisfaction why torture, or let's say some kinds of torture, is objectively and in all ways worse than killing. Which would you rather happen to you? Would you rather be waterboarded or killed? Which would get you a stiffer criminal penalty, waterboarding someone or murdering them? Why do you think that is? Which do you think deserves the greater criminal penalty?

No kidding! And yet people will say that soldiers have the right to kill someone in the field — make them dead for all eternity — but not to shoot them in the leg to force them to give up information which could save lives. Huh??? Shoot me in the leg, please! In a similar vein, others will declare, with all certainty, that we should never torture. Well, great, are they entirely against all killing by our government, too? Take all of our soldiers off the field? Take guns away from our police? Embrace absolute pacifism? Why is throwing a guy against a wall more morally reprehensible than killing him?

The topic is quickly changed.

Finally, as a Christian, I'd also demand an answer to the bigger question: On what basis do critics of "torture" claim it is morally wrong? If a Christian wants to say: "Well, that's not a Christ-like thing to do", then I could buy that argument — or a similar one from a different faith. Whether right or wrong, it's at least minimally coherent:

a. There are ultimate, non-subjective moral laws,
b. They can be learned through the Christian (or another) tradition,
c. Torture always violates those laws, and
d. It's fine for me to demand my religious beliefs be enshrined in law, and applied to those who do not share them.

But, of course, most those who oppose "torture" aren't coming from such a religious tradition (indeed, quite the opposite), and typically can't offer similarly rational grounds for using words like "right" and "wrong" — an atheist can only mean, by saying "wrong", ultimately: "Well, I personally find it distasteful.", or appeal to common goals or beliefs. (And there's nothing wrong with that, IMO — it's also my preferred way of arguing in public.)

Yet many on the left, who are, in fact, atheists, also denounce others using extreme, absolute, moralistic language ("Bush is evil! Torture is wrong!") — without being able to point, in even the faintest way, to some reason we should believe their idea of "right" and "wrong" is particularly binding. Typically, they're just recycling misunderstood JudeoChristian religious beliefs, without understanding the rather non-atheistic origins of their alleged absolute moral truisms. (And if so, this isn't just an example of unseriousness on a particular topic, it betrays a largely unserious or at least unexamined approach to life and morality as a whole.)

Now I can imagine, if I were opposed to such techniques, how I would argue against them, as an atheist or as a theist. There are certain common-sense, pragmatic arguments one could make. (I don't find them ultimately convincing, but they're at least not stupid arguments.) But I always hate getting the feeling that I have better arguments for the other side then they have. If I'm not deluded, it implies I'm taking their own position far more seriously than they are.

And that's, in a nutshell, what I find so troubling about this "torture" debate.

No wonder it's been taking Obama so long to appoint people — the man has some fairly selective criteria:

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. [Dreams of My Father]

No, not the nicest black students, or smartest, or those with the most admirable character. Not the most learned professors, or the most engaging feminists. Nope.

ABC News:

President Obama Names Transgender Appointee to Commerce Department

President Obama recently named Amanda Simpson to be a Senior Technical Advisor to the Commerce Department. In a statement, Simpson, a member of the National Center for Transgender Equality's board of directors, said that "as one of the first transgender presidential appointees to the federal government, I hope that I will soon be one of hundreds, and that this appointment opens future opportunities for many others."

Progress!

As the battle for "same sex marriage" succeeds, recedes, and loses its novelty, I suspect we will see increased demands for "equality" from other special-interest groups. One of these, of course, will be the "transgendered" — that "T" trailing off at the far end of "LGBT".

1970's-style feminism was based on the insistence that men and women were identical, that "gender" differences were socially constructed. Though the left claims the mantle of "science", it has often had far deeper "anti-science" reflexes than any religious nut you'd find on the right: it doesn't take a particularly sophisticated experiment to show that women are different than men. Indeed, feminists' acceptance of separate women's sports (and claims that the world would be better if only it were run by women) admits exactly this.

So what will it mean for feminism when men are simply allowed to call themselves "women", have themselves classified as a double- or triple-minority (Bob is now a "woman" AND is "transgendered", trumping the minority status of genuine women — and if he likes women, as most men do, he's also now a "lesbian" too!) — and yet are still also allowed to keep many of the genetic advantages conferred to men?

This is not wild speculation: just a few months ago, a huge debate emerged about whether South African runner Caster Semenya was "actually" a woman. Testing showed she a hermaphrodite — I'm certainly sympathetic to her situation. She probably never knew. But what happens when otherwise-ordinary men — who are not hermaphroditic in the slightest — start declaring themselves women, wanting to participate in sports, and wanting to fill minority slots in corporate boards?

