Tuesday, February 28. 2006
The always-interesting Kling takes a look at the Jewish Liberal-Left, and maps out a cultural-historical narrative which explains it. Here's his summary: The Original | Marxist | Folk Marxist | | | | Pharaoh | Capitalist Class | Wal-Mart | Hebrews | Working Class | Other Stores | Moses | Karl Marx | Liberal Pundits | God | Communism | Government |
His thesis is that a historical-cultural template is applied to circumstances, but that the template doesn't always fit reality. Thinking "inside the box", so to speak. At TCS, read the entire interesting piece.
The pup had a great morning with John's venison bones in the snow. Happy dog. Catholicism Rocks. Am. Princess. Good eats for Mardi Gras. Were the Founding Fathers Christians? I always thought of them as Deists mostly, children of the recent Enlightenment, but deeply imbued with a Christian culture and view of the world. Here's the case for that, albeit delivered in an irritable, if not hostile, manner. Prep. Heard lots of good comments about this coming-of-age book. Ordered it. 54 years old and perfect. Dinocrat. Makes the idea of turning 30 seem almost appealing. Canadian medicine going private. Despite the law. It's about time. There's no way Harper will fight this movement of doctors seeking freedom to practice medicine. This is a big deal - the first step in the unraveling of socialism for our comrades from the north. Robert Scott dies. Who? A guy who has done more for this country than any of us will every do. Washington seized by Moslems in 1977. Remember? Tim Blair does.
Earth's human population reaches 6.5 billion. 3.25 billion gals - so how come I can't get a date? Bill Clinton still looking for interns. Would you let your daughter? Admin. wants to sell off public lands. I disagree. Hope congress does too. It belongs to all of us, and we want to keep it. Taxes and Income. Who pays how much, and what has changed during Bush? AlphaPatriot goes over the FACTS. City Lights Bookstore shows its true colors - bans Fallaci. The home of Ferlinghetti, Corso, Ginsberg, etc. - but only Leftist speech please. Except for Kerouac? Class. Values. More from Moonbattery. Will Cheney retire? He might. A great guy in the wrong job. Atlas asks where the investigative reporters are? Moslem training camps in the US? Totally blanked on the crocodile thing. Haha. Ace Austistic kid sets hoop record. Neat. Calling all Moonbats. You won't believe this - unless you saw it on the blogs yesterday. The big protest in DC to overthrow the US Govt., supported by Theresa Kerry? In Canada, just like in the USA. SDA on their press' sense of entitlement. 184 Proof? Might want to add a little water to this Scotch whiskey.
Mathias Dopfner, Chief Executive of the German publisher Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in DIE WELT, Germany's largest daily paper, against the timid reaction of Europe in the face of the Islamic threat. Written in 2004 - how much truer does it sound today...
EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE (Commentary by Mathias Dopfner CEO, Axel Springer, AG) November 20, 2004
A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe - your family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true.
Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives, as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements.
Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe, where for decades, inhuman suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.
Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and even though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans debated and debated and debated, and were still debating when finally the Americans had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet again, and do our work for us.
Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European Appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.
Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly
500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace movement, has the gall to issue bad grades to George Bush ... Even as it is uncovered that the loudest critics of the American action in Iraq made illicit billions, no, TENS of billions, in the corrupt U.N. Oil-for-Food program.
And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement. How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic Fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that we really should have a "Muslim Holiday" in Germany?
I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of our (German)
Government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German people, actually believe that creating an Official State "Muslim Holiday" will somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical Islamists.
One cannot help but recall Britain's Neville Chamberlain waving the
laughable treaty signed by Adolph Hitler and declaring European "Peace in
our time".
What else has to happen before the European public and its political
leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially
perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims,
focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies, and intent upon Western Civilization's utter destruction.
It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great
military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by an enemy
that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but is actually
spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and will always be taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness. Only two recent American
Presidents had the courage needed for Anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush.
His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans know the truth. We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, freeing half of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror and virtual slavery. And Bush, supported only by the Social Democrat Blair, acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic War against Democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed.
In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the
multicultural corner, instead of defending liberal society's values and
being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true
great powers, America and China.
On the contrary - we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to those
"arrogant Americans", as the World Champions of "tolerance", which even
(Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes.
