People of the Book

Under traditional Islamic rule, Muslims held high status with strong legal protections and privileges, while non-Muslims held lower statuses, with weaker legal protections and privileges. However, not all non-Muslims were equal in the hierarchy. Muslim rulers acknowledged the "People of the Book" - those adhering to similar religions such as Judaism and Christianity - and gave them better treatment than pagans and heathens. I've always wondered why that was so. The Abrahamic religions are all, in some ways, direct competitors with each other. And the boundary between the Islamic world and Christendom also demarcates a highly active fault line between the eastern and western civilizations. It's not just the religion that changes, but cultures, races, languages, etc. There has been great animosity and much bloodshed between both sides for some 1300 years, and yet Muslims are still inclined to treat their conquered Christian foes better than pagans. Why?

One of the few benefits of living in a collapsing society is that, after seeing so many things go wrong, it becomes more obvious how traditional societies got it right. Most long-lived customs provide some sort of benefit, even long after everyone forgets what that benefit was. Often enough, we only re-learn the wisdom the hard way.

There are countless definitions of religion, many of them cynical. Here, we've often defined religion as "a social system where status is gained by making logically improbable declarations of faith." For instance, Christians state that Jesus walked on water, while liberals proclaim that diversity is our strength. That is a cynical take on religion, but certainly useful. Another description would be "a spiritual belief system." That's perhaps the most usual interpretation, and would exclude the secular religions of the modern era. A third description we should consider is "a social order that keeps the nation from making predictable mistakes." Humans are inclined to err, and a social order that mitigates common mistakes is likely to persist. Christians will certainly understand the concept. In the material world are endless temptations of evil, which the enlightened man avoids.

While the best blogs maintain some sort of theme or domain of expertise, this one tends to bounce around on various subjects. One of the insights I've gained from such a haphazard approach has been that so many of society's major breakdowns - whether it's the bunk science, the deranged journalism, the collapse of academic standards - all stem from a single root cause, which is materialism. The reporters have been hypnotized by an ideology whose only real goal is to acquire worldly power. The scientists are busy designing clever hypothetical scenarios for great order to have risen randomly from great chaos... for something to have come from nothing. Materialism is the cause of not all, but probably most of the major problems pushing the modern world to ruin.

In that guise, it makes complete sense for the Muslims to prefer Christians to non-believers. Muslims are quite spiritual, seeing their whole existence as an interaction with God. They prefer to be around people who are as similar to them as possible. A Christian who prays to Jesus every day is not terribly distant from a Muslim who prays five times a day to Allah. They have a system that helps protect them against the pitfalls of materialism, and they give preference to those who are similarly protected. It's why we don't actually hate Muslims or suffer "Islamophobia." It's why this blog has a running series titled Muslims Kill Liberals (which - not to jinx - has been very quiet lately). It's why Iranian clerics refer to America as "the Great Satan." Of course we are the primary exporter of materialism, so their term is very apt. They aren't talking about the America of Jefferson and Adams. No, they mean the America that strongarms other countries into embracing gay marriage and, now, child transexuality; which goes to war with distant countries for reasons that no one can quite figure out; etc.

It's a funny thing, that the liberals enthusiastically support Islamic immigration (although that's cooling off in Europe) and the conservatives object. Because, while Jihadis may not be real sweet on traditional American families, we aren't the ones driving them into homocidal rages. No, that would be the liberals and the neocons. Jihadis attack cosmopolitan hubs, gay night clubs, those kinds of places. In fact, if Muslims ever did manage to set up up sharia law in a western country, they'd likely do what they've always done. People of the Book would get a limited amount of respect and autonomy; radical atheists would be treated like dirt. Similarly, if the alt-right ever succeeded in setting up a white ethnostate, I suspect that brown Muslims would still be afforded more lenience than white leftists. Because one thing that Muslims still know, and Christendom is having to relearn, is that it is preferable to be surrounded by People of the Book - even if your enemy - than by materialists, the purveyors of worldly temptation who act like a friend.

No, Mr. President

One of the most entertaining aspects of the Trump era is hearing the things liberals will say in their endless zeal to contradict him. Even mainstream politicians are saying things like "America was never great." Boy, there's a political strategy... Cuomo / Buttigieg 2020: America Sucks!

Even more amusing than watching them publicly take anti-American stances is that often they end up inadvertently taking an anti-progressive stance. My favorite was during the election when Trump proposed a plan for providing federal maternity leave, and liberals actually had the gall to respond that the free market provided better solutions.

And so, Salon has also been duped into making some wonderful arguments on our behalf with yesterday's article, titled No, Mr. President: China didn't steal our jobs. Corporate America gave them away. For those unaware, Salon is an online news & opinion site, which is described even by liberally biased Wikipedia as left wing. They are currently seeking a buyer for the paltry sum of $5 million. For comparison, it is less than the listing price on this ugly, 2-bedroom, 1440 sqft. house a couple miles from their San Francisco headquarters. Yes, for the price of a cramped home with a decent view, you too could own a propaganda dumpster fire beloved by millions.

The subtitle goes

Trump's trade war points the finger in the wrong direction. China behaved normally; corporate CEOs betrayed us

The first half of the article is spent explaining that China has behaved rationally in pursuing its own self interest. That is actually correct and, in fact, candidate Trump routinely shared the same sentiment. Salon actually reported on Trump's stance of not blaming China in 2017, when they quoted him as saying "I don't blame China. After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for the benefit of its citizens? I give China great credit," in two articles with two more loaded titles: Asian leaders have learned that flattering Donald Trump really works and Trump rolls over to China, gives up on American values. Just like they don't know now that they already reported on Trump's Chinese stance, they didn't know then that Trump had been saying the same thing for years. And, despite telling us that "flattering Trump works" and Trump "rolled over," they now say he is engaged in a "reckless" and "misguided" trade war with China. Which is it? Salon isn't paid to keep their story straight, which is the main reason why the company is worth less than the office space they occupy.

There is some difference in sentiments. Salon's take would imply that China is without fault in all this. They are engaged in writing political hit pieces, not making sober analyses of the situation. If they're wrong, it doesn't really matter. They don't even refer back to their own past work anyway! Trump, on the other hand, has accused the Chinese of currency manipulation and of using Mexico and Canada as backdoors to circumvent trade agreements. Just because American politicians are to blame for unfair trade policies doesn't mean that the Chinese are acting in good faith.

In the second half, they address the question of who is really to blame for America's trade woes.

The answer is plain to see, and it lies within our own shores. The fault belongs squarely with corporate America. It was corporate America that made these decisions. Corporate America decided to close their American plants and open new plants in China. Corporate America decided to lay off multitudes of American workers and ruin entire American communities.

In this, they differ from Mr. Trump, who did not actually lay much blame on American corporations, but on America's public officials who allowed the fleecing to occur. Yes, corporation are soulless, greedy vampires, but they are generally assumed to be. They are legally obligated to act in the financial interests of their shareholders. Elected officials, on the other hand, are expected to work in the interests of the American nation. Businesses respond to financial incentives, and governments are supposed to create a legal environment where those incentives are mutually beneficial to the people they are paid to represent.

Watching leftists attack corporate America in their attempt to "get" Trump is like watching a snake eat its own tail. Corporate America is rabidly anti-Trump, and liberals are their adoring acolytes, yet they'll turn on their allies without hesitation if it means displaying opposition to whatever Trump is doing. The goal of every liberal is simply to be able to say, at any cost, "No, Mr. President, you're wrong." (That's actually progress, since they're now calling him Mr. President. I've not heard the phrase "Not My President" in quite a while now.) Having a lightning rod like him at the helm is such a good idea that I can't believe we never thought of it before. It brings the left's radical irrationality to the surface, as they are simply unable to keep it shrouded in the usual layers of deception and plausible deniability. And, occasionally, it tricks them into inadvertently saying something that's partially sane.

Weather & Gardening Promotions

There are a few sources of video content for climate change, space weather, and gardening I regularly follow. Here are some links, in case someone else is interested in them.

For climate news and analysis, I regularly listen to David Dubyne and his Adapt 2030 webcast (bitchute & youtube). His major premise is that the earth is entering a grand solar minimum (GSM), which he expects to peak around 2030. He suggests there will be great climate upheavals in store for us, but not the types predicted by global warming advocates. Another youtube channel dedicated to the coming GSM is here.

In space weather, Suspicious0bservers has a site and youtube channel focused on space weather, particularly solar events, and their connections to weather and seismological events on earth, as well the latest updates in astrophysics, with a friendly outlook to plasma cosmology and skepticism of many mainstream theories. In addition to the daily newscast, they have a "disaster prediction" app to provide alerts for solar storms and conditions they believe to be highly correlated to earthquakes and the like.

In gardening, David the Good (unauthorized & youtube) does a podcast, as well as instructional videos on survival gardening. He also has a few gardening books for sale. Styx often does updates of his garden, as does Owen Benjamin. I'm impressed with the output Owen is seeing already, at such a high latitude. Ice Age Farmer does videos on survival gardening, with a focus on preparing for the possible oncoming GSM.

