Hello!

I haven’t been posting here, because my old blog is back up and running nicely again!  If the server blows up or something else exciting happens, I’ll be pasting it here, but otherwise I’ll be in my old sett.

Maybe I’ll even recover the old posts!  :D

This is an OpEd based around a Muslim man who spoke in an appeal for peace, whose son had been killed in the London riots (by a hit-and-run driver, allegedly a race-based incident).  The writer continues to talk about the linkage between religion and morality, and then decries the apparent loss (or pushing back) of religion in British life.  The whole piece is an appeal to emotion, and its central components are appeals to emotion, made in terms that point out how Christianity has been lacking, and that the other religions of the world have something that Christian societies do not - a continued sense of faith, morality, and tradition, as the Christians become more and more secular.

Read it for yourself:

I suspect that when time passes and we look back on this week, it is the religious sincerity of Tariq Jahan that we shall remember. All of us — Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Hindus, Christians — have a rich religious inheritance.

At the core of this inheritance is a sense of right and wrong. And in all these religions, the school where we learn of right and wrong is the family. Muslims, Jews, Sikhs and Hindus have all, very noticeably, retained this twin strand of family structure and ethical teaching.

Faith in Christianity itself began to unravel long ago, and the majority of those whose forebears were Christian are now completely secular. They would not even recognise simple Bible stories.

The events of the past week have shown the enormous value of a living religious faith.

Not only was Tariq Jahan more impressive than any of the commentators or politicians who spouted on the airwaves this week.

He was more human.

So where does that leave atheists like yours truly? Fortunately, the answer is in the last paragraph:

By his religious response to his son’s death, he humanised not only the dreadful and immediate tragedy. He showed us that without a religion we are all less than human.

How sweet.  Then again, A. N. Wilson (the author of that piece) certainly does have Views on the subject of Atheists.

TED Talk: Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives

I’ll probably do a whole series of posts about this one. One of the most important realizations is that life is best lived seeking to refine and shape within the context of reality, rather than to make the world a liberal/conservative Utopia.

So, I get a lot of crazy directed at some of my YouTube videos.  Usually it’s just people hating on me for being a leftist, a bleeding heart liberal, a corporate shill, a warmonger, or any one of a number of things that in combination make me go “what the fuck?” And sometimes… people are just letting their inner hate flag fly.

For an example, consider this video:

Nothing too crazy, right?  I’m not calling for universal amnesty for child molesters (or anyone, actually), I’m just recommending to people who are going out and smashing and stealing and burning things that they, well, not do that.  So here are a few examples of the comments I’ve gotten:

rise of the planet of the apes„„,beat whitey„burn his stuff„looks like Blacks are the same on every continent.

zeno57 8 hours ago

Such a shame - many of them will have to wait until they get out from prison, and after they’ve become hardened criminals and learnt how to become drug dependant - before they watch this vid.

It’s the little things eh?

THEHARMONIKZ 14 hours ago

 How to spot the symptoms of white guilt.

Speaking very slowly pausing several times to carefully choose words

so as not to dare speak the truth while attempting to defend the actions of negroes.

jblackrupert 19 hours ago

 Really?! Did this guy just blame Reagan and Thatcher for the riots! Is personal responsibly an outmoded trait?

If anything Labor and Progressives are to blame for their muli-cultural agenda With the riots in towns like Philli and London it can’t be the fault conservatives, they are Leftist cities!

MrWatchdawg77 21 hours ago

That last gentleman has to be my favorite one in the thread - he pretty much goes ballistic by the end of our interaction.  In fact, it may not have ended.

To be perfectly honest, these people give me a rather nasty boost of strength, where you might think they’d wear me down.  Not a fun one, but definitely something that pushes me forward rather than dragging me down.  It’s fairly simple: people that believe that they have all the answers, and that there is some readily identifiable group of evil-doers at hand that they are perfectly free to condemn en masse are not only full of shit, they’ve probably not realized something very important about being human:

You too can find yourself in circumstances where doing evil things not only makes perfect sense, they are things you would do with joy.

It’s very simple: our understanding of the world and how we act inside of it is shaped by what we perceive (and believe) our world to be.  Guaranteed, if the power were to go out on the East Coast for a month, there wouldn’t necessarily be roving gangs of Mad Max-style thugs and looters (though there probably would be a few scattered ones), but the way people interact would change, and probably dramatically.

Make it a year, and the difference would be staggering.

Make it a generation, and you would wind up with a different culture.

Seriously, you have no idea what you would do in a situation you haven’t been in, because the you that would do these as-yet-unknown things doesn’t exist yet.  It might be a difficult concept to wrap your head around, but it’s something the Army has figured out in its Basic Training, most specifically in how to kill, and it all boils down to dehumanizing those who are not “friends,” so that the impact of whatever cultural change the soldiers are exposed to actually increases the ease with which people who are foreign to them are objectified.  Now it doesn’t work for everyone (or even to the same degree with those it does work on), but it does help get around the “problem” of getting civilized human beings to aim to kill.  The comparatively surreal distinction between military life and civilian life may prevent the same desensitization from exhibiting itself on the return to civilian life, but we won’t know that definitively for a generation - side note, this is a pretty scary thing to do to a large segment of your population in this badger’s opinion.

