Friday, May 16. 2008
 Why socialized medicine is not insurance. RightWing Prof
Dating divorced people. Dr. Helen Marriage: Homosexuality, polygamy, and incest (h/t Lucianne) McCain having problems raising money One person's opinion on the 1001 movies you should see before you die. (h/t, Flares) What are the lessons of the W VA primary? Am Thinker Do African kids need laptops for school? Of course not. Sad but true: Wildlife populations plummeting (not because of "global warming") Krauthammer on Israel, a quote: Look at Gaza today. No Israeli occupation, no settlements, not a single Jew left. The Palestinian response? Unremitting rocket fire killing and maiming Israeli civilians. The declared casus belli of the Palestinian government in Gaza behind these rockets? The very existence of a Jewish state. Israel's crime is not its policies but its insistence on living.
A quote from Kathleen Parker: Dems offer thrills 'n chills (speculating that Edwards will be VP candidate): To succeed, they must first create a divide of resentment the size of Montana among the have-not-enoughs toward those perceived to have too much. No one has tried this more brazenly than Edwards with his "two Americas" presidential campaign, which failed twice, by the way. The question -- should this duo have their way -- isn't when will the poor be wealthy enough? But, when will the wealthy be poor enough? While we're waiting to find out, Edwards' tortured Southern shtick is supposed to help Obama with the demographic of white, rural, working-class (non-college) Americans he's been having trouble with. Green room translation: poor, ignorant racists.
 The words on this KY campaign flier read:
My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want. But I won't be fulfilling God's will unless I go out and do the Lord's work.
In a way, I have no big problem with those words (although how one can even attempt to discern God's use for you without tons of prayer and a worshipful heart is beyond me). However, I thought it was a big problem that Bush was inspired by his faith. Somehow this guys' wanting to do his version of God's work to me is apparently no problem. What's up with that? Doesn't this kind of thing raise urgent Church-State concerns for the Lefties? Or is he just trying to reinforce the idea that he isn't a Moslem? In my opinion, nobody has the right to claim that they are doing God's work. That is hubris. Somebody else can say it about you, though, which is a great compliment. (h/t, Insty)
Thursday, May 15. 2008
Re the California court decision, do I have to be homosexual to marry a guy, or lesbian to marry another girl? Or can I do that if I am straight, for insurance benefits or for inheritance tax purposes, or just for the heck of it? Lots of people get married on crazy impulse. And can I marry my brother? If not, why not? If you are gay, why not be able to marry a family member? And then it would only be fair (equal protection) to let straights have the same right. So here's a cool idea for single guys: If your Mom dies, marry your Dad and dodge all inheritance taxes. Vice versa for single gals. Polygamy is next. Mark my words. It will be for the Moslems, not for the Mormons. It's sick out there, and getting sicker...
We disagree with CT Sen. Joe Lieberman on many, if not most issues, but we give him kudos for this. Our thanks to CT for re-electing this good guy.
A review of McCain's first major speech, at Pajamas. One comment about it: McCain to social conservatives: No soup for you! "Rules have to be obeyed." Tangled. The Brits have gone insane. National Greatness Conservatism. TCS Mostly Hot Air: Global Warming Article is titled "5 Mistakes Women make at the Dr's office," but it equally applies to men, I think. Women sometimes tend to think that they are the only humans who experience what they do. Our Army marksmen plan a trip to Beijing How NYC politics works. Is class-based Affirmative Action a worse idea than Race-based?
 Politics is irrational because people are only partially rational, and even less so when it comes to politics and other peoples' money. We recently linked to a piece by Stumbling, who asked:
...what role should empirical evidence have in policy-making? Here’s a theory - very little. Evidence-based policy-making (EBPM) is a sham. I say so for four reasons:
You can read his reasons here. Case in point: The Polar Bear story. An entirely healthy bear population is put on the Endangered List for purely political reasons: Who wants a sound bite out there claiming "He or she refused to protect the cuddly Polar Bears."? It makes you sound heartless and evil, and nobody is going to listen to the statistics. It's about sentiment. However, many of my central beliefs about life are about sentiment too. My belief in the freedom of the individual from the power of the state and of the collective, for example, represents my emotional attachment to our Constitution, its vision, and its cultural underpinnings. To me, a self-evident truth, but some would claim that Resistance is Futile to the power of the Borg. Courage to tell the truth is rare in politicians, of course, because they have their sinecures to look after (which is rational, if cowardly). I give McCain credit for telling the truth about Ethanol, but it's going to hurt him in the corn states: they want to stay on that gravy train (which is rational on their part, if venal and ignoble). Thus people can be most rational when self-interest is directly involved, and sometimes most irrational when it is not. Image: Polar Bear with a fresh seal dinner. Cute, cuddly-looking Polar Bears are believed to kill over 40% of the cute cuddly baby seals born each year in the Arctic regions in which they dwell. They do catch adult seals, too. Polar Bears eat the skin and the blubber, and leave the rest. Editor's note: There is talk going around that the real reason the bears emerged as an issue was as a sentimental proxy issue for preventing drilling in the Arctic, comparable to the familiar "It's for the children..." The thought occurs to me - would this work as well if the bears were black? Is there a racial subtext here? Inquiring minds want to know.
