The Ohio Players - Fire

RIP Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner.  They were part of my school years.  I would often hear their music coming out of the eight-track boom boxes the black kids would bring to school, as well as on the radio.  I'm glad he lived long enough to enjoy the renewed celebrity that YouTube-fueled nostalgia brought.

A new way of recruiting sources (What next? Take a number and stand in line?)

A new way of recruiting sources (What next? Take a number and stand in line?)

Rest easy, dear reader.  I would never stoop so low as to compromise either of our principles in this way.  At least not until I was reduced to actually trying to make a buck off of my scribblings on this blog...

Is it safe to criticize Scientology now?

I'm looking forward to reading Lawrence Wright's book about Scientology, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief There have always been memoirs from defectors from the cult, who for their troubles got sued into bankruptcy. Even mighty TIME magazine spent a decade in libel court after they ran their expose'. Limitlessly funded by their stable of gulled Hollywood mega-celebrities, aggressively suing, harassing (and perhaps worse) opponents, the cult seems impervious. But Wright is a distinguished journalist and Pulitzer Prize winning author, not one to be lightly stalked by the cult's enforcers. Even though some of his overseas publishers have been intimidated into withdrawing the book, this might leave a mark, this time.

I used to peruse an anti-Scientology usenet group years ago, which seems to be thriving still, other than that I've had no direct connection with the cult. The cosmology of it reeks of kitschy 1950s science fiction, more Plan 9 From Outer Space than spiritual enterprise. You can't reason people out of notions they were never reasoned into, though. If Scientology is the only religion spiritually receptive people encounter, they are very likely to be and remain imprinted with the initial stamp of belief. But if there are those with ears to hear, this time around they may hear.

I salute Mr. Wright's bravery, and all those before him who have stood up to Scientology.

Related:

15 Scientology Revelations From Lawrence Wright’s ‘Going Clear’

Why You Could Have Fallen for Scientology, Too

Lawrence Wright Publisher Defends Book Against Church Of Scientology Claims

Scientology creates 'atmosphere of fear,' says 'Going Clear' author Lawrence Wright

MLK & Inauguration Day ADHD Linklets...

Hope you had a good and/or inspiring day today (although it's gonna be Tuesday by the time I get done with this.)

Justice Antonin Scalia wears Thomas More's cap to the inauguration. "Wearing the cap of a statesman who defended liberty of church and integrity of Christian conscience to the inauguration of a president whose policies have imperiled both: Make of it what you will."

Sperm Whales Adopt A Dolphin With Spine Deformity

Four Siberian volcanoes erupt at once, as seen from space.

The producer of the forthcoming documentary Guilt Is My God reports that he has been seriously injured & will be laid up for a couple of months. He also says that he is still getting death threats, for making this film about people who have left Islam.

More attempted SWATting, this time not against a conservative blogger.

The Chinese Navy
Is getting tremendous
The results for us
Could be horrendous

Rejection Therapy Day #47: Offer to pump gas for strangers.

Still no idea why Google's Eric Schmidt went to North Korea--does he want to be the present age's Ted Turner? Good to see that his daughter wasn't fooled by the Potemkin treatment they were given.

Is a prominent creationist close to coming around from the dark side?

Patterico hated the inauguration speech. Well, there's nothing that Romney would have done differently in the late economic crisis. There just wasn't any choice this time around.

God bless America...

Chilling eugenic envy at Edge.org?

Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of
humanity.

A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed
that uses it.

--Rabindranath Tagore

Every now and then I like to go over to Edge.org and scan the thoughts of the current era's leading intellectuals. I really have no business going there. Most of the stuff is over my head, and I'm old enough for that fact to inspire respect, rather than dismissal. This entry on Chinese eugenics just gives me the creeps, however. (Click on Respondents if you land on the front page, and then search for Geoffrey Miller. The individual contributions don't seem to be permalinkable.) Dr. Miller describes how the Chinese, in keeping with tradition of seeking out the well-bred, are sequencing the genome of high IQ people from around the world, in hopes of breeding an ever-more intelligent overclass. But that's not the disquieting part. What loosened my jaw was that Dr. Miller seems to approve of this. Thinks it right, good, and necessary:

There is unusually close cooperation in China between government, academia, medicine, education, media, parents, and consumerism in promoting a utopian Han ethno-state. Given what I understand of evolutionary behavior genetics, I expect—and hope—that they will succeed. The welfare and happiness of the world's most populous country depends upon it.