Contrabang #8 Be Humble, Peons

This Is Why Mars Is Red And Dead While Earth Is Blue And Alive (link)

Imagine the early days of our Solar System, going back billions of years. The Sun was cooler and less luminous, but there were (at least) two planets — Earth and Mars — with liquid water covering large portions of their surfaces.

It is a theory - not a proven fact - that Mars was once covered in liquid water. The theory was made because Mars contains landforms that in many ways appear similar to water erosion on Earth.

Neither world was completely frozen over owing to the substantial presence of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.

As always, one hypothesis is the platform on which further hypotheses are stacked. Because erosion patterns on Mars are assumed to be caused by water, there must have been an atmosphere to keep the planet within the fairly narrow temperature range required for liquid water to pool. So now the erosion patterns require not only ancient oceans, but ancient clouds of greenhouse gasses.

Over the past few billion years, both planets have undergone dramatic changes. Yet, for some reason, while Earth became oxygen-rich, remained temperate, and saw life explode on its surface, Mars simply died. Its oceans disappeared; it lost its atmosphere; and no life signs have yet been found there. There must be a reason why Mars died while Earth survived.

There must be a reason why the available evidence would seem to contradict their stack of theories.

It took decades, but science has finally figured it out.

He then goes on for a few paragraphs to describe the process of earth's atmospheric CO2 being precipitated into rocks like limestone (which incidentally is why plants are now in carbon starvation, and why I advocate for more CO2 emissions, not less). Scientists suspected that CO2 was leached out of the Martian atmosphere by a similar process.

Since Mars once had a similarly CO2-rich atmosphere to early Earth, it was assumed that limestone and other carbonate rocks would be found on its surface. But there was none found by the Viking landers, nor by Soujourner, Spirit, or Opportunity.

The evidence returned by Martian landers does not support the Martian liquid water hypothesis. But that's okay. In modern science, you don't have to drop a pet theory just because it was contradicted by evidence. You just need to find a route around the evidence that gets headed back towards your pre-determined destination.

As discovered by the Opportunity rover, hematite spheres and spherules have been found on Mars. While there may be mechanisms to form them that don’t necessarily involve liquid water, there are no known mechanisms, even in theory, that can form them fused together (as found) in the absence of liquid. [Attached to an image in the article.]

There actually is a theoretical mechanism proposed by the electric universe people, and they even have some results showing similar fused spheres being produced by electrical discharges in a lab. If there is any evidence of the fused hematite spheres being produced in labs using water, I am unaware of it.

Instead of “down,” perhaps the atmosphere went “up” and into the depths of space. Perhaps Mars, much like Earth, once had a magnetic field to protect it from the solar wind. But at just half the diameter of Earth and with a lower-density, smaller core, perhaps Mars cooled enough so that its active magnetic dynamo went quiet. And perhaps this was a turning point: without its protective magnetic shield, there was nothing to protect that atmosphere from the onslaught of particles from the Sun.

 Perhaps.

The goal of MAVEN was to measure the rate at which the atmosphere was being stripped by the solar wind from Mars today, and to infer the rate throughout the red planet’s history. The solar wind is powerful, but molecules like carbon dioxide have a high molecular weight, meaning it’s difficult to get them up to escape velocity. Could the loss of a magnetic field coupled with the solar wind provide a viable mechanism to transform Mars from an atmosphere-rich world with liquid water at its surface to the Mars we know today?

What MAVEN saw was that Mars loses, on average, about 100 grams (¼ pound) of atmosphere to space every second.

Thanks to NASA’s MAVEN mission, we’ve confirmed that this story is, in fact, the way it happened. Some four billion years ago, the core of Mars became inactive, its magnetic field disappeared, and the solar wind stripped the atmosphere away.

This is not just ridiculous, but outright wrong even in the mainstream. The Maven project only measures outflows of hydrogen ions, individual protons which can get snagged into the electrically charged solar wind. It says nothing about carbon dioxide. And yet, Ethan has taken the measured stripping of hydrogen - which no one doubted - as proof for a whole serious of scientific guesses: oceans and flowing surface water, a thick CO2 atmosphere, and a periodic outage of the Martian magnetosphere. The MAVEN results are not even evidence in support of those theories, let alone proof. Yet, look at the confidence of his wording. "Confirmed...in fact...the way it happened." The only thing confirmed is that Ethan can't be trusted to make a sober analysis of evidence.

If he was smart, he'd drop the CO2 theory and stick with water vapor as the Martian greenhouse gas. Then, it is at least plausible that the water's hydrogen atoms escaped, and the leftover oxygen found something else to oxidize (like the sulphur compounds he mentioned). For some reason, they just can't let go of CO2 as greenhouse gas. It's almost like they've been conditioned or something.

What Was It Like When The First Humans Arose On Earth? (link)

In this one, Ethan jumps into the theory of evolution. His subtitle could about be the motto for modern science.

The cosmic story of us wasn’t inevitable, but the culmination of many chance events.

The modern scientist worships at the altar of randomness, and can't be trusted to perform impartial science because of his religious superstitions.

What follows is the standard recital of primate evolution. I only include it in this week's Contrabang to share his final paragraph [emphasis added].

It took 13.8 billion years of cosmic history for the first human beings to arise, and we did so relatively recently: just 300,000 years ago. 99.998% of the time that passed since the Big Bang had no human beings at all; our entire species has only existed for the most recent 0.002% of the Universe. Yet, in that short time, we’ve managed to figure out the entire cosmic story that led to our existence.

The hubris is unimaginable. We've figured out everything!

Fortunately, the story won’t end with us, as it’s still being written.

This sentence underscores that, not only is Ethan bad at scientific analysis, but he is actually a terrible writer. The story that let to our existence won't end with us?  It's still being written? So the future controls the story of the past? Who is writing the story about our existence? Ethan, who routinely fails to maintain proper verb tense consistency, also ends his articles in metaphors so bad they almost hurt to think about. Fortunately, the bulk of his audience must not be thinking much anyway.

The major takeaway from this is that, in whatever field he happens to write on, Ethan always parrots the mainstream consensus narrative, and does little else. He believes whatever he is supposed to believe. He is a good little cheerleader for the establishment viewpoint. Just look at his profile picture...he even dresses up in costume for it!

Your Glorified Ignorance Wasn’t Cool Then, And Your Scientific Illiteracy Isn’t Cool Now (link)

In this one, Ethan shares the story of his childhood.

All across the country, you can see how the seeds of it develop from a very young age. When children raise their hands in class because they know the answer, their classmates hurl the familiar insults of “nerd,” “geek,” “dork,” or “know-it-all” at them. The highest-achieving students — the gifted kids, the ones who get straight As, or the ones placed into advanced classes — are often ostracized, bullied, beat up, or worse.

Ethan, if you're reading this, I know we have our differences of opinion, but I offer my sincere condolences that your were beaten up and ostracized in school for being a know-it-all dork.

This article really is a grab bag of lunacy. In it, he manages to:

• Share yet another image of Barrack Obama
• Advocate for the HPV vaccine, which some estimate kills more than it saves
• Advocate for adding fluoride - of which there is no safe level - to the water supply.
• Push the global warming agenda

Every time we insist we already know everything, we lose an opportunity to learn and improve.

This is outrageous coming from the guy who just said, in the previous article, that we "managed to figure out the entire cosmic story." This is becoming a case study in not just bad science, but of psychological projection.

When we trust our own non-expertise over the genuine expertise of bona fide experts, terrible things happen.

Holy appeal to authority, Batman. Does that sentence read like it would be out of place in some communist propaganda? Listen to what you're told, do not think for yourself, or "terrible things" will happen! Not only is it authoritarian and hyperbolic, but it is factually incorrect. What skeptics like me are doing is not to "trust our own non-expertise" over that of experts, but to demonstrate how they are making illogical conclusions of their own evidence, ignoring or circumventing contradictory evidence, and routinely failing to make accurate predictions. His implication is that it doesn't matter what our arguments are, because those arguments are not properly accredited. Trust only the academy!

The next time you find yourself on the opposite side of an issue from the consensus of experts in a particular field, remember to be humble. 

The opposite is also true. If you find yourself on the same side of an issue as the consensus of experts, such as when you habitually side with the consensus of experts - because you are either incapable of independent thought or perhaps just afraid of being called wrong - there is no need for humility. It is okay to say things like "we've figured everything out." Because, hey man, you're the establishment guy. You know what's cool.

The Goddess Mother

Most cultures have a concept of goddess worship in some sense. We might be inclined to think of fertility worship as associated to backwater tribal primitivism, but the Western world has the same traditions: the only major female deity in Christianity is Mary, the idealized mother; the Norse goddess of fertility was Freyja, whose name we allude to every Friday; and the Greeks had the proto-goddess of life Gaia, wife of Uranus, invoked today when we speak of Mother Earth.

