Wednesday, May 12. 2010
From a genetic standpoint, why is mental illness so common?
- The wiring is very tricky. Lots of teensy tiny wires, all tangled up.
From Robin of Berkeley's The Left's Unbearable Darkness of Being:
My clients are astonished when I tell them that life is not supposed to be easy, and that we carve out our characters and our souls from the hard times. Further, suffering is the great uniter: It has the potential to connect us to people all over the world. Pain reminds us that everyone is, at times, pierced by grief, loneliness, and sorrow.
- If you are over 18 and haven't learned that life is tragic, you may have a learning problem.
From Had Enough Therapy, Victims No More.
- Most of our problems are of our own creation - often unwittingly. That was just one of Freud's insights - borrowed from the ancient Greeks, of course.
Also interesting, The F*ck Feelings Manifesto. The home of that site is here.
- The attitude is similar to what is summed up by the AA aphorism "Feelings aren't facts."
I missed this one, re the now almost-forgotten Times Square bomber, from Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, professor, Washington and Lee University
I think the politics of this incident will turn heavily on who is found to be responsible. If, as seems unlikely, the bomb is linked to South Asian or Middle Eastern terrorists, questions will again arise as to whether the Department of Homeland Security is doing all it can do to keep us safe. If, as I believe is much more likely, the bomb was placed by a right-wing lunatic, it seems to me that questions need to be raised as to whether the right-wing media bear some responsibility for stoking the delusions of such people through their relentless and often unfounded attacks on the Obama administration and the federal government.
We need to consider whether it isn’t time to return to responsible, ethical journalism.
No, we need to consider whether it isn't time for absurd, ideology-blinded profs to shut the heck up, and administer themselves a bit of needed self-criticism. As I recall, Mao always used to send the Profs out to the fields for a while...or a long while, presumably to refresh their minds.
Department of the Obvious, for guys anyway. Quote via Riehl:
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner admits he's not much of a 3-D enthusiast. But he says if there's something people would most like to see in 3-D, it's "probably a naked lady."
Via a Washington Reb post on mature vs immature liberty, quoted from History of American Congregationalism:
March, 1603: A great literature had been evoked; an efflorescence of genius made a single reign as nearly immortal as the temporal can be timeless. Milton, a little later, would see England as an eagle flying proudly into the sun, a puissant people superbly self-confident. But the nation was not inwardly at peace. It had still to carry an unfinished religious and ecclesiastical reformation to some accepted issue within the framework of the English love of liberty, respect for authority, concern for established order, reverence for precedent, and militant tenacity of individual convictions and opinions. In a spacious way, the action and interaction of these essentially English qualities had made English history since Magna Charta and determined its splendid and stormy course, politically, socially, and religiously.
Knowledge grows by not only doubting your beliefs and believing your doubts, but by doubting your doubts and believing your beliefs.
We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can be almost as stupid as a cabbage, as long as you doubt.
The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though - because of powerful intellectual propaganda - they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright.
Dallas Willard
One very clever idea for a site is GraphJam, which puts our crazy American culture in graph format.
From the silly:
To the serious:
To something every blogger can relate to:
There's also a very funny area on the site called "Lol Celebs", where readers can put captions on pics of celebrities:
There's another celeb example below the fold as well as a few originals I whipped up just for the occasion. Go to the site, slap it in your bookmarks, then save it for a rainy day when you're looking for something to do. I went through every single graph and celeb page and had a great time. Some of the stuff is exceptionally clever.
Continue reading "Our culture in graphspeak"
 Pelosi Says Illegal Aliens Are... Patriotic? States beside Arizona are planning to deal with illegals. Maggie's supports legal immigration, at a level which the citizens deem appropriate. With so many young folks unable to find work, I am not sure that we need tons of immigrants right now. Really, they should work to fix their own countries so they don't feel the need to come here. That would be the right and patriotic thing for people to do.
The political generation gap
The GOP's poor understanding of blogs
US taxpayers helping to bail out Greece. American taxpayer welfare for the Greeks - for whom tax-dodging is a national sport?
Whiteout: The American left is celebrating its hope to racially transform America
Barone: In Britain, a Cautionary Tale for U.S. Parties
A big rush: Democrats poised to move measures with high price tags
Another Rush: He's getting married (again)
The Euro:
'The biggest 'all-in' in the history of poker,' was how Henrik Enderlein, economics professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, described the massive aid package assembled on Sunday night in an effort to save the Euro from collapse.
Many observers see the measure as delaying the end of the Euro, not preventing it.
