Monthly Archives: January 2015

You do need friends in this world

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canada israel stampjpeg

Obama, unlike anyone else in his position, is no lame-duck President. The ruin of the West is his deliberate aim and he has two more years to do no end of damage. He cares absolutely nothing about the Democrat Party or the effect his actions will have on Congress. He is a law unto himself, and will not be constrained by any of the normal considerations of party and country.

He would like nothing better as his final legacy of eight years of foreign policy than to see the destruction of Israel. The political calculation that undoubtedly lay behind Netanyahu’s decision to accept the invitation to address the American Congress in March with certainty factored in Obama’s furious response. The story heading is in no way an exaggeration: Obama fuming at Netanyahu invitation to Congress, plans retaliation

“Netanyahu spat in our face. There will be a price.” With these words, an unnamed Obama administration official declared war on Israel’s prime minister in an interview with the left0wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Smarting at being blindsided by the invitation to address a joint session of Congress and advocate a sanctions bill on Iran to kick in if the current round of negotiations fails, Obama is letting his anti-Israel feelings show more openly than ever before.

Haaretz also reports that Obama has been warning Netanyahu for ten days to not lobby Congress on the bipartisan sanctions bill:

U.S. President Barack Obama has demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stop encouraging U.S. senators and congressmen to advance new sanctions legislation against Iran.

A senior American official, who asked to remain anonymous due to the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue, said Obama gave Netanyahu this message during a telephone call on Monday, January 12.

There is obviously no principle, only political convenience behind this demand, since Obama stood by as British PM Cameron announced to the world that he was lobbying U.S. senators on the same bill, only in the opposite direction.

That the Israeli cabinet chose to allow Netanyahu to speak to Congress shows how desperate they are. There is a war coming in the Middle East. How Israel will survive in the face of the active hostility of the American administration is the most delicate calculation. I hope they know what they are doing. I hope this is not desperation in the face of every other avenue having been followed. Canada’s friendship with Israel is a blessing, similar to Australia’s. But such friendships are transitory, with the left so fanatically anti-semitic, under the pretext of being anti-Zionist.

“This isn’t ISIS. No one’s dying.”

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I do love North American football, the game I grew up with, played and watched. There is, I must confess, nothing like it. But there is now a scandal overtaking the Superbowl that is quite astonishing. In the conference final for the AFC, the game balls used by Boston were underinflated which apparently makes them easier to catch. And let me tell you, catching a football thrown by a real quarterback is a bracing experience – try catching a leather-covered brick thrown at you at full speed from about ten yards. I can well believe that underinflation (which is different from deflation) can be a genuine benefit.

No one is owning up to anything. But I do have to say that if the single most important tool of your trade is a football, you will know what it ought to feel like the moment you pick it up. If it’s not quite 13 pounds per square inch – that is, if it doesn’t feel like a leather-covered brick – you will know, as will all of the people who the ball is being thrown to. Had Boston not won the previous game 45-7, the story would be even more intense, but with the score so one-sided, nothing else to say. And since each team uses its own ball, the other team’s quarterback would not have had the same advantage. And since the referees check the game ball before it goes into play, and are kept separate the entire time, for the balls to have been underinflated would require a conspiracy of some proportion.

Nevertheless, what interested me this morning was this comment by the Boston Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady:

“This isn’t ISIS,” Brady said. “No one’s dying.”

Sometimes it troubles me that I can wile the hours away on such frivolity as such things as grand finals, test matches, the World Series and of course, North American football while the world is going to hell at every turn. But if Tom Brady can see the relative significance of such things, so can I.

Go Pats!

Personal Explanation and Some Follow Up: I’ve just come home from reading The Herald Sun which has as its main front page story of the day, how England’s one-day cricket captain is being blackmailed. I have checked the front pages of The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The La Times and The Washington Post. All have this story on the front page, and it will no doubt rage for at least another week.

The headline lead story on Drudge is “NFL ON THE BRINK” and comes with this picture.

nfl footy

Cheating in sport is not unknown. The referees pick up the ball on every play, so it is even possible (remotely) that Brady never noticed, since they didn’t seem to notice. But it is not the end of the world as we know it, there are other events going on that are more important. I find Brady’s sanity and sense of proportion in the midst of it all quite alluring.

