Thursday, October 8. 2009
The Doers vs. The "Thinkers". Well said. A point I have tried to make many times. I once used a talented, design-oriented architect who knew little about construction, and it did not work out well.
So when we did the addition to the barn, I designed it with the builder. Perfect, and on budget.
My sister sent me her snap of the peak of Mount Madison, NH, last weekend, with her hiking buddies (and hubbie) up ahead. They are in good shape. Snow and ice up there already -
The horny, raunchy but appreciative Going to Acapulco, from the 1967 practice Basement Tapes with The Band (which were never meant to be publicly heard). Lyrics here, but he doesn't always stick to the lyrics - Dylan often invents new ones as he sings.
"We have a test for a rare disease (we’ll call it Jones Syndrome), and the test is 99% accurate, but it returns a false positive in 1% of those tested (that is, 1% of the time the test returns a positive, the disease is not present). If I test positive, what is the probability that I have Jones Syndrome?"
It's not a trick question, it's a question of simple logic - and that's why it's so easy to fool juries with this sort of thing.
OK, we'll add this data:
"How prevalent is Jones Syndrome, that is, what is the probability of my having it, irrespective of any test result? We’ll say that 1 in 10000 have Jones Syndrome, so your untested probability of having Jones Syndrome is 0.01%, or 0.0001."
Answer is below the fold. Explanation at Right Wing Prof
Continue reading "Fallacies of the Week: A quiz for ya"
 The CBO did a mark-up on the Baucus Bill - but there is no bill. As noted at NRO:
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, says that the new CBO report is “an estimate of a concept, not a formal cost analysis of an actual bill.”
“What we know at this point is that the bill cuts Medicare, raises taxes, and increases insurance premiums for tens of millions of Americans,” says Alexander. “It imposes onerous new costs on states and is likely to increase the federal debt. We need to see the actual bill text and know its exact text before we begin a lengthy debate about whether it’s the right direction for our country.”
WSJ: The major provisions of ObamaCare already have been tried. They've led to increased costs and reduced access to care.
Rove: The GOP Is Winning the Health-Care Debate: Gallup says independents now favor Republicans by nine points.
Is the GOP folding?
Gateway:
Currently, only 29% of Americans say it’s more important to give people a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option than to keep their current plan.
But, facts don't matter to the agenda driven democrat-media complex.
 Insty:
GETTING SNEAKY: New plan might allow Dems to slip public option through Senate.
Senate Democrats desperate to find a way to pass a health care bill that includes a federal insurance plan may have come up with a way to do it without putting moderate members who oppose it in political jeopardy.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option — making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster — and then adding the provision later as an amendment.
Yeah, that’ll work . . . .
Via Marginal Rev:
Jim Capretta looks at the Baucus healthcare bill and concludes that, because the subsidies phase out as income rises, it imposes an effective marginal tax rate on income of about 30 percent for many families. Add that figure to the income tax, the payroll tax, and the phase-out of the EITC and "the effective, implicit tax rate for workers between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty line would quickly approach 70 percent — not even counting food stamps and housing vouchers."
Whatever the Baucus bill will say, we can be certain that it is designed to screw things up badly enough that people will beg for single-payer government-controlled medicine.
Upper photo: Are you too young to know who those Docs are?
Lower photo via Jammie's piece on the NHS
Returning to the dock after an afternoon/evening shoot. A well-stocked bar awaits (always with the Spicey Clamato), with wild game hors d'oevres (like wild duck liver pate with cognac, stir-fried Coot breast with garlic, soy sauce and scallions, fried duck gizzards, or sweet and sour wild duck wings), then a great dinner. My favorite is the beer-batter fried Walleye, fresh from the lake. Afterwards, Port and Cuban cigars around the fire while telling lies and distinctly non-PC jokes. Not too bad.
Where is the electric from? Rented diesel generator on a trailer. Chugga chugga chugga.
