Tuesday, January 8. 2008
It's thin for a guy his age, compared to most people I know. It is not apparent that he ever had a real job in the real world - but neither did Bill Clinton: WaPo. Narcissists hate to compete in the real world, because they might not win. On the other hand, few people who really do things go into politics. They seem to be the exceptions. More on his background at American Thinker.
Quoted from New Hampshire's Libertarian Leanings: What has become of the American middle class? George Will provides some insight. Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979 -- because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled, from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. "So," Rose says, "the entire 'decline' of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder." Even as housing values declined in 2007, the net worth of households increased.
Apparently, the disappearing middle class is disappearing because they are getting richer. Or perhaps I should say, we are getting richer.
I recently stumbled upon this essay, Taking Liberty, by the one-time Clinton official William Galston. He is trying to make the case that liberals and leftists should not abandon the words "freedom" and "liberty" (which he notes that they have done). A quote: Liberals seldom talk about Social Security or other programs in terms of freedom. But they should. George W. Bush certainly does. In his second inaugural address, Bush accepted the validity of Roosevelt's concept of Four Freedoms. But he went on to contend that in today's circumstances, his brand of conservatism--his so-called "ownership society"--offers more effective means to traditional New Deal ends: "By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear." In essence, the president was saying that his solution to Social Security's fiscal problems would provide seniors with the freedom from want and fear they had come to expect, but with two additional liberties: freedom of choice, and freedom from government dependence.
I find his arguments highly debatable, particularly in the way in which he conflates personal freedoms (eg the option of retirement) with political freedom from state power and coercion. Read the whole thing.
This "change" mantra is a joke. Change what, exactly? I think it's kinda like American Idol (which I have never seen): change the face on the TV. Vote 'em off the screen. Roger on Making Change.
From Ken Rockwell's opinion on the subject: Just about any camera, regardless of how good or bad it is, can be used to create outstanding photographs for magazine covers, winning photo contests and hanging in art galleries. The quality of a lens or camera has almost nothing do with the quality of images it can be used to produce.
Quoted from Shrinkwrapped: Barak Obama is a fairly conventional, mainstream Democratic liberal, albeit without the rage, while Mike Huckabee appears to be a fairly conventional Republican populist, also without the rage and with a more overt religious patina than the present occupant of the White House. Both appear to be offering the Federal government as the ultimate protector against the vicissitudes of modern life and the dispenser of largesse to favored constituencies; neither, at least yet, offers much of a paradigm shift. (I do not count Huckabee's "fair tax" since any proposal attacked by liberals and conservatives alike is unlikely to be enacted by a Democratic Congress for a Republican President.) My sense is that Obama and Huckabee are running for Parent in Chief of an anxious and regressed nation. Yesterday on FNS, Brit Hume pointed out the contrast between the high percentage of Americans who tell pollsters that they are personally doing well and the equally large majority who report that America is on the wrong track. Making sense of this apparent paradox is difficult, but allow me to make the attempt.
Read the whole thing.
Imagine telling somebody twenty years ago that by 2007, it would be illegal to smoke in a pub or bus shelter or your own vehicle or that there would be £80 fines for dropping cigarette butts, or that the words "tequila slammer" would be illegal or the government would mandate what angle a drinker's head in an advertisement may be tipped at, or that it would be illegal to criticise religions or homosexuality, or rewire your own house, or that having sex after a few drinks would be classed as rape or that the State would be confiscating children for being overweight. Imagine telling them the government would be contemplating ration cards for fuel and even foods, that every citizen would be required to carry an ID card filled with private information which could be withdrawn at the state's whim. They'd have thought you a paranoid loon. Samizdata commenter Ian B., posted as a Samiz. Quote of the Day
 Misguided recession talk. Tamny at NRO. I am a recession skeptic, but I am always a skeptic about most everything. Including my own opinions.
The MSM always talks as if the Clintons were married. Why do they do that? They do not live together in the same house, and Bill does whatever he wants. (h/t, Dr. Sanity) Is that a marriage? There is no global warming in the southern hemisphere. Thompson: "I'm skipping NH." I do not understand the Fred campaign. Kim for President! His stump speech. A Letter to the Editor of the NYT which you will not read there. Obama is Sidney Poitier? "The Left’s belief in the helplessness of the poor is a self-fulfilling prophecy." Dalrymple at City Journal
The slide of the dollar is great for American manufacturers, but has it bottomed? Bill Kristol takes a look at Mike Huckabee Woops. Revising the sea-level rise emergency. Besides, apparently it's been rising slowly for 8000 years, probably because of Fred Flintstone's SUV. h/t, Junk Science I looked down, and there it was. Sippican
It's boat-buying season. The charming but sturdy Annabel Lee is for sale at Yacht World: 
Monday, January 7. 2008
We are adding this open-minded, rational fellow to our blogroll: Climate Skeptic. Check it out.
The Defense Department's report on the current military and political state of Iraq. Obsidian Wings
This is astonishing news - that people are actually talking about it. Her national polls are tanking. They say she will be running out of money, too. What was the foundation for her campaign, with all of its trappings of inevitability? Is it possible that very few Dems ever really found her an attractive candidate? And why on earth did she ever let her husband campaign for her? That is dumb dumb dumb: as somebody noted somewhere, we never saw Dennis Thatcher campaigning for Maggie. Update: Many, like Blue Crab, smell a rat.
