Required reading for tonight's meeting.

Only 6 spots left?!?

Frankly, England does not deserve pride. It has gone to the dogs, and that may be an insult to dogs. If England is to restore its sense of pride, it needs to start with its sense of shame. And the first thing it should be ashamed of is the pathetic excuse for a government that afflicts it at present, and will afflict it for the indefinite future until something drastic is done.

For example, according to official statistics, between 1900 and 1992 the crime rate in Great Britain, indictable offenses per capita known to the police, increased by a factor of 46. That’s not 46%. Oh, no. That’s 4600%. Many of the offenders having been imported specially, to make England brighter and more colorful. This isn’t a government. It’s a crime syndicate.

Eating out has gotten so expensive 💔

Among Protestant Christian sects there were several significant movements toward cooperation and even toward formal union. Many barriers between them were broken down, at least in part, by the Young Men’s Christian Association, which had been founded in the nineteenth century but which expanded very rapidly during and after the Great War. The Salvation Army, dating from about the year 1880, was another factor in the same process: it placed emphasis on spiritual earnestness, on evangelical work among the poor, and on charitable endeavors, rather than on sectarian controversies. There were also various “federations of churches,” and in Canada, after the Great War, several Protestant denominations were actually united. Such interdenominational and unifying movements were made easier by the fact that the original theological differences between the various sects were no longer regarded as very important by a large number of church members.

Some Protestants, reacting against the decline of dogma and the doubting of the miraculous and the supernatural, turned increasingly toward Christian Science or towards spiritualism or theosophy. In some countries, and especially in the United States, the current vogue of Darwinism and other theories of evolution caused a new outburst of opposition from stalwart groups of Protestants to the claims of “science,” and a stubborn reaffirmation of their fundamental faith in the literal inspiration of the Bible. These “Fundamentalists,” as they were called, were fairly numerous in several Protestant denominations, and they contested with their “Progressive” or “Modernist” brethren the control of Protestant churches, particularly the Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist, and Methodist.

—Carlton J. H. Hayes, A Political and Social History of Modern Europe vol. 2

This made me curious about when Wikipedia's fate became sealed.

Wikipedia was founded in early 2001. One go to answer would be when "reputable sources" was added to the section on article neutrality. Doing this hands over control of truth to established authorities, and the end result is obviously leftist. That occurred in late 2004.

Anybody have any way they can push the leftificarion even earlier? That was my first try.

What is a cheap cooking utensil that you suspect the average person doesn't have, but should?

(An additional, related question: an expensive one? This can obviously be more narrow. Doesn't need to be something you'd recommend to everyone.)

Did you guys know that the Jones Town folks were commies? Praytell why they never talk about that part.

$7 Million in Bequests Reported

According to testimony by Cecil A. Roberts, Guyana’s assistant commissioner of crime, at a coroner’s inquest two weeks ago, letters from cult members bequeathing more than $7 million in People’s Temple assets to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were carried out of the Jonestown commune on Nov. 18 in a suitcase containing more than $600,000 in United States currency. The money was intended for the Soviet Embassy, the authorities in Guyana have said, but was abandoned by its couriers because of its weight. The money was later confiscated by the Guyanese police.

Behind the guise of religion, Mr. Jones apparently led his cult into a posture of radical Marxism, and at the time of the mass deaths, he was actively exploring the possibility of moving his commune to the Soviet Union.

On Dec. 18, the day after Mr. Roberts’s disclosure of the bequests, an employee of the Soviet Embassy in Georgetown told reporters that the Russians did not want the money. But until yesterday’s Associated Press dispatch, there had been no confirmation that the Embassy had ever received any People’s Temple funds.

The location and disposition of millions of dollars collected from members of Mr. Jones’s cult remained a puzzle for nearly a month after the bizarre death ritual.

Kamala Harris' ... err.... Let's call him her mentor... Willie Brown had some high praises to sing about Jim Jones:

"Let me present to you what you should see every day when you look in the mirror in the early morning hours ... Let me present to you a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, [and] Chairman Mao."

Here's Jones receiving the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian award at Glide Memorial Church, one of the foremost liberal churches in the US to this day, in San Francisco during the late 70's.

Letter from Harvey Milk to President Jimmy Carter defending Jim Jones

Oh, and this child, John. That's important. These letters were of course taken very seriously by President Carter. No action was taken against Jim Jones despite John's Mother's cries to have her son back. John later died during the events at Jonestown.

Most observers interpret bureaucratic sclerosis as a sign of a government which is too powerful. In fact it is a sign of a government which is too weak. If seventeen officials need to provide signoff for you to repaint the fence in your front yard, this is not because George W. Bush, El Máximo Jefe, was so concerned about the toxicity of red paint that he wants to make seventeen-times-sure that no wandering fruit flies are spattered with the nefarious chemical. It is because a lot of people have succeeded in making work for themselves, and that work has been spread wide and well. They are thriving off tiny pinholes through which power leaks out of the State. A strong unauthority would plug the leaks, and retire the officials.