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POPSSometime During The Night and Early Morning of Dec 29-30 1916, Grigory Rasputin Is Murdered by Russian Nobles
Fearful of Rasputin’s growing power (among other things, it was believed by some that he was plotting to make a separate peace with the Germans), a group of nobles, led by Prince Felix Youssupov, the husband of the czar’s niece, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Nicholas’s first cousin, lured Rasputin to Youssupov Palace on the night of December 29, 1916. First, Rasputin’s would-be killers gave the monk food and wine laced with cyanide. When he failed to react to the poison, they shot him at close range, leaving him for dead. A short time later, however, Rasputin revived and attempted to escape from the palace grounds, whereupon his assailants shot him again and beat him viciously. Finally, they bound Rasputin, still miraculously alive, and tossed him into a freezing river. His body was discovered several days later and the two main conspirators, Youssupov and Pavlovich were exiled.
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POPSHow criticism of the global warming orthodoxy dissapeared from Wikipedia
the hockey stick graph. This icon showed temperatures in the last 1,000 years to have been stable — no Medieval Warm Period, not even the Little Ice Age of a few centuries ago. Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions.
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POPS And Yet It Cools ..... to where the scientific orthodoxy is running Star Chambers, branding rivals as heretics, trying like Urban VIII to put a thumb on publishing scales, and basically sticking its head in the sand. No little irony, BTW, that the other big news in orthodoxy debunkment yesterday was that Galileo’s fingers had been located and will go on display. Unclear whether those digits are the ones he flipped at the pope, though without doubt among those the pope twisted. Yeah, I can believe it. They’re all only human after all. The problem now, which Galileo would entirely get, is how to get not only the establishment scientists but the pols to catch up with the science. Quick, before they re-engineer our economy back into the middle ages with that bizarre scheme of double-reverse robber baronry they’re working on. forward movement ... Jules Crittenden Read more ... http://tr.im/FsXL
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POPSThe BBC's amazing U-turn on climate change The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too. But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down. These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.
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POPSChesterton and Lewis for Beginners ·Orthodoxy. One of Chesterton's two greatest works, it argues for Christianity through his unfolding discovery that it answered all the questions the world presented him ·St. Thomas Aquinas. ·The Everlasting Man. ·What's Wrong with the World. ·Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. C. S. Lewis: ·Surprised by Joy. Lewis's autobiography ·God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics. A posthumous collection of 48 articles and essays ·The Problem of Pain or Miracles. ·The Screwtape Letters. Lewis's innovative collection of letters from a senior devil to his incompetent nephew ·The Abolition of Man. ·The Four Loves. Lewis's exposition of the four different kinds of love and the challenges we face in loving others. ·Selected Literary Essays.
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POPSCATO--"Hate Crime" Laws Are Unconstitutional
"Hate crime" laws are "thought crime" laws, constitute "double jeopardy" (being tried twice for same crime), and violate the 1st and 14th (and also not mentioned, 10th) amendments of the Constitution, this scholar asserts. He also takes the ACLU to task since they ought to know better, and should lead the opposition. The ADL (hypocrites who defame many) is behind "hate crimes" legislation, and is the powerful, private, special interest, propaganda agency to federal and local law enforcement (including FBI) and media, who are the sole self-appointed definers of public orthodoxy and what constitutes "hate" or "hate groups", even "terrorism" watch lists! "Hate Crimes" laws could become the basis of a New American Inquisition , where a certain "orthodoxy" of thought, speech, religious or philosophical beliefs is upheld and requires punishment of all to the contrary. Think about the danger of this! What about "liberty of conscience" and freedom of speech?