Having a newborn, it's easy to see the inspiration for goddess worship. To him, the mother really is like a goddess, in the literal sense. She has given him a body out of her own body, and then nourishes him from her body. Everything the child has is because the mother has chosen to sacrifice for him out of love. Nine months of pregnancy, hours of excruciating labor, and years of nursing and child-rearing. The mother has the power to create life, which all religions agree is the fundamental supernatural power. Or at least, all the life religions. The progressive belief system is like a religion, but more akin to a death cult. Picture the contemporary Mother Earth: she cradles new life in her womb, then dismembers it with a curette blade or coat hanger when she deems her brood to be inconvenient, or she desires to show the other goddesses how empowered she is.

It's even more disturbing than that, because their goddess need not be a woman at all. Maybe it's a mentally disturbed man in a dress. Maybe he's a pedophile. Womanhood used to be defined by the ability to become a mother, and being a mother meant making great sacrifices to pass on the gift of life. Now it can just mean some transitory emotion, or even just the pretense of one. Society used to revere women for devoting themselves to the primary duty of life. Now the woman has been stripped of all meaning and dignity. She is just a pawn of the left's grievances against men and patriarchal western society. They hail someone like Bruce Jenner as Woman of the Year in order to make a mockery of men, but in the crossfire they make even more of a mockery of women. Bruce Jenner never endured menstruation, pregnancy, labor, nursing, or menopause, nor the weight of societal expectations of the female gender role, such as feminine grace and beauty. He did not earn his way as a woman, yet gets the title anyway. The antidote to feminism, I would think, would be to experience actual motherhood, to watch a woman suffer for her child, and engage in lifelong devotion to him. I would never disrespect my mother or the mother of my children by calling some man in a dress a woman. I would sooner go to jail for it, as is happening in some European countries. That so many fathers and sons are willing to worship a false goddess of motherhood is beyond my ability to properly understand.

There seems to have been a general transition in ancient times from female- to male-oriented societies. The Indo-Europeans were patriarchal and primarily worshipped a sun god. They displaced matriarchal societies that worshipped moon goddesses. It isn't obvious why sun worshippers would have some natural advantage. It could be coincidence, since colder climates tended towards sun worship, and warm climates to moon worship. Cold cultures have the benefit of low time preference (i.e. they were always looking forward, planning for winter) and an incentive towards collective action. Perhaps sun gods prevail because their people prevail. It's the inverse of the Hebrew tradition, where the most powerful god has a Chosen People. Instead, the most powerful people have a Chosen God.

It might also be that sun worship reflects a more mature society. We see that babies are almost entirely in the dominion of their mothers, but in adolescence and adulthood become more influenced by their fathers. They transition from the physical and emotional support of their mothers, towards the rational guidance of their fathers. Pre-agrarian societies needed the benevolence of Mother Earth to provide sustenance; agricultural people need the light of the sun to provide for themselves, as well as the masculine will to impose order in a more specialized society.

Modern society has spitefully rejected Helios, but has not reverted back to Luna. (The current gynocentricity is anti-male and anti-Western, not pro-female.) Instead, the modern zealots worship themselves. They have no god. The child has rejected both mother and father. It is normal for the young adult to move out of his parents' home and establish his own, is it not? Yes, but that is not the same as rejecting the parents. There is an allegory, which is the fable of the Prodigal Son. We are like the prodigal society, believing we need no guidance but our own cleverness. Even worse, our society doesn't merely ignore the good guidance of mother and the father, but intentionally does the opposite. That is the rebellious spirit of our inverted clown world. We don't honor the mother or father, but the child. We aspire not to the subliminal elegance of the virgin mother, nor the wisdom of the eternal father, but the self-indulgent emotional turmoil of the spoiled brat. I demand others give me what I want; reality is whatever I imagine it to be; if something's not fair, I will throw a tantrum.

A recent opinion piece, which the New York Times editors deemed to be fit for printing, was titled Pregnancy Kills. Abortion Saves Lives. It is technically false, of course, and merely a demonstration of their desperate desires to invert all reality. But, it is true from the viewpoint of perpetual childhood. Parenthood forces the girl to become a woman; the boy to become a man. Pregnancy creates one child, but kills two. In non-clown world, mother and father are always willing to sacrifice themselves for the child. The New York Times reader, on the other hand, is a perpetual child, thus the fetus must be sacrificed for her needs. She is not a woman, and certainly not a goddess mother.

Contrabang #7 Taking on the Skeptics

This week, Ethan directly took on skepticism of the standard model for astronomy. He's not likely aware of this humble blog of skepticism, but that's a good thing, since it means there must be many other voices expressing similar sentiments - so many that he feels the need to address them.

We'll start with what might be the most hubris-soaked headline imaginable.

Cosmology’s Only Big Problems Are Manufactured Misunderstandings (link)

Everything was fine until those darn skeptics started peddling their misunderstandings! The subheading:

Dark matter, dark energy, inflation and the Big Bang are real, and the alternatives all fail spectacularly.

It has sort of the feeling of one demanding that ghosts or the Yeti are real. "The hypothetical-but-unobserved exotic states of matter we created to make our equations work are real, no matter what science deniers might say!" Also, notice the implicit Sherlock's Fallacy being set up. If the other theories don't hold up, then this one must be correct. "If you can't prove who committed the murder, then it must have been you!"

If you add [the cosmology controversies] all together, as philosopher Bjørn Ekeberg did in his recent piece for Scientific American, you might think cosmology was in crisis. But if you’re a scrupulous scientist, exactly the opposite is true. [...] We make predictions, we go out and test them experimentally and observationally, and then we constrain, revise, or extend our ideas to accommodate whatever new information we obtained.

Ethan must not track all the times experimental results conclude a need to "question basic assumptions," only for that never to happen.

The ultimate dream of many is to revolutionize the way we conceive of our world, and to replace our current theories with something even more successful and profound.

Which is why one day some ambitious young scientists will be the first to disprove Nobel-prize awards, once the institutional inertia is no longer able to prevent it.

Although science itself may be unbiased, scientists are not. We can fall prey to the same cognitive biases that anyone else can. Once we choose our preferred conclusions, we frequently fool ourselves through the fallacious practice of motivated reasoning.

Yes.

It’s where the famous aphorism that “physics advances one funeral at a time” first came from. This notion was originally put forth by Max Planck with the following statement:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. 

It reminds me of a Metallica lyric: Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel, is just a freight train coming your way. "Freight trains are what happen to all those other early scientists who became overconfident in unproven theories. But not us, because we're right!"

That’s the key that’s so often overlooked: you have to examine the full suite of evidence in evaluating the success or failure of your theory or framework. Sure, you can always find individual observations that pose a difficulty for your theory to explain, but that doesn’t mean you can just replace it with something that does successfully explain that one observation.

He suggests that if you can't come up with a better theory, then you can sort of gloss over the contradictions of the dominant theory. This is why we are skeptical of the scientists and accuse them of conducting what more or less amounts to intellectual fraud. They deliberately marginalize evidence which contradicts the prevailing model whenever there is not a good explanation. For example, neutron stars have effectively been discredited by the evidence, and yet they remain in the standard model, because astronomers have no better explanation for powerful, periodic stellar radiation. The intellectually honest answer is "we don't know what causes it." Then, they could dedicate some manpower to solving the mystery of the oscillating lights, which clearly exist, rather than the ever-elusive hunt for dark matter, which does not exist.

You have to account for everything, plus the new observation, plus new phenomena that have not yet been observed.

Minus the things you can't account for.

This is the problem with every alternative. Every alternative to the expanding Universe, to the Big Bang, to dark matter, dark energy, or inflation, all fail to even account for whatever’s been already observed, much less the rest of it. That’s why practically every working scientist considers these proposed alternatives to be mere sandboxing, rather than a serious challenge to the mainstream consensus. 

This is the problem. I don't have to provide a better, comprehensive model in order to critique the standard model. He is promoting a false requirement for skepticism, one that cannot practically be met. It's like telling the defense attorney that he must prove someone else committed the crime, or his client hangs. In science, a theory should be considered independently of other explanations. It does not matter if the other theories are deemed to be more wrong than the one under examination. Science is meant to be an objective, not subjective, pursuit of knowledge.

Ask Ethan: How Well Has Cosmic Inflation Been Verified? (link) 

The subheading again takes it right to the haters.

Some claim that inflation isn’t science, but it sure has made some incredibly successful scientific predictions.

I'm just going to cherrypick a couple parts.

What inflation specifically hypothesized is that the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning, but rather was set up by a prior stage of the Universe. In this early state — dubbed an inflationary state by Guth — the dominant form of energy wasn’t in matter or radiation, but was inherent to the fabric of space itself, and possessed a very large energy density.

This would cause the Universe to expand both rapidly and relentlessly, driving any pre-existing matter apart. The Universe would be stretched so large it would be indistinguishable from flat. All the parts that an observer (like us) would be able to access would now have the same uniform properties everywhere, since they originated from a previously-connected state in the past.

