Tuesday, August 31. 2010
Luckily I forgot to bring the bag of Sun Chips I bought when I took the boys to Petco for Sunday's ball game. It is the loudest, most annoying food packaging I've ever heard. The new Sun Chips packaging is biodegradable and compostable. Great for the environment. Terrible for my ears, or anyone else's, at 95 decibils. That's the sound level at which "sustained exposure may result in hearing loss." Not to mention a bop in the nose from someone in a seat nearby. My wife was sleeping in the next room, after dental surgery