Sunday, March 7. 2010
The Azimut Magellano. A 74' blue-water boat, but you can park her with a joystick and make tight, high-speed turns like a speedboat.
There is a market for such wondrous craft but, for better or worse, it ain't me.
I tend to think we still live in a Greco-Roman civilization. This from George Mason Prof Steven Davies:
Anchoress. Is it God speaking, or is it just me? I often wonder about that.
 Image via Moonbattery. Related, Obamacare Is a Budgetary Disaster
Related, $2.3 trillion later, 23 million still uninsured
Related, a quote at Powerline:
The great mystery of the health care debate is why liberals, who don't trust doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies or insurers, trust Congress and federal bureaucrats.
Natural methane, from the ground
Can Wild Bison Repopulate the Plains? I am all for that.
A good summary of the issues at Weekly Std: In Denial - The meltdown of the climate campaign.
School Board President of Failing Detroit Schools Can’t Write
All about Rahm Emanuel and health care, etc. TNR. h/t, Driscoll
Krugman vs. Krugman
Chile quake shifted earth's axis. h/t, Vandy
Prof Bill Gray responds to Globe's op-ed titled Climate Change is Proven Fact. At least we are finally getting some debate, and outing those who benefit from the alarmism.
Stossel: The case for legalizing drugs, prostitution, organ sales, and other consensual acts.
While College Fails to Adequately Transmit Civic Knowledge, It Influences Opinion on Polarizing Social Issues. h/t, Protein
Can there be a value-neutral tax? Does income tax punish work?
Left gears up to fight media wars
David Warren:
Economic decline is a choice, not a fate, and it has everything to do with big, intrusive government.
We posted about the prodigal son a couple of weeks ago. We are finding Tim Keller's The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith so compelling and eye-opening that we want to re-recommend it, especially during Lent.
Image is Rembrandt's Prodigal Son
Saturday, March 6. 2010
From Walter Mead at one of our favorite new web sites.
I thought I'd list out some tips & tweaks that might make your browsing experience more enjoyable. I'll cover Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.
Below the fold, I'll offer some suggestions on how to clean things up and get more web viewing space (IE in particular needs help in this department), how to make the tool bar buttons more efficient, how to get rid of those ugly purple fonts that some pages display in IE, some clarification on browser speed, and some bug fixes.
Continue reading "Doc's Computin' Tips: Browser tips"
Re-posted from a couple of years ago -
(Trout season around 
here opens on in April. Fishing has a lull during the summer, and perks up again in the fall.)
“Fishing Bamboo” is the name of a wonderful book by John Gierach, a veritable fishing curmudgeon of the old school.
In reviewing the book, W. D. Wetherell said, “The split bamboo fly rod and the mystique that goes with it is a subject that deserves just the right mix of skepticism and reverence, and John Gierach is just the writer to supply this, in a fascinating book that explains what the excitement is all about.”
Yet like many wonderful things of the past, the bamboo rod is close to being on the endangered list. I took one of my late father’s wonderful E.C. Powell rods to Montana to fish the Bighorn (hated it – we were trolling downstream from a boat with the fly being swept ahead of us by the current). As I assembled the rod, the 20ish guide said “It just don’t look right, being yellow.” He had never seen a rod that wasn’t molded from green or brown-dyed synthetic petroleum by-products reverently referred to as “graphite”. A professional fishing guide, on the Bighorn, and he had never seen a bamboo rod.
Well, I have to wonder why not, and deal with the conclusions. Those of us who use bamboo are probably using our father’s or grandfather’s rods, because the values of these rods have gone from high to stupid. I lost my mother’s 2½ oz. 7-foot “baby Powell” on a transcontinental flight, and after two years of mourning and being unable even to contemplating fishing, I felt morally obligated to replace it. The 2½ oz. 7-foot Leonard “Fairy Catskill” I found on eBay cost me $3,600, and I fish it often, refusing to be terrified. It’s just Ma’s rod reborn, and it is meant to fish the 7”-9” wild trout we find where I fish in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The tip, maybe one millimeter thick, is still composed of six long, incredibly slender, patiently-planed pieces of Tonkin cane spliced together, tied with dark red thread and then lacquered. There are precious few people alive today who can replicate or repair such artistry.