 I was born in Boston. I've lived in Massachusetts for the vast majority of my life. I don't want to live here any more. Mitt Romney has surrendered me to my enemies. It's foolish to blame it on him, perhaps; his successor, Deval Patrick, stays up late every night thinking of things I detest. But Romney's face is on this Massachusetts Universal Medical Insurance Requirement. I don't have health insurance. I haven't had any health insurance for about four years. I had health insurance for four years prior to that. Before that, I didn't have health insurance for twenty years. I've never had dental insurance. Health insurance is a misnomer. Insurance is designed to safeguard you from ruination if unexpected things happen. People call that "catastrophic health insurance" nowadays. They call prepaying for all sorts of tangentially medical-related things "health insurance," but it's really more like a retainer or a club. Massachusetts wouldn't allow me to insure myself or my family. They still don't, really. I should be able to insure my family of four for a few hundred dollars a month against catastrophe, while I pay 100% of everyday doctor bills out of pocket. It's illegal here now, as it was illegal here before. Very wealthy people use tax-subsidized employee benefit money for all sorts of things that have no business being called "Health," and the legislature mandates that all these sorts of extraneous, frivolous, and even criminal things must be covered by any insurance offered in this state. I tried to get insurance before the state mandated it. It cost over $1100 dollars a month, and it had deductibles that we would never conceivably meet, So we just ended up paying on the nail for everything anyway. I let the insurance lapse, and saved the money to pay my doctor bills.
Continue reading "Hey Mitt Romney: Pound Sand"
From Slow Learning by Laurie Fendrich in Chronicle of Higher Ed, about her mother in law: I can’t help but wonder, as I watch colleagues pulling out their hair over the mucky writing of their college students, whether we didn’t lose something important when we abandoned the kind of education Mary Jayne Shields enjoyed. Even though she experienced an admittedly slower, duller, more metronomic approach to learning than many high-school students are subjected to now, that ancient pedagogy served her quite well. Perhaps it even explains why she could write beautifully, whereas so many of our college students can barely write at all.
Read the whole thing.
Fred Barnes: They can't handle the truth: The Dems and the Surge (thanks, Sissy). I believe that they do know the truth, but that they think that it is not politically expedient to acknowledge it right now.
 Short-term warming trend has peaked, probably will reverse itself.
We permit idiots to vote. Sheesh. George McGovern has learned nothing over the years. You cannot fault him for inconsistency on his anti-Americanism, but isn't a person supposed to learn with age, and change? The late great George McDonald Fraser on PC in Britain. Jules The really cheap Indian car horrifies the Green lobby in the West. Let them eat cake ride camels? Funny, about smoking. Another review of Liberal Fascism, with Jonah's response. Obama looking to win NH. What about all of the other states? I think I like Obama as a person, but are the Dems infants? This guy knows nothing, it seems. Britain now has no-go zones. Nice. I hope they mark them on maps for tourists who expect Olde England with our cheerful cousins. Hillary caught bussing audiences into NH
A friend's photo of her son windsurfing in Hawaii last week: 
Sunday, January 6. 2008
A 1920s home, which incorporates elements from both the bungalow and foursquare styles, in the Belmont-Hillsboro neighborhood of Nashville. 
 We have a few Sharp-Shinned Hawks in the neighborhood this winter who have decided not to bother flying further south, and that it is more energy-efficient to hang out here and to feed off the sparrows and Goldfinches around peoples' bird feeders.
I almost got a photo of one this morning, perched on the tray of my feeder three feet from my window. I could see the iris of her alert eye. She fled when I reached for my camera. Thus does my bird-feeder do double-duty, because I love seeing these small dive-bomber predators around the place. I have watched them catch a few delicious English Sparrows but they seem to miss their target most of the time despite their talent at crashing through shrubs in hot pursuit. It's too bad the Sharpies won't take some of my Grey Squirrels, but they are Accipters - hunters of birds on the wing. We human bird-hunters can relate: hunting is not shopping.
Fred is against amnesty for illegals. I would be in favor of amnesty if it also included all other laws... maybe set a year aside in which no laws will be enforced? Fred is the grown-up heavyweight, but... A very brief clip:
 Honeybees. The Voice of the Hive writes very well about bees and bee-keeping. Example: The Last Flight of the Forager. h/t, Synthstuff
Forty Second Boyd and American military strategy. Eject Eject Global Warming fears creating a new religion? Baden at TCS Have you read any of Glenn Allport's stuff? Here's How the boomers almost saved the world. Here are a bunch of his essays. A quote from one of his essays: The single most damaging error of the modern age is the misperception of government as an agency of compassion. As a replacement for the "divine right of kings," this misperception has, for those in power, been an astonishing success. For the rest of mankind, it has frequently been a disaster beyond imagining. Government is nothing more than structured, widespread coercion, and the idea that it can implement compassion for us by force is simply a vile and cunning lie. It is cunning because people are primed and willing, even desperate, to believe it. Obama leading in NH polls. Are voters eager to move on from the Clinton era? Op. Journal Update on the Lionheart story. Gates CNN manages to not mention the Hsu-Clinton connection Do political fiscal policies make any difference? Megan McArdle Freudian slip? Powerline Journalist org. advises reporters on use of diversity language. Among other things, reporters are informed that "jihad" means self-improvement. Another NH blogger with his view on things One source of economic growth in France! No Pasaran Oshinsky's review of Goldberg's book in the NYT Obey if you want medical care. Moonbattery
A CT salt pond yesterday, on Long Island Sound. Thanks, reader. 
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