Unity Descends From Above

Hey, what are the odds -- five Ayn Rand fans on the same train! Must be going to a convention.
http://xkcd.com/610/

• I know the footage has been done to death, but it is still funny. Hitler Finds Out Michael Jackson Died.
  
• Elmer Gantry (1960)
  Lulu Bains: Oh, he gave me special instructions back of the pulpit Christmas Eve. He got to howlin' "Repent! Repent!" and I got to moanin' "Save me! Save me!" and the first thing I know he rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man's footsteps!
  
• The Herd Instinct replicates itself on-line. Researcher ignores player customs & plays the game as the rules indicate. Amusing how it shows that social conventions can counter the actual purposes and inherent rules (e.g. social conventions counter "natural law").
  
• XKCD comments on the dangers of TV Tropes. We know it's true.
  
• Children allowed to climb hill. School closed.
  
• "most of our happiness is actually dependent on our self-discipline." keith418 provided this link to an article discussing self-discipline.
  
• Haaretz waxes on the activities of the IDF. Remember folks, this is what the billions in foreign aid to Israel allows to happen. (via keith418)
  
• "Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood" http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22891 An excellent article on the diminishing "wilderness of childhood."
  Recently, my younger daughter, after the usual struggle and exhilaration, learned to ride her bicycle. Her joy at her achievement was rapidly followed by a creeping sense of puzzlement and disappointment as it became clear to both of us that there was nowhere for her to ride it—nowhere that I was willing to let her go. Should I send my children out to play? (via keith418)
  
  I remember getting up, having breakfast, doing my chores & then wandering in the Deschutes National Forest (around Crescent Lake) until I got hungry and then turning around to head back. Since I lived on a mountain, I explored "up" and then returned "down." I wish that there were places like that for my children to go to -- ones that don't require me to drive them across town or what-not.
  
• Since I find myself discussing this a lot (& not nearly to my satisfaction) I am excerpting this citation from keith418's bog quoting Paul Gottfried on the relationship between Liberalism/Communism/etc & Christianity:
  
  "As far as I can see, it is the Left, given its reformulation of Christian universalism and Christian commitment to comforting the oppressed, which has produced the greatest danger to Western civilization. The Left projects a fantasy that fits the Western moral imagination. It thrives as a 'Christian heresy,' according to Karl Barth, a brilliant Christian theologian who himself succumbed to that heresy. A Christian civilization created the moral and eschatological framework that leftist anti-Christians have taken over and adapted. It is the fascists, not the Communists or multiculturalists, who were the sideshow in modern Western history As the anthropologist Micea Eliade observed fifty years ago, fascism, and in particular its most violent and aberrant form, Nazism, bungled the task of fitting established Christian societies into a revamped or pagan mythology.
  
  "Eliade expressed concern that the Left's use of Christian mythology made it unstoppable, barring a successful reappropriation by Christianity of its own redemptive history. While there were intellectual efforts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to move in a neopagan direction, fascist leaders could not effect the change of mind that was necessary to their triumph. Fascist, and especially Nazi, politics aroused indignation in a way that the Communists did not. The reason was not that the Communist regimes in practice were less brutal. It was, rather, as Eliade points out, that they adopted Christian rhetoric and Christian values to justify their murderous social experiments. Communist states profited from two ingrained beliefs that were linked to Christianity directly or indirectly: the Christian vision of a final universal justice for the unjustly suffering, and the Enlightenment's recasting of this vision as scientific progress. Lest there be doubts about where I stand, I agree entirely with Ernst Nolte, who in 1996, in correspondence with the French historian Francois Furet, depicted European fascism as a 'secondary movement,' that is, an ultimately disastrous attempt to subdue the revolutionary Left through awkward imitation. Nolte has advanced the opinion that everything being equal, the Left has enjoyed a steady recruiting advantage relative to the far Right. It has drawn support by recycling Judeo-Christian ideals and eschatology and has done so with brilliant success even while abandoning Marxist baggage."
  
• A Report on the convoluted opinions regarding science held by most Americans.
  
• Is the Swine Flu merely a Darwinian Struggle to rid the world of Obesity? It amuses me that it isn't until the very end that the idea of losing weight is offered as a solution.
  "Doctors tracking the pandemic say they see a pattern in hospital reports from Glasgow to Melbourne and from Santiago to New York. People infected with the bug who have a body mass index greater than 40, deemed morbidly obese, suffer respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal."
  
  "The agency is investigating whether overweight people need different antiviral treatment or flu vaccinations."
  
  "Fat cells secrete chemicals that cause chronic, low-level inflammation that can hamper the body’s immune response and narrow the airways"
  
  "People may reduce their risk of developing complications from swine flu -- as well as many other diseases -- by maintaining a healthy weight, quitting smoking, exercising regularly and moderating alcohol intake"

Ecclesiastes 10:20

plutherus

"All guilt is relative. Loyalty counts. And never let your conscience be your guide." - Sheriff Lucas Buck 

• Giving up my iPod for a Walkman 8:47 AM Jun 30th
• Comics artist Mark Sable detained for "Unthinkable" acts 10:27 AM Jun 30th
• "But the idea of a pure openness, a pure democracy, is a naïve one." (NYTimes)10:40 AM Jun 30th
• Why Are People Obsessed with Their Kids? 11:36 AM Jun 30th
• People reject free money out of anger (How the Social Contract is enforced even to our detriment) 12:45 PM Jun 30th
• Study: choir prefers being preached to by 2:1 margin (active avoidance of conflicting information) 12:18 PM Jul 2nd
• Facebook 'sparked white flight from MySpace' (Why is seeking smarter & richer a bad thing?) about 21 hours ago
• Her biggest crime was trusting her own parenting. about 10 hours ago

Rather neat.

