Thursday, October 25. 2007
"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale, and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged." President Abraham Lincoln
The perfect combination for the middle-aged, long-married guy: ED medicines cause hearing loss. Sometimes listening is just a burden.
"If your memory serves you well,
We were goin' to meet again and wait,
So I'm goin' to unpack all my things
And sit before it gets too late.
No man alive will come to you
With another tale to tell,
But you know that we shall meet again
If your memory serves you well.
This wheel's on fire,
Rolling down the road,
Best notify my next of kin,
This wheel shall explode!
If your memory serves you well,
I was goin' to confiscate your lace,
And wrap it up in a sailor's knot
And hide it in your case.
If I knew for sure that it was yours
But it was oh so hard to tell.
But you knew that we would meet again,
If your memory serves you well.
This wheel's on fire,
Rolling down the road,
Best notify my next of kin,
This wheel shall explode!
If your memory serves you well,
You'll remember you're the one
That called on me to call on them
To get you your favors done.
And after ev'ry plan had failed
And there was nothing more to tell,
You knew that we would meet again,
If your memory served you well.
This wheel's on fire,
Rolling down the road,
Best notify my next of kin,
This wheel shall explode! "This Wheel's On Fire," from The Basement Tapes, though perhaps even better known from its release on The Band's debut album Music From Big Pink. Versions from both are below.
How to give a hand to your neighbors. No Left Turns
 The myth of middle class job loss. Lib. Leanings
Carl Hiassen (one of our favorite authors) on stinking campaign cash It's good to see that Canberra has its law enforcement priorities in the right place. The 52 Senators who want you to pay for other peoples' abortions. Corner. May I mention that an elective abortion is not a medical treatment? Million dollar painting found in NYC trash. Moral of the story: Always look through other people's trash. I admire the honesty of this lady, too. Knife fight: Bateman at Media Matters goes after VDH. Bush and Cheney lit the forest fires. Everybody knows that. Dems propose 4% surcharge on incomes over 150,000. Why? I suppose just on general Marxist principles. The rich? A cop married to a supervisory nurse make that much around here. It isn't "soak the rich" - it's "soak hard-working families." To soak the rich, go after Ted Kennedy's and George Soros' offshore investments. Anyway, a tax increase won't happen, now.
A bear (looks like a Griz or a Brown Bear but a brown-colored Black Bear garbage hound, I believe) was walking across Rainbow Bridge (Old Hwy 40 at Donner Summit, Truckee) on Saturday when two cars also crossing the bridge scared the bear into clambering over the edge of the bridge. Somehow the bear caught the ledge and was able to pull itself to safety. Authorities decided that nothing could be done to help Saturday night so they returned Sunday morning to find the bear sound asleep on the ledge. After securing a net under the bridge the bear was tranquilized, fell into the net, lowered, then woke up and walked out of the net. The first photo: 
The rest of the photos of the successful rescue below on continuation page:
Continue reading "A Dramatic Bear Rescue"
Wednesday, October 24. 2007
 Where the heck did this idea of a noose being a symbol for racism come from? To me, nooses always made me think of horse thieves and cattle rustlers, and hangin' judges out West. Frontier justice. Well, also of Nathan Hale, who gave his life for the cause of freedom.
I fully agree with the piece at Never Yet Melted that it is a newly-minted pseudo-symbol in the wake of the Jena scam, which he also discusses, as we did earlier today. A diversion from that embarassment, and a wholly disingenuous one. Does anyone really believe "the offended" anymore? Nowadays, everybody wants to pose as "offended" or "abused." It's pitiful to proclaim that one sits on a pity pot, but society seems to give you more points for being pitiful than for being cheerful, resilient, and relatively productive in life. Cry-babies are emotional blackmailers. I am deeply offended by "the offended" and by the semi-professionally offended, but, despite my offended status, nobody is pandering to me, giving me free stuff, or offering me a pass on my sins. Boo hoo. Disregarding the truth, people are now going nuts about nooses: Free Speech Left Hanging - NY Post. Let's keep nooses around, without inventing one more phony subject that everybody is supposed to try to look virtuous and sensitive about, and to tiptoe around. The noose worked just fine on Saddam, and Osama would look very handsome in one. I wonder whether all of this just pre-Halloween, Haunted House craziness. (And, speaking of crazy, how many other blogs have "noose" and moose in their front page post titles at the same time? Not to mention Techno-Viking.)
 The new bio of Dante by Barbara Reynolds is reviewed at Claremont: Between Riddle and Revelation.
Was Dante a mystic?
Image: Giotto's portrait of the immortal Dante.
Sometimes --a man appears.
