Sunday, November 11. 2007
"Just because you're 83 doesn't mean you have to sit around and drool." George H.W. Bush, yesterday: 
Luke 20: 27 27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30then the second 31and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32Finally the woman also died. 33In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’ 34 Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’....Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’ 40For they no longer dared to ask him another question.
A snap of the interior of St. Peter's Church (1837), where we saw Pucchini's one-act Gianni Schicchi yesterday performed by the Chelsea Opera. 
Exterior: 
23rd St. in Chelsea, down from the church: 
Saturday, November 10. 2007
 12th Century Londoners put it away, from breakfast onwards. But what about the dread afternoon hangover in the pre-Tylenol era?
Speaking of which, apparently even social boozing damages the brain. That's a damn shame, because it is difficult for anyone to go through life cold sober 24 hrs/day, 7 days a week. We all need some forms of relief from reality, sometimes. But, on the other hand, "No brain, no pain:" a bit of brain damage might be a good thing. Photo: One of my dutiful wives, bringing me my daily allotment. Photo on continuation page: A fun pub, NSFW.
Continue reading "A gallon per day"
 From a Dick Morris piece on Bill and Hillary:
Would we expect Dennis Thatcher to speak up for Maggie? What would we think if he berated the men of the Argentine Junta for piling on against his wife? How would we respond if he accused the BBC of bias against his Prime Minister/wife? The fact that Bill has been president just makes his intervention the more obvious and politically costly. Here we have not only a husband standing up for his woman, but a former president helping his ingénue wife in her efforts to fend for herself. The stereotype is not appealing and undermines Hillary’s candidacy.
Photo: Billary Clinton
 From What Bob Dylan Is Not, by Sean Curnyn in the Weekly Standard, 2006, a quote:
He really should have known better. In an interview several months later with Edna Gundersen in USA Today, Dylan was asked about the absence of any song about the current war on his own latest album, Modern Times. "Didn't Neil Young do that?" he jokes . . . "What's funny about the Neil record, when I heard 'Let's Impeach the President,' I thought it was something old that had been lying around. I said, 'That's crazy, he's doing a song about Clinton?'" With his sly and somewhat wicked response, Dylan had (1) desperately frustrated the considerable number of more obvious Dylan fans who have been waiting on the edge of a cliff for him to say or sing something--anything!--against President Bush and the Iraq war and (2) told Neil Young none-too-subtly that he found his recent ultrapolitical songwriting essentially pointless. Somehow, after over 40 years of evidence to the contrary, much of the world seems to continue to expect the man who is arguably America's greatest songwriter to sign on to left/liberal causes at the first opportunity. If nothing else, it is proof that in attempting to kidnap Dylan's songs (in Dylan's own words, his songs were "subverted into polemics" in the 1960s), the left succeeded in convincing the average person that both the work and the man did, indeed, belong to them.
Nobody owns Bob. Read the whole thing. (h/t, reader)
Ringo's hair salon bit is the best: "Would you like a cuppa tea, Madam?" More good Beatles links at Grow A Brain
Heard on the radio yesterday: "Hard work won't kill you, but why take the chance?" "America is not a country for the faint-hearted."
 A school voucher debate, at Pajamas
Dissecting Asus' EEE PC Where was your car made? Cafe Hayek The politics of planted questions. Patterico Beer, Harp and Horns: Always a good listen A unique blog: Indexed Tort awards on free speech, Pretty interesting. They call this reporting the news? The Globe just cannot stand the fact that Sarkozy - or anyone - likes America. Peggy Noonan on Hillary vs. Thatcher. Fort Worth, TX deals with "nigger" intelligently. There are many ugly and rude words in English. Sticks and stones... I hope the Supremes take on the DC 2nd Amendment appeal. How many academics feel like frauds? Norm. How many people, in general? Hate speech: If you are Conservative or Libertarian-minded, you will surely recognize yourself in these words. The Vioxx settlements. Worstall. Thus was an excellent drug taken off the market, and a great, innovative business damaged. It's probably just about greed that these lawsuits are brought. Does anybody really expect medicine to be without side effects? No free lunch. From a piece on Venezuela at Devil's Excrement: There is no milk but there is yogurt. There is no sugar, but there is Splenda. There are no eggs, nor meat, nor rice, but there is caviar, salmon and all the things to make Sushi. What type of economy is this? Who are the geniuses that play politics in the name of the poor and the result is that all that is available are the goods for the rich?
From the sane Joe Lieberman: "There is something profoundly wrong — something that should trouble all of us — when we have elected Democratic officials who seem more worried about how the Bush administration might respond to Iran's murder of our troops, than about the fact that Iran is murdering our troops.
Photo: Wine shop in Florence
Friday, November 9. 2007
 We hold contradictory views of dogs.
