SE+ is shipping

I've been informed by Marcher Lord that the new Summa Elvetica hardcover is now shipping to the preorders.  If you receive it, please let me know how it looks; it will be a while before my copies get to me.

Mailvox: Vox's First Law redux

Rufusdog is the latest to discover that I really and truly don't give a damn what he happens to think:

Vox could be a strong voice for gun rights, but when he says things this stupid he just comes off like a crazy person and loses credibility. He dishonors those children and their families and damages his own reputation in one crack pot post.

Vox is what he is.  Take him seriously or dismiss him as a crazy person, it makes no difference to him.  Nor does he care in the slightest for honoring "those children and their families".

As for my reputation, well, one of the dangers of dismissing someone as a crackpot means that the individual so dismissed no longer has any fear of it.  If you happen to believe in the economic recovery of 2009, global warming, and the heroic teachers of Sandy Hook elementary school, that's fine with me.  It doesn't bother me any more than your belief in unicorns, evolution by natural selection, or human equality.

Vox's First Law: Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.

And the Boy Scouts fall

Another bastion of traditional morality falls to PC pressure:

After lengthy and wrenching debate, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have voted to open their ranks to openly gay boys for the first time, but heated reactions from the left and right made clear that the BSA's controversies are far from over.

The Scouts' longstanding ban on gay adults remains in force, and many liberal Scout leaders - as well as gay-rights groups - plan to continue pressing for an end to that exclusion even though the BSA's top officials aren't ready for that step.

Meanwhile, many conservatives within the Scouts are distraught at the outcome of the vote and some are threatening to defect. A meeting is planned for next month to discuss formation of a new organization for boys.

The formation of new organizations to replace the old, corrupted ones is the only practical response that is likely to succeed. It's a little remarkable that anyone still takes "thus far, but no farther" seriously as a strategy; once the hard line is crossed, the subsequent lines in the sand tend to fall rapidly in comparison.

"The result was welcomed by many liberal members of the Scouting community and by gay-rights activists, though most of the praise was coupled with calls for ending the ban on gay adults. "I'm so proud of how far we've come, but until there's a place for everyone in Scouting, my work will continue," said Jennifer Tyrrell, whose ouster as a Cub Scout den leader in Ohio because she is lesbian launched a national protest movement."

If you or your sons are currently involved in the Boy Scouts, I recommend immediately resigning the organization.  It is already mortally wounded and its demise is now only a matter of time.  It is much better to put your time and energy into the traditional alternative that will be born from the ashes of what was once a great organization.

Leftists always seek to invade and subvert all non-leftist institutions.  Once the will to keep them out is lost, the eventual subversion of the institution is assured.  The only way to prevent this is for organizations to be set up with charters containing strict limits on the permissible range of changes that may be proposed in the future; anyone who proposes a change outside that range should be immediately dismissed from the organization.

Another step reaches the Cabinet

The dam is cracking:

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.

Eric Holder's ability to protect Obama has just been compromised.  Not necessarily destroyed, but compromised. Even the Obama defenders in the media are going to be nervous about permitting this sort of precedent, knowing it can be used against them.

Diversity in Stockholm

The Diversity Gospeleers can celebrate more joys of vibrancy in Sweden:

Unrest in Stockholm’s suburbs continued for a fourth night as rioters showed their anger over a police shooting a week ago by setting fire to cars and buildings and pelting emergency workers with stones.

As many as 30 cars burned in the Swedish capital’s southern suburbs, while 11 were set alight in the Husby area, north of the city centre, where the violence broke out four days ago, police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said by phone today. Police detained one person, a 16-year-old girl suspected of preparing an act of arson. That followed eight arrests since Tuesday....

Last night, firemen trying to rescue a restaurant in Skogaas were attacked by stone-throwing youths. Police officers were also attacked in Husby. Several other suburbs also reported vandalism and fires.

