By Jonah Goldberg 6/29/2011
The backdrop for my favorite science-fiction novels, Frank Herbert's "Dune" series, is something called the Butlerian Jihad. Some 10,000 years before the main events of the story take place, humanity rebelled against "thinking machines" -- intelligent computers -- controlling people's lives. The revolution was sparked because a computer decided to kill, without the consent of any human authority, the baby of a woman named Jehanne Butler.
I bring this up because I'm wondering why we can't have a Weberian Jihad.
Its namesake would be Jean Weber, a woman whose 105-pound, 95-year-old Florida mother was forced by airport security to remove her adult diaper in compliance with a body search. Weber's mother is dying of leukemia. She did not have another clean diaper for her trip.
The Transportation Security Administration belatedly denied forcing the removal of the diaper. Sari Koshetz, a spokeswoman for the TSA, insisted that the agency was sensitive and respectful in dealing with travelers, but she also told the Northwest Florida Daily News that procedures have to be the same for everyone: "TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability."
That's apparently why Drew Mandy, a 29-year-old disabled man with the mental capacity of a 2-year-old, had his 6-inch plastic toy hammer yanked from him by TSA on his way to Disney World. Mandy used the hammer as a security blanket of sorts. But the TSA agents insisted it could be used as a weapon. "It just killed me to have to throw it away because he's been carrying this, like, for 20 years," Mandy's father told WJBK in Detroit. What his dad doesn't understand is that if Islamic terrorists can't have plastic toy hammers, no one can.
Mandy's father says he wrote to the TSA and got an apology and a promise that agents would be retrained, but horror stories like these keep mounting. I'd tell you how thorough the TSA search was of blogger and advice columnist Amy Alkon (who collects such tales), but this is a family newspaper. Suffice it to say, your government left nothing to chance.
And that's what brought to mind "Dune's" Butlerian Jihad. The holy war against machines was also a war against a mind-set. "The target of the jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," a character explains. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments." In the aftermath, a new commandment was promulgated: "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
It seems the first commandment of the TSA is that every mind must be trained in the likeness of a machine. "Garbage in, garbage out," is how computer programmers explain the way bad outputs are determined by bad inputs. Likewise, if TSA workers are programmed not to use common sense or discretion -- surprise! -- TSA workers won't use common sense or discretion.
Why not? One reason is we've institutionalized an irrational phobia against anything smacking of racial or religious profiling. Once you've decided that disproportionate scrutiny of certain groups is verboten, you'll have to hassle everyone equally. Thus we're told that a 95-year-old woman's diaper is just as likely to be the front line in the war on terror as a 22-year-old Pakistani's backpack.
Defenders of the TSA insist we can't abandon such mindlessness because if we do, clever terrorists will start using adult diapers as IEDs. Others say we know that profiling isn't effective because the Israelis don't use it.
Both lines of argument assume security personnel cannot be trusted to be much more than automatons, mindlessly acting on bureaucratic programming. If that's true of the current personnel, it's not because it has to be.
In fact, the reason the Israelis don't do simple profiling is that they use intelligent profiling conducted by highly intelligent screeners. At Ben Gurion International Airport, everyone's interviewed by security. Some are questioned at length, others quickly. The controlling variable is the "living judgment" -- to borrow a phrase from "Dune's" Herbert -- of the interviewers, and not wildly expensive full-body scanners and inflexible checklists.
Does anyone think that the personnel searching Jean Weber's mother honestly thought there might be a threat? Or is it more likely they were, machine-like, just doing what their garbage-in programming dictated?
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Looking back
For those of you who are sick of hearing Obama and the Dems propagate the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", Educate yourselves:
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
At the time:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!!!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was "Financially risky for the US economy"):
http://www.sportstalkworld.com/showthread.php?16828-Dems-Cause-CRASH%21
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac????
OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie???
The HYPOCRITE in Chief Obama
So when the kool-aid crowd blames Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:
At the time:
The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%
George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!
Remember the day...
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.
The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!!!
THANK YOU DEMOCRATS for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!
(BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was "Financially risky for the US economy"):
http://www.sportstalkworld.com/showthread.php?16828-Dems-Cause-CRASH%21
And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac????
OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie???
The HYPOCRITE in Chief Obama
So when the kool-aid crowd blames Bush...
REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!