FUTHER UPDATE: John Hinderaker at Powerline has also bought into this, where he can see things right from inside the US. He wrote:

Over the years, some have argued that not having to care about politics is a luxury that Americans are able to enjoy because of our stable democracy and effectively guaranteed freedoms. There is some truth to that. Still, it is hard to believe it is a good thing that sports arouse more passion, attract more attention, and are more often the subject of intelligent discussion than politics. If Americans knew as much about Republicans and Democrats as they do about Seahawks and Patriots, wouldn’t the country be better off? One would think so.

In his press conference this afternoon, Tom Brady – note that there is no need to identify him (QB-NE) the way we do with politicians (R-TX) – said of the football inflation controversy, “This isn’t ISIS, you know, no one’s dying.” To me that seems like a voice of sanity, but football fans were unconvinced. At the moment, at least, “Who deflated the footballs?” is a more compelling question than “Will ISIS take Baghdad?” And eight years after the event, there are still more people who consider Bill Belichick a villain for taping opposing coaches than who consider Barack Obama a villain for violating the Constitution.

Priorities. It is all a matter of priorities.

Only the completely credulous can be atheists

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This arrived in my mail box from someone named Jeff Allen, and I am grateful for his posting. I cannot see how this points towards any particular religion as the answer to our origins, but it does make me sit in wonder of it all and how we came into being. The time frames alone defeat me in making sense of it. But to think that this was a self-creating universe, and everything that had to happen for us to be all happened by chance, is asking me to believe the impossible. I have seen other lists like this, but this one seems particularly fine and very readable. I might just mention that I have been reading basic texts on and histories of chemistry because what we have worked out about the mechanism of the world feels like an algorithm. Two hydrogen atoms plus one oxygen atom and we have water. Sure, totally obvious, which is why it took 2500 years to work it out. Anyway, Mr Allen’s list.

Does God exist? The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today. Many examples showing God’s design could be given, possibly with no end. But here are a few:

1. The Earth…its size is perfect.

The Earth’s size and corresponding gravity holds a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, only extending about 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter (R.E.D. Clark, Creation (London: Tyndale Press, 1946), p. 20). Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life.

The Earth is located the right distance from the sun. Consider the temperature swings we encounter, roughly -30 degrees to +120 degrees. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. If it were any closer, we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth’s position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. The Earth remains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67,000 mph. It is also rotating on its axis, allowing the entire surface of the Earth to be properly warmed and cooled every day.

And our moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for its gravitational pull. The moon creates important ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate, and yet our massive oceans are restrained from spilling over across the continents (The Wonders of God’s Creation, Moody Institute of Science, Chicago, IL).

2. Does God exist? The universe had a start – what caused it?

Scientists are convinced that our universe began with one enormous explosion of energy and light, which we now call the Big Bang. This was the singular start to everything that exists: the beginning of the universe, the start of space, and even the initial start of time itself.

Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-described agnostic, stated, “The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion at the moment of the cosmic explosion… The Universe flashed into being, and we cannot find out what caused that to happen.”Robert Jastrow; “Message from Professor Robert Jastrow”; LeaderU.com; 2002.

Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in Physics, said at the moment of this explosion, “the universe was about a hundred thousand million degrees Centigrade…and the universe was filled with light” [Steven Weinberg; The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe; (Basic Books,1988); p 5.].

The universe has not always existed. It had a start…and what caused that? Scientists have no explanation for the sudden explosion of light and matter.
If I told you that the watch on my wrist was designed by a team of engineers, skillfully crafted by a team of highly trained technicians, sent to a jobber, and from there to the store where my wife bought it as a gift for me, would you believe me?

Well, let me tell you what really happened: Millions and millions of years ago, there were atoms freely floating through the universe. Cosmic winds drew them together, clustering them into various materials: silicon, crystals, metals, and other various parts. Through the random effects of chance, over millions of years, of course, these various elements were thrown together into his interesting device that now adorns my wrist, and it has been keeping accurate time ever since!

Ridiculous, isn’t it. The notion that this complex little device “happened” by the caprice of chance alone is, of course, absurd. It is obviously the object of careful and skillful design. Strange that we reject the notion that this watch happened by accident, yet it is vastly simpler than the wrist upon which it resides.

The watch is a simple “open loop” design. The wrist is a “closed loop” servo system, which is vastly more sophisticated. It adjusts to ambient conditions, fights off invaders, even repairs itself and involves design elements we are only just now beginning to understand! Why is it that we require a designer to explain the origin of the watch, yet are willing to ascribe the biological systems which it adorns chance?

