Tuesday, September 30. 2008
Thanks to Vanderleun for finding Graphs on the death of Marxism, postmodernism, and other stupid academic fads. A quote: "The sudden decline of all the big-shot theories you'd study in a literary theory or critical theory class is certainly behind the recent angst of arts and humanities grad students. Without a big theory, you can't pretend you have specialized training and shouldn't be treated as such -- high school English teachers may be fine with that, but if you're in grad school, that's admitting you failed as an academic. You want a good reputation. Isn't it strange, though, that no replacement theories have filled the void? That's because everyone now understands that the whole thing was a big joke, and aren't going to be suckered again anytime soon."
Here's one of his graphs, this one on academic references to Deconstruction: 
...then why not ruin your day and creep yourself out by watching this political horror video (which feels like something from North Korea). I have no reason to believe that this was intended as satire:
 A newsman spills the beans - but we knew it anyway
Mankiw: Warren Buffett has said, "you should get greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy." If he is right, then this is the time to get greedy. There is no doubt that most everyone else is fearful.
Rick Moran on Palin etc: ...the left has jumped all over her with their tried and true personal attack, calling Palin ignorant” and “stupid.” If I had a dollar every time a liberal called a Republican candidate “stupid” I would be wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. Eisenhower (dumb, incoherent), Goldwater (crazy and stupid), Ford (dumb jock and a stumblebum), Reagan (dumb actor), Quayle (can’t spell potato), Jack Kemp (dumb jock), George Bush (dumb playboy). The harsh truth is, the personal attack works when you have the press and other media (think Saturday Night Live riffing off liberal talking points for Ford, Reagan, Quayle, Kemp, and Bush 43), buttressing and playing to that exact same argument. It is a potent combination and only the basic good sense of the American voter has saved the GOP from being shut out entirely over the last 50 years.
Health care's new entrepreneurs. City Journal Banks and markets: It's about confidence, not capital. And yes, Pelosi showed terrible judgement.You don't sandbag colleagues like that. Pennies from Heaven and other songs by Johnny Burke. Steyn For students: Vanderleun's Cornell Note Form. I like it. The electoral map looking ugly for McCain right now. Related: From which of these guys would you buy a used car? Related: Alien Obama at Confederate Yankee
 This is Clematis Henryi. I have just ordered one to grow over an arbor.
In my experience, these are tricky plants and slow to establish themselves. When they are unhappy, there's not a damn thing you can do about it. When they are happy on a sunny fence, they are great. They supposedly like their feet cool, shaded, and mulched. I've tried everything but, like people, they just go their own way and follow their own path, whether it leads to heaven, hell, or Paramus. I also like Sweet Autumn Clematis, which is a tougher, more forgiving variety.
Yes, they joked and giggled. The "bailout plan" was, for them, all about politics and nothing about the country - and only an illusion of bipartisan concern to fool us. These people are not leaders - they are calculating connivers and manipulators of their lap-dog press. It isn't funny. This quote from Sowell today: The roots of this problem go back many years, but since the crisis to which all this led happened on George W. Bush's watch, that is enough for those who think in terms of talking points, without wanting to be confused by the facts. In reality, President Bush tried unsuccessfully, years ago, to get Congress to create some regulatory agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. N. Gregory Mankiw, his Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, warned in February 2004 that expecting a government bailout if things go wrong "creates an incentive for a company to take on risk and enjoy the associated increase in return."
The Dems, with ACORN, adamantly opposed those efforts.
"If someone wrote in the back of your yearbook, 'You can be whatever you want to be,' that was really dumb because you can't be a fish. It is just not going to work out for you." Prof Peter Lawler (of No Left Turns, as quoted here)
 A sad day: After six years, the classy and intelligent New York Sun ceases publication.
Monday, September 29. 2008
 Remembering Japan's banking crisis
The House Bill was a bust. Forget Pelosi: Go with Bush. I know it's Washington, but this is no time for games. WaPo: The power shift from NYC to DC. NY Sun: It's a wealth transfer. Related: VDH on McCain running out of time. A quote: Did the McCain debate victory matter? Yes, it helped, but time is running out and the economy is trumping the campaign battlefield. It matters little that Chris Dodd in disgraceful fashion took $165,000 from the miscreants at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, or that Barney Frank’s vehement opposition to reform of those institutions empowered their near-criminal leveraging. Instead, the incumbent administration and its party in general get blamed or credited for the current economy. Moreover Wall Street as right-wing free-market sewer is a far better known talking point than the more complex corruption of hyper-liberal legislators legitimizing their own dishonesty and graft through calls to help the poor and minorities get loans and be relieved of their debts.
Confessions of a Palin Hater. Seen a lot of that. Mostly women. I don't get it. Chavez and China Tort reform and W. VA docs You just don't say things like this: "We don't want (Hispanics) to become the new African-American community," Lima told The Associated Press. "And that's what the Democratic Party is going to do to them, create more programs and give them handouts, food stamps and checks for this and checks for that. We don't want that."
Kristol: How McCain wins Via Insty: NEW YORK POST: DOCS DETAIL BARACK TIES TO RADICAL. While Barack Obama has long downplayed his connection to Bill Ayers, a co-founder of the violent Weather Underground radical group, new documents show the two worked much more closely together in starting an educational foundation than has been previously known.
The press has been trying to avoid covering this for months. Will they be able to keep it up until November? If not, it won't be for lack of trying . . . . UPDATE: Much more here. "Radicalism disguised by a claim to be postideological."
