Sunday, December 14. 2008
I am away tomorrow morning. Busy on a job in Dallas. Yes, Texas is booming with biz and jobs, unlike much of the world.  Have you read Vanderleun's The Star yet?
Classical Values takes a look at the defunct Packard assembly plant Corporate DNA. Coyote Our pal Sipp makes it into the dead tree media. And rightly so - he works with dead trees. The southern auto industry mocks Detroit Jim Rogers says most US banks bankrupt CT's Dodd still ducking. Gee whiz, all he did was to use his job to get VIP mortgages. What do you expect? It's just a perk. Wizbang had New Author Tryouts Where the heck does Steven Chu live? Arizona? Its' been cold as heck up here. We are in trouble. Is the Obama Admin already damaged goods? If so, it's self-inflicted, but John McCain blames the Repubs. Huh? What's up with John? Related: Blago in context: Tiger. Related: Schadenfreude Time? From View from the Right on Madoff: "Madoff—quiet, modest, simple, direct, generous, thoughtful, helpful, and not greedy," I pointed to the apparent contradiction that a colossal crook and robber like Bernard Madoff--a man who cooly defrauded his clients of $50 billion, a destroyer of wealth who wiped out the assets and the endowments of the individuals and organizations that had trusted him--exhibited so many personal virtues.
The community organizer's wet dream. Obama wants to spend a trillion. That's our money. Rahm Emanuel headed to a grand jury. How fun for him. Surber Update: The death of the piano industry. Also, Palin's church and arsonists Michael Yon in Afghanistan. What a guy he is. Santa brings pain and suffering. Bad, bad Santa. Be good, or else... Who is Thomas Tamm? Via Viking: CNN: "Taxpayers: Furious over homeowner bailouts" "All these idiots who bought homes they couldn't really afford are going to be rewarded with loan modifications, but what about those of us who didn't make stupid decisions?" asked Jay Black, a CNNMoney.com reader who rents in Queens, N.Y. Sir, don't you know it's your patriotic duty to bail out your fellow American dummies? Sheesh.
Hey, No fair. Maggie's has a patent on Sheesh! and Good Grief! Conservatives and the Delusions of the Left. Radosh Haven't we had enough of the Kennedys? How long can people politically trade on an Irish name? Another name fetish: Calls for Jesse Jackson Jr. to resign The IPCC wants no more data. Don't confuse me with facts? Our hero Klaus begs to differ. Feminism update: More women criminals. Equality Now! Yikes: THE END OF OBJECTIVITY AT GOOGLE? “Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It’s a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance. . . . None of this would matter, if it wasn’t for one other trend: a paralysing loss of confidence in media companies.”
All dressed up and nothing to do. Joe Biden. He is was a tool.
Thanks to our pal Dr. Bob for finding this. Apparently Edward Feser and Heather (who we also like very much) have been having an exciting correspondence about religion and politics. Feser more or less begins thus: The source of my dispute with you is the criticism that you (like Kathleen Parker and others) have been making of religion – not of this or that kind of religion, and not of this or that individual religious believer, but of religion per se – to the effect that it is irrational, and that this irrationality has something to do with its purported lack of scientific grounding.
Read the whole thing (link above).
We had the pleasure of attending a private showing of the Holiday Train show at the New York Botanical Garden yesterday, followed by a fine group brunch at the Cafe. As the Daily News says, You want to get bowled over? You want to see something spectacular? Get to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, where an only-in-New York holiday show opens..."
The highlight of the annual show isn't the trains - although they are set up wonderfully. It's the 140 architectural constructions of NY landmark buildings, past and present, constructed entirely from plant material collected in the woods by Kentucky artist/designer Paul Busse. Even the windows are made of plant resins and saps. The rustic nature of the structures makes it more of a fairyland than slicker models would do. Yankee Stadium of course: 
The Apollo Theater. See the acorn caps in the molding?: 
More below the fold -
Continue reading "The Holiday Train Show in The Bronx"
 A techie reader likes these handy machines: ASUS Netbooks.
 God and Evolution, by Avery Cardinal Dulles in First Things (h/t, View from 1776). One quote:
Science can cast a brilliant light on the processes of nature and can vastly increase human power over the environment. Rightly used, it can notably improve the conditions of life here on earth. Future scientific discoveries about evolution will presumably enrich religion and theology, since God reveals himself through the book of nature as well as through redemptive history. Science, however, performs a disservice when it claims to be the only valid form of knowledge, displacing the aesthetic, the interpersonal, the philosophical, and the religious.