The Anchoress asks herself: Q: So, you’re so holy and you pray everyday? A: I’m not so holy, but yes I do pray everyday; if I did not, I would barely manage to be human - I would be some sort of feral creature rolling about in the teeming muck. All I can tell you is that prayer is a force; it has real power to transform, beginning with oneself, and then externally. Whether praying liturgically or devotionally, scripturally or privately, it moves and shifts our own psychological and spiritual plate tectonics. Deep below our consciousness, it turns our muck into magma and drives us toward constant change, constant growth and even renewal, even if things don’t always look hopeful or promising as it does so. So, don’t fear the earthquakes or the volcanos, either external or internal. Yes, they’re destructive, yes, they’re alarmingly powerful and they change everything in their path. But they are mere moments in eternity, and after they rattle and scorch, things get quiet, and then life begins again - new growth, new structure, new maps. Without the great, seemingly catastrophic events, the earth would stagnate, and so would we. And then we’d have nothing but Sarah Jessica Parker movies in our lives.
Liberals want the US to invade Burma? Darn imperialist liberals. I say to them: No blood for Betel Nuts. The Farm Bill is a Harvest of Shame. Indeed, it consists of political pay-offs, and offers nothing to the country. Hey, GW! How about a speech like that in the US? More on the inconvenient truth that there is no recession. Not yet, anyway. That $33 million Lucien Freud. Propaganda for the 21st Century. Vanderleun ...more later
"Something is burning, baby, are you aware?
Something is the matter, baby, there's smoke in your hair
Are you still my friend, baby, show me a sign
Is the love in your heart for me turning blind?
You've been avoiding the main streets for a long, long while
The truth that I'm seeking is in your missing file
What's your position, baby, what's going on?
Why is the light in your eyes nearly gone?
I know everything about this place, or so it seems
Am I no longer a part of your plans or your dreams?
Well, it is so obvious that something has changed
What's happening, baby, to make you act so strange?
Something is burning, baby, here's what I say
Even the bloodhounds of London couldn't find you today
I see the shadow of a man, baby, makin' you blue
Who is he, baby, and what's he to you?
We've reached the edge of the road, baby, where the pasture begins
Where charity is supposed to cover up a multitude of sins
But where do you live, baby, and where is the light?
Why are your eyes just staring off in the night?
I can feel it in the night when I think of you
I can feel it in the light and it's got to be true
You can't live by bread alone, you won't be satisfied
You can't roll away the stone if your hands are tied
Got to start someplace, baby, can you explain?
Please don't fade away on me, baby, like the midnight train
Answer me, baby, a casual look will do
Just what in the world has come over you?
I can feel it in the wind and it's upside down
I can feel it in the dust as I get off the bus on the outskirts of town
I've had the Mexico City blues since the last hairpin curve
I don't wanna see you bleed, I know what you need but it ain't what you deserve
Something is burning, baby, something's in flames
There's a man going 'round calling names
Ring down when you're ready, baby, I'm waiting for you
I believe in the impossible, you know that I do." "Something's Burning, Baby,"from 1985's Empire Burlesque. The song has never been performed in concert, even in the years immediately after the album's release, so the version below is the original from the album.
Readers know that we tend to maintain an attitude of wholesome skepticism towards almost everything, including ourselves and our own thoughts. In an outstanding post, Driscoll nails the credulity with which some invest government and politicians. He quotes Betsy: Today’s “presidentialists of all parties”—a phrase that describes the overwhelming majority of American voters—suffer from a similar delusion. Our system, with its unhealthy, unconstitutional concentration of power, feeds on the atavistic tendency to see the chief magistrate as our national father or mother, responsible for our economic well-being, our physical safety, and even our sense of belonging. Relimiting the presidency depends on freeing ourselves from a mind-set one century in the making.
Related: Last night's link asking Are we a nation of toddlers? Also related to a number of posts by our Dr. Bliss discussing how politics can be a tempting screen for the projection of, and an arena for the enactment of regressive, ie childish, irrational and unrealistic wishes and aspirations.
