Consilience Revisited

https://quillette.com/2020/09/09/at-the-intersection-of-art-and-science-revisiting-eo-wilsons-consilience/

I reviewed Consilience here -- naturally, you would be well served to go view that review! ;-) 

I enjoyed the linked as well. The basic thesis of Wilson is that randomness randomly happened in a universe in which humans randomly evolved to somehow acquire a innate "environmental imperative". 

For Wilson, evolution is "god", so naturally, since any "god" will have infinite powers, "anything is possible" ... and believable, to believers -- even "scientists". 

Postmodernism’s popularity, he argues, may be explained by the possibility that its “love of chaos” is part of a universal human nature. He sees postmodernism as possessing “a surge of ‘revolutionary spirit’ generated by the real—not deconstructed—fact that large segments of the population… have been neglected for centuries and are only now beginning to find full expression within mainstream culture.” But instead of it having “exploded human nature into little pieces…” he sees its rise as an opportunity to “set the stage for a fuller explanation of the universal traits that unite humanity.” In the sciences, he sees consilience as a necessity in order to gain full insight into human behavior: “Works of art that prove enduring are intensely humanistic. Born in the imagination of individuals, they nevertheless touch upon what was universally endowed by human evolution.” For the scientist, the desire to know the real world, to answer the “how” and “what,” is paramount, while for the artist, it is a desire to take that real world and expose it to imagination, intuition, and experience.

I firmly believe that "love of chaos" is part of Satan's nature, and one can detect the Satanic by “a surge of ‘revolutionary spirit’". 

Old Adam is indeed by nature sinful and rebellious -- and since we are created in the "image of God" our nature includes a desire to seek the order of God. Wilson seems to have a clue, however Satan is helping him mistake disorder for created order. 

How Many "Americas" Are There? And What is "Normal"?

 https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/coronavirus-pandemic-americans-divided-assessing-risk/#slide-1

Many of us realized a good while ago that we were not in "America" anymore -- you know, the one that built the Bomb, won WWII, landed on the Moon, created the PC and the Internet -- THAT America. 

"The Decadent Society" is one good book that covers our degree of lostness ... there are others linked there. 

I'd argue that we have been divided from the beginning, as everyone and every human institution is -- between "Control and Chaos" ... we "boiled over" in the Civil War, to some degree in the 1960's, and it looks like we are at it again. 

I think the linked is a worthy read if only as a root for some books that appear to be good .., I have "The Metaphysical Club" on order. 

The other big division is between being a practicing Christian and not being so. Everyone has a "god", and for a much larger percentage of the population today, the "god" they believe they have is government -- sadly, they are wrong in that assumption. The Bible makes it clear, you either serve God or Satan, when you cease to regularly participate in the Divine Service with the Body and Blood, Satan, like the dog waiting for table scraps, is there to take your reins.  

Government is a particularly nasty false god, since it has the power of the sword and the purse. Our Constitution split government into three branches with the hope that "faction" -- jealousy of power, would limit the dangerous "Leviathan"  and keep government as the servant of the people, who were in turn servants of God. It was a wonderful architecture -- but it required a religious people in order to continue to operate.  

So we are sadly divided with no shared foundational belief as to what this territory of N America formerly the "United States", holds as "truth" -- clearly in this failed state, there is no such thing for a majority approaching "self evident" truth. We are supposed to be "woke" to the tragedy of "Critical Theory".

Well, at least it isn't critical "fact" ;-(.

Fake Sturgis Covid "News"

 https://reason.com/2020/09/09/no-the-sturgis-motorcycle-rally-didnt-spawn-250000-coronavirus-cases/?fbclid=IwAR0kOsLKAezeW63NDr2K4WrLTXF0hiPuuwNwHmikCeUQkC64_0gctsieWhE

Why can't we all get along? Formerly somewhat respectable sites like "The Hill" put up headlines like Sturgis cost public health 12 BILLION dollars! 

We live in the satanic mirror world of Austin Powers, though this is supposed to "reality". 

We are so far gone from any sort of sanity that the MSM picks that up and spreads it! And people still look at the MSM???? 

Reason does WAY more work than the sane require to understand this is less credible than UFOs ! 

The old supermarket tabloids were more credible. 

George Floyd Update

 https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/09/what-killed-george-floyd.php

If you are still not convinced that George Floyd died of a fentanyl OD, go to the linked and listen. 

When the Floyd death occurred, NPR "reported" on it thusly. 

The HEADLINE says "homicide", which the "NEW" medical examiner's report says ...

