The Worst Op-Ed of the Month

Competition for this honor is always stiff. But here is August's winner.

100 Years Ago Today

Here we are at the end of August and 100 years ago...

Nothing of any great importance was going on.

In Congress Democrats were calling for higher taxes on the wealthy. They were insisting on a tax bracket of five (5) percent for the very wealthy under the new income tax code made possible by the recent ratification of the 16th Amendment. In Great Britain a pack of wannabe women voters attacked Prime Minister H.H. Asquith and physically dragged him over a stretch of golf course until he was rescued. Meanwhile the United States is rattling sabres with foreign countries. President Wilson is threatening Mexico and a fleet of nine battleships has been dispatched to cruise off their coast. (Some things don't seem to have changed much.)

In sports news The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators in eleven innings 1-0. Washington's ace pitcher, Walter "the big train" Johnson, shut down the Sox for the first ten innings but finally gave up the winning run in the eleventh. In other sporting news The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Boston Braves and the New York Giants fell before the Phillies. Also it is reported that an agreement has been reached establishing the rules for the official America's Cup Sailing  competition, with the first race set for 1914.

For those seeking to escape the brutal heat of New York in August (in a world without AC) the Pennsylvania Railroad is advertising a $2.50 round trip excursion ticket to Atlantic City and it's cool beaches. Excursion boats are also advertising. For those seeking a longer term escape numerous ocean and lake front hotels and resorts are advertised (most made of wood and highly combustible). If travel is in your plans you can find the railroad schedules and also the sailing schedules for all of the ocean liners sailing to distant ports. The German liner SS Imperator plans to sail tomorrow morning despite damage from a recent fire. And for those in a rush to Europe, the Lusitania is sailing on September 3rd (less than six days to cross the Atlantic!).

In business news stocks were higher on active trading both in the New York and the Curbside Exchanges. And it was reported that over the first three months of the year only 158 people died and a further 3628 persons were injured in train related accidents. This is universally seen as a sign of progress in railroad safety.

In other words nothing of great importance was going on at the end of August 100 years ago. It will be six years before I will be able to write those words again.

Britain: Government in crisis as Parliament rejects attack on Syria

In a stunning rebuke, the House of Commons has voted decisively not to endorse a military strike on Syria. Significant numbers of Conservative (Tory) MPs joined the opposition Labor Party in voting against authorization for armed intervention. This is being seen as a major revolt on the part of Tory backbenchers and it has called into question the viability of Mr. Cameron's Government. After the vote, Mr. Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, asked the Prime Minister if he would give his assurance to the House that he would not invoke the Royal Prerogative and attack without the support of Parliament. To which the Prime Minister answered in the affirmative saying he understood and respected the sentiment of the House.

This is a HUGE blow to the Prime Minister and there is a sense of political crisis as open questions are now being raised about the degree of support Mr. Cameron has within his own party. It is also worth noting that the Tories do not have a majority in the House of Commons but are governing in a Coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

The bottom line is that the British Government is not going to be joining any attack on Syria anytime soon and that Mr. Cameron's position as Prime Minister is almost certainly no longer safe. Calls for his resignation and or the dissolution of Parliament with an early election are expected imminently.

Prayers please

Your prayers are kindly requested for my Godson Basil as he prepares to leave for seminary in Jordanville.

RIP: Gus - New York's iconic (and slightly weird) polar bear

There are not a huge number of ways to become famous as a polar bear. Gus somehow managed to do it by behaving like a perfectly ordinary New Yorker: he was neurotic. He became the Neurotic Polar Bear...

...Polar bears are among the most beloved animals, but Gus was something else. In 1994, notice was drawn to his peculiar swimming protocol. He would plop into the pool and swim lap after lap in figure-eight patterns, pawing his way through the water with powerful backstrokes. He did this for as many as 12 hours a day. Every day. Every week. Every month.

