Friday, August 3. 2007
 Sarkozy to vacation in New Hampshire. Good choice. Our News Junkie is up there right now, humping his way up Mount Moosilauke, upon which dwells the sacred spirit of Dartmouth College.
Armed robots on patrol in Iraq. Brits nix pain meds. Not "cost effective." Neither is life itself cost-effective after 70. God spare us such insanity. Photo: South peak of Mt. Moosilauke
Like him or not, he is an impressive and accomplished fellow. h/t, RCP. I like Fred, but I suspect Giuliani wants the job more. The nation might be ready for a black president, but is it ready for an Italian? Not many Italians outside of the Northeast, and even I cannot spell his name. OK, OK - we're all Americans, I know.
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.Calvin Trillin
 Camping this weekend on the AT in NH. Leaving now, without camera or anything with weight. Bringing buns for toasting though (toasting buns photo via Theo). Wish Theo could join us.
Who do we want in charge of medical care? A good piece on why the SCHIP is a bad idea (h/t, No Left Turns). I guess I just don't care about children, right? Interestingly, polls show Americans don't want to give up their medical freedom... as they have done in the UK, where docs owe their loyalty to the government, not the patient, as in this horrible example of organ-stealing. I thought grave robbing was against the law. The Death of Sweden. Brussels Journal. A sad story about a suicidal nation. I guess there has always been a lot of depression and self-loathing in Sweden anyway. Meet Dr. Mohammed Ahmedna - he is the guy who will save peanuts! More on talk radio and the Fairness Doctrine. Does anyone really want that Fairness Doctrine back? And is it even constitutional? TCS. (h/t, Insty) In NYS, Bruno and Cuomo are now gunning for Spitzer. As well they should. Imports beat American cars for the first time. Viking. Well, we still make better wine than the Japanese. The attempted Russki "land" grab in the Arctic. I guess we have to accept that this is just what Russians do. Who wants protectionism "to protect jobs"? Dems supported by unions, that's who. Protectionism damages the American economy and damages the American consumer. Is that too subtle for Americans to understand? As Coyote says, "Stop right there or I will shoot myself." The Euroland Left is moving towards the center, while the American Left is moving further to the left. Europe has already hit the rocks,, but the American Left still hears the syren's call. What does Africa need? Business schools!
Thursday, August 2. 2007
 Put this sticker on your car, and no eco-nazi will key your new Esplanade. Good protection.
I am going to buy one for the Barrister to put on his new Ford F-250.
Two bridge collapse videos in 24 hours. Here's the Minneapolis video. Cartoon of the Day, at Dr. Sanity. Omnipotent Tourist Syndrome. Driscoll
 "That's my story and I'm sticking to it." Bill Clinton
The Cognitive Psychological concept of "Confirmation Bias" falls under the broader scope of my Fallacy and Logic portfolio here at Maggie's Farm. Furthermore, it fits well into one of the main themes of Maggie's, which is to detect the insidious and fact-defying "narratives" by which we busy citizens are presented information by politicians and news organizations. I have no doubt that we are sometimes guilty of both Confirmation Bias and Selection Bias at times - but we try to be aware of it, just as we try to be aware of the flaws of inductive reasoning. "One swallow does not make a summer", we try to remind ourselves. On the other hand, much of common sense consists of inductive "reasoning" wherein we happily greet the first swallow of summer. This comes up today because our editor emailed me a short piece by Protein Wisdom comparing a Michael Yon Iraq report with a WaPo report. Of course, I tend to go with the Yon because he is on the ground and has no axe to grind, while I know full well that the WaPo, like the NYT, is fighting a propaganda battle and weeding out the news that will interfere with their narrative du jour. Real life is too complex and messy for neat narratives and clean stories. That's why we love them so much. And that is why politicians and the MSM and trial lawyers, and anyone with an agenda, try to feed simple fairy tales to us. One thing I often find myself wondering about these common biases is to what extent they are conscious manipulations, and to what extent they are automatic. With politicians, of course, one can assume that they are calculated manipulations most of the time, because those folks need the job and they need the attention. On the other hand, I know plenty of people who just don't take in information that would conflict with their narrative about something (selection bias), and only permit into their brains information which seems to be consistent with the narrative they have adopted (confirmation bias). I have been guilty of that plenty of times, but I am more aware of it now when I am tempted. We humans would be more rational beings if we dumped all of the fairy tales and worried about facts. Alas, "facts" can be subject to the same biases, as every scientist and attorney knows all too well. Still, "Facts are stubborn things." - Ronald Reagan
 They were really missionaries, not aid workers, and thus technically illegal by Afghanistan law, although they were allowed in anyway. Taliban-types are likely to view them, as to treat them, as sub-human. I admire these young people, but now is not the time to try to convert Afghanistan to Christianity.