In this vein, an interesting observation from a Minnesotan visiting Rome: "You see a lot more Muslims in Minneapolis than you do in Rome."

Forget the audits

The AP reporters should be more worried about being targeted by the Obama administration's drone operators:

“The Obama administration continues to claim authority to kill virtually anyone anywhere in the world under the ‘global battlefield’ legal theory and a radical redefinition of the concept of imminence,” said Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International.

It's a very bad combination, when you've got a lawless administration that is willing to sic the IRS and the FBI on the media as well as its political opponents, and is simultaneously claiming a right to assassinate American citizens at will without so much as an arrest, let alone a trial.

Diversity in London

John Piper's Diversity Gospel demonstrably isn't any more of God than his Jesus tornadoes are.  The Diversity Gospel brings death and devastation in its wake; it is the modern version of the Tower of Babylon. Its fruits are undeniable; the advocates of the Diversity Gospel have much for which to answer.  They have blood on their tongues, including the death of the English soldier butchered by Africans in broad daylight yesterday:

Another eyewitness revealed how he watched the two attackers behave like 'crazed animals'. The man, known only as James, said he and his partner saw two black men attack a young man aged around 20 in a Help for Heroes T-shirt in Woolwich, south-east London, like he was ‘a piece of meat’.

Fighting back tears, he told LBC Radio: ‘They were hacking at this poor guy, literally. They were chopping him, cutting him. These two guys were crazed. They were just animals. They dragged him from the pavement, dumped his body in the middle of the road and left (it) there.’

He said that after the ‘horrendous’ attack, the two men, in their 20s, stood around, waving knives and a gun, even asking people nearby to take pictures of them ‘as if they wanted to be on TV’.

‘They were oblivious to anything, they were more worried about having their photo taken, running up and down the road,’ he said. ‘They had no intention of running off or leaving or anything.’

And the blood of the diverse and vibrant they welcomed will soon be on their tongues as well.  Rivers of it. It won't be long before the Saxon starts killing, and when he does, he won't be doing it one vibrant at a time. Consider the following sub-headline: "Masked English Defence League supporters flood Woolwich: Far-Right clash with police near scene of killing"

It brings Kipling to mind.

"The Saxon is not like us Normans, His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, "This isn't fair dealings," my son, leave the Saxon alone. 

"You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture your Picardy spears,
But don't try that game on the Saxon; you'll have the whole brood round your ears.
From the richest old Thane in the county to the poorest chained serf in the field,
They'll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you are wise, you will yield."

Covering up the false flag

State officials are secretly attempting to bury the public records related to the Sandy Hook "shootings":

The staffs of the state's top prosecutor and the governor's office have been working in secret with General Assembly leaders on legislation to withhold records related to the police investigation into the Dec. 14 Newtown elementary school massacre — including victims' photos, tapes of 911 calls, and possibly more.

The behind-the-scenes legislative effort came to light Tuesday when The Courant obtained a copy of an email by a top assistant to Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane, Timothy J. Sugrue. Sugrue, an assistant state's attorney, discussed options considered so far, including blocking release of statements "made by a minor."

"There is complete agreement regarding photos etc., and audio tapes, although the act may allow the disclosure of audio transcripts," Sugrue wrote to Kane, two other Kane subordinates and to Danbury State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky, who is directing the investigation of the killings....

As envisioned by Kane, the bill wouldn't be limited to the Newtown file.
"We are seeking legislation to protect crime scene photographs protecting victims and certain 911 tapes," Kane told The Courant Tuesday. "It is something that I have been concerned about for years and years and the situation in Newtown brings it to a head. I don't want family members seeing pictures of their loved ones publicized in a manner in which these are subject to be published."

He said as he sees the legislation, it would apply to "basically crime scene photographs depicting injuries to victims and recordings, 911 recordings displaying the mental anguish of victims. Things like that, of that category. And it seems to me that the intrusion of the privacy of the individuals outweighs any public interest in seeing these."

