Free Republic

My daughter left for college. She had three ferrets, one is left alive now. I have to clean its cage and feed and water it. It looks lonely; it wants to come out and play. But once out of the cage, it doesn’t “interact” on a personal level. Not like our cat who went around *shredding* everything once my daughter had been gone for a week. Cats have more personality. Dogs, apparently even more. Is this related to gyri and sulci in the brain? Brain size? Internal wiring and size of different brain regions? It comes back to the idea...

One of the things which has so *maddened* conservatives during the oh-so-dolorous-and-slow Chinese water torture of the Obama administration, is the way that the Administration seems to be "above the law" or "unaccountable"; and at that, not only in a Nixonian sense, but in a Louis XIV sense ("L'état, c'est moi"). Look back at some of the initial scandals and/or muckraking topics from the first term, or from the campaign against Romney: "They acted stupidly" / beer summit The non-prosecution of the Black Panthers for voter intimidation The brouhaha over the "birth certificate" The non-closure of Club Gitmo The run-up...

Consider looking at the sky. One can often see a layer of clouds, where the sky is completely clear below a certain height, but the clouds seem to mushroom expansively, all emanating from the same height, as though resting on a great unseen glass shelf in the sky. In other, rarer, circumstances, one may happen to see a column of smoke rising, and abruptly halt and spread out horizontally, as though it has hit an invisible ceiling. The same thing happens in the mind: one travels along the paths of knowledge, absorbing information and learning all one can about a...

Recently I was watching a YouTube video of Phil Keaggy. For those of you who do not know -- (which is to say, almost everybody) he is a Christian songwriter and guitarist who is a legend among guitarists; there are rumours floating around that Jimi Hendrix once called him "the best guitarist in the world."1 What is interesting is the comment threads which show up on YouTube under many of his videos. Generally one or two Christians will show up, with comments like "This is what Heaven must sound like" or "Praise GOD for Phil Keaggy's gift." Then usually, one...

This is a brief follow-on piece to the original, (Vanity) Demographics Are Not Destiny, or, It's Just How We Roll In that piece I considered the GOP-e's analysis of the 2012 Presidential Election loss as due to unsurmountable demographic shifts in the electorate, and showed that the changes in the electorate were not due solely to demographics, but to changes in the labor market and the attitudes instilled into the historical blue-collar voting bloc (across sexual and racial lines) in an attempt to gain political power. I then showed the financial dangers of such an approach and compared them to...

In the aftermath of President Obama's unexpected re-election, and the even more unexpected further erosion of GOP power in both the House and Senate, the usual GOP firing squad has swung into action. Some have blamed the loss on Romney's incompetent GOTV tool, Orca; others on various flavors of conservativism, from the religious right to those who favor restrictions on immigration; still others blame the problem on the infamous "47% remark" and Obama's pandering to the single mom demographic. And of course, one of the siren calls from the usual group of DC-consultant-whores and Democrat moles and turncoats, is that...

In the aftermath of the recent Presidential election, a lot was made of the demographic shifts in voting patterns and what they meant for the future of the GOP. Some RINOs suggested drilling holes in the bottom of the ship of state by pursuing "comprehensive immigration reform"; others suggested that, since the Sandra Fluck crowd had apparently been the deciding factor, that social conservatives should be thrown overboard; still others said that the reason Romney failed was that he was portrayed as a rich man, out of touch with voters' plight in this tough economy. I have written an analysis...

Before anything else, let us pause to remember the casualties (both civilian and military) of "The War to End All Wars" -- the war which saw the first fighter planes, the first tanks, the horrors of mass bayonet charges against entrenched machine guns and artillery -- and the first chemical warfare. This is Armistice Day. But let us not take Armistice Day as a sign, nor a signal, that we should abandon our fight for freedom from oppression, whether here in the United States or abroad. The election of 2012 has come and gone: despite the assurances of those who...

Yesterday, in an apparent fit of desperation (or possibly even self-immolation in the manner of a Buddhist monk), the Obama campaign released a YouTube video of Lena Dunham -- the star of a reality TV show about young skanks -- comparing voting for the first time to losing one's virginity. This video was roundly excoriated by everyone from Mark Levin to Michelle Malkin, and positively eviscerated on Twitter. Most of the comments centered on "the war on women" and the disintegration of our culture, but my favorite was "Guess what happens when Obama finds out my first time was with...

Jussein Seats the Five Thousand 13 When Jussein heard what had happened in Benghazi, he withdrew by boat privately to Las Vegas. Hearing of this, the press followed him on foot from Manhattan. 14 When Jussein landed and heard of a large crowd in Milwaukee, he had compassion on them and Death Paneled their sick. 15 As evening approached, the MSM presstitutes came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and order pizza with their EBT cards on their Obamaphones.” 16 Jussein...

