Sunday, June 21. 2009
Superb on-the-ground report in the second half. Read it all. When people bleed for tyranny, we feel ill. When they bleed for freedom, we are inspired - and we hope we could be so bold ourselves.
For Father's Day, I am recommending Matthew Crawford's 2006 essay about work, of the above title, in The New Atlantis. One quote:
 ...the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favor: manual competence, and the stance it entails toward the built, material world. Neither as workers nor as consumers are we much called upon to exercise such competence, most of us anyway, and merely to recommend its cultivation is to risk the scorn of those who take themselves to be the most hard-headed: the hard-headed economist will point out the opportunity costs of making what can be bought, and the hard-headed educator will say that it is irresponsible to educate the young for the trades, which are somehow identified as the jobs of the past. But we might pause to consider just how hard-headed these presumptions are, and whether they don’t, on the contrary, issue from a peculiar sort of idealism, one that insistently steers young people toward the most ghostly kinds of work.
I see he has expanded his thoughts into a new book. An excerpt from the book appeared in The NYT Magazine last month: The Case for Working with your Hands. A quote from that:
High-school shop-class programs were widely dismantled in the 1990s as educators prepared students to become “knowledge workers.” The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass. To begin with, such work often feels more enervating than gliding. More fundamentally, now as ever, somebody has to actually do things: fix our cars, unclog our toilets, build our houses.
When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idealize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur — the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during a storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use,” which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.” Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.
Some days, definitely. Other days, more abstract work is just fine. 50/50 might be ideal for me, but a work-out in a gym is no substitute for doing something physical and real. We men need to engage mind and muscle together to feel whole.
You can see it in any little boy, and it never goes away. Chain saws, brush wackers and tractors are my skill level. It's called unskilled (at best, semi-skilled) work.
Many of us here have discussed how much can be learned from failure, and how relatively little can be learned from success.
Thus it is gratifying to see the child of Memphis and legendary hedge fund owner Paul Tudor Jones delivering a 9th Grade graduation address to the "Buckley Boys" in which he declined to discuss the recommended sanctimonious topic of "service" and instead spoke about the value of failure.
Good on him. Almost all of my wisdom has come from my errors and failures - whether personal or professional. Read his speech, and invite your kids to read it too.
 Continual Iran updates at Gateway, whence the photo. We wish the best for all of the brave and lovely women in Iran's Lipstick Revolution.
Related: Driscoll notes that great powers always have a dog in the fight, because a posture of evenhanded neutrality always has non-neutral effects.
Related: Ace rightly notes that the O's refusal to stand strong with the protesters can damage future relations with Iran. The man is a pussy, a Prom Queen. The only things he gets tough with are Republicans, FOX news, and our international allies and friends like the Brits and Israel.
Related: NYT says Supreme Leader has lost his aura. They are not referring to the O.
Fresh grilled, organic Neanderthal. Yum
Via Dino:
Obama himself gave us ample warning of his reckless grandiosity during the 2008 campaign. So we can’t say we weren’t warned. The situation has only gotten worse in the months since his inauguration. And there’s 3.5 years to go. Help!
Related: No enthusiasm for medical care reform
Related: Medical care plan would not apply to Congress! Via Blue Crab:
From what is known about the tippity-top secret bill at this point, it appears that it is bad enough that Congress will not allow it to apply to themselves or the rest of the Federal government.
That should tell you all you need to know about this bill.
Roger Cohen of the NYT is in the streets. Related: The O steps up to the plate, befuddling those who defended his silence.
Vanderleun found a new financial manager
Big goose hunt in NYC. Wish they had called us. It could have been a good Maggie's Farm outing with 12 ga. guns, BB shot, and no limit.
Michelle O and Walpin.
I agree that the "war against drugs" failed. It's been going on since Nixon. All it does is raise the cost of drugs and increase the crime. It's past time to re-think it. It's too bad that drug users generally have little interest in getting over it, but that's reality.
What the late lamented Milton Friedman said about medical care costs. He makes a number of excellent points, including that it is employee insurance that drives the prices up. h/t, Mankiw
Why would anyone want to release rabid rats?
Do not take photos of kids in England. It's assumed you're a pervert if you do.
The looming middle class tax increases. Even some Dems are waking up, like drunks after a bad binge. They have been drinking on our nickel since January.
Move over, Climate Change. The hysteria du jour is Swine Flu.
Saturday, June 20. 2009
The New York Times, otherwise known as the Grey Lady, might more appropriately be known as Obama’s Shady Lady. Believe its poll and get a Times Square disease.