Why? Because we're so moral? I fear it's more because we're so
materialistic, so devoid of a moral compass.
For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of
additional national debt, and a massive and persistent burden on the
American economy - because unlike almost all of Europe, Bush realizes what is at stake - literally everything.
While we criticize the "capitalistic robber barons" of America because they seem too sure of their priorities, we timidly defend our Social Welfare
systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive! We'd rather discuss
reducing our 35-hour workweek or our dental coverage, or our 4 weeks of paid vacation ... Or listen to TV pastors preach about the need to "reach out to terrorists. To understand and forgive".
These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber
breaking into a neighbor's house.
Appeasement?
Europe, thy name is Cowardice.
We dedicate today's QQQ to Larry Summers. "I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei of Florence, being 70 years old... swear that I have always believed, believe now and, with God's help, will in the future believe all that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church doth hold, preach and teach. But since, after having been admonished by this Holy Office entirely to abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the Universe and immovable, and that the Earth is not the center of the same and that it moves. That I was neither to hold, defend, nor teach in any manner whatsoever, either orally or in writing, the said false doctrine. After having received a notification that the said doctrine is contrary to Holy Writ, I wrote and published a book in which I treat this condemned doctrine and bring forward very persuasive arguments in its favor without answering them. I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is of having held and believed that the Sun is at the center of the Universe and immovable, and that the Earth is not at the center and that it moves. Therefore, wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith these errors and heresies. I curse and detest them as well as any other error, heresy or sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I shall neither say nor assert orally or in writing such things as may bring upon me similar suspicions. And if I know any heretic, or one suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place in which I may be."
- Galileo Galilei (recanting his scientific beliefs before the Inquistion, 1633)
Monday, February 27. 2006
For those with freezers full of game, now that this hunting season winds to a close, try this Game Cookery site.� How many hunting seasons does a person have? Each one�is precious; each one could be our last one;�and each critter is a precious thing which deserves to be cooked with the utmost care.
Eisenhower was the last Republican president not to be subject to rage unto paranoia, press hostility, and continual assault, disrespect, and contempt from the political opposition. (However, it is a fact that the leader of the war that saved the "free world" from fascism was widely viewed as a dunce by the Adlai Stevenson supporters.) If you are old enough to recall, Nixon was subject to what we would now call a "Nixon Derangement Syndrome" which finally brought him down. So were Ford and Reagan and Bush 41. All were demonized, called "stupid," and intensely hated by the opposition. Having learned this unfortunate lesson, the Republicans finally decided to try that same game with Clinton, who they managed to handcuff politically via relentless ankle-biting, but were never able to rally intense hatred against him - probably partly because of press sympathy but also because the foundations of hatred were not present. Where does this hatred come from? I think the Left believes that they are the "good smart guys," and any Repub a "bad dumb guy." I do not think that Conservatives tend to use such a black-and-white view of politics. Most Conservatives I know do not see themselves as the good guys, but as having better ideas. Thus, amongst Liberals, you rarely see the kind of social stresses that people like neo-neocon go through in being a neocon in a Left-liberal community. (Take me, for an example. I do not believe that I am "smarter" or "better" than Leftys and Liberals. I do believe that the ideas I hold about the relationship of the individual to the State are better ideas, that offer to bring out the best in people, but "some of my best friends are liberals," and it doesn't bother me at all. Friendship and shared interests should trump politics. When my Liberal pals are willing to discuss issues rationally, and not emotionally, I think it can be fun to debate and that it can add something to a friendship.) Along with the good guy/bad guy syndrome comes a sense of entitlement, I believe. If we are the good guys, then we deserve to be in charge. If we aren't, then something has gone terribly wrong, or something nefarious has occurred, or Americans are idiots. Feeling powerless when you "know" you are right makes some people nuts. (Never forget, though, that if American voters are idiots - it's the same idiots that vote when you win an election.) I find the hatred that is generated by this disappointed sense of entitlement to be very destructive. Debating ideas and world views is great, but hatred, lying, tantrums, and attribution of malevolence to other public servants is not the civil society I want to live in. (I also believe that not everything about this subject is psychological, per se. Liberals care more intensely about politics, because they are more invested in the role and power of the state. As a rule of thumb, except in the case of war, Conservatives tend to want to lessen the power of the State over the individual, Liberals to increase it. And yes, I think Bush is a conservative at heart, but a politician in practice....and I mean in "practice".) My message to the Bush-Deranged: there is no good vs. bad here. There are simply differing ideas and differing views of human nature - all deserving of rational debate. Let's debate - not hate.