I suspect we'll find ourselves in a very confused situation, with odd and contradictory rules, such as being unable to call transgendered man a "he", yet simultaneously having the exact opposite rule regarding sports participation. I also suspect we'll see a clash between more traditional feminists (if that term makes any sense) and sexual-rights radicals.

I'm too chicken to try it myself (and my fiance wouldn't approve, for several good reasons), but I'd love to see some guy simply declare himself a woman. Not cross-dress, not shave his facial hair (instead grow it out, more preferably), just declare himself a "her." As a fringe benefit, here in Colorado, he'd also have the right (thanks to our current governor, Bob Ritter) to hang out in the womens' locker room — and, by law, the state should fine anyone who stops him from doing so. It would be a great way to spark debate on what sex and gender really are.

I freely admit that in some cases (i.e. hermaphrodites like Semenya), "gender" is not entirely clear. And I have sympathy for "her" in her situation. But we are not helping her by changing society to make it similarly unclear for everyone. ("What gender have you decided to be when you grow up?")

I also know and understand that there are men and women who do not feel comfortable with their gender identity and wish they could be the opposite gender. No doubt, they do find the current situation "repressive". And, again, I do not hate such people, but rather feel compassion for their struggle. (And I'll probably get flack for saying that, but so be it.) But there are no scenarios in which everyone can be made happy, and far more harm will be inflicted by changing society to make them feel more accepted, particularly with regard to legal and medical recognition of sex differences.

It's a brave new world — or many want it to be, anyway.

I am so not-sad that I have mostly stopped watching TV:

What a way to kick off the year: A dating reality show that combines the frenetic shallowness of speed dating with the presentation of industrial grade meat.... The premise du jour: 30 single guys, each guided onstage by the titular belt, have 60 seconds to "charm" one of five single gals waiting to quiz them. If a woman likes what she sees (indicated by a raised paddle reading "interested" or "not interested") the select hunk of beef -- er, aspiring date -- heads to a platform to wait and see if he is replaced or not. After, the survivors go on a date.

Clearly needs more midgets. :-)

Where I grew up, Milwaukee, there was quite a trade in figurines of Catholic saints, medals, etc. A friend of mine tells me the purpose of such is as a reminder, but most seemed to think they were a talisman which would bring luck. (You wouldn't want to start on your road trip without St. Christopher standing proudly atop your dashboard!) Or objects of supplication. These saints were always depicted in the holiest of poses, with radiant faces, broad arm sweeps, and sometimes halos.

As a tongue-in-cheek homage to this tradition, I've always thought it would be fun to create a "modern saints" figurine series, honoring those who in modern times who have promoted the Christian faith. Ideally, I'd like them to depicted in as politically incorrect a manner as possible, though I wouldn't have to work hard, as most of them were anyway.

A few candidates:

Gilbert K. Chesterton, novelist, apologist, dear friend and gadfly to many of the "intellectual elites" of his times...

This man who composed such profound and perfect lines as "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried," stood 6'4" and weighed about 300 pounds, usually had a cigar in his mouth, and walked around wearing a cape and a crumpled hat, tiny glasses pinched to the end of his nose, swordstick in hand, laughter blowing through his moustache. And usually had no idea where or when his next appointment was. He did much of his writing in train stations, since he usually missed the train he was supposed to catch. In one famous anecdote, he wired his wife, saying, "Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?" [source]

How could you not want to own such a statuette? Of course, he should be depicted huffing on a cigar, and probably peering quizzically at a map held in his hands. He should also be clearly obese. I nominate him as patron saint of the disorganized.

Then we have the famous apologist and fantasy author C.S. Lewis, who should be depicted, I should hope, hunched over a manuscript at his desk, smoking a pipe or perhaps, to maximize political incorrectness, with a snifter of brandy. I nominate him as the patron saint of writers and university faculty members.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who helped smuggle Jews out of Germany and participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Pale and bespectacled, he could be depicted holding a symbolic stick of dynamite in one hand, and a bible in another. Perhaps with a young (Jewish) child clinging to his legs.

He was executed there by hanging at dawn on April 9, 1945, just three weeks before the Soviet capture of Berlin and a month before the capitulation of Nazi Germany. Like other executions associated with the July 20 Plot, the execution was particularly brutal. Bonhoeffer was stripped of his clothing and led naked into the execution yard, where he was hanged with thin wire for strangulation....

The camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote: "I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer ... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God."

Needless to say, I nominate him as the patron saint of political activists.

In a similar vein, I could add Corrie Ten Boom, depicted with a suitcase and a deck of playing cards (frowned on by some sects), playing solitaire to pass the time on the train, on her way to the concentration camps where she would lose her family for the crime of hiding Jews in their basement. After her release she was traveled the world encouraging others in their faith.

A friend of mine nominates Saint Gabriel Possenti...

The St. Gabriel Possenti Society promotes the public recognition of St. Gabriel Possenti, including his Vatican designation as Patron Saint of Handgunners. St. Gabriel Possenti was a Catholic seminarian whose marksmanship and proficiency with handguns single-handedly saved the village of Isola, Italy from a band of 20 terrorists in 1860.

I guess the stereotypical brown monkish attire would have to do — although deftly wielding a pistol at unseen attackers.

And, most recently, musician and songwriter Rich Mullins, whose music and life has been an inspiration to many — depicted standing on an exit ramp, thumb extended, wearing dirty clothes and with a symbolic guitar slung over his back.

I wrote [Here in America], probably around 1976 or so... It was just, I think it was after having been eaten by red ants and sleeping in a culvert that I really realized what a cool country this really was. [source]

"In the industry, he was considered by many to be the greatest writer of our time," said Mullins' manager and friend, Jim Dunning Jr. "I believe that. But if Rich had his preference, I think he'd prefer not to be remembered. Rich would prefer that the God he believed in be remembered." [source]

I've seen them by the highways, on a million exit ramps,
Two-legged memorials, to the laws of happenstance
Waiting for four-wheeled messiahs, to take them home again,
But I am home anywhere, if You are where I am.

And if you listen to my songs I hope you hear the water falling
I hope you feel the oceans crashing on the coast of north New England
I wish I could be there just to see them... two summers past I was
And the Holy King of Israel loves me here... in America

More?

What a lovely series they would make: a cigar, a pipe, a glass of booze, a stick of dynamite, a deck of playing cards, a guitar, a thumb, and a gun. Obese, myopic, coughing, crumpled, badly-dressed, confused, depressed, dirty and tired — and doing their job to alter history.

God bless 'em.

Via Volokh (1, 2), a months-old but still-appalling study I hadn't seen before:

In order to assess explicit prejudice toward Jews, we directly asked respondents "How much to blame were the Jews for the financial crisis?" with responses falling under five categories: a great deal, a lot, a moderate amount, a little, not at all. Among non-Jewish respondents, a strikingly high 24.6 percent of Americans blamed "the Jews" a moderate amount or more, and 38.4 percent attributed at least some level of blame to the group.

Clicking through, I found this similarly appalling (but not-at-all surprising) result:

Interestingly, Democrats were especially prone to blaming Jews: while 32 percent of Democrats accorded at least moderate blame, only 18.4 percent of Republicans did so (a statistically significant difference). This difference is somewhat surprising given the presumed higher degree of racial tolerance among liberals and the fact that Jews are a central part of the Democratic Party's electoral coalition.

Although the author appears a bit surprised, given the "presumed higher degree of racial tolerance", the result is consistent with other studies which show that support for classical racism and socialism tend to go hand-in-hand.

Oddly, a few hours ago, I caught a few minutes of an interview with conservative pundit Michelle Malkin on C-SPAN2; a caller was informing the national audience that Michelle was reflexively in favor of Israel because her husband was a Zionist Jew. Michelle was, understandably, a bit surprised to learn her husband was a Jewish Zionist. I somehow doubt her critic was an ardent Republican.

Jim Wallis is the man behind "Sojourners", a Christian-tinted left-leaning political activism group. He typically assails Republicans for almost everything, yet asserts a non-partisan status by occasionally also criticizing Democrats for either not pursuing their agenda with sufficient zeal, or tepidly (and toothlessly) mentioning that they have the wrong stance on abortion.

I suppose that's not a particularly glowing introduction (and certainly not an "unbiased" one — I make no pretensions of such) but I do claim it's a fair one, given the years I've watched him and read his materials.

How does he view the current situation?

A religious response to the financial crisis...

Wait — before we get going — what does "a religious response" even mean? It might mean "my personal, particular religious response", but given his coming implication that others, in order to be moral, must act similarly, it cannot be interpreted as merely his own personal take. He's implying his words will create a burden upon all ethically-minded "religious" individuals.