Friday, May 20, 2011
History of Passive Reserve
Dena M. Campbell
Revoking the authorities and positions of elected officials and abolishing a destructive government is unprecedented in America's history. Since the founding, the people have accepted whatever the Government did with only protests. Why? Many don't know that only the people have the executive authority to abolish any form of government that is destructive to our rights, liberties and the principles of American heritage. The United States of America has always stood as a lighthouse on the hilltop of the world, shining its welcoming and protective beacon into the darkness of despair, giving hope to those drawn to its freedom and liberty.
But there are those who've been dimming that bright light for decades, who've crawled out of their gutters, cloaked in evil radicalism, to impose their own evil wills into the fabric of this nation. I have a fitting poem for every one of them;
And the dead of mind and soul shall reap their sorrow in the dark abyss in their core. Heeding not to the lighted truth of justice, but in the mud of confusion, truth's abstract is adored. Their ideologies stew and is poured into their shell. Deception and lies wrapped in hell's veils. Their days of destruction are numbered as liberty rings its bell. Woe to the liberals, whose folly is expelled.
~Dena M. Campbell
Revoking the authorities and positions of elected officials and abolishing a destructive government is unprecedented in America's history. Since the founding, the people have accepted whatever the Government did with only protests. Why? Many don't know that only the people have the executive authority to abolish any form of government that is destructive to our rights, liberties and the principles of American heritage. The United States of America has always stood as a lighthouse on the hilltop of the world, shining its welcoming and protective beacon into the darkness of despair, giving hope to those drawn to its freedom and liberty.
But there are those who've been dimming that bright light for decades, who've crawled out of their gutters, cloaked in evil radicalism, to impose their own evil wills into the fabric of this nation. I have a fitting poem for every one of them;
And the dead of mind and soul shall reap their sorrow in the dark abyss in their core. Heeding not to the lighted truth of justice, but in the mud of confusion, truth's abstract is adored. Their ideologies stew and is poured into their shell. Deception and lies wrapped in hell's veils. Their days of destruction are numbered as liberty rings its bell. Woe to the liberals, whose folly is expelled.
~Dena M. Campbell
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Our prayer for our Country
Father God, In the name of Jesus, (I) ask for the forgiveness of my sins, Please forgive me Lord, Fore (I) am A sinner with out excuse.
Thank you Lord for this forgiveness.
Father God, in the name of Jesus (I) want to dedicate the place that we all know as our heart of hearts, the very place that makes me what and who I am, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my brain, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my mind to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my eyes and ears to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my whole body to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all my life to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my Speech and thought to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate house and home to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my spouse and children to Christ.
Father God, in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate ALL that (I) own, car’s, motorcycles, boats, land, livestock, buildings, and business, all of my entire net worth to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the whole neighborhood and development where my home is located, to Christ..
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the land, houses, people, all their possessions, and live stock of the whole neighborhood to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the town and city we live in, all the people, all their families, all their homes, all the Government, land, streets, buildings, businesses, churches, schools and utilities, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the entire county that our town is located, all the land from border to border, all the people, any farms, ranches, livestock and all the businesses, that is with in its boundaries to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the whole state that our county is in, from top to bottom side to side all the counties and all the towns, the whole of the state government and all the politicians in the state, all the police agents and fire departments and people to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate our country The United States of America and all its proprieties, Islands, seas, lakes, rivers, oceans, from sea to sea and from border to border to Christ, In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all the content of this country, every road, every business, every person, every house and home, the entire gross national product, of our God blessed country, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all that we are as a country and all that we do as a country, to Christ. In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate our military, and all our military hardware, all our military families and friends, to Christ.
In the Name of Jesus (I) dedicate our government, from the top to the bottom, from the dogcatchers to the president, to Christ. In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all the courts from the lowest to the Supreme Courts of the United States, all the judges, lawyers, officers of the court and the buildings they are in, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all of our founding documents, treaties, laws, all that make us the greatest country on earth, to Christ.
God has promised us this.
(If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.) 2 Chronicles 7:14
I am starting with this simple prayer; our country needs God’s healing.
Steve Rago
Thank you Lord for this forgiveness.
Father God, in the name of Jesus (I) want to dedicate the place that we all know as our heart of hearts, the very place that makes me what and who I am, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my brain, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my mind to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my eyes and ears to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my whole body to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all my life to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my Speech and thought to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate house and home to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate my spouse and children to Christ.
Father God, in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate ALL that (I) own, car’s, motorcycles, boats, land, livestock, buildings, and business, all of my entire net worth to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the whole neighborhood and development where my home is located, to Christ..
