Read it.

That’s some fine Religion o’ Peace™ you got there, fella.

Ever notice how you never hear anything about Christian suicide bombers or Jewish suicide bombers?

Read it.

A wildlife photographer has described how he came face to face with a kermode, or spirit bear, an animal so rare it was once thought to be mythical.

Read it.

Read it.

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President Obama may have “no interest” in running General Motors, as he averred Monday. But even if that’s true, we are already discovering that he shares Washington with 535 Members of Congress, many of whom have other ideas.

Read it.

I would have thought that a ruling prince would have more important things on his mind than Saving the Tuna, but apparently not.

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The national assembly is reading a law that would force the country’s chemical companies to become minority partners in joint ventures with the state.

And the hits just keep on comin’.

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Read it.

Mencius Moldbug looks at the Supreme Court.

It so happens that Judge Sotomayor is replacing Justice Souter, a typical late 20th-century Justice – an Outer Party nonentity who betrayed those that brought him to power, and became a consistent Inner Party vote. Thus, the replacement does not change the partisan ratio, and again is interesting only as an illustration.

(This pattern of systematic treason (there’s really no other word for it) is a legacy of the era in which Inner Party domination was so total that the Outer Party had no scholarly institutions at all. With new institutions such as the Federalist Society, it probably won’t happen again. The Outer Party has no shortage of sound, talented ideologues. This, in itself, is a problem for the Modern Structure – though not yet a major one.)

By working surreptitiously and dishonestly to direct the State, whose humble and disinterested servants they claim to be, the Platonic guardians these thinkers postulate must violate any professional codes of honor that they may have. It is impossible to be dishonest in one field of endeavor and honest in another.

In other words, the progressive movement is actually far more corrupt than its banal kleptocratic predecessor, because it corrupts the very fields of knowledge on which all successful governments must rely. In a society steeped in science, law, history, and economics, it seems remarkably attractive to shift the foundations of one’s sovereign away from robber barons and machine politicians, and toward scientists, lawyers, historians, and economists. (And journalists, of course. But the journalists of 1909 were already quite corrupt enough.)

Read it.

For me, the really important reason for doing for yourself, is that it lets you move a portion of household activities outside the realm of the money economy. That can be critically important during hard times–whether your own personal hard times, due to a shortfall in income or an unplanned expense, or hard times in the greater economy due to inflation, recession, resource depletion, or any of the many ills that economies suffer.

Read it.

Another good reason to avoid Harvard.

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The education establishment and its political allies employ multiple methods to keep kids trapped in rotten schools. One tactic is to use control of school boards to prevent or limit the creation of charter schools. Another is to smother existing voucher programs with rules and red tape. Real world examples are currently playing out in Milwaukee and New York City.

Read it.

We really don’t want to go down that European road.

VATs are associated with both higher overall tax burdens and more government spending. In 1965, before the VAT swept across Europe, the average tax burden for advanced European economies (the EU-15) was 27.7% of economic output, roughly comparable to the U.S., where taxes were 24.7% of GDP, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD). European nations began to impose VATs in the late 1960s, and now the European Union requires all members to have a VAT of at least 15%.

Results? By 2006, the OECD reports that the average tax burden for EU-15 nations had climbed to 39.8% of GDP. The tax burden also has increased in the U.S., but at a much slower rate, rising to 28% for that year.

Read it.

Read it.

Read it.

I am not making this up.

Read it.

Holly Lisle, famous writer and sometime Agent of Chaos, discovers the secret that some of us have known all along.

And I have discovered the answer to the house that stays clean all by itself. Don’t have so much stuff. Don’t buy stuff you won’t use. Get rid of stuff you don’t like as soon as you discover you don’t like it. If you bring something you love into the house, make room for it by getting rid of something you don’t.

Go ye and do likewise.

Read it.

Today, the rivalry is not between the champions of an industrial America and an agrarian America. Rather, it is a rivalry between the champions of a neo-industrial America, which includes world-class industrial agriculture, and a post-industrial America, in which most if not all manufacturing and even agriculture will be outsourced. In this formulation, post-industrial America emerges as a consumerist paradise populated by investors, executives of multinational companies, rentiers, realtors, government and nonprofit bureaucrats, and a supporting cast of service sector proletarians including nursing aides, nannies, gardeners, security guards and restaurant and hotel workers.

Read it.

Hint: Yes.

Yet, the American Dream is under serious threat – and this predates today’s faltering economy. A key component lies in the machinations of an urban policy and planning elite contemptuous of the comfortable lifestyles achieved by so many Americans. Instead they propose creating an environment in which households would have to pay more for their houses and spend more of their lives traveling from one place to another.

The automobile plays the role of the Great Satan in this morality play. The goal of many ‘progressive’ urbanists is to force people into transit and stop road building. Transit, of course, has its place. There is no better way to get to your job south of 59th Street in Manhattan, to Chicago’s Loop or to a few other of the nation’s largest downtown areas. But the stark reality is that transit can not substitute for the automobile for the overwhelming majority of trips, except for these niche markets. Further, failing to expand highways to keep up with traffic growth increases traffic congestion (and air pollution) and reduces economic productivity (read: “increases poverty”).

Read it.

“The cellulose industry separates wood into its three main components — lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose,” ICT team leader Emilia Regina Inone-Kauffmann told DPA.

