Thursday afternoon round-up and Open Thread
Honestly, I thought the debate was over and the science settled about . . . the Big Bang. Turns out, there may be another, better theory out there, which envisions a giant, four-dimensional star collapsing.
It was funny to read that post because I am slowly working my way through Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story
All I can say is that, whether universe started with an explosion or a collapse, we still have no answer about what came before, something that indicates to me that divinity is as likely an answer as any other theory that scientists and theologians proffer.
Oh, and I can rub in one more time that there is nothing as to which the science is settled. New data demands new analyses, along with possible new outcomes to old questions and tentative answers.
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Yeah, it’s not just the conservative fever swamps that are noticing that there’s a stunning similarity between Rosemary Wood’s Nixonian erasure and the IRS’s spectacular ability to lose two years worth of computer data, all hard drives, and all back-ups, and only on those computers that are the subjects of House subpoenas.
Left or right, nobody does a leaner job of summarizing the IRS’s despicable, fraudulent posture than Ace.
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I also notice that others are coming around to saying what I said last year, which is that the IRS scandal is the worst scandal ever to hit American politics. In a scathing indictment of the entire Obama presidency, Daniel Henninger pretty much echoes my conclusion:
The IRS tea-party audit story isn’t Watergate; it’s worse than Watergate.
The Watergate break-in was the professionals of the party in power going after the party professionals of the party out of power. The IRS scandal is the party in power going after the most average Americans imaginable.
Yeah, what he said, which is what I said.
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You know how we could solve (or go a long way to solving) all federal budget problems? Shut down every federally funded green energy initiative.
I’m not talking only about budget items dedicated to green energy. I’m talking about all the agencies that fritter away on green energy money meant for other purposes. Exhibit A is the fact that the VA spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on windmills for cemeteries even as veterans were dying from want of care.
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You know that I hate — absolutely hate — bag bans, whether the ban is on paper or plastic. I’ve ranted and raved about the risk of disease and the dubious environmental benefits, not to mention the fundamental loss of freedom when we’re denied choice about something as basic as the way in which we wish to carry our groceries. (Here’s a good example of my bag ban ire.)
The Reason Foundation has come out with a study backing my instincts. That study is summarized here, along with some additional commentary about health and environmental woes flowing from the bag Nazis’ edicts.
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Liberty Island is looking for crowd-funding so that it can publish hard-copy versions of fiction from conservatives and libertarians. It’s a superb cause. I’ve mentioned before my passion for junk novels, and I’m always very aware when a junk book author has a political viewpoint she’s trying to sell. Most people, though, aren’t as aware as I am, and absorb without thinking the Leftist world view that permeates so much modern fiction. It would be great to have a counterweight.
