300 arrested at Occupy protests in Oakland - latimes.com

Oakland’s Mayor Quan,

Quan said that at one point, many protesters forced their way into City Hall, where they burned flags, broke an electrical box and damaged several art structures, including a recycled art exhibit created by children.
She blamed the destruction on a small "very radical, violent" splinter group within Occupy Oakland.

"This is not a situation where we had 1,000 peaceful people and a few violent people. If you look at what's happening today in terms of destructing property, throwing at and charging the police, it's almost like they are begging for attention and hoping that the police will make an error."

300 arrested at Occupy protests in Oakland - latimes.com
Won’t have to beg long with Chicago PD for a fight, come May and the G8.  Going to be a hot spring.

Lysenko and Warmism

Scientists, debunking Warmism today in WSJ, recall Lysenko (photo at left) who did science the Proletarian Way.

This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.


Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."


Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Words like incontrovertible usually means science's gone unfalsifiable.  Leaving the world of science for theology (or worse): the profoundly existential world of money.

Follow the path indeed, for it ends with Mike Ryoko's Ubi Est Mea which the Illinois General Assembly included in a tribute, WHEREAS, Mike Royko was Chicago; he created the unofficial motto for Chicago "Ubi Est Mea-Where's Mine?";

Warmism is what it is and don't try and prove it otherwise 'cause there's big bucks at stake. Better instead look for your take.

State Senator Ricky Hendon Resigns! But, Who Knew Obama Was An Ass-Kicking Stud? | Chicago Political Commentary

Obama’s famous in Illinois for his thin skin.  Below from the Sun Times in Chicago Political Commentary recalling one of the more famous incidents. 

Afterward, Hendon wrote, Obama came to his desk and "told me in an eerie, dark voice that came from some secret place within the ugly side of him, 'You embarrassed me on the Senate floor and if you ever do it again, I will kick your ass!'"

Hendon said Obama then challenged him to go to the rear of the Senate chamber out of the eyesight of reporters for a fight, and Hendon did so. "A little pushing and shoving occurred, laced with profanity too vulgar to write, from both of us, until Sen. Donne Trotter and others separated us," Hendon wrote.The incident, Hendon wrote, showed that Obama "will not hesitate to fight on behalf of the United States if it comes down to it, just as he tried to fight me because of his personal beliefs."

State Senator Ricky Hendon Resigns! But, Who Knew Obama Was An Ass-Kicking Stud? | Chicago Political Commentary

I recall Hendon suggesting Obama was Irish instead of African American by ridiculing the Obama as O’Bama and asking what kind of black name was that.  It wasn’t about kids.

Showdown in Chicago: Occupy Chicago Tactical Briefing #25

via Adbusters, [H/T] Rebel Pundit

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …

Chicago's a town if you're looking for a fight, you'll usually get it. This one's going to get ugly. Big bang for sure.... SDS used to sing Lay, Elrod, lay || Lay in the street for a while || Stay, Elrod, stay || Stay in your bed for a while, about Richard Elrod. They'll be a few left permanently crippled after this fiasco too. The left will sing songs about another big bang.

Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …

for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

Top Catholic bishop feels betrayed by Obama

Bishop Dolan doesn’t know the Prez like we in Chicago do if he felt blindsided on this one.

Last November, amid deepening tensions between the bishops and the administration over the pending contraception mandate and other issues, Obama invited Dolan to the Oval Office, where the two men shared what Dolan called a productive and "extraordinarily friendly" meeting. 

"The president seemed very earnest, he said he considered the protection of conscience sacred, that he didn't want anything his administration would do to impede the work of the church that he claimed he held in high regard," Dolan recalled on Tuesday. "So I did leave a little buoyant."

That optimism ended last Friday, however, when Obama phoned Dolan to tell him that he was not expanding the conscience exemption to include religious institutions -- such as Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies. In a bid to appease critics like Dolan, the White House gave church organizations an extra year to find a way to comply with the mandate that all health insurance plans provide free contraceptive coverage.

"I had to share with him that I was terribly let down, disappointed and disturbed, and it seemed the news he had given me was difficult to square with the confidence I had felt in November," Dolan said.

Religion News Service | Ethics | Faith | Top Catholic bishop feels betrayed by Obama

Why not reach out to those who already say they are part of us?

Held in the Light asks: Why not reach out to those who already say they are part of us?

I'd like to see some research on these folks, but knowing a few, I'd say forget the reach out.  They identify, but don't expect them to commit.  They've already decided not too.  Identity's the extent of their effort.

You can't build Churches (or a Movement) with folks who will not commit to do the hard work of building either.

Is Liberalism Islamic?: An Interview with Mustafa Akyol

Limits the Powers of the State……

Can you explain what you mean by liberalism?

