Monday, June 21. 2010
 A guy has devoted his life to re-establishing the Puffin colonies in Maine.
One could do many worse things in life.
That sandwich sign made me wonder whether the Puffins were being attracted to this rock by the idea of a free lunch. Foolish birds.
You can read a bit about the Atlantic Puffin here.
The final lines from a Robert Hayden poem posted by neoneo yesterday. A poet who understood fatherhood:
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Many Moms do not know that, but they know other things. Dads know.
From Howie Carr via Betsy:
Criticizing Bush - the highest form of patriotism. Criticizing Obama - hate speech. Who caused Bush’s problems? - Bush. Who causes Obama’s problems? - Bush.
When Bush mispronounced a word (like nuclear) - more proof he is a complete cowboy moron.
When Obama mispronounces a word (like corpsman) - how dare you even bring this up, racist?!
Unemployment at 4.6 percent under Bush - a jobless recovery.
Unemployment at 9.7 percent under Obama - the new normal, “steady,” a lagging indicator of the happy days that CNBC says are here again.
Economic woes under Bush - portents of a new Depression. Economic woes under Obama - a blip on the radar screen, surprising.
Cindy Sheehan under Bush - a future recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Sheehan under Obama - give it up already, you old bag.
Bush playing a rare round of golf - complete video coverage, showing his utter indifference to the suffering of the American people.
Obama playing one of his endless rounds of golf - only still photos allowed, yet another glowing indication of our dashing president’s youth and physical fitness.
Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.
Billy Shankly, quoted in a post about Soccer at American Thinker. My view is that soccer is good fun to play, but watching pros play is like watching paint dry.
 Romantic music works
Kaplan: Saving France
Is my testosterone too low?
Reason: Ideas Having Sex - How prosperity and innovation exceeded the expectations of John Stuart Mill and Adam Smith
Review of God's Brain
Powerline:
Since his emergence as a national figure, Obama has fretted about America's lack of popularity in the world. It does not seem to have occurred to him that, though being disliked may be unpleasant, the most serious trouble begins when a nation is viewed with contempt by its enemies and with pity by its friends.
Sen. Kyl Claims Obama Told Him: “If We Secure the Border, Then You Won’t Have Any Reason to Support Comprehensive Immigration Reform”
Mead on modern nationalism:
The tragedy of modern life seems to lie in the fact that we cannot live with nationalism and we cannot live without it. The deep loyalties and affinities we fell towards those who speak our language and share our customs and our historical memories provides much of the social capital that allows modern society to develop and grow. On the other hand, the conflicts between national and ethnic groups must be overcome if we are to have any hope of peace.
Ed Lasky likes Mike Pence. So do I.
EJ Dionne: A guy who definitely would have been on England's side in the Revolution
One guy golfs, one guy sails. What's the diff?
Docs weaning themselves off Medicare patients
Sunday, June 20. 2010
Re-posted today because I had a female Ruby-Throated flirting with me yesterday while I was watering some hanging baskets of flowers. Fearless critter. Seemed to want to frolic in the spray.
Chances are that the first time you saw a hummingbird, you paid it no attention, imagining it to be a passing dragonfly or some other fleeting buzzing bug. In the Eastern half of the US, we have only one species – the Ruby Throated.
This 3-4-inch bird is usually only seen when hovering over flowers, because otherwise he is tiny and darting in flight, and his wings are a humming blur. You have to be very close to hear the hum.
These insect-like birds are probably more abundant in your area than you realize, but if you want to see them often, you need a hummingbird garden. (Those sugar-water hummingbird feeders offer no real nutrition, and the red coloring is thought to be somewhat toxic.) He feeds on nectar and small bugs hidden in the flowers, and prefers flowers which are designed for pollination by hummingbirds – often red in color and vase-shaped for his long beak. Red Trumpet Vine (in photo) is a favorite, as is azalea in the south, but they like monarda too. I find their favorite at my place is Crocosmia – which is in bloom now along with the monarda, and the trumpet vine on my wall. I highly recommend Crocosmia – the bulbs are a bit expensive but, once established, they multiply rapidly and they have attractive foliage. White Flower Farm has a large selection. In the woods, I typically see hummingbirds around patches of Jewelweed, which likes damp areas.
