Monday, July 8, 2019
Rush The Ridiculous must be reading online again, claims Aristippus of Cyrene was the first to say "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die"
The line quoted here is not actually attributed to Aristippus as a quotation, but rather as a conclusion of his philosophy, which in its turn goes too far. As usual Rush reads the first hit on Al Gore's amazing internet, reads it badly, and believes it.
Skull full of mush much?
Skull full of mush much?
Epicurus is traditionally credited with the idea because we have an actual line which is similar, but it is so widespread in antiquity it is difficult to know who first came up with it.
At any rate the ethical hedonism taught by both Aristippus and Epicurus involved self-mastery, not license.
Not that the licentious sense was unknown in antiquity.
The Greek geographer Strabo (64BC-24AD) knew it, purportedly from an Assyrian inscription on the tomb of Sardanapallus, legendary last king of Assyria, who was legendarily decadent:
The Greek geographer Strabo (64BC-24AD) knew it, purportedly from an Assyrian inscription on the tomb of Sardanapallus, legendary last king of Assyria, who was legendarily decadent:
Sardanapallus, the son of Anacyndaraxes, built Anchiale and Tarsus in one day. 'Eat, drink, be merry, because all things else are not worth this,' meaning the snapping of the fingers. -- Strabo, Geographica, 14.5.9f.
Isaiah the prophet knew it in the 8th century BC, antedating any Greek knowledge by hundreds of years:
And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating
flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall
die. -- Isaiah 22:13.
And of course Paul of Tarsus knew it in the middle of the 1st century AD, which is how most of us in the Christian West know the lines:
If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what
advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to
morrow we die.
-- I Corinthians 15:32.
Here endeth the lesson.
Here endeth the lesson.
Good Lord, Christian Nancy French, wife of David, is a small sea of confusion
French breakfast, or English?
She clearly does not understand C.S. Lewis, but no matter. The Christians don't read WaPo anyway.
The term “nationalism” carries with it ominous echoes of blood and soil, unsuitable for a nation composed of people from many different ethnicities and many different soils. ... As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves, patriotism asks “only to be let alone. It becomes militant only to protect what it loves. In any mind that has a pennyworth of imagination it produces a good attitude towards foreigners. How can I love my home without coming to realise that other men, no less rightly, love theirs? Once you have realised that Frenchmen like cafe complet just as we like bacon and eggs — why good luck to them and let them have it. The last thing we want is to make everywhere else just like our own home. It would not be home unless it were different.” ... This Sunday, it is great for Christians to show gratitude for a country that respects our liberty, but we should also extend incredible love and courtesy to people who differ from us.
Yeah, in their own countries. Yes, leave us alone! Don't come here and try to make this like your old home. If you come here you adopt our ways, our loves, our values. Otherwise, it's not really your home. Get out! This is our home. We speak English, honor the Christian God, revere the original constitution and the English common law, require self-sufficiency and self-restraint, reward individual merit, punish individual misconduct, and practice equality before the law (well, unless you're a Democrat).
She literally says in closing she's in the nation, but not of it.
No kidding.
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Peter Beinart September 2017 said mainstream left supported Antifa, now not so much
You can tell we're getting closer to the election when what the left said was definitely the case in 2017 is no longer the case in 2019, and we're just making it up.
The continuing crisis of housing bubble-itis
Housing prices in 2017 are overvalued north of 40%. The index commensurate with the pre-1993 period should be about 142 but is instead 203.
Adam Tooze notes US house prices relative to the rest of the world are low but still run ahead of Italy and Germany.
What would happen if 44 million German Americans and 17 million Italian Americans went back home looking for a bargain?
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Headline payrolls in 2019 may be overstating the real numbers by more than 25%
Months from now, the Establishment Survey will undergo its annual retrospective benchmark revision, based almost entirely on the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages conducted by the Labor Department. ...
The latest QCEW data are available through 2018, but note how much worse the 2018 QCEW data look than the Establishment Survey data, even though the two appear fairly similar in previous years, for which the latter has already undergone the requisite revisions. The Establishment Survey’s nonfarm jobs figures will clearly be revised down as the QCEW data show job growth averaging only 177,000 a month in 2018. That means the Establishment Survey may be overstating the real numbers by more than 25%.
Friday, July 5, 2019
Decrepit Newsweek Magazine skewers Border Patrol for pretending to show detention center while repeatedly showcasing French tanks from Bastille Day in Paris as if from a US July 4th parade
If you look closely you can see Mr & Mrs Trump and Mr and Mrs Macron applauding in the viewing area. Clearly the intent is to imply this is a #4thofJuly parade when it isn't.
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