Physics is the study of how material things in the world interact. In modern physics, empty space is a thing too, in the sense that a canvas is a thing that holds paint. When they say inflation preceded the Big Bang, imagine a canvas being stretched larger first, and then the paint expanding to fill the canvas second. This solved the flatness problem, since that was as yet no explanation for why spacetime should be flat rather than curved. [Spacetime would also appear to be flat if it didn't exist at all.

Inflation has literally met every threshold that science demands, with clever new tests becoming possible with improved observations and instrumentation.

Science does not demand that inflation obey the fundamental laws of science, like the first law of thermodynamics. Also, "clever" is not necessarily a description the conveys confidence in an experiment. It's why the LIGO results are questionable. They were bound to find whatever they were looking for.

Although it’s perhaps more palatable and fashionable to be a contrarian, inflation is the leading theory for the best reason of all: it works. If we ever make a critical observation that disagrees with inflation, perhaps that will be the harbinger of an even more revolutionary theory of how it all began.

Again, the hubris runs strong. More palatable to be contrarian? Yes, that's far more preferable than promoting the establishment consensus, which is merely rewarded with federal grant money, academic positions with tenure, notoriety, and endless praise from the fawning media. Sure, Ethan has his massive exposure thanks to his syndication by massive corporate outfits like Forbes, but it is far more fashionable for me to be pointing out criticisms to a handful of regular readers.

But that's fine, Ethan has his theories, I have my own. I say it's ghosts. Yes, ghosts are the ones pushing matter into strange dynamics that can't otherwise be described. And until we ever make a critical observation that disagrees that it's ghosts - which can't be observed by mere mortals of their paltry devices - then it is simply contrarian to insist that the cosmos are ruled by anything other than ghost matter and ghost energy.

The Family Pill

The God Pill term may have been coined by Roosh. He noticed that the red pill is the realization that there are great falsehoods which permeate our society and great truths which are actively suppressed, the black bill is the realization that the falsehoods and evil forces are too strong to be defeated, and the God pill is the realization that those forces are an inescapable aspect of reality. How we handle the eternal struggle of good versus evil is the crux of what it means to live a good or virtuous life.  Roosh may have coined the term, but not the concept. In past times, not very long ago even, such understanding was the norm in our Christian society. Merely using a phrase like "God pill" reveals a migration from indoctrination in the modern ethos towards a mindset more typical of western nations.

Others have made similar journeys. Stefan Molyneux used to be one of leading rational atheists on the internet. When I saw him last year in St Louis, he gave what could have easily passed for a Sunday sermon (and superior to any Sunday sermon that I can recall growing up). Owen Benjamin has also embraced Christianity, but on his own terms. To him, accepting Christ means submitting to a higher power, and embracing logos in all aspects of life. But, he is even more excited about his lifestyle changes, transitioning from a California comedian & actor to a rural homesteader. He takes it as a given that the world is fallen and corrupt, and focuses his time and energy on creating a bubble for his family free from both evil and despair. His God pill is the family pill.

Roosh might have coined his term as "the family pill" instead, but he doesn't have a family. His black pill was the realization that, after years of mastering the art of convincing women to engage in the act of reproduction, he has not actually done any reproducing, nor even found a women to keep. His God pill was to realize that, for all the work he did in discovering the truth about the mating game (the red pill) those truths did not actually lead him in a positive direction. In fact, merely embracing the religion of his youth would have served him better in that regard. Roosh exhibits great humility in acknowledging this misdirection, and in redirecting himself and his many followers towards something better. He shows gratitude that, as a 39-year-old man, he still has a chance to redeem his life in terms of swallowing the family pill. [A similarly placed woman may not be so lucky. The black pill can be even darker for women, which may be why they seem more inclined to resist the red pill to begin with.]

The God pill and family pill are both the same realization: that we should strive to construct our own spheres of order atop the seas of chaos. Thus, the family pill doesn't just mean physically making kids, but in creating an ordered universe for them. That means shielding them from the worst that the world has to offer. I'm typing this up lying next to a 1-day-old baby boy we just brought home from the hospital. During our single night in the maternity ward, we made the mistake of turning on the television when the late night show with Seth Myers happened to be on. Within a few seconds he had already bashed Trump, and the entirety of the next five or ten minutes was spent attacking various Republicans before I had to re-assert the bubble of sanity and turn the device back off. It's not that the corporate program was unabashed party propaganda, but that it was deranged. Just sheer obsession by a corporate media machine enraged that America voted for a candidate whom they were told not to vote for. It's an entertainment show ... who could possibly be entertained by it? To merely view is to partake in the madness. 

Clicking OFF is a powerful act of establishing order in your sphere, far more than observing and certainly more so than reacting. It's why, as political as I can be, and so opposed to what the left is doing, I have a strict policy of not politicizing children. It is a tactic of the left. On social media a common meme is something to the extent of: My five-year-old asked me how could we elect a Nazi as president, and all I could do was cry. To the extent they're ever true, it only means a child has been indoctrinated, and at the least it means children are being leveraged to generate emotional appeal towards a political agenda. It's sick, because children are not political pawns. They are young, innocent human beings. There is some analog on the right, with the young girl who does the AOC spoofs, and Soph, a 14-year-old girl who's gotten real big by creating very compelling anti-left rhetoric. I'll admit I'm a little torn on her, since she seems to have reached the age of reason. Still, she's a child. We don't respond to indoctrination of children by counter-indoctrinating them. We do so by un-indoctrinating them. The family pill is the sanity pill. Reacting to crazy people in a way that is equal and opposite to them is still it's own form of crazy. It makes little sense to respond to radical, angry lefties by becoming radical, angry right-wingers. There are many good strategies to countering The Cult, but if we aren't creating sanity bubbles and aren't raising families in them, then we will have effectively joined the cause of madness in any case. The best rebuke to abnormal times is to find a way to live normal lives.

The Actual Darkweb

Heartiste, recently banned from his influential Wordpress blog, has been commenting a bit on Gab. He wonders if we are getting close to a time when online dissident commentary will have to be printed onto physical manuscripts and passed around like medieval contraband. It's too bad that the Intellectual Darkweb chose their particular moniker, because they have virtually removed the term 'darkweb' from practical use in the lexicon. Jordan Peterson sold two million copies of his book and was invited to speak to the Trilateral Commission. Ben Shapiro is syndicated as the token conservative on rabidly left-wing corporate media outfits. Joe Rogan has the biggest podcast on the planet, pulling in Silicon Valley billionaires and Democratic presidential candidates. Is darkweb meant as a joke, or do they really no realize that they are utterly mainstream? Perhaps they've merely outgrown a name that was less untrue some time ago.

There is a darkweb growing that is truly dark, which consists of the people who have actually been deplatformed from mainstream consumption. I've provided links to the actual darkweb homes of those who have been unpersoned by The Cult, or who are at least helping to build the alt social media platforms. This is hardly an exhaustive list of the quality content creators of the actual darkweb, but should be enough to get anyone started who might not be familiar with the alt media platforms and personalities.

• Heartiste: gab
• Paul Joseph Watson: gab, bitchute
• Alex Jones: gab, bitchute
• Milo Yiannopoulos: gab, dangerous.com
• Laura Loomer: gab, LauraLoomer.US
• Vox Day: unauthorized.tv, bitchute
• Owen Benjamin: unauthorized.tv, bitchute, hugepianist.com
• Stefan Molyneux: gab, bitchute
• Red Ice: gab, bitchute
• Sharyl Attkisson: gab
• Zman: gab, blog

Others on bitchute are Tim Pool, Styxhexenhammer, Mark Dice, Tommy Robinson, Brittany Pettibone, RAMZPAUL, Steven  Crowder

Contrabang #6 Leaking Leftism

This will be a fairly lengthy episode of Contrabang, covering five articles of Starts With a Bang! Ethan went off topic a couple times this week. I won't hold that against him, since my own blog wanders all over the place, but I'll tag along with him a bit jut to show that, whenever he does wander off topic, it is always to promote some other aspect of the progressive agenda. Liberals and lying scientists go hand-in-hand, and quite often are one and the same.

I notice from the viewer stats that not all readers are interested in Contrabang, but that is to be expected. It's not light reading, and I even sometimes skip the more technical posts of blogs I follow when I'm not in the mood for it. For those who are following along - which is still more than half of the normal traffic - I appreciate you hanging in there. I do think that this is probably the most important services that this blog offers, because no one else is providing counterpoint to Ethan's blog - the most popular independent science blog on the web. Frankly, I don't necessarily enjoy taking an hour or two every Sunday to do this; I see it as a chore. But also, I'm quite impressed with the men at Contra Krugman who stick it out to rebut lies week after week. Somebody has to do it! I'll do what I can to keep it light, but I can't always promise to keep it short, since Ethan posts so frequently. With that, let's begin.

