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CULTURE, INTEGRITY, AND QUESTIONING AUTHORITY |
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Written by Dr. Joel Wade
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Friday, 14 December 2012 |
If you want to have your
strongest and most positive impact on your culture, the way to do it is to live
with integrity - meaning that you know your principles, and you live by them
and speak from them.
There are solitary creatures
like pandas and bumblebees; there are social animals like wolves and
wildebeests; but we are the only living creatures on earth who have culture. Culture is created when your
knowledge, wisdom, and innovations can be transmitted and have an impact over
time and space, beyond your immediate influence.
With culture, when a problem
is solved by one person, it has the possibility of being solved forever, and
throughout the entire culture; which means that the culture can change in significant
ways over time. Let's talk about how you can have an impact on it.
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THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS’ RETRIBUTION ON US FOR OBAMA |
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Written by Jack Kelly
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Friday, 14 December 2012 |
Most
of us learn -- eventually -- from experience.
That's the hard way. We'd avoid a
lot of pain if we learned more from the experience of others.
To
learn from the experience of others is the reason why we study history. But history isn't taught much any more in our
public schools, or in our colleges and universities. It shows.
History
doesn't ever repeat itself, exactly. But
as Mark Twain noted, it rhymes. History
rhymes because people the world over are more like than unlike each other, and
because people haven't changed all that much over the millennia. We have the same virtues and the same vices
as the ancient Greeks and Romans. The
same passions motivate us. So we make
essentially the same mistakes, over and over again.
In
an earlier column, I mentioned a favorite poem, "The Gods of the Copybook
Headings," by my favorite poet, Rudyard Kipling. To those who don't study history, it must
seem eerie how, writing in 1919, Kipling captured the essence of the Obama
administration.
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THE BURSTING OF THE COLLEGE BUBBLE IS A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY |
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Written by Jack Kelly
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Tuesday, 11 December 2012 |
The
average cost of a year at a public university last year was $17,131, according
to the College Board. For a year at a
private college, the average cost was $38,589.
Most of the middle class would already be priced out, were it not for
the federal student loan program, which is of far greater benefit to faculty
and staff.
Student debt has increased 74
percent since the 2008 recession began, according to a Citibank study, but only
about half of recent graduates have found jobs.
There are as many student loan debtors as adults with bachelor's
degrees.
The
90 day delinquency rate on student loan repayment has "gone
parabolic." If the economy falls
back into recession next year, soaring
defaults will skyrocket.
The
college bubble is about to burst. When
it does, the carnage will be awesome - and so will be the opportunities to
reform higher education and liberal dominance of it.
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WEEKLY MIND FOOD 12/12/12 |
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Written by Joe Katzman
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Wednesday, 12 December 2012 |
Weekly Mind Food aims to show you what TTPers without a
regular column, but with deep expertise in key fields, are paying
attention to. We call ourselves TTP's Team B. Note the "Weekly
Mind Food" category in the left side-bar now, which will have
all our issues. They're Free Access, as
are all the linked articles, so feel free to read them at your leisure
- and to mail the article's URL to your friends!
Thanks to calgarydave, edd7, hardcharger, and of course
prosenberg for their contributions this week. Our themes this week
involve Questioning Authority, from the solution of jury nullification,
to an extended set on the critical mechanisms of tagging and branding
in the culture, to cypherpunks & the surveillance state.
Plus
an exploration of culture that includes the real meaning of Channukah,
and the usual set of insights into developments at home and abroad.
It's a very strong set, but it's the videos that really rock the WMF house
down this week, including some truly mind-blowing aerial combats.
To simplify your scans, I've divided the links into sections:
Your weekly Copybook Heading, plus Economos
(global economy), Ekpolitismos (culture
& civilization), Polis (domestic
politics), Techne Logos (tech), and Stratiootika
(geopolitics & military), plus 1 Good News This
Week item to brighten your week and/or make you better.
Enjoy!
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REGULATORY GROWTH MEANS BUSINESS DEATH |
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Written by Richard Rahn
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Tuesday, 11 December 2012 |
Last week, Christine Jacobs, the CEO of Theragenics Corp., a public company
listed on the New York Stock Exchange that makes medical devices and is
involved in cutting-edge cancer cures, wrote a letter to President Obama
explaining why it was necessary to "begin moving our U.S. manufacturing to
Costa Rica."
The power players in Washington still do not get that many
businesses are being forced to flee America or just plain shut down because it
is no longer profitable or too risky to continue to do business in the
historical home of entrepreneurial capitalism.
Businesses operating in the United States, and even
businesses outside of the country that have a small nexus with the U.S., are
going to be hit with a slew of expensive job- and growth-destroying taxes and
regulations beginning the first of the new year, even if the "fiscal
cliff" is avoided.
The more government regulation grows, the more business in America dies.
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EUROPE HAS A COVENANT WITH DEATH |
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Written by Giulio Meotti
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Wednesday, 12 December 2012 |
The collapse has begun. Nihilism thrives in Europe.
