Crowhill Weblog

An atheist recognizes the good Christian missionaries do in Africa.

(HT: Mark Shea)

I’ve always been simultaneously (1) somewhat fascinated by psychology and sociology and (2) completely disgusted with psychology and sociology.

So in weak moments I might read an article about the best and worst advice of the year.

(Not that “advice columnists” are either psychologists or sociologists, of course. They’re simply opinionated people who have a decent writing style and like to tell others what to do. But since their “advice” deals with human behavior, I’m sometimes drawn to take a glance.)

What grabbed me was the assumption in the second paragraph — the one about “married to a supercomputer,” in which some gal complained about the guy who “had to win every argument.” The columnist assumed (it seems — of course we’d have to go back and read the actual column to be sure) that the complainer accurately described the problem.

I find that incredibly unlikely, as a little book I used to read to the kids says, “Arguments never could last long if on one side only lay the wrong.”

The guy might be an arrogant jerk who needs to win every argument, or the gal might be an irrational thing that insists on pressing inane points. Or both. But one of the characteristic properties of psychobabble, ISTM, is the assumption that the problem most likely lies with the man. More data, or simple fairness, really isn’t necessary.

A janitor and part time student at IUPUI was disciplined for reading a book. The thing is, the person who claimed to have been offended would likely have agreed with the thesis of the book if she could have actually read it.

And if your skin is too dark and the women in your party have their hair covered, you’d better not comment on which seats in an airplane are the safest.

Once again, it’s more important to look like you’re doing the right thing than to do the right thing.

It’s an older movie with Michael Douglas. It’s pretty interesting and well worth a rental.

Blagojovich may be an a*****e, but this particular a*****e happens to be the duly elected governor of Illinois. As such, he is entitled to appoint the successor to Barak Obama, who can no longer fulfill his duties as US senator from the aforementioned state.

The guy he has appointed is, so far as anyone knows, untainted by the foolishness of the governor’s scandal. But the circumstances are pretty much poison to anyone who gets involved.

And it may well be that no one can do anything about it.

Besides, one wonders just what, at this point, should be done. Blagojevich must go, but does that mean that Illinois should not have two US Senators? Will the Senate, simply out of spite, refuse to seat an African American appointee?

As I have said many times before, it would be a lot funnier if it was happening on another planet.

But they conveniently blame it on Bush in the last days of his administration, forgetting that Republicans have been complicit for the last several years.

Cowards.

What we need is an honest debate about the role of government. How much should government be involved in the economy? How much regulation is too much? Where does individual liberty end and “the common good” begin?

I prefer less government, but my main principle re: government is that it has to stay within its delegated authority, whatever we decide that ought to be.

I think regulators are usually arrogant clowns who mess things up because they think they know how to mind everybody else’s business. And I say that as someone who studied and covered several regulated industries for many years. But I’m not opposed to regulation per se. Some amount is necessary.

What I am opposed to is government doing things it has no business doing. Like regulating education.

There’s no reason (in principle) why the federal government can’t regulate education. I think it’s wiser to allow the states to try their own things and let the cream rise to the top, so to speak, but there are ways the federal government could accomplish the same sort of thing.

The problem is that the federal government has no authority — zero — to mess with education. It just does it anyway, because nobody cares about delegated, limited government any more. And it’s only now that the RNC is realizing that Bush — the “education president” — is a socialist.

Well, okay, usurping power isn’t “socialism.” That’s actually tyranny. But we don’t have to look far for socialism, from Medicare bills to farm subsidies.

This should be a time for the Republican Party to re-think their strategy and ideals and decide what they want to stand for. Number One on the list should be limited, delegated government with a strong emphasis on revitalizing the separation of powers through checks and balances.

If we’re going to have socialist policies, at least let’s do it lawfully and in good order.

I went to the Smithsonian museums yesterday with the family and was greeted by long lines at the entrances. The long lines were caused by extraordinarily silly security checks.

I say they’re silly for two three. First, since when is a museum a significant target for a terrorist? Second, the check itself was so brief and inconsequential that I could easily have smuggled a gun into the place. (They didn’t see the knife my daughter accidentally left in her purse.) Third, I know this is going to sound heartless, but if you were to add up all the wasted time and effort by all these security checks, I think they’d far exceed the value of stopping an attack.

We like to talk about how a life has infinite value and all that, but we don’t really mean it. If life had infinite value we would never drive cars, never ride on roller coasters, wear crash helmets in the shower and eat lots and lots of vegetables.

The truth is that we’re willing to take some risks with our lives, and I think we’ve gone way too far into paranoia land with all this security stuff.

… that Obama’s temper and his sense that he deserves some sort of special treatment is going to be an interesting subplot to news coverage for the next couple years.

This piece is very interesting. Are military chaplains who identify as Messianic Jews “really” Jews, or “really” Christians? (If you know my opinions, you will recognize my comment on that thread even if you don’t recognize my alias)

Reminds me (though I know this a poor analogy) of the creationist argument that Hyracotherium isn’t “really” an ancestral horse, since it is also an ancestral rhinoceros.

“He’s not YOUR grandfather. He’s MY grandfather!”

On an unrelated note, my wife and daughter are watching Mama Mia. I think it’s remarkable how really bad movies have to show you all the awards that clueless critics have given them so you will be convinced that your very reasonable disdain for such drek is obviously quite wrong. Soon as I can pry myself from the computer I’ll go listen to some Jethro Tull so I can get the damned Abba out of my head.

Autoworkers Union Keeps $6 Million Golf Course for Members at $33 Million Lakeside Retreat

(Thanks to a reader for the link.)

The Kite Runner is a good movie. The Happening is not.

I hope everyone is enjoying a very merry Christmas.

Here’s a video of the Wexford Carol, by Allison Kraus and Yo-Yo Ma. It’s very good.

Allison Kraus has a hauntingly beautiful voice. Sometimes it seems just a little too beautiful to me, but she sounds amazing on this piece.

My friend Rick Wilson from the Laurel Connections blog razzed me about my non-Tull version of “Solstice Bells,” and we got to talking about guitarists.

He sent me this link, which is pretty amazing.

The first half of this article is very interesting. It chronicles recent examples where presidential candidates said all sorts of stuff about the incumbent’s policies and then went on to continue them as president.

I have no doubt that Obama will change some of Bush’s policies, but in some areas he’s already departed from his electioneering rhetoric, and when he takes office I suspect he’ll find that the world is a more difficult place than he expected.

I know it’s only an ordinary news outlet, but if an author drops a bombshell, he ought to at least explain what he’s talking about.

I’m looking into what is presently known about the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA), and I find this:

It’s a controversial topic. Not least because some scientists suggest that, if Luca existed, the evolutionary processes at work on primordial Earth might have been quite different to the Darwinian model of natural selection.

Oh really? I seriously doubt that. But of course, he might be right. In order to know, it would be nice if the article contained the merest hint of what the heck he’s talking about. Don’t just do as the title to this post suggests.

Of course, most likely it’s just a matter of the journalistic tendency to make every new discovery somehow “completely rewrite our understanding ” of such and such.