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the land, houses, people, all their possessions, and live stock of the whole neighborhood to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the town and city we live in, all the people, all their families, all their homes, all the Government, land, streets, buildings, businesses, churches, schools and utilities, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the entire county that our town is located, all the land from border to border, all the people, any farms, ranches, livestock and all the businesses, that is with in its boundaries to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate the whole state that our county is in, from top to bottom side to side all the counties and all the towns, the whole of the state government and all the politicians in the state, all the police agents and fire departments and people to Christ.
Father God in the name of Jesus (I) dedicate our country The United States of America and all its proprieties, Islands, seas, lakes, rivers, oceans, from sea to sea and from border to border to Christ, In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all the content of this country, every road, every business, every person, every house and home, the entire gross national product, of our God blessed country, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all that we are as a country and all that we do as a country, to Christ. In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate our military, and all our military hardware, all our military families and friends, to Christ.
In the Name of Jesus (I) dedicate our government, from the top to the bottom, from the dogcatchers to the president, to Christ. In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all the courts from the lowest to the Supreme Courts of the United States, all the judges, lawyers, officers of the court and the buildings they are in, to Christ.
In the name of Jesus (I) dedicate all of our founding documents, treaties, laws, all that make us the greatest country on earth, to Christ.
God has promised us this.
(If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.) 2 Chronicles 7:14
I am starting with this simple prayer; our country needs God’s healing.
Steve Rago
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Shun the Expert and Pass the Ammunition
By John Ransom
3/17/2011
The market lost 242 points off the Dow on Wednesday, a rather modest down day for a stock market that has seen plenty of catastrophes much greater than the one playing out in Japan.
But by mid afternoon a news reader posing as an expert on Fox was so spun up that he told viewers in a shaky voice that “the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself.” In the context of our generation, that sounded more like the opening in a Nigerian oil-scam email that it did a clarion call to courage.
The difference between what the news reader meant and what we heard makes me glad.
Maybe that giant flushing sound we’ve all felt the last two years is a type of progress for us after all.
70 years after the New Deal, the public is waiting around for a true deal; a deal calculated for real people, not a welfare line for government workers and ideological scamsters.
“No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by experience of life” Lord Salisbury told us “as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe soldiers, nothing is safe.”
For close to a century experts have told us to put our trust in government. We have a host of them in our life everyday: Federal Reserve bankers, Education Department officials, Union economists, scientists on the government dole, Energy Department officials, all here for our own good.
Yet, government doesn’t even pretend to try to solve the very problems they claim to care about. The “experts” at the EPA designed a tax on carbon to combat so-called global warming and even they won’t claim that the tax will bring down the earth’s temperature.
Still, a failed result won’t stop the experts from insisting on this tax for our own good.
As a consequence of the care of so many government experts who insist on doing stuff for our own good, we are now at a point where nothing is true.
Men marry men and we call it marriage. Doctors kill babies and we call it choice. We practice targeted discrimination against certain classes of people, under the law, and we call it justice.
We ban the religion of some in the public square as a matter of taste and call it a moral good.
In the name of safety, the government takes away guns for self-defense, but sues states for enforcing federal immigration laws.
We “improve” public education by lowering standards rather than raising them; and we design a medical and retirement "safety net" that threatens not just life, but everything our country was built on: liberty, opportunity, property.
My religion tells me to fear not. That’s why I cling to it. Others have done the same for 2000 years
My gun too tells me to fear not, although its ammunition isn’t as refined as the word of God. Good men have armed themselves for the 500 years since Europeans first lived in North America.
So, I cling to the gun as well.
Expert government opinion? It’s been king for 70 years and it has a very spotty record.
Truth, I know, always resides wherever brave men still have ammunition. And I'll take truth over experts everyday.
3/17/2011
The market lost 242 points off the Dow on Wednesday, a rather modest down day for a stock market that has seen plenty of catastrophes much greater than the one playing out in Japan.
But by mid afternoon a news reader posing as an expert on Fox was so spun up that he told viewers in a shaky voice that “the only thing that we have to fear is fear itself.” In the context of our generation, that sounded more like the opening in a Nigerian oil-scam email that it did a clarion call to courage.
The difference between what the news reader meant and what we heard makes me glad.
Maybe that giant flushing sound we’ve all felt the last two years is a type of progress for us after all.
70 years after the New Deal, the public is waiting around for a true deal; a deal calculated for real people, not a welfare line for government workers and ideological scamsters.