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2009/06/30/

Sunday, July 5: Noon-4pm

One of the five Go-Sekku seasonal festivals of Japan, Tanabata is traditionally celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month. The Portland Japanese Garden celebrates Tanabata each year on the Sunday closest to this date.

The 2009 Tanabata Festival will be held at the Portland Japanese Garden on Sunday, July 5 from 1-4pm in the Garden Pavilion. Children will write their wishes on tanzaku (paper strips) and make origami ornaments to hang on bamboo branches—which they may take with them to hang in their doorways at home. Music will also be part of the day, provided by guitarist Toshi Onizuka.

Tanabata

• 08:45 Who else gets away with "trying" like this? Israel and Human Trafficking: bit.ly/BoPmh
• 08:57 Fabrication of Iran's Unrest: BBC Caught In Mass Public Deception With Iran Propaganda tinyurl.com/lpztwd
• 09:03 Iran, Social Media and the Rise of Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations : The Fog Machine tinyurl.com/ljoq9n
• 09:04 Mousavi, Celebrated in Iranian Protests, Was the Butcher of Beirut tinyurl.com/kkug3y
• 09:10 On a Classical Education (I got 12 out of 14 questions right in the little quiz at the end) tinyurl.com/lnf2wp

• 11:02 WHat does Wikipedia not ahve an article for? entry: Magick (Aleister Crowley) bit.ly/4EDyqP

• 18:38 Jewish school broke race laws by barring boy whose mother 'was not a Jew' tinyurl.com/lelaqa
• 23:10 He's dead. His music was alright, but I was no fan. I liked Weird Al's versions better than the originals. I want no more info on tributes

• 11:11 Lolicon dream come true? 16 year old toddler. abcnews.go.com/print?id=7880954
• 12:14 The Death of Love (via Keith418) bit.ly/XEkVE
• 12:36 Multiculturalism vs. Art, or why there aren't any revolutions in popular arts.. (via Keith418) tinyurl.com/llfavk
• 12:40 Award-winning Palestinian journalist recounts being tortured by Israel while trying to return home (via Keith418) tinyurl.com/lgagnx
• 12:46 Islamo-fascism, Judaeo-fascism, Bapto-fascism, and Why We Need More Bars (Go Fred!, another gem from Keith418) tinyurl.com/nzmt64
• 13:02 Memories of Radicalism from the 60's and its influences now bit.ly/G9tuN
• 14:06 Cancelled WoW. I had it for the kids, but they weren't remembering to use it (March was last time). I was only on hold for 40minutes....
• 14:13 Shools cautioned against stripping 13 year old girls bit.ly/5eiCc
• 14:18 More child porn without sex or naked children: Man Charged In 'Virtual Porn' Case bit.ly/128gDs

• 09:06 Lenore Skenazy in the Huffington Post bit.ly/1NMD0t

• 11:03 Six year olds thought to have built a Nuclear Reactor. www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/23/2606539.htm
• 13:15 Nazi Stealth Fighter on National Geographic bit.ly/sqWtK
• 14:49 Tesla gets loan approval from US Department of Energy www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/06/23/tesla.electric.cars/index.html
• 14:50 Wired reviewed Nissan's Electric Car (due out end of 2010) bit.ly/MC7sH

• 09:30 Article on Ray Bradbury & his assistance in saving libraries. bit.ly/3wbAlA

• 10:09 WJ on Secessionist movements. online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204482304574219813708759806.html
• 10:21 why the fascists are winning in Europe (Macleans, not very deep) bit.ly/MDydK
• 10:31 Ahmadinejad won. Get over it [I wonder if the fuss is just pretext to justify a Serbia act II or cont of Iraq] tinyurl.com/lzd5h8
• 10:33 Guevara's granddaughter to appear in PETA campaign www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2009/06/18/20090618ArgentinianPeta.html
• 11:27 (Not new for most of us, but...) America’s Left-Conservative Heritage tinyurl.com/m2523o (Attack The System)
• 11:46 Too much. I post a link on how Ahmadinejad won & I start getting followed by a guy promoting the election fraud angle. Hilarious.

• 10:15 Watched 'O brother where art thou' & 'dick tracy'
• 10:28 Check out: Connections Academy (salem)

• 22:53 YouTube - TheShoujoAiYuriFC's Channel bit.ly/EtasA

• 07:48 Paul Erdős en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdos
• 09:57 Lake on Mars bit.ly/b9cnW
• 11:31 Comments on "A Mathematician's Lament" scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=410
• 13:27 Sukeban Deka www.idollica.com/sukebanintro/SukebanDekaIntro.html
• 15:51 Most of the letters I have gotten are from good people who confuse Christianity and ignorance. tinyurl.com/n5e466
• 16:40 Add 'varieties of heroism' to list