Read more about the Ruby Throated here. How do these fragile creatures make it across the Gulf of Mexico to winter in South America?
The print is Audubon's, the Ruby Throat with Trumpet Vine.
Speaking of hummingbirds, don’t forget the Dixie Hummingbirds.
Clipped from this morning's newspaper:
ObamaCare is the cure?! Big Pharma cut deals with Congressional Dems, to sell more Rxs they think, counting on buying out small drug development companies to keep their pipeline full. But, it's tougher for small biotech companies to find the rewards motivation or funding to be entrepreneurial.
"Abba," the Aramaic word for "father," was sometimes used by Christ as a term for his true Father in heaven.
Jesus spoke Aramaic, almost certainly knew enough Hebrew to study the texts, and may have known some Greek too. Greeks, like the Romans, were all over the place. Must have been like that multicultural bar scene in Star Wars.
His use of "Dad" for God was transformational.
I do not view God as having any gender, but I love the way Christ spoke of God as his Dad. Real Dads, however much they may aspire to be role models and to be strong and reliable supports for their kids, are only human and thus always deeply flawed.
Yes, I greatly enjoyed Bruce's Father's Day post early this morning, especially the music. Jew, Christian, Moslem - whatever. If that song doesn't bring a tear, you have a problem. "Only you created tears, and only you can wipe them away forever."
 The world has 5 times as many polar bears today than it did 50 years ago. I blame climate change.
Samuelson: Why Our Poverty Measure Misleads
Ocean pH alarmism, easily debunked
Via Q&O:
Russia is eliminating the capital gains tax. Sadly, the ex-commies know something we apparently don't. http://bit.ly/cSzTOe
Was it a shakedown? Of course it was.
Is this legal to do? NYC Going After Teen 'Sexting' -- In The Home
Wouldn't an Arizona lawsuit be like suing yourself? All their law does is repeat federal law on a state basis.
Lowry: The O turns out to be mortal
Thompson on Egalitarian Superiority:
In my experience, the more egalitarian a person says he is, the more superior he wishes to be, or assumes he already is. Egalitarian sentiment is, and generally has been, a license for hypocrisy, double standards and exerting power over others. Much as a professed disdain for inequality is a way to signal one’s own moral, intellectual and social superiority.
Some pigs are more equal than others.
From Steyn:
Chris Matthews and the other leg-tinglers invented an Obama that doesn't exist. Unfortunately, they're stuck with the one that does, and it will be interesting to see whether he's capable of plugging the leak in his own support. If not, who knows what the tide might wash up?
Memo to Secretary Rodham Clinton: Do you find yourself of a quiet evening with a strange craving for chicken dinners and county fairs in Iowa and New Hampshire, maybe next summer? Need one of those relaunch books to explain why you're getting back in the game in your country's hour of need?
"It Takes A Spillage."
Father's Day image on top courtesy of Theo
Image below of the O worrying about the oil leak, via Jammie (the point is not that the guy likes golf. Lots of people like golf - most cannot afford to be delivered to the course via helicopter, however. The point is the double standard. What if Bush...):
Saturday, June 19. 2010
 How they produce The Rumford Meteor with a staff of only 72 (Most are Supervisors, Planners and Administrators, but the head count also includes the pimply kid who goes out for coffee, donuts, pizza, cigarettes, and to pick up the police blotter - and the commission-only Head of the Sales Dept. - her photo on right, returning with a bag full of advertising contracts. There is no Editor.) is beyond me.
