I came across this on the BoingBoing blog the other day and have been meaning to mention it . . .

A collector/dealer of rare and used science books recently posted on his blog a description of a 1939 science book titled A Preliminary Atlas of Early Human Fetal Activity by one Dr. Davenport Hooker.

Behind the book’s drab cover and innocuous title lies a gallery of horrors pictorially chronicling systematic experimentation on live fetuses. As the book’s discoverer describes it in his blog post:

. . . 42 fetuses subjected to experimentation, physiological and morphological, poked with needles to determine how they would respond during the integral period of development of motility (from the 8th to 14th weeks, in regard to reflexes). The fetuses float in front of the camera unencumbered, and then the long and very pointed needle comes into view, finding its target, then a series of stills from the film made to show how the fetus moved in reaction to having been touched or abraised.

The subject fetuses were “derived from either hysterectomy or hysterotomy…undertaken in the interest of the health, sanity or life of the mother.”

You can read the full post for a fuller picture of just how appalling this research really was. But it is consistent with the “Progressive” spirit of the era and of a piece with the work of eugenicist Margaret Sanger. A quick Google search on Dr. Davenport Hooker revealed a short blurb in Time magazine appearing in 1938, the year before the book was published:

At the meeting of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia last week (see above), Dr. Hooker announced that the grasping movement originates in the embryo at the age of about eleven weeks. At this age the embryo, whose thumb is not yet in place, flexes its fingers if the palm is stimulated. At twelve weeks it makes “a pretty fair fist.” At 13½ weeks it opens and closes its hand easily. At 15 weeks the thumb comes into play and at 22 weeks the grasp can be described as a real grip.

With admiration in his voice, Dr. Hooker told the spellbound philosophers of a 25-week-old fetus which snatched a glass rod weighing three grams from the scientist’s hand, waved it feebly but triumphantly for an instant before the spark of life went out.

In the 1930s, the American Philosophical Society mentioned in the article was a major center of Progressive thought. To really understand the horror of the Progressive movement in 1920s and ’30s America, you really need to read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism. Unfortunately, it’s also the best book to help you understand the current administration.

By the way, In that same May 2, 1938 issue of Time, there’s a subtly sarcastic write up about a German Adolf Hitler throwing himself a 49th birthday party parade:

With Greater Germany shouting “Heil!”, Celebrator Hitler’s followers strove hard to depict as a great soldier the former corporal of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s army. In radio broadcasts throughout Germany, Führer Hitler was being pictured as a military as well as a political genius. It fell to no army officer but to Dr. Otto Dietrich, Reich Press Chief, to reveal that Genius Hitler’s technical knowledge of things military “astonishes even the experts.” So exultant was the Hitler birthday celebration throughout the Reich that Dr. Wilhelm Frick, Minister of the Interior, was moved to summarize: “Adolf Hitler is Germany and Germany is Adolf Hitler.”

Less than a year later Hitler would invade Poland and tear the lid off Pandora’s box.

I don’t want to harsh anyone’s buzz. So, if you’re still basking in the afterglow of the elections or simply working on focusing on happy thoughts today, then, (1) good for you and, (2) skip this post. This way lies sadness.

Yesterday brought us a pretty sobering analysis of the U.S. economic situation in light of the Feds new round of Quantitative Easing, a.k.a., QE2, from John Browne, Senior Market Strategist at Euro Pacific Capital. The whole thing is worth your time, but here are a couple of excerpts with comments. Browne begins by explaining QE2 and its objectives:

Despite its paternalistic rhetoric, the Fed really has just a few simple goals: allow for the perpetual expansion of the federal deficit, push up stock prices to create the illusion of wealth, and stimulate consumer spending. To do this, the Fed will hold interest rates near zero for the foreseeable future, and will buy some $600 billion of US Treasury debt by April of next year.

So, the Fed is printing money and using it to buy our government’s debt in the form of Treasury bonds. Now, upon hearing this, you may be wondering how the above scheme represents an “injection” of money in to the economy. Keep in mind that over the last two years, supposedly in order to unfreeze the credit markets, the Fed has been printing money like crazy and loaning to banks at 0% interest. And those banks have been taking that free money and loaning it to the government at whatever interest rate Treasuries are paying.

That’s great work if you can get it. But it doesn’t create a lot of jobs. Browne continues:

Having already committed $1.7 trillion in the first round of quantitative easing, the Fed is rolling the dice once again – despite ample evidence that their costly remedy won’t work.

Exactly. As I’ve pointed out in this space before, we are seeing a pathetically weak recovery in jobs because the Obama Administration has been waging and continues to wage a multi-pronged attack on the job creating class, i.e., businesses. Virtually every department of the Executive branch has been involved in some form of assault on business owners. Why? Because doctrinaire liberals are fundamentally opposed to  (non-unionized) business and view profits, profit-seeking, and rational business practices like hiring the best qualified candidate regardless of race or gender and firing slackers as evil.