No doubt anyone who is familiar with the government's interest in "the privacy of individuals" will find this justification as ludicrous as I do.  One wonders what sparked the sudden need for this secretive legislative effort; did someone notice the forgotten Heinz bottle lying next to the "corpses" or was it the datestamp on the pictures taken three weeks before the scheduled event?

Reviewing Men on Strike

Dr. Helen Smith's Men on Strike was released today.  I reviewed it at Alpha Game.  An excerpt:

With the publication of Men on Strike, Dr. Helen Smith fires an important shot in the ongoing cultural war for the soul, and indeed, the survival, of Western Civilization.  It is a shot she fires in defense of the defenders, in defense of the barricades, in defense of the gates, against the lawless barbarians marching under the banner of the Female Imperative.

If the horror stories and red pill realities she chronicles will not be unfamiliar to those who are regular readers of the androsphere, they are nevertheless particularly effective when presented, largely dispassionately, one after another in succession.  Dr. Helen does an competent job of drawing clear links between a legal regime biased towards women and the fearful behavior of men who no longer see sufficient incentive to perform the roles that society has long expected and required of them.

Read the rest at Alpha Game.

Homeschool or Die vol. XXXLVI

I can't help but notice the difference between the way fatalities are treated depending upon whether the children killed are being educated at home or at public school.  If seven children were killed by a demented homeschool mother, this would spark a national media outcry and demands for more restrictions on homeschooling.

And yet, in the past four months, we have seen multiple incidences of multiple fatalities due to acts of Man and Nature, but the thought that perhaps it is not wise to congregate large numbers of vulnerable children together never seems to enter the national discourse.

According to Wikipedia, there have been 278 tornado-related deaths at school since 1885.  That is nearly 2.2 deaths per year, which is a trivial percentage of the 48 million or so children attending the public schools.  And yet, they are entirely avoidable deaths; under the oft-cited "if just one life can be saved" metric, it cannot be denied that children who are not forced to congregate en masse at school cannot be killed by tornadoes there.

Two tornado-inflicted deaths per year isn't much, but add to them the 26 schoolbus deaths per year, the 600 school-automotive deaths per year, and the 34 violence-related deaths, and it soon becomes readily apparent that school cannot reasonably be considered a safe place for children.

Forget the superior education received by homeschooled children.  Doesn't saving the lives of more than 662 children every year make banning school a moral imperative?

Especially in light of the fact that 119 children under the age of twelve, (and 565 under the age of 18), were killed by guns.  School is literally more lethally dangerous than guns; something you might want to remind your average pro-public school, pro-gun control left-liberal.

Guns secure freedom at a lower cost in children's lives than the public schools manage to deliver inferior educations. We don't need gun control, we need school control.

Benghazi sinks the Lizard Queen and the Magic Negro

This display of ineptitude would tend explain why, for better or for worse, white men run the world:

The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in two areas — what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi and the pressure put on General Carter Ham, then in command of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and therefore responsible for Libya, not to act to protect jeopardized U.S. personnel.

Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.

Hillary Clinton still wanted to proceed because, in part, as one of the diplomats said, she wanted “to overthrow Gaddafi on the cheap.”

This left Stevens in the position of having to clean up the scandalous enterprise when it became clear that the “insurgents” actually were al-Qaeda – indeed, in the view of one of the diplomats, the same group that attacked the consulate and ended up killing Stevens.

The former diplomat who spoke with PJ Media regarded the whole enterprise as totally amateurish and likened it to the Mike Nichols film Charlie Wilson’s War about a clueless congressman who supplies Stingers to the Afghan guerrillas. “It’s as if Hillary and the others just watched that movie and said ‘Hey, let’s do that!’” the diplomat said.

He added that he and his colleagues think the leaking of General David Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell was timed to silence the former CIA chief on these matters.

Regarding General Ham, military contacts of the diplomats tell them that AFRICOM had Special Ops “assets in place that could have come to the aid of the Benghazi consulate immediately (not in six hours).”

