Ghost Town

This place has become a Ghost Town

We do not know when the mist will lift or what it holds.

Smart people are saying their Rosaries and blessing Holy Water.

Be safe.

LSP

White Christmas? Racist Christmas

White Christmas, Jingle Bells? Delete your account, racist and go to the gulag. Well, at least if you're a student at University College, London or some higher hall of learning in Boston.

Will someone, please, put a stop to these Maoist freaks and start a cultural revolution and let 100 flowers bloom?

In the meanwhile, let's have a white Christmas.

Your Pal,

LSP

Light It Up

This small farming community's all lit up, literally and figuratively; I know this because I've seen it. And you know what? I like it.

So don't be a sad puritan killjoy, light up the town instead and get ready to celebrate the Nativity. Just don't jump the gun and detract from the enjoyment of the Feast. This should be maximal.

With that in mind I drive around the town at night enjoying the lights. It's uplifting and given that Baptists weren't to keen on Christmas, 25 December not being in the Bible and Roman Catholics do it, encouraging. We've moved on and up in this shiny buckle of the Bible Belt.

So light it up.

God bless,

LSP

Putin Owns The Seas Gowdy Owns Rosenstein

It's the third Sunday of Advent and the theme's "rejoice," unless you're the UK's Air Chief Marshal, Stuart Peach,  who's worried that Russia's modernized navy is going to cut undersea cables, bringing civilization to an end.

Three things spring to mind. First, how many planes is Great Britain's Air Chief Marshall actually in charge of, six, twelve, thirteen if you're lucky and the parts are in store? Second, does the UK, which is an island, have any ships to keep the modernized Russian navy at bay. 

Eat A Peach

Third, why should Putin, who already owns the US government, according to CNN and the NYT, rip up his underwater communication system to the world? 

An NWO Illuminati Stooge Goon

Good question, unless you're an NWO Illuminati stooge who's attempting to resurrect the Cold War in the hope of budgetary power as chairman of NATO's Military Committee. But again, this begs the question. 

Putin is Awesome

NATO without America is nothing militarily and given that America is now a Russian adjunct under Putin, what's the point?

Seriously, this Russian nonsense has to end and with it, Deep State Mueller's bogus, faked-up, witch hunt investigation into a fairly elected President.

Your Buddy,

LSP

Don't Fear The Reaper

Don't fear the reaper?

YES,

LSP

From The Ministry Of Truth

Thanks to Borepatch, we have a directive from the Ministry of Truth. I'll be sending it to all my professorial pals in the hallowed halls of academe. 

In the meanwhile, here it is in its truthful entirety. Long but go on, read to the end:

I teach in a law school. For several years now my students have been mostly Millennials. Contrary to stereotype, I have found that the vast majority of them want to learn. But true to stereotype, I increasingly find that most of them cannot think, don’t know very much, and are enslaved to their appetites and feelings. Their minds are held hostage in a prison fashioned by elite culture and their undergraduate professors.

They cannot learn until their minds are freed from that prison. This year in my Foundations of Law course for first-year law students, I found my students especially impervious to the ancient wisdom of foundational texts, such as Plato’s Crito and the Code of Hammurabi. Many of them were quick to dismiss unfamiliar ideas as “classist” and “racist,” and thus unable to engage with those ideas on the merits. So, a couple of weeks into the semester, I decided to lay down some ground rules. I gave them these rules just before beginning our annual unit on legal reasoning.

Here is the speech I gave them:

Before I can teach you how to reason, I must first teach you how to rid yourself of unreason. For many of you have not yet been educated. You have been dis-educated. To put it bluntly, you have been indoctrinated. Before you learn how to think you must first learn how to stop unthinking.

Reasoning requires you to understand truth claims, even truth claims that you think are false or bad or just icky. Most of you have been taught to label things with various “isms” which prevent you from understanding claims you find uncomfortable or difficult.

Reasoning requires correct judgment. Judgment involves making distinctions, discriminating. Most of you have been taught how to avoid critical, evaluative judgments by appealing to simplistic terms such as “diversity” and “equality.”

Reasoning requires you to understand the difference between true and false. And reasoning requires coherence and logic. Most of you have been taught to embrace incoherence and illogic. You have learned to associate truth with your subjective feelings, which are neither true nor false but only yours, and which are constantly changeful.