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POPSIDF assist terrorist settlers wound 17 villagers Bat Ayin is an Israeli settlement and communal village in Gush Etzion, on the edge of the Judean hills in the West Bank. It is a settlement built on Palestinian land and is not approved by the Israeli government. The settlement is illegal under international law. The particular brand of Bat Ayin Orthodoxy has been called Chavakuk, an acronym for the four main influences on the Neo-Chassidic culture of the village. Proscriptions on dress, hair covering, and lifestyle (according to Orthodox halakha) are conditions for joining and staying on the settlement (for example, married women must cover their hair ). Although residents adhere to these communal dictates of religious piety, they are also known for their counter-cultural practices ...Wikipedia
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POPSAn Open Letter to Closed Minds
A challenge to orthodoxy tends to be ignored at first. But if it gains popular support, the first move is to discredit and silence the challenger. “Belief” is the crux of the matter. No amount of evidence will change the consensus view until a sufficient number “convert” to a belief in the new theory. “It gets worse. As the evidence accumulates, the two camps will not only fail to reach consensus but actually be driven further apart - propelled by their different views ..And worst of all, there is no prospect of such a consensus unless the two sides can agree about the cause of the data.” Such a conclusion bodes ill for any attempt to change the status quo. An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the new ideas from the beginning.” Applicable to both science and religion, I reckon. :)
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POPS"Go Kill Liberals" James Adkisson is sentenced to life in prison for opening fire on a Unitarian congregation and murdering 2 human beings. Many intuited that Adkisson's rampage was exactly the kind of rancid fruit that would inevitably take root in an American countryside thickly composted with two decades of hate radio bullshit. That suspicion was verified in the days that followed, when police searched Adkisson's apartment and found it filled with books and newsletters penned by Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and other right-wing hate talkers. Our radio hate talkers incited a man to commit an act of terrorism. Just sit a minute and take that in. And it doesn't sound all that dissimilar to a rant (minus the death threat) directed at me recently for posting a clip challenging conservative orthodoxy: "You and your socialist friends are America’s main enemy, more so than Al Qaeda."
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POPSUK Begins a New Inquisition of Tolerance, State Social Orthodoxy The New Inquisition will be one of political-correctness. These are the people that it is okay to Hate by State authority. Fascism of a new kind is being built. This will start by banning certain people from entering. Step 2 will be an Inquisition of those already within the country , based upon the same (unwritten, arbitrary, unconstitutional) principles of a particular "tolerance" ideology which they themselves define. This is the UK's new Orthodoxy, welcome to 1984. Anything "disapproved" compromises "heresy" , and such persons you are required to shun and hate by authority of the State. Consider the consequences: No free speech, no free press, no freedom of (certain) religion--no liberty of conscience, only the State's Social Orthodoxy . Violators will be prosecuted, eventually. Certain groups will applaud, vehemently, because it insulates them, and thus it is their revolution into power, as the State is their servant to punish their opposers.
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POPSBishop Challenges Holocaust Orthodoxy Ironically, some, particularly in the "free press", are raising an Inquisition against him for being an "infidel" or "heretic" of this untouchable belief which he asserts the evidence does not support. This is Verboten to discuss, to the MSM. I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them by gas chambers To make any subject of belief a crime is to prove that a new tyranny is being erected and that "liberty of conscience" and "right to private judgment" are again in serious jeopardy. Why are they so afraid, and the propaganda machine so heated up against him? If a belief is true the evidence will support and verify it, and it will stand. But if it is untrue it must and will certainly fall, eventually , unless pure force holds it up and persecutes and prosecutes all dissenters. A whole lot of politics, wars, and foreign policy hinge on this one. All the more reason to analyze it carefully.
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POPSYou are with free markets, or against them. Justin Lahart blogs at the "Real Time Economics" about his WSJ article on the hostile reaction Raghuram Rajan received at a conference when he suggested that Wall Street was headed for trouble. The economists attending the conference--including Lawrence Summers--do not come out looking good. At all. Via Paul Krugman
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POPS30 Years of Warmer Temperatures go POOF Grab your woolies, folks - we are into Global Cooling. And watch - that Empty Suit, the muslim trojan horse, will be separating Americans and American businesses from their money in the guise of combatting global warming, where in fact, he will be "spreading the wealth" to his minority and radical buddies. His terroist and commie pals.