Bloggers world-wide have already posted Steyn's latest on anti-Semitism. Sometimes I wonder whether 50% of the worth of blogs is to disseminate Steyn's pieces. Needing to wake up, West closes its eyes. I know some Neanderthals. So I am not sure I believe this report that there was little interbreeding with homo sapiens. And, on a related topic, proof that blond cavegirls had more fun - and why: Cave-Gentlemen Prefer Blonds. The Conservative Imagination. George Will reviews two new books on the modern conservative movement, in the NYT. Why does the Left enjoy submission? We refuse to get into the depth psychology of this, so let's just say that, while they may be closet sitzpinklers, in effect they are nihilistic and welcome anything that harms the US. Captain Ed notes that, in addition to submission, the Islamists want the Jews gone from the world. You won't read this in the New York Times. The West Point CTC report on Al Quaida's deterioration and internal dissent. Am. Thinker. And why won't you read it there? Because the NYT has already decided that the neocons are wrong about extending freedom. And they have already judged that effort, In Iraq, as a failure. Why? I don't know. It's too soon to judge, in mid-game. Fukayaama has already decided though. Will his much-quoted piece in the NYT go down in history as prescient, or blind? February 19, 2006: After Neoconservatism,By FRANCIS FUKUYAMA - a few quotes: As we approach the third anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war, it seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention itself or the ideas animating it kindly. By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadist terrorists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at. The United States still has a chance of creating a Shiite-dominated democratic Iraq, but the new government will be very weak for years to come; the resulting power vacuum will invite outside influence from all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran. There are clear benefits to the Iraqi people from the removal of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and perhaps some positive spillover effects in Lebanon and Syria. But it is very hard to see how these developments in themselves justify the blood and treasure that the United States has spent on the project to this point. and The so-called Bush Doctrine that set the framework for the administration's first term is now in shambles. The doctrine (elaborated, among other places, in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States) argued that, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, America would have to launch periodic preventive wars to defend itself against rogue states and terrorists with weapons of mass destruction; that it would do this alone, if necessary; and that it would work to democratize the greater Middle East as a long-term solution to the terrorist problem. But successful pre-emption depends on the ability to predict the future accurately and on good intelligence, which was not forthcoming, while America's perceived unilateralism has isolated it as never before. It is not surprising that in its second term, the administration has been distancing itself from these policies and is in the process of rewriting the National Security Strategy document. and But it is the idealistic effort to use American power to promote democracy and human rights abroad that may suffer the greatest setback. Perceived failure in Iraq has restored the authority of foreign policy "realists" in the tradition of Henry Kissinger. Already there is a host of books and articles decrying America's naïve Wilsonianism and attacking the notion of trying to democratize the world. and More than any other group, it was the neoconservatives both inside and outside the Bush administration who pushed for democratizing Iraq and the broader Middle East. They are widely credited (or blamed) for being the decisive voices promoting regime change in Iraq, and yet it is their idealistic agenda that in the coming months and years will be the most directly threatened. Were the United States to retreat from the world stage, following a drawdown in Iraq, it would in my view be a huge tragedy, because American power and influence have been critical to the maintenance of an open and increasingly democratic order around the world. The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them. What American foreign policy needs is not a return to a narrow and cynical realism, but rather the formulation of a "realistic Wilsonianism" that better matches means to ends. How did the neoconservatives end up overreaching to such an extent that they risk undermining their own goals? The Bush administration's first-term foreign policy did not flow ineluctably from the views of earlier generations of people who considered themselves neoconservatives, since those views were themselves complex and subject to differing interpretations. Four common principles or threads ran through much of this thought up through the end of the cold war: a concern with democracy, human rights and, more generally, the internal politics of states; a belief that American power can be used for moral purposes; a skepticism about the ability of international law and institutions to solve serious security problems; and finally, a view that ambitious social engineering often leads to unexpected consequences and thereby undermines its own ends. The problem was that two of these principles were in potential collision. The skeptical stance toward ambitious social engineering — which in earlier years had been applied mostly to domestic policies like affirmative action, busing and welfare — suggested a cautious approach toward remaking the world and an awareness that ambitious initiatives always have unanticipated consequences. The belief in the potential moral uses of American power, on the other hand, implied that American activism could reshape the structure of global politics. By the time of the Iraq war, the belief in the transformational uses of power had prevailed over the doubts about social engineering. Neoconservatism, whatever its complex roots, has become indelibly associated with concepts like coercive regime change, unilateralism and American hegemony. What is needed now are new ideas, neither neoconservative nor realist, for how America is to relate to the rest of the world — ideas that retain the neoconservative belief in the universality of human rights, but without its illusions about the efficacy of American power and hegemony to bring these ends about.