The lead headline is about a NYT/CBS News Poll, trumpeting “Wide Support for Government-Run Health.” The lead paragraph:
Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind [72%] one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
BUT, according to the actual poll data, of the 73% of respondents who said they voted in 2008 only 34% voted for McCain and 66% for Obama. The actual vote was 46% (corrected) McCain. So, 29% of McCain voters ignored by the poll must not be Americans, according to the NYTs methodology, and there are about as much an overpolling of Obama voters. NYT's Shady Lady polling.
A sucky day. Two tooth extractions last evening as prep for some implants, and then today the basement flooded (17/20 of the past days with heavy rain). It's raining as I type, too.
Six guys here all day with a dumpster and suction hoses removing everything from the basement (old tax records and other records too, totally soaked), the carpet, the tiles and linoleum underneath, the wood shelving, etc etc. How heavy is soaked carpet? Plus the wallboard took a terrible hit: it's done. Fans and dehumidifiers humming away right now. What an f-ing mess.
Glad I have homeowner's insurance. Sorry I do not have dental insurance - but I'd be uninsurable in that regard.
I tell myself that if these are my worst problems, I am probably in pretty good shape. But my jaw hurts. Don't you hate it when people complain? It makes others feel like they should say or do something to make it better, or to fix it.
Well, at least I am not in an iron lung ward. That must have really sucked. The last iron lung inhabitant died last year. My brain makes me wonder how they avoided bedsores, how they pooped, and why they didn't unplug the damn thing late at night while the nurses were dozing:
If you don't have unlimited funds and if you are not the sort of experienced traveller who likes to do everything yourself, your own way, check out our friends at Club ABC before the summer is over.
As you can imagine, times are tough in the travel biz but that means that there are still ways to go someplace interesting without breaking the bank. The prices are better than they should be.
The folks at ABC have been generous to Ducks Unlimited. Enuf said.
Ali Akbar Khan, master of the sarod, died today. He has been considered by some to have been the greatest living musician, but I have no idea how anybody could, or would want to, determine that.
Here he is pickin' a raga.
As we grow up, we realize that no Dads are "great men" in the usual sense. Just as flawed as we are. But, in my view, any Dad who sticks by his kids and keeps 'em in sneakers is a darn good one.
Neptunus discusses his Dad for Father's Day.
In the wake of trying to squelch three federal Inspector Generals, there’s this story about how those who try to expose Obama, Obama administration, and Obama ally activities are dealt with.
[UPDATE: ACORN tries to hide behind a change in name, and more about it trying to squelch former members. Same smell remains.]
ACORN/ProjectVote has filed a suit against Anita Moncrief, asking damages of well over $5 million. Anita Moncrief is a former employee who has distributed internal emails to exhibit illegal ties between the Obama presidential campaign and ACORN/ProjectVote, and she has testified and written widely about what she knows. ACORN/ProjectVote has received tens of millions of federal funds and is slated to receive many, many more millions.
The 30-page civil action filed by ProjectVote is downloadable here. Legal papers are not my usual Saturday morning reading, but this one caught my eye as an illustration of legal thuggery.
The charges are basically three:
Moncrief misappropriated about $1700 while an employee, of which she’paid back about $500 before Moncrief’s employment was terminated. She helped expose how a former executive stole $1million. In a blogpost by Moncrief last November, she admits her own misuse of funds and takes responsibility, pleading extreme need due to poor health insurance benefit and pay. Yet the suit presents nothing about trying legally to recover the remaining funds from her. The charge appears in order to lay groundwork for reducing Moncrief’s credibility and as reason for her seeking vengeance.
The next charge is that Moncrief misappropriated ProjectVote’s trademark by her use of the email address projectvotenews@mail.org to distribute internal emails exhibiting embarrassing doings to donors. This appears a weak charge as in this grey area of law it does not appear she infringed on the trademark. See, for example, “Fair Use of Trademarks” at the The Publishing Law Center.
The next charge is that Moncrief damaged relationships with donors. No impact on donations is presented. Another weak charge.
The complaint includes, in addition to Moncrief, a “John Doe”, another employee who may have supplied Moncrief with additional internal material. This appears an effort to unearth the remaining whistleblowing mole.
A competent legal team for Moncrief should be able to deal with the charges, and in the process of discovery and media coverage bring further to light ACORN/ProjectVote’s nature. Hopefully, Moncrief will obtain it, or be squelched by her own lack of funds to defend herself and our right to know where and how our tax dollars are used.
Of note, the New York Times shut down its investigation of ACORN/ProjectVote. Newsbusters describes some of the details.
But apparently Moncrief's information was suddenly no good when it might have embarrassed the Obama campaign.