Zoo visitors found the repetitive swimming by the 700-pound polar bear mesmerizing. Zoo ticket sales shot up. Tourists and New Yorkers alike flocked to glimpse what had become a novelty act: the endlessly swimming bear.

But zoo officials became increasingly worried. Why was he doing this? Was it something physical? Was it woman problems? Was he having a nervous breakdown?

Read the rest here.

Breaking up is never easy

Kim Jong-un's ex-girlfriend was among a dozen well-known North Korean performers who were executed by firing squad nine days ago, according to South Korean reports.

Hyon Song-wol, a singer, rumoured to be a former lover of the North Korean leader, is said to have been arrested on Aug 17 with 11 others for violating laws against pornography.

The reports in South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper indicate that Hyon, a singer with the Unhasu Orchestra, was among those arrested on August 17 for violating domestic laws on pornography.

All 12 were machine-gunned three days later, with other members of North Korea's most famous pop groups and their immediate families forced to watch. The onlookers were then sent to prison camps, victims of the regime's assumption of guilt by association, the reports stated.

Read the rest here.

I am going to take an educated guess that no "red lines" have been crossed here and that we won't be bombing North Korea anytime soon.

Missouri State Legislature Ponders Insurrection

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Unless a handful of wavering Democrats change their minds, the Republican-controlled Missouri legislature is expected to enact a statute next month nullifying all federal gun laws in the state and making it a crime for federal agents to enforce them here. A Missourian arrested under federal firearm statutes would even be able to sue the arresting officer. 

Read the rest here.

This needs to be called what it is, a declaration of armed insurrection against the United States Government. These clowns are threatening arrest, and by implication... violence, against any officer or employee of the US Government who attempts to carry into execution the laws of the United States.

THAT IS INTOLERABLE.

And these illiterate herbs, who seemingly can neither read the plain language of the Constitution nor hold any regard for 200 years of settled case law apparently want to play armed anarchist. Andrew Jackson called  nullification what it was. Treason. The President should put them on notice that if any Federal officer is arrested or attacked while carrying into execution the laws of the Republic that he will arrest each and every member of the state legislature who votes for this constitutional abortion.

Enough is enough!

Here we go again

Getting ready to attack yet another country, intervening in a civil war where there are no good guys, and almost certainly making things worse for the already severely persecuted Christian minority. See Dr. Adam DeVille's post here. Why doesn't Obama just bomb the Phanar and or the Vatican and get it over with? If there has ever been an administration with a foreign policy so overtly hostile to persecuted Christians I can't remember it.

Feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary

Services for the Feast held in the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin.

A great speech is remembered with a very exclusive party

So today is the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's most famous speech, which I will not quote here out of deference to the copyright, jealously guarded by his family. While conceding the flaws of the messenger, the message was an important one. And I join the vast majority of American's in expressing my gratitude for his courage and eloquence in a great and noble cause. And it is entirely appropriate that the occasion should be commemorated.

To which end there have been a series of events going on all week in Washington, culminating in an endless procession of speeches and orations by some of our country's great luminaries, including three US Presidents.

All of them Democrats.

Come to think of it, I am trying really hard to name any Republicans at any of these events. Now a number of possibilities come to mind. Maybe the two Presidents Bush were unable to make it. Maybe the entire Republican Party really despises Dr. King and they quietly boycotted the event. Maybe there were lots of Republicans there and they just got blacked out by MSNBC and CNN.

Or maybe, none were not invited.

Charity dictates I give some weight to the first few possibilities. But my gut strong suspects the latter. If anyone has evidence to the contrary I will be more than happy to be proven paranoid in my suspicions of racial politics at such an important anniversary.

Anglican Archbishop urges Christians to ‘repent’ over ‘wicked’ attitude to homosexuality

The Most Rev Justin Welby told an audience of traditional born-again Christians that they must “repent” over the way gay and lesbian people have been treated in the past and said most young people viewed Christians as no better than racists on the issue.

Archbishop Welby, who as a young priest once opposed allowing gay couples to adopt children, said the church now had to face up to what amounted to one of the most rapid changes in public attitudes ever.

