Ignorance is Not a Virtue, but It Can Be A Defense

President Obama has decided that he is going to take a very active hand in campaigning for his preferred successor.

"In politics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue. It's not cool to not know what you're talking about. That's not keeping it real, or telling it like it is. That's not challenging political correctness. That's just not knowing what you're talking about. And yet, we've become confused about this."

"When our leaders express a disdain for facts, when they’re not held accountable for repeating falsehoods and just making stuff up, while actual experts are dismissed as elitists, then we’ve got a problem."

However...



UPDATE: "[W]atch this 20 second clip from Charlie Rose this week. In it you’ll see two former Obama administration staffers, Jon Lovett and Jon Favreau, laughing hysterically about the “if you like your insurance you can keep it” Obamacare lie they helped perpetrate. This comes on the heels of last week’s New York Times Magazine brutal profile of ‘Obama’s brain’ Ben Rhodes, who masterminded the journalist-spinning tactics that sold the Iran deal, among others."

The High Feast of Pentecost

WHEN Arthur held his Round Table most plenour, it fortuned that he commanded that the high feast of Pentecost should be holden at a city and a castle, the which in those days was called Kynke Kenadonne, upon the sands that marched nigh Wales. So ever the king had a custom that at the feast of Pentecost in especial, afore other feasts in the year, he would not go that day to meat until he had heard or seen of a great marvel. And for that custom all manner of strange adventures came before Arthur as at that feast before all other feasts. And so Sir Gawaine, a little tofore noon of the day of Pentecost, espied at a window three men upon horseback, and a dwarf on foot, and so the three men alighted, and the dwarf kept their horses, and one of the three men was higher than the other twain by a foot and an half. Then Sir Gawaine went unto the king and said, Sir, go to your meat, for here at the hand come strange adventures.

Donald Trump Really Must Not Be President

We have to come up with a way around this, because of course Hillary Clinton also really must not be President -- she is deeply corrupt, and unrestrained by either law or custom. Neither of these figures is even a little bit fit for the office.

Still, these remarks (h/t: Hot Air) remind me of why I turned against Trump back in September. While I am very much not a feminist, I am a gentleman and I cannot abide men who do not respect women. I think it ought to be disqualifying for an office as powerful and important as the Presidency. Of course, I think the Presidency should become much less powerful and important, in which case it would not matter so much. But for now it is, and it does.

May God open a road for us, I pray this Pentecost, and may we be again a nation worthy of such providence.

An Analysis

It opens with a metaphysical claim about politics:

Perhaps the most evident sign of civilizational devolution is the inability or unwillingness to acknowledge reality, to come to terms with things as they are, and to oppose the suppression of objectivity and its substitution by fantasy, illusion and wish-fulfillment. The resonating dictum of the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides from his fragmentary poem On Nature—variously translated as what is, is, and what is not, is not!—sounds like an empty tautology. But it has relevance for our present historical moment, with respect to the cultural and lexical inversions of contemporary thought and discourse. Apart from its metaphysical implications, which we won’t go into here, the Parmenidean maxim expresses the criterion for survival, the need to separate truth (aletheia) from opinion (doxa) and to recognize things as they are if an individual, a culture, a people is to transact successfully with the existing world. But when thought and action come to be governed by the anarchic principle that what is, is not and what is not, is, a process of social, political and epistemological disintegration invariably sets in. This is the condition in which the West finds itself today.

Best read alongside this.

Australians

I assume this has something to do with the ready availability of decent drink.

Honestly, all of nature is pretty much about sex. That doesn't mean that you're meant to have sex with it.

Statin fail

I've never seen the point in statins and never have taken them.  The causal link between cholesterol and heart disease is fuzzy at best.  Friends and family have had very unpleasant effects from statins.  The science has been too confused to satisfy my medical BS meter.

An Evening Out

I just spent last evening with a British immigrant who has just bought a home here in America, which -- along with his job -- he thinks will establish himself well enough here that he shall remain forever. "Good," I said, "and what are you going to do about Donald Trump?"

"Well, if I must leave again I suppose I shall," he said. "I could probably get you out too."

I answered, "I'm not going anywhere. This is my country, and that is the whole reason I own a rifle."

A third party to our discussion, an American from Omaha, jumped in enthusiastically at this point. He missed, in his enthusiasm, our British comrade wiping away tears.

They cannot see the danger from the left, though neither are even slight friends of Ms. Clinton. The danger from the right occupies all their thoughts, though it is perhaps rather less severe. I don't imagine Donald Trump would be trying to run out British émigrés, and I'm not sure how much I think he'll really turn on Hispanic or Muslim ones. I have a feeling it's all talk with him.

But how nice to see enthusiasm for the rifle. How nice to see even the romance of it. It is worth a few glorious tears. It is the final guarantee of liberty.