Ham was told by the White House not to send the aid to the trapped men, but Ham decided to disobey and did so anyway, whereupon the White House “called his deputy and had the deputy threaten to relieve Ham of his command.”

I'm out of the business of political predictions, but I will say that the average Boy Scout leader would know better than to do as either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama did with regards to Benghazi.  If the news gets out, whoever is responsible for threatening to relieve Ham of his command for doing his freaking job should be political toast.  Even if he is blessed with magical negritude.

Goldman Sachs opposes UK independence

In related news, Rapey McRaperson announced that he is opposed to women carrying handguns and pepper spray, saying that it would be a "loss/loss scenario":

Kevin Daly, part of the investment bank’s economic team, has concluded that a British departure from the EU would result in a “loss/loss scenario” in which both the UK and the rest of the bloc would be damaged.

But in a note to investors, Mr Daly added that Goldman does not expect an in/out referendum because the Tories first need to win an outright majority and, the bank reckons, “at this stage, this doesn’t appear likely”.

Mr Daly said a UK exit would “come with a significant economic cost to the UK” because it is “highly integrated” with the EU. The economist noted that trade with the other 26 members of the EU accounts for 16pc of UK GDP.

He dismissed those who argue that Britain could negotiate a trade deal with the EU once it had left. “Given the size and importance of the UK economy, it is unlikely that the UK could negotiate the same access to the EU single market that Switzerland and Norway have achieved,” he said.

Goldman isn't even trying to make sense of its pro-EU position here.  Britain not only sends billions of pounds into the Brussels sinkhole every year, but has nonsensical and tremendously wasteful regulatory regimes imposed upon it, to say nothing of millions of unwanted economic migrants.  And when has being bigger and more important ever made it HARDER for a nation to pursue what it wants in negotiation?

Another step closer

There is evidence connecting the White House to the IRS investigations after all.  But no proof that Obama knew about it or ordered it... yet:

The White House on Monday once again added to the list of people who knew about the IRS investigation into its targeting of conservative groups — saying White House chief of staff Denis McDonough had been informed about a month ago.

Press secretary Jay Carney said again that no one had told President Barack Obama ahead of the first news reports: not his top aide McDonough, nor his chief counsel Kathy Ruemmler, nor anyone from the Treasury Department.

Monday’s revelation amounts to the fifth iteration of the Obama administration’s account of events, after initially saying that the White House had first learned of the controversy from the press.

And the scandal grows....

Don't blame Jenny McCarthy

It's not the unvaccinated causing the increase in the incidence of whooping cough, it's the vaccines:

Whooping cough, or pertussis, has exploded in the United States in recent years. A new study confirms what scientists have suspected for some time: The return of the disease is caused by the introduction of new, safer vaccines 2 decades ago. Although they have far fewer side effects, the new shots don't offer long-lived protection the way older vaccines do....

Researchers have long suspected that new vaccines might have something to do with it. Until the 1990s, children routinely received a so-called whole-cell vaccine, made from pertussis bacteria, Bordetella pertussis, that were killed by exposure to formalin or other chemicals. These vaccines were known to contain a toxin that can provoke powerful side effects. Most vaccinated infants had fever and severe pain at the injection site, sometimes accompanied by febrile seizures or fainting fits in which the infant turned pale, unresponsive, and "floppy." 

Strange that while researchers "have long suspected" the new vaccines, the vaccine advocates writing in the media have constantly pointed at Hollywood actresses and vaccine skeptics.

First they came for the conservatives

"IRS commissioner Steven Miller said the IRS's targeting of conservatives "is absolutely not illegal"

Fascinating.  I'm sure the Jews, among others, will be delighted to hear that it is now "absolutely not illegal" to have government agents targeting a particular minority among the population.

You know how it goes: "first they came for the conservatives, but I was not a conservative...."

US military unilaterally overturns Posse Comitatus.

