Silliness at LGF

What a difference a decade makes, I go back and read this and basically agree with everything Buchanan and Dobbs say now.

"Will the people who screamed for Van Jones’ resignation based on unsubstantiated accusations that he was a Truther now scream just as loud about Pat Buchanan?"

Absolutely I will. I call for the immediate resignation of Patrick J. Buchanan from his position as czar of what? Oh yeah, nothing. And how much federal money is he in charge of disbursing? Oh yeah, none. So yes, Patrick J. Buchanan, I call on you to step down, lest you tarnish the entire conservative movement that you're not really a part of anyway.

A side note, Pat Buchanan's ideas have very little to do with the principles of conservatism. Socially he might think so, I don't. And economically, if anything he's a populist, authoritarian lefty. He's a protectionist, he's xenophobic, he's a lot like Lou Dobbs. That is nothing remotely approaching a liberty-minded, optimistic conservative, but it's probably enough of a subject for a separate post. And that's all aside from the fact Mr. Buchanan is seemingly nuts (Holocaust denier, 9/11 truth promoter, etc.).

So if I see him anywhere near a position remotely close to the importance of where Van Jones was, I'll be calling for his resignation, along with the resignation of whoever put him there. I will also eat my hat if anyone's actually that dumb.

I really don't understand how exactly guilt by association works over at LGF, other than to note that it applies to most everyone but Obama. Which is sort of too bad, I think Mr. Johnson is probably incredibly intelligent, and obviously a talented researcher.

Unruly - I'll take it

unruly
adj., -li·er, -li·est.
Difficult or impossible to discipline, control, or rule.

Yes, that sounds just about right, since we are not to be 'ruled' in the first place.

Obama, Student of History

“IT WAS ISLAM… that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.”

Well, it sounds pleasant enough. But even a cursory examination of the Wikipedia articles on algebra, the compass, pens, and the germ theory of disease reveals that not one of those four things is settled fully, and the compass is just incorrect.

Algebra goes back to non-Islamic Baylonians. The compass may likely have gone back to the Olmecs, and if not them then the Chinese. Again, not Islam. The pen was not a new idea, being thousands of years old when the ink reservoir was first added to the implement itself. The idea of germs spreading disease originated in the Hindu world.

But let's say he is 100% correct on the facts, he is a student of history, as he tells us in the speech. For one thing, those Wikipedia entries can be cleaned up now. After that, he'd still be wrong, from the first sentence. It was not Islam that did anything. It was an individual. It was a person, with a mind-- not a belief system.