3. Does God exist? Design parameters of the universe.

The limits and parameters of the universe have come within the measuring capacity of astronomers and physicists, the design characteristics of the universe are being examined and acknowledged. Astronomers have discovered that the characteristics and parameters of the universe, and our solar system are so finely tuned to support life that nothing less than a personal, intelligent Creator can explain the degree of the universe being fine-tuned It requires power and purpose.

Approximately two dozen parameters of the universe have been identified that must be carefully fixed in order for any kind of conceivable life to exist at any time in the history of the universe. Here are a few examples of these given below.

1. Gravitational coupling constant. If larger: no stars less than 1.4 solar masses, hence short stellar life spans. If smaller: no stars more than 0.8 solar masses, hence no heavy element production.

2. Strong nuclear force coupling constant. If larger: no hydrogen; nuclei essential for life are unstable. If smaller: no elements other than hydrogen

3. Electromagnetic coupling constant. If larger: no chemical bonding; elements more massive than boron are unstable to fission. If smaller: no chemical bonding.

4. Ratio of protons to electrons. If larger: electromagnetism dominates gravity preventing galaxy, star and planet formation. If smaller: electromagnetism dominates gravity preventing galaxy, star, and planet formation.

5. Ratio of electron to proton mass. If larger: no chemical bonding. If smaller: no chemical bonding.

6. Expansion rate of the universe. If larger: no galaxy formation. If smaller: universe collapse prior to star formation.

7. Entropy level of the universe. If larger: no star condensation within the proto-galaxies. If smaller: no proto-galaxy formation.

8. Mass density of the universe. If larger: too much deuterium from big bang, hence stars burn too rapidly. If smaller: no helium from big bang, hence not enough heavy elements.

9. Age of the universe. If older: no solar-type stars in a stable burning phase in the right part of the galaxy. If younger: solar-type stars in a stable burning phase would not yet have formed.

10. Average distance between stars. If larger: heavy elements density too thin for rocky planet production. If smaller: planetary orbits become destabilized.

11. Solar luminosity. If increases too soon: runaway green house effect. If increases too late: frozen oceans.

12. Fine structure constant (a function of three other fundamental constants, Planck’s constant, the velocity of light, and the electron charge each which, therefore, must be fine-tuned) If larger: no stars more than 0.7 solar masses, if smaller: not stars less than 1.8 solar masses.

13. Carbon to Oxygen energy level ratio. If larger: insufficient oxygen. If smaller: insufficient carbon.

14. Decay rate of proton. If greater: life would be exterminated by the release of radiation. If smaller: insufficient matter in the universe for life.

The degree of the universe being fine-tuned for many of these parameters is utterly amazing. For example, if the strong nuclear force were even two percent stronger or two percent weaker, the universe would never be able to support life. More astounding yet, the ground state energies for He, Be, C, and O cannot be higher or lower with respect to each other by more than four percent without yielding a universe with insufficient oxygen and/or carbon for any kind of life. The expansion rate of the universe is even more sensitive, it must be fine-tuned to an accuracy of one part in 1055! Clearly some ingenious Designer must be involved in the physics of the universe.

4. Does God exist? Origin of life

Life. What is it? Where did it come from? What makes it different from dust, the air and the water on earth? From the time we humans achieve self awareness there develops a fascination with the things that crawl, slither, walk, swim and fly. This fascination with the “living protoplasm” on earth is basic to our constitution. This fascination with living things leads us all to the point when we ask “where did they come from?” The question of the origin of life has been debated by philosophers, theologians, scientists for thousands of years and is at the very core of the debate between the atheists and the creationists. Creationists see the creation of life as powerful, visible, manifestation of an awesome designer, creator, God. To the creationist, life is the product of the greatest chemist, biologists, mathematician and engineer in or out of the universe! To the atheist, life is viewed as incredibly lucky result of billions of years and countless violations of the laws of nature acting on non-living matter. As some have put it, life is “The fortuitous occurrence of accidental circumstances.”

Atheists assume that 3 to 4 billion years ago, non-living, inanimate, inorganic matter developed into highly complex living organism, by random chance. No one knows where it happened, but it generally assumed to have occurred somewhere on earth, in a “primordial ooze”, near hot oceanic vents or some shallow tidal pool. No designer, no blue prints, no instructions, no concept or purpose are allowed in the evolutionary scenario of the origin of life. Only the laws of nature, random chance and long periods of time are allowed to act on the raw materials of life.

