According to this report, day care workers in Britain may reclassify more than half of their wards’ mental health. If all goes to plan, the category currently referred to as “Sociopathic Aggressive Fiend” will return to its original designation: “Boy.”
Playing with toy weapons helps the development of young boys, according to new Government advice to nurseries and playgroups.
Staff have been told they must resist their “natural instinct” to stop boys using pretend weapons such as guns or light sabres in games with other toddlers.
Fantasy play involving weapons and superheroes allows healthy and safe risk-taking and can also make learning more appealing, says the guidance.
It conflicts with years of “political correctness” in nurseries and playgroups which has led to the banning of toy guns, action hero games and children pretending to fire “guns” using their fingers or Lego bricks.
But teachers’ leaders insisted last night that guns “symbolise aggression” and said many nurseries and playgroups would ignore the change.
I’m of the opinion that human male children have an a priori conceptual understanding of firearms. I don’t mean they know how to use them properly; rather, that when the first gun was finally invented, every male’s immediate reaction to seeing it was “So that’s what I had in mind when I pointed a stick at my sister and yelled ‘bang, you’re dead!’ when I was five. It makes so much sense now!”
Peter Hitchens summarizes what’s wrong with America’s pro-democracy policies:
Voting is not a sacrament, conferring automatic goodness wherever it happens. The conditions under which it takes place, and the system of government in which it is to be found, are decisive. Elections can be rigged or improperly influenced by money or intimidation. And many votes are rigged or improperly influenced — yet still get approved by powerless, easily fooled international observers who see little and are powerless to intervene. Such votes prove nothing and help nobody. If only one party has any serious hope of victory, then the vote merely serves to confirm that party in power. If the votes are on purely clan, tribal or ethnic lines, then the election confirms that division and often worsens it. If you look carefully at the reservations above, you will find that they apply to some votes that take place within the British Isles or North America especially (in Britain) since the introduction of easy postal voting.
Yet, if there is freedom of speech and of the press, if there is an independent judiciary with the power to defy the government, if law is respected and observed, a society which has no ‘democracy’ can be remarkably free and rulers remarkably accountable. Take the example of Hong Kong, which has never been particularly democratic. Despite the showy fuss made by Christopher Patten in his term as governor there, “democracy” was never really the issue in the handover of Hong Kong to China. The things that needed to be preserved were freedom of speech and the press, and the rule of law. And it is these that will presumably disappear under slow pressure from Peking, long before Hong Kong is finally absorbed in the People’s Republic of China.
Democracy can often be — and often is — the enemy of freedom under the law. I have little doubt that the votes for Vladimir Putin and his puppet party in Russia are genuine. But they are disastrous for any hopes that Russia could become a law-governed free country. The Saarland plebiscite on return to the German Reich in 1935 (90% voted to be ruled by the Nazis when it was quite clear what they were, when they could have chosen to stay under League of Nations rule ) suggests that Hitler’s many successful referendums confirming his power and decisions were also largely genuine. I am baffled by the way so many commentators act as if democracy by itself offers much hope to any country. Britain was free long before it was democratic, and it can be argued that it has become less free since it became more democratic — and that it has survived democracy better than most because of the strength of its freedoms and its laws.
I think we need a word to describe the obsession with democracy that both the left and right have. I propose “democrazy.”
Fred Thompson has released a 15-minute message to the voters of Iowa. In addition to being so much longer than anything we’re used to in a campaign, it’s infinitely more thoughtful and well argued than anything we’re likely to see for a long time and includes and unusually strong, direct appeal to Democrats. As Peter Robinson wrote at NRO, this is what politics is supposed to be like.
One other point. I often hear libertarians and Paulites insist there isn’t a dime of difference among the other Republican candidates on domestic issues; this only confirms they haven’t followed Thompson. I wouldn’t argue that Thompson is a libertarian, but when he talks about Federalism, he does so with understanding and conviction. Sane libertarians wary of Paul’s gaffes and general nuttiness owe Thompson a second look.
