Smarter than Thou | National Review Online

Smarter than Thou | National Review Online: "Prominent examples include MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, Rachel Maddow, Steve Kornacki, and Chris Hayes; Vox’s Ezra Klein, Dylan Matthews, and Matt Yglesias; the sabermetrician Nate Silver; the economist Paul Krugman; the atheist Richard Dawkins; former vice president Al Gore; celebrity scientist Bill Nye; and, really, anybody who conforms to the Left’s social and moral precepts while wearing glasses and babbling about statistics."



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Smarter than Thou | National Review Online

Smarter than Thou | National Review Online: "One part insecure hipsterism, one part unwarranted condescension, the two defining characteristics of self-professed nerds are (a) the belief that one can discover all of the secrets of human experience through differential equations and (b) the unlovely tendency to presume themselves to be smarter than everybody else in the world."



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Smarter than Thou | National Review Online

Smarter than Thou | National Review Online: "‘My great fear,” Neil deGrasse Tyson told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in early June, “is that we’ve in fact been visited by intelligent aliens but they chose not to make contact, on the conclusion that there’s no sign of intelligent life on Earth.” In response to this rather standard little saw, Hayes laughed as if he had been trying marijuana for the first time."



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Love People, Not Pleasure - NYTimes.com

Love People, Not Pleasure - NYTimes.com: "It makes sense. What do you post to Facebook? Pictures of yourself yelling at your kids, or having a hard time at work? No, you post smiling photos of a hiking trip with friends. You build a fake life — or at least an incomplete one — and share it. Furthermore, you consume almost exclusively the fake lives of your social media “friends.” Unless you are extraordinarily self-aware, how could it not make you feel worse to spend part of your time pretending to be happier than you are, and the other part of your time seeing how much happier others seem to be than you?"



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Instapundit » Blog Archive » KURT SCHLICHTER: Conservatism Is The New Punk Rock. Actually, that’s more libertarianism. But: …

Instapundit » Blog Archive » KURT SCHLICHTER: Conservatism Is The New Punk Rock. Actually, that’s more libertarianism. But: …:



Look at ancient Hillary Clinton, that improbable Millennial heroine. She’s the Bachman Turner Overdrive of American politics, out there literally taking care of business – especially the businesses who take care of her by paying her hundreds of thousands a pop to come talk to them.

There’s no energy left in liberalism, no excitement, just more rules, more controls, everything the punks hated. You can’t say this, you can’t think that, everybody read the memo – today we’re scheduled to be angry at people don’t want to subsidize our birth control! Oh, and make sure you obtain a videotaped, notarized consent form before you kiss your cisgender hook-up.



Yeah. The Dems are looking like that crazy preacher in Footloose."



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Supreme beings of leisure: Column

Supreme beings of leisure: Column: "But computers and robots keep getting better, while improvement in humanity, to the extent that it takes place, is happening much more slowly. A generation ago any good chess player could beat a computer. Now computers routinely beat grandmasters. It may be that the range of things machines do better than humans will come to encompass pretty much everything humans are able to do."



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Althouse: The "50 Shades of Grey" trailer is ready to see you now.

Althouse: The "50 Shades of Grey" trailer is ready to see you now.: "I hope you find that suitably ludicrous. If not, if you got actual twinges of sexual feeling, you are not doing your part to prevent the downfall of civilization."



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'True Blood' actor Nelsan Ellis: Former star quit because he did - DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG

'True Blood' actor Nelsan Ellis: Former star quit because he did - DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG: "LOS ANGELES –  When Luke Grimes started on HBO’s “True Blood” last season his character James Kent was wooing a female vampire. But Grimes reportedly quit in December when he found out Kent was bisexual and starting a romantic relationship with a gay character in the seventh and final season.



 Now Nelsan Ellis, the actor who plays Kent’s gay lover on the show, is speaking up -- and he’s not happy."



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I predict this guy's career is over.

Hamblin & Peterson: Finding God through the history, philosophy of science | Deseret News

Hamblin & Peterson: Finding God through the history, philosophy of science | Deseret News: "“Science explained everything,” he reminisces. “It gobbled up the conceptual space once occupied by God and replaced it with the sane, cool rationalism of the scientific method. Only scientific claims are meaningful. Anything that lies outside the scope of science is simply superstition or delusion, no matter how understandable. The sciences were, for me, the bright lodestar of my intellectual and moral endeavours, the only true way to acquire reliable knowledge about reality and the order of things. Atheism was my creed, and science was its foundation.”"