A new book written by Alejandro Macarrón Larumbe, El
Suicidio Demográfico de España" (The
Demographic Suicide of Spain - although in Spanish, here
is a Power Point summary in English) delivers a death sentence for Europe.
The German giant is also ditching. The weekly Der Spiegel has a long
article titled "A
Land without Children." The
European Union, which offers its citizens every comfort, with first-rate
health care, long holidays and sit-down lunches, protected jobs and generous
welfare, has the world's lowest fertility rate (1.47 children per woman) and
the highest percentage of a population that is over 65 years old
(16.4 per cent of the population in the EU).
Meanwhile, nearly one in three pregnancies in
Europe is terminated by abortion, according to the Gutmacher Institute in
the US, and all over Europe gay marriage is advancing (France and UK will soon
approve it). The model is Spain, where you have no more "father" and
"mother", but Parent (progenitor) A, and Parent (progenitor) B.
In the Netherlands, you can order a mobile euthanasia van to
your house. It's the first experiment in the world of door-to-door
euthanasia and the insurance covers the cost of the operation.
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TIMMY WRITES TO SANTA |
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Written by To The Point News
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Friday, 14 December 2012 |
Dear Santa,
How are you?
How is Mrs. Claus? I hope everyone, from the reindeer to the elves, are fine. I
have been a very good boy this year. I would like an X-Box 360 with Call of
Duty IV and an iPhone 4 for Christmas. I hope you remember that come Christmas
Day.
Merry
Christmas!
Timmy Jones
* *
Dear Timmy,
Thank you
for your letter. Mrs. Claus, the reindeer and the elves are all fine and thank
you for asking about them. Santa is a little worried, however, about all the time
you spend playing video games and texting. Santa wouldn't want you to get fat! So,
since you have indeed been a good boy, I think I'll bring you something you can
go outside and play with.
Merry
Christmas to you Timmy!
Santa Claus
* *
Mr. Claus,
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HALF-FULL REPORT 12/07/12 |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Friday, 07 December 2012 |
Is John Galt Chinese?
Star Alliance is the world's largest
airline confederation. This full page ad
appears in every current in-flight magazine of all its 26 member carriers
worldwide. It is an explicit up
yours/bird flip/thumb nose to Zero and his infamous "You didn't build/earn that"
Marxism.
The ad's
endorser, Wang Shi, is a very interesting man.
In his palm is an image of one of the many giant skyscrapers he's built
as chairman of China Vanke, China's largest property developer. He's climbed Mount Everest, and all the other "Seven
Summits" (the highest peak in all seven continents). "Life
is one adventure after another," he says.
My sentiments exactly.
He's not
only an entrepreneurial capitalist, he's proud of it and has nothing but contempt
for anyone who thinks he should apologize for his success. That most certainly includes the fraudulently
elected President of the United States.
You know we
live in an upside-down universe when John Galt is Chinese who exults in
insulting the American president for being a virtual Communist.
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THE ONE NUMBER THAT CAN KEEP AMERICA INTACT |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Thursday, 06 December 2012 |
There is a
famous scene (at least famous for every Trekkie) in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (the 1989 movie, not a TV series
episode) that Ben Franklin would have loved.
Every American today needs to watch it.
Spock, Bones, and Captain Kirk have beamed down to a planet at the
center of the universe, led by a Vulcan named Sybok who convinces them that
here they will meet God Himself.
They are
overwhelmed with God's presence, Who, upon being told the Starship Enterprise
was able to get through the Impenetrable Barrier to reach the planet, asks that
it be brought to Him.
Everyone
eagerly agrees - except for Kirk (William Shatner), who impertinently
interrupts God to ask, "Excuse me... but
what does God need with a Starship?"
Bones explodes at him: "Jim, what
are you doing!?" Kirk looks at Bones
quizzically and answers simply, "I'm asking a question."
Kirk's
question and God's attacking him instead of answering it exposes "God" as an
evil alien pretending to be God - the alien is not God at all.
Today,
America is ruled by an evil Alien with a God-complex. He is worshipped as such by a Witch Doctor
Media, and millions of Americans lacking the courage to question their ruler's
authority for fear that this may halt the various bribes he dispenses to them.
Millions of
other Americans, however, do possess this courage and despise both The Alien
for pretending he is a god, and those who worship him. Thus we have Two Americas - and they are
going to go their separate ways unless we find some rational way to keep them
together. There's one number that can do it.
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THE RISE OF THE THIRD COAST |
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Written by Joel Kotkin
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Thursday, 06 December 2012 |
In the wilds of Louisiana's St. James Parish, amid the
alligators and sugar plantations, Lester Hart is building the $750 million
steel plant of his dreams. Over the past decade, Hart has constructed plants
for steel producer Nucor everywhere from Trinidad to North Carolina. Today, he
says, Nucor sees its big opportunities here, along the banks of the Mississippi
River, roughly an hour west of New Orleans by car.