I want this man on the ticket.
Tom posted this at 9:17 AM EST on Monday, December 31st, 2007 as Audacity of Hype
On the one hand, we have Christopher Hitchens: leftist, atheist, hawkish. On the other, we have his brother Peter: conservative, devout, dovish. Sometimes I wonder how two so different men came from the same household. But sometimes, you see a resemblance:
The poor old CofE has missed a trick by not making more of an unrepentant Anthony Blair’s decision to defect to Rome
Frankly, if the Pope wants a reject politician who has trampled on every Catholic doctrine he could find, and some he didn’t even realise existed, that’s his affair.
But Archbishop Rowan Williams could have been excused for a little bit of mild rejoicing, to be rid of a man whose showy piety, as oily as Saudi Arabia, has for years given the Christian religion a bad name.
This particular conversion is enough to make a Pole turn Protestant.
Well, Peter, at least Mr. Blair is no longer giving Anglicans a bad name.
I’m puzzled by your gratuitous slaps at the President in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs. By the way, I have no special ties to President Bush and I’m not involved in any presidential campaign.
Why have you joined the “Bush bashers?” I know Iowans fairly well and doubt those attending Republican caucuses will appreciate your critical comments. President Bush gets more than his fair share of criticism from the other side and many in the “mainstream” media. They all really must be heartened by your comments. . . .
The Foreign Affairs piece is a perfect example of 20-20 hindsight, and wishful thinking in most instances. You make knotty foreign policy issues sound so easy if we would just change our ways. I never was a foreign policy expert though I followed it closely for nearly three decades under Democrat and Republican Presidents.
Characteristic of the great man is his closing:
P.S. I lost the General in ‘96, so what do I know?
Senator Dole, I’d bet you’ve forgotten more than Huckabee ever knew. C’mon, Bob—run again. Please?
Derb is more sanguine about this than I am, but I contend a candidate’s belief in — or refusal to reject — pseudoscience should end serious consideration for the presidency. It speaks to his judgment.
Half of the Republicans running for president this year can’t bring themselves to say that the Biblical account of creation is wrong. Half. Five out of 10. This is a a different problem than climate change is for the Democrats — no one’s proposing billions of dollars in spending because of Creationism — but it is a serious and very worrying one.
Snarky Bastards briefly covered the story of Farfour, the Jihadi mouse of Hamas children’s television, who was eventually beaten to death by a Mossad agent (on camera). Well, Palestinian boys and girls have a new friend in Narhoul, the wingless Jihadi bee!
In addition to teaching Palestinian children about the virtues of jihad and martyrdom, Narhoul also provides a forum to discuss the Prophet’s teachings on animal cruelty — by showing what you’re not supposed to do to realcats.
A couple of years ago, I wondered how long it would be until Jihadis started releasing videos of themselves kicking puppies (crusader puppies, of course). I think this is pretty close.
If you get pulled over by police in Rancho Cordova this holiday season, it may not be because you’ve been naughty. Quite the opposite.
Rancho Cordova police officers will be on the hunt for good drivers in the city and rewarding them for their efforts. Motorists practicing safe and courteous driving behavior will be rewarded with a $5 Starbucks gift card, police spokesman Sgt. Tim Curran stated in a news release.
The program was developed by one of the department’s traffic unit officers as a way to “promote the holiday spirit and enhance good will between the traffic unit and the motoring public,” he said.
The program is sponsored by four local towing companies — Fast Response Towing, Allfam Towing, LJ’s Towing and Central Valley Towing — and the Starbucks Coffee Company.
I cannot recall who said it—possibly Chesterton or Pope Benedict—but I remember reading once that when the Church has a problem, the wrong solution arises as a heresy. This post is about politics rather than religion, but the concept of a wrong solution to a real problem applies here nonetheless.