5. Does God exist? The DNA code informs, programs a cell’s behavior.

All instruction, all teaching, all training comes with intent. Someone who writes an instruction manual does so with purpose. Did you know that in every cell of our bodies there exists a very detailed instruction code, much like a miniature computer program? As you may know, a computer program is made up of ones and zeros, like this: 110010101011000. The way they are arranged tell the computer program what to do. The DNA code in each of our cells is very similar. It’s made up of four chemicals that scientists abbreviate as A, T, G, and C. These are arranged in the human cell like this: CGTGTGACTCGCTCCTGAT and so on. There are three billion of these letters in every human cell!

Well, just like you can program your phone to beep for specific reasons, DNA instructs the cell. DNA is a three-billion-lettered program telling the cell to act in a certain way. It is a full instruction manual.

Why is this so amazing? One has to ask….how did this information program wind up in each human cell? These are not just chemicals. These are chemicals that instruct, that code in a very detailed way exactly how the person’s body should develop.

Natural, biological causes are completely lacking as an explanation when programmed information is involved. You cannot find instruction, precise information like this, without someone intentionally constructing it.

6. Does God exist? Encyclopedia on a Pinhead: Chance or design?

At the moment of conception, a fertilized human egg is about the size of a pin head. Yet, it contains information equivalent to about six billion “chemical letters.” This is enough information to fill 1000 books, 500 pages thick with print so small you would need a microscope to read it! If all the DNA chemical “letters” in the human body were printed in books, it is estimated they would will the Grand Canyon 50 times!

The information on the DNA molecule is transferred to RNA and ultimately to proteins in the form of structural and functional proteins. A fundamental dilemma for the evolution theory is that the duplication and translation of the information on the DNA molecule requires the employment of proteins. However, living cells cannot make proteins until the DNA replication and translation machinery is in place! The only rational explanation for this dilemma is that the protein production and DNA replication and translation machinery system arose simultaneously! This could only happen by design.

Question: Would a DNA molecule that arose by chance possess any information, codes, programs, or instructions? According to the basic principles of information theory the answer is clearly NO!

7. Does God exist? A Complex Engineering Puzzle

Suppose you were asked to take two long strands of fisherman’s monofilament line, 125 miles long, then form it into a double helix structure and neatly fold and pack this line so it would fit into a basketball.

Furthermore, you would need to ensure that the double helix could be unzipped and duplicated along the length of this line, and the duplicate copy removed, all without tangling the line. Possible? This is directly analogous to what happens in the billions of cells in your body every day. Scale the basketball down to the size of a human cell and the line scales down to six feet of DNA.

All of this DNA must be packed so the regulatory proteins that control making copies of the DNA have access to it. The DNA packing process is both complex and elegant and is so efficient that it achieves a reduction in length of DNA by a factor of one million. When the cell needs to divide, the entire length of DNA must be split apart, duplicated and repackaged for each daughter cell. No one knows exactly how cells solve this topological nightmare, but the solution clearly starts with the special spools on which the DNA is wound.

Each spool carries two “turns” of DNA, and the spools themselves are stacked together in groups of six or eight. The human cell uses about 25 million of them to keep its DNA under control. DNA is wound around histones to form nucleosomes. These are organized into solenoids, which in turn compose chromatin loops. Each element in this complex, yet highly organized arrangement is carefully designed to play a key role in the cell replication process.

The next phase of economic stagnation

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The disastrous consequences of Keynesian thinking never seems to subside, the next catastrophe being the introduction of Quantitative Easing by the ECB. The following is an exchange of views under the heading, Eurozone prepares for QE. Bootle is your Keynesian, and when it comes down to it, can only think in terms of aggregate demand. The Europeans, like the Americans and the Japanese, and I guess pretty well everyone else, generally cannot think outside of macro aggregates. They seem to have no understanding of how a market economy slowly, but ever-so surely, knits itself back together, if the government would only stop messing with the parameters under which businesses must operate. The following is a bit long-winded, but since we are heading into the next phase of economic stagnation, it is worth understanding the kind of macro thinking behind it.

The ECB is preparing to announce a huge stimulus programme. We hear diverging views from the chief economist at one of Germany’s largest banks Commerzbank Joerg Kraemer and leading British economist Roger Bootle.