This Is What Our Sun’s Death Will Look Like, With Pictures From NASA’s Hubble (link)

Our Sun will someday run out of fuel. Here’s what it will look like when that happens

The primary offerings of the left are materialism and despair. They say: the world is entirely material, and it is doomed to end catastrophically. They really have no evidence of this calamity other than their theory of the stellar lifecycle, which is practically a toy theory. The fundamental problem is that scientists take the best working hypothesis they have and reflexively promote it to first-class status. It stems from collective hubris of the scientific community. They can't just say, "there is a really bright light in the sky that powers all life on earth and we don't really know how it works." There are two reasons for this. First, the small one, is that great fame and fortune can be had by concocting the big theory of the day, even if it's later refuted. Not a bad deal for the ambitious materialist! Second, the bigger one, is that scientists are more concerned with disproving religious beliefs than anything. The reason they won't admit that modern genetic evidence has refuted the theory of evolution, or that they don't really know how stars work, are one and the same.

Fantasy Genetics Is The Most Important, And Worst, Science In Game Of Thrones (link)

Ethan takes a break from physics for a bit to discuss the immorality of genetics in a fantasy television series.

Here on Earth, we hold one important truth to be self-evident above all others: that all humans are created equal. [...] While certain genetic combinations may provide advantages or disadvantages under specific environmental conditions, the idea that there is an “objectively best set” of genetics has no scientific merit.

Only liberals here on Earth promote the first sentence. [If it means what Ethan thinks it means, then he must question why he is quoting the words of a slave owner.] And note that the second sentence is effectively a strawman argument. Of course there is no "objectively best set" of genetics. No one says that it is subjectively true, let alone that it has scientific merit. Saying that there is not a "best" set of genes is not the same as saying all sets of genes are equal.

But the idea of a “genetic purity” shows up most strongly with the Targaryens. [...] But this is a white supremacist’s ideal view of genetics, not a lesson in how genetics actually works. In reality, race is not a biologically meaningful category. In reality, genetic diversity increases biological fitness among humans, rather than diluting it. In reality, inbreeding poses a dizzying array of potential inherited disorders.

You get the idea. Just advocating that all races start mixing or we'll fall prey to scary recessive disorders, and if you breed within your race you are an inbred white supremacist. It's totally false, by evidence of the fact that all the races on earth today have managed to survive just fine. It's zero real science, all virtue signaling, and total nonsense. [Don't be alarmed. Whatever race you are, it's perfectly safe to continue your particular genetic lineage if you wish. The isn't actually any scientific reason to remove all genetic diversity by making the gene pool homogeneous. I don't advocate for any race to interbreed itself out of existence, because I'm not genocidal.]

What Was It Like When Life’s Complexity Exploded? (link)

As surprising as it may seem, there were really only a handful of critical developments that were necessary in order to go from single-celled, simple life to the extraordinarily diverse sets of creatures we’d recognize today.

Complete nonsense, especially for the mainstream genetic materialist, which I assume Ethan to be, based on his eagerness to promote such beliefs in other domains. Refer to yesterday's post on iterative evolution. If you believe changes arise from random genetic mutations, then functioning multicellular traits are wildly improbable.

Relying on random mutations alone, and passing those traits onto offspring, is extremely limiting as far as evolution goes. If mutating your genetic material and passing it onto your offspring is the only mechanism you have for evolution, you might not ever achieve complexity.

Quite often, I agree with this guy 100%. But then he always doubles back towards absurdity. It's like he intentionally says something sane, to prove he's not insane, before continuing on with the insane thing that he really wanted to say to being with.

But many billions of years ago, life developed the ability to engage in horizontal gene transfer, where genetic material can move from one organism to another via mechanisms other than asexual reproduction.

That has nothing to do with evolving new traits, but an approach to mixing and propagating traits that have already evolved by random mutation. New traits do not arise from sexual reproduction.

As creatures grew in complexity, they accumulated large numbers of genes that encoded for specific structures that performed a variety of functions. 

Wrong, there are only 19,000 genes in the human genome. In a body with trillions of cells, interconnected in an impossibly complex web of interdependencies, a genome of a few thousand is shockingly small. If scientists were honest, they'd all be agreeing that something is amiss here.

Multicellularity, according to the biological record left behind on planet Earth, is something that evolved numerous independent times. 

This is not evidence that support evolution by random chance. That is either evidence that the evidence is wrong (the taxonomies are completely unreliable) or that life has a will of its own.

The rest of the post is not worth commenting on, but know this: he managed to work in a photograph of the Obama family. Liberal bias theory: QED.

Cosmology’s Biggest Conundrum Is A Clue, Not A Controversy (link)

He picks up on the same story that we covered here in Intersectional Astrophysics, which examined recent measurements of the alleged expansion of the universe that would seem, to everyone but cosmologists, to contradict older measurements with a different value. Ethan tells us that it's not actually a controversy! [emphasis added]

Although it sounds bizarre, both groups could be correct. The reconciliation could come from a third option that most people aren’t yet willing to consider. Instead of the distance ladder group being wrong or the early relics group being wrong, perhaps our assumptions about the laws of physics or the nature of the Universe is wrong.

Is Ethan on to something? Does he finally realize that maybe the many layers of unproven assumption on which modern astrophysics rely on are like a growing stack of dishes doomed to topple over? You know the drill! The paragraph continues.

In other words, perhaps we’re not dealing with a controversy; perhaps what we’re seeing is a clue of new physics.

NOO!! Arrghh!!! Calling basic assumptions into question is not a clue for something new "in other words." Those aren't the same thing! One is taking a step back; the other is barreling on forward.  They always, always, always, always do this: they state the need to question basic assumptions, before immediately embracing that precarious stack of dishes while searching for a new plate to throw on top.

Ethan promotes a few possible explanations for the discordant measures, which include,

• dark energy is changing in an unexpected fashion over time
• gravity behaves differently than we’ve anticipated on cosmic scales
• there is a new type of field or force permeating the Universe 

That's the state of modern astrophysics. Dark energy is changing, that's rich. Call it dark delta, or something like that. "We suspect that the hypothetical state of matter that we can't observe which is 3/4 of the universe and violates fundamental laws of the universe, must change in ways we also can't observe."

The option of evolving dark energy is of particular interest and importance, as this is exactly what NASA’s future flagship mission for astrophysics, WFIRST, is being explicitly designed to measure.

Well there you go. There is nothing our government won't fund if there's sensationalist nonsense science afoot.

This is not some fringe idea, where a few contrarian scientists are overemphasizing a small difference in the data. [...] Nobel Laureate Adam Riess, perhaps the most prominent figure presently researching the cosmic distance ladder, was kind enough to record a podcast with me, discussing exactly what all of this might mean for the future of cosmology.

Ethan makes the point I've tried to make several times. I'm not picking on him because I just found some random moronic blog to make fun of. He runs the most popular independent science blog on the internet, which promotes the most mainstream theories and lands interviews with the most mainstream scientists. This is not some fringe blog.

It’s possible that somewhere along the way, we have made a mistake somewhere. It’s possible that when we identify it, everything will fall into place just as it should, and there won’t be a controversy or a conundrum any longer. But it’s also possible that the mistake lies in our assumptions about the simplicity of the Universe, and that this discrepancy will pave the way to a deeper understanding of our fundamental cosmic truths.

The problem is always "assumptions about the simplicity of the Universe." The answer is always more complicity. The answer is never simple. It couldn't be that Type 1-A supernovae are not really standard candles, an assumption based on unproven accretion disk theory. No, that explanation is too simple and, most importantly, caries no funding angle.

Ask Ethan: How Does The Event Horizon Telescope Act Like One Giant Mirror? (link)

Ethan fields a question from the reader, who doesn't understand how the recent black-hole photo was made. He responds by highlighting some aspect of combining wavelengths of light from various sources, without mentioning that it all required a computer algorithm of nearly a million lines of code to produce the image. The cause for skepticism is that, like with the LIGO signal filtering, they may have just selected whatever technique best yielded the expected results. I haven't dug in to see if the algorithm was independently verified, but most reporting seems to prefer to ignore the existence of the massive processing required to produce the image.

Zombie Birds of Science

The latest outlandish headline from the mainstream scientific-industrial complex comes from CNN, proud purveyor of Fake News™: Extinct species of bird came back from the dead, scientists find.

A previously extinct species of bird returned from the dead, reclaiming the island it previously lived on and re-evolving itself back into existence, scientists have said.

The white-throated rail colonized the Aldabra Atoll in the Indian Ocean and evolved to become flightless, before being completely wiped out when the island disappeared below the sea around 136,000 years ago.

But researchers found similar fossils from before and after that event, showing that the chicken-sized bird re-appeared when sea levels fell again a few thousand years later, re-colonized the island and again lost the ability to fly.

The flightless rail can be found on Aldabra to this day.

The extremely rare process is known as iterative evolution -- the repeated evolution of a species from the same ancestor at different times in history.