“The lignin is not needed in papermaking, however. Our colleagues mix that lignin with fine natural fibers made of wood, hemp or flax and natural additives such as wax. From this, they produce plastic granulate that can be melted and injection-moulded.”

The final product can resemble highly polished wood or have a more matted finish and look like the plastic used in most household items.

Read it.

So the real problem here is not a lack of laws, but a lack of enforcement of what already exists on the books. Our reluctance to act on this reality has serious consequences. First, we don’t focus on punishing the perpetrators. Our government says they don’t have time for “finger pointing” because they are too busy rushing rapidly to fix the problem – a problem they have yet to define. So we pour money into institutions, allow huge bonuses to be paid with public money, lavish retreats on insurance company executives – and then insist what we need is massive regulatory reform.

But this is the wrong approach. The real question isn’t new laws – although that may make good headlines for vote-seeking congressmen. The more basic question should be: where has the lawman been?

Read it.

Within white culture, your choice of transportation method says a lot about you.  For example a Prius says you care about the Earth, a bicycle shows you REALLY care about the earth, and a bus shows that you are probably not white.

In fact, were it to have a liberal arts degree and a steady income,  a Vespa scooter would possesses every important quality that a white person looks for in a spouse.

Read it.

It doesn’t appear to get rid of Chris Dodd, so it’s not all that useful.

Read it.

Well, shucks.

Read it.

Gotta love Australians.

I once offered John Cornyn a large campaign contribution if he would bitch-slap Ted Kennedy, but I never heard back on it. Wuss.

Read it.

I think I saw these in The Court Jester.

Russ Smith is not afraid to ask the hard questions.

Read it.

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

When even Pravda thinks you’ve gone too far left, well….

Jerry Pournelle has about the best capsule description of the Ricci case that I’ve seen.

As appears to be becoming traditional, the villain of the piece isn’t the city of New Haven but a stupid law passed by Congress based on bad science. (Gee, where have we heard that before?)

The only thing that saves us is that we don’t get all of the government we pay for.

Take a look.

And place your bets on how long it will be before black poachers kill them to sell their skins to Arab and Asian collectors.

I give it about a month.

Megan McArdle has a low Bullshit Threshhold.

GM’s main problems are

1)  A terrible, bloated cost structure
2)  A terrible, bloated bureaucracy
3)  A bunch of meh car lines

Which of these is the government going to solve?  That terrible, bloated cost structure supports a bloated union whose jobs are the entire rationale for the government intervention.  Leaning on the parts suppliers just risks UAW jobs further down the supply chain.  Maybe we can take it out of the budget for copy paper and pencils.

Forgive me if I am skeptical that the government is going to show GM how to streamline its bureaucracy.

Read it.

Gone to goldbricks, every one….

Rick Brookhiser knows whereof he speaks.

George McGovern give the Obamassiah some advice.

Of course, this is like getting advice from Jimmy Carter on how to handle the economy and relations with Muslim states.

Read it.

1. Within 20 years, Europe will be a collection of Islamic states.

2. Within 10-15 years, active Moslems are likely to outnumber active Christians in Canada.

3. Islam is preparing for a serious-minded and well financed missionary activity in the West.

The “clash of civilizations” that started in the 7th century is far from over. Orthodox Christianity has been on the front lines of the struggle against Islamic aggression during the whole of that time. That is experience that you ignore at your peril.

The demographics are radically on the side of Islam. They do not have to convert even one person in order to be able to dominate Europe. People in Western cultures are reproducing at a rate below 1.5; Moslems living in the West are reproducing at a rate of 4-6, even 8. Christians have abortions, Moslems do not. Christians have small families: on average, 1 or 2 children; Moslems have large families, on average 6 to 8 children. Moslems maintain their traditions, most Christians do not. Commitment and attendance at Mosques outstrips that of Christian commitment and attendance in Church.

Within your lifetime you will be required to choose — if you’re lucky — what sort of world you want to live in. It’s not too early to start to think about what your answer will be.

Faith can only be challenge by faith; commitment can only be faced with commitment.

Jerry Pournelle looks at certain controversial issues.

A major problem in education is that half of the children are below average. As an example, here is a question from a national test for 8th graders. The example is from page 56 in Charles Murray, REAL EDUCATION.

There were 90 employees in a company last year. This year the number of employees increased by 10%. How many employees are in the company this year?

(A) 9    (B) 82   (C) 91   (D) 99    (E) 100

As Charles Murray notes, anyone who reads this web site (or reads to page 56 of his book) would expect “that almost everyone should be able to handle a question like this. Children are taught to divide and calculate percentages in elementary school. Dividing by ten is the easiest form of division… It is a problem based on a simple mathematical concept, using simple arithmetic, requiring a simple logical interpolation to get the right answer. It is an excellent example for starting to think about what below average means in mathematics — because 62% of eight-graders got this item wrong.”

It is unlikely that anyone who cannot correctly answer this question in 8th grade will be able successfully to complete a four year college education. Assume that’s wrong; assume that fully half those who couldn’t answer the question correctly in 8th grade were able to master Algebra in high school. I find that unlikely; but that’s still 30% of  the population who simply cannot complete a college-prep high school curriculum. My guess is that the number who can’t finish (or at least won’t benefit from) a real college-prep education is more like 80%.