Yet the response he's about to outline is predicated on "grace", which is a classical Christian belief. (Indeed, being forgiven by another's sacrifice is where even modern Jews and Christians part company.) But perhaps it would be too "exclusive" to point to his own faith, so he terms his response "religious", as though Muslims, Shamans, Satanists, Baptists, and Jains must all agree.

One cold morning the week before Christmas, I found myself huddled with a group of homeowners and religious leaders on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the shadow of the White House and the Treasury building. The homeowners, who had all worked hard to buy their first homes, and most of whom had put enough money down to qualify for fixed-rate mortgages only to be persuaded into more exotic mortgages, were facing imminent foreclosure...

The question I'd have is how far were they from being able to afford their property, under any reasonable interest rate? This article in the NY Times, noting "Treasury officials appear to have concluded that growing numbers of delinquent borrowers simply lack enough income to afford their homes and must be eased out", appears to suggest otherwise: that it's not simply the interest rate, but rather that using an unnaturally low interest rate, people purchased homes above their otherwise affordable range.

Even so: Why is having to move one of the worst tragedies which can befall one? I lived for years in someone's basement, at times well below poverty-level income. Are these people of a higher caste than I, such that they are entitled to a fairly nice home no matter what? (And I, living in a basement, should have been supporting their considerably higher standard of living?)

Why don't I deserve a fairly nice home too (I still don't have one), even at someone else's expense?

The foreclosure crisis has become both a personal and a pastoral issue for us, and we are struggling to make sense of the fundamental unfairness that underlies it. The banks and other financial institutions whose behavior is most responsible for this crisis...

Wait another second. Whatever one feels about the "behavior" of banks, isn't it fairly obvious that banking is one of the most tightly-regulated industries in the United States? Even if we fully accept the main argument from the left — that Clinton-era deregulation allowed "greed" into the industry — then don't the regulators bear at least some responsibility, if not primarily so, given their alleged dereliction of duty? (Much less in the conserative scenario, where CRA and FM/FM and other Dem initiatives played a huge role in kick-starting the bubble in the first place...)

Yet in Jim Wallis's world, the government cannot be at fault, seemingly.

The banks and other financial institutions whose behavior is most responsible for this crisis have been saved from failure by the American taxpayers, while many of those least responsible are losing jobs and homes.

As I grapple with this contradiction, I keep coming back to the concept of grace. When the government tried to save the economy from meltdown, real grace was extended to the big banks -- but now the banks seem unwilling to extend grace to anyone else, including homeowners struggling to make mortgage payments. I am reminded of one of the parables of Jesus, wherein a master forgives the debt of one of his servants out of pity for his circumstances, but then that servant refuses to forgive the debt of another servant who owes him a little money. The master gets angry and throws the unforgiving debtor into prison. The money-changers in the temples of Wall Street would do well to take note.

Has Jim read the parable in question? The man begging for mercy was going to be sold into slavery, not being made to move to a smaller, more affordable dwelling. Given that he's not even bothering to outline some severe, unconscionable consequence, it seems that he's arguing, essentially, there should be no negative consequences, ever from bad financial judgment. How could you even sustain such a system, where every time a person asked to default a loan the answer was "yes"? How could banks exist to lend money for people to buy homes? Is that what he really wants? Or should the taxpayers just give everyone free homes?

(Liberals, it seems to me, do often ask themselves the "yes, but what comes next?" questions.)

I agree with the parable, BTW. But it's a call for mercy in extreme, dire circumstances, and a warning that we are all under God's judgment. (Wallis avoids highlighting salvific themes.) Mercy was granted by an individual, not compelled by Caesar. And even God's own legal code, given to Israel, ensured there would at least some penalties for unpaid debt.

Clearly, the financial crisis is a structural meltdown that calls for increased government regulation of banks and other financial players...

Wallis calls this a "religious" response, but his argument so far is almost entirely, aside from one (arguably misapplied) passing reference to a parable, based on his own economic and political filters. The crisis was caused by "greedy bankers", not a utopian desire (and corresponding policies) to get homes in the hands of those who couldn't afford them. Rescuing banks is presumably fine (I'd disagree) but we should also rescue every homeowner who isn't making payments.

Wallis offers far too little logic to make these policy demands a necessary outcome of his particular faith, much less all "religious" peoples, of any sort.

But at its core, this is also a spiritual crisis. More and more people are coming to understand that underlying the economic crisis is a values crisis, and that any economic recovery must be accompanied by a moral recovery.

Ah! A moral recovery! Who could be opposed to that?