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POPSViva McCain Katie Couric asked each candidate recently what his favorite movie was. Obama gave an utterly conventional answer: "Oh, I think it would have to be The Godfather. One and two. Three not so much. Umm. So-so, but, but that--that saga--I love that movie." Lawrence of Arabia. Great film. One of my favorites--and then Casablanca. Who doesn't like Casablanca? Couric: I asked for one. Obama: I'm a movie guy. I can rattle off a bunch of movies. But that Casablanca, you know. That's Obama. He's glib, conventional, won't make a real choice, shows nothing about himself, and says nothing offputting and says nothing impressive.
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POPSLiberate Sarah (lol) Step Two involves Jeremiah Wright. he fact is the only Democrats to win the presidency in the past 40 years -- Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- distanced themselves from liberal orthodoxy. Obama is, by contrast, a garden-variety liberal. He also has radical associates in his past. The most famous of these is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.... Brilliant. In the midst of a Wall Street crisis, and with McCain getting hammered for ignoring the middle class, Kristol wants McCain to talk about the former pastorat Obama's former church. Yeah, that will win voters over. If Democrats are very lucky, McCain will take Kristol's advice.
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POPSThe Media Damage Control Begins But here’s a question: why is someone like Joe Biden better equipped to be Vice President than Sarah Palin? Because he is a lawyer? (On the whole lawyer issue, see Victor Davis Hanson’s thoughtful reflections on why we should quit nominating lawyers.) Because he went to elite schools? Because he has spent his entire adult life in Washington, lips sewn fast to the public teat? Because he, like Barack Obama, represent more faithfully the politically correct, multicultural orthodoxy that defines established opinion today?
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POPSPlantation Politics Cont..Ultimately, the theme continues for liberals: "self-hating" minorities who deviate from liberal orthodoxy are attacked because liberals view them as turn-coats. For more recent examples, see the treatment Miguel Estrada and Janice Rogers Brown received when the president nominated them to the D.C. Circuit, while the white guy, John Rodgers, sailed through to confirmation. And, recall Justice Thomas' words: "And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. " The "old order" is liberalism. Mr. Obama's cheap shot against Justice Thomas, which would be applauded in Cambridge and Hyde Park, is the most recent example of the stereotypical left-wing effort to keep minorities on the plantation.
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POPSThe Obama Doctrine This is an article from The American Prospect that I found on del.icio.us, now that I've been frittering around with Clipmarks. The detail in the article belies the notion that Sen. Obama doesn't have a plan in mind should he take office on the now-familiar "Day One". Despite being an Obama supporter myself, I often wonder whether other supporters (and opponents, for that matter) are paying close attention. I mean, people DO realize that Obama is supporting an escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan, while at the same time reducing American forces in Iraq. Just a thought. Interesting article. Read the WHOLE thing.
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POPSPolitics and the English Language - G. Orwell "In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a "party line." Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech." George Orwell
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POPSEgalitarian Orthodoxy: “Noble Fiction”—Or Noxious Poison? A number of studies have shown Jewish people have a higher average IQ than non-Jewish whites (109-115 average for Jewish folks, versus 100-103 for non-Jewish whites). The Hitlerites falsely claimed Aryans were just as smart, or, bizarrely, smarter than Jews, and the reason there were a disproportionate number of Jewish lawyers, physicians, journalists, etc., was because of Jews banding together and discriminating against non-Jews, rather than outcomes entirely deserved. Inversion of the truth on IQ differences helped cause hatred and the most monstrous violence the world has ever seen. Today, similar lies are again stoking hatred against Jewish and other whites, and against north Asians as well.
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POPSObama's missteps Obama's unnecessary promise deviates from nearly six decades of U.S. foreign policy that held Jerusalem to be occupied territory under international law. This long tradition was first broken in 2004 when President Bush acknowledged Israel's demands to keep its illegal West Bank settlements in a final peace agreement, including those around Jerusalem. Thus Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, would both scorn the international legal system's foundational principle -- the inadmissibility of territorial acquisition by war -- and echo President Bush, whose failed Middle East policies he has rightly deplored. If Sen. Obama's Philadelphia speech on race was a model of courage and nuance, his AIPAC talk was brimming with the pro-Israel orthodoxy that typifies this year's presidential campaign. Like presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, Obama also backed Israel's so-called right to exist as a Jewish state.
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