By liberalism, I mean a political and economic system which limits the powers of the state, and gives individuals, and their voluntary associations, the freedom to shape their destinies. I think liberty has been a value throughout history, but liberalism became a full-fledged ideology in the modern age, for the modern state threatened liberty in unprecedented levels.

I also think that today liberalism presents the best medium for Muslims to live Islam in the various ways that they understand it.

Is Liberalism Islamic?: An Interview with Mustafa Akyol | Politics | Religion Dispatches

The United Methodist response to decline

And a response to the response that the problem’s lackluster clergy.

No doubt some clergy are more gifted, dedicated, resourceful—even faithful—than others. So are many officers, agencies, laity and yes, episcopal leaders. The malaise is American mainline, however. It cuts across denominational lines, hierarchies and polities. Meanwhile, the same Book of Discipline guides the United Methodist Church in parts of the world where there is no malaise. Whatever is wrong with clergy in America may be just as wrong with episcopal leaders, boards, agencies, officers and laity. None are above binding scrutiny, and none has earned the right to decide by itself the validity of ministry among the others.

via The United Methodist Portal
Centralization’s not the answer.  I suspect neither is movement which seems code word for centralization to me.

The Once and Future Liberalism - Walter Russell Mead - The American Interest Magazine

One of the few Liberals I know who understands the Liberal notion that Liberalism’s dead because change’s inevitable.  Technology drives change, ideologies collapse, and new frames rise.  We’re in the midst of a revolution and the professed revolutionary vanguards can’t quite figure it out.  Would they only for once read their Marx!

Writing about the onset of the Great Depression, John Kenneth Galbraith famously said that the end had come but was not yet in sight. The past was crumbling under their feet, but people could not imagine how the future would play out. Their social imagination had hit a wall.

The same thing is happening today: The core institutions, ideas and expectations that shaped American life for the sixty years after the New Deal don’t work anymore. The gaps between the social system we inhabit and the one we now need are becoming so wide that we can no longer paper over them. But even as the failures of the old system become more inescapable and more damaging, our national discourse remains stuck in a bygone age. The end is here, but we can’t quite take it in.

The Once and Future Liberalism - Walter Russell Mead - The American Interest Magazine
Read the whole thing.

What is a Religous Movement?

Any sociologists of religion out there?

Somehow this does not sound like UUism,

DEFINITIONS OF:religious movement

1

na movement intended to bring about religious reforms

Types:

show 12 types...

Type of:

front, movement, social movement

a group of people with a common ideology who try together to achieve certain general goals

Rep. Walsh Questions National Park Service Director About Occupy DC

[H/T] Marathon Pundit.

Murf's take on Morales

Patrick Murfins take on the Rev Morales's letter. Murf (and I've known him since my Dad took me down to the IWW hall about 1971 or so) quotes me

The reactions to Morales’s proposals have been predictable. A leading conservative UU blogger, Bill Baar writing as Pfaffer Streccius took Morales’s proposal as a full on assault on congressional life. I believe a dispassionate reading will show that it is not. But that view will undoubtedly gain traction and be amplified by others.

The first time I've ever been leading about much which shows what blogging in a very small pond can do. But is conservative important here? 'Cause yes I'm a politically conservative UU (visit our Facebook page), but is the Congregation versus Movement issue Rev Morales presented: an issue with politically Conservative and Liberal sides?

At first blush, I thought not. As I think about it though, with Sojourners the first model of a Movement that came to my mind, I wonder if Patrick isn't more right than wrong here.

The tradtional model of Congregations anchors UUs a bit. The Movement Model (which is pretty old itself, if one thinks of Evangelicals as the model of a Religous Movement; save for the original early Christians) lacks the authority of a convenanted body to keep the flock and minister steady. A Movement may well dive right into secular Progressivism simply because the people in charge of the Movement's center are firmly stuck in political Liberalism (with blinders)!

Political Liberalism not a characteristic of Movements in general, but it will be the outcome of this movement in particular. A Liberalism of a rather thin sort too as one Politically Liberal and polity concerned UU told me not so very long ago.

Trabants and Volts

Chevy Volts well on their way to becoming our version of the German Democratic Republic's Trabant: a product worth less than the materials and labor used to build it. A product with negative value. The act of building it destroys value.

Some Chevrolet dealers are turning down Volts that General Motors wants to ship to them, a potential stumbling block as GM looks to accelerate sales of the plug-in hybrid.

For example, consider the New York City market. Last month, GM allocated 104 Volts to 14 dealerships in the area, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Dealers took just 31 of them, the lowest take rate for any Chevy model in that market last month. That group of dealers ordered more than 90 percent of the other vehicles they were eligible to take, the source said.

Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20120123/RETAIL07/301239977#ixzz1kOL8s61a

McGurn: Obama Offends the Catholic Left

McGurn today at WSJ: McGurn: Obama Offends the Catholic Left - WSJ.com and then yesterday’s piece by Winter’s : J'ACCUSE! Why Obama is wrong on the HHS conscience regulations

As Americans grow more conservative, Liberalism grows more authoritarian.  Enforcing visions fewer are buying.  That authoritarianism a sign of a defeated and desperate ideology.  Liberalis chucking a once proud heritage of civil libertarianism (see William O. Douglas on the right to unfettered campaign contributions) rather than engage modernity and its growing diversity.

Liberals so blind they couldn’t even see how Healthcare Reform and Medical technology would bring the increasingly complex issues of ethics into the political forum, and naively express surprise that abortion would come front and center in the debate.

Rev Morales: Churches or Movement?

Surprised there's not more talk of this on the UU blogosphere or Facebook.

It's a talk way over due.

Where have you been Rev Morales? A bit like King Richard, off fighting the crusade in Arizona while we Peasants toiled in the Congregations; harassed by that ruthless King John known as the great recession.

This epistle, from a man I voted for in hopes of a plan to grow our Churches a bit, must be the prelude to another set of dismal membership numbers

My Church just started it's kick-off for our pledge drive. A father testified yesterday about searching for a spiritual home during his son's severe illness. It was powerful stuff.  He left me proud of our Church and the work so many members do, to be just the place this father and mother were searching for. Yeah, we'll pledge for this.

They could only have found this at a Church. Sojourners (or any movement) can't provide a Spiritual Home in the way a Congregation does.

I have hopes for technology, but sadly, Rev Morales's vision here is doomed. I'm not sure it's even going to spark the discussion and reformation the UUA desperately needs.

Protesters Throw Bricks and Bibles at Police in San Francisco

Via ABC,

Occupy San Francisco’s “Day of Action” turned violent Friday night when protesters occupied an abandoned hotel and began throwing objects at police officers from the roof, police said.

“Once they gained access [to the hotel], some of them made it to the top of the roof and they then began to throw bibles down at the officers,” San Francisco Police Department spokesman Carlos Manfredi said.

“One of officers was struck with a brick to the chest and one of our lieutenants was struck in the hand with an object and may have damaged or even broken his hand,” he said.

Protesters began the day Friday by targeting San Francisco’s financial institutions like the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, the SEC, Citibank, Chase, and Bechtel.

Also at Weasel Zippers. No good comes of this...

(01-22-12) (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) Free Syrian Army Warns Assad Forces from Storming Douma,

Sometimes Speed beats Mass (Money) in politics

A take away from Byron York for UUs concerned about money in politics. Sometimes all that money gives you big organization to trip over. Something the Obama folks on Michigan Ave ought to be thinking about today.

Gingrich's campaign was also faster and more nimble than the Romney battleship. "There is a very strong contrast between the two campaign organizations," said Gingrich adviser (and former George W. Bush administration official) Kevin Kellems. "In military terms, it's speed versus mass. Newt Gingrich's operation, and Newt Gingrich as a man, has a great deal of speed -- intellectual speed, decisiveness. The Romney campaign is much more about money and size, having hired half of Washington D.C. And sometimes, speed beats mass."

Maureen Dowd: Showtime at the Apollo

Obama's sound odd to Dowd, but we're familiar with it in Illinois. Our first African-American Prez sounds just like Illinois's first Blue-Collar Gov in his famous I gave your grandma free rides on the CTA wiretap. Chicago Pols about as self-centered as a guy (and they're mostly guys) get.

The portrait of the first couple in Jodi Kantor’s new book, “The Obamas,” bristles with aggrievement and the rational president’s disdain for the irrational nature of politics, the press and Republicans. Despite what his rivals say, the president and the first lady do believe in American exceptionalism — their own, and they feel overassaulted and underappreciated.

We disappointed them.

As Michelle said to Oprah in an interview she did with the president last May: “I always told the voters, the question isn’t whether Barack Obama is ready to be president. The question is whether we’re ready. And that continues to be the question we have to ask ourselves.”

They still believed, as their friend Valerie Jarrett once said, that Obama was “just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”

Showtime at the Apollo - NYTimes.com

تقرير صحفي من داخل درعــــا المحتلة - مترجم -

CNN in Dar'a. Video is in English.

It’s Marriage Stupid (not Income)

A twist on marriage inequality.  Murray in a column I haven’t fully absorbed yet, but he’s peeling away at the real problems dividing Americans.

Charles Murray on the New American Divide - WSJ.com

This Is America's Moment, If Washington Doesn't Blow It - Forbes

Must read by Joel Kotkin.  Only thing standing in America’s way our Americans themselves.

A confluence of largely unnoticed economic, demographic and political trends has put the U.S. in a far more favorable position than its rivals. Rather than the end of preeminence, America may well be entering  a renaissance.

If we  have the guts and sense to seize this moment.

This Is America's Moment, If Washington Doesn't Blow It - Forbes

Time to Leave Afghanistan

Time to Leave Afghanistan

Michael Yon quits Afghanistan.