"In essence, this policy change seeks to supersede Posse Comitatus, the 1878 law which forbids the military from being involved in domestic law enforcement “except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.” Under the Insurrection Act of 1807, the President may deploy armed forces domestically under extreme circumstances but Congress has to review the action every 14 days.

Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the President cannot commit troops to an armed conflict for a period longer than 60 days without an authorization from Congress of the use of military force or a declaration of war.

Under no circumstances in current US law is it legal for the military to deploy itself domestically without authorization from either the President, Congress or both."

 It looks as if the U.S. military are actively expecting some sort of trouble in which authorization for the military's use by the command-in-chief isn't possible.  I wonder why they are anticipating that?  Especially when the organization most capable of arranging a situation where that authorization isn't possible is the U.S. military.

The Ciceronian historical cycle anticipates the development of an aristocracy at this point.  It's interesting to consider from what that aristocracy might develop, as the areas of corporate and military power appear to be the two aspects of society that are increasingly immune to government regulation.  If the Ciceronian model is still relevant, the aristocracy would likely develop out of that corporate-military intersection.

A whistle, blown

A certain corporation has been actively avoiding British taxes:

A FORMER Google executive has blown the whistle on a massive and “immoral” tax avoidance scheme that has “cheated” British taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of pounds over the past decade.

Barney Jones, 34, who worked for the internet search giant between 2002 and 2006, has lifted the lid on an elaborate structure which diverts British profits through Ireland to the Bermuda tax haven.

Although Google’s London sales staff would negotiate and sign contracts with British customers, and cash was paid into a UK bank account, deals were technically booked through its Dublin office to minimise its liabilities here. Jones, a devout Christian and father of four, is ready to hand over a cache of more than 100,000 emails and documents to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), detailing the “concocted scheme”. 

My father was sentenced for twelve years of prison for a similar avoidance scheme that amounted to $2 million.  Granted, that was in the USA and not the UK, but I tend to doubt that Google only used this sort of scheme to divert British profits. I wonder how much prison time the influential and politically connected Google executives will see?  About as much as John Corzine saw for failing to return hundreds of millions of dollars on deposit with MF Global to its depositors, I expect. 

Some versions of this sort of structure are perfectly legal, of course.  If the sales staff had been in Dublin and the cash paid into Ireland, there wouldn't be an issue; the business would be legitimately Irish.  But the more influential corporations become, the more they expect to be permitted to not have to bother with petty matters such as sovereign nations and national law when it doesn't suit them to do so.

This should suffice to demonstrate that corporatism is manifestly not capitalism, and moreover, that it is intrinsically hostile to national interests.  Never forget that corporations are artificial creations of the State.

My favorite conspiracy ever

I can't even begin to describe how much I love this conspiracy theory:

You know what they say about the early Middle Ages, don’t you? If you can remember them, you weren’t really there. However, if you could recall those times, was this simply because you had been making up the entire era as a state-enrolled forger? If so, this would be explicable by the Phantom Time Hypothesis (PTH), a chronological theory almost unheard of in its radicalism, and which has been propagating steadily through German academic circles since 1998.

Picture a mediæval-style ‘Man­hattan Project’ with scriptoria instead of hangars, and Gothic minuscule instead of maths. Holy Roman Emperor Otto III (980–1002) has engaged his theo­logians under the leadership of Gerbert d’Aurillac (later Pope Sylvester II) in a project that is among the most zealous and secretive of its kind since the facsimile houses of Alexandria were at their busiest. The gilding of narratives has many precedents in the writing of hist­ories, especially self-aggrandising ones. But the one described by the PTH takes this art of embellishment up a few more notches: more than two centuries worked up from scratch, then infiltrated into as many chronologies as possible. Only a Middle Gothic or a Byzantine fanatic could have taken it to such lengths. But it worked. And as the traces were destroyed, the histories reconfigured and rebound, no one was any the wiser. At least until Heribert Illig and his adherents apparently figured it out.