Wednesday, October 7. 2009
 I pledge allegiance to the debt
Here we go again. Dems plans for Urban Renewal. How did that work out last time?
How Hopey Changey is strangling our economy. Tiger. I hear the same things from businessmen. Including from Coyote.
Confessions of a Middlebrow Professor
Wilkinson: Cap and Trade is ritual self-flagellation
Even if you're not in the union, you have to pay the union to work on a Federal project.
ACORN threw out Repub registrations. Surely that is a Federal crime.
Is Washington studying the wrong war?
Free money in Detroit. Obama delivers! But wouldn't a bus ticket to Texas, where they have jobs, be more useful?
Isn't accusing Muslims of homophobia a bit Islamophobic?
Mark Steyn
 Bill Ayers admits writing Obama's book. OK, maybe he was kidding. Who knows? Photo is home-grown commie terrorist Prof. Ayers. I hope he was paid for his work.
Another Obama nominee nutjob. She wants polygamy. Where do they find these people? I mean, like, who could afford polygamy except multimillionaires? Well, but on the other hand, you could send them all out to work and just hang out and collect their paychecks...
Is "Obama Trauma" beginning to sink in? (Ms. Robin, note you have mixed up cow-tipping with kowtowing. "Cow towing" is a distasteful sexist term for a method of removing a spouse from the mall)
John Leboutillier has a website. We'll link it. We like him.
For crying out loud, would you please sit up straight. Sheesh.
New strict rules for the Aussie's Bathurst races:
Australian police are gearing up for an annual crackdown on motor-racing fans - limiting race-goers to 24 cans of beer a day. Spectators at the Bathurst 1000 - a three-day race meeting staged this week - will be told to stick to just the one "slab" of beer while at the racetrack. Wine-drinkers must also show restraint, facing a four litres per day limit.
One carton or four bottles of wine per day? Have the Aussies become pussy drinkers?
African-American "Studies" has been around for 40 years.
When you control the cash, you can control everything. Pay Czar wants to slash exec salaries. That's one way to get rid of them.
Good-bye Chrysler. They are going down, but still scrambling.
Related: How much of what "American" cars are made in the US, and how much of foreign brands are? Truth is, these concepts no longer have much meaning.
Education: Government thinks they came up with a brilliant idea. Turns out it is already being done privately, and is widespread. Watch government try to do it anyway and try to duplicate what is already being done.
I used to think that giving away the Panama Canal was the dumbest thing Carter did, but nowadays I think it was creating a Federal Dept of Education. Education is neither a Federal responsibility nor a Federal power.
Because the first "stimulus" worked so well, let's do it again
The propaganda unit of the DOJ. Imagine if Bush had pulled this trick...
Medical-related
As a companion to Bobby Jindal's piece posted yesterday, here's What a Republican health-care plan should look like. The Dems could have hit a home run with ideas like these, instead of imagining that they can run American medicine.
Save your pennies. You may be subject to an "individual mandate." AKA a big "tax"
Readers know that I like to hunt on the northern end of Lake Winnipegosis in the first week of October. Having just returned from a 2-week trip to Europe, I couldn't really do another week so soon. Thus Gwynnie and some other Maggie's Farm pals are up there without me.
Here's the old private duck hunting club where we stay. It's an old log structure with rough clapboard covering. Open only 6 weeks per year. Females not allowed except for the cook and housekeeper. It's 13 miles from the nearest "town," which consists of a tiny old general store (duct tape, chewing gum, cigarettes, batteries, work gloves, wool hats, rope, Coco Puffs, milk), a liquor store, and a gas station, all on one dirt parking area. Mostly Indians up there, and some Ukrainian farmers.
One of the equipment shacks - a 100 year-old log cabin:
More photos of the fine old club below:
Continue reading "More about where I am not this week, ie, Manitoba"
Tuesday, October 6. 2009
Just a note to the White House PR jokers: Docs do not wear white coats outside of work settings. Nowadays, they sometimes wear them in the office, and usually during hospital rounds (but increasingly less so).
