Friday, February 22. 2008
Beautiful snowy day. I have only seen the usual suspects: Blue Jay, Mourning Dove, Song Sparrow, White Throated Sparrow, SC Junco, Cardinal, BC Chickadee, WB Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker. Somebody around must be offering Niger seed (which is not really thistle seed) because I haven't seen any Goldfinches. Hoping for something exciting to come by, like maybe a California Condor or a Dodo. 
As relevant today as it was then: A clip from a Reagan speech in support of Barry Goldwater. (h/t, No Pasaran)
Do you want Google to store your medical records? I don't. Now I fully recognize that nobody in their right mind would want to find out anything about me and my utterly normal life which is remarkable only for its relative contentment, but there are privacy principles here: it's nobody's business. A security and intel analyst decided to find out what he could about himself. The piece begins: In 2006, David Holtzman decided to do an experiment. Holtzman, a security consultant and former intelligence analyst, was working on a book about privacy, and he wanted to see how much he could find out about himself from sources available to any tenacious stalker. So he did background checks. He pulled his credit file. He looked at Amazon.com transactions and his credit-card and telephone bills. He got his DNA analyzed and kept a log of all the people he called and e-mailed, along with the Web sites he visited. When he put the information together, he was able to discover so much about himself—from detailed financial information to the fact that he was circumcised—that his publisher, concerned about his privacy, didn’t let him include it all in the book.
Read the whole thing at Popular Science.
 Yes, it scares me. When it comes to medical treatment (and legal help) I want free choice - and screw "the good of all." And I wish they would quit calling it "healthcare." It's treatment from doctors when you get sick.
Here's Tom Blumer at Pajamas. Meanwhile, I think I'll stay home today and watch the snow fall and maybe do an hour on ye olde eliptical machine, feed the birds, and do some writing for ye olde blogge. Looks like we may have a foot today, so I will crank up ye olde snowplow too.
 Lots of snow in Yankeeland this year, including a good dump right now. Photo is Mad River Glen this week.
The state is not your friend. Does this sound like murder to you? Blog friend Confederate Yank got a cool Valentine's Day present from his wife. Israel has its own loonies: Quakes caused by gay tolerance. Why not blame them on global warming, like everybody else does? Race and politics in Alabama: NYT. Things have changed. Steve Fossett's obit Are some suburbs becoming future slums? Argument against the war on terror: Hirsch in Newsweek Does Cuba need the US anymore? Maybe not. Chavez and China have filled the gap. 25 Dumbest college courses Totten (at Insty): RULES OF JOURNALISM: CNN tells its reporters how to write about Fidel Castro. “Please note Fidel did bring social reforms to Cuba – namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration. [sic] in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.” Was he just criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech, or did he actually, you know, oppress human rights and freedom of speech? John Derbyshire is right: “Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.”
England's Brain Drain is escalating. Do they wonder why? What was the NYT up to with the McCain fact-free, unsourced innuendo? Rick Moran Obama News and Comment  Obama running for Pres of what country? Protein (whence photo on left)
The CHANGE Obama is running on, quoted from Betsy: ..that's the change he's for - taxing young people more and more to pay to give more money to the elderly. I wonder if all those young adoring crowds tearing up at Obama speeches realize what he has in store for them.
If Obama wants to be post-partisan, how come he never has been? Michelle Obama: Michelle Obama has problems, she says. Huh? Bainbridge. Also, What is she all about? Interestingly, her college thesis is locked up until after the election. (h/t, Jules) Also via Jules, a hilarious Obama piece by Herald columnist Margery Egan - a quote re Michelle's accidental revelation of her contempt for the USA: Barack now claims she didn’t mean it. Oh, yes she did. We all know the insufferable, holier-than-thou, Blame-America-First types who lecture the unwashed from the rarefied air of Cambridge and Brookline. If I wanted lecturing, I’d be with Hillary.
Speaking of Obama lecturing, Mrs. O said this: Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed. Nobody would dare talk that way to my face, except perhaps my mother.
 Feb. 22, 1732. Some quotes:
I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an Honest Man. The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard. Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good. It never hurts to review his Farewell Address delivered on September 17, 1796, at which time he voluntarily, despite much urging, decided that two terms of the Presidency was enough for one person. It concludes: Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man, who views it in the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations; I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
Thursday, February 21. 2008
"Well, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Yes, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, you must tell me, baby
How your head feels under somethin' like that
Under your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, you look so pretty in it
Honey, can I jump on it sometime?