From Synthstuff: 
One thing community organizers do: Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit. More on Acorn here. And below: Via Anchoress from Okie on the Lam, Barack Obama — The Most Radical Leftist To Ever Get This Close To Occupying The White House? who includes this ACORN network: 
When asked what the stock market would do in the future, J.P. Morgan famously replied "It will fluctuate." Indeed. This Theo farm lassie might cheer up some of us: 
It is a joy to be hidden and a tragedy never to be discovered. D. W. Winnicott
Bruce Kesler sent us this post: . Is the charity tax-deduction excessive? The question is almost never raised whether our tax deduction for charity is excessive. Whatever our religious faith, all agree that charity is a high personal and societal calling and deserves government support. Republicans and Democrats agree, in supporting President Bush’s faith-based organizations in its delivery (although Barack Obama would restrict their ability to exclude hiring outside their doctrine, requiring they act secular instead). However, much described in the tax regulations as charity is not. Scriptures refer to helping the unfortunate and being neighborly and loving. The preferred methods provide means to recipients to support themselves. This concept of charity has been broadened by advocates of non-profit organizations, and by liberal interpretations of scripture, to include virtually anything that one can say is of any possible societal benefit, no matter how narrow, cost-ineffective, more self-serving than serving others, or even a veil for partisan politics. Some conservatives argue against narrowing the tax code. They, justifiably, see our income and assets as our own, not the government’s, and want to keep as much as possible outside the government’s control. Further, they see individual choices as both morally and practically preferable, more cost-effective, better measured, more adaptive, and more focused than government. They are correct.
Continue reading "Is the charity deduction excessive?"
Mulligan at Supply and Demand makes the case for the delinkage of Main Street and Wall Street economies (h/t, Marginal Rev). One quote: ...history has shown that the non-financial sector can do well when the financial sector does poorly, and vice versa.
 Why isn't this a bailout too?
How's this for a wedding invitation? The stench from Missouri What's a POSSLQ? National elections build characters. LA Times Obama in Leftland. Gelernter in Wkly Std Global warming has paused. Why not say "stopped and has begun to reverse itself"? How the NYT blames Bush for the banking problems. Amazing. Related: Mankiw on distorting history Rick Moran answers your questions about the debate. Related: Fact-checking the debate. But what do facts matter? This election is about feelings, not facts.
Reasons to visit Venice's little sister: Giotto, Menabuoi, and Donatello. This is Giotto's Capella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel) in Padua: 
Sunday, September 28. 2008
In Charlie Rose's green room, here. That's an American.
Here he is, my fellow voters.
Ouch. My aching back: 
America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. Joseph Stalin (perhaps - can't prove it)
A reposted deer hunt note from 2007 from our contributor Gwynnie: Gwynnie got to return this August to an annual hunt on one of California’s last great Spanish land-grant ranchos for coast Black-tailed Deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus), also known as Columbian black-tailed deer. The Black-tailed Deer is currently considered a subspecies of the mule deer and can interbreed with the Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus hemionus) where their range overlaps. They share many similarities but are much smaller than a Mule Deer and their ears are smaller too. They are called Black-tailed deer because the bottom two thirds of the tail is black. Up higher, where the tail is attached, the fur is brown and under the tail is whitish. The general body color is reddish to greying-brown (with black hairs interspersed in winter) and the underside of belly, chin, neck patch are white. The brownish color camouflages the deer in the forest and field edges where it lives. Habitat in the Coast Range of California is often as shown in the photo, where they browse oak trees, especially black oak. Black-tails also feed on tender grasses, herbs, branch tips, and new leaves in spring and summer. In winter, they eat Douglas fir, western cedar, Oregon yew, trailing blackberry, red huckleberry, and salal branches. Shooting is usually long-range, and the .270 or the .308 are ideal for shots from 75 to 200 yards. The .243 is OK for the deer, but inadequate for the 300-pound European wild boar that have infested Northern California and are part of the alarming collapse of new oak tree growth – they love acorns. One State scientist is predicting wide-spread extinction of oaks based on the current trend. Gwynnie’s buck, which died instantly from a 75-yard head shot and rolled 100 yards into a precipitous canyon, was a forked-horn, and weighed 116 pounds field dressed. The California State biologist performing her post-hunt autopsy testing for parasitic infections said he was probably 3-4 years old. Other dressed-out bucks ranged from 90 to 118 pounds. 
 A holiday gift that is never wrong.
Farewell to the King Salmon. Smithsonian Farewell to Shea Stadium. The end of Yankee Stadium got all the attention. Newt is furious at Paulson, Bush, etc. Related: How over-regulation caused the banking mess. Related: Here's the Dems refusing to reform Fannie and Freddie in 2004 10 towns hardest hit by banking meltdown. Yes, it includes Darien, CT Real affordable housing. h/t, Insty Kirsanow on Obama: Criticizing George Bush or any of our other political leaders is one thing. Contending America's ideals and values are somehow suspect is a breathtaking statement for a prospective commander in chief to make, especially when thousands of Americans have given life and limb, sons and daughters, in brave demonstration of our ideals and values.
Matthew 21:23-32 23When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” 27So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 28“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. 30The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.
Saturday, September 27. 2008
Should Federal governments (ie taxpayers) support non-commercial arts? Bert Prelutsky says "No." More on the subject from Alberta, via Dust My Broom. And, finally, "It's The Arts:"
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