KRAEMER: I think that deflation is one of the most abused terms in economic policy discussions. Because there is no real threat from deflation. The Bank for International Settlement made it clear over a study of 150 years that a mild decline in prices is no problem for real GDP growth, and especially in the eurozone. The only reason why we have a negative inflation rate is the decline in oil price, but the decline in oil price is good for the economy. And if you strip out oil and look at the underlying core inflation at 0.8% is also low, but this is primarily caused by the fact that in some peripheral countries such as Spain, Portugal and Ireland, firms have cut their unit labour costs, they regained their price competitiveness and now they pass on a part of the cost reduction onto their customers in the form of slightly falling consumer prices, but again this is GOOD deflation because it goes hand-in-hand with an increase in profit margins and this is nothing to worry about, but nevertheless the negative inflation rate is used by the doves on the ECB council as an argument to go for QE which – in the end – will not change the picture of low inflation and low growth, but will primarily help the finance ministers of the highly indebted countries and their banks, which had bought a lot of government bonds, for example Spanish banks have bought roughly one-third of the outstanding volumes of Spanish government bonds.

BOOTLE: I think this is a dramatic misjudgment and it’s one that people coming from Germany are rather inclined to make with German history behind them because of course, the great fear in Germany – understandably – is inflation. Other countries have suffered significantly from deflation. As to the idea that the BIS concluded that over the last 150 years, deflation has been a good thing, well I wonder where they’ve been all that time. I mean, it all depends quite frankly on what the circumstances are.

Now, when you’ve got an economy that isn’t that heavily indebted, that isn’t super-sensitive to every little jot and tittle of the latest CPI figures, that isn’t very financially sophisticated, then yes, probably falling prices no one notices frankly and even know what’s going on. But when you move to the sort of economy we’ve got in today, where you have very heavy levels of debt, both government and private sector, we’ve got the markets all agog to see what’s happening to the CPI, I think is potentially quite dangerous to have a situation where prices are falling and are likely to fall year after year. Now we are not quite there yet really because at the moment all I think that’s happened in Europe is really the effect of a one-off drop in oil prices, which isn’t really if you like genuine deflation. But the danger is we might move to that.

KRAEMER: The Bank for International Settlements also showed that the slight decline in the Japanese consumer price index over the past 14 years did not change the picture that per capita GDP in Japan has grown roughly by the same amount than per capita GDP in the U.S. As long as consumer prices decline only mildly, this is not a big problem. We had this, for example, in the second half of the 19th century, during the gold standard, we had several periods of mild deflation, which had no negative impact on real GDP. I think the point is when you try to fight, when you try to avoid the inevitable, low inflation, low growth environment, after the burst of a debt bubble, then you only fuel asset price inflation.

BOOTLE: Let me be clear. I am not the greatest fan of quantitative easing in the sense that I don’t think it’s going to cure the European malaise, much of which has real rather than monetary foundations. It’s not the answer to a maiden’s prayers. It’s not a magic wand and moreover, the evidence of its effectiveness in other countries is not settled. In Japan it didn’t do very much good for a long time. In the United States and the UK it appears to have done some good quite how much we don’t know. The point is there is not much else in the locker. There is not much else you can do. If you’re in a situation where aggregate demand is very weak and that’s a position I think the eurozone is in and you are in danger of slipping into the sort of deflation which I at least and some other judges think is pretty damaging, then this is a mechanism for fending that danger off. And I have to say, I don’t think that there will be much impact from quantitative easing within the Eurozone, apart from through the exchange rate. In driving the exchange rate lower that’s going to help to boost eurozone net exports. It will boost aggregate demand. It will tend to keep up the price level. On balance I think those are pretty good things to be aiming at.

No one ever mentions markets, profits or entrepreneurs in any discussion of the economy. Economic theory has become junk science.

“Straight out of Tehran”

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Senate DEMOCRAT Blasts Obama Admin For Iran Talking Points “Straight Out Of Tehran” (January 21, 2015). There is a new world dawning, and it is arriving before January 2017. More on Obama and Iran from John Hinderaker at Powerline, where he concludes:

Barack Obama must love State of the Union speeches: once a year, he can describe the world as he wishes it were, and newspapers will report on it as though he were not delusional.