Tonight, The Meteor is waxing gibbous. One thing Maine needs is one or two knowledgeable Conservative pundits, but I do not know whether such thing exists any more. The Meteor needs to provide one, but what is the right "voice"?
I wonder how many folks in the Great North Woods have broadband and, from my experience with a number of woods-dwelling Down Easters on hunting trips over the years, how many of those Yankee Rednecks give a damn about what is going on outside their cabin or their pick-up. Is alcohol an issue? Um, d'ya think? Meth too, it seems to me. However, most of Maine's population is along the coast (I think. It sounds like something a knowledgeable poster might say, so I made it up). Definitely, in summer.
The Meteor covers the waterfront and, as I have said in the past, sets a standard for local/state news and info that other regional sites may envy - or use as a model. I think local intertube news/info will be the future of the local rags, but I have been wrong once or twice in my life. Sure makes sense to give it a try.
 Mort Zuckerman, Obama supporter: World Sees Obama as Incompetent and Amateur.
A quote:
"There are always two chess games going on. One is on the top of the table, the other is below the table. The latter is the one that counts, but the Americans don't know how to play that game."
Another:
Obama has asserted that America is not at war with the Muslim world. The problem is that parts of the Muslim world are at war with America and the West.
Shucks, who knew? I thought the real world was a college bull session.
Ronald Reagan famously said: “The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
Reasons the US government should leave the intertunnels alone:
Marginally, maybe. Maybe, from being around curious, achievement-oriented, high IQ peers. From that, one might become competitive, inspired, and humbled - if one were not lucky enough to have those qualities in the first place.
Truth is, as I say here ad nauseum, that we don't know what "education" means beyond readin, ritin and rithmatic. A college degree can mean anything and nothing because becoming aware of the world and the world of the past, and the stories and the ideas of the past, cannot be fed. It must be taken. All edumacation is self-edumacation.
I think America would be better off if you could buy an Ivy League diploma online for $39.99 after answering a few questions about calculus, Julius Caesar, and Leonardo.
The Egalitarian Craze.
A Sheaf Of Snakes Used Heretofore To Be My Seal, The Crest Of Our Poor Family
 ADOPTED in God's family and so
Our old coat lost, unto new arms I go.
The Cross—my seal at baptism—spread below
Does, by that form, into an Anchor grow.
Crosses grow Anchors; bear, as thou shouldest do
Thy Cross, and that Cross grows an Anchor too.
But He that makes our Crosses Anchors thus,
Is Christ, who there is crucified for us.
Yet may I, with this, my first serpents hold;
God gives new blessings, and yet leaves the old.
The serpent may, as wise, my pattern be;
My poison, as he feeds on dust, that's me.
And, as he rounds the earth to murder sure,
My death he is, but on the Cross, my cure.
Crucify nature then, and then implore
All grace from Him, crucified there before;
Then all is Cross, and that Cross Anchor grown;
This seal's a catechism, not a seal alone.
Under that little seal great gifts I send,
Works, and prayers, pawns, and fruits of a friend.
And may that saint which rides in our great seal,
To you who bear his name, great bounties deal !
Friday, June 18. 2010
For a little Friday evening fun I thought I'd cobble together some of the animal videos from my art gallery. Enjoy.
Bird Apes Dog, Horses Around, Pigs Out, Is Catty With Ewe
Here's Einstein the parrot. If you watch him carefully, you'll see that he's got one thing, and one thing alone, on that beady little brain of his:
Her right hand.
I watched three DVDs on training parrots a while back, and they just live for that next snack treat. As with other animals, you find out what treat they like the most and then hold that one back for when they do a trick correctly. The parrots in the DVD were certainly eager to learn — but you can bet it wasn't for learning's sake. Like Einstein, they kept their sharp little eyes on the hand that held the treats almost the entire time.
Which isn't to diminish this bird's exceptional repertoire. Take it away, Einy!
This Dog's No Rummy
Here's 'Gin' and owner doing some freestyle dancing.