Yes, I just wanna see
If it's really that expensive kind
You know it balances on your head
Just like a mattress balances
On a bottle of wine
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, if you wanna see the sun rise
Honey, I know where
We'll go out and see it sometime
We'll both just sit there and stare
Me with my belt
Wrapped around my head
And you just sittin' there
In your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, I asked the doctor if I could see you
It's bad for your health, he said
Yes, I disobeyed his orders
I came to see you
But I found him there instead
You know, I don't mind him cheatin' on me
But I sure wish he'd take that off his head
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat
Well, I see you got a new boyfriend
You know, I never seen him before
Well, I saw him
Makin' love to you
You forgot to close the garage door
You might think he loves you for your money
But I know what he really loves you for
It's your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat..." "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," from Blonde on Blonde. Versions from 1966 and 1996 are below.
 As I understand it, according to strict doctrine, Mohammed hates dogs, pigs, monkeys, Jews, Hindus, gays, and Christians, and isn't overly fond of women either, except as physical objects and cooks.
I do not know how he feels about squirrels, but their thefts of my bird seed are beginning to turn me against the filthy little rodents and I am considering issuing a fatwah against them. But, back to dogs: readers know that we are dog-lovers here, so we are deeply, deeply offended by news items like this, and are considering some serious rioting, car burning, and peeing on hydrants until such offenses cease.
NYT dredges up 8 year-old story to try to slam their pal John McCain. What are they thinking? Is there a story, or just a drive-by smear? It appears that they are trying to imply that John is like Bill Clinton.
The New Yoik Times, that bastion of originality, says Barack Obama is a plagiarist, because he used the same motif for a lame speech as another politician. They're very picky over there at the Times. I've heard that they discipline their own employees for making stuff up and copying things without attribution. I know it's true because it happens so often that it's always fresh in your mind. You're a bad man, Obama: The controversy arose after Mr. Obama, of Illinois, delivered a speech at a Democratic Party dinner in Wisconsin. He responded to criticism from Mrs. Clinton, of New York, who argued that Mr. Obama might deliver smooth speeches, but that she was better prepared to solve problems.
“Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” he said in his remarks. “ ‘I have a dream.’ Just words? ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’ Just words? ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words? Just speeches?”
The passage was similar to one used by Mr. Patrick in response to similar criticism.
Hey, I'm content to live in a world of unoriginal politicians, but far be it from me to doubt the Times when they hold everybody to a higher standard. Well, almost everybody. 
That's from Noam Cohen at the New York Times, appended to the sterling and no doubt highly original article: Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC? Hmm. February 19th, 2008. Hey look! Maggies' Farm, January 3rd, 2008: 
Hey, what's the lead time on developing stories over there at the Times? I bet I can guess. Of course, it's not my standard of plagiarism we're talking about here, it's the Times' we must adhere to: "...was similar to one used by..." Not only would such a blatant ripoff without attribution be dishonorable, it would be sorta lame too, because the item was a re-run on Jan.3rd 2008. We ran it first on January 26th, 2007. All the unoriginal and stale news that's fit to print, I guess. Remember, it's the New York Times' world, I'm just trying to live in it. If you Google "new york times plagiarist," it returns 1,660,000 entries. That's a lot, and they all seem to be NYTimes employees, not Barack Obama. I guess it will return 1,660,001 after I hit "save." Sorry. Let's get all Woodward and Bernstein, shall we? Wrong paper, but who cares? They don't seem to. Here goes: Hey Noam; what did you know and when did you know it?
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.Ah, but you generally end up with that anyway, because most people have real jobs, and do not hunger for power over others.
 $100 oil again. The Oil Drum says it's a whole new world for oil.
Brit NHS: You may not buy your own medications. How do proud Brits put up with that kind of Brave New World BS? Their freedoms and national autonomy are slipping through their fingers, yet only their bloggers seem to care or to notice. Alarmist vs. alarming. Tiger What do you want? A note to Environmentalists: Reisman The Obama Fainting Syndrome. Says Evang. Outpost, "It is rather weird. Though, I have to say that the thought of Obama becoming President makes me a bit woozy too." The NYT suddenly feeling positive about greedy capitalists. To be consistent with their views, they should change themselves to a not-for-profit...but that may be happening anyway. Is it time to give the Cuban people a hand? Jewcy. Maybe, but not until after the election, because FL controls Cuba policy in the same way that Iowa controls ethanol policy. How officers view the Iraq war. CNN Photo: Stowe, Vermont's 1860 House in the summer.