“No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by experience of life” Lord Salisbury told us “as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe soldiers, nothing is safe.”
For close to a century experts have told us to put our trust in government. We have a host of them in our life everyday: Federal Reserve bankers, Education Department officials, Union economists, scientists on the government dole, Energy Department officials, all here for our own good.
Yet, government doesn’t even pretend to try to solve the very problems they claim to care about. The “experts” at the EPA designed a tax on carbon to combat so-called global warming and even they won’t claim that the tax will bring down the earth’s temperature.
Still, a failed result won’t stop the experts from insisting on this tax for our own good.
As a consequence of the care of so many government experts who insist on doing stuff for our own good, we are now at a point where nothing is true.
Men marry men and we call it marriage. Doctors kill babies and we call it choice. We practice targeted discrimination against certain classes of people, under the law, and we call it justice.
We ban the religion of some in the public square as a matter of taste and call it a moral good.
In the name of safety, the government takes away guns for self-defense, but sues states for enforcing federal immigration laws.
We “improve” public education by lowering standards rather than raising them; and we design a medical and retirement "safety net" that threatens not just life, but everything our country was built on: liberty, opportunity, property.
My religion tells me to fear not. That’s why I cling to it. Others have done the same for 2000 years
My gun too tells me to fear not, although its ammunition isn’t as refined as the word of God. Good men have armed themselves for the 500 years since Europeans first lived in North America.
So, I cling to the gun as well.
Expert government opinion? It’s been king for 70 years and it has a very spotty record.
Truth, I know, always resides wherever brave men still have ammunition. And I'll take truth over experts everyday.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Liberty Defined
"((Democracy)) is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Do you remember this
The Conservative Pledge
1. To make sure no funds are appropriated to implement any government healthcare system.
2. To balance the budget for FY 2012.
3. To reduce funding for every federal department (except Defense) by at least 20%.
4. To eliminate every federal program that cannot clearly justify its existence to its responsible Congressional Oversight Committees.
5. To shut down the Department of Education and return that power to the state departments of education.
6. To shut down the Department of Energy and return that function to the states.
7. To shut down the Department of Agriculture, transfer imported food inspections to Customs and remaining functions to state departments of agriculture.
8. To begin the process of privatizing responsibility for one’s own retirement.
9. To de-fund the Environmental Protection Agency and return that power to the states.
10. To de-fund all other agencies, programs and operations of the federal government not specifically authorized by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
11. To return use and control of all undeveloped federal lands and coastal territory to the respective states.
12. To respect the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution by returning all power and responsibility possible to the several states.
13. To respect the territory of the United States by fully securing its borders and using our military forces to prevent invasion of our borders.
14. To complete our missile defense system and SELL all necessary components to friendly countries. Also, to bring all our troops home except for those requested, AND PAID FOR, by friendly countries, and station them along our borders.
15. To withdraw from all multi-national alliances and establish new alliances with each individual country based on reciprocal treatment. (We’ll treat you exactly the way you treat us.)
I say get to work doing this PLEDGE. Or be replaced ASAP
1. To make sure no funds are appropriated to implement any government healthcare system.
2. To balance the budget for FY 2012.
3. To reduce funding for every federal department (except Defense) by at least 20%.
4. To eliminate every federal program that cannot clearly justify its existence to its responsible Congressional Oversight Committees.
5. To shut down the Department of Education and return that power to the state departments of education.
6. To shut down the Department of Energy and return that function to the states.
7. To shut down the Department of Agriculture, transfer imported food inspections to Customs and remaining functions to state departments of agriculture.
8. To begin the process of privatizing responsibility for one’s own retirement.
9. To de-fund the Environmental Protection Agency and return that power to the states.
10. To de-fund all other agencies, programs and operations of the federal government not specifically authorized by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
11. To return use and control of all undeveloped federal lands and coastal territory to the respective states.
12. To respect the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution by returning all power and responsibility possible to the several states.
13. To respect the territory of the United States by fully securing its borders and using our military forces to prevent invasion of our borders.
14. To complete our missile defense system and SELL all necessary components to friendly countries. Also, to bring all our troops home except for those requested, AND PAID FOR, by friendly countries, and station them along our borders.
15. To withdraw from all multi-national alliances and establish new alliances with each individual country based on reciprocal treatment. (We’ll treat you exactly the way you treat us.)
I say get to work doing this PLEDGE. Or be replaced ASAP
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