Most people, if asked about evolution, would agree that evolution has been proven by science. Also, most people don't really understand what evolution means. Even the majority of Christians agree with evolution, but only so long as terms are muddied and unproven assumptions are implicitly made. Pew Research Center found that the majority of Christians believe that humans have evolved over time (link). What's being conflated here is origin of species with adaptation of species, and the implicit unproven assumption is that they are the same thing. Scientists have direct evidence that species can adapt over time. They have no evidence that new species arise by adaption; it is assumed.

Evolutionists believe that all change (whether adaptation or species genesis) occur by random mutations of genes. Most mutations, of course, are harmful. Proteins are highly complex molecules that must be composed and folded in just the right way to function as needed. The vast majority of random changes will destroy functionality, not enhance. And the odds that the change will create a new protein with a new function that the cell will be able to implement usefully are far thinner yet. Imagine taking the cover off your TV and randomly modifying the various circuit boards underneath. What are the odds you improve the TV functionality, rather than destroy it?

Evolution isn't just the miraculous random production of new & improved genes, but many thousands of those mutations properly synchronized and temporally ordered across the genome. Many have pointed out that the eye could not randomly evolve, to which evolutionists respond that the eye provides a perfect example of random evolution in action. Even if so, the process also requires that the visual cortex evolved in lockstep with the eye to process vision with each incremental improvement in sight, as did the optical nerve, as did all the various connections to the other parts of the brain that actually use the vision feed to some useful purpose. A random mutation that improves the lens carries no survival advantage if the retina can't resolve the improved image, the visual cortex can't process it, and the various nerves can transmit it. A single beneficial random mutation is a miracle. Score of them in a synchronized fashion is impossible. Not improbable; impossible. [Also, this all supposes that genes actually encode traits which, as we saw in Biological Materialism, they can not because there are not nearly enough of them.]

Even more incredibly, scientists promote the evolutionary theory of convergence, which is used to explain observations of shared traits in species where it cannot be attributed to a common ancestor. Convergence has become a worse problem, not better, by genome mapping, which often conflict with existing species taxonomies. Convergence shows that evolution is not a falsifiable theory. If two related species share a common trait, it is proof of evolution from a common ancestor. If two related species show different traits, it is proof of evolution by divergence. If two unrelated species share a common trait, it is proof of evolution by convergence. There is not even a hypothetical scenario that evolutionists would entertain as evidence against evolution, and this latest conclusion proves it. "Iterative evolution" is even more fanciful than convergence in magically whisking away all evidence that contradicts the theory.

It's the same pattern we see in other scientific domains, like astronomers promoting neutron stars; absurdity should drive scientists to re-examine both theory and evidence. Because they already plow through all logical contradictions, adding another aspect of absurdity doesn't particularly phase them. The first response to the new findings should be to take it as evidence that the atoll was not fully submerged after all. Perhaps the limestone deposits on the island are not properly aged, for some reason. It is a far more reasonable assertion than theirs, which is that evolution is basically deterministic (even though random!) and species evolution is all but trivial. Another conclusion might be that modern theories of evolution don't actually account for the origin of species (of which there is already substantial accompanying evidence). The most amusing aspect of all this is that the re-emergence of the zombie bird species is that it actually provides more evidence of creationism than evolution, but of course they will never admit so. They don't believe in creationism, they believe in evolution. They've already chosen a side, the evidence is just details to be explained away, whatever it may be.

Christianity is Blackpilled

In her last couple of videos (here and here) Blonde has been grappling with the depression and lack of energy stemming from becoming blackpilled. (Redpilled means awakened to the truth, in the sense of the Matrix bluepill/redpill choice. Blackpilled means becoming cynical that the modern world can be salvaged at all.) In one of her videos she asks, "Black pill or God pill?"

Owen Benjamin has become frustrated lately with all the despair he gets from followers, to the point of banning people for being too dreary. I say he's a little impatient, because he is in the business of redpilling his audience. It's natural that removing comfortable lies will cause despair. It's like teenagers who become cynical at the world as they realize life isn't the happy, safe world of childhood, but eventually most people level out. You can't really unswallow the red pill, but the blackpill wears off for all but those who refuse to stop wallowing in self-pity.

Perhaps Christianity is primarily a program for dissolving the black pill. How does one confront the truth without becoming damaged? Maybe it's not so easy! Look at all the delusion and rage that permeates our current culture. The great irony is that in our modern, rational society, people are less inclined to embrace truth than before, because without faith they have no ability to handle truth. The material world becomes flawed, yet all they have is the material world. There is nothing else, so, in a sense, everything has been taken from them. Rage and fear does seem like the natural response.

Christianity teaches that we live in a fallen world, that evil forces roam the material world, but that it's all okay. You can do your part to share the light, side with the good, and no more. I must admit that, despite being raised Catholic, I never understood the meaning of their core belief which is that Jesus died for our sins. In fact, at the age of 16 I asked a priest about it and got such a lackluster response that I decided that the clergymen didn't believe any of it either. However, I wonder if the benefit of the belief in Christ being sent as savior is the implication that you must not be the savior. You can't save the fallen the world. So don't try. Even God's own son was destroyed (in a material sense) by the evil forces of the world. There is no use in despairing at the evil in the world, because evil will never be eradicated anyway. The only question is whether you stand for the good, and gracefully suffer the bad. If life is a test of one's virtue, then evil is necessary.

I wrote a couple weeks ago about Paul's one big flaw being a fervent belief in impending worldly apocalypse, going so far as to advise men not even to start families. Was Paul the original MGTOW? It certainly is an interesting parallel to that modern lifestyle choice. We can see that, as with the angsty teenager, Christianity did level out, becoming the foremost advocate for families and life. So Christians have been blackpilled for a couple thousand years already, and a lot of people today are only catching up. There is truly nothing new under the sun.

Update: apparently Roosh was talking about the "God" pill as the next phase after black pill a month or so ago (link).

Contempt of Congress

Tracy Beanz did a livestream on the recent events surrounding AG Barr and the House Judiciary Committee. The short of it is that the Democrats on the committee voted to hold Barr in Contempt of Congress for not providing a fully redacted copy of the Mueller Report. Because of laws protecting grand jury testimony, it would be illegal for Barr to offer a fully redacted copy. He went so far as to offer a far less redacted version that would be made available in a SCIF from which the Congressmen would be unable to leak a copy. Of course, none of them actually went to view the document. They don't want information, they want a scandal. This is all very similar to the events of a year or so ago, with the great public debate of whether it was Devin Nunes or Adam Schiff telling the truth about the contents of the FISA requests. Then, also, none of the Democrats on that committee could be bothered to actually view the documents that had been made available to them in a SCIF.

There's a pattern because it's all the same shit, over and over. Schiff made his own memo stuffed full of classified information he knew could never be released unredacted, and then cried obstruction when the Committee voted not to violate the law. Now, again, they are demanding that Barr release information in violation of the law, or be held in contempt. The Congress now holds officials in contempt for obeying their laws! Talk about clown world. This is really all beyond the pale.

It's the same game, constantly. Create a scenario where the bad man is hiding something. When it is revealed, just move on effortlessly to the next faux scandal. They don't want information, they want to fabricate a scandal. The dirty secret is that everyone in Washington has always known that there was never Russian collusion. They've known it for years. Every one of those Democrats knows that there is nothing bad hidden in the Mueller Report, and they are merely following the laws that they are required to follow. They aren't just lying, but they are weaponizing their oversight roles as political action. They are revolutionaries, and join the intelligence agencies who spied on the unapproved candidate Trump, then concocted an imaginary crime (funded by his rival!) to derail his presidency.

In another one of those evil ironies that we're getting tired of, the Committee Chairman, Nadler, was one of the lawmakers who helped get the protection for grand jury witnesses in the first place! You almost have to have some sympathy for these gullible rank-and-file Democrats who keep getting suckered time and time again. Because it's actually easier to believe that Barr is lying and the redacted portions are political damaging and not actually legally protected, rather than to believe that the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee would hold a Cabinet member in Contempt of Congress for not violating a law that the chairman had helped to write himself. They stay in power only because most people cannot or don't want to fathom just how throughly corrupt and evil they really are.

I hold them all in contempt. That's my Contempt of Congress. The optimistic viewpoint is that the Democrats are desperate because they fear Barr, and the true justice that is coming. I'm not so optimistic that we'll see anything like that. This is their normal mode of operations these days. Think of where we're at this year. Hysteric gang-rape allegations in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings. An AG held in Contempt of Congress for respecting the laws of Congress. The alarm bells are ringing here. This insanity is not sustainable. Brace for unrest in the coming years, not decades.

Selling Indulgences

In the age of the carbon menace, companies are now raising tens of millions of dollars by promising to remove carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere. Some companies seek to recycle the carbon into new synthetic fuels, while others are promising that just providing the service of carbon capture alone will be profitable.

When Martin Luther posted his infamous 95 Theses on the church door, his major grievance regarded the selling of indulgences. "If you sin you'll burn for an eternity in hell," clergyman told their followers, "but if you make a donation then you'll be okay sinning a little bit." It's quite clear that they were running a racket, peddling fear to extort from the people. They were little better than the mafioso threatening, "It'd be a shame if something happened to your nice little store here."