Wednesday, February 20. 2008
Both new to us: Jungle Trader, who trades in items you'd be highly unlikely to find elsewhere, such as: Hong Kong health officials on Tuesday warned would-be slimmers not to consume parasitic worms in an attempt to lose weight following adverts for products containing worm eggs. Stuff White People Like, which addresses the peculiar habits of white-skinned humanoids in a scholarly manner, to help further the multicultural understanding of, and sensitivity towards, this marginalized group. A quote: In most situations, white people are very comforted by seeing their own kind. However, when they are eating at a new ethnic restaurant or traveling to a foreign nation, nothing spoils their fun more than seeing another white person.
Hillary tries using the line against Obama, but, as far as I know, neither of them have done anything significant in public life other than to get elected in elections they could not lose. But does it even matter? Kudlow (h/t, Driscoll): Hillary has suddenly become an incredibly steep inverted yield curve, with a rapidly declining credit rating and a complete drying up of liquidity.
 It was politically brilliant of FDR's speech writers to use the language of "rights" (which until that time in American liberty-oriented, revolutionary language had referred to rights granted by God to individual humans in opposition to government power) to the "right," or even the duty, of government to take the fruits of our efforts and that of our parents, without any apparent limit.
With a devilishly clever twisting of "freedom" language, leveraged with the timely intervention of the Great Depression, FDR decided to turn a charitable US with Christian values into a welfare state with a strong dose of secular socialist values. He had plenty of other choices. I recently ran into an essay by Cass Sunstein in The American Prospect on FDR's "Second Bill of Rights." A quote: Roosevelt said that the nation "cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people--whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth--is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure." Roosevelt looked back, and not entirely approvingly, to the framing of the Constitution. At its inception, the nation had grown "under the protection of certain inalienable political rights--among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures."
But, he added, over time, "we have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence." As Roosevelt saw it, "necessitous men are not free men," not least because those who are hungry and jobless "are the stuff out of which dictatorships are made." He echoed the words of the Declaration of Independence, urging a kind of Declaration of Interdependence: "In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all--regardless of station, race, or creed."
Sunstein approves of FDR's revolution. Read the whole thing. Comment from The Barrister: We cannot rest until one insecure family is made secure? What does that mean? My life would be instantly insecure if I decided to quit work today, grab a six-pack and go fishin.' Comment from Bird Dog: To imagine that FDR and his pals were indifferent to the laws of incentive and of unintended consequences would be to underestimate them. Since I do not believe that it is possilble to be charitable with other people's money, I assume that they were simply very crafty politicians. The Dems have never wavered from that same strategy: the more people you put on the dole and the fewer folks you have paying all of the taxes, the more votes you get. It's not complicated. Hence the moves for socialized medicine...and then what next, after that? Comment from Dr. Bliss: As an aristocrat in a family with a strong sense of noblesse oblige, FDR never had to worry about freedom. Freedom never entered into his administration's equations, and the Progressives back then had as little interest in struggling with the conflicts between individual freedom and autonomy vs. material social well-being, as they do today.
 I am told that the Surf Hotel on Block Island is for sale. Stayed there once or twice, many moons ago. A funky old Block Islandy sort of place. Fawlty Towers, anyone? Sadly, somebody will probably buy the old place and turn it into condos or time shares, with credible water pressure and walls you cannot hear through.
 Also, I see this modest Manhattan townhouse on E. 68th St. is for sale.
It's the Henry T. Sloane house, built in 1905. If I had the $64 million asking price in my checking account, I might go for it. Everybody deserves a Manhattan pied a terre, so my hope is that Obama will get me one. Three stories would suffice.
 The Tie Dye Clematis, at Wayside.
I'm not sure that it's lovely, but it's interesting.
 Roger wonders what the Aussies are apologizing for. I think all of this phony apologizing for history is just a passing sanctimonious fad, but it does feed into an unwholesome and unconstructive victim mentality and does nothing to inspire people to get on board.
Nonetheless, it raises once again the interesting anthropological subject of what happens when native cultures, whether rural farmers in Asia, Indians in Saskatchewan, Bedouins in the Middle East, or Aborigines in Australia, are confronted with a powerful modernity they didn't ask for and do not really comprehend. Same thing happens among subcultures right here in the US. The new culture is rarely embraced, even if new technologies are. Sometimes it works out well, sometimes it doesn't. I wonder what I would do if confronted with a new powerful culture from outer space. My guess is that I would resist it, because my culture is pretty good, and I am an old-fashioned, sentimental sort of guy. Photo: My favorite Maori: Kiri Te Kanawa
Is life more competitive these days? I have no idea how to measure that, but there is no doubt that we live in a nation - and a world - full of strivers. My guess is that it's because opportunity is more widely spread around than in the past. The world has more hopers and dreamers than it ever did, and that is the true gift - or curse - of American civilization to the world. Akst's Strive We Must in the Wilson Quarterly discusses the current state of competition in education, sports, business, and everything else. A quote: Competition has also been rescued to some extent from the class-based doghouse in which it dwelt for so long. In the bad old days, after all, trying too hard was considered poor form; success was supposed to come easily, like one’s wealth and position, and not require any of the sweaty striving associated with the lower orders. Those days are blessedly past—we are all sweaty strivers now—yet we remain ambivalent about this state of affairs. We feel nostalgia for the ethos of good form, and for the freedom from class anxiety we might have felt in a more static society. Who among us has not referred, at some point, to competitive modern life as a rat race? Which of us has not vowed, sooner or later, to foreswear it, presumably in favor of a return to our natural state of romping in the meadows with the butterflies? We want our kids to do well, yet competition is something we want to shelter them from. That’s why, in northern California, some high schools with large numbers of Asian-American students are experiencing white flight among families who find the academic environment a mite too...hectic.