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IRS experts say Lois Lerner’s hard drive was just scratched | Power Line

IRS experts say Lois Lerner’s hard drive was just scratched | Power Line: "Top IRS officials told congressional investigators that Lois Lerner’s hard drive — the one containing emails that could shed light on the IRS targeting scandal — was irreparably damaged before it was destroyed completely in 2011.



"But now, investigators have had a chance to talk to the technical experts inside the IRS who actually examined Lerner’s computer, and the experts say the hard drive in question was actually just “scratched,” and that most of the data on it was recoverable."



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The ACA Means What It Says | National Review Online

The ACA Means What It Says | National Review Online: "It’s an odd world in which judges are accused of usurping the role of Congress for ruling that the executive branch must follow the text of a law Congress wrote. But that’s what has happened today. In Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Congress never gave the federal government power to provide subsidies and assess penalties under the Affordable Care Act in states that haven’t established their own health-insurance exchanges."



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Howard Zinn's Influential Mutilations of American History | New Republic

Howard Zinn's Influential Mutilations of American History | New Republic: "n my adolescent rebelliousness, I thrilled to Zinn’s deflation of what he presented as the myths of standard-issue history. Do you know that the Declaration of Independence charged King George with fomenting slave rebellions and attacks from “merciless Indian Savages”? That James Polk started a war with Mexico as a pretext for annexing California? That Eugene Debs was jailed for calling World War I a war of conquest and plunder? Perhaps you do, if you are moderately well-read in American history. And if you are very well-read, you also know that these statements themselves are problematic simplifications. But like most sixteen-year-olds, I didn’t know any of this. Mischievously—subversively—A People’s History whispered that everything I had learned in school was a sugar-coated fairy tale, if not a deliberate lie. Now I knew."



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IRS Reports New Round of Computer Crashes | The Daily Caller

IRS Reports New Round of Computer Crashes | The Daily Caller: "IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane said in transcribed congressional testimony that more IRS officials experienced computer crashes, bringing the total number of crash victims to “less than 20,” and also said that the agency does not know if the lost emails are still backed up somewhere.



 The new round of computer crash victims includes David Fish, who routinely corresponded with Lois Lerner, as well as Lerner subordinate Andy Megosh, Lerner’s technical adviser Justin Lowe, and Cincinnati-based agent Kimberly Kitchens."



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Union Drama at the Metropolitan Opera | National Review Online

Union Drama at the Metropolitan Opera | National Review Online: "Well, if worst came to worst, at least the Met’s singers and musicians could make a go of it at the New York City Opera. No, wait, it shut its doors for the last time last year."



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I thought the saying was "if worse came to worst."

Harry Reid, the Race Man | National Review Online

Harry Reid, the Race Man | National Review Online: "By the way, the best part about Reid’s 2010 statement that “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay?” That was just before a Hispanic Republican, Brian Sandoval, was elected governor of Reid’s state, Nevada. And the Democrat he beat — was Reid’s own son, Rory.

 It’s bad enough when the Senate majority leader abuses his position to vilify Charles and David Koch. When he goes racial, he is at his absolute worst."



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Harry Reid, the Race Man | National Review Online

Harry Reid, the Race Man | National Review Online: "I’m not sure I could pinpoint this, but about 20 years ago the phrase “white men” became a putdown — an automatic epithet. I think this was about the same time “dead white males” came into vogue: you know, Shakespeare, Bach, and the rest of them crackers.



One funny thing about the phrase “white men” is that white men often use it, as a putdown. When they do, they seem to exempt themselves. “No, I don’t mean me. Not wonderful me. I mean those other guys, the bad ones.” 




I thought of this when reading this item in the Daily Caller. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said that the Hobby Lobby case was decided by “five white men.” As the article points out, one of the five justices whom Reid disdains is Clarence Thomas."



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Instapundit » Blog Archive » MEGAN MCARDLE: Who’s The Real Hobby Lobby Bully? Here’s the most interesting thing to me about…

Instapundit » Blog Archive » MEGAN MCARDLE: Who’s The Real Hobby Lobby Bully? Here’s the most interesting thing to me about…: "Cards on the table: I think that institutions Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor are obviously correct — they are being forced by the government to buy something that they don’t want to buy. We can argue about whether this is a good or a bad idea, but the fact that it is coercive seems indisputable. If it weren’t for state power, the Little Sisters of the Poor would be happily not facilitating the birth-control purchases of its employees; the Barack Obama administration has attempted to force them to do otherwise. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this coercion violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and it must therefore cease."