We will have to pull out all of the weeds in your mind as we come across them. Unfortunately, your mind is full of weeds, and this will be a very painful experience. But it is strictly necessary if anything useful, good, and fruitful is to be planted in your head.

There is no formula for this. Each of you has different weeds, and so we will need to take this on the case-by-case basis. But there are a few weeds that infect nearly all of your brains. So I am going to pull them out now.

First, except when describing an ideology, you are not to use a word that ends in “ism.” Communism, socialism, Nazism, and capitalism are established concepts in history and the social sciences, and those terms can often be used fruitfully to gain knowledge and promote understanding. “Classism,” “sexism,” “materialism,” “cisgenderism,” and (yes) even racism are generally not used as meaningful or productive terms, at least as you have been taught to use them. Most of the time, they do not promote understanding.

In fact, “isms” prevent you from learning. You have been taught to slap an “ism” on things that you do not understand, or that make you feel uncomfortable, or that make you uncomfortable because you do not understand them. But slapping a label on the box without first opening the box and examining its contents is a form of cheating. Worse, it prevents you from discovering the treasures hidden inside the box. For example, when we discussed the Code of Hammurabi, some of you wanted to slap labels on what you read which enabled you to convince yourself that you had nothing to learn from ancient Babylonians. But when we peeled off the labels and looked carefully inside the box, we discovered several surprising truths. In fact, we discovered that Hammurabi still has a lot to teach us today.

One of the falsehoods that has been stuffed into your brain and pounded into place is that moral knowledge progresses inevitably, such that later generations are morally and intellectually superior to earlier generations, and that the older the source the more morally suspect that source is. There is a term for that. It is called chronological snobbery. Or, to use a term that you might understand more easily, “ageism.”

Second, you have been taught to resort to two moral values above all others, diversity and equality. These are important values if properly understood. But the way most of you have been taught to understand them makes you irrational, unreasoning. For you have been taught that we must have as much diversity as possible and that equality means that everyone must be made equal. But equal simply means the same. To say that 2+2 equals 4 is to say that 2+2 is numerically the same as four. And diversity simply means difference. So when you say that we should have diversity and equality you are saying we should have difference and sameness. That is incoherent, by itself. Two things cannot be different and the same at the same time in the same way.

Furthermore, diversity and equality are not the most important values. In fact, neither diversity nor equality is valuable at all in its own right. Some diversity is bad. For example, if slavery is inherently wrong, as I suspect we all think it is, then a diversity of views about the morality of slavery is worse than complete agreement that slavery is wrong.

Similarly, equality is not to be desired for its own sake. Nobody is equal in all respects. We are all different, which is to say that we are all not the same, which is to say that we are unequal in many ways. And that is generally a good thing. But it is not always a good thing (see the previous remarks about diversity).

Related to this: You do you not know what the word “fair” means. It does not just mean equality. Nor does it mean something you do not like. For now, you will have to take my word for this. But we will examine fairness from time to time throughout this semester.

Third, you should not bother to tell us how you feel about a topic. Tell us what you think about it. If you can’t think yet, that’s O.K.. Tell us what Aristotle thinks, or Hammurabi thinks, or H.L.A. Hart thinks. Borrow opinions from those whose opinions are worth considering. As Aristotle teaches us in the reading for today, men and women who are enslaved to the passions, who never rise above their animal natures by practicing the virtues, do not have worthwhile opinions. Only the person who exercises practical reason and attains practical wisdom knows how first to live his life, then to order his household, and finally, when he is sufficiently wise and mature, to venture opinions on how to bring order to the political community.

One of my goals for you this semester is that each of you will encounter at least one idea that you find disagreeable and that you will achieve genuine disagreement with that idea. I need to explain what I mean by that because many of you have never been taught how to disagree.

Disagreement is not expressing one’s disapproval of something or expressing that something makes you feel bad or icky. To really disagree with someone’s idea or opinion, you must first understand that idea or opinion. When Socrates tells you that a good life is better than a life in exile you can neither agree nor disagree with that claim without first understanding what he means by “good life” and why he thinks running away from Athens would be unjust. Similarly, if someone expresses a view about abortion, and you do not first take the time to understand what the view is and why the person thinks the view is true, then you cannot disagree with the view, much less reason with that person. You might take offense. You might feel bad that someone holds that view. But you are not reasoning unless you are engaging the merits of the argument, just as Socrates engaged with Crito’s argument that he should flee from Athens.

So, here are three ground rules for the rest of the semester.