"The political climate here is conducive to growth," Hart
explains as he steers his truck up to the edge of a steep levee. "We are here
because so much is going on in this state and this region. With the growth of
the petrochemical and industrial sectors, this is the place to be."
Nucor isn't alone in coming to Louisiana, or to the vast,
emerging region along the Gulf Coast. The American economy, long dominated by
the East and West Coasts, is undergoing a dramatic geographic shift toward this
area. The country's next great megacity, Houston, is here; so is a resurgent
New Orleans, as well as other growing port cities that serve as gateways to
Latin America and beyond.
While the other two coasts struggle with economic stagnation
and dysfunctional politics, the Third Coast - the urbanized, broadly coastal
region spanning the Gulf from Brownsville, Texas, to greater Tampa - is emerging
as a center of industry, innovation, and economic growth.
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THERE’S MORE THAN ONE FISCAL CLIFF |
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Written by Jack Kelly
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Thursday, 06 December 2012 |
What
will happen if we go over the fiscal cliff?
That
depends on which "fiscal cliff." The
term has been applied to two very different economic events:
Journalists
now are calling what will happen in January if Democrats and Republicans in
Washington don't make a budget deal this month the "fiscal
cliff:" The
combination of its tax hikes and spending cuts will send unemployment back
above 9 percent, and the economy into recession, the Congressional Budget
Office forecast.
That's
bad. But if the economy falls over this
"fiscal cliff," it's likely only to sprain an ankle, or maybe crack a rib. If the economy goes over the much
higher cliff to which the term originally referred, it'll be in a coma.
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REPUBLICANS SHOULD COMPROMISE ON TAXES IF….. |
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Written by Jack Kelly
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Tuesday, 04 December 2012 |
Here's
a fascinating fact that ought to be guiding budget negotiations:
Since
the end of World War II, federal tax revenues from all sources have averaged
19.6 percent of the gross domestic product, according to a study by the American
Institute for Economic Research.
Who
gets taxed how, and by how much are important questions which have moral
implications, and can have profound economic consequences. But however high tax rates rise, revenues
rarely -- and barely -- exceed 19 percent of GDP.
If
no matter how tax laws are changed, tax revenues will fall somewhere between 19
percent and 20 percent of GDP, the only way to increase tax revenue
significantly is to grow the economy. So
changes in tax policy should be judged by how the change would affect economic
growth, since only this will make a significant difference in revenue.
Thus, the GOP in Congress whould compromise on taxes only if the Dems....
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WEEKLY MIND FOOD 12/05/12 |
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Written by Joe Katzman
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Wednesday, 05 December 2012 |
Weekly Mind Food aims to show you what TTPers without a
regular column, but with deep expertise in key fields, are paying
attention to. We call ourselves TTP's Team B. Note the "Weekly
Mind Food" category in the left side-bar now, which will have
all our issues. They're Free Access, as
are all the linked articles, so feel free to read them at your leisure
- and to mail the article's URL to your friends!
Thanks to edd7, hardcharger, karen, RestorationGirl, and of
course prosenberg for their contributions this week. Our themes this
week involve deep questions about how we conduct both politics and our
lives, answers some questions about ammo buys and FEMA, reminds us to
look at the opportunities from new developments; and, as always,
includes the usual set of insights covering developments at home and
abroad.
To simplify your scans, I've divided the links into sections: Economos
(global economy), Techne Logos (tech), Polis
(domestic politics), Stratiootika
(geopolitics & military), 1 Good News This Week
item to brighten your week and/or make you better. We also have 2 NEW
sections: Your weekly Copybook Heading, and Ekpolitismos (civilization
& culture). Enjoy!
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THE REGRET MATRIX |
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Written by Richard Rahn
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Tuesday, 04 December 2012 |
If you are a member of Congress and you wish to be
re-elected, do you increase your chances of winning by voting for or against
raising taxes on the "rich"?
In decision theory, "regret" is defined as the
difference between the actual payoff and the payoff that would have been
obtained if a different course of action had been taken. In the upcoming votes
on the "fiscal cliff," members of Congress will be making decisions
about what is best for the economy and the nation - and what is best if their
highest goal is re-election.
You may think that these two decisions are at odds. But members of Congress need to know that the Regret Matrix shows they are not.
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INTERNALIZED OPPRESSION |
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Written by Dr. Joel Wade
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Wednesday, 05 December 2012 |
Have you noticed this? Are there
situations where years ago you would never have thought, "I wonder whether this
is allowed?" but now you do? This can
lead to what I call "internalized oppression" - and it requires our conscious
awareness to avoid it.
"The cost of liberty is
eternal vigilance," goes the saying. But this vigilance is not only external.
It's one thing when the rules on the outside become oppressive - which they
have - but you also play a personal role in this: your internal acceptance of
an oppressive mindset is necessary for allowing an oppressive government to
continue to intrude further into our lives.
It is this internal
acceptance and adaptation that allows people to continue to obey an authority
that is out of control. Our Founding
Fathers knew this clearly. As the oldest
and wisest among them put it:
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