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IRS Commissioner: Nothing Odd About Lois Lerner Asking if Instant Messages Are 'Searchable'

IRS Commissioner: Nothing Odd About Lois Lerner Asking if Instant Messages Are 'Searchable': "IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testifed before a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. During one exchange with Rep. Jim Jordan, Koskinen seemed to find nothing at all suspicious about Lois Lerner's interest in whether IRS instant messages were "searchable" and could be turned over to Congress."



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World Cup Domination

Now that I'm a lock to win our office pool, I though I would share a picture of my bracket to preserve the memory of this great achievement for posterity. This post also serves the purpose of documenting my prediction of an Argentina victory in the world cup.

All is proceeding as I have foreseen . . .

Jason Chaffetz: Mitt Romney Will Run In 2016 - Business Insider

Jason Chaffetz: Mitt Romney Will Run In 2016 - Business Insider: "Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that he thinks the "Draft Mitt" hype is real. 

"I think he actually is going to run for president. He probably doesn't want me to say that," Chaffetz said during an interview on "Hardball" Monday night."



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I say the following as someone who thinks Mitt Romney is a great person, appears to be a brilliant manager and businessman, and would have been a great improvement over a our current president (although probably not my ideological soul mate):



PLEASE NO!

Google's Larry Page: "I Think the Government's Likely to Collapse Under Its Own Weight." - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Google's Larry Page: "I Think the Government's Likely to Collapse Under Its Own Weight." - Hit & Run : Reason.com: "I was trying to reduce the complexity in Google. I was thinking, "We're getting to be a bigger company. Let's take our rules and regulations. Let's make sure they stay at 50 pages, so people can actually read it." But the problem that I discovered about that was that by reference, we include the entire law and regulation of the entire world, because we're a multinational company. We operate everywhere. Our employees, what they do affects everything. In some sense, we'd have to read the hundred million pages of law and regulation that are out there."



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Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual Chapter 8: The Fall

Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual Chapter 8: The Fall: "•“I’m very, very grateful that in the Book of Mormon, and I think elsewhere in our scriptures, the fall of Adam has not been called a sin. It wasn’t a sin. … What did Adam do? The very thing the Lord wanted him to do; and I hate to hear anybody call it a sin, for it wasn’t a sin. Did Adam sin when he partook of the forbidden fruit? I say to you, no, he did not! Now, let me refer to what was written in the book of Moses in regard to the command God gave to Adam. [Moses 3:16–17.]
“Now this is the way I interpret that: The Lord said to Adam, here is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you want to stay here, then you cannot eat of that fruit. If you want to stay here, then I forbid you to eat it. But you may act for yourself, and you may eat of it if you want to. And if you eat it, you will die."



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The Problem with Science | National Review Online

The Problem with Science | National Review Online: "The problem is that scientific prestige accompanies scientists well outside their fields of expertise. That’s true when they wander into other scientific fields — as I noted in my essay, Carl Sagan authored scientific illiteracies based on long-discredited ideas in the course of arguing for abortion — but the problem is most acute when it comes to the matter of politics. "



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Science is good at explaining the natural world. But it doesn't have anything to say about metaphysical truth. Too many people think that science is the source of all truth, including moral truth.

The Intolerance at the Heart of the Hobby Lobby Decision Fury | National Review Online

The Intolerance at the Heart of the Hobby Lobby Decision Fury | National Review Online: "On Facebook yesterday, I saw someone respond to the news by muttering, “Stupid religious people!” Whether or not you think this belief is stupid, a core part of America is the right to hold and practice that belief!



What we’re seeing in the reaction to the Hobby Lobby decision is some liberals’ desire to not allow people to be “stupid religious people” anymore; we must all be reconditioned, to bow before the will and judgment of our betters, who control the levers of the government."



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Ann Coulter - June 25, 2014 - AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER

Ann Coulter - June 25, 2014 - AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER: "Liberals get angry and tell us that the metric system is more "rational" than the measurements everyone understands. This is ridiculous. An inch is the width of a man's thumb, a foot the length of his foot, a yard the length of his belt. That's easy to visualize. How do you visualize 147.2 centimeters?
"



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Ann Coulter - June 25, 2014 - AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER

Ann Coulter - June 25, 2014 - AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER: "(4) The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport. Most sports are sublimated warfare. As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice in this century we beat them at their national game."



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