My experience has been that scientists and mathematicians tend to be humble about their ability to find ultimate Truths. It's non-scientists and those without scientific education who seem more likely to view science as a potential embodiment of Truth rather than as a collection of methods, data and theories - all of which change over time. As I see it, Evolutionary Theory has little or nothing to do with the life of the Spirit. I am reminded of this survey which found that most doctors are believers.
 Bismarck. Global cooling is our new crisis. New Hampshire is in the deep freeze, with ice storms and unseasonable cold - and their power is out. Not mine.
All we can do to help is to drive our Hummers to the mall. Eagerly awaiting explanation from Al Gore. Oh, he did have something to say: North Pole to disappear in 5 years. Is that a promise? So how come the ice cap is growing? And who cares anyway? His fear-mongering hyperbole has turned him into a joke.
Galatians 5:15-26 (NIV) 16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. 19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Paul's letter to the argumentative and self-righteous Galatian Christians was my mens' group study on Friday. "Resist the flesh by nailing it to the cross," says Martin Luther on this passage. Hmmm. Right now? A comment at Bible Gateway says this about Galatians: Moral failure in the church should not be a surprise, nor should it be considered fatal to the life of the church. What is important is the church's response when such failure occurs. The church may respond with harsh condemnation under the law. That response will crush the sinner and divide the church. That seems to have been what was happening in the churches in Galatia. The zealots for the law were merciless to sinners. But Paul wants to show that the occasion of sin is the opportunity for Spirit-led people to display the fruit of the Spirit in order to bring healing to the sinner and unity in the church.
and this: In order to bring healing to the sinner, we must have a compassionate view of the one who has sinned. Paul does not define the kind of sin, but he does describe the consequence of sin. He views the sinner as one who is caught in a sin. When a person sins, other people are hurt; other people are victims of that sin. But we must remember that sinners themselves are also in some sense victims of sin. Abusers have also been abused. They have been overtaken, ambushed and seized by sin. Paul is not excusing the sinner of personal responsibility. But he is recognizing the terrible captivating force of sin. Just as Jesus said, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin" (Jn 8:34), so now Paul says that the one who sins is trapped by sin. When we view moral offenders as those who are enslaved and entrapped, we have a compassionate attitude toward them. We will want to help them break the bondage of sin over their life.
Friday evening on the CT coast: 
Saturday, December 13. 2008
I tend to avoid the f-word in polite company, but that is what this celebratory season of the birth of our Savior can bring out in anybody if we aren't careful. Shopping, when one should be hunting. I journeyed forth out into the cold with the puppy in the front seat (dog driving, natch) to fetch a special antique item, finally found after 5 years of searching. A 5' long, shallow-depth gen-u-ine Queen Anne hunt table. A Christmas season addition to the Farm pile of heirlooms. They sold the thing yesterday. I thought times were tough. Maybe not. Wasn't cheap but not expensive either: $1450. A fine but phony-looking repro could cost triple the real deal. Got a nice happy tree on the way back, but I am still still f-ing right now, which I do not wish to be doing today. I tried to teach my kids that life's opportunities are an endless, but non-repeating, conveyor belt of chances. Life keeps reminding me of that fact. To tell the truth, I really did like that table, dings, sags, cracks and all, but not quite worn-out yet. It contained many stories of Olde England. Of course, it's not really important...just a bunch of black 1690 oak which some barbarian might start a fire with. But perfect for the open spot, and perfect for pre-hunt rows of sherry glasses and a hearty toast to our huntsman, the stalwart Col. Reggie Smythe. Lady at the antique consignment store said biz is great. But why the f- didn't Mrs. BD take the plunge and just buy it when she first saw it? She must know by now that I like anything Queen Anne. F-.
From the piece on time we posted yesterday, which I felt deserved an enticing quote: In Rovelli's scheme, a clock's hands do not point upright because the universe says it is 12 o'clock; they point upright because of the location of the pendulum. Therefore the notion of time is meaningful only in a small range of physical situations in the universe, such as human experience. In most cases, however, time is meaningless. "In general, there is no time at all," Rovelli says. Though this approach might seem radical, many researchers share Rovelli's sentiments. For example, Harvey Brown, an expert on scientific interpretations of reality from the University of Oxford, has argued that we "construct" time from the physical properties of the things around us. Newton and Leibniz debated this very point. Newton portrayed space and time as existing independently, while Rovelli and Brown share Leibniz's view that time and space exist only as properties of things and the relationships between them. It is still not clear who is right, says John Norton, a philosopher based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter. If the central property of space-time is the result of the existence of matter, how can we be sure that space and time exist on their own and are not convenient illusions? "Hence my hesitation," Norton says. How can we be sure that time and space exist on their own and are not convenient illusions?
I suspect that only the present exists, and that time is a property of matter, and not a thing in itself. Words are symbols, and just a pale reflection of reality. Including the word "reality." But what do I know? And, by the way, what time is it?