Re Kagan at Driscoll:
“[Are you] suggesting that Princeton, Harvard and NYC isn’t the totality of real life?” former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who followed the same academic path, joked in an e-mail when asked about the women’s parallel tracks…
Is Andrew Sullivan Kicking Off A Media Frenzy Over Kagan’s Sexuality? She's not a butch lesbian even though she looks like one, say friends. Who cares?
I have been through four cords of firewood in ye olde office this season, and fireplace season is not over yet. Chilly mornings, chilly evenings, in the low 30s (F). 38 degrees with a cold rain this morning. I do not live on Cape Cod (where I was a young lad for a while when my Dad was in the service), but one good thing about the Cape is that you can use a fire every night, even in August. Takes the damp chill off, or seems to.
My wood supply is down to fresh green wood felled by the Nor'easter a while ago. I cut and scavenged it. Mostly Maple of various types. I haven't even had time to split it yet. However, I figured out how to burn green wood effectively and pleasantly. All it takes is to throw a handful of charcoal briquettes into your starter fire. They get the heat up so that your green wood dries and burns at the same time. A nice, slow fire with plenty of wood-steam and an enjoyable hiss. You may have to freshen it with a new briquette or two now and then.
It works great. Sort-of. A hot wood stove will burn green wood just fine, but a fireplace is trickier. Once you have enough heat with a good bed of coals in there, green burns well.
What other blog would offer such a handy tip?
Tuesday, May 11. 2010
Y'all were right. That was an Indigo Bunting, a finch-like inhabitant of brushy edges in rural areas. The males often look black, depending on the light. You can read about them here.
 No time to think or write, but I want to clean my tabs up, and get these links out to our corner of the universe:
Is John Le Carre a great novelist? Norm
Kagan is wishy-washy on free speech. What the heck does "balanced with the good of society" mean? Only an arrogant, latent-totalitarian elitist jerk would ever say anything like that, in my humble opinion. Americans don't talk like that: we want everybody to say whatever they want, and let us separate the wheat from the chaff.
AVI: What is love?
Welfare system could cause Israel to collapse, economist warns. Related, Dave Swindle on My Candy Jar. Related, EU Pres says Euro-socialism on verge of collapse.
In praise of shale gas: Carpe Diem
The Union of Concerned Scientists tackles gardening to save the planet. Good grief. What a bunch of sanctimonious putzes those folks are. They have been like that for years. "Ban the Bomb" and "Better Red than Dead" and the whole Global Cooling scare of the 1970s. A bunch of Viagra-deficient kooks and cranks.
Speaking of santimonious cranks, White House: Stop Marketing Unhealthy Foods to Kids. Hey, Washington: Shut the heck up and leave us alone. You can eat what you want, and we will eat what we like: Philly Cheese Steaks, and barbecued short ribs with corn bread, and stuff like that. Bread Pudding for dessert, with a Port or a single malt on the side. Then a cigar.
At Columbia, light on science, heavy on ideology: Sustainability---More Cash and a Softer Side. It's all about Sustain My Grants.
Steyn via Vanderleun:
"We are building a world in which the wealthiest nations on the planet, from Norway to New Zealand, are all but defenseless, while bankrupt dysfunctional squats go nuclear. Even with inevitable and generous submissions to nuclear blackmail, how long do you think that arrangement will last?"
An electoral "reform" deal in the UK?
...Brown's statement appeared to give Clegg's party a viable alternative, and real temptation: join a possibly short-lived alliance, remove the unpopular Brown, and pass electoral reform that could transform their fortunes and even banish the Conservatives to the political wilderness for many years.
Sounds like ACORN. Update: Never mind. Cameron's in, for what it's worth.
NYT: Florida Suit Poses a Challenge to Health Care Law
“Every decision you can make as a human being has an economic footprint — whether to procreate, whether to marry,” he said. “To say that is enough for your behavior to be regulated transforms the Commerce Clause into an infinitely capacious font of power, whose exercise is only restricted by the Bill of Rights.”
I know nothing, but my impression has been that the intent of the commerce clause was to eliminate and prevent obstacles to inter-state trade, not to create obstacles and controls of commerce - much less our daily lives or our deaths.
Your Supreme Court, via The Diversity Scam and the Supreme Court :
Kinda makes ya wonder how Ginsberg snuck on there with her sketchy educational resume. My Diversity Meter detects some problems here: Where are the folks from George Mason and Hillsdale, and the folks who say "y'all," and the folks from Montana? It's not as if you have to go to Harvard or to be from New York City to be able to understand the Constitution. It was deliberately written in plain, simple English - instead of legalese - so every citizen of every state could understand what they might decide to sign up for. It's short, and it's not rocket science. The Federalist Papers, however, are more interesting.