Read the whole interesting essay (link above).
 Remove those polka dots at once.
"Yes we can": A stirring bit of Reagan video to begin the day right. Funny, or wierd? Green wine? That WI landslide must be painful at Hillary HQ. I think it's over for her: the Dems have tired of the Hill and Bill Show. Here's a real sign of desperation. Speaking of Mrs. Clinton, she slams the financial services industry claiming they don't really work. And politicians do? So glad our Lords and Masters are worrying about stuff like this. John, Paul, and George, 1958 Deep thought from Hollywood, re Obama: So I think he definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for.
How Conservative is John McCain? Pete DuPont The Fed's TAF. Learn about it. Global cooling is striking everywhere, including Vietnam:  Jerusalem: 
Greece: 
My opinion? Those carbon offsets are working all too well.
Tuesday, February 19. 2008
From Dr. Merc, who has more C&H: 
 Meet the new boss...another low-life sociopathic scum. I see no freedom for Cuba in the near future.
Let's change the rules in the middle of the game. SONY beats Toshiba. Like I care. Political plagiarism, from Viking: "Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert."
Does this help explain why Moslem countries are so backwards? The wiretapping fiasco. I am all in favor of wiretapping suspicious foreigners, but not Americans - without a warrant. Illegal fox hunting is thriving like never before. Englishman. Good on them. Via Insty at Cato Unbound: Is Limited Government Possible? Every day is Sorry Day! A pastor challenges his congregation Quoted from Prof. Deneen on messianic politics, a quote: This is one great peril of the overestimation of the human capacity to "heal the world": the willingness to allow optimism to overcome good sense, and at its worse to permit ideology to trump our flawed human reality. But it is, I suspect, the other peril that we will face with an Obama presidency, namely the disappointment that will set in when, inevitably, such healing of the world proves elusive. Right now the expectations for transformation that will almost inevitably take place following the disastrous Presidency of G.W. Bush run so high as to exceed the capacity of any political leader to realize. And, as a number of commentators increasingly point out - none better than David Brooks in a recent column - the hard facts of reality, both internationally and domestically, will press in upon us starting on the first day of a new presidency, no less than they do so right now. Indeed, given the broader sets of limits that we face and increasingly confront, what is most needful is a leader who is prepared to tell us this hard truth, not promising transformation but acknowledging the hard facts of natural limits and the need for sacrifice that will be forced upon us in a far harder form unless we make some difficult choices and changes now. The prospects for disillusionment become ever more certain, the more we are tempted to convince ourselves, and are drawn to promises, that we await a future of "healing," "redemption," and paradisic contentment.
Speaking of paradisic contentment, Deer Creek wins. (Thanks, Dr. M.) Photo below: 
Dr. Leonard Sax, a family physician and psychologist, writes about the hard-wired differences between boys and girls, and about the refusal of educators to take them into account. From an interview with Dr. Sax: Boys today are increasingly alienated from school. Recent investigations have shown a dramatic drop over the past twenty years in boys' academic performance in American schools. According to the United States Department of Education, the average eleventh-grade American boy now writes at the same level as the average eighth-grade girl. Similar gender gaps have been documented in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. And the percentage of boys going on to college, and graduating from college, is falling. The U.S. Department of Education now projects that in the year 2011, there will be 140 women graduating from college for every 100 men — very nearly a 60/40 female-to-male ratio. The future may already have arrived. Several major U.S. colleges and universities, such as New York University and the University of North Carolina, already report that their student body is more than 60 percent female.
Read the whole thing (link above).
h/t, Lib Leanings. Apparently Americans like to bitch about the cost of necessities like medical care and milk, but not about the cost of boats, cars, motorcycles, cameras, guns, and other toys.
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