So back to my original question . . . How does is the Fed buying a bunch of government debt supposed to help revive the economy? Browne helps us with that:

Now, by monetizing almost the entire federal deficit through QE-2, the Fed hopes to give Congress the breathing room to enact reforms before skyrocketing interest rates bankrupt the Treasury. Meanwhile, the central bank hopes that the expected inflationary consequences will be nullified by a resulting broad-based recovery. But an economist as knowledgeable and experienced as Chairman Bernanke should know by now that any real economic revival will come from private industry, not government. The money printed by the Fed will indeed flow into the economy, where it will push up asset prices in many sectors. Already commodity prices are soaring. But inflation cannot create real growth.

Exactly right. But please note Browne’s point that the primary goal of QE2 has been to stave off the national bankruptcy crisis caused by the skyrocketing Obama-Reid-Pelosi deficits long enough for Congress  to “enact reforms” that will help businesses (or at least stop threatening them). Meanwhile the Dems who still handily control both houses of Congress until January continue to talk about enacting Cap-and-Trade legislation.

What the Fed is doing, essentially, is forcing consumers to spend their cash hoardings. Until the economic and financial policies of the government change dramatically, those who are tempted to invest their savings within the United States risk increasing regime uncertainty. So, much of our domestic capital is flowing into hard assets and overseas markets.

This will do nothing to help the festering wounds underlying the US economy.

Yes. But here’s the problem. Even after January, the real war on business is likely to continue through the Executive Branch via Obama’s surrogates–Holder at Justice; Sibelius at HHS; Solis at Labor; Jackson at EPA; and so on.

What would it take to see those policies reversed before January of 2013 when a new president can be sworn in?  Only a bunch of doctrinaire socialists changing pretty much everything they believe and think about the way the world works. That’s all.

According to the large and impervious-to-reason 9/11 Truther crowd, Al Qaeda is pretty much a fictional construct of the neocons. A hapless bogeyman concocted by the sinister BusHitler and friends, a.k.a. “the powers that be” (TPTB), to scare the “sheeple” into surrendering their freedoms.

Side Note: If you’re ever reading a blog post and the writer uses the acronym TPTB or the term sheeple, and they are serious, you can safely disregard anything that follows. Just back slowly away from that web page without making any sudden movements that might be interpreted as an Illuminati hand signal.

That brings us to the most recent attempt by Al Qaeda to blow up some commercial jets in mid-air. It now appears that was precisely what the Yemeni Al Qaeda cell was attempting to do. (I know, I know . . . that’s just what they want me to think.)

Today we learn AQ came astonishingly close to succeeding.

French and British intelligence have both confirmed that the cell phone to which the bomb on a UPS plane in East Midlands, UK was linked had 17 minutes remaining on its countdown timer when the bomb was defused.

Blowing up big planes in mid-air has been a dream of AQ planners going back well before 9/11. If you’ve read The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 which, by the way, still remains the best inoculation around against “9/11-was-an-inside-job fever,” you know that AQ’s Khalid Sheik Mohammed masterminded a nearly successful plan to blow up U.S. passenger jets over the Pacific back in 1995.

In know there are lots of people praying that these ongoing AQ plots will be exposed before they can bear fruit. Mark this one down as a win for the pray-ers. With a little help from the intelligence services.

. . . a.k.a. Jon Stewart’s “Fear of Sanity” festival.

A big turnout, (though not quite as big as Glenn Beck’s event) is not surprising.

When two wildly popular comics throw a free concert on the mall in Washington D.C. promising to feature a some kicking musical acts; add jillionaires like Arianna Huffington offering free bus transportation from New York City; and then  throw in the bonus of encouraging attendees to feel superior to 80% of the U.S. population . . . well, you’re going to get a hundred thousand people or so to show up.

(For perspective, keep in mind that when Simon and Garfunkel staged a free reunion concert in Central Park back in 1981, about a half million people converged on the event.)

Naturally, at an event billed as a call for the restoration of sanity to American political discourse, many attendees wore silly costumes.

Advocates and apologists for the Stewart-Colbert event are quick to point out that, in arguably the most serious moment of the event, the playing of a slickly produced video, Keith Olbermann is held up for criticism alongside Bill O’Reilly.

Of course, it’s not that the Stewart-Colbert fans disagree with Olbermann’s politics. They just despise the uncool, ham-handed, spittle-flecked way in which he criticizes conservatives and Republicans. In other words, it’s not Olbermann’s message, it’s his style that all wrong. And with this group, everything is graded on style points.