One is the old-fashioned view: to regard them as work animals, trained for service, from which high levels of obedience and performance are expected, and ideally kenneled outdoors. Guard dogs, hunting dogs, fox-hunting dogs, sled dogs, rescuer dogs, tracking dogs, police dogs, seeing-eye dogs, race dogs, Saint Bernards carrying cheap brandy, and so forth. Servants, not friends, who are to be put down if they cannot handle their task. But that view is more from our hard head than from the heart, because we love dogs and they love us, if they are allowed to, in mysterious ways which go far beyond the provision of kibbles: dear pals, providers of unconditional love, nightime foot-warmers, front-of-fireplace curlers, boisterous walking companions, food stealers, and cave-protectors. Passionate Conservative talk show host and Constitutional Law expert Mark Levin is whole-heartedly in the latter camp. He only owns dogs rescued from shelters. Of his latest book Rescuing Sprite, he comments: There’s a special connection or bond between humans and dogs. It’s as if dogs exist to bring people happiness. They teach us about life, loyalty, joy, trust, responsibility, and laughter. They help us clear out all the clutter that surrounds our busy lives and focus on what’s really important. They tell us it’s okay to take time to play sock-pull or have a catch, make silly noises, and enjoy yourself despite all the pressures we adult humans have deal with. Let me put it this way: Dogs are not pets. Dogs are family.
Well, he slips into the anthropomorphic, or pathetic, fallacy here, but I know what he means. Country folk are not so sentimental about dogs. I aim for a compromise, but all of us at Maggie's Farm are suckers for a puppy.
 Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran does a great job explaining the mysteries of neuroscience to the general public. He's the author of A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness.
It's about mind and brain. If you have a few minutes to be enlightened, watch his video, Journey to the Center of Your Mind. (My only beef with him is that he sets up some very superficial and wrong straw-man Freudian notions to knock down, seemingly forgetting that Freud's career was in Neurology - he was a prominent one: his papers on aphasia are still read, plus he invented the use of cocaine for eye anesthesia. Used it a bit recreationally, too, I am told. He became curious about all of the hysterics he was seeing in the office, dumped on him by the other docs because he was a Jewish doctor and therefore not welcomed in the upper echelons of academic medicine in Vienna. Hence psychoanalytic theory. However, Freud was not a Psychiatrist.) (h/t, Attack Machine)
 Gateway, with video. Isn't totalitarian socialist revolution a beautiful thing? But where are Cindy and Sean and the rest of the American Chavistas today, when they could be helping to shoot freedom-seeking students to advance the cause? Maybe they are too busy today? Well, then call Warren Beatty.
And why, why, do potentially prosperous and happy South American countries keep falling for this dictator business, socialist or otherwise? It's a damn shame.
 I am a democrat [believer in democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that every one deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. . . . I find that they’re not true without looking further than myself. I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost. Much less a nation. . . . The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters.
CS Lewis, 1943 (h/t, Dr. Bob)
From One Laptop Per Child: beginning Nov. 12, for $399 you can give and get an XO laptop. One goes to a third-world kid.
 Convicted of poetry, in part. Daily Mail
Great public restrooms of the world Christmas ideas: Animatronic Elvis. Every home needs at least one. Reconstructing America. No Pasaran likes Ceasar's book. Why bother with those old tales? And other similar questions. Dr. Bob on scripture "Creepy and witless" indoctrination. Dino Quickies: What can be learned from speed-dating?
Thursday, November 8. 2007
With thanks to Chris Muir: 
Heck, with this sort of insanity, all the Brits will have left is nun jokes. Unlike the whiners and babies, nuns can take a joke. Remind me. What year was it that Britain was successfully invaded by the alien transexual moonbat body-snatchers?
Baghdad free of terror. Surber. Stubborn persistence wins.
Story with updates at Insty, if anyone missed it yesterday. 
Still cannot find Abbott and Costello doing their immortal Susquehanna Hat Company routine on YouTube, but the Stooges originated the concept in the 1930s, called "Slowly I turned":
The apparent popularity of our recent philosophical post on Track Geometry Cars motivates us to post this photo of monitors from the rear window of a BNSF 80 car, from this fine foto Foamer site. Thanks, reader. If you like Track Geometry and Inspection cars, here are tons of them. 
Did I ever want to acquire the Sixties? No. But if I own the Sixties, I'll give 'em to you if you want 'em. You can have 'em. Bob Dylan (h/t, K)
 Randall Hoven on "Inordinate Fear" at American Thinker. h/t, RWN
Protein on Moslem science Why I never hire brilliant men. From 1924. h/t, Links at Flares FL company prohibits smoking off the job. That would be an interesting legal case, on either side. Makes you want to be a lawyer. The guy also doesn't want to hire fat people. Global warming "greatest scam in history," says founder of The Weather Channel Cramer: Cuomo's a communist. Probably true. If anyone thinks that the Islamists are focused on the West only, think again. It truly is a movement of hatred for "the other." Women too fragile for politics. Hatemonger Adding to our blogroll: Contentions at Commentary From a piece at Dino: 
Photo: That is not Dr. Bliss. That's a Theo girl.
Steyn takes a backward look at Allan Bloom's classic The Closing of the American Mind in a piece in New Criterion entitled Twenty Years Ago Today. He concludes: At my local school in New Hampshire, the music teacher eschews the classics and teaches boomer rock, much to the bemusement of her young charges for whom forty-year-old pop songs are as remote as 400-year-old sonatas. Children are asked to pick a favorite Beatle. Why would a six-year-old have such a thing? The Fab Four split up thirty years before he was born. It’s like my old music teacher asking me to pick my favorite member of Paul Whiteman’s Yacht Club Boys. But she never did. And that’s the biggest difference between 2007 and 1987. What Allan Bloom observed in his students can now be found in the teachers.
|