Orvis still sells bamboo, and there are still some fabulous rodmakers working today, like my friend Jim in Florida, a retired USAF Master Sergeant, who not only makes amazing bamboo rods, he also make all his own machine tools for the bamboo and also the metal fittings.
Well, where are the rods? I fear they have fallen into the hands of “collectors”, look-but-don’t-touch people with a lot of money and minimal fishing skills – much like Purdey shotguns. Have you ever seen a Purdey in the field in the US where it can get dinged on stone walls, fall in the mud, and run over by SUVs (except for those fancy-ass Hudson Valley corporate clubs).
I have several old bamboo rods and may add one of Jim’s quad rods to my arsenal, and I have some English shotguns, but I follow – and leave the gentle reader with – my partner Tom’s advice. Be sure you can say that you have caught a fish with every rod you own, and that you have taken a bird with every shotgun; only then do you honor the rare skill of the maker.
(Image is an old Heddon 7-8 wt. 9' rod, for big fish - salmon and salt-water fishies. I never thought I'd see it, but salt-water fly-fishing has become all the rage these days.)
How we drill in the Bakken Shale formation in North Dakota. Video
I've been a kid, and I've been an adult. Adult's better.
Robert Parker, quoted at Wash. Rebel
Re the press and climategate:
The Times seems to have forgotten the most important aspect of the news business. For years now ’skeptic’ has been a dirty word at the Times when the subject of climate change comes up. Excuse me, but reporters are supposed to be skeptics. They are supposed to be cynical, hard bitten people who trust their mothers — but cut the cards. They are supposed to think that scientists are probably too much in love with their data, that issue advocates have hidden agendas, that high-toned rhetoric is often a cover for naked self interest, that bloviating politicians have cynical motives and that heroes, even Nobel Prize laureates, have feet of clay. That is their job; it is why we respect them and why we pay attention to what they write.
Friday, March 5. 2010
California Republican Senate primary contenders Tom Campbell, Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore had an hour radio debate today, their first, slated to focus on national security issues. I listened closely to the first 43-minutes, leaving to play 1-on-1 with my son after school and watch the basketball tryouts. I was struck that at the tryouts there was none of the under the basket elbows and knees I was used to from Brooklyn schoolyard basketball. But there was plenty at the debate.
Continue reading "CA Senate Debate Knees and Elbows (UPDATE: Refs Miss Campbell Fumble)"
Jimmy Rodgers is said to have risen from his sickbed to record this the day before he died. h/t SDA
Headed to Sugarbush for the weekend. (Do you know what a "sugarbush" is? It is a grove of Sugar Maples.)
In praise of Parsnips. We love parsnips. Steam, then light sautee in butter.
Chile will survive the earthquake because its democracy works.
Global aid harming Haiti economy. h/t, Tiger
‘The Science is Settled,’ They Told Copernicus
Population Bomb Author Giving Advice to Global Warming Nuts. A quote in the article:
Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be “an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach” to gut the credibility of skeptics.
This is a re-post from guest author Skook:
Glaciers and mountain-building have created many distinct species of trout throughout the Pacific drainage. To find them, fish a mountain river, take a boat out on the Pacific, or hike to a desert lake.
Rainbow (above) – Silver with black spots and a reddish band along the side. Their native range is the West Coast mountains, though they have been introduced elsewhere in North America and beyond. Redbands are a variant found in the Great Basin, where they have adapted to high summer temperatures. Steelheads are anadromous rainbows that spend parts of their lives in the North Pacific from Kamchatka down to Malibu Creek near Los Angeles. In the Northwest, rainbows and steelhead are the premier game trout of the rivers and coast.
(While Rainbows are to be found in the East, these are all transplants or hatchery fish. The native stream trout in the East is the Brook Trout - which is a char.)