The carbon offsetting industry is nothing more than a modern day indulgence racket. "Your carbon sins are unforgivable," they say, "unless you pay us." Al Gore has become a billionaire simply by guilting the gullible into just handing it over to him. His business is to sell indulgences to individuals citizens and organizations. But carbon capture is an attempt to expand the money-making scheme into selling indulgences at the civilizational level. "Your modern economy will destroy the planet, unless you give us some money."

Not only is carbon unfairly demonized by the ridiculous "magic multiplier" theory, which posits that carbon dioxide triggers an increase in water vapor - the real greenhouse gas - but human release of carbon dioxide is steering us away from global carbon starvation. We are still far below the carbon dioxide levels that modern plants evolved to prosper in. The worst thing we could do would be to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide!

Fortunately for us, liberals always worsen whatever they're trying to fix. Electric cars and windmills cause more carbon emissions, despite all intentions. So we can be fairly sure that "carbon neutral" fuels will, in the aggregate, cause more carbon emissions than burning fossil fuels directly. (Sometimes naivety and incompetence can combine to work in our favor.) The process of carbon-neutral fuel production means utilizing energy to transform carbon dioxide and water from the atmosphere into burnable organic compounds. It's exactly what plants do. Humans have tried to harness that process by producing ethanol from crops. The problem is that modern agriculture is a net consumer, not producer, of energy. More calories are burned growing, shipping, and processing the grain than the calories of the grain itself. Fields are places where fossil fuels are transformed into human food, and not efficiently either. Thus, taking that same food and processing it to turn it back into fuel is nothing but an exercise in futility. The Catch-22 is that transforming carbon dioxide into a complex organic molecule takes a lot of energy, and our only dense energy sources at present are fossil and nuclear fuels.

For now, we go on burning fossil fuels because it's the only thing that really works. Climate apocalypse advocates believe that the modern economies are destroying the planet through carbon emissions, yet refuse to give up the many benefits of modern life. They feel guilty, so they are prime marks for an old-fashioned fear-and-guilt racket. They are basically paying a company to help them feel better about themselves. I'd suggest that liberal guilt is booming market that anyone should try to get into. I know a guy who just retired in his 30s thanks to the passive income he is generating off solar panel companies he founded. Be smart like him.

Nationalism Case Study: Snoop Dogg

As we mentioned last week, Facebook dropped the ban hammer on a number of influential people aligned with the right, and covered themselves by using Louis Farrakhan as a sacrificial lamb. The plan backfired because mainstream white Republicans united and stood up for the mistreatment of their conservative allies. (I keed, I keed.) No, the plan backfired because prominent blacks like Snoop Dogg, a Nation of Islam follower for a decade with over 30 million Facebook followers, called out the banning of Farrakhan as unacceptable, called on his supporters to flood their own feeds with Farrakhan sermons, and dared Facebook to ban him for doing so.

This puts Zuckerberg in an outstanding pickle. Of course, his isn't going to start banning Snoop or his millions of black fans. Nor can he simply re-instate Farrakhan without destroying the narrative of the bans being based on principle, rather than pro-Democrat political action. He will try to lay low and let it blow over. Hopefully Snoop doesn't relent. And he shouldn't; he is doing the right thing. He is employing loyalty and courage to take on a corporate behemoth. He is defending a friend who is being unpersoned. We should be so lucky to have such fighters on our side, willing to circle the wagons at the sight of provocation.

Let's not pretend that Mr. Dogg is acting out of some pure principle. He isn't defending the whites who were banned, and would likely not have anything nice to say about them. He's defending his own. While the mainstream right prattle on about principle, a single black celebrity rallies his troops against an enemy. White conservatives cling endlessly to principle. Can't they see that we no longer have a principled society? Perhaps it is nostalgia, or idealism, but probably it's just naivety. It's starting to appear that the major flaws of whites are naivety and disloyalty. (Greed perhaps being a third, but not so peculiar to whites alone.) Both might be expected characteristics of a people accustomed to a high-trust nation who find themselves in a morally decaying society. Naivety for the obvious reasons, and disloyalty because strong kinship and fealty systems aren't needed in a world with strong rule of law. Asians are known for their naivety too, even more so than occidentals, but are united by the strongest blood bonds on earth. The Chinese don't have magic dirt, they have magic blood.

The most confounding observation of the last few years was seeing how liberals would grip onto the thinnest of illusions...obvious lies. We start to suspect that they are evil - that is, that they actively pursue the untruth. And maybe that's so, but let's not discount the role of deep and widespread naivety among our people. Most of the lefties you encounter in your day-to-day life are actually decent people who are trying to help. They are just seriously, seriously misled by the faintest mirage of deception. We know from psychology that confirmation bias is universal; we all fall victim. Confirmation bias means it is difficult to unbelieve in something, basically. It's why most of the liberals still push on about Russia collusion, Trump tax returns, etc, even after it's absurdity has been thoroughly proven and it has become a parody of itself. Well, and think about it. If you had been whipped into a frenzy for two or three years, it would be very difficult to admit you'd been tricked. It takes a big man to admit he was wrong, they say.

Now, keeping in mind how hard it can be to admit you were wrong about a particular incident or fact (like Russian collusion), think of how hard it would be to admit you were wrong about your fundamental assumptions about society, such as your belief that you live in a high-trust society. Your belief in the rule of law. Your belief that diversity is our strength, and that historically progress has only ever been held back by bigotry. Those are much bigger biases! The cacophony of lies and outrage we are subjected to endlessly seem like the work of evil, and I increasingly believe that to be true, but they also could just be one grand case of collective confirmation bias. The more the evidence indicates that the left's actions have fundamentally changed the society away from what they believe it to be, the more they respond with hysteria.

Much talk is given about race and IQ in the dissident right. Whites have a higher average IQ than blacks. Who cares? Isn't IQ supposed to be a measure of pattern-matching capability, more or less? The tests are done on paper, but what of the real world? Half the whites in this country couldn't see a societal pattern if it smacked them in the face. They are willfully and intentionally unseeing the patterns that they really really really don't want to see. That has to be the opposite of high IQ!

We should start thinking of IQ in terms of nominal and pragmatic IQs. (Or are we just re-inventing the concept of book smarts vs street smarts?) Nominal IQ is your ability to match patterns on a sheet of paper in a sterile environment. Pragmatic IQ is your ability to match patterns observed in nature which could impact you, your family, or your people. Supposedly, whites have one of the higher nominal IQs in the world. Well, our pragmatic IQs must be the lowest ... so low that they might actually be negative, given the ability of our mainstream society to clearly see imagined patterns while denying obvious real ones. The blacks do outrank us in this regard. They are not nearly as delusional as the whites, nor are the other immigrants. And nearly as delusional are the people on the right who say things like, "they better be careful calling for a race war; whites are the deadliest fighters on the planet." Yes, whites are very good at force projection when co-ordinated in a high-trust, lawful society. All indications are that whites in a low-trust multi-cultural setting fail miserably, and will continue to do so until they wise up and learn some of the values of courage and loyalty that Snoop Dogg displayed this week.

Contrabang #5 Dark Matter Bonus

A short one this week. Ethan didn't write much on the topics that are relevant to this blog series. He did produce a podcast on the expanding universe (a theory I oppose) but I'm not interested in listening to the full hour, let alone providing counterpoint on it.

Some of his articles this week covered particle physics and quantum mechanics. While my skepticism of all scientists continually grows, I see no apparent fault with the conclusions of those particular fields, nor any of the contradictions so prevalent in astrophysics. I have no argument to make, so I leave them alone.

One article that might be in bounds is this one regarding Einsteinian bending of light. General relativity is perplexing because it does not seem - to me - to be either totally correct, nor totally incorrect. I'm not sure where the split is (and if I did, I suppose I could become very famous one day). Einstein made some predictions which are solidly verified, some which have been verified through means the deserve skepticism (such as the gravitational wave detection at LIGO), and some which are inherently preposterous, such as black hole theory. As far as this particular article goes, I have no argument to make about Einstein's apparently successful prediction of gravitational light bending, so I must leave it alone.

What's left is a single article...

Dark Matter Search Discovers A Spectacular Bonus: The Longest-Lived Unstable Element Ever (link)

In their search for dark matter, they've found something totally unrelated. Great, but that is in no way a validation of the search for dark matter. It's a bit like saying that our alchemy funding did not yet turn lead into gold, but it did guide us towards a fantastic recipe for tomato bisque soup. If finding nearly stable elements is the goal, then we should fund those initiatives directly.

Miscellaneous

Researchers at Arizona State University (a renowned party school) have announced that the asteroid visited by the Japanese Hyabusa I probe contains high levels of water, based on analysis of five tiny grains of material, nine years after the probe returned to Earth. If these results are valid, they counter our predictions that the current Hyabusa II mission will fail expectations. We won't know for certain until the probe returns to earth late next year, plus perhaps nine years for processing.