Atlas reminds us that yesterday, Feb. 26, was the  anniversary of a declaration of war against the Infidel. The follow-up attack was not a movie.
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt
Sunday, February 26. 2006
From DeHaviland at Samizdata: Guy Herber's excellent article The public mood (while the public moo-ed) got me thinking about the nature of the 'Radical Centre'. The Radical Centre seem to have the same obsession with control that the fascists and communists had but unlike them, it is control for control's sake rather than in the service of some clear ideology: there is no Blairite or Clintonite (or even 'Bushite') 'The Communist Manifesto' or 'Mein Kampf'. They do not seek the triumph of Volk or the dictatorship of the proletariat, they just seek to replace all social interactions with politically mediated interactions. They seek to regulate everything via a total state that does not organise mass rallies or collectivise farms, it just wants a world in which nothing whatsoever is private, everything is political. Their symbol is not the Hammer and Sickle or the Swastika, it is the CCTV camera. Perhaps this also explains the radical centre's transcendent hatred of the USA's system of checks and balances: the US Bill of Rights takes whole sections of civil society and tries to place them outside politics (free speech, the right to have the means to defend yourself etc.). Sure, it fails miserably as often as it succeeds but at least the notion that not absolutely everything is subject to politics is part of the American cultural DNA and that, rather than the US government's policy towards, well, anything, is what makes the US anathema to the Radical Centre (including the US Radical Centre). The Radical Centre has also been called 'Authoritarian Populism' because it seeks to impose the popular will by force and it does not much care what that will is. Just as liberty for liberty's own sake is the objective of the Classical Liberal/Libertarian rather than some 'overarching narrative' as was the case with the radical statist left and statist right in the corpse filled 20th century, the Radical Centre seek control for control's own sake with no particular grand reason in mind other than to perpetuate a political class whose reason for existence is to make decisions about other people's lives. The reason they dislike us so much is that to attack regulatory statism is to attack these people's very reason to exist and we challange them on a profound psychological level. They need to control other people just as we need to control our own lives. The Radical Centre is our demonic reflection.
Most deer hunting injuries 
are caused by falls from
tree stands, and the
conventional safety harnesses can leave you dangling helplessly in the air with a couple of broken ribs, while the deer gather around to laugh. Cabela's has a safety vest that is a true improvement.
 Our final pheasant hunt of the year today. A real breakfast at the lodge, fun with dogs, birds and guns for five hours, then some beer and pheasant pot pie. Maybe shoot a couple of lawyers, too. That is really living.
Dubai. Sisu takes a look at Dubai. Very wealthy mini-nation where Moslems go to break all of their rules, and party with booze and multicultural hoes. The Clockwork Orange, Revisited. The mighty mighty Dalrymple on this 20th Century grotesque pop classic. The Scooter-Plame story. "Who cares?" is right. It's just more "drip drip drip" from the Bush-haters. In any event, I remain very unhappy with the idea of nailing citizens on perjury when there is no underlying crime. They did it to Martha Stewart. Not saying that perjury is OK - just saying "No blood, no foul." Common sense. Libertarian Leanings has story. Scooter is a good kid. The Tipping Point? Dinocrat thinks we've reached the point where the greater European community realizes that radical Islam is TROUBLE. I think he is right. It is push-back time for those with any self-respect. Why are Conservatives happier people than Leftists? Many have commented on the study, but Ex-Donk does a good job with it. Red Ken's Time Out. Superb piece by Big Lizard. Who votes for this embarassing schmuck? How the PTA was co-opted by the Left (and the teacher's unions). Horsefeathers. How many mainly women-led organizations did this happen to? The YWCA, the League of Women Voters, the Junior League... what else?