I never heard of a Doc wearing a white coat in a public setting. It's absurd. Those Docs in DC were used. They are tools. I doubt that any of them are practicing Docs.
- The FTC and the internet: Insanity, inanity - and danger.
- Also Insty: YOU CAN’T SAY THAT: At the UN, Obama Administration backs limits on free speech. As the piece in the Weekly Standard begins:
The Obama administration has marked its first foray into the UN human rights establishment by backing calls for limits on freedom of expression. The newly-minted American policy was rolled out at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council, which ended in Geneva on Friday. American diplomats were there for the first time as full Council members and intent on making friends.
That is creepy.
- And in Ottowa, Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant testify to the Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Monday (h/t, SDA). Videos at YouTube. Here's one of them (the second one):
If you can read this, you’re aware there’s a debate within and outside the Obama administration about what the US is to do about Afghanistan. If you are, also, a careful reader you are probably confused or conflicted. With good reason.
Eight years after 9/11, the objectives and the means to them are still unclear or ill-focused. We’re told by various authorities the objectives range from containing a relatively few Al-Quaeda to reconstituting much of the social fabric and governance of Afghanistan and its immediate neighbors. Similarly, authorities recommend means that range from narrowly targeted attacks from within or outside Afghanistan, or Pakistan, to increased ground forces to major social welfare and government reform efforts, each with differing time horizons.
Those authorities with the most experience in these matters tend toward the broader objectives and means. Yet, all of them caveat their course with hard-learned reservations about success.
THE authority, as provided by the Constitution, the President, despite his and supporters’ politically convenient mouthings meant to win an election, is determined to, according to reports from insiders, re-examine the entire matter from basic assumptions forward.
Opponents of his presidency find themselves in the comfortable position that Obama capitalized upon pre-election of pointing out the gross inconsistencies in the president’s words, actions and results. This is furthered by the arch comedy of verbal hypocrisies from his supporters.
A few more global strategists, like Henry Kissinger, point to the broader tableau of possibilities, involving India, China and Russia much more deeply. However, none have demonstrated such inclination. Indeed, even the NATO countries are, as usual, hesitant to increase their meager commitments, especially to unsure decision-making in Washington and prospects.
Compounding all this is that, now including the global economic shakeout, none of the Western countries appear willing to devote the commensurate resources to the broader missions.
So, ultimately, the start-from-scratch debate is healthy in revealing the stakes, the stake-holders, the opportunities, the risks, the costs and the constraints. Regardless of efforts for the debate or process to be more transparent, it is reasonably so, and such decisions are always finally made among a small circle and the inescapable responsibility of the President.
Obama administration insiders preclude withdrawal. That leaves either a full-bore effort, which may or not succeed, or a lesser effort that everyone with access to the best information says will only prolong everyone’s agonies with less to no expectation of satisfactory resolution.
No one’s eloquence can mask that stark choice. Polling indicates that is recognized by most citizens.
Politicians tend to see compromises as the natural order of things. The rest of us live in a more directly consequential reality.
All of the evidence so far about President Obama indicates his reality is dedicated to vapid speeches. No tangible results have come from any. On any subject, only his hardest-core supporters still rally to his words.
I support the fullest re-examination of all aspects of our involvement in Afghanistan, both in itself and for its vital educative function for all of us.
I support the direct consequences of whatever decision is made by President Obama to be properly seen as his responsibility alone. He has finally cornered himself, and has run out of words to distract from that.
What we’re debating is not just the fate of Afghans, Pakistanis, other countries, our or others’ security and pockets. It is, also, the determiner of our own and President Obama’s mettle, integrity and future.
 From a NY Review of Books look at three new books on Warhol, one of my favorite art critics, Arthur Danto,
...called him "the nearest thing to a philosophical genius the history of art has produced."