Wednesday, May 14. 2008
 Polar Bears and junk science
Over the top. Barack Obama, Fairy Tale King. Are we a nation of toddlers? Botswana and Zimbabwe: A tale of two countries Exercise may help prevent breast cancer. Exercise is good for mind, body, and spirit. But we are all going to die. Karma, Grace, and Bono. Dr. Bob Jailed witches in the UK get magic twigs. I guess they don't burn them anymore? The new translations of the Aeneid Assuming you do not live on arugula from Whole Foods like Obama does, US food spending as % of disposable income over the years Mr. Sammler's City: City Journal Repubs suffering from dry heaves. Commenter Buddy expounds on why losing the White House could be very bad news: Give 'em three house and 60 senators, and we'll never be able to vote 'em out again. We'll slog thru gun control, "industrial policy" (semi-nationalizations), wealth taxation (a new form -- search the term), "fairness doctrine" attacks on conservative media, further destruction of students in favor of teacher's union control, politicization of government agencies (use of IRS, FBI against political enemies, an element of the Clinton's governance which the Dems approved via silence), criminalization of political differences (think Libby, think Waxman), and worst of all, union-directed attack on the global trade system (toward a captive domestic market), causing a 70's style financial collapse, and leading inexorably toward depression and world war. Oh, and say farewll to Israel utterly, and Europe as we know it, and hello to radical Islam, radical anti-west takeover of OPEC, the mideast, Africa, central Asia, Latin America, a takeover of Chinese foreign policy by the chi-com military faction ("hey, here's our big chance!") and an irreversable transfer of capital from west to east. Hyperbole? I fricken wish.
OK, Buddy - but you left out the worst consequence in this bit - the Supreme Court.
 One thing that's really annoying are games and programs that require a CD be in the drive in order to work, or work with all of the features.
The answer is to use a "virtual drive". First, you take a small free program and make one big image file of the CD, then you use another free program to turn the big file into a "virtual drive", which sits there right next to the other drives in 'My Computer'. Instead of looking for the CD, the program will read the files off the virtual drive.
Piece o' cake.
Continue reading "Doc's Computin' Tips: Virtual drives"
 Handle every stressful situation like a dog.
If you can't eat it or hump it,
Piss on it and walk away.
Are wine's pleasures all in your head? What motivates the wine shopper?, by Eric Asimov in the NYT, who notes: In press accounts of two studies on wine psychology, consumers have been portrayed as dupes and twits, subject to the manipulations of marketers, critics and charlatan producers who have cloaked wine in mystique and sham sophistication in hopes of better separating the public from its money.
Is that true? I have tasted some undrinkable wines in my time, very many entirely OK table wines, and some sublime ones. Tasting a wine is like meeting a new person: put your preconceptions away and see who they are. Turning wine into an effete exercise is pure silliness. h/t, a post on the subject at Neuroanthropology. 
Here. (h/t, Right Wing Prof, who says it's Mega Kewl and a seriously tempting time-waster)
 Race is obviously a factor in voting, since most blacks in the US vote Dem, and over 90% of Dem primary voters are voting for Obama (which demonstrates something you could call racism but which, I think, is better described as "tribalism").
I believe that there are plenty of good reasons not to vote for Obama in the general election, but skin color is not one of them. But is it a factor for white Dem primary voters, and for white voters in general? - Judis in TNR: The Big Race - a serious political science look at race and voting patterns - Racist Incidents. WaPo More related stuff: - If you won't join the Obamaborg, you're racist. Moonbattery - White Racist - or Right Reason? View from the Right - via Insty: TONY BLANKLEY: "Race, the yet unclosed scab that has run deep through our history, is about to be discussed as it never has been in a presidential election. . . . I would argue that the more honest the public conversation is the less virulent the private one will be, and therein lies the path to maximum civic hygiene."
Catlin (1796-1872), a Philadelphia lawyer, built his artistic career on paintings of American Indians. This Buffalo Hunt is from this Catlin website. 
This newspaper announcement is from the Smithsonian's collection of Catlin papers: 
Tuesday, May 13. 2008
 A bitter malcontent: The Michelle Obama suicide watch (h/t, Vanderleun)
Mark Helprin on The Challenge from China. I do not happen to see them as an enemy at all, just as a normal growing, amoral world power. Media playing by Obama's rules Never use gasoline to start your grill. Kerosene is OK. We always used to have a barrel of kerosene on the farm, with a spigot. Good for burning garbage too. A countercultural college Who do you call? Licebeaters Sowell: In politics, emotional gratification trumps truth. By the way, I am so ticked off at McCain about this global warming BS that I could spit. If it's just politics, fine, but if he really believes it... Counterjihad: Vienna 2008 The Good Old Days, when kids worked and contributed to their families instead of being lazy spoiled brats. "Members of the Mad Pride movement do not always agree on their aims and intentions." Tim Blair Irene Sendler, RIP Robert Rauschenberg, RIP. I interviewed him once, long ago, as a student. A lively fellow, full of curiosity, and as gay as a Christmas tree. Image: Rauschenberg's collage Stop, 1963
 With a decade of cooling behind us and more decades coming up, your Editor has decided that it's about time to assemble a list of the catastrophic consequences of Global Cooling.