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner released a new autopsy report Monday, ruling George Floyd's death was a homicide. The office said Floyd's heart and lungs stopped functioning "while being restrained" by law enforcement officers.

The autopsy original said ... 

In charging documents released last week, prosecutors said that preliminary results from an autopsy "revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation."

As the podcast makes clear, there is no way this is "asphyxiation"  -- but it needs to be, because that fits the narrative that the Deep State / MSM / Democrat "party" is pushing. Apparently we need RIOTS as part of their takeover plan!

Voting Coup, War? 2020

 https://americanmind.org/essays/the-coming-coup/

The linked Anton article is EXCELLENT ... go there first! 

I've been concerned that US elections had become unreliable since the "apparently close one" of 2000. If you want to dig deeper, start here. 2000 likely wasn't all that close really ... just rigged. "Popular Vote" has been meaningless for a LONG time ... the big urban Democrat strongholds run up the numbers so big that they exceed the number of live voters. 244 counties in the US have more voters than live residents!

Naturally, the Democrats are VERY proud of their popular vote "wins" -- and if they "win" in 2020, those manufactured  totals are going to have even more impact as the Electoral College and the power of the Senate go away. 

If you are more a podcast sort, this will cover a lot of what is in the excellent linked article.  As those who know me will guess, I'm also reading Anton's book. 

The bottom line is:

• The Democrats, Deep State, MSM (but I repeat myself) are setting up to TAKE the presidency by ANY means, including military. 
• They have a lot of actions underway -- mail-in voting, already in place for 3/4ths of US voters and being pushed HARD for more, being just one. 
• Maybe most concerning -- and surprising, at least to me, is that the Democrats believe they have the military wired to support their coup (more on that in the linked)

From the linked ... 

Two more data points (among several that could be provided). Over the summer, two former Army officers, both prominent in the Democrat-aligned “national security” think tank world, wrote an open letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in which they urged him to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division to drag President Trump from the Oval Office at precisely 12:01 PM, January 20, 2021.

About a month later, Hillary Clinton declared publicly that Joe Biden should not concede the election “under any circumstances.” The old English major in me interprets the word “any” to mean “no,” “none,” “nada,” “niente,” “zero,” “zilch” “bupkis”…you get the idea.

This doesn’t sound like the rhetoric of a political party confident it will win an upcoming election.

For a sometimes cringeworthy "view from the left" on how much "wargaming" they are doing with the "Transition Integrity Project",   this is DEFINITELY worth a listen. 

God, guns and gold. (9mm ammo is a buck a round and over, IF you can find it!)

Since there already is violence, it is pretty certain there will be more -- the only real question is if the "privileged" are going to roll over without a fight. 

Vote Fraud 101

https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/four-stolen-elections-the-vulnerabilities-absentee-and-mail-ballots

Certainly since 2000, and really since at least 1960, anyone that has cared to look has KNOWN that vote fraud in the US is widespread and easy to do because of the antiquated and vulnerable ways our votes are counted. I covered the tip of this iceberg in the past ... 2016 being one example. 

ONE simple method if you have access to the ballots prior to counting ... or especially REcounting is to just see if the vote is for your candidate. If it is, then great, if not, you just also mark the vote as being for your candidate -- thus invalidating the vote. In any sort of "punch" system, this is extremely easy and efficient. Carefully stack a group of ballots and run a rod through the hole for your candidate -- if they voted for them, great! If not, you just invadated all the votes for the other candidate in the stack. 

One drawback of this is since the rod is not as crisp as the voting machine, it tends to create a lot of "hanging chads". Imagine that! 

In FL in 2000 in Broward county, there were apparently a lot of "confused people" (no doubt due to the infamous "butterfly ballot") that "over voted" -- voted for BOTH Bush and Gore!

Mail-in voting creates a lot more opportunity for ballot manipulation. Maybe MOST important, it delays the outcome of the election as the mailed ballots continue to trickle in, so the counting continues until the MSM, Deep State approved candidate finally "wins" as Al Franken did in MN in 2008. 

The link probably gives you more detail than you want, however at least scanning it will give more credence to how big the problem is. 

As Democrats fight tooth and nail against Voter ID and an FOR mail-in, you might get the idea that they are pretty sure where their bread is buttered! 

Remember, Canada has voter ID, as does Mexico 

The Mexican system would be a great model for how we might return trust US elections! 

Is Covid A Sign From God?

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2020/07/covid-19-as-a-sign-from-god/

As Veith reminds us, for believers, EVERYTHING is at least allowed, if not instigated by God. 

