Obama’s poll numbers decline in blue states

The New Neo Posted on by

Lately, Democrats have become much less happy with Obama.

But don’t get too excited. They appear to be turning on him because he’s not liberal enough and/or competent enough in carrying out the liberal agenda.

As the article so delicately put it [emphasis mine]:

“Young people, unmarried women and Hispanics are difficult to turn out in a midterm, and he’s struggling there,” said Jillson. “But that doesn’t mean they’re available to Republicans. It just means Obama is going to have to ultimately satisfy their policy demands through initiatives after the election.”

Well, I wouldn’t say he has to do anything after the election. But he probably will choose to satisfy at least some of their demands, because they coincide with his own wishes and policy inclinations.

Un-PC murder in Oklahoma: bringing a gun to a knifefight

The New Neo Posted on by

The horrific murder in Moore, Oklahoma, has about as many un-PC factors as possible. Some of them are prominently mentioned in the news coverage, some have to be teased out.

Although it appears to be a case of workplace violence immediately following a firing, there are overtones of terrorism because the perpetrator, Alton Nolen, is a Muslim convert, and the victim was killed by a stabbing/beheading. There is no question that the method of death was at the very least a copycat crime inspired by recent ISIS videos, which were meant to inspire terrorism against Westerners.

Nolen is black, a fact which (at least in the couple of articles I’ve read) is never mentioned in print and only can be gleaned from looking at photos, which are not all that prominently displayed. His conversion was probably accomplished in prison, a very fertile ground for conversions to Islam of Americans, especially American blacks, although it has not yet been confirmed that this was the case with Nolen.

I have not been able to determine the race of his victims, both the person who was killed and the one who was wounded; haven’t seen a photo of either and, as I said, race is not mentioned in the article. But both were women. Although they are said to have been chosen at random, it has also been reported that Nolen’s firing occurred after an argument in which he advocated stoning women. If true, that would indicate that his victims were chosen because they were women.

Nolen was killed by the company’s head Mark Vaughn, who is also an Oklahoma County reserve deputy sheriff. Called to the scene by another worker, he brought his rifle and wounded the marauder, who had been continuing his violence. This ended the rampage.

So we have a Muslim perpetrator who is also black, targeting women, demonstrating that a gun is not the least bit necessary in order to inflict mayhem—stopped by a man with a gun. Not exactly the gun-wielding Tea Party perpetrator the left keeps looking for, is it?

In addition, Nolen had a record of three felonies, two drug-related and one attack on an officer. Why was he employed in the first place? Well, ex-felons have got to eat, too, I suppose. But John Hinderaker notes that Eric Holder’s DOJ may be part of the picture:

Paul has written about the fact that the Obama/Holder Department of Justice has brought discrimination lawsuits against employers who use criminal history to screen prospective employees.

Let’s fervently hope there aren’t any copycats of the copycat.

Autism and belief: Part I

The New Neo Posted on by

Back in 2009 I wrote a post called “Wanting to believe in miracles.” It was about the case of Rom Houben, a severely brain-damaged patient in Belgium who was said to be communicating complex thoughts through a method known as facilitated communication, in which a brain-damaged or autistic patient (often a child or teenager, in the case of autism) is helped to “write” through a facilitator guiding his/her hand to spell on a computer or letter board.

Houben’s was a wonderful story, and many people were deeply touched and inspired by it. But I was extremely skeptical, having seen an excellent documentary on Frontline called “Prisoners of Silence” that debunked the vast majority of cases of facilitated communication which, like Houben’s, use another person to guide the subject’s hand. And so I wrote:

What’s really going on with Rom Houben? Evidence indicates that he does have more ability to communicate and think than originally believed: for example, he can tap his foot yes and no in answer to some simple questions, and his brain scans indicate some sort of activity. So he has probably retained the ability to communicate in a basic way, but the articulate sentences he supposedly generates through the facilitated computer are extremely suspect, and are probably generated by the hopeful mind of the facilitator, whether she knows it or not. This could be tested rather easily, by asking him a question to which he would be expected to know the answer but about which the facilitator would be expected to know nothing.

Read the whole post if you want a more thorough background about the who, what, and why, of the case, and also a rather extensive debate from commenters as to whether I was being too skeptical or not.

But somehow I missed the announcement, just a few months later, that the chief doctor on Houben’s case—the person who had attested to his remarkable abilities and was convinced they were real—had announced that he’d been mistaken:

Houben’s neurologist, Dr. Steven Laureys, says a scientific test has shown that his patient cannot answer even simple questions…

Since [making his initial reports], he has tested Houben and some other patients more rigorously.

