Wednesday, May 28. 2008
 Why the credit and banking problems are not a "trillion dollar catastrophe"
Is your moral code deontological or consequentialist? And where did it come from? Deceptive credit card practices. Rock star Ken Heebner: America's hottest investor. Carbon ration cards proposed in the UK. Hey, what a great idea. Related: Environmentalists killing the rhinos. Related: Pres Klaus wants to debate Al Gore Foreclosure tourism. Home sales are rising. Hmmm. That is an example of price elasticity. Prices down, sales up. Only in spec bubbles do you get prices up, sales up. 11 essays on the state of Africa, at Boston Review Dartmouth against Democracy. WSJ VDH on Obama: Is it going to be this way each day of the campaign: We get some pious sermon relating the selflessness of his own past to shame us into being similarly idealistic, followed by a complete Orwellian rewrite of history? If so, it's going to be a long five months.
Image: Bumper sticker from Patriot Shop
Tuesday, May 27. 2008
It's a big business now. Video at Frontline.
Our readers know that we are in favor of global warming, (and fear the current cooling phase) but doubt that we will get any good warming other than the usual warm summers. As quoted from Freeman Dyson at Reason: Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion.
and ... some members of the environmental movement have also adopted as an article of faith the belief that global warming is the greatest threat to the ecology of our planet. That is one reason why the arguments about global warming have become bitter and passionate. Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard.
For whatever it's worth, we agree that the global warming craze is sucking the oxygen - and the sanity - out of a conservation movement of which we consider ourselves to be a part.
 Seems like everybody has a website these days: Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. Do you think Maggie's Farm deserves the endorsement on the right? Just like Vermont farmers do, we pray for global warming and we only use Agent Orange on the weeds. And we do understand that "organic" foods have less nutrients than the normal...but what American is short on nutrients? Everybody is fat and overly-nourished except for our legions of anorectics.
European "hatred" of America, explained. No Pasaran. Related: How they teach economics to high school students in France. What costs $4 billion and leaks? New Orleans' new levees. Bush and Cheney are still trying to drown the blacks. More on "big oil." Exxon has control of 1% of global reserves. Is that big? Difference between a person and a non-person. What the heck is a "non-profit" anyway? Also from Marginal: How Ethanol is increasing the price of your movie tickets. Take a left at the MacDonalds: Visiting Dachau. Belmont. The inflated Presidency. Dino. The extent to which a nation desires a messianic leader is a measure of a nation's immaturity. I understand why the Founders wanted a President, but often think we might be better off with a PM, except in wartime I guess. Playing the gender card at Dartmouth. What jerks. This is called "tactics," and it's disingenuous as heck. Re Memorial Day: did we forget how to honor our dead? Some interesting progress on a cancer vaccine. But then what will we get to die of? The good old UN. "Peacekeepers" sexually abusing 6 year-old kids. Bill Clinton: There's a conspiracy against Hillary. Must be that vast Left-wing conspiracy. Castro more-or-less endorses Obama. Now Obama has endorsements from Castro, Chavez and Hamas. When the Founding Fathers faced Islam. Pajamas Repubs are in denial. Sen. Coburn Exercise doesn't make fat kids slim (h/t, Junk Science) "Environmentalism is school prayer for liberals." The new opiate of the intellectuals Phoenix update. Is Dubai the new world center of finance? "To my mind, anyone who thinks of themselves as a victim deserves all that's coming to them." Mr. Free Market
 Re "assimilation," from Dalrymple in City Journal. It begins:
Acting recently as an expert witness in a murder trial, I became aware of a small legal problem caused by the increasingly multicultural nature of our society. According to English law, a man is guilty of murder if he kills someone with the intention either to kill or to injure seriously. But he is guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter if he has been sufficiently provoked or if his state of mind at the time was abnormal enough to reduce his responsibility. The legal test here is a comparison with the supposedly ordinary man—the man on the Clapham omnibus, as the legal cliché has it. Would that ordinary person feel provoked under similar circumstances? Was the accused’s state of mind at the time of the killing very different from that of an average man? But who is that ordinary man nowadays, now that he might come from any of a hundred countries? The accused in this instance was a foreign-born Sikh who had married, and killed, a native-born woman of the same minority. The defense argued—unsuccessfully—that an ordinary man of the defendant’s traditional culture would have found the wife’s repeated infidelity particularly wounding and would therefore have acted in the same way.