I like his concluding paragraphs: 

Those of us who had become so complacent, so “carnally secure,” are so no longer. We might catch the disease from an asymptomatic carrier and in two weeks be dead. And even if we don’t, our prosperity, our recreation, our social ties, our sense of well-being, are all threatened. We have taken so much for granted, but the epidemic shows just how contingent it all is, how fragile and transient these things are, and how we need to build our lives on something–and Someone–eternal. Becoming less secure in ourselves can drive us to Christ, who bore the evils and the suffering of the world, to bring us to an eternal happiness that is not of this world.

All of this is horrible for us to go through. But I suspect God believes that we need to go through it.

Growth requires "pain" ... see exercise, study, investment - delayed gratification, work, etc. 

Spiritual life / growth is no exception -- YES, justification is a free gift from God, sanctification is to some degree (hopefully often joyful), WORK! 

Hopefully Covid reminds us that we are not nearly as powerful / in control as we often think, and, that Christ IS both powerful and eternally in control!

Voter Fraud (2016 Discussion)

Donald Trump Voter Fraud Warning: He’s Right & Media Are Wrong to Dismiss It | National Review: 

Not a very long read, but a very worthy one. Voter fraud is WELL documented in A LOT of places, if it looks like a Democrat is going to lose, or if they DO lose, we even hear quite a lot about it all of a sudden. Remember Diebold?

Pretty much everyone else in the world that votes requires an ID to vote. Democrats are well on the way to making that unconstitutional here. This isn't really a very hard position to understand if you care to. The author of the column, John Fund, wrote a good book on the subject a good while back "Stealing Elections" ... you really don't want to look into it if you agree with BO that Trump is crazy to suggest such a thing. 

Obama Stopped Testing For H1N (Oct 2009)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/swine-flu-cases-overestimated/

The headline is interesting -- OVERestimated when the testing was stopped? 

"In late July [2009], the CDC abruptly advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, and stopped counting individual cases. The rationale given for the CDC guidance to forego testing and tracking individual cases was: why waste resources testing for H1N1 flu when the government has already confirmed there's an epidemic?

Some public health officials privately disagreed with the decision to stop testing and counting, telling CBS News that continued tracking of this new and possibly changing virus was important because H1N1 has a different epidemiology, affects younger people more than seasonal flu and has been shown to have a higher case fatality rate than other flu virus strains."

I'll leave it up to go off to the article and explore the fact that even though they were "certain" they had an epidemic, and therefore could stop testng?, their testing wasn't going as expected -- way too many negative tests!

While we waited for CDC to provide the data, which it eventually did, we asked all 50 states for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico.

Also interesting is the guidance to keep on vaccinating for H1N1 even when it is clear there are significant uncertainties -- and how many are infected is very clearly in doubt given that we are "sure it is an epidemic", AND a lot of our tests are negative.

However, the CDC recommendation for those who had "probable" or "presumed" H1N1 flu to go ahead and get vaccinated anyway means the relatively small proportion of those who actually did have H1N1 flu will be getting the vaccine unnecessarily. This exposes them to rare but significant side effects, such as paralysis from Guillain-Barre syndrome.

It also uses up vaccine, which is said to be in short supply. The CDC was hoping to have shipped 40 million doses by the end of October, but only about 30 million doses will be available this month.

The CDC did not respond to questions from CBS News for this report.

Ah, good old Guillain-Barre syndrome -- an apparition from my Swine Flu college youth! 

We aren't too certain of what is going on here, but let's go ahead  and use an experimental vaccine on 40 million people anyway. Hey, what could go wrong? 

Mask Effectiveness, Statistical Manipulation, Covid Hype

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/08/covid-confusion-is-largely-intentional.php

Go read it ... short answer: 

•  Lots of evidence that masks don't work, but we are being manipulated. by statistical malpractice to think they do.
• You are being lied to! Intentionally, at all levels if government / media. 

Why? Because government at all levels screwed up massively, and ALL the "elite" worldwide want you to be biased in favor of "trust in me"! The Deep State is "universal" ... the "One True State (religion).

Following the news on a daily basis, it is hard to escape the conclusion that governments at all levels, along with more or less the entire journalism industry, are intentionally trying to convey an inflated impression of the impact of the Wuhan virus. Further, there is a growing body of empirical evidence, both nationally and internationally, that strongly suggests the cataclysmic shutdowns that have been imposed by governments both here and abroad have been more or less useless. Our governments have made mistakes that have resulted in the devastation of many millions of lives, and our reporters and editors want to keep that fact quiet. This isn’t surprising, of course: we all know what side they are on.