Saturday, February 25. 2006
 What are your House Guns? MassBackwards shows you his. I prefer a short-barreled pump 12 ga. The ominous "ka-chunk" of a pump gun chambering a cartridge in the dark ought to be sufficient for all but the most crazed bad guys to run for the hills.
Bremer wanted more troops in Iraq, says Gen. Sanchez did too: Review of Bremer's new book. The White House mess: Podhoretz echoes our complaints. The Harriet Myers thing was the first sign of big problems. Burchill in Haaretz on Brits being paralyzed by manners and suicidal political correctness (H/T, LGF). A quote: Anyway, from now on I think I'll get just a few less accusations of racism when I point out that Muslims can be a bit, well, narrow-minded. Mind you, it's a long hard struggle trying to make bleeding-heart liberals see sense. Especially when you live in a country where a sizable part of the print and broadcasting media are such guilt-ridden cretins when it comes to Islam that if they saw Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein sexually sharing their own grandmother, they'd swear the poor old lady asked for it.
Read entire.
(Click the Aliyah Diary Category to find out what this is about)  Feb. 17, 2006 Leg Hopper
Something about working in the persimmon orchards gets the writing into me.
Today, despite a partially severed Achilles tendon, after ice pack, much anti inflammatories and Linus Pauling dosages of Vitamin C, I am
off. The bus is beaten by my favorite, the Sheirut Monit. (Pronounced as in the Old West term for stogies, Cheroot). I hop on (hopping being a current mode of travel on my left foot) and sans newspaper, sans reading glasses, sans full wakefulness, daydream the route to the kibbutz. The woman just in front of this 10-seater van is making herself up. I wonder of this, as I see her wedding ring. But she is careful, with mirror balanced on two fingers, she works with concentration. She needs little help, with her slightly olive-green tint of skin, but -- as woman have wont -- does look more beautiful after her "do." Moshek is always enthusiastic when I call. I read the word "karkar" on the Glil Yam welcome sign -- it is an archaic term for "founded." I also glance at the signs pointing to various companies leasing space from the kibbutz -- DHL is here, as is some high-techy place. Then there is the "biton," which I later learn is the kibbutz's own cement factory; this kibbutz and these kibbutzniks have very fundamentally built this country and in ways not deeply appreciated today. Moshek arrives in one of his dust-burdened diesel-powered trucklets. His handshake, this 68 year-old, rail-thin former Navy Seal, a man whose abdomen is noticeably hollow beneath his work shirt, is bone-hardened, firm. We are off. I mean to ask him something about energy collaboration with the Swedish government, but these matters evaporate from my head this early in the a.m. and in the face of his greeting: the last of the Zionists, he calls me. But, I tell him there are more of us. He likes, "us." We join the two Thai workers -- Shay is out ill, Moshek says. (Tomkap later tells me that Shay has sore muscles, not from work, but from weightlifting.)
Continue reading "Guest Author: Aliyah Diary #12"
Cool book. Gwynnie made me read it because I had forgotten the Danish Viking kings of England - the Canutes etc. My favorite - George lll. A good fellow, for sure. We demonized him here in the US during the Revolution, but he was just trying to pay his bills, like all of us. "Farmer George" they called him. Sadly, a victim of porphyria later in his life. Always interesting to see that the loss of the American colonies is just a footnote in Brit history. Entertaining reading: Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards: Who's Who in the English Monarchy from Egbert to Elizabeth ll.
Yes, we usually do good poetry on Saturday, but for once, some Broadway Lyrics from Bernstein and Sondheim's West Side Story - of course. Gee, Officer Krupke Music: Leonard Bernstein/Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
RIFF:
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
You gotta understand,
It's just our bringing up-ke
That get us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks,
Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks! RIFF and QUARTET:
Gee. Officer Krupke, we're very upset;
We never had the love that every child oughta get
We ain't no delinquents,
We're misunderstood,
Deep down inside us there is good! RIFF:
There is good! ALL:
There is good, there is good,
There's an tapped good,
Like inside, the worst of us is good. SNOWBOY(imitating Krupke):
That's a touchin' good story! ACTION: Lemme tell you to the world! SNOWBOY ("Krupke"):
Just tell it to the judge!RIFF(to "Judge"):
Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,
My parents treat me rough,
With all the marijuana,
They won't give me a puff.
