Rush Limbaugh IS a “Brainwashed Nazi.”

I’ve long subscribed to a rule which says that in political discourse whichever side calls the other side a “Nazi” first loses. The “Nazi rule” means that if you use it, you lose it. The “Nazi rule” holds true almost universally. I say “almost” because the one calling the other a “Nazi” first loses unless the first one using the term “Nazi” has it right. Recently, a caller on Rush Limbaugh’s show identified himself as a Republican voter, a veteran and opposed to torture and blamed Rush and his ilk for the recent electoral woes of the Republican Party. The caller, ”Charles from Chicago”, called out Limbaugh for his support of torture and blamed Limbaugh and others which supported torture for why the American people have left the GOP in droves. Rush begged to differ and Charles called Rush a “brainwashed Nazi.” Rush blamed people like Charles for the Obama win, and didn’t stop there but, called Charles “ignorant” among other things. First, “Brainwashed” is the intensive forced indoctrination of new beliefs to have them supplant old beliefs.

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The white liberation of Paris

Apparently, the liberation of Paris was steeped in racism. Even though many of the soldiers fighting for the freedom of France were not Caucasian, it was determined on high that only white soldiers would be seen marching back into Paris. [I dedicate this post to Richard King, an acquaintance of mine, a wonderful African American man who, as a young soldier, fought long and hard to liberate France.]

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United States no longer a “Christian” nation

According to Barack Obama, who is a reader and student of reputable history books, the United States is not a "Christian nation." As he spoke these words, I imagined great sorrow being exhaled from coast to coast. Those sad revisionists need to go read reputable history books and review the founding documents of the United States.

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How Did Herr Ratzinger Anger God?

I mean no disrespect to the hundreds of dead, thousands injured, and 100,000 now homeless in Italy. But Pope Whatsizname must have been asleep at the switch. Most prayers that I hear of contain a plea for personal well-being. Doesn't this indicate an expectation that the God of The Church should provide some protection in this life? If anyone had influence with a kind and loving supernatural God, wouldn't he use it to protect his almost completely coreligionist neighbors from such otherwise inevitable natural disasters? Either God or the Church must be impotent in such matters. Pick one. Either one. Or am I out of line? I am mostly incensed that the Big News of the day in the local paper and TV news shows was about how the local weather may affect spectators of a local sports team. Eventually they got around to mentioning that there was an earthquake somewhere. And now the weather, after these brief... And Governor Jindal publicly mocked funding of seismic research just last month.

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Richard Nisbett: Intelligence mostly varies due to the environment, not genes

The dominant hereditarian view of intelligence holds that intelligence is mostly fixed by the genes. Richard Nisbett has dismantled the evidence on which the hereditarian theory is based. In his new book, Intelligence and How to Get It, Nesbitt argues that the twin studies on which the hereditarian view is based are deeply flawed. The main problem is that the adoptive homes in which those separated twins often find themselves are uniformly enriched learning environments. Nisbett's book was reviewed by Jim Holt of the NYT Book Review:

Nisbett bridles at the hereditarian claim that I.Q. is 75 to 85 percent heritable; the real figure, he thinks, is less than 50 percent. Estimates come from comparing the I.Q.’s of blood relatives — identical twins, fraternal twins, siblings — growing up in different adoptive families. But there is a snare here. As Nisbett observes, “adoptive families, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are all alike.” Not only are they more affluent than average, they also tend to give children lots of cognitive stimulation. Thus data from them yield erroneously high estimates of I.Q. heritability. (Think: if we all grew up in exactly the same environment, I.Q. differences would appear to be 100 percent genetic.) This underscores an important point: there is no fixed value for heritability. The notion makes sense only relative to a population. Heritability of I.Q. is higher for upper-class families than for lower-class families, because lower-class families provide a wider range of cognitive environments, from terrible to pretty good.

What does Nisbett's book have to say about race and intelligence? That the differences among the "races" are not genetic. Evidence in point: The "racial" IQ gap has been shrinking. "Over the last 30 years, the measured I.Q. difference between black and white 12-year-olds has dropped from 15 points to 9.5 points."

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