Saturday, July 31. 2010
Who do you think has the firmer handshake? The fellow has some strange submissive, unmanly impulses. Perhaps Harvard removed his testosterone and replaced it with a dose of narcissism. This via Vanderleun via Fausta:
Thanks, Opie, for these photos with the data, which came in over the transom. I cannot source it, but kudos to whoever put this together. It is interesting not only to see the different sorts of families (extended, nuclear, large, small, desert, middle-class) but to see what they typically eat in a week.
Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide. Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07. (I guess that included the wine and beer)
Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo: Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53
Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo. Food expenditure for one week: $31.55
On continuation page below, USA, Bhutan, Mexico, Poland, Chad, and Italy:
Continue reading "Food and Families around the world"
It’s not for me to argue Catholic teachings, but my friend The Anchoress Elizabeth Scalia’s reply to Anne Rice's problem with whether Christians are living her political liberalism probably comes as close as to the Catholicism I learned being raised a Jew in a Catholic and Jewish neighborhood. Rice, like many or most of various religions, confuses politics with faith or, worse, substitutes politics for faith.
There’s a universal message, whether from scripture or Pope, that works: Open your heart and G-d will walk in. Close your mind and G-d’s presence is clouded, at least until your heart is set free.
Struggle with that as you wish or need to find meaning and salvation. Struggle is important in building strengths and to advance. That allows the confidence and trust that ultimately works, to accept the faith in man and in our actions being truer to G-d’s missions for us.
There’s a practical measure each can easily know, if not denied: Are you living life’s struggles with contentment instead of anguish or anger.
There are varying interpretations of whom Jacob wrestles, the result of which is his renaming as Israel. There’s agreement, however, that wrestling spirits with spirit is transforming.
A poem I just dashed off (revised in keeping with the form):
I
Am Nothing
Struggle Makes Us
Strong Enough To Accept
The Guiding Light To Make
Something Better Of I
G-d’s Better I
Is All
Us
Rembrandt's depiction of Jacob's wrestling is one of engagement, not separation.
Those holes are rocket launchers, also found on custom cabs and ambulances.
 Brilliant ad for Linda McMahon in CT. We think she has a real chance against Blumenthal.
Tim Pawlenty talks. He seems like Mr. Rogers.
A Dagestan wedding. Good grief.
Bruce told me about the 1949 movie, The Third Man. Sounds wonderful.
A reader sent this link which explains Gramsci's cultural hegemony
More about the sleazy Sherrods
Powerline: Whatever happened to the Constitution? Apparently it is too radically right wing for modern times, with all its focus on individual freedom and restrictions on state power. I like to remind myself that King George lll had nothing close to the power that our modern federal government wields today.
Reason: Growing Pains - ObamaCare won't stop rising health care costs.
A basic component of air remains illegal
Justice Department Encourages Voting by Felons as It Suppresses Military Vote
VDH: The Truths We Dare Not Speak About Illegal Immigration
Forbes: Why Keynes Was Wrong
Did The Government Cause The Gulf Oil Spill? Indirectly, yes. But the government directly caused the housing bubble and housing bust.
Maybe it’s Time For Jews to Fess Up. Evil Jews run the world. Everybody knows that. More about the evil Jews at Legal Ins.
The Screw-Guns
(A Screw-Gun was a small mountain ("mounting") cannon. Like many of Kipling's poems, this has been put to music, with wonderful success. Sadly, I cannot find a Youtube or midi-file of the tune, but I can hum it for you.)
Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin' cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets
It's only the pick of the Army
that handles the dear little pets -
Refrain:
For you all love the screw-guns - the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we call round with a few guns,
o' course you will know what to do
Jest send in your Chief an' surrender -
it's worse if you fights or you runs:
You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees,
but you don't get away from the guns!
They sends us along where the roads are, but mostly we goes where they ain't:
We'd climb up the side of a sign-board an' trust to the stick o' the paint:
We've chivied the Naga an' Looshai, we've give the Afreedeeman fits,
For we fancies ourselves at two thousand,
we guns that are built in two bits -
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
If a man doesn't work, why, we drills 'im an' teaches 'im 'ow to behave;
If a beggar can't march, why, we kills 'im an' rattles 'im into 'is grave.
You've got to stand up to our business an' spring without snatchin' or fuss.
D'you say that you sweat with the field-guns?