This female is being held for banding. If you're stuck, the male is on the continuation page below.
Continue reading "Who am I?"
Via Failbook via Things That Are Doing It (h/t, I forget - will link when I remember.)
Another one, also safe for work, below the fold -
Continue reading "Industrial Pron du Jour"
The New Deal was a genuine revolution, whose deepest purpose was not simply reform within existing traditions, but a basic change in the social, and, above all, the power relationships within the nation. It was not a revolution by violence. It was a revolution by bookkeeping and lawmaking. In so far as it was successful, the power of politics had replaced the power of business. This is the basic power shift of all the revolutions of our time. This shift was the revolution.
Whittaker Chambers (h/t, Dr. Bob)
The Vela (1957). Story at Babalu
 The Pill turns fifty: are we having fun yet?
Obamacare discourages employers from hiring the young, and part-timers.
64% Still Rate Being A Mother As A Woman’s Most Important Role
Government ‘Cancer Scare’ Report So Bogus Even the New York Times Notices
Somin at Volokh: A Creative Proposal for Reducing Prison Rape
Am Thinker:
If it sometimes seems that the nation is governed by an elite liberal clique of college fraternity and sorority pals who are out of touch with average Americans, that's because it's largely true. Every president, and almost every presidential candidate for the last two decades, has been a graduate of Harvard or Yale. If the Senate confirms Kagan, every member of the Supreme Court will have been a Yale or Harvard attendee, too.
What the Democrats Know: Universal Voter Registration
Goldman is making money
WSJ: Islam's Nowhere Men - Millions like Faisal Shahzad are unsettled by a modern world they can neither master nor reject.
Jammie: Those Racist Republicans In Georgia
The death spiral of the Welfare STate
Moonbattery: The Unemployment Hammock
Monday, May 10. 2010
Jay Cost on how the people will speak truth to power in November. A quote:
The entire political class needs to understand that the coming events transcend ideology and partisanship. The electoral wave of 2010 will have been preceded by the waves of 2006 and 2008. That will make three electoral waves in a row, affecting both parties and conservative and liberal politicians alike. The American people are sending the establishment a message: we're angry at the way you are running our government; fix it or you'll be next to go.
Classic, but serious, Steyn. Robinson pulls out some of the best quotes. h/t Theo
At Pajamas: War, Pestilence, Famine: That’s Climate Change … When It’s Cold.
Somebody actually told me today that it was so cold this morning because of man-made climate change. I prudently held my tongue, and just smiled.
A reader introduced us to Theodore Roethke's 1957 "Last Class," an amusing rant about teaching literature to rich girls at Bennington College.
I cannot find the whole thing, but here's the first page. Roethke wrote it under the pen name of Winterset Rothberg.
Good video of the Nashville flood. Related: Nashville flood: The South's self-help disaster
Casino Jack: Documentary goes after Abramoff -- and capitalism
The real cost of Cape Wind
Jules: Living green in California
Driscoll: Life imitates Orwell in academia
Taranto: Everything causes cancer
Venezuela economy update
Coyote: Let’s Make Sure the Internet Remains Just as Innovative as General Motors
Insty:
ARE CARBS WORSE FOR US THAN FAT? If so, can we sue the nannies who have been trying to force us to eat less fat? If nannyists and “public health” crusaders were held to the same standards as, say, drug companies, they’d all be in jail now.
Am Thinker: The Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism
Also at Am Thinker: Feds to solve problem of children not fishing and hunting enough
Carney: Just because companies are profiting from it doesn’t make it a ‘free-market’ policy
Via Marginal Rev:
Economic enlightenment is not correlated with going to college, at least among the 4835 Americans who completed a Zogby International online survey. Economic enlightenment is highest among those self-identifying “conservative” and “libertarian,” and descends through “moderate,” “liberal,” and “progressive.” Other variables include party affiliation, religious participation, union membership, NASCAR fandom, and Wal-Mart patronage. Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and Daniel Klein report.
Congressman Says Climate Science Should Be Simplified to ‘Sixth Grade Level’ Because Americans ‘Don’t Get’ It
Sunday, May 9. 2010
Some important useful info.
 Hey, Northeast gardeners. If you have been too eager to get your tomatoes, etc. in the ground, watch out.
Freezing temps predicted tonight and tomorrow night. Cover them with something. Plastic milk cans or sheets of plastic or whatever. Global cooling, ya know.
As a rational skeptic on the subject, I have fortunately not planted any tomatoes or cucumbers or peppers yet. The guaranteed safe date for putting out uncovered tender plants in New England has been May 31 for over 200 years, and it still is. That is peer-reviewed data: My Mom says it, and my Grandpa said it.
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