While insisting that he did not regret voting against same-sex marriage in the House of Lords, he admitted that his own mind was not yet “clear” on the wider issues which he was continuing to think about.

And he admitted that, despite its strong official opposition to allowing same-sex couples to marry, the Church is still “deeply and profoundly divided” over gay marriage.

Read the rest here.

New York Times Website Hacked

The website of the New York Times is still down almost 24 hrs after a foreign based cyber attack carried out by self proclaimed allies of Syrian dictator Bashir Al-Assad.

Vigil for the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos

Fred Reed on a College Education

In 1964 Hampden-Sydney College, in Southside Virginia, was fairly typical of American schools and particularly of the small, good Sothern schools of the region: Randolph-Macon College for men in Ashland, co-ed William and Mary in Williamsburg, and Randolph-Macon Women´s College in Lynchburg among others.

H-S, as we called it, was entirely male, both as to students and professors. This had the great advantage that we could concentrate on the job at hand, as for example learning things, instead of pondering the young lovely at the next desk. These latter were available at Longwood State Teachers College (now of course Longwood University), seven miles away.

Hampden-Sydney was not MIT. Average SATs were perhaps 1150 if memory serves. The students were chiefly drawn from the small and pleasant towns of rural Virginia, and would go on to become doctors, attorneys, and businessmen. Yet H-S embodied (and may still) a, by today´s standards, a remarkable philosophy of education, and showed that reasonably but not appallingly bright young can be educated. So did most colleges.
It was then believed that higher education was for the intelligent and the prepared, for no more than the upper twenty percent, perhaps fifteen ore even ten percent of graduates of high school.

At Hampden-Sydney, “Prepared” meant “prepared.” It was assumed that students could read perfectly and knew algebra cold. There were no remedial courses. The idea would have been thought ridiculous if anyone had thought it at all. If you needed remediation, you belonged somewhere else. Colleges were not holding tanks for the mildly retarded.

Read the rest here.

A Reflection on the Lifespan and Fragility of National Governments

Government survivability are the odds of a government continuing into the future intact (it’s a type of political risk). Gold is a hedge against this kind of threat. Let’s discuss.

Governments Are Fragile

When I look back over the last 100 years there are maybe just seven or so governments that still exist more or less intact (meaning their debts, currency, markets, etc. haven’t gone to the black hole). So off the top of my head those are: Canada, U.S., Australia, New Zealand, U.K., Sweden, and Switzerland. There may be a couple more, but you get the idea. It ain’t many. And notice I say “governments” and not “countries.” France still exists as a geographic area, but it has had multiple governments the past 100 years. Same for Japan, Italy, China, Russia, etc. Geographically the countries are (more or less) the same, but the management has had high turnover. And with this turnover, so goes the currency and debt promises made. Many countries had far more unsavory things happen than just losing money, but for our purposes we won’t go into them.

So let’s be generous and say 10 countries out of hundreds on the planet still have the same government and currency from 100 years ago. In fact, many governments you see today probably weren’t in existence even 75 years ago. Those are really bad odds! That means in the average person’s lifetime, if trends hold, they could likely experience their government having a major problem (up to and including vanishing and being replaced with something entirely different kind of major problem).

Does that also mean the United States falls under the same rules of history? Whether you want to believe it or not, it does. In fact, there should be a voice in the back of your head that is always giving a gentle reminder: The U.S. government is old.

Now when I say the U.S. government is old, I don’t mean in a way that it’s going to blow up tomorrow. It’s just that the longer we go on a timeline, the odds of the same government existing gets worse, not better. Governments are not a fine wine. They don’t get better with age. Governments are fragile and get more fragile the older they are. Think about it in human terms. A 20 year old has a much better chance of waking up tomorrow than a 100 year old. Age catches up with everything, even governments.

Read the rest here.

This is really good and thought provoking post. Please leave comments there.

Riddle me this...