Free speech is not part of a suicide pact

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There is an interesting argument that I think belongs to Leo Strauss, in which he says many of the great philosophers cannot be read straight, but must be seen to have written in a kind of code, because to say exactly what they meant would have landed them in major difficulty. I am not amongst the great philosophers, but I know the feeling. There are some things I don’t say, and others that are said in a way that is intended to diminish the dangers such thoughts must cause. No one is infinitely brave. We all wish to see another day and to continue earning our pitiful incomes and leading our lives without interruption. But we know the kind of world we are in, and hope to shape things for the better. And so we write, but on some things are not entirely straightforward. But to depend on others to see our intended irony, or to deduce what we really mean when we have written words that are intentionally obscure, is, I know, ridiculous.

I have gone back to read William Buckley’s God & Man at Yale which is astonishing, not just because he was 24 when he wrote the book in 1950, but mostly because it speaks to our own times with perfect foresight. He was writing about one form of totalitarianism while we are dealing with another. But his Chapter 4 on “The Superstitions of ‘Academic Freedom'” is so exactly stated that you would think he was observing us today. I found much of it astonishing, but this was right to the point:

“Democracy may not be truth, but so far as at least Yale University is concerned, it is the nearest thing to truth that we possess, so that while a faculty member is perfectly free to point out the limitations, defects, and weaknesses of democracy, as is right and proper, he is not privileged, at the margin, to advocate the abolition of democracy in favour of totalitarianism.” [p. 155]

From which he went on to say:

“Truth does not necessarily vanquish. Truth does not carry within it an antitoxin to falsehood. . . . Truth can win only where people are temperamentally and intellectually disposed to side with it, for the mere act of recognizing it as such does not entail the wilful act of attaching allegiance to it” [p. 157].

His point being that there is right and wrong, and it is our duty to stand up for what is right, and suppress what is unarguably wrong. So one more quote, and then that’s that:

“I hasten to dissociate myself from the school of thought, largely staffed by conservatives, that believes teachers ought to be ‘at all times neutral.’ Where values are concerned, effective teaching is difficult, if not impossible, in the context of neutrality; and further, I believe such a policy to be a lazy denial of educational responsibility.

“I believe, therefore, that the attitude of the teacher ought to reveal itself, and that, assuming the overseers of the university in question to have embraced democracy, individualism and religion, the attitudes of the faculty ought to conform to the university’s.” [p 181]

A wholly different world, since there is little doubt democracy, individualism, and religion, as Buckley understood them, are today opposed by administrations and faculty alike.

And while I’m at it I might mention this very long, but incredibly insightful, post put up online the other day: C. S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism by David J. Theroux. You can read the text, or if you prefer, watch the video below which is the better option.

I will just include this from the last part of the address since I think it is so pertinent to the way that economics is now studied and taught. It’s a trivial example, as these things go, but not without serious significance:

For Lewis, science should be a quest for knowledge, and his concern was that in the modern era science is too often used instead as a quest by some for power over others. Lewis did not dispute that science is an immensely important tool to understand the natural world, but his larger point is that science cannot tell us anything that is ultimately important regarding what choices we should make. In other words, Lewis shows that “what is” does not indicate “what ought” to be. Scientists on their own are not able to address moral ethics, and all social and political questions are exclusively questions of morality. Lewis furthermore viewed as nonscience, or scientism, all those disciplines that attempt to replicate the scientific method to analyze man: “[T]he new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge. . . . If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. . . . Technocracy is the form to which a planned society must tend. Now I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside their special subjects. Let scientists tell us about science. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man’s opinion no added value” (“Is Progress Possible?” pp. 314-15).

But do read (or watch) it all.

American sniper, female division, goes to Congress

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This is Joni Ernst’s reply to Obama’s State of the Union speech. It’s cornpone but effective. She is the newly elected Senator from Iowa and utterly Tea Party, Sarah Palin endorsed even. These are some rueful comments from The Washington Post:

By drawing on her uncommon, interesting personal story as an Iowa farmgirl and Army National Guard combat veteran, and relating to her fellow Iowans, Ernst captured one of the most reliably liberal Senate seats in the country — one that had been held by now-retired Democratic senator Tom Harkin for 30 years. While Ernst’s opponent ridiculed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for being a farmer, Ernst embraced her roots and produced one of the most memorable, viral campaign ads of the 2014 cycle.

But even more than losing a critical Senate seat, Democrats are frightened by Ernst because she is a woman who has a strong conservative philosophy and message that appeals to a lot of people. Democrats can’t dismiss Ernst as a token, because she didn’t run as one. Everything about her biography and style blunts the Democrats’ usual criticisms of conservative women.