I'll get you started, but I need additions in the comments. We care, and we can make a difference just by spreading awareness of this crisis!!! Problems Attributed to the Global Cooling Crisis Rise in food prices due to reduced crop production and shorter growing seasons, leading to worldwide famine and mass starvation Destruction of citrus, avocado, mango, pepper and tomato crops Increase in road accidents due to ice and snow Icebergs closing northern ports and northern trade routes Polar bear, Reindeer, Musk Ox and Eskimo infestations of residential neighborhoods (see photo) Increase incidence of the common cold, flu, etc: the elderly, children and minorities at greatest risk
Increases in broken bones and cancer as people stay indoors and do not get their natural Vit D from the sun
Increase in fatal heart attacks due to snow shoveling Rises in oil prices due to increased need for imported oil for heating and for 4 WD vehicles Damages bathing suit industry and destroys sun-block business
Fertility rates drop as females don unsexy parkas Stormy weather: nor'easters, blizzards, Perfect Storms, etc. Sea levels fall drastically, destroying marshes, beaches, and coral reefs - and threaten to reconnect Britain with the Continent Divorce - More family conflict due to lengthened ice-fishing season - or from spending too much time together indoors Disrupts migration patterns of birds and fish - animals die and become extinct! Increased Canadian illegal immigration to FL and AZ
Moscow, Toronto, Oslo, London, Sydney, and Boston will be buried under mile-thick glaciers by 2012 Nobody to do the work Americans don't want to do as Mexicans flee back to Mexico
Northern Europeans migrate en masse to the Middle East, bringing cultural dislocation and conflict
Australians invade S. Africa to escape glaciers
Trees killed by the trillions as climate cools, forests disappear and are replaced by tundra. Atmospheric oxygen levels drop: children and minorities at greatest risk.
Help us out in the comments - anything you offer will be officially "Attributed to Global Cooling"
The well-known piece below was written by Lewis Napper in 1993. "We the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid more riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny, guilt ridden, delusional, and other Liberal bed-wetters.
We hold these truths to be self evident: that a whole lot of people are confused by the Bill of Rights and are so dim they require a Bill of NON-Rights
ARTICLE I
You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV, or any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally acquire them, but No one is guaranteeing anything.
ARTICLE II
You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is Based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -- not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc.; But the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be.
ARTICLE III
You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not expect the tool Manufacturer to make you and all your relatives independently wealthy.
ARTICLE IV
You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who achieve nothing more than the Creation of another generation of professional couch potatoes. (This one is my pet peeve...get an education and go to work .. don't expect everyone else to take care of you!)
ARTICLE V
You do not have the right to free health care. That would be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we're just not interested in public health care.
ARTICLE VI
You do not have the right to physically harm other people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone, don't be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the electric chair.
ARTICLE VII
You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you rob, cheat, or coerce away the goods or services of other citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together and lock you away in a place where you still won't have the right to a big screen color TV or a life of leisure.
ARTICLE VIII
You do not have the right to a job. All of us sure want you to have a job, and will gladly help you along in hard times, but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful. (AMEN!)
ARTICLE IX
You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means that you have the right to PURSUE happiness, which by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an over abundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were confused by the Bill of Rights.
ARTICLE X
This is an English speaking country. We don't care where you are from, English is our language. Learn it or go back to wherever you came from!
ARTICLE XI
You do not have the right to change our country's history or heritage. This country was founded on the belief in God. And yet, you are given the freedom to believe in any religion, any faith, or no faith at all; with no fear of persecution. The phrase IN GOD WE TRUST is part of our heritage and history, and if you are uncomfortable with it, TOUGH!!!!"
Jerry Muller at Foreign Affairs. The summary of his essay: Americans generally belittle the role of ethnic nationalism in politics. But in fact, it corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit, it is galvanized by modernization, and in one form or another, it will drive global politics for generations to come. Once ethnic nationalism has captured the imagination of groups in a multiethnic society, ethnic disaggregation or partition is often the least bad answer.
It's about healthy nationalism and the problems with the multicultural "ideal" in most places. Read the whole thing.
This video is hilarious on several levels. However, I think the corny advice still makes good sense.
|