Read the whole thing. Photo: "Ted Dalrymple"
For readers who remember (or care about) the shade perennial border that I was working on finishing up last spring, here is about half of it, one year later, from two angles. (Sorry about my lousy photography.) I am pleased by how well it is shaping up after just one year: 
Monday, May 26. 2008
 Why I won't support McCain: Hawkins. He is way wrong, but nobody listens to us blogophiles anyway. As I have said, there is only one person out there who agrees with me about everything, and that is me. Freedom is about arguments.
How Obama will free Cuba. Not likely Climate change crisis, on Jupiter Dick Martin died. Debating George Soros' ethics. Luskin. We call Soros "Dr. Evil." Does the Stockholm Syndrome exist? Probably not. (h/t, Dr X) Americans will die for freedom. Anchoress A tribute to the Confederate cavalry. Listen to the tune: "Jine the Cavalry." Rabid Lefty responds to the George Packer piece (h/t, Insty). She sounds mad as hell. A hoax, or terrible insomnia? A reef cemetary. They expect it to become a big tourist attraction. Minnesota's earthworm problem. First Moose, now Beaver. Scotland is going to become interesting. But why only 4 families? Also, I didn't know that beaver lived in Europe. Just had to re-post the link to P.J. O'Rourke's commencement address. Does Obama understand the Constitution? Jennifer Rubin at Pajamas Why Texas doesn't like biofuels. Despite our well-informed commenter who likes biofuel, I remain unconvinced. They are more polluting than gasoline, they are edible (well, drinkable) and they drive up the prices of food. A gaffe, an absurdity, and a policy. Krauthammer This worth re-linking: Can 32,000 "deniers" all be wrong? Will the MSM take this story on? Take a walk in the woods. It's good for you. Millennial dreams, fears, and aspirations The crime of being white. Selwyn Duke. It's my parents' fault. Jimmy Carter on Iran: Give them uranium. You can't make this stuff up. “Y’all don’t have to say thank you. Just go ahead and live your life and stay out of our way and we’ll get the job done.” At Jules It combines two of the most popular Eastern US games. What's the name of that game, below? Ask Tiger. Now I return to the tennis courts for the second time today, which would not be feasible to play on horseback. Not one more minute indoors today. 
Photo on top on loan from Theo
Lillpop at CFP Related: "May has been ridiculously quiet everywhere." Kristol
J.S. Bach likely never wrote any music specifically for the piano, which was a newfangled instrument at the time. He did compose for the clavichord, the harpsichord, and, of course, the organ, and people term these compositions generally as "for the keyboard" - thus permitting them to sneak in the piano. Here's a good rant on the subject. (If there are any musicologists out there, please correct me if I am in error.) So when we heard Glenn Gould playing the Italian Concerto on the blog yesterday we were not hearing anything that Bach had in mind. The clavichord is incapable of making very much noise. For fun, here's the real sound of the Prelude in C Major of Bach's The Well-tempered Clavier, which means "The well-tuned clavichord":
Sunday, May 25. 2008
 This is a re-post from 1682:
Thomas Brewton on Locke's view of the centrality of wisdom and virtue in education: Wisdom follows from the foundation of virtue. Wisdom is knowing how most effectively to manage one’s affairs with foresight. Acquiring it is a product of good temper, application of mind, and experience. Wisdom can only be initiated by the teacher, as it is a life-long process of learning from experience how to apply the lessons of virtue. What the teacher can do is to hinder the student from being cunning, what today we call playing the angles, or being street-smart (both of which are end products of John Dewey’s pragmatism, now taught as situation ethics, the idea that you make up the rules for each situation that arises).