 Cutthroat – Meriwether Lewis stopped at a Philadelphia tackle shop before setting out and his purchases served his expedition well, like on the Great Falls of the Missouri in June 1805. Private Silas Goodrich fished the river as Lewis described events. Goodrich caught a trout “with specks of a deep black…and a small dash of red on each side behind the front ventral fins… the flesh, when in good order, of a rose red.” There are at least 14 types, often unique to particular river systems. Cutthroats are the classic trout of the inland American West, and they sometimes interbreed with Rainbows.
 Dolly Varden - These are char (as is the eastern Brook Trout), like trout but with different teeth and coloration. Dollys are olive or gray-green with yellow to pink spots and light gray bellies. A character from a Dickens novel, Dolly Varden became the name of a patterned dress and in the 1870’s the name was given to the char found in California’s McCloud River. Dolly Varden are similar to Bull Trout, another char, and at one time they were thought to be the same species. They spend time in the ocean as do Cutthroats.
There are a few other species found in isolated areas that exist today only due to the hard work of folks like Trout Unlimited. Here are two examples:
Apache Trout - Jump in your car and drive to the Ft. Apache Indian Reservation about three hours northeast of Phoenix. There in the White River is the gold, red, and black Apache. It has been a long struggle due to loss of habitat and interbreeding with rainbows. But now things look good enough to move it from the endangered list to merely “threatened” so you may legally try your luck at catch and release.
Gila Trout – Another modestly reviving species in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, it too had been pushed to the brink by development and competition with non-native trout introduced decades ago. Gilas have black spots on gold and copper bodies and grow to over a foot. Long term restoration has brought them back enough to permit limited fishing in a few beautiful mountain streams. Bring your hiking boots.
 If you are like me, you are getting sick and tired of the endless push for government control of medical care.
These folks aren't listening to America, but they are wearing us down and the Libs are doing a full-court press now.
One more chance to send your Senators and your Rep a brief note with your opinion. A FAX is more useful than an email, but anything is better than nothing. I advise doing so regardless of their position on the topic.
I faxed my folks in DC. I told them I would support the Republican proposals for health care reform, but that the 2000 page Dem mess is an obnoxious and unwanted piece of garbage.
FAX and emails of Congress here.
That's what the beer man calls out at Yankee Stadium: "Hey! Beer man! Beer man here! You know you want it." Devilish marketing.
You know you want this pretty Hinckley 49, currently for sale. But even if you afford her, can you afford to keep her?
 Want more kids to graduate from college? It can be easily done: just lower the standards even further.
Speaking of college, look at these ungrateful crybabies
Muslim group moves to ban burka
How loopy is Liu? He is a real live moonbat.
Legal aspects of the digitus impudicus
The NYT finally deigned to do an obit for Arnold Beichman. Final paragraph:
Socialism is dictatorship, he told Columbia College Today, the alumni magazine, in 2005. “The control of wealth is the control over human life,” he said. “So if a centrally planned economy decides how wealth is to be created and how it is to be distributed, then they really have a control over human life.”
Like we said:
In a private meeting with House progressives, President Obama said that this bill is just a foundation for future reform, and could pave the way for a later push for the public option and even single-payer systems at the state-level.
Hurricane Katrina Victims to Sue Oil Companies. That defense team is going to have fun.
From OMG! Global warming!!!
Thursday, March 4. 2010
The current Newsweek reviews a new book about North Korea based on study of its internal news reports, art and school texts. Threats, mostly hollow, and mild sanctions, by Bush and Obama, have not stopped North Korea’s nuclear bomb making or long-range missiles fired over Japan.
Kim Jong Il and, before him, Kim Il Sung based their legitimacy not on fabricated reports of the country's economic success (that line is directed at outsiders) but on a world view that casts them as "great parental leaders" who embody Korean virtue at its most untainted. In this national narrative, the Korean people "are too pure-blooded, and therefore too virtuous, to survive in this evil world" without the leaders' benefic guidance, writes Myers. This potent myth of racial superiority is aimed at confirming to the North Koreans that they are morally superior to Americans and the rest of the world, even if they lag behind it in technology or wealth. When visiting foreigners are covered by the domestic media, they are portrayed as being highly respectful--even obsequious--toward their North Korean hosts.