Continue reading "Cool Animal vids"
From a post at Coyote:
I work with a lot of very bright, very good people in government. The problem is that their incentives and information are awful. How would you behave if for 20 years your main feedback was to be criticized for violating minor procedures or trying new things? How would you have any understanding of business if you grew up in the bizarro world of government budgeting and accounting? This is the problem with government – not that it is full of bad stupid people, but it takes good smart people and incentivizes them to do counter-productive things.
Who'd a thunk it? Tough Moslems, too. Everybody is afraid of them, even in a place like Tennessee, the home of Davy Crockett.
I like the idea of "truth without value." How come it took me this long to find that concept? AVI's final paragraph of The Morality of Nonbelievers:
The Christian answer, as I have suggested, may be no truer than the others. It may be just one more variation of photosynthesis. I offer here no defense of that. Perhaps there is some other explanation outside of mankind – no, it would have to be outside of life itself – no wait, it would have to be outside of this accidental planet and even the accidental universe – that would make something in morality real, and true, and valuable. But absent any such, there isn’t anything that qualifies as morality – and there is simply no meaning beyond the masturbatory for a nonbeliever to give himself any credit for having one equal to the believer’s.
I agree with everything AVI says, and I feel motivated to think harder about things which affect me which have truth but little value.
Lux et Veritas, as they say in Rome. They used to say it in New Haven, too.
Jack Fuller has an interesting essay on the future of journalism and the news, and it is worth reading if only to see how older dead-tree newspeople view the world.
I disagree with much of it, and with his premises too. Plus his brain thing is just silly. Anyway, I have no time to share my thoughts about it this morning.
An email from Nathan, our correspondent in Jerusalem:
 The head burger assembler at Burger Bar is a tall, handsomely groomed, black-bearded Samurai master of the knife. More a ridged machete or sword he wields, rather twirls, flips, flicks in a ballet of carbon-forged steel. He calls me Abelleh, "little father," as if I could have fathered such a towering genius of the blade, with a smile that dims the knife"s glistening. From my loins, not likely. But as one of my professors who served in the Pacific said when complemented for his respect towards Japanese colleagues said, "Gotta be nice to these bastards; never know whether one of 'em is mine."
I take refuge in Burger Bar after a marathon of moving, a different choreography of furniture shifting, socks disappearing, blaring badly-sung, out of tune Hasidic music blaring as the "Dosies" (those who have found haredi religion) whip away an adult lifetime's collection and disappear it into a half-container.
Only the Chagall I worried about, insured separately, and between my house and the truck, it disappeared, evaporated into the blazing Jerusalem arid air, whiffed away as if heavenward. One of the packers complained, "Chagall, Shmagal, what is this, who is this, what does it matter?" Only the insistence of my helper, Keren, and a search of many unlabeled packages was Abraham consoling Sarah as the angels come to announce her fruition, does Chagall reappear. A city of miracles, Jerusalem is. And persistence, as Keren raises her voice and pays back with interest. ("The Chagall is equal to the whole value of the shipment. You will open every box until we find it.") Tough chick.
Continue reading "Moving Day in Jerusalem"
Revealed: Orangutans use language of at least FORTY different gestures to 'talk'
Yesterday was Bunker Hill Day
PJ O'Rourke on public schools: End them, Don't Mend Them. A quote:
Schaeffer calculated that Los Angeles, which claims $19,000 per-pupil spending, actually spends $25,000. The New York metropolitan area admits to a per-pupil average of $18,700, but the true cost is about $26,900. The District of Columbia’s per-pupil outlay is claimed to be $17,542. The real number is an astonishing $28,170—155 percent more than the average tuition at the famously pricey private academies of the capital region.
I believe that the $ should follow the kid to wherever the family wants.