If they are killed, they will be martyrs for Christ. Does God love the foolish? Yes, indeed, when they are fools for Him. Image: Saint Sebastian
"Well, if you're travelin' in the north country fair,
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline,
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.
Well, if you go when the snowflakes storm,
When the rivers freeze and summer ends,
Please see if she's wearing a coat so warm,
To keep her from the howlin' winds.
Please see for me if her hair hangs long,
If it rolls and flows all down her breast.
Please see for me if her hair hangs long,
That's the way I remember her best.
I'm a-wonderin' if she remembers me at all.
Many times I've often prayed
In the darkness of my night,
In the brightness of my day.
So if you're travelin' in the north country fair,
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline,
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine." "Girl of the North Country," of course, from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan at the request of reader KB. No less than two youtubes are provided below for your viewing and listening pleasure: the first with a certain J.R. Cash from 1969, and the second a drawn-out acoustic wonderland, with lengthy harmonica coda, from the soulful Summer '96 tour.
Eighty percent of success is showing up. Woody Allen
Flash maps of the Middle-Eastern empires at Acute Politics. (h/t, Jules)
 Yes, it was spooky that we posted the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse video yesterday.
Sympathy for Hitler, in the UK? This could be a dubious news item. Westerners claim federal rules make wildfires worse. I have no problem with wildfires anyway. They are natural and necessary. Finding relatives lost in institutions "Promoting Diversity and Love with an iron fist", from Hot Air, via Dust My Broom: Hate ought not be a crime. It’s an emotion. Hate can lead to crimes, but so can many other emotions and attitudes that we haven’t (yet) criminalized. Greed, envy, lust, jealousy — all of these can lead to crimes just as often, if not more often, than hate does. Are we going to criminalize all of them, too?
Farming the government. Factory farming and federal subsidies. View from 1776 Fun with Chomsky. Attack Machine Is Iraq ready for self-governance? Rick Moran is fed up. LaShawn says that the fight against voter ID shows contempt for blacks. Where I vote, you have to show an ID with an address.
Wednesday, August 1. 2007
Hillary's college thesis. I thought that Wellesley had it under lock and key. Count me a skeptic: I see nothing in the paper giving an historical context or a political science context for the subject matter, which one would expect from a Wellesley girl. Well, unless she was one of those 60s types for whom history and political philosophy were "irrelevant" to the brave new world.
 So says Brownstein in the LA Times. Excuse me, but isn't providing medical care a basic parental responsibility?
Some adults have such an infantile view of life that it makes me gag. Brownstein should be all over the parents, not Bush. Did the world turn upside down while I was busy?
A re-post from over a year and a half ago: "With so much being written by the Left and the Right side of politics on the subject of Faith and Legislation, Judgeships and War, I have found some interesting essays and a 20 year old homily given by newly elected Pope Benedict XVI covering the topics discussed in the Congressional corridors, blogosphere, campuses, and in the homes of concerned citizens. These men, leaders in their fields of poetry, philosophy and religion, comment and forewarn of the dangers of men who tread on the domain of the Highest Power and whose thoughts of glory can at times lead Humanity into the Abyss from which it cannot escape. When kids sit in a History classroom learning about the Age of Antiquity and say," why do we need to learn this? It is so old." The teacher answers back, "because we cannot learn from our mistakes if we do not revisit them." Well, at least that is what I remember saying." "The child who dwells inside us trusts that there are wise men somewhere who know the truth. That is the source of the beauty and passion of intellectual pursuits -- in philosophical and theological books, in lecture halls. Various "initiations into mystery" were also said to satisfy that need, be it through the alchemist's workshop or acceptance into a lodge (let us recall Mozart's Magic Flute). As we move from youthful enthusiasms to the bitterness of maturity, it becomes ever more difficult to anticipate that we will discover the center of true wisdom, and then one day, suddenly, we realize that others expect to hear dazzling truths from us (literal or figurative) graybeards."