They didn't wanna have me,
But somehow I was had.
Leapin' lizards, that's why I'm so bad! DIESEL ("Judge"):
Officer Krupke, you're really a square;
This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care!
It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
He's psychologic'ly disturbed!
Continue reading "Saturday Verse: Sondheim"
Friday, February 24. 2006
 Backlash at Harvard: Let's hope so. Dershowitz slams the PC Cops: NE Repub. Also, Ruth Wisse of Harvard, in the WSJ, as passed on via Protein Wisdom.
Dhimmitude on Parade. In Malaysia - a prohibition on comments about the cartoon issue. The curtain of silence falls. Did they learn this from the American press? Michelle. How about prohibiting comments on the prohibition of comments on the cartoons? Sitzpinkler. Captain Ed would like us all to take up this word. Will take it under serious consideration. ... OK, we'll use it. Sitzpinklers in the American press. We have noted several times that the press seems to have no fear of the demonic Dick Cheney, but acts terrified of the peaceful and cuddly but misunderstood Jihadists. Daily Pundit addresses the craven press. Our hero, VDH, is back from Iraq. Quote from his piece in NRO: It is an odd war, because the side that I think is losing garners all the press, whether by blowing up the great golden dome of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, or blowing up an American each day. Yet we hear nothing of the other side that is ever so slowly, shrewdly undermining the enemy.
Initial dates announced, in the Southwest. BobDylan.com
There are as many different thinking "styles" as there are personality types. But we obviously cannot be aware of our unconscious reflections - by definition. Every student of chemistry remembers Kekule, to whom the structure of the benzene ring came in a dream. Apparently for many people, not thinking about something can be a way for the mind to think about it. From the Science Times article: Snap judgments about people and places can be remarkably accurate, and there is no substitute for simple logic and reflection in determining questions like which alarm clock or cellphone is the best value. But many more important decisions — choosing the right apartment, the optimal house, the best vacation — turn on such a bewildering swarm of facts that people often throw up their hands and put the whole thing temporarily out of mind. And new research suggests that this may be a rewarding strategy. In a series of experiments reported last week in the journal Science, a team of Dutch psychologists found that people struggling to make complex decisions did best when they were distracted and were not able to think consciously about the choice at all.
 The Vatican Speaks on reciprocity: Excellent point from the Vatican. Dinocrat, Democracy Project, and LGF got on that report right away.
China's media censorship on the rise. CSM Why the Left should hate Chavez: Vargas Llosa at RCP Al Quaida's benefits package: Austin Bay at TCS.
"What's their co-pay?" Which Ad won the Superbowl? Using functional MRI to observe brain response. Very cool and very creepy. Edge. Includes link to the ads, if you missed them. Not Lincoln-Douglas: Lieberman and Dodd debate Iraq. Calif. Yank.
Thursday, February 23. 2006
A re-post from our dusty archives -
Lanchester in The New Yorker reviews two books on the subject of happiness. Interesting stuff. A Quote:
He (McMahon) points out that the Founding Fathers, who queried, crossed out, and haggled over every line of the Declaration, let the “pursuit of Happiness” stand unedited and unamended. But he also points out that the eighteenth-century understanding of “pursuit” was rather darker than it might seem now. Dr. Johnson’s dictionary defined it as “the act of following with hostile intention,” and McMahon adds that “if one thinks of pursuing happiness as one pursues a fugitive . . . the ‘pursuit of happiness’ takes on a somewhat different cast.”
The legacy of that ambiguity is with us still. We are pursuing happiness to this day, and it is by no means clear that it is a happy process. The self-help section in any bookshop is easy to mock—indeed, it sometimes seems that the titles of self-help books are almost mocking themselves—but there is nothing to mock about the people standing in front of the shelves looking for guidance. In fact, the advice in self-help books is, by and large, pretty good. The trouble is that it is very difficult to take.
Read entire.
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