Closely related to virtue and wisdom is the concept of good breeding, which flows from the love of God. What Locke meant by the term was an Aristotelian mean between extremes: the student should not be too bashful or gauche in dealing with other people, nor should he be prideful and too full of self-importance. He summarizes the aim as “not to think meanly of ourselves, and not to think meanly of others.” Ill breeding reveals itself in “too little care of pleasing or showing respect for those we have to do with.” The aim is “that general good will and regard for all people, which makes everyone have a care not to show in his carriage any contempt, disrespect, or neglect of them; but to express, according to the fashion and the way of that country, a respect and value for them according to their rank and condition.” Students are to be schooled against roughness, fault-finding (denunciation or ridicule), and being contradictory and captious.
Read entire here. Brewton's website here. Image is Locke - not our friend Tom Brewton.
 What is getting planted this weekend, besides a ton of basil (and I think I need much more) in the veggie garden:
- A nice large mass of Nepeta (Catmint, not to be confused with Catnip). Photo on right. - A 20' shade border edge of Green Spice heuchera. Look how it changes color with the seasons. This variety is a very cool plant. - 20 obscure and delightful Hostas, including Love Pat. We think Hostas look best planted as "wave" plantings in the shade (never in the sun), such that, when mature, the leaves of one plant touch those of the adjacent plant and prevent weeds. For the right effect, that means mass planting of at least 5-10 of the same type, usually, unless you have a spot for a "specimen" plant. To do it right, you have to know what size the darn plant will become. Hostas come in mini, small, medium, large, and extra-large. A medium plant will be 2 1/2-3' across at maturity. An extra-large variety can be 5-6' wide at maturity if it is happy. Hostas mature fairly slowly (3-4 years, like most perennials), and if you divide them they revert and start their maturation process all over again. Best to plant them right the first time, and then leave them alone forever except for some fertilizer in Spring and early Fall. I keep mine well-mulched - most easily done when they first emerge, but before the leaves unfold. Once they unfold, it's tough to do. Do I enrich the soil when I plant them? You bet I do. The old rule is a $50 hole for a $5 plant (unless it's a herb sort of thing that likes bad soil): twice as deep and twice as wide as you feel like digging. Big hole, soil mixed with humus or manure, and peat moss. Plenty of water the first year. And 6" of mulch (not that ugly and ineffective cedar chip crap) unless weeding gives you pleasure.
Glenn Gould plays the Italian Concerto. If it puts you in an Italian state of mind, check out this on Isola Bella: that is Italian! (Click on that small photo to biggify.)
Goose chicks, early this morning (thanks, reader) 
Saturday, May 24. 2008
 How was Home Depot? Crowded. 12 bags of Black Forest mulch, 12 bags of manure, 2 big bags of peat moss.
Now it's 32,000 scientists in the "denier" camp Iranians skeptical about "unconditional dialog". Related: Obama's Illinois legislative career. Should polygamy be a crime in the US? McCain: soft on the border Call me Gerald. Vanderleun on Memorial Day How big is American "big oil"? Not very Bring out your dead (organs). Blue Crab Rancor good for democracy, and other topics Chesler looks at media response to the Karsenty story How not to visit the Adirondacks, via Tiger Time to take away the punch bowl We do not endorse Top Cubans, but they have some Father's Day specials John Kerry on talking with enemies. Who elected this guy to the Senate? An allergy to WiFi? Some people are insane. I have heard of people who react to computers and TV screens. They are psychotic. But our world sometimes seems to be run by psychotics. I think her "gaffe" was mostly innocent, but it's still bad. Anyway, she has been toast for months. Will McCain blowout Obama? I wouldn't be surprised.
Our pal Sippican thought y'all might like this one too, on Bob's Birthday, from his youth. It's probably about some adolescent rebellion thing, but he outgrew that fast. Maybe it's the 1000 year-old younger generational anthem:
Some say that You Belong to Me is owned by Dean Martin, but I think Bob owns it now with this haunting performance of the song from the soundtrack of Natural Born Killers. By the way, Happy Birthday to Bob who turns 67 today and who remains on his "Endless Tour." God bless ya, Bob, and many happy returns.