So why does this just get me riled up about whatever it is even more?  Because if I’m talking about something on the Internet, chances are it’s connected to something I’ve experienced and feel at least somewhat confident about.  If someone is throwing broad-brush generalizations at me or talking crazy talk, then I’m pretty sure that 1. they’re not my target audience, and 2. they don’t want to hear what I have to say anyway.  I might TRY to connect with them, but honestly I’m so tired of late, that the last thing I’m going to do is take any of it personally.  In fact, I’ll just be a little louder so I can get my message to people who are interested.

Anyway, wherever you are, hope you’re safe and warm.  I’m looking forward to a nap.

Latest update from VA Tech website, including a composite sketch [SB: oops] of the person they’re looking for.

Here as a screen capture, because the website is barely loading.

Update III: So, no gunman found.  A good thing, as long as no victims were found either (and to my knowledge, there weren’t).

Update II: From the VT website, a new banner.

Update on weapon sighting

See VT homepage or email for further information on possible person with weapon.  People on campus stay indoors until further notice.

Update from the VA Tech website:

10:08 a.m. Update to VT Alerts

At 9:09 a.m. three juveniles attending a camp at the university reported seeing a white male, 6 feet tall, with light brown hair outside of New Residence Hall East holding what may have been a handgun.  They say the weapon was covered by a cloth or covering of some sort.  He was walking fast in the direction of the volleyball courts.   He was wearing a blue and white striped shirt (stripes were vertical), gray shorts and brown sandals.  The subject had no facial hair or glasses.

Officers responded immediately to the area but found no one matching the description.  Police have encountered no other witnesses reporting this individual or anything suspicious.  Law enforcement officers from VTPD, Blacksburg PD, Christiansburg, PD, and Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office are patrolling the campus, continuing to look for the subject. 

If anyone sees anything suspicious contact the VT Police Department at 231-6411 or 911.

The banner in the middle of the Virginia Tech website says “Person with a gun reported near Dietrick.  Stay Inside.  Secure doors.  Emergency personnel responding.  Call 911 for help.”

This is the last fucking thing VT needs (or anyone, really).

Let’s hope it’s a false alarm.

Okay, Mother Jones is bringing this up, yet doesn’t provide a source other than the same one at C|NET that I was complaining didn’t source their allegation of a “last-minute-rewrite.”

Seriously, does anyone have a source for this, or is some journalist at C|NET trolling us?

Drudge needs a life.

I know that when you’re the President (or a spokesperson) you’ve got to be upbeat, but this just caught my eye:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s spokesman is discounting talk that the economy may be headed back into recession, despite recent concerns of economists.

Spokesman Jay Carney says there is no question that economic growth and job creation have slowed over the past half year.

But, Carney told a White House briefing, “We do not believe that there is a threat of a double-dip recession.”

The recession that began in December 2007 officially ended in summer 2009 and the economy has seen growth since then. However, that growth has slowed to a trickle in recent months.

He blamed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, higher energy prices, default worries in Europe and recently resolved uncertainty over raising America’s borrowing limit. Carney said, “We believe the economy will continue to grow.”

Now while you might be tempted to pooh-pooh this declaration, you’d be wrong.  What he’s saying is technically correct - but only because (I strongly suspect) that in many ways, we started in the double-dip sometime around March or April of this year (but I am overly bearish, I know).  We will see if the continued downward revisions to just about everything bear this out.

In the meantime, the idea of there having been a recovery for anyone who isn’t wealthy is a ludicrous one.

“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
—Senator Carl Schurz

First off, let’s be honest about what just happened to us.  The debt ceiling “negotiation” was a farce, in which the GOP was using it’s activist wing to appear reasonable (while pandering to it at the same time), and the Obama administration was doing its best to pretend that everyone to its left was Shrill and Unserious (or more fairly, to be ignored).  Why do I feel this way?  Because even in the Obama administration’s response to liberal criticism, nothing is mentioned of the fact that there are no revenue increases in the deal’s trigger.

I’m not certain how to respond to the deficit reduction bargain in any sort of constructive way that will be appreciated.  From The Winning Progressive (h/t Crooks & Liars), we have the following exhortation: “Let’s not play into the conservatives’ hands.  Instead, let’s fight to take our government back from the GOP.“  Oh really?  Then it’s not partially the fault of the Democrats that Boehner got 98% of what he wanted?  That the House Democratic caucus is spitting nails?

Virtually all of the truly liberal and helpful legislation was at the very beginning of Obama’s first term, during the lame duck 2010 Congress, or buried in the health care reform bill along with a big fat smooch for the insurance companies.  This is not to minimize the good that has been done, it’s to point out that whistleblowers are still persona non grata in the U.S., that the worst of the Bush Administration is still with us, Insurance companies are still screwing us, not to mention the whole rearranging the deck chairs that is “financial reform.”

While this falls right in line with current theory that political crises create positive change more effectively than economic crises (for certain definitions of “positive”), it makes me wonder just what the disaster will be like that is so bad that a Shock Doctrine-style solutions will be rejected outright and yet will not bring about complete and utter disaster - if such a balance point is even possible.  I know that I haven’t reached the point of despair, and I’d really rather not ever reach it again - it’s not at all tenable.

Whatever happens in this next phase of the economic downturn (that is even now starting, and is almost certain thanks to Austerity Fever), or if things go very wrong and I’m eating dry cat food while sitting in my cardboard box home, I will feel no particular urge to unwaveringly support anyone or anything, only attempt to offer constructive criticism (like “don’t negotiate away your base”).  If I do wind up eating cat food, my new slogan will be “fuck all y’all, because the big purple bird next to me said so.”

In the meantime, I will watch wingnut heads explode.