Meanwhile, in Russia.....

Cartoon violence.

Cool immigration map

Friday Night Spear Chucking

Take that, you nasty drone! Begone foul fiend!

Election polling

Michael Barone is one of the few poll analysts I can read with any patience.  It's going to be a long season.

I have noticed something else that may be significant in the some recent polls: The number of undecided voters seems to be increasing, rather than decreasing as it tends to do when nominees are determined.

This could result from cross-pressures. Majorities of voters have unfavorable feelings toward both candidates, and probably a record share, about 25 percent, has unfavorable feelings toward both. Apparently some voters are having trouble deciding which repellent candidate to vote for.

Bingo.  Well, not to exaggerate:  I'm not having trouble deciding, just trouble stomaching my decision.

$15 an Hour? How About "You're Fired"?

Carl's Jr. has a plan: automated machines to take your order, and a ten percent discount for using them.

Taco Bell had automated ordering kiosks at the 1996 Olympics. They were awesome, actually, because your order was never wrong. They were simple to operate touch-screens, and you could customize your orders to do all sorts of things without worrying about trying to explain what you wanted to a deaf 16-year-old. Since much of Taco Bell's menu is just different ways of putting together the same basic ingredients, the customization aspect worked very well.

I remember that I was very sad when they removed the kiosks after the Games were over. They represented a real improvement on the Taco Bell experience.

Automation is going to make most human labor obsolete.

Eric Blair, Call Your Office

A comment on why World War I games are too hot for the gaming industry, though WWII is one of its staples.

Well, except for flying games. Snoopy and the Red Baron is fun for everyone.

Divergent Interests

The invocation of Trump is just a means of making people excited about reading the article, which is ironic: the real critique is much more interesting than the lazy headline suggests.

This graphic gives a sense of it.

On the one hand, it's difficult to sympathize too much given that tenured academia is deeply insulated from competition compared to almost anyone, anywhere. On the other hand, competition for tenured positions has become very fierce in recent years. That seems to be what is driving this kind of thing.

There's another aspect, too, which is implied by the need to publish unlikely novel results before getting 'scooped.' If you're hanging your hopes on them, it's also necessary to defend their plausibility so you continue to be important as the discoverer of them. Thus, science becomes deformed not only because scientists are inclined no longer to carefully check unlikely results, but also because they have an interest in using anti-scientific strategies to defend implausible results long after they should be rejected. They might use rhetoric to try to silence criticism ("You're just opposed to my results because I'm [insert protected category]!"). Or, as the Michael Mann case suggests, they might even resort to legal strategies to defend highly questionable science.

After all, one's career is at stake. Or one's hope of ever having a career.

Ain't No Rest for the Triggered

Because this just belongs here.

Zimmerman Trolls the World

George Zimmerman is auctioning off the gun he shot Trayvon Martin with. Why, you ask?

Proceeds from the sale, Zimmerman wrote, will be used to “fight [Black Lives Matter] violence against Law Enforcement officers, ensure the demise of [Zimmerman’s prosecuting attorney] Angela Correy’s [sic] persecution career and Hillary Clinton’s anti-firearm rhetoric.”

I imagine he'll get a fair amount of money for that piece of junk he was carrying, given how much people will enjoy pulling those particular chains.

Is this troll year in American politics? It must be troll year.

Neutrality

Harvard women's groups claim that gender-neutral rule should be altered to only ban activities by men's groups.

At Harvard University, women are protesting the school's recent move to ban single-sex "final clubs," because the school didn't limit the ban to male clubs...

The Harvard women say that women's groups should be exempted from the new rule, because it was adopted as a response to claims that men-only groups foster rape.

The Citadel: No Hijabs

Needless to say, the decision appears to be leading to a lawsuit.

The woman's family is now considering legal action, citing the fact the Citadel is a public university, said Ibrahim Hooper with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"We believe that it's a constitutional obligation for a public institution to offer religious accommodation to students," he said.

Hooper says precedents for religious accommodation in the U.S. military contradict the Citadel's decision.

"Our U.S. military allows hijabs, beards, turbans, yarmulkes," he said. "It makes you wonder why the Citadel thinks they're somehow better than our nation's military."

Not 'better than,' 'different from.' The US military has offered various accommodations. The Citadel never has.

Benghazi Again

F-16 pilots: "We were on standby." Turns out there was not the refueling issue that the administration has been claiming prevented sending them, either.

Brazil Says "Bye" To Socialist President

Brazil's Senate has voted to suspend its President from office. She is allegedly planning to step down given the vote.

It turns out this is actually business as usual in Brazil, where almost no Presidents finish their term in office. I have a certain jealousy for their capacity to remove corrupt officials, although not for the apparent surplus of corrupt officials they have to remove. Still, it's not as if we're lacking for them here. We just have less recourse.