Christian faith has destroyed the myth of the divine state, the myth of the state as paradise and a society without domination. In its place it has put the objectivity of reason. But this does not mean that it has produced a value-free objectivity, the objectivity of statistics and a certain kind of sociology. To the true objectivity of men and women belongs humanity, and to humanity belongs God. To genuine human reason belongs the morality that is fed by God’s commandments. This morality is not some private affair; it has public significance. Without the good of being and doing good there can be no good politics. What the persecuted Church laid down for the Christian as the core of its political ethos must also be the core of any active Christian politics; it is only when good is done and recognized as good that a good human social existence can thrive. To bring to public acceptance as valid the standing of morality, the standing of God’s commandments, must be the core of responsible political activity.
"Such is the gospel of the idealists. But it is also true that cosmos has sometimes degenerated into chaos. It is futile to rush with a fire brand through the priceless architecture of an ancient civilization chanting 'Excelsior' as each tower topples and each temple is destroyed. The mere efflux of time is not synonymous with progress: alteration is not necessarily repair; change may as easily connote decay as its opposite."
And again from Czeslaw Milosz, from a letter written to English poet Stephen Barker:
"How do you write about suffering and still be able to approve of the world at the same time? If you really think about the horror of the world, the only suitable attitude seems to be to reject it. I've always regretted that I'm made of contradictions. But, if contradiction is impossible to overcome, we have to accept both its ends."
I cannot explain why we are re-posting this bit from last year's Bovine of the Week Series. Just accept that there is a good reason.  Yes, unlike the Musk Ox, the Yak is a bovine, and a cousin of the ancestor of our Western domestic cattle, the mighty Auroch.
Yaks come in a wild and domesticated form. 85% of these cold-climate creatures are said to be in China, and are still used for plowing, meat, milk, wool, and as beasts of burden. They are capable of hybridizing with domestic cattle, yielding a breed which is commonly used as a pack animal in Tibet. Why yurts with yaks? They begin with a Y. Yurts are Mongolian houses, of course, but I recently learned that you can buy plans for them, and the structures, from several American manufacturers, such as Pacific Yurts. Cozy dwellings for snowy places, cheap and practical - but I'll take a log cabin.
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
 Robert Frost's notebooks have been published. A quote from Ormsby's review at New Criterion:
As the Notebooks show, Frost was a sophisticated reader of philosophy; he knew the Greeks from Thales on and had read Hegel, Schopenhauer, William James, and Bergson (a particular favorite), among others. Here he isn’t making a case for some relativistic notion of truth (indeed, he isn’t making a case at all but having what he liked to call “a think”). Instead, he is winkling out the capacity of poetry to capture, in a single dramatic image or synechdoche, a “confluence” of colliding truths. The object of a poem wasn’t to concoct some slick “unity of opposites;” it was to find those words—“words that have been mouthed like a common tin cup,” as he put it—through which multiple oppositions could flash forth from a single point of compression. An early jotting states, “I thought I was an {acromatic} lense. I’m afraid I am a prism” (his brackets and spelling). Metaphor was one obvious “prismatic” device but for Frost’s purposes, the aphorism, the proverb, and, especially, the figure of synechdoche, offered higher powers of refraction.
 Texas guide for a dove shoot: "Hey fellas, let's shoot some of them crows for warm-up practice."
Sport: "Sure, why not?" The guide calls the crows into range and the sports shoot some crows. Guide: "OK, I'll just go pick up them crows to take home, and we'll go find them doves." Sport: "Pick them up? What for?" Guide: "To cook 'em." Sport: "Eat a crow? What do they taste like?" Guide: "Well... tastes kinda like owl."
My one regret in life is that I am not someone else. Woody Allen
Amazing footage. (a big h/t to Driscoll). I forwarded the YouTube to Dr. Bob, who has been doing a series of photo essays on the construction of the new bridge). Watch the guy rescuing his dog from the bridge.
|