Look, you want to rub up against the shiznit from time to time and stand your hair on end with the static electricity of a hundred galaxies. You want to stay clear out of Liberaceland and trod the stones along the cutting edge of the interstellar flapdoodle. Perhaps you wish to forestall the march of time and feed from the power of the In Crowd like some funky vampire. Here is your new leader. Follow the TechnoViking to your salvation. If you have any infirmities, deformities or deficiencies, he will cure them; or at least beat the holy hell out of anyone that makes fun of you over them. Or he will kill you. It's your choice. Not really. Techno-Viking will choose for you, for he does not just lead; he rules. (Slight warning: There's a curse word in print on the screen at the end. But the Techno Viking does not speak curses. There is no need.)
Raven is a heck of a photographer. This is Smuggler's Notch yesterday: 
Take a look at the rest of her leaf photos.
More than you want to know about the Clinton propaganda machine. Slate, via RCP
The largest lake in California (376 square miles) seems like a very strange place. It's in a desolate location, most of its water comes from agricultural runoff, and nobody swims in it. People are trying to restore it. Here's a brief National Geographic piece on it. 
Photo from this Salton Sea Photo Gallery.
Beauchamp wanted to be the next Hemingway. Don't we all? Suburban counterterrorist Shannen Rosmiller Sorry, Northeast - the South has Risen. Am Thinker Thompson talks tough on illegal immigration The truth about Jena, via Powerline via Goldberg. Belgium update. Moslem immigration is turning it upside down. Atlas
From NASA, showing the Santa Ana wind blowing the smoke west. 
Our editor sent me this report in the useless rag USA Today, which says it ranks jobs by incidence of depression, with the implication that the job is the problem. Rather than using it as a starting point for a discussion of depression, it looks like a better opportunity to step on The Barrister's turf and say that is is a fine example of the informal logical fallacy of cum hoc ergo propter hoc. Reporters are notoriously ignorant of science and statistics. More likely than not, an arrow of causality can be postulated such that people with emotional frailties tend towards certain lines of work in which they can succeed, and in which they will not feel overly stressed.
Why the inflation of medical costs? DB says it's because American medicine is so successful with research and initiating new treatments, here and here.
Tom Brewton quotes Derek Bok in a piece on Sowell on Education - Substance vs. Perception: ...former Harvard University President Derek Bok wrote, Many seniors graduate without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers. Many cannot reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, non-technical problems, even though faculties rank critical thinking as the primary goal of a college education. Few undergraduates receiving a degree are able to speak or read a foreign language. Most have never taken a course in quantitative reasoning or acquired the knowledge needed to be a reasonably informed citizen in a democracy. And those are only some of the problems.
Al Gore now getting $180,000 per speech? Heck, I'd give a speech for half that. But it's for a good cause, right?
 Time for another Boston Tea Party? And, related, how much is America taxing its rich?
Serious pumpkin-carving. Coyote Why the California fires? CSM. Fire suppression is one of the factors. Ethanol: Neither renewable nor reliable A "successful blog"? TechCrunch brings in $250,000 per month in ads. That sort of blog income might cause even Maggie's Farm to reconsider taking ads: it would help cover our bar tabs at Rudy's. Who endangers Europe more? Islamists or Islamophobes? Augean This sounds like Mao's China: Touch your toes Thoreau was a knucklehead. Sippican Pat Buchanan on global warming: Like the panics of bygone eras, this one has the aspect of yet another re-enactment of the Big Con. The huckster arrives in town, tells all the rubes that disaster impends for them and their families, but says there may be one last chance they can be saved — but it will take a lot of money. And the folks should go about collecting it, right now.
More at Moonbattery
Black and white is still the right thing for true photographs. 
Thanks to David Thompson for finding some Paul McDonough photo links. I can remember when he was a lowly NYC "street photographer."
Tuesday, October 23. 2007
Why Chomsky's logic is "non-viable." NormPelosi plans a PR blitz to protect the House. The Hill Thompson talks about his daughter who died. The myth of the Latino voting bloc. Polipundit Why Hillary is the GOP's dream opposition. LA Times Fair and balanced book reviews at the NYT. TigerHawk
Pin Ups for Vets is back. Very therapeutic. 
This came in over the transom: We need to tell you that there was some damage to the statue of the American Bison in front of the house in Big Sky. We did attempt to prevent the damage, throwing stones at, and hitting, the attacker. The attacker could not be dissuaded, and kept up his assault for several hours and fortunately the attack was photographed - see below. The incident even caused a traffic situation in front of the house, The damage consisted of: 1) The loss of about two inches from the left horn. The broken piece is on the work bench in the garage. 2) Hoof scratches on the side of the Bison. 3) Some chips in the right rear hoof. 4) Blood stains behind the Bison. The statue was also moved eight inches forward. We attempted to center the statue on the pedestal, but to no avail. 
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