By God, you must lather with us -
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
The eagles is screamin' around us, the river's a-moanin' below,
We're clear o' the pine an' the oak-scrub,
we're out on the rocks an' the snow,
An' the wind is as thin as a whip-lash what carries away to the plains
The rattle an' stamp o' the lead-mules -
the jinglety-jink o' the chains -
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
Continue reading "Saturday Verse: Kipling"
Friday, July 30. 2010
Last month, the Congressional Budget Office issued its own set of updated projections, but the frame of reference was the long-term, and not just the next 10 years. Unfortunately, the farther out one looks, the worse the picture gets. CBO’s latest projections again make it clear that the nation is rushing headlong toward a fiscal crisis, and the health law does nothing to head it off.
Read it all.
 The Volt: G.M.’s Electric Lemon.
Can somebody tell me how this piece of expensive and useless crap is supposed to save the world?
Where do people think electricity comes from? Thor?
Photo is a Yugo, not a Volt. But you knew that.
 Since News Junkie is taking off for August, and only the names and the dates change, here’s a guide to the daily news for our readers. Fill in the blanks.
CONGRESS:
Congressional Democrats Deny Scheme To _________________.
Congressional Democrats Propose Scheme To _________________.
Congressional Democrats Expect To Survive 2010 Elections Because _________________.
Congressional Democrats Poll Numbers Continue To Decline Because _________________.
Congressional Democrats Refuse To Investigate ___________________.
Congressional Republicans Have A Secret Plan to ______________________.
Congressional Republican’s Secret Plan Is Not To _______________________.
Congressional Republicans’ Chances Hindered By Extreme Statements About _____________.
Congressional Republicans’ Extreme Statements Are Only So To Leftist Journalists Who Say ________.
PRESIDENT:
President Obama declares urgency of ____________________.
President Obama puts off decision on __________________.
President Obama vacations in _____________________.
President Obama nominates ____________________.
President Obama’s nominee’s past reveals _______________.
President Obama recess appoints _________________.
President Obama’s longtime friend under the bus ______________.
President Obama says Bush at fault for _________________.
President Obama breaks another campaign pledge to _________________.
President Obama praises despot ___________________.
President Obama criticizes ally ________________.
JOURNALISM AND COMMENTARY:
Major media journalists ignore above news about ____________________.
Bloggers investigate and reveal facts about ___________________.
Major media find excuses for _________________________.
Bloggers persist about ___________________.
Major media run stories about bloggers not being journalists ____________________.
Polls indicate more people believe bloggers about _________________.
Major media continues to ignore facts about ________________.
Major media continues to shrink ___________________.
Major media appoints new liberal to masthead ___________________.
Major media reports scientist saying science says to ____________________.
Scientist’s science is based on faulty methodology ________________________.
Major media repeats scientist’s assertion about ___________________.
Smart person eloquently points out the obvious about ________________.
Smarty pants commentator points out purported minor exceptions to the obvious to disprove the obvious about _________________.
MAGGIE’S FARM:
Old server crashes again and excused as ________________________.
Bird Dog vacations in ____________________.
Photos of Bird Dog’s vacation in _________________________.
Debate continues on how much cheesecake is appropriate ________________________.
Big links to Maggie’s cheesecake from major blogger _________________________.
Serious subjects essayed at Maggie’s Farm arouse commenters about other subjects ____________.
Fun subjects at Maggie’s Farm arouse commenters to add to fun about ___________________.
Maggie’s Farm recipes and computer advice only work for blogger _________________.
Bruce interrupts permanent vacation to say (sometimes boring) _________________.
Joy Bliss pithily starts a subject and doesn’t finish about ______________________.
Great art and literature you never heard of about _____________________.
I think that the religious faith of most average Christians waxes and wanes over time, sometimes even in the course of a day. I do know people whose faith seems to be 100% and rock solid. In the end, I don't find thinking about the topic of strength of faith particularly useful or productive. God is a mystery to me, as is existence itself (and most other things too), but I believe that in prayer and in practice one can come into relationship with God - or at least with Jesus.
Ron Rosenbaum speaks up for the Enlightenment agnostic in everyone: An Agnostic Manifesto - At least we know what we don't know. One quote:
Atheists have no evidence—and certainly no proof!—that science will ever solve the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Just because other difficult-seeming problems have been solved does not mean all difficult problems will always be solved. And so atheists really exist on the same superstitious plane as Thomas Aquinas, who tried to prove by logic the possibility of creation "ex nihilo" (from nothing). His eventual explanation entailed a Supreme Being standing outside of time and space somehow endowing it with existence (and interfering once in a while) without explaining what caused this source of "uncaused causation" to be created in the first place.
This is—or should be—grade-school stuff, but many of the New Atheists seemed to have stopped thinking since their early grade-school science-fair triumphs.