A few days ago, Laureys and his research team presented the results of those tests at a scientific meeting in the United Kingdom.

Laureys says they showed the patients an object, or spoke a word. Unlike earlier interactions with Laureys, the facilitator was out of the room for that part of the test. Afterward, the facilitator was brought back in to help the patient answer questions.

“We presented three cases after traumatic brain injury. Two failed the test. And that was including Rom,” says Laureys.

In the test, the man who was supposed to be writing a novel failed to identify an apple through facilitated communication.

It’s sad. Sad that so many people can be fooled—including scientists, despite the fact that it’s been known for many years that facilitated communication has only a tiny percentage of true successes. As I wrote in my earlier posts, I think the majority of believers are sincere and not con artists, although I suppose that some are knowing dissemblers. Some of the honest believers are parents and educators who want desperately to believe that their children or patients really have a great deal more promise and abilities than they seem to possess, and that some wonderful day the wall between them can be broken down and the parents/workers will have finally have access to their thoughts. Then the fruits of the parents’ and teachers’ hard and loving labors will finally be harvested.

But most of the time it is not to be.

In the case of Houben’s doctors, it is curious that they originally claimed to have performed the proper tests:

Initially, Dr. Laureys said that he had verified that the facilitated communication was genuine, by showing Houben objects when the facilitator was not present in the room, and later asking Houben to recall those objects.

But after a few tests, when Dr. Laureys wanted to perform more rigorously-controlled experiments, the facilitator balked. Interesting, no? And then:

Using a different facilitator, subsequent testing under properly controlled conditions in which fifteen objects which were shown to Houben over a period of weeks was performed, Houben was unable to communicate knowledge of any of the objects which had been shown to him during the facilitator’s absence.

I have little doubt that there are people who still believe in Houben’s amazing abilities, but his doctors and others who work with him are no longer among them.

I’m writing this not just to say “I told you so”, although I do feel that my position has been vindicated. I am writing it because I continue to be astounded at how many people fail to exercise even a moderate degree of skepticism when a story is one they really want to believe.

If you watch the video from Frontline that I linked to above (there is also a transcript of it here), you will see that not only is belief in this sort of thing a sad example of hopeful self-delusion, but it can actually lead to helpers making false accusations of child abuse through their “facilitation” of the thoughts of autistic children.

What brought this all to the fore—and led me to read the update on Houben for the first time—was when a member of my book group suggested we might read The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism, by Naoki Higashida (English translation; the text was originally published in Japanese in 2006) for our next meeting. The book was published in late August of 2013 and has received a lot of press since, including a bunch of glowing reviews and a huge endorsement by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show that propelled the book to a number-nine spot on the Times best seller list.

The minute my book group friend mentioned the subject matter of the book, my alarms went off. I asked her whether she knew how the book had been written—had the boy used facilitated communication?

[To be continued in Part II…]

And this is news why?

The New Neo Posted on by

On the one hand, the fact that almost none of the tens of thousands of illegal arrivals during the last few months showed up for their scheduled immigration hearings is not news at all. It was so predictable as to be virtually inevitable, a foregone conclusion.

On the other hand it’s big news, or should be. It means that our immigration laws are not just broken, they are a joke. What’s more, everyone knows it, including and perhaps especially the illegal immigrants entering our country, who plan at the outset to take full advantage of the situation.

This is an outrage. But there doesn’t seem to be any intent to remedy it.

And that’s where we stand.

A more pristine Sistine

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve never seen the Sistine Chapel in person. The one time I was in Rome, long ago, the Chapel was closed for something or other and no visitors were allowed. Anyway, that was before the controversial restoration that brightened Michaelangelo’s frescoes and removed the patina of age that had given them a depth and resonance—and murkiness—which some had deplored and some had admired.

Now any lingering murkiness is further demurkified by new LED lighting that purports to illuminate the images while doing the fragile artwork no harm.

Here’s the photo:

sistene

What do you think?

We won’t have Eric Holder to kick around anymore

The New Neo Posted on by

Finally:

Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce Thursday that he is resigning from the Obama administration, a Justice Department official confirmed to Fox News.

That’s certainly a consummation devoutly to be wished.

However, not so fast:

The official said Holder has agreed to stay on the job until his successor is confirmed.

It’s hard to imagine that successor could be worse. But I wouldn’t underestimate Obama’s ability to find someone, however hard it may be.

Holder has been almost immeasurably useful to President Obama in his six and a half years as Attorney General. Many years ago I wrote that his tenure would be long, for the following reasons:

my gut senses a close identification between Obama and Holder, an almost-Vulcan-mind-meld between them on the legal issues involved in fighting terrorism. This is not a compliment to either man; I think both are sadly misguided.