Republicans and conservatives, in focusing so much on foreign policy and free trade, are having problems addressing the problems that most Americans are worrying about; Jim Pinkerton outlines what they are:
Indeed, in times when crime and out-of-wedlock births are again on the upsurge, when football players are murdered in their homes, when Christmas shoppers are gunned down in Heartland shopping malls, more Americans might well be thinking: John Adams was right when he said that passions need to be bridled “by morality and religion.”
As a culture, as a people, we need to do something different. And everybody knows it.
Huckabee offers this analysis, again from Pinkerton:
Still, the issue with Huckabee is faith: whether he believes what he believes too strongly. On Monday morning the agenda-setting Drudge Report bannered a headline, “Take This Nation Back For Christ,” referring to a June 8, 1998, article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in which Huckabee told the Southern Baptist Convention, “The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity.” He continued: “The reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior.” Is that too much of a soul-baring for the public square?
By so much government he doesn’t mean what Madison argued in Federalist No. 51:
But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
We need some form of government to counter our darker impulses. Unfortunately, Huckabee means something different, and Kim Strassel elaborates:
On policy, Mr. Huckabee’s tenure in Arkansas has shown him to be ambivalent about tax increases, variously supporting sales tax hikes, cigarette and gasoline taxes and Internet taxes. Spending increased 65% from 1996 to 2004, three times the rate of inflation.
He’s so lackluster on education reform that he recently received an endorsement from the New Hampshire affiliate of the National Education Association—the first ever of a GOP candidate. The union cited Mr. Huckabee’s opposition to school vouchers. Mr. Huckabee is a fan of greater subsidies for farmers and “clean energy.”
Huckabee has identified the problem, broken humanity, correctly. Like George Bush, he seems to think that the problem can be solved with government funds—a wrong answer. And his use of faith to get to the presidency is rubbing even sympathetic conservatives like Peggy Noonan the wrong way:
Is there a word for “This is nice” and “This is creepy”? For that is what I felt. This is so sweet-appalling.
I love the cross. The sight of it, the fact of it, saves me, literally and figuratively. But there is a kind of democratic politesse in America, and it has served us well, in which we are happy to profess our faith but don’t really hit people over the head with its symbols in an explicitly political setting, such as a campaign commercial, which is what Mr. Huckabee’s ad was.
I wound up thinking this: That guy is using the cross so I’ll like him. That doesn’t tell me what he thinks of Jesus, but it does tell me what he thinks of me. He thinks I’m dim. He thinks I will associate my savior with his candidacy. Bleh.
Exploiting faith for political purposes is also a wrong answer. It’s the return of William Jennings Bryan, of whom Charles Francis Adams noted: “He is in one sense scripturally formidable, for he is unquestionably armed with the jawbone of an ass.” Although American politics depends upon the jawboning of asses, we’d like our politicians to transcend this with the right answers.
A research team at Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering comprised of Professor Christopher Davis, Research Scientist Igor Smolyaninov, and graduate student Yu-Ju Hung, has used plasmon technology to create the world’s first invisibility cloak for visible light. The engineers have applied the same technology to build a revolutionary superlens microscope that allows scientists to see details of previously undetectable nanoscale objects.
Generally speaking, when we see an object, we see the visible light that strikes the object and is reflected. The Clark School team’s invisibility cloak refracts (or bends) the light that strikes it, so that the light moves around and past the cloak, reflecting nothing, leaving the cloak and its contents “invisible.”
The invisibility cloak device is a two-dimensional pattern of concentric rings created in a thin, transparent acrylic plastic layer on a gold film. The plastic and gold each have different refractive properties. The structured plastic on gold in different areas of the cloak creates “negative refraction” effects, which bend plasmons—electron waves generated when light strikes a metallic surface under precise circumstances—around the cloaked region.
The Treaty of Algeron isn’t worth the subspace frequencies it will one day be written on!
I guess that’s what I’m to take from this tidbit of legislative wizardry. Those compact florescent bulbs give me headaches. Yet the federal government is going to force me to use them within 12 years. Why else would they legislate that I get headaches, unless they hate me?