Heidelbaugh testified before a congressional committee in March that the nonprofit group violated a host of tax, campaign finance, and other laws. She said the Obama campaign sent ACORN its "maxed out donor list" and asked two of the avowedly nonpartisan group's employees "to reach out to the maxed out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN."
 A CT friend emailed these (you can readily tell in what sorts of directions his interests lie):
Danbury Railway Museum
Connecticut Antique Machinery Association
The Shore Line Trolley Museum
and, if your travels happen to take you near Coalbrookdale, England,
Ironbridge, Birthplace of Industry.
Photo: An old trolley at the Trolley Museum. I remember how the old trolley tracks could twist your bike tires when you rode over them as the tracks were gradually consumed by layers of asphalt. The bus lobby beat out whatever trolley lobbies there were and roads, unlike tracks, were built and maintained by government. A shame.
Photo below: Cylinder of a Corliss Steam Engine at the Machinery Museum
 Our engagement kid ran off with one of our cars to get to his Dartmouth reunion. That's OK, we have spare cars.
But what is it about Dartmouth that loyalty would lead to such felonious behavior?
My uncle went there, and he was a D nut too. Wa-hoo-wah!
The 48' Colin Archer above is for sale, but what we really need up here in the Northeast is an Ark. Almost up to 40 days and 40 nights of cold rain. Nobody is boating much yet. I call all crummy weather "climate change" now. Don't you? Aren't we entitled to nice weather? Why doesn't the government do something about it?
Consumer Reports on digital cameras
Why is The Economist thriving?
Cool military mini-flying robots, with video
Iran has clamped down, but one message goes out
Via Examiner:
...when asked the most important economic issue facing the country, 24% chose the budget deficit and only 11% chose health care
Related, at Cafe hayek:
I want more rationing with less control where power is dispersed. The "reformers" want more rationing with more control and more power. They scare me.
Related: The O's own Doc knocks Obamacare
Related: Honeymoon is over
Related: Dems cannot agree on cap & trade.
What happened to AARP? Volokh:
AARP's official mission is now stated as leading "positive social change".
Sheesh. Gimme a break. They think they are the YWCA? But why should I care?
From Insty:
JOHN TIERNEY: U.S. Climate Report Assailed: “The new federal report on climate change gets a withering critique from Roger Pielke Jr., who says that it misrepresents his own research and that it wrongly concludes that climate change is already responsible for an increase in damages from natural disasters.”
Does academia believe that they all think alike because they're smarter than me? I do not think that they are. They just chose different careers. Everybody is a careerist, to some extent.
Coyote calls out the BS brigade. There is no warming, boys and girls.
The usually serene Kimball loses it about Frank Rich. Don't we all?
Tort law in America is like a lottery. $16 million for what?
Megan: Is comprehensive health care dead? Related, at NRO:
It is a foregone conclusion that the bill now getting marked up in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) is not going anywhere.
Related, Wherein Tyler Cowan makes no sense to me:
Note that the economy has seemed to stabilize, more or less, and well under ten percent of the stimulus money has been spent to date. Moving forward, if no further major programs will be put into place, how would you like to spend the rest of that cash?
Seriously.
But Tyler, that cash doesn't exist yet. It's debt. Debt isn't money - it's negative money.
A friend sent a photo he took of the Darien, CT train station. At 5:45 am the southbound platform would be jammed with riders to NYC:
Friday, June 19. 2009
All about grit, at In Character.
Stolen from Moonbattery. (Hope he doesn't mind all of the recent thefts):
My grandmother, advocate of the turn of the century (that’s early 1900’s) democratic socialism based in defense of the little guy from rampant big business, taught me that the biggest myth in America is the efficiency of big business. So, government grew in regulations and programs, and so did unions, to counter big business and favor the little guy. ‘Till now it’s a truism that big government is inefficient and too little the friend of the little guy, and big unions are money founts for their leaders at the expense of labor having jobs. Meanwhile, big business has more and more become an ally of big government and unions to divide the spoils, and stifle competition and innovation. All that leaves to maneuver for the little guy against the increasing encroachments of the biggies is small business and individuals.
It’s time for more small businesspeople and individuals to defy the biggies with a chant of I am Spartacus, or I am an American.
(No, I didn’t purposely ignore big academia. It has made itself largely irrelevant via meaningless coursework enriching self-serving pedants.)
Consider a few datapoints:
Investigative journalist Tim Carney reminds us that in 1993 the biggest insurers supported Hillarycare, to shift liability risk onto taxpayers and profit from claims-processing contracts. Small insurers, brokers who work with small companies, and individuals revolted. Today, the big insurers are again cooperating with the government-dictated health care advocates, as long as the big insurers can profit from more premium payers steered their way.