My real worry is the Western response. The most likely response, given Euro-American ideological biases, would be a bioethical panic that leads to criticism of Chinese population policy with the same self-righteous hypocrisy that we have shown in criticizing various Chinese socio-cultural policies. But the global stakes are too high for us to act that stupidly and short-sightedly. A more mature response would be based on mutual civilizational respect, asking—what can we learn from what the Chinese are doing, how can we help them, and how can they help us to keep up as they create their brave new world?

Now, I'm a literal-minded fellow, endowed with a pesky case of Dunning-Kruger Effect, and those last three words in the passage seem to indicate that this is a bitter spoof. But, as infested with deracinated relativists as higher education has been in recent decades, who knows? If you're reading, Dr. Miller, please...tell me you're kidding.

Presidential inauguration firsts

Cool photo-trivia at Reuters.

PolitiFact Concedes Their 'Lie of the Year' is the 'Literal Truth'

PolitiFact Concedes Their 'Lie of the Year' is the 'Literal Truth'

Chrysler will indeed produce Jeeps in China.

"We have more teachers that have joined the Communist Party than any other professions," he said.

Inexplicably, it is still illegal for members of the Communist Party to teach school in California. Guess it's kinda superfluous at this point in the Golden State's ongoing political necrosis.

French troops face combat with Mali rebels ‘within hours’ - World - News - London Evening Standard

La bataille commence.

French troops face combat with Mali rebels ‘within hours’ - World - News - London Evening Standard

The French are going to get in the first blows against Al Qaeda in Maghreb, it looks like.  We've had special forces creeping around the Sahara for years, of course.  But now that the Arab Spring has really stirred up the hornets' nest, the French and by means of them the civilized West will shortly close with the Holy Warriors.  Best of success to them.  And no jokes, please--the French military is quite seasoned at operating in North and West Africa, and they've rescued our nationals a time or two in Ivory Coast, when unrest threatened.

Hiroshima and Detroit: The Damage Democrats Do to the Poor Lasts Longer Than a Nuclear Bomb

The five most important sentences you'll read today are at the bottom of this post:

Hiroshima and Detroit: The Damage Democrats Do to the Poor Lasts Longer Than a Nuclear Bomb

Random Rock Bloggage

A good song for enjoying a nice mood of obsolescence...

NEA takes up women and climate change--taxpayers hardest hit.

Translate This: HERadventure, YOURmoney

Meanwhile, in Australia

The stealth jihad continues.  A CHANCE TO ESCAPE RIBA  Why live among those icky Sydney infidels, when you can live in "100% halal" housing, carved right out of the Little Satan's body politic?  "Riba" = mortgage interest.

That trillion dollar coin

Whose image should be on the trillion dollar coin? Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the discoverer of black holes.

Random Rock Bloggage

My favorite song by the Elvoid.  Evocative of some sweet, long-ago memories...

Random Rock Bloggage

Had an ear itch for this old power pop classic today....

Cornered Mama Bear defends children from burglar

LOGANVILLE, Ga. — A woman hiding in her attic with children shot an intruder multiple times before fleeing to safety Friday.

Wall-to-wall national media coverage in 5...4...3...

Black conservatives not fair game after all!

Meanwhile, on Twitter, an author hurls a racial epithet at a Republican black woman, and gets dumped by his publisher.

Support the troops? Michael Moore says no, you don't

The relationship advice of multiply divorced people may be ignored in good conscience. Wealth-building plans from the chronically improvident needn't take up anyone's time. Weight-loss tips from the morbidly obese may be passed over in tactful silence. And it is simple common decency to forcefully reject the national security advice--and moralizing--of people who've spent the last decade proclaiming that America deserved 9/11.