1. The only “ism” I ever want to come out your mouth is a syllogism. If I catch you using an “ism” or its analogous “ist” — racist, classist, etc. — then you will not be permitted to continue speaking until you have first identified which “ism” you are guilty of at that very moment. You are not allowed to fault others for being biased or privileged until you have first identified and examined your own biases and privileges.

2. If I catch you this semester using the words “fair,” “diversity,” or “equality,” or a variation on those terms, and you do not stop immediately to explain what you mean, you will lose your privilege to express any further opinions in class until you first demonstrate that you understand three things about the view that you are criticizing.

3. If you ever begin a statement with the words “I feel,” before continuing you must cluck like a chicken or make some other suitable animal sound.

To their credit, the students received the speech well. And so far this semester, only two students have been required to cluck like chickens. 

--Adam J. MacLeod

Jones School of Law at Faulkner University 

Montgomery, Alabama

LSP

Advent Reflection

With Advent we look to the past in wonder, to the coming together of God and man in the person of an infant, Gloria in excelsis Deo! And we look to the future, when the Lord returns in His glorious majesty to judge the quick and the dead and raise up the faithful. Likewise to the present, Christ dwells in us and we in Him, Advent is here and now.

With that in mind, I find this helpful, from Austin Farrer's Essential Sermons:

None of us can be let off being Christ in our place and our station: we are all pygmies in giants’ armour. We have to put up with it: it’s the price (how small a price!) paid for the supreme mercy of God, that he does not wait for our dignity or our perfection, but just puts himself there in our midst; in this bread and this wine: in this priest: in this Christian man, woman, or child. He who gave himself to us as an infant, crying in a cot, he who was hung up naked on the wood, does not stand on his own dignity. If Jesus is willing to be in us, and to let us show him to the world, it’s a small thing that we should endure being fools for Christ’s sake, and be shown up by the part we have to play. We must put up with such humiliation of ourselves – or better still, forget ourselves altogether. For God is here: let us adore him.

Here endeth the Lesson,

LSP

Get A Haircut, Hippy

Joni, stay clear of that lecherous deadbeat

Life is full of challenges and we rise or fall on them as we move down the fast flowing stream of life. Here's a snapshot. 

You look deep into the black depths of the scrying glass and see a monstrous reflection staring back at you, some kind of long haired freak. 

Hippies

Who is that? you ask the polished obsidian and realise, in shock, that it's you. And the challenge is on, getting a haircut in this rural Texan haven. No, you're not scared, so you hit the road in your rig.

First stop, Quality Cutz but Quality Cutz is shut, unsurprisingly, because Cutz couldn't cut hair. It wasn't his strength, I hope he moved on to better pastures. I liked Cutz.

Cutz is Gone. He Couldn't Cut

Next stop, Creative Designs, all holed up in a half abandoned strip mall. No. Every chair was full of elderly women with tinfoil in their hair. Do you give up? On the contrary, you face the challenge and meet it head on.

This meant ending up at something called Salon 110 and that's trying because all I'm really asking for is an old fashioned barber. But they're gone in this farming community so you adapt and survive.

Polling

A pleasant young woman with pink hair got to work; cutting hair was her "passion" she told me and more power to her. About half way through she asked, "Did you go to Woodstock?" I resisted the temptation to say damn your impudence, "No, I missed that one."

Reckoning

Did I miss the teaching challenge and forget to tell her that "hippy" is synonymous with dirty, thieving, lying beggar? And that Joni Mitchell is a Devil Witch?

You be the judge,

LSP

Go Fishing

"Time to go fishing," said a noted member of the mining community, who may or may not be raising a pack of white wolves somewhere in Arizona. So I took that advice and paid a visit to the lake after visiting the sick.

It was good to get out and try my luck against the watery opposition and perhaps you know the feeling, that sense of quiet excitement, maybe this time you'll catch the best fish ever. Or not.

This time fell into the "not" category, though I tried my best with the kind of juicy worms that fish are known to love. But they weren't having it, if they were even there at all. 

Still, getting out by the waters of the vast inland sea that is Lake Whitney made a welcome change and no one else was catching anything either, by way of consolation. 

We were in it for the Texan air, with its hint of sage, cedar and mesquite, taking a needed break from Chelsea Handler and all the other NWO stooges gloating over Alabama.

Don't worry, fish. There will be a rematch, you may be sure of that.