Stewart has been tough on Obama lately and some have pointed to this as evidence against overwhelming liberal bias in the media. What these arguments ignore is that Stewart, as with Bill Maher, and other high-priest pundits of America’s emerging hipster class, is attacking Obama and the Democrats from the Left.

In other words, so hyper-liberal are Stewart and friends, that the most liberal President in 100 years is too conservative for them.

In fact, in his “serious” remarks at the D.C. rally, Stewart made some excellent points about the need for compromise, concession, and conciliation in politics. But on his show in recent months, he has consistently berated Obama, Pelosi and Ried for not using the Democrat’s sizeable majorities to jam even more liberal legislation down the throats of an unwilling American public.

We used to call that hypocrisy. But I believe the hipsters view it as nuanced irony.

Update: Here’s Jim Treacher offering: “Great Moments in Civility, with Your Host, Jon Stewart”

So far there haven’t been many negative reviews of The Faith and Values of Sarah Palin.

The one that has received the most linkage around the Interwebs was one by a guy named Bill Berkowitz who cleverly  titled his review, “Mansfield’s Mission: Mainstreaming Sarah Palin’s Faith and Values.”

Berkowitz spends the first 1300 words outlining some mundane facts about the book and going over our biographies as authors and throwing a few stones at Stephen in the process. Then we get to the final paragraph:

Not having read the book, I am not sure how deep Mansfield/Holland delve . . .

Wait  . . . wha??? Now, after 15 paragraphs, you mention not having bothered to read the book? Hilariously, this “review” has attracted links from all over the lefty blogosphere and Twitterverse.

A much more malicious and dishonest review was posted today by “Kim” from Alabama. It’s on an insignificant little Blogspot blog (as opposed to this insignificant little WordPress blog) and I wouldn’t even bother to mention it except that it serves as a great example of an increasingly common form of smear.

That is, carefully excerpting and rearranging someone’s words to make them seem to be saying precisely the opposite of what he or she actually said. You may recall that happened to a Republican congressional candidate in Florida recently.

In this case, “Kim” begins her review by stating:

“Shame is at the foundation of all religion.” ( p 188)

“…Palin lied about Trig, and this is what people of faith do.” (p. 188)

Okay folks, this is the second book I’ve read about a national figure written primarily by Stephen Mansfield. The first was “The Faith of Barrack Obama” and now the second, “The Faith and Values of Sarah Palin.” The comments that I opened this review with give you a good idea of the tone of this book. Mansfield does not understand the meaning of the word faith. AT ALL. If you want to understand Sarah Palin, don’t read Mansfield’s work.

When I read those two quoted snippets, I literally asked myself, “Did we write that? We couldn’t have because that’s not what we believe.”

So I grabbed a copy of the book and turned to the cited page 188.

It turned out to be a section in which we debunk many of the lies and smears that have been thrown at Palin since she became John McCain’s running mate. We take particular aim at the conspiracy theories surrounding her son, Trig. We pretty much obliterate them. Actually, it’s more like we yank their pants down, paddle those theories bottoms, and then parade their theoretical pants around on a long stick.

Indeed on page 188, we wrote:

The lie about Trig Palin being Bristol’s child rather than her mother’s draws strength from a vile assumption about people of faith. It is a lie rooted in the ideas of Sigmund Freud and developed by philosophers like Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach and Karl Marx. It is that shame is at the heart of religion, that religion is a man-made device for ameliorating the guilt that human beings feel when they commit acts for which they feel guilt. This is the belief that has moved so many Trig Palin conspiracy theorists to rush to judgment in the face of overwhelming facts to the contrary.

The theory is simple: Sarah Palin is religious. Shame is at the foundation of all religion. Palin found her daughter to be with child. Rather than acknowledge the truth and face the shame of her daughter’s misdeeds, Palin perpetrated a massive fraud. This is the manner of the religious.

It could not be that a mother was devastated by the news of being pregnant with a child with Down’s syndrome and needed time to adjust. It could not be that this was a private business and the out world could wait. It could not be that Palin needed the news to remain between her and her husband for a while longer before she had to help her wider family adjust. No, Palin lied about Trig, and this is what people of faith do.

Thus the conspiracy theories. Thus the allegations. Thus a portrayal of Palin that American culture could easily believe.

Now my assumption is that “Kim” is not an imbecile, and therefor deliberately clipped those two sentence fragments in order to give unsuspecting readers who might otherwise be interested in the book a very wrong impression of its contents.

Why would “Kim” do that? I suppose Freud had a theory about that, too. I have one of my own.

UPDATE: The reviewer has now removed the misleading quotes from the review and deleted all the comments, including mine. She leaves unchanged her negative assessment of the book, which is her prerogative. At least she is no longer dishonestly distorting what we said in it.