Over the past couple of weeks, most of the drive-by media's attention has been focused on events in Libya and the American responses to it. For a quick recap -- Christopher Stevens, an American diplomat assigned to Libya, and some others in the consulate were violently attacked without warning and ended up dead...on 9/11. Ignoring the significance of the date, the Obama administration acted curiously: denying any possible connection to terror, and stonewalling with a pre-programmed chorus of disgust over a low-budget film (I've only just seen snippets on YouTube, and it made the movies spoofed on Mystery Science Theater...

Everyone is talking about the "leaked" video of Mitt Romney at a fundraiser in Boca Raton earlier this year -- the one in which he discusses the 47% who do not pay income taxes, how he is not responsible for them. Leftists, of course, have hit the roof, with their usually sputtering panoply of frothing-at-the-mouth buzzwords. But you know, I think there is a one-word answer to all of the Democrats' objections: an answer which is to my mind, disposative.deTocqueville. Here are a few relevant quotes: be sure to use them in answer to the frenzy. “The American Republic will...

Disclaimer: before beginning, let us remember the families of the deceased, and keep them in our prayers. Most of us woke up this morning and saw or heard the news: US Embassy attacked. Oh, OK, this must be follow-up on Cairo, right? No. It turns out that there was an attack in Libya, as well. And in this attack, the mob did not just shout pro-bin Laden slogans and wave black flags. They attacked and burned the embassy to the ground; there were four Americans killed; and one of the dead was the consul / ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens (RIP)....

Note 1: I make reference to some Biblical passages in this article. While I am indeed Christian, I disclaim any resemblance to prophecy or interpretation thereof in this essay. Still less am I interested at this point in raising any issues of the mostly Protestant GOP base vs. the Mormon faith of Romney, or the putative crypto-Muslim faith of Obama. The passage given merely provides a convenient literary/historical comparison, and a lead-in of sorts to Part II. Note 2: Dates are approimate; any pedants who want to quibble are missing the point. Besides, it's past my bedtime. It has been...

The Wreck of the Obama-Biden The Legend lives on from Chicago on Down of the group that they call “The Tea Party” This hate group, they say, loves to eat Chik-Fil-A and their votes in November are hearty. With a deficit score some fifteen trillion more than the Obama-Biden had starting That good ticket and proud was lost like Maureen Dowd when November’s Red State surge came early. The ship was the pride of the Democrat side who swore they would take back Wisconsin As the Socialists go, it was lefter than most ‘cause they came from Chicago or Harvard...

One of the biggest news stories in the past week was the brouhaha over the remarks of one Dan Cathy (President of the fast food chain Chick-Fil-A) concerning support for traditional marriage. Homosexual activists were aghast that in this day and age, someone was allowed to run “afowl” of the anti-public-blasphemypiety laws, and began calling for a boycott, as well as denouncing Chick-Fil-A as a purveyor of “Hate”.
Some of the usual (left wing) suspects joined the fray; among them, GLAAD, who released a report that Chick-Fil-A’s brand rating had plummeted following Dan Cathy’s remarks; Chicago Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno, who...

This is a belated fifth post in a series on Internet Forums and Social Dynamics. In Part I, I pointed out how the internet self-selects into mutually exclusive groups according to common interests or beliefs. Part II provided an amusing look at the reactions within a group when posters to a forum go against the prevailing groupthink. Then Part III showed how segregation of internet groups occurs not only by interests but by common levels of intellect, sophistication, or expertise in a subject. And most recently, Part IV showed how the sheer size and untamed nature of the Internet, and...

One of the metrics which has been emphasized over the last couple of elections, and which is gaining interest in the current election, is the percentage of votes for a candidate coming from various gender demographics: what percentage of married couples vote vs. single women? What is the the likelihood of each group to vote GOP vs. Democrat? It is often felt that, even aside from the "mushy middle" or "moderate" voting bloc, elections can be determined by the affinity of men or of women for a candidate. For example, Bill Clinton's re-election was due to the so-called "arousal gap"...

Once upon a time, there was a mirror. And the mirror was bright, and polished, and pure, without any flaw; and it was said the the mirror would return the very image of its beholder without distortion. And it happened, by chance or malfeasance, that the mirror fell, and was shattered: and it was broken, sparkling, into countless shards scattered throughout the earth. And the fate of these shards as they were scattered differed one from another. Some indeed retained their brilliance, such that they sparkled like a rainbow in the sun, but all their powers to return an image...

This is a passage from chapter XXV, from the subsection Oligarchical Coup d'Etat at Athens. <snip> But this was a mere catchword for the multitude, as the authors of the revolution were really to govern. However, the Assembly and the Council of the Bean still met notwithstanding, although they discussed nothing that was not approved of by the conspirators, who both supplied the speakers and reviewed in advance what they were to say. Fear, and the sight of the numbers of the conspirators, closed the mouths of the rest; or if any ventured to rise in opposition, he was presently...