Right, sort-of (I don't think we even know what we don't know). Science is not a religion. It's just a formalized, rigorous mode of inquiry from which most of the data and facts and theories are inevitably replaced over time. It is incapable of handling the Big Questions and Big Truth, but it sure can be useful. For example, we currently believe that "gravity" doesn't exist as a "force," but it's a handy concept anyway. Someday, our talk of "forces" wil be viewed as little more than 18th century gods.
Chesterton: ""If there were no God, there would be no atheists."
I am taking a mental health break from Maggie's for August. I love Maggie's, but I am sick of having to see all of the outrages du jour. As that guy Drinking with Bob says on the radio, "What next? What next!"
We lease one of these babies:
Good site, discovered by Vanderleun: I Want a New Left
NEA Removes Post Encouraging Teachers To Celebrate Chinese Communist Revolution
Poll shows opposition to health care overhaul declining. Of course. It hasn't gone into effect yet.
Dalmia: The Death Of The Global Warming Movement
Galston: How Americans’ Shifting Political Ideologies Threaten the Democrats
Ann McElhinney:
“So when my husband and I came to America, we heard a story about conservatives. We heard that these conservatives are a really really weird lot. Nutjobs, basically. And these conservatives, they’re obsessed with sex. They’re obsessed with sex and they’re obsessed with what you’re doing in your bedroom. It’s all they think about. They’re just constantly worrying about what you’re up to in your bedroom.
But you know something? Since we’ve moved here, we haven’t found that. But what we have found is that liberals, are in every other room in your house. They’re in the fridge. They’re in your car. They’re in your air miles. They’re in your clothes. They’re in your hair. They’re in your cleaning products, and your washing machine and the refrigerator. They’re all over the place! And they’re in your light bulb! And I want to say them .. This is America! Get out of my light bulb"
Once again: Schwarzenegger Declares Fiscal Emergency in California. They needed a real man like Chris Christie.
Lopez: Ohio Wants Something Different
Kafka-trapping:
"The longer the playing of the race card continues, the probability that someone will deny the accusation, and thereby provide proof of the accusation, approaches one."
Sissy reminded us of this excellent Am Thinker post: Cultural Marxism
How science led the Third Reich. Totally related via Q&O: Why "science" has a problem:
If science wants to redeem itself and regain its place with the public’s affection, scientists need to come out every time some politician says, “The science says we must…” and reply, “Science only tells us what is. It does not, and can never tell us what we should or must do.” If they say that often enough, and loudly enough, they might be able to reclaim the mantle of objectivity that they’ve given up over the last 40 years by letting themselves become the regulatory state’s ultimate appeal to authority.
Thursday, July 29. 2010
For the second day in a row, our home-made mini-nuke plant in the basement, which provides the power to the Maggie's servers as well as to our milking machines and our a/c, went down due to mice. Today, I picked up a cat at the shelter to live in the basement. Nuclear power problem solved.
In apology, and since I am headed to Vienna soon, I offer something from the King of the Waltz, Johann Strauss Jr:
Not to be confused with his dad, Johann Strauss Sr., composer of the Radetzky March among much other music. Dad, famously, never forgave his son for going into music instead of banking.
Neither are related to the great German composer Richard Strauss:
Conscious guilt causes agony while unconscious guilt can shape a person.
I tend to see more people wracked with conscious guilt. Sometimes it's neurotic (ie, irrational in proportion), and sometimes it is good old ordinary guilt for rotten behavior and/or evil thoughts.
There are many causes of self-defeating or self-sabotaging behavior besides unconscious guilt (for examples, avoidance of difficult things or avoidance of risky challenges), but guilt is always on the list of considerations.
Dr. X discusses the topic here and here.
Washington Rebel found a remarkable rant from Takuan Seiyo in Brussels Journal: Shotgun Marriage In Europe. One quote:
... to return a Western democracy to its rightful owners requires a majority of votes. Such a majority can no longer obtain for any political platform that would tackle even the top three major problems that bedevil the West: bankrupting socialism, nonwhite immigration, and implanted Islam. Not to mention the next dozen grave problems: irredeemable debt, the tyranny of the metastized State, the Looters’ coalition’s chokehold, sham global economy, fraudulent financial capitalism, minoritarian tyranny, shattered social capital, barbaric mass culture, nihilism, democracy turned idiocracy, breakdown of sexual norms and results (i.e. no babies), and falsehoods and self-hate careening through the land like a band of headless horsemen.
h/t, Theo. This is off Cape Town. I think the whale is practicing for a Moby Dick re-make.
The asteroid. I read on the internet that global warming causes asteroids.
Did you know that the govt is giving out free cell phones and free airtime? (h/t, Moonbattery)
Anatomy of a Microburst. Often mistaken for tornados.