Fish on,

LSP

This Must Cease

There's a lot that's not right with America, like our sly, venal, lying, elitist, hypocritical, mendacious mainstream media. Or the awkward let's pretend it isn't there and it won't be debt, or corruption at the FBI or any one of a number of things. Then there's Chelsea Handler.

Chelsea's a millionaire, yes, a millionaire socialist with an estimated net worth of $40 million and she wasn't happy when the President burned down her SoCal mansion. 

Or maybe it was because the President refused to go on her show, which he called "gross." Perhaps that's why she's taken to attacking women who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton. 

Regardless, here's Victory Girls on the subject of the repellent MillSoc Handler:

When Chelsea Handler is not blaming President Trump for her mansion burning down, she partakes in another one of her favorite hobbies (besides rockin’ the ganja): shaming Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Last week, she claimed Donald Trump was “like, setting the world on fire” because she had to evacuate her Southern California home. Last week, the “I-think-I’m-so-funny” Handler, during an exchange with Lanny Davis—longtime bootlicker-lawyer and fixer for Hillary and Bill Clinton—she inquired about the “harlot with whore lipstick” the Republicans are “trolloping” out every day.

You can read the whole thing here. In the meanwhile, don't forget that Chelsea's a "Champion of Women" which is why she was part of Linda Sarsour's Woman's March movement. 

You know, the same Sarsour who promotes Sharia law because it's so empowering to women when they're koranically beaten by their husbands.

Chelsea, you are a millionaire socialist hypocrite and we scorn you. Someone, anyone, please bundle this rich leftist succubus off stage.

Your Pal,

LSP

NASA Probe Unravels Great Red Spot Mystery

NASA's Juno space probe has captured dramatic photos deep within the heart of the Jupiter's Great Red Spot, revealing what appears to be the head of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justsin Welby.

Juno left earth in 2011, making its first pass over Jupiter's Great Red Spot in July, 2017. Astronomer's discovered that the Spot has deep roots, well into the planet's atmosphere.

"Juno data indicate that the solar system's most famous storm is almost one-and-a-half Earths wide, and has roots that penetrate about 200 miles (300 kilometers) into the planet's atmosphere,” said Scott Belton, Juno's principal investigator.

However, star gazing boffins were shocked to find the Archbishop of Canterbury in Juno's camera footage.

"It came as a shock," stated Belton, "We didn't expect to find Justin Welby so far down in the Red Spot, right there at the bottom,"

Others aren't convinced. "This is absurd. It's obviously not the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby," said one expert, "It's just hot gas. Red Spot Junior is ACoC (Anglican Church of Canada), we know that."

Juno continues on its journey out of the solar system and into the icy void of deep space.

Ad Adstra,

LSP

Cultural Enrichment

Sirens fill the air, the dull rumble of a train passes by, dogs bark psychotically and all in all, it's just another evening in this bucolic, Texan, rural haven. But at least the Jihad isn't trying to kill us with peace bombs, as in New York.

We don't have many Akayed Ullahs here in Hill County, doubtless because they're all in Dallas and now that the President's travel ban on the peace lovers is coming into effect, we'll have less still. What a shame. 

A Peace Lover

Think of the cultural enrichment we'd have from a massive influx of military aged peace loving males from, say, Syria or Bangladesh or Libya or Tunisia or Iraq or any number of failed peace loving states run by the beautiful peace loving religion of peace.

Weird, isn't it, how the peace loving followers of the religion of peace keep blowing themselves and others up. Reflect on this too.

Religion of Peace Falling Behind The Tech Curve 

Muslims claim total superiority over everyone else because they have the definitive revelation from God and therefore know how to live. Leaving aside the helpful bits in the Koran about wife beating and cattle management, how come all their countries are failed third world hell holes?

Heraclius Slays The Persian, artist's impression

Or to put it another way, if Islam is so very awesome, why are the Islamic nations so clearly behind the West, culturally, scientifically, militarily and all the rest. They weren't at one time and now they are. Why? Because they conquered a fatally weakened Eastern Roman Empire and its Persian enemy, inheriting something of the genius of both. Then they drew checks on the deposit until nothing was left and we see the result today.

Let's Have This Back

It's a conundrum for  the Islamists, this can't be their fault, so they resort to victimhood and, well, blowing themselves up. But what am I saying! If the West is so great, why are we 20 trillion in debt and forcing bakers to make gay cakes?

By the beard of the Prophet,

LSP