More importantly, re Time - how many shopping days 'til Christmas? I do not shop. Except for guns.
Anchoress: Getting some hate mail from my piece up at Pajamas Media. I’m being accused of wanting an “American theocracy”. Not at all. I simply am pointing out that a determinedly secular mindset will not make much of a dent against an equally determined supernatural mindset, and so the West should not be so dismissive of the power and usefulness of the vocabulary of faith. And I can’t be completely wrong since, as we see here at Hot Air, most Americans are open to that vocabulary.
 According to feedback here and elsewhere, the article I posted last week on increasing one's browsing speed made a real difference with certain systems. Here's another trick that might improve your online performance. This is for WinXP.
Certain programs that require online access use what's called the "QoS Policy" in Windows, which allots them a slice of your bandwidth. In its wild and fanciful way, Windows somehow figures that receiving a business fax or accessing an online database is more important than downloading more Web porn — those crazy fools.
Traditionally, if someone's tweaking their system, the QoS is turned off. But I was reading a guide the other day and it said that some programs will sense it's off and turn it back on, so the 'trick' is to leave it on — but set it to 0%.
Relatively easy procedure is below the fold.
Continue reading "Doc's Computin' Tips: Another online tweak"
 Betty Page died on Thursday at 85. Photo from the article. She liked to take her clothes off, I am told. A sexual freedom icon. Cute girl. Every rose must fade and die.
Speaking of time passing, a 1940 Dodge, like new. Reminds me of Woody Allen's VW in Sleeper. Driscoll: "Dissent: It's the highest form of patriotism. But patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Party time in Baghdad. We done good. Problem was, the UAW didn't "release" the Dems for the vote. The UAW owns the Dems? I thought Soros owned the Dems. Woops. They got it wrong. Fastest-growing states and the election. Scott at Powerline remembers Sinatra's birthday with a remarkable tune. Bailout means payback. Roger. That's what it's all about. By the way, take a look at the 22 lb. UAW contract. Good grief. Does anybody know what is even in there? Two huge Dem scandals since the election: Rangel and Blago. Not a good start. And no, it doesn't please me at all: it just reinforces everybody's terrible opinion of pols. Zimbabwe update. Socialism at work. Two frozen treats from Thompson: How Eskimos build igloos (1951 video), and photographing snowflakes.
An annual repost: The Beeb decided to censor this classic 20 year-old song by The Pogues (with Kirsty McColl) last year. Lyrics here. Due to presumably overwhelming pressure, the Beeb reversed itself.
Friday, December 12. 2008
A deeply insightful list, at Theo
THE BELL
I KNOW WHO I AM
I am God's child (John 1:12)
I am Christ's friend (John 15:15 )
I am united with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17)
I am bought with a price (1 Cor 6:19-20)
I am a saint (set apart for God). (Eph. 1:1)
I am a personal witness of Christ. (Acts 1:8)
I am the salt & light of the earth (Matt 5:13-14)
I am a member of the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27)
I am free forever from condemnation ( Rom. 8: 1-2)
I am a citizen of Heaven. I am significant (Phil 3:20)
I am free from any charge against me (Rom. 8:31 -34)
I am a minister of reconciliation for God (2 Cor 5:17-21)
I have access to God through the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:18)
I am seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6)
I cannot be separated from the love of God (Rom 8:35-39)
I am established, anointed, sealed by God (2 Cor 1:21-22 )
I am assured all things work together for good (Rom. 8:28 )
I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit (John 15:16 )
I may approach God with freedom and confidence (Eph. 3: 12 )
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13)
I am the branch of the true vine, a channel of His life (John 15: 1-5)
I am God's temple (1 Cor. 3: 16). I am complete in Christ (Col. 2: 10)
I am hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). I have been justified (Romans 5:1)
I am God's co-worker (1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor 6:1). I am God's workmanship (Eph. 2:10)
I am confident that the good works God has begun in me will be perfected. (Phil. 1: 50I have been redeemed and forgiven ( Col 1:14). I have been adopted as God's child (Eph 1:5) I belong to God
 The EU Mandarins still planning to create a nation
Was NYC the original Mumbai target? What does Colin Powell mean by "polarizing"? Hot young housewives at The Max Planck Institute. Where else? What is an American car, anyway? What does "property rights" mean? Wilkinson Gateway is all over the Obama-Blago story today. Is Obama vetting a new Chief of Staff? Watch out. Here come Obama's Carbon Busters in the WSJ. One quote (in a week of record snows): The EPA long ago became the government arm of the environment lobby, but Ms. Browner was especially political. During her EPA salad days, she put out air-pollution standards that even the agency itself said would have no measurable impact on public health, purely as antibusiness punishment. She forced GE to dredge the Hudson River of PCBs that posed no threat to the public. Ms. Browner also rewrote a law called New Source Review so that power plants, refineries and other industries were always breaking the particulate emissions rules. But her most pernicious inspiration was the idea that the EPA could by itself classify carbon as a "dangerous pollutant" under current clean-air laws and thus impose new taxes and restrictions on all types of energy. Under Ms. Browner's orders, EPA general counsel Jonathan Cannon prepared a 1998 memorandum concluding that "CO2 emissions are within the scope of the EPA's authority to regulate," even though Congress specifically declined to include carbon when it last amended the Clean Air Act in 1990. Now a law professor, Mr. Cannon serves on the Obama transition team.