Vitter: Obama Exploiting Oil Spill to Push Liberal Agenda
Krauthammer: The O is Dreamer in Chief
Soccer is a Capitalist Tool
Q&O:
Legislators are not executives, they are process orientated admins. The skill sets for the two are completely different. One set requires decision making of the highest order – sometimes on an instant and unilateral basis. The other set requires slow deliberation, compromise and consensus building. One deals with pure leadership. The other deals with the duller aspects of management. Executives are result oriented. Administrators are entirely process driven. Executives use action as their means of accomplishment. Administrators set goals and work toward them as their means of achievement.
Hmmm. Chicago Law Prof on Obama: “The Professors Hated Him because he was Lazy, Unqualified & Never Attended any of the Faculty Meetings”
Other McCain:
...am I the only reader who resents being lectured to by 22-year-olds? I don’t care what your SAT score was, sweetheart. You’re not that precocious.
Duke: Goodbye to One Man, One Vote
Thursday, June 17. 2010
Some more about this talent.
At age 15, Mark is already a veteran of the industry. His late Grandfather, Bruno Riccio OAM, realised Mark's talent as he sang along to Andrea Boccelli albums at the family's Italian restaurant at age nine. The boy soprano was soon taking singing lessons and before long Bruno was ferrying him to performances at markets, hospitals and charity balls, Mark's repertoire expanding to include swing and musical theatre numbers.
There's lots more at Youtube.com
Taxpayer funds are redistributed to other levels of government and to private organizations that use the funds to lobby for more, and more.
The Pacific Research Institute just completed a 92-page study of such "State-Level Lobbying and Taxpayers."
The study delved into lobbying disclosure laws in all the states, finding that on average the states scored a “D”, 59.3%, on disclosure.
Little wonder. Using the example of California, as the authors summarized in an op-ed:
When it comes to government-to-government lobbying, we’re not talking about small amounts of money, as California confirms. Direct government-to-government lobbying constituted the single largest category of state-level lobbying. Specifically, it represented $92.6 million of the $552.6 million California spent on lobbying, or 16.8 percent.
If that amount is expanded to include other taxpayer-funded organizations that are not directly government, the number increases to almost one-in-four-dollars of lobbying. Perhaps most telling, the level of taxpayer-funded lobbying at the state level, using California as a case study, is two-and-a-half times the magnitude of similar lobbying at the federal level.
While governors lobby the federal government, taxpayers in 50 states are staring down the barrel of April 15. Most do not intend their hard-earned money to fund lobbying activities on the part of government. All citizens have a right to expect that government-to-government lobbying will be subject to the same level of scrutiny and reporting as lobbying by the private sector. All states should make improvements in disclosure, accessibility and equal treatment.
The study points out, “A shocking 44 states provide specific exemptions in their lobbying laws for public agencies and public officials.”
Why?
The study continues:
For example, a bureaucrat’s prestige, power, and resources are ultimately a function of the importance of their area, the resources allocated to their department or agency, and the visibility of their work. Bennett and DiLorenzo argue that bureaucrats can and do indirectly create pressure on government to increase the resources and priority of their own departments by funding private organizations. The funding of these organizations creates a self-reinforcing dynamic: the outside group receives government money in part used to lobby the government for more programs and services in the area the funding department is responsible for. This creates pressure for the government (generally) to allocate greater funds to the department, which then in part allows for even greater funding of outside groups to continue lobbying.
Bennett and DiLorenzo describe a similar situation for politicians. Funding to outside groups by the government creates naturally strong constituencies for members of Congress. These outside groups can provide volunteers, campaign resources, and so-called independent voices of support for politicians during re-election campaigns.
A similar self-serving dynamic operates at the federal level:
Continue reading "Blockbuster Study: How Government Lobbies To Increase Itself"
I have been mulling over the notion of doing a post on ineffectiveness in people, but every time I thought about it, the subject just got too big to tackle. There are so many ways to be ineffective in life, ways of not addressing reality - and oneself - firmly.
Schneiderman is keeping it simple: "The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People"
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