Cluster B Society

Caleb Hull tweeted about a pro-abortion display on a Texas campus where they set up a mock fetus cemetery so they could insult the unborn, calling it "one of the most infuriating things I've ever seen." Similarly, CNN hosted an op-ed which asserts that there is "good in every abortion." Do you think it is infuriating? Do you think it should be infuriating?

I would say not, but it is certainly evil. If these leftists were to be believed (always assume they are lying) then it would be a good thing to encourage a young woman to have sex with a man she loves - or perhaps one she doesn't love - to begin the miracle of motherhood, and then to kill the fetus before it has a change at single breath of air. It's as evil a sentiment as anything could be, but it should not be considered infuriating. What do you think their response will be to hearing they've infuriated a white conservative man...feel bad and apologize? No, of course they'd merely finding satisfaction in triggering their political opponent. Really, that is the only reason they have for making such a public statement. The only goal is to inflict emotional pain.

To understand the left, you have to understand the Cluster B personality disorders. Their are four major types, although they tend to overlap.

1. Antisocial personality disorder. These types easily dehumanize others, and includes the stereotypical sociopath. The high level of antisocial traits in the left can be seen in the way they casually disregard everyone they disagree with as a Nazi or a bigot.
2. Histrionic personality disorder. This is the "drama queen" complex. Gratuitous acts of virtue signaling are done by those who share other traits of this disorder. Social media has fueled a surge in online histrionic personalities.
3. Malignant narcissism. Narcissism is characterized by psychological injury. The victim wraps their fragile ego with a bubble of delusion to avoid further harm. Childhood PTSD often becomes adult narcissism. At extreme levels it becomes malignant, meaning the victim seeks to inflict his disorder on others. You can easily identity these people because they are miserable around happy people, yet bubbly and cheerful after they're ruined someone's day. Avoid them like the plague, and never let on that they've upset you.
4. Borderline personality disorder. The typical "crazy chick" disorder, although it occurs in men too, especially as they become increasingly effeminate. It seems to be rooted in a profound emotional immaturity, caused by (1) not being taught self-reliance, (2) learning behavior patterns from parents with the disorder, or (3) childhood trauma - Dr Drew got so good at detecting this particular form of arrested development that he could guess the age when a caller was abused by her voice alone. BPD sufferers need constant attention and validation, but lack any sense of agency, lobbying whatever surrogate "daddy" they can find to give them what they want, and see also see their situation as something that was imposed on them, which they are helpless to change, and which can always be blamed on others.

The left isn't explicitly a political faction, as there isn't a political theory that can properly summarize them. "Anti-competitive" covers a lot, but does not account for the sadistic gloating over dead fetuses. The left can be more cleanly described in psychology terms: it is the sociological equivalent of a Cluster B personality. Nearly every aspect of the left's current behavior can be described in terms of those four major disorders, besides perhaps their pro-establishment, pro-corporate bent - which probably only indicates just how mainstream and normalized the behaviors have become. At this point, sanity is the counter-culture. (The ancient philosophers might indicate that has always been the case, but of course some times are better than others.)

Taking the public square to dance around mock baby graves is not a political statement. It is an agitated expression of the psychologically disturbed. It only differs from the schizophrenic mutterings of a sidewalk derelict in that it is aggressive. It is histrionic narcissism in a group setting. They want to upset people, cause outrage. It is the entire goal of the exercise. When others tweet about it and call it "infuriating," they are giving these tortured souls everything they desire, whose cold, tortured souls will warm three degrees knowing they've upset a neurotypical conservative.

There are only two ways to deal with such demented people: kill them or avoid them. We're somewhat limited in the first approach, so the second is our primary strategy. If they absolutely can't be avoided, then ignoring them is the best we can do. Shame is a tempting tactic, but won't be effective against people who get happy thinking about dead babies. The best strategy to employ is the same as we'd use on Cluster B types in our own lives, which is to never get entangled with them in the first place.

God Salvage the Queen

In a short videocast yesterday, titled Queen Elisabeth is the worst royal ever, Piero San Giorgio pointed out the epic disaster that has been the reign of Elizabeth II. She took the throne in 1952 while still young - only 26 - and now at 93 serves as the longest-reigning monarch of all British history. Back then, World War II was only a few years in the past. Britain was already past its peak as world power, which, if measured by land held, occurred in 1922, beyond which London had lost its grip on Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India, but still stood as "the empire on which the sun never sets," holding vast territories over several continents. When Elizabeth was anointed, Britain was still a first-class world power.

Today, Britain's claims are reduced to a handful of small scattered islands, Gibraltar and a portion of Antarctica. It's not a terrible spread for a former naval power with lost appetite for governing other nations. In some context, the changes are preferable. This blog is highly skeptical of empire-building, as it so often destroys the host. Had Elizabeth shed the empire deliberately to preserve the people of her realm, her actions would be admirable. But, of course, she did not do so, and her nation is under grave threat, with now a British minority in the once-great capital city, and the newest potential heir to the throne - due to be born any day now - of mixed race.

Now, the obvious counter-argument would be that the British monarch is today a mere figurehead with little vested power. Supposedly she has the power to dissolve the Parliament, and those of Australia and Canada as well, but it's debated how realistic those powers are. Still, as figurehead of the people, she holds great social influence, yet has not uttered a word in defense of her people. Elizabeth is the queen who lost the British Empire; that she was weakly empowered will be given only mild consideration towards her legacy. History is full of leaders who didn't effectively fight to defend their people, and tends not to treat them very kindly.

Facebook: Zero Tolerance for Entertainment

Facebook has announced it's latest round of purges.

The commonality, as expected, is that they are all conservatives, more or less. At the very least, they are all anti-liberal. It's an interesting roster for "hate speech and promoting violence." Which ones promotes violence? None of them. Which ones engages in hate speech? As always, it depends on the definition of hate speech. Only Farrakhan is openly racist and anti-Semitic. For the rest, they are openly anti-liberal, which is equivalent to hate speech in the modern vernacular. Paul Nehlen is a hate speaker because he opposes gay marriage. Milo Yiannopoulos is gay married, but he's a hate speaker too because ... well he picked the wrong side, and that's all that really matters.

It's not a particularly interesting story that Facebook is a Democrat-controlled political platform. But what is interesting is the way that they attempted to show a balanced stance against hate by including Farrakhan. Has he recently said anything different than he always has? No, but it was convenient to use him as cover to ban popular conservative internet personalities ahead of the next election cycle. Facebook was widely blamed for handing Trump the 2020 election, and they won't repeat the mistake - even if it means destroying their own platform to do so. Politics are just that important to them. They got to trade one Louis Farrakhan for five white conservatives. The numbers work in their favor. What's interesting is that they thought Farrakhan would give a nice balance to their censorship palette. However, he's a churchman, an ethno-nationalist, and is opposed to homosexuality and gay marriage. On paper, a bigot of epic proportions! But he also happens to be black, at least nominally Muslim, and - most importantly - a firebrand who engages in anti-white rhetoric, which to them is the most important determination for whether a person is on the right side. He's not a conservative in the conventional sense (and certainly no Republican), but he is, overall, opposed to liberalism as a force that weakens the black race. So, effectively, Facebook's message is: yeah, we banned a bunch of white conservatives, but we also banned a black conservative too, so it's fair!

There's another thing that these people have in common besides being opposed to modern liberalism - they are all entertaining. Besides Nehlen - a businessman who opposed Paul Ryan in the 2016 primaries - they are all professional entertainers. Farrakhan is a cleric, but his fame has come through his charismatic sermons. Take him out, and the rest are basically comedians. Paul Joseph Watson got a large following by ridiculing leftists. His videos are essentially comedy bits in his own personal style. Loomer is on the political activism side, but she's still funny. She recently paid a group of illegal immigrants to cross into Nancy Pelosi's walled property, which is hilarious. Milo is of course a comedic provocateur. He has strong political opinions, but he is foremost an entertainer. Alex Jones is similar. Yes, he's a maniac conspiracy theorist who believes liberals are destroying the country, but he's also very funny. He's most often putting on a show too, opting for entertainment over pure truth. The left say it's dangerous to have politically opinionated fake news programs, but that's a lie. They love Rachel Maddow, The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, etc. The real problem they have is entertaining people of the wrong belief system. Hate speech means being likable but not liberal.

Facebook is now pandering to The Cult by banning all kinds of genuine entertainers from its platform. If you want pictures of food or endless progressive screeching, go to Facebook. If you want edgy humor or conservative opinions, you'll have to go elsewhere. And you should. Most of those who were banned can be found on other platforms. Alex Jones puts everything up on Bitchute, as do Paul Joseph Watson and Own Benjamin (previously banned). Laura Loomer and Paul Nehlen are on Gab. Facebook hasn't blocked us from accessing our preferred entertainment, just made themselves irrelevant as a platform for us.