The Canadian medical societies remind us not to go north for a model of government-dictated health care, as the waits are excessive by even long-wait standards approved by the government.
The former Chief Economist of the US Chamber of Commerce reminds us (sorry, a subscription only column) that when government as umpire controls a team, bad and self-serving calls are to be expected.
Michelle Malkin reminds us that Mrs. Obama and President Obama’s chief political operative worked to reduce care for the poor, to enrich her employer (and her compensation).
Mickey Kaus reminds us that unions are to be exempted from Obamacare, and further benefit from attracting members through higher benefits than the rest of us.
The CEO of the consumer highest-rated insurer in the US reminds us that he doesn’t so much fear government-plan competition but, “more about the federal government’s ability to do this at all, much less do it well. Merely coordinating basic demographic information between Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - three big federal programs that millions of Americans belong to - can be a chore for beneficiaries, their children, and their health plans.”
Be Spartacus. Say "I am American. I refuse to be pushed around by the biggies, or under their thumb."
Write or call your congressional representatives to represent your views.
Ask your employer and your doctors to do so too.
Bill Whittle, on why socialized medicine matters. (It's the door to socialized everything.)
From Moonbattery:
"Mr. Gorbachev, that wall is none of our business." — Ronald Reagan
"December seventh, nineteen forty-one. A date upon which we must ask ourselves, what could we have done to avoid this?" — FDR
"Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you!" — JFK
"If America shows weakness and uncertainty, the world will drift toward tragedy. Pretty sure that's gonna happen on my watch." — G. W. Bush
"Speak softly and eloquently." — Teddy Roosevelt
"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you really only need to fool the majority of people until the election is over." — Abraham Lincoln
"To be prepared for war is far too provocative." — George Washington
 Ruling cleric warns protesters. I know it doesn't take 51% of a population to make a revolution: it only takes a 5% highly-motivated core or, as in our American Rev, about 30% support.
But what if their election was relatively legit, with only Chicago-style fraud?
We would all be pleased to see Iran return to modern civilization, but what if the majority do not think that way? What if the majority want a combative Islamic theocracy with a dopey selected figurehead in his Members Only jacket?
What if a majority value their religion over modernity and the Western community, and the protesters are mainly the urbanites and students? Then what?
Photo: Esfehan protest this week, via Gateway who is constantly on top of this story
Related: No hope and change for Iran. Krauthammer
The language of the perpetually poor. h/t, Driscoll's Poor little rich hipsters.
Throwing money away (essential pleasures and rewards like smokes and wine not included) shows disrespect for one's own time and labor, and thus for oneself.
I thought it was just an Alaska-style lawn sculpture, but the thing moves, too. Battlefield potential no doubt. Can you picture 30 of these, heavily armed, at the Battle of the Somme? h/t Jonah at NRO
 Got rain? Man, have we had rain. Great for our new transplants. We are working on an ark as I type. No doubt global warming is causing the cooling and rain.
Why Waterloo is important to us all. Jules
A Kangaroo story, with special photo.
Pure reasonableness re Iran. Tiger. Proof that these intertubes need not always be an emotional vomitorium.
Also reasonable: Get off the O's garden. Fake or not, gardens are good. Rich folks like the Os can afford instant gardens - but we pay the bills for them. Thus it's your garden too, in a government sort of way. Ask for a tomato.
And also reasonable: AVI speaks on on Health Care
Let's discuss medical insurance. No, says ABC and the WH. I guess it's settled science.
Why higher ed is stuck in the middle ages
Here's a dumb lawsuit for ya. Althouse
Rural Dems have beefs with the O. Of course they do. He doesn't know any of those us people.
Where did life come from? The NYT wants to know. Let's just call it a Cosmic Life Force. God forbid we term Cosmic Forces "God." h/t, LGF
Insty:
P.C. POLICING: British cops stop and hassle thousands to “balance racial statistics.”
So true: Stressful life events are themselves quite heritable.
"I'll never trust a man again." Good idea. We are all Evil. Barely human.
Related, from Dr. C:
The problem for the feminists is that the brand is ruined beyond recognition. When people think feminists they think man-hating, abortion-loving, children-resenting, big-mouthed butch lesbians.
We sure do. Once their goals were accomplished, they were coopted by the loonies. Like this one.
Via No Pasaran:
A primary reason America is "waiting" and "watching" and "monitoring" while Iranians are beaten in the streets of Tehran is that the country is led by the left.
…the world is "closely following the situation," just as it followed the situations of the Jews during the Holocaust, the Ukrainians, the Chinese under Mao, the Rwandans, the Cambodians, Tibetans, and so many others.
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