Today a North Korean colonel who spent 16 years in Austria procuring luxury goods for the father and son tyrants, before faking his death in order to defect, held a news conference to tout his tell-all book that “shows the deep divide between the lifestyles of the North Korean leadership and their citizens, who sometimes must subsist eating tree bark, knowing they will be sent to labor camps if they criticize the government.”
Kim Jong Ryul said the late dictator had dozens of sprawling villas — some of them built underground — filled with crystal chandeliers, silk wallpaper and costly furniture…. It was in these palatial homes that Kim Il Sung and his family would feast on an immense array of fine foods — including Austrian specialties….He also described how Kim Il Sung — while publicly denouncing "Western decadence and imperialism" — had an extensive luxury car collection that included Mercedes, Lincolns, Fords, Cadillacs and Citroens. Kim Jong Il, who liked taking fast sports cars for a spin, also appeared to share his father's passion.
There’s more tasty tidbits, like Kim Il Sung sending chefs to Austria to ferret out recipes from the best restaurants.
Admiring the North Korean regimented mass dance steps, Vietnam has imported North Korean marching dancemasters to advise the government on choreography for its celebration of Hanoi’s 1000th anniversary.
Impoverished and isolated, North Korea has little to export [aside from nuclear materials and technology] and its tourism earnings have been hit by political wrangling with South Korea over the North's military threats to the region and nuclear weapons programme.
North Korea’s agriculture minister who defected in 1998 estimated that up to 2.8 million North Koreans starved to death during the ‘90’s, that’s about 10% of its population. Now, Pyongyang’s geniuses have committed “currency reform” that made its currency worthless, to wipe out the black market trade that kept many North Koreans alive. Then there’s about 200,000 in North Korea’s prison camps, worked and starved to death in harsh conditions, along the way experimented on, tortured and even babies murdered.
Hey, but don’t let some dead or starved North Koreans, like this woman, stand in the way of a party.
A disastrous currency reform, which wiped whatever little savings North Koreans had, has compounded the effect of international sanctions. For many, survival has become impossible. Currently, ten million North Koreans are living on less than a dollar a day.
In the meantime, this year’s celebrations include the traditional Flower Festival.
For Kim’s birthday, the red kimjongilia was all the rave. The flower, a begonia, was created by Japanese botanist Mototeru Kamo of Shizuoka Prefecture and dedicated to Kim Jong-il.
Two sporting events were also held in the capital yesterday (figure skating and synchronised swimming) in honour of Kim who opted instead to attend a concert by the Unhasu Orchestra, organised to mark the new lunar year, which began on Sunday.
The North Korean leadership’s new motto: Party Hearty Like There’s No Tomorrow. It’s worked so far, for them.
 - Robin from Berkeley at Am Thinker
- Driscoll: I Think We Can Now Officially Pronounce The Late ’60s D.O.A.
- and via that Driscoll post, this good one from Reason last fall: The Paranoid Center - How the panic over right-wing violence is being used to marginalize peaceful dissent
Your Maggie's Farm posters tend to be fairly Centrist-Conservative, like most Americans. How scary are we?
I see that George Will wrote a piece, The Basement Boys -The making of modern immaturity, which echoes the themes I mentioned in my post this week, Are men "naturally" monogamous?
Will wearily concludes:
Last November, when Tiger Woods's misadventures became public, his agent said: "Let's please give the kid a break." The kid was then 33. He is now 34 but, no doubt, still a kid. The puerile anthem of a current Pepsi commercial is drearily prophetic: "Forever young."
Alas, Will makes the common error of associating years with psychological maturity and strength of character. I have known plenty of mature 18 year-olds - even 16 year-olds, and plenty of infantile 75 year-olds.
Redstate. The government could not run a candy shop. Enuf said.
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