Q: What do you call a man whose professional resume is starting to resemble Elizabeth Taylor's personal life?

A. Keith Olbermann.

After six budget showdowns, big government is mostly unchanged

After 21 / 2 years of budget battles, this is what the federal government looks like now:

It is on pace, this year, to spend $3.455 trillion.

That figure is down from 2010 — the year that worries about government spending helped bring on a tea party uprising, a Republican takeover in the House and then a series of ulcer-causing showdowns in Congress.

But it is not down by that much. Back then, the government spent a whopping $3.457 trillion.

 Measured another way — not in dollars, but in people — the government has about 4.1 million employees today, military and civilian. That’s more than the populations of 24 states.

Back in 2010, it had 4.3 million employees. More than the populations of 24 states.

Read the rest here.

The Telegraph: It's left wing prats who are defending our freedom

A few weeks ago, a British national newspaper was visited by a detachment of national security agents who demanded that its computers and hard drives be destroyed. The security men then stood over its staff while they smashed their equipment to pieces. In the peace-time history of a free country, this incident is about as shocking as it gets. And yet, a remarkable consensus has grown up, including – I’m sorry to say – many on my side of the political fence, to the effect that this is no big deal.

The reasons that this scene – which looks, on the face of it, like something out of East Germany in the 1970s – is apparently perfectly acceptable seem to be: a) the data in the computers was a threat to the national security of this country and to that of our American allies; b) this information was stolen from the US government and published illegally by people who are narcissistic/eccentric/of dubious political judgment, and c) the newspaper in question was the Guardian, which is full of annoying Left-wing prats. Let’s consider these points in order of importance.

Read the rest here.

Unfortunately on this side of the pond, I see little evidence of any revolt by our own left wing prats against Dear Leader. But yeah, she does have a point. The Guardian has been on the front-line, and (gasp!) the right side of this fight.

A Coptic Monument to Survival is Destroyed

No one knows exactly when the Virgin Mary Church was built, but the fourth and fifth centuries are both possible options. In both cases, it was the time of the Byzantines. Egypt's Coptic Church—to which this church in modern-day Delga belonged—had refused to bow to imperial power and Rome's leadership over the nature of Christ. Constantinople was adamant it would force its will on the Copts. Two lines of popes claimed the Seat of Alexandria. One with imperial blessing sat in the open; the other, with his people's support, often hid, moving from one church to the other. Virgin Mary Church's altar outlasted the Byzantines. Arabs soon invaded in A.D. 641. Dynasties rose and fell, but the ancient building remained strong, a monument to its people's survival.

Virgin Mary Church was built underground, a shelter from the prying eye. At its entrance were two ancient Roman columns and an iron door. Inside were three sanctuaries with four altars. Roman columns were engraved in the walls. As in many Coptic churches, historical artifacts overlapped earlier ones. The most ancient drawing to survive into the 21st century: a depiction, on a stone near the entrance, of two deer and holy bread. Layers and layers of history, a testament not only to the place's ancient roots but also to its persistence. Like other Coptic churches, the ancient baptistery was on the western side, facing the altar in the east. Infants were symbolically transferred through baptism from the left to the right. The old icons were kept inside the church, the ancient manuscripts transferred to the Bishopric in modern times.

Once there were 23 other ancient churches next to it, all connected through secret passages. Only Virgin Mary Church remained. Decline and survival, loss and endurance, the twin faces of the story of the Copts who built it.

Read the rest here.
HT: T-19

'Sovereign Citizens' wage war of paper against government and enemies

MINNEAPOLIS — One of the first inklings Sheriff Richard Stanek had that something was wrong came with a call from the mortgage company handling his refinancing.

“It must be a mistake,” he said, when the loan officer told him that someone had placed liens totaling more than $25 million on his house and on other properties he owned.

But as Sheriff Stanek soon learned, the liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices.

Read the rest here.

The best way to deal with this is to criminalize the intentional filing of false leans or other claims. These nut jobs can whine all they want to about the false government from behind bars.