Paul M. Jones

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

via Poems - 'The Gods of the Copybook Headings'.

If you’re the sort of person who reads economics blogs, you’ve probably heard that the median US worker has enjoyed hardly any income gain over the past few decades. ...

A mere 3% increase over 25 years does indeed look pretty grim. ...

Now let’s look a little deeper and ask which demographic groups account for all this stagnation. White men? Nope, their median income is up 15%. Nonwhite men? Up 16%. White women? Up 75%. Non-white women? Up 62%. That’s everybody ...

What gives? How can the median income shoot up in every demographic sector while the overall median remains nearly unchanged?

... Each demographic group has progressed, but at the same time, there’s been a great influx of lower income groups -- women and nonwhites -- into the workforce. This creates the illusion that nobody’s progressing when in fact everybody’s progressing.

In the words of another blogger, "You have to look behind the median." Via The Numbers Racket at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics.

Chicago likes to compare itself to other world cities, so Ward Room thought it would find out how we rank in violence. It turns out no one can top us. Among what are considered Alpha world cities, Chicago has the highest murder rate -- higher even than the Third World metropolises of Mexico City and Sao Paolo.

Just imagine how bad it would be *without* the gun control! (/me rolls eyes) via The Deadliest Global City | NBC Chicago.

HaveBlue didn’t print an entire gun, he printed a “receiver” for an AR-15 (better known as the military’s M16) at a cost of about $30 worth of materials.

The receiver is, in effect, the framework of a gun and holds the barrel and all of the other parts in place. It’s also the part of the gun that is technically, according to US law, the actual gun and carries the serial number.

When the weapon was assembled with the printed receiver HaveBlue reported he fired 200 rounds and it operated perfectly.

via The End of Gun Control? - Forbes.

Blocking construction of Chick-fil-a restaurants over Cathy's views is a violation of Cathy's First Amendment rights. Boston and Chicago have no more right to stop construction of Chick-fil-As based on an executive's anti-gay views than New York City would have had the right to block construction of an Islamic community center blocks away from Ground Zero. The government blocking a business from opening based on the owner's political views is a clear threat to everyone's freedom of speech--being unpopular doesn't mean you don't have rights. It's only by protecting the rights of those whose views we find odious that we can hope to secure them for ourselves.

A principled stance. Via In Defense of Chick-Fil-A | Mother Jones.

Espinoza says, the knife wielding man seriously injured two people. "There is blood all over. One got stabbed in the stomach and got stabbed in the head and held his hands and got stabbed all over the arms."

Then, before the suspect could find another victim - a citizen with a gun stopped the madness. "A guy pulled gun on him and told him to drop his weapon or he would shoot him. So, he dropped his weapon and the people from Smith's grabbed him."

By the time officers arrived the suspect had been subdued by employees and shoppers. Police had high praise for gun carrying man who ended the hysteria. Lt. Brian Purvis said, "This was a volatile situation that could have gotten worse. We can only assume from what we saw it could have gotten worse. He was definitely in the right place at the right time."

via Gun carrying man ends stabbing spree at Salt Lake grocery store - ABC4.com - Salt Lake City, Utah News.

Cars didn’t shape our existence; cars let us escape with our lives. We’re way the heck out here in Valley Bottom Heights and Trout Antler Estates because we were at war with the cities. We fought rotten public schools, idiot municipal bureaucracies, corrupt political machines, rampant criminality and the pointy-headed busybodies. Cars gave us our dragoons and hussars, lent us speed and mobility, let us scout the terrain and probe the enemy’s lines. And thanks to our cars, when we lost the cities we weren’t forced to surrender, we were able to retreat.

via The End of Our Love Affair with Cars - WSJ.com.

With a single exception, every multiple-victim public shooting in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed since at least 1950 has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry their own firearms.

...

If one of the hundreds of people at the theater had a concealed handgun, possibly the attack would have ended like the shooting at the mega New Life Church in Colorado Springs in December 2007.

In that assault, the church’s minister had given Jeanne Assam permission to carry her concealed handgun. The gunman killed two people in the parking lot -- but when he entered the church, Assam fired 10 shots, severely wounding him. At that point, the gunman committed suicide.

...

The ban against nonpolice carrying guns usually rests on the false notion that almost anyone can suddenly go crazy and start misusing their weapon or that any crossfire with a killer would be worse than the crime itself. But in state after state, permit holders are extremely law-abiding. They can lose their permits for any type of firearms-related violation.

Nor have I found a single example on record of a multiple-victim public shooting in which a permit holder accidentally shot a bystander.

...

In the wake of this crime, gun control advocates have wasted no time offering up more gun control regulations as the way to prevent future tragedies. But aggressive gun control hasn’t prevented multiple-victim public shootings in Europe.

...

The guns used for the attacks in Germany and Norway were obtained illegally. When individuals plan these attacks months or even years in advance, it is virtually impossible to stop them from getting whatever weapons they need.

...

To reduce future carnage, the key is to get someone with a gun quickly at the scene. Quick responses not only limit the number of casualties, but reduce the attention these killers garner from committing their crimes. We can’t get rid of gun-free zones soon enough.

via Concealed weapons save lives - NY Daily News.

When you ask men about what makes a real man, a lot of them will get up on their high horses and start talking about what it means to be a good man.

“A real man would never hit a woman.”

“A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

“A real man takes responsibility for his actions.”

“A real man pays his debts.”

“Real men love Jesus.”

However, if you ask the same men to list their favorite “guy movies,” many of them will include films like The Godfather, Scarface, Goodfellas, and Fight Club.

The point is not "hypocrisy" but "what men have been told should be appealing, vs. what they actually find appealing."
via On Being a Good Man -- The Good Men Project.

Men and women are radically different along many important psychological and physical dimensions.

Not all men are created equal.

Some men really are worth more than others.

Some cultures really are better than others.

Some people can handle the task of building and maintaining prosperous civilization better than other people.

Trust is a perishable quantity vital to an orderly, wealth-generating society. It does not grow with persuasion, coercion, sloganeering, or after-school specials. It is organically emergent and intimately tied to relatedness: cultural, moral and, yes, biological.

There is no such thing as a proposition nation, only propositions that can be affirmed or refuted.

High-minded ideals must fall when they are proven unworkable, or millions will die, soul or body, in service to their continued justification.

The gradual feminization of the culture, the workplace, academia, government, media outlets and even family life has not been an unalloyed good. Quite the opposite; the observed evidence better fits the theory that elevating the female disposition and particular talents to sainthood in all facets of life has taken us down a dystopian road, as we can see in the rise of single momhood, sky-high safety net deficit spending, limp-wristed SWPLs, male cocooning and dropping out, and stagnating technological innovation.

Privilege is a good thing. Men build nations so that they may codify their privilege and enjoy it, and pass it on to their posterity. Those who rail against this privilege should be shunned and invited to leave and build their own nations more suited to their tastes.

God may be dead, but his copybook headings hold illimitable dominion over all.

The ego is the greatest enemy man has ever faced.

via The Middle Class Quiet Riot « Chateau Heartiste.