Now when Hillary Clinton comes to visit Iowa, rather than having a friendly liberal trial lawyer senator by her side, she will be bracketed by Ernst — who no doubt will hold Clinton’s feet to the fire. It will be a woman-to-woman matchup, so the Democrats’ usual pablum about a GOP “war on women” just won’t work.

It need hardly be mentioned that Obama’s speech was deceitful from end to end, or that the media will pick him up on none of it. But this was an effective reply, given the nature of the politics of the US at the present time.

AND BY THE WAY: I have just discovered the following about Chris Kyle, the actual American Sniper:

Kyle also served as the personal bodyguard for Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor, at many points throughout her political career, including at the screening of Breitbart News Network Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon’s film about her political rise: “The Undefeated.”

If you really want to understand the political views of someone else, ask them about Sarah Palin. The most perfect political-moron detector I have yet discovered.

They certainly will if they can

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The title is self-explanatory of the article, GERMAN EMBED REPORTER: ISIS PLANS ON KILLING ‘HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS’ IN ‘RELIGIOUS CLEANSING’. This is the whole article:

Jurgen Todenhofer, the first Western reporter to embed with Islamic State fighters and not be killed in the process, spoke to Al Jazeera about his time with the terror group.

Todenhofer lived side by side with the jihadist fighters for ten days in the Islamic State-stronghold city of Mosul, Iraq. He was accompanied only by his son, who served as his cameraman.

“I always asked them about the value of mercy in Islam,” but “I didn’t see any mercy in their behavior,” explained Todenhofer. He added, “Something that I don’t understand at all is the enthusiasm in their plan of religious cleansing, planning to kill the non-believers… They also will kill Muslim democrats because they believe that non-ISIL-Muslims put the laws of human beings above the commandments of God.”

The German reporter then elaborated on how shocked he was about how “willing to kill” the ISIS fighters are. He said that they were ready to commit genocide. “They were talking about [killing] hundreds of millions. They were enthusiastic about it, and I just cannot understand that,” said Todenhofer

He warned that the Islamic State “is much stronger than we think,” and that their recruiting has brought motivated jihadis from across the globe. “Each day, hundreds of new enthusiastic fighters are arriving,” explained Todenhofer. “There is an incredible enthusiasm that I have never seen in any other war zones I have been to.”

The journalist asserted that the U.S.-led bombing campaign was not going to stop the Islamic State and its continuing jihad. He told Al Jazeera that he believed the terror group would only be stopped if fellow Sunni Iraqis would rise up against them.

And then there’s this, Suppose Islam Had a Holocaust and No One Noticed, in which we find a good deal of other things, among which he says the following:

“We will conquer Europe one day. It is not a question of (if) we will conquer Europe, just a matter of when that will happen,” an Islamic State spokesman had warned. “The Europeans need to know that when we come, it will not be in a nice way. It will be with our weapons.”

“Those who do not convert to Islam or pay the Islamic tax will be killed.”

Imagine that the burning towns and villages aren’t in Nigeria or Syria. Imagine them in France or Sweden. It’s not that great of a leap from armed cells carrying out attacks to a militia capturing entire towns and villages. They’re different phases in the same conflict. [My emphasis]

The epitaph of our civilization foretold?

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This is a note I have sent to the Societies for the History of Economics in relation to the Harvard final year economics exam. It is based around a truly insightful comment by Roger.

I have put the Harvard final economics exam up on my blog and have had a quite penetrating issue raised. This is what was written:

Question 5 is a particularly interesting one, given it was set 60 years ago and we are now able to be a “future historian”.

This was the question he was referring to, most of which consisted of a quotation:

5. “Future historians may well write the epitaph of our civilization as follows:

From freedom and science came rapid growth and change.
From rapid growth and change came economic instability.
From instability came demands which ended growth and change.
Ending growth and change ended science and freedom.”

Discuss this alleged conflict between economic growth and measures to secure economic stability. In your answer refer to the views of some of the great economists, for example, Schumpeter and Keynes, on this problem.

I might add that the quote is from David McCord Wright, in his 1948 publication, Democracy and Progress (p 81). What interests me, as was recognised in the blog comment, is that we are now in the position as historians some 67 years since the quote was published, and 62 years since the final exam on which it was found, to provide at least a tentative answer to the question. It is certainly arguable that we are at the third phase – “from instability came demands which ended growth and change” – and it is not impossible to wonder whether we may be seeing the start of the fourth – “ending growth and change ended science and freedom”. I therefore wonder how we might answer this same question today.