The solution to me is clear. Hopefully by 2020 this whole law school thing will have paid off sufficiently that I will have the resources to hoard years worth of incandescent bulbs. Enough to last until technology helps me out. But one thing’s for sure: Can you think of any better way to dissuade technological progress than to tell light bulb companies, “The light bulbs you’re making now are good enough to meet our standards for the next dozen years, and we’re going to outlaw competing types of bulbs”? Thanks, government.
Here’s perhaps the best bit.
Proponents of government intervention into the light bulb market argue the change will save consumers money – Davidson reported it will save $40 billion in energy and other costs in the next 22 years.
Let’s see. $40 billion/22years = $1.818 billion/year in savings. Let’s be absolutely ridiculous and say that the population stays at 303,000,000 for the next 22 years. That would be a savings of…6 FRICKIN’ DOLLARS A YEAR. Wow. That’s like 50 cents per month. I can’t buy a can of Coke from a soda machine for less than 75 cents. If I used my savings to buy a stamp, envelope, and piece of paper, I could write the president a thank you note. And then the next month, I could use my savings to send one to Congress.
I guess it’s okay that the government hates me, though. Because I hate them.
The folks at National Review Online in general, and Derb in particular, have gotten deluged with e-mail from unhappy evangelicals. Mike Huckabee is essentially a socially conservative Democrat, and the fiscal conservatives have been rightly hitting him (just as social conservatives have been rightly hitting Rudy Giuliani).
I’d be willing to bet that virtually everybody on the NR masthead would agree with this proposition of Chesterton’s:
For instance, in the matter of the inspiration of Scripture, [Aquinas] fixed first on the obvious fact, which was forgotten by four furious centuries of sectarian battle, that the meaning of Scripture is very far from self-evident and that we must often interpret it in the light of other truths. If a literal interpretation is really and flatly contradicted by an obvious fact, why then we can only say that the literal interpretation must be a false interpretation.
Indeed, the writers of NR and NRO have been extremely polite about dealing with biblical literalists. The pseudononymous Spengler put the matter rather more bluntly:
[M]ost Americans acknowledge the Bible as a supreme authority. But that is not quite the case if the Bible is to be taken “literally”, that is, the way an ignorant man would read it on the surface. In that case, the authority is not the Bible at all, but rather the authority of the ignoramus who reads it. This writer accepts the authority of the Bible, but confesses his inability to understand most of it without the assistance of learned commentators. Paradoxically, biblical literalism is a resentment-driven revolt against authority.
Professor Mark Noll addressed the “scandal of the evangelical mind” in his eponymous book a decade ago. As religious historian Grant Wacker summed it up, “The problem, in short, is evangelicals’ appalling parochialism, their unwillingness to break out of the vast but all-too-comfortable ghetto of evangelical churches and colleges and publishing networks and engage an intellectual world long ago captured by [Karl] Marx and [Charles] Darwin and [Sigmund] Freud.” But I am talking about something more workaday, namely the way in which daily evangelical practice turns millions of people into idiots.
If one is compelled to take every word at face value, the reader stumbles into an impenetrable swamp in the first chapter of Genesis. . . .
The Holy See long ago accepted the notion that evolution did not impugn the biblical creation story. America’s literal Bible readers, however, spend endless time and treasure attempting to suppress what they falsely perceive as a slur upon biblical theauthority. This is a gigantic waste of time, like beating one’s head against the wall. But beating one’s head against the wall causes brain damage over time. It is easy to dismiss this effort as stupid, but in fact it is much worse than that. It recalls the exchange between the stuffed tiger Hobbes and six-year-old Calvin in Bill Watterson’s old comic strip. “Do you have the right to be ignorant?” asks Hobbes. Calvin returns, “I refuse to find out!”
Given their fondness for homey simplicity, it’s ironic that the common sense of Aquinas has yet to reach the evangelicals.