Who is wise? He who learns from every man.
Who is brave? He who conquers his own urges.
Who is wealthy? He who rejoices in his portion.
Who is honored? He who honors others. Ben Zoma, from The Ethics of the Fathers
At the NYBG in the Bronx, a Henry Moore exhibit all summer. It's the largest outdoor exhibit of Moore's sculpture ever. It's a cool photo op, and it is tough to capture the fluid, organic, muscular forms and the ways that light affects them. 
 This is a weekly Saturday morning feature that will slowly, over time, turn you into a full-fledged computer expert. More info here.
Lesson 7: Cool Tools
The nightmare couldn't have happened to a nicer person.
You.
There you were, innocently saving a small file, when suddenly you were faced with the four most dreaded words in the computer galaxy:
SORRY, HARD DRIVE FULL!
But wait, you cried in despair! You haven't added any large files or anything lately — so where'd all the dang hard drive space go??
Where, indeed?
Well, it's easy enough to find out, isn't it? All you have to do is start right-clicking on all 13,543 folders on your system, open each one's Properties and look at the file size. Have no fear, you'll eventually find what's clogging up your computer.
Eventually.
Or, you could find out almost immediately by simply...
Continue reading "Dr. Mercury's Computer Corner: Lesson 7 - Cool tools"
Friday, May 23. 2008
Have you ever wondered what all of those extra SUVs are in Presidential and VIP motorcades? The ones with blackened windows, and nobody ever gets in or out? Wonder no more. They have a 6-barrelled 7.62 mm minigun which can fire over 3000 rounds per minute. The wipers need to be run to remove spent casings when firing forward. The vehicle is armor-plated. This video is from Dillon Aero, who makes this all happen:
 Photo: That's the 28' Whaler my group is leasing down in RI for the summer (this weekend-Sept 15). 6 guys, and we draw lots by the week. Definitely the best way to have a boat. The only downside is that you have to leave it clean when you finish your assigned times. What's the main cleaning task? Seagull crap. Also, fish scales.
Why Hillary as VEEP is a bad idea for Obama Why Riehl has trouble getting excited about McCain Dems lied, Dems got elected. They admit it. Obama's Communist connections. Israpundit Do they think they own it? Kennedy wants his wife to take his seat. Sounds like a joke. I thought we lived in a post-medieval world. A good thing: Portraits of the fallen comfort broken hearts. CNN Why am I not surprised? Dem calls for nationalizing oil industry. As Gateway asks, is that before or after nationalizing medicine? A record-breaking ski season. Must be that darn global warming cooling climate change. Every election season: Scare the geezers. Can cyberbullying be a crime? Finally found a publication that supports the atrocious Farm Bill. The Nation! That proves the bill stinks. Have any of our readers dined or lunched at Durkin-Park lately? Just wondering whether they have improved from their low point, because it's a fun place.
Over the transom - no idea who wrote this piece (We have posted on this in the past, but I still find it remarkable that self-described Liberals, on average, make more money than self-described Conservatives, yet are far less charitable in their personal lives.): These are results of a Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks. Brooks, a (now-former) Democrat raised by leftist academic parents, describes himself as a "behavioral economist". He researched ten years of data and scientific surveys to get the true picture of giving in America, and in 2006 he published Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters. The results of his research shocked him. He says, "I was in the usual box about heritability and compassion.... I figured conservatives were hardheaded, pragmatic, tough-minded but didn't care as much about others and wouldn't donate as much...I figured liberals were softhearted and cared more" Here are some of the things he found:
Continue reading "Charity"
Quoted from Paul at Powerline, in Success that probably only the Democrats can reverse: This means, as Peter Wehner puts it, that "the debate has shifted from what the right strategy is to one of national will." In other words, "Will our nation, weary of this long and costly war, continue along the path which has brought about indisputable, and in some cases breathtaking, progress?" If so, "there will be honor in our efforts–and, it’s now reasonable to say, success as well."
Best of History Hyperhistory - they make excellent timelines. Timelines give me the context I need.
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