Illig’s theory is rooted in the introduct­ion of the Gregorian calendar in 1582. It had long been known that the old Julian calendar had a defect – the Julian year being roughly 11 minutes too long – and the new calendar was designed to correct this discrepancy, to the tune of making up for 10 days that gradually slipped during the years between AD 1 and AD 1582. But Illig alleged that the Julian calendar should have produced a discrepancy of not 10 but 13 days over the period in question, and concluded that roughly three centuries had been added to the calendar that had never existed. His response was to run with the notion of calendar “slack” and look for corroborat­ive evidence.

It's even got a cool name: Phantom Time.

The scam collapses

It is becoming gradually clear, even to the True Believers in the Scientific Consensus, that the Global Warming Fairy isn't arriving after all:

The Economist, which (despite a recent decline) remains probably the best news magazine in the English language, now admits that (a) global average temperature has been flat for 15 years even as CO2 levels have been rising rapidly, (b) surface temperatures are at the lowest edge of the range predicted by IPCC climate models, (c) on current trends, they will soon fall clean outside and below the model predictions, (c) estimates of climate sensitivity need revising downwards, and (d) something, probably multiple things, is badly wrong with AGW climate models.

Something is badly wrong with AGW climate models?  You don't say.  It won't be long before they'll be similarly admitting that there is something badly wrong with the TENS models... or at least, they would if such models even existed.

Talk of "global warming" and even "climate change" has become so sparse these days that I actually had to dust off the post label.

Why "your" bank account isn't yours

The difference between "depositor" and "unsecured creditor", and the legal implications therein, is explained at Zerohedge:

The law has been in existence for hundreds of years and was established in England by the House of Lords in the case Foley v Hill in 1848.

When a customer deposits money with his banker, the relationship that arises is one of creditor and debtor, with the banker liable to repay the money deposited when demanded by the customer. Once money has been paid to the banker, it belongs to the banker and he is free to use the money for his own purpose.

I will now quote the relevant portion of the judgment of #3b4d81;">the House of Lords handed down by Lord Cottenham, the Lord Chancellor. He stated thus:

“Money when paid into a bank, ceases altogether to be the money of the principal… it is then the money of the banker, who is bound to return an equivalent by paying a similar sum to that deposited with him when he is asked for it.

The money paid into the banker’s, is money known by the principal to be placed there for the purpose of being under the control of the banker; it is then the banker’s money; he is known to deal with it as his own; he makes what profit of it he can, which profit he retains himself,…

The money placed in the custody of the banker is, to all intent and purposes, the money of the banker, to do with it as he pleases; he is guilty of no breach of trust in employing it; he is not answerable TO THE PRINCIPAL IF HE PUTS IT INTO JEOPARDY, IF HE ENGAGES IN A HAZARDOUS SPECULATION; he is not bound to keep it or deal with it as the property of the principal, but he is of course answerable for the amount, because he has contracted, having received that money, to repay to the principal, when demanded, a sum equivalent to that paid into his hands.” (quoted in UK Law Essays,  #3b4d81;">Relationship Between A Banker And Customer,That Of A Creditor/Debtor, emphasis added,)"

Holding that the relationship between a banker and his customer was one of debtor and creditor and not one of trusteeship, #3b4d81;">Lord Brougham said:

“This trade of a banker is to receive money, and use it as if it were his own, he becoming debtor to the person who has lent or deposited with him the money to use as his own, and for which money he is accountable as a debtor. I cannot at all confound the situation of a banker with that of a trustee, and conclude that the banker is a debtor with a fiduciary character.”

In plain simple English – bankers cannot be prosecuted for breach of trust, because it owes no fiduciary duty to the depositor / customer, as he is deemed to be using his own money to speculate etc. There is absolutely no criminal liability.

Now, English law is not U.S. law, but being that this decision derives from the Common Law, it should be understood, given recent US court decisions, the same is true in the USA.