Indeed, that is an arrow aimed at the heart of the American economy. Would they dare go further?
Battle by joystick. Ace quoted this piece on the use of CROWS (Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station) in the Middle East:  The remote control turret changed the battlefield more than you might think. It all began three years ago, when the U.S. Army realized that new remote control gun turret designs actually worked, and suddenly they could not get enough of them... The main issue was that the enemy was no longer able to knock out the turret gunner, early in a firefight, and take away a lot of the vehicles firepower. Because of that, once the enemy opens fire, they are in trouble. The remote turret tends to begin delivering accurate fire right away, and is much more immune to enemy fire than a human gunner. If the vehicle is a Stryker, the enemy will soon find themselves dealing with half a dozen or so heavily armed infantry, who get out of the vehicle and come at the ambushers. Iraqis don't like that. They also don't like how some of the CROWS turret equipped vehicles will come after them. All those accurately aimed bullets coming their way, and no enemy soldiers in sight, is demoralizing.
Photo is from Defend America's 2005 piece on CROWS.
Wooly Mammoths rumored seen in Louisiana swamps. My brother took this "climate change" photo yesterday in New Orleans: 
Thursday, December 11. 2008
 Posting this tonite because I'll be away tomorrow -
So maybe that reported Obama-Blago meeting never happened? I'm totally confused now, but Volokh's timeline helps clear it up. Related, Mad or Bad? Warnings about Blago Does time exist? New Scientist (h/t, Flares). I don't think it "exists," but it sure is a good practical concept, especially at dinner time. This report about the Sphinx is old news, isn't it? Yes, it was jungly there in those days. Re Greece: "This is a country with a state that is in a shambles, a police force in disarray, mediocre universities that serve as hotbeds of rage instead of knowledge and a shattered health care system. It is also on the brink of financial ruin."
Ann Coulter on the Minnesota vote A "Green Bible"? Good grief. The House roll call for the bailout vote. As Betsy says: Oh, yeah. These companies have been losing market share for decades and haven't been able to restructure to meet new circumstances. But in three months they're supposed to change all that and make sure that we have a "viable automotive industry?" And all for a relatively cheap $15 billion? Do you really believe that Pelosi has that sort of magic wand?
And more, from Prof. Macey via Tiger: We need to encourage market solutions -- not bureaucratic ones -- as the best strategy for addressing the corporate governance failures we face today. Hedge funds and activist investors like Carl Icahn are the solution, not the problem. The market for corporate control should be deregulated and the SEC's restrictions on all sorts of equity trading should be lifted at once.
And more, from Boudreaux: A government bailout of the Big Three keeps huge amounts of productive inputs in firms that can't use them efficiently. Forcing taxpayers to subsidize the continued employment of gargantuan quantities of raw materials, labor and capital goods in unproductive pursuits is a recipe for economic stagnation. The popular and politically convenient myth has matters backwards: The bigger the unprofitable firm, the more vital it is that it be allowed to fail.
And, predictably, Big Academia wants some bailout money too. Gimme. And, last but not least: Bailing out Big Cheese Update: Auto bailout is dead. The unions wouldn't budge. Money for nothin' and the chicks for free...
We hate dealing with the concept of race, mainly because race does not exist in any meaningful way. It's a socio-cultural concoction, we feel, born of the natural (and not evil) human tendency towards tribal affiliation. Still, we must deal with it sometimes because it seems to matter so much to people, despite MLK Jr's insistence on categorizing people on their characters. I am 1/16th Iroquois. Am I an Indian? Can I open a casino and get rich ripping off Whitey? The Arkansas Times takes a look at From Octoroon to Other.
 Well, probably soon if global cooling continues.
Here's the real story: Among Scientists, Resistance to Global Warming Hoax Spreads Image from Moravec's cool Prehistoric World Images of Wooly Bullies in New Jersey, not very long ago. As we always say here, we should all pray for Globalistical Warmening and maybe it will happen.
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