Is being a slut liberating?
Pre-Cambrian life forms
The Boy Scout parade
SEC Says New Financial Regulation Law Exempts it From Public Disclosure. Huh?
New Calculator Shows How Much More Taxes Will You Pay Next Year
NYT Reporter Surprised at Lack of Gratitude in Texas for Obama-Care Handout
Heather MacDonald: What Judge Bolton’s Injunction Doesn’t Say
The President Wears Prada
We have had quite a few posts about Woodrow Wilson lately. This from Scott at Powerline:
Reading the scholarly work of Woodrow Wilson is an educational experience. It is shocking to read the expressions of his disaffection for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. As R.J. Pestritto has demonstrated, the intellectual roots of modern liberalism lie in an assault on the ideas of natural rights and limited government. They eventuate in an administrative state and rule by supposed experts. Obamacare represents something like the full flowering of modern liberalism.
I want to go the the museum at the Belevedere Palace in Vienna more to see the Kokoshkas than to see the jazzy Klimts. Klimt is fine, but Kokoshka is one of the gnarly German Expressionists that I get a kick out of. Well, Austrian in this case.
I have a good Klimt quote though:
I have never painted a self-portrait. I am less interested in myself as a subject for a painting than I am in other people, above all women...There is nothing special about me. I am a painter who paints day after day from morning to night...Who ever wants to know something about me... ought to look carefully at my pictures.
Kokoshka's famous 1914 Bride of the Wind:
Wednesday, July 28. 2010
A quote from his interview:
You know what that rally was? The "me first" rally. "Pay me my raise first. Pay me my free health benefits first. Pay me my pension first. And everybody else in New Jersey, get to the back of the line." Well, you know what? I'm not going to sit by and allow that to go unnoticed, so we'll shine a bright light on it, and we'll see how the people react. But I think we are seeing how the people of New Jersey are reacting, and that's how you make it politically palatable in other states in the country. Just shine a bright light on greed and self-interest."
It's the right time to take on the greed of government unions. Somebody's got to do it before every Dem state goes bankrupt. As I always say, the marriage between government unions and the Dem party is an intrinsically corrupt conspiracy against the people.
Bob Dylan's use of the phrase, "You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows" in Subterranean Homesick Blues encouraged the young to make their own decisions, including about drugs, to know what's happening based on changing conditions in order to know about what's coming. It's based on the nautical phrase to know the windward side.
This latest chart of ObamaCare only shows about a third of the complexity of the hurricane and where it is blowing us.
In the garage I still have a copy of the chart for HillaryCare. It was simple, Alice's Wonderland was easier to wend through, compared to this maze, a maze we're doomed to wander in search of care.
Only repeal is real.
 Not my fault. I blame Bush.
Meanwhile I learned about the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal, via which you can travel from Rotterdam to the Black Sea by water if you want to.
Could be sort of like America's Great Loop, without the loop.
The Viking/Normans, who explored the Danube from the Med, would have enjoyed that canal.
This article is from the British paper The Star.
This is one of those rare moments in life when you realize you've just read something such as you've never read before, nor may ever read again.
ON 21 July, we published an article claiming that the video games company Rockstar Games were planning to release a version of their popular Grand Theft Auto video games series titled “Grand Theft Auto Rothbury”.
We also published what we claimed would be the cover of this game, solicited comments from a family member impacted by the recent tragedy and criticised Rockstar Games for their alleged plans.
We made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication and did not contact Rockstar Games prior to publishing the story. We also did not question why a best selling and critically acclaimed fictional games series would choose to base one of their most popular games on this horrifying real crime event.
It is now accepted that there were never any plans by Rockstar Games to publish such a game and that the story was false. We apologise for publishing the story using a mock-up of the game cover, our own comments on the matter and soliciting critical comments from a grieving family member.
We unreservedly apologise to Rockstar Games and we have undertaken not to repeat the claims again. We have also agreed to pay them a substantial amount in damages which they are donating to charity.
Rick Moran led us to the real meaning of Dog Days. Via Wiki:
For the ancient Egyptians, Sirius appeared just before the season of the Nile's flooding, so they used the star as a "watchdog" for that event. Since its rising also coincided with a time of extreme heat, the connection with hot, sultry weather was made for all time.
Sirius is the shiny dog collar tag in Canis Major:
Here. It was Edwardian: high-fashion with post-Victorian mores and plenty of mineral water. Edward Vll himself loved to hang out there and pick up chicks. Back then, being a bit pudgy was not a problem. We remain in his debt for making tweed respectable, and for replacing white tie and tails with the simple black tie of today.
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