Rembrandt had an art factory too. Interesting article.
The life of a conservative professor in America. Am Thinker
With a video too. Giant docks, warehouses, and a man-made harbor. (h/t, Jungleman)
 The big lies of the UN Climate Report. Am Thinker. Related, I still think the notion of CO2 as a "pollutant" is patently insane.
Related: Dr. Holdren used to be a Coming Ice Age catastrophizer. Maybe he is a catastrophizer by nature.
Equally insane: schools banning bake sales. Next they will replace pancake breakfasts with raw broccoli and tofu - and nobody will show up.
Camel's nose in the tent: FTC to begin to regulate blogs
I blame last year's economic mess ultimately on the government. Now they want to do it again. Of course, a good down-payment is a good idea - but what if the government gives you that too?
It's a great time to be a consumer - if you have any $ left
The 125th birthday of Ludwig Van Mises. Why he is important.
Medical-related
Jindal: The Conservative case for reform. I like it.
Democrats Mired in Chaos, Confusion Over Healthcare Bill
The infant mortality canard
Country With Worst Health Care In The World Wins Nobel Prize
I don't know where the WH rounded up those docs yesterday, but docs are overwhelmingly opposed to further government involvement and control.
Monday, October 5. 2009
Another point of view re Polansky, from NYM:
I tend to view the Polanski affair, not as an authentic case of rape, but as a payment dispute in which one side is able to whistle up the assistance of the criminal law.
 For the past four days, we have been visited by the noisest Eastern Screech Owl I have ever heard. For an hour or three at dawn and dusk he doesn't shut up, and drives the pup nuts. Maybe it's the full moon that is doing it?
I have always been fond of these little owls, but they are rarely seen, just heard. I hope this guy sticks around.
Here's a sample of their calls, but their calls are more varied than that.
James Capretta makes the case that the real national economic crisis is the growth of middle class entitlements in his excellent essay, The New Middle Class Contract.
The danger as he sees it (and as I see it) is to risk suffocating the goose that lays the golden eggs which have (not really) paid for our existing middle-class entitlements.
One quote from his essay:
Some liberal politicians, including the president, have sought to use this moment of instability — when all past certainties seem suddenly in question — to advance their longstanding agenda and expand the role of the state in health care, energy, education, and other sectors, taking on new spending commitments and in effect exacerbating the dangers of the old middle-class contract. As Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said in November 2008: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."
But the shock of the economic crisis may also make Americans more open to serious entitlement reforms that Emanuel, President Obama, and many other Democrats have long resisted. The logic of the case for reform is much like that of the case for the recent emergency interventions: the need for a bold response to an enormous problem, aimed at regaining some equilibrium and allowing again for sustainable economic growth and prosperity. This is the time to explain to the public just how grave the prospects for our entitlement system — and therefore for our larger economy — really are, and to argue for a serious and sensible change of course.
The impulse to insulate the middle class from the cost consequences of their choices — an impulse that has defined our longstanding middle-class contract — has done great harm and stands to do far more. The remedy must be to redesign our entitlements so that the choices the middle class makes in terms of work, family, and health care will promote more productivity, efficiency, and wealth, rather than the shrinking of the labor force and the growth of government.
Done right, a new arrangement would both strengthen our fiscal outlook and improve the economic standing of American families.
Yes, he is an idealist. His whole essay at National Affairs.
At First Principles. I still read books. Plenty of 'em. So does Lisa Schiffren: Are books archaic?
Mark Twain hated Jane Austin, but I am happy to see that Norm likes Wallace Stegner. So do I.
And here's a book every Canadian needs to read.
"Please understand. God's goal is not to make you happy. His goal is to make you His."
I do not know who said that.
I have been pondering a post on the topic of sex and male and female sex drives for a while -and what people do with those drives, but what I want to say has not crystallized for me yet.
In the meantime, our friend Villainous has a thoughtful piece on the subject: Should women withhold sex?
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