Holder serves a purpose for Obama. If there is an issue on which the President is somewhat loathe to express his opinion fully, perhaps because he knows it will be unpopular or controversial, I believe that Obama purposely uses Holder as cover, to draw the opposition’s criticism and deflect it from himself.

Perhaps the proper word for the relationship might be “surrogate” or “mouthpiece.” This is not to say that Holder does not have opinions of his own. I am not claiming he is a puppet. But his opinions are so closely in sync with Obama’s on these issues that for all intents and purposes they are one…

Holder is also no ordinary Cabinet appointee for Obama. They have known each other since 2004, the year Obama first achieved a national profile. The two met at “a dinner party hosted by former White House aide Anne Walker Marchange, niece of Clinton friend Vernon Jordan.” Very soon after declaring himself a candidate in early 2007, Obama requested that Holder be part of his campaign, and “Holder served as a legal adviser and strategist and led Obama’s vice presidential search committee.”

Holder is a trusted adviser and member of Obama’s inner circle. It probably doesn’t hurt, either, that Holder is a graduate of Columbia and a former basketball player, much like Obama. But it’s their common attitude towards law that creates the strongest bond between the men. As Holder says, “We are on the same page.”

Why is Holder leaving now? We may never know. But it’s probably because he’s served his main purpose, and wants a change. I doubt very much that his departure represents any intent of the Obama administration for a different policy.

Moderate Muslims

The New Neo Posted on by

Do those mythical beasts, moderate Muslims, exist? Or are they more like unicorns?

I say they exist, and this video is evidence of how they are overshadowed by the more vocal, influential, powerful, violent, and perhaps more numerous, radical Muslims (hat tip: J.J.):

So there are plenty of moderate Muslims, people who are sincere in their “live and let live” attitude and are not practicing some sort of taqiyya about it to fool us. For the most part, they are frightened and repelled by their Muslim brethren who think otherwise.

But their (and our) problem is that, although these moderate Muslims consider themselves to be Muslims, the more extreme Muslims (shall we call them immoderate Muslims, or just plain Muslims?) consider the moderates to be no Muslims at all but apostates instead, perhaps even worthy of being murdered—and these immoderate Muslims constitute the mainstream of the Muslim religion rather than a fringe group. The moderate Muslims do not constitute a bona fide wing of the religion, they merely are people who don’t practice their religion very strictly and don’t follow all its tenets and precepts. They are lapsed or lax Muslims.

This differs from Christianity or Judaism in a profound way. Yes, there are some orthodox or fundamentalist Christians and Jews who also believe that those following the more moderate wings of their religions are not real Christians or Jews, are not following the true faith. But moderate sects and movements most definitely exist in both religions—as opposed to people who just are not very observant in their beliefs—and for the most part are an accepted part of the mainstream.

There is no official moderate Muslim wing, unlike the many intermediate choices a Christian or a Jew can make and still be a Christian or a Jew in the official, approved sense, although Islam doesn’t lack for disputes between wings (bitter ones, at that). There may be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.

As the video reports, when the moderates try to speak up, the fanatics try to silence and intimidate them. They are often very successful. It would take a lot of courage to not be intimidated, given the violence of so many of the Islamist fundamentalists, and their determination to wipe out the opposition and to dominate a West that has welcomed them into its fold.

Islam is both a religion and a totalitarian political movement, and the religious part has masked the political aims for long enough to allow Islam to get a toehold in Europe, a grip it has then expanded through reproduction and more emigration, until it now threatens to overwhelm countries such as Belgium. This is exceedingly worrisome, and not for racist reasons. I don’t care whether these people are black, brown, or purple (in fact, I resemble them physically far more than I resemble a native Belgian). It is their belief system and their actions and their goals that threaten the West and the Enlightenment. And they are not even shy about saying so.

Open thread

The New Neo Posted on by

I have an unusually busy day today. So for now, there won’t be any long, long, political/philosophical posts.

I might get around to it this evening. But till then, you can talk amongst yourselves. Here’s a thread for that very purpose.

Aging eyebrows

The New Neo Posted on by

As if we didn’t already have enough to worry about: help for your aging brows.

Oh, all the things they don’t tell you about when you’re young! And aging brows are the least of it.

As the article says, women’s tend to get sparse. But it doesn’t go into what happens to men. I’ve noticed that for older males it’s feast or famine in the eyebrow department: they either get more sparse or they get bushy.

Sometimes really really bushy. With the ears and nose, it can be a matched set.