We have been asking the wrong question: When will the financial crisis end? The right question is: How will it change us? This could be a moment to reexamine the ways we measure success, do business and live our lives; a time to renew spiritual values and practices such as simplicity, patience, modesty, family, friendship, rest and Sabbath.

Another good suggestion: we should take this opportunity to make individual changes. Yet our personal moral development is apparently but a means to a larger end...

Faith communities can help lead the way, challenging the idols of the market and reminding us who is God and who is not. "The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein," say both Christianity and Judaism; the Earth does not belong to the market. Human beings are stewards of God's creation and should preside over the market -- not the other way around.

So that's the end game. "Human beings should preside over the market." Well, what does he think "the market" is? A series of interactions initiated and carried out by plants, insects, and rocks? What he really means is that a few select individuals, called "the state" should control the behaviors of others; as he put it, "increased regulation" for what is already one of the most regulated areas of economic activity.

But if he never holds regulators accountable, and regulation so far hasn't prevented a crisis, and regulators are prone to being co-opted, then why is yet more regulation the answer? (In years of asking this simple question, I have yet to receive a clear, forthright answer.)

We must replace the market's false promise of limitless growth and consumption with an acknowledgment of human finitude, with a little more humility and with some moral limits. And the market's first commandment, "There is never enough," must be replaced by the dictums of God's economy -- namely, there is enough, if we share it.

In other words, those in government should decide how much is "enough", and should decide who gets what in that fixed pie. Imagine how we'd be living now if Wallis' argument had prevailed in the 1400s! Although I'm sure, unlike then, we are now at the end of economic progress. (Remember, this outlook calls itself "progressive"!)

Once again, this isn't a "religious" argument. Jim Wallis unwittingly acts here as an economic and historical expert. He knows that we're about to come to the end of our rope, in terms of improved standard of living, and thus socialism is now the appropriate response. If his religious perceptions seem questionable here, his economic and political expertise undoubtedly more so.

Many of our religious teachings, from our many traditions, offer useful correctives to the practices that brought us to this sad place. Jesus's Sermon on the Mount instructs us not to be "anxious" about material things, a notion that runs directly counter to the frenzied pressure of modern consumer culture.

Yes, he's right. But the flip side, which apparently hasn't occurred to him, is that he himself has just used anxiety for material things (a spectre of coming material scarcity) to argue for extreme government control over the distribution and production of wealth. This is a characteristic which pervades the left: modern environmentalism, for example, is, as it's core, nothing but the political embodiment of an extreme, almost crazed fear over material things. Yet, given his own scarcity-mongering, I'm not holding out hope the Right Reverend Wallis will soon produce an equally stinging rebuke to Greenpeace and Al Gore.

On a positive note, he closes the article with some nice descriptions of voluntary activities taken by individuals and small groups: charity, examining investments, transferring money, helping each other. I have no issue with that. Yet note that he's stated that this is a temporary, stopgap measure ("leading the way" before the state acts) — and his group, Sojourners, in nearly every call to action, demands that more governmental power be brought to bear.

I don't have any problem with people mixing their religious belief with politics: everyone does it, some are just more honest and self-aware than others. But I do have a problem with people who confuse their politics with their religion. My religious values teach me I should support policies which help the most people. But I turn to economics and history, as God intended, to discover which polices those are. (Or Jim could just read his bible, and discover that God didn't want the Israelites to live under a powerful state. But perhaps that's asking a bit much.) Those left of me seem to skip that analysis, immediately connecting some charitable urge they feel with whatever idea first pops into their mind — and condemning those who have done more homework, in that connecting phase, as immoral.

Done a few times, that's an understandable mistake. But over the long run, a steadfast refusal to examine the evidence and consider alternatives — while demanding such policies be forced on others, against their will — seems to move from being an intellectual or academic failing to a moral one.

Dave Barry:

Elsewhere in politics, a team of specially trained wildlife agents equipped with nets and tranquilizer darts manages, after a six-hour struggle, to remove Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office. He is transported to an undisclosed swamp, where he is released into the wild and quickly bonds with the native ferret population.

Hey! I have friends who own ferrets. This is a completely unnecessary slur against ferrets.

Victor Davis Hanson:

Adverbs Can Tell Us a A Lot

When we do know for a fact that Mutallab tried to blow up a plane, we get a presidential "allegedly" ("a passenger allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body, setting off a fire"), and yet when we don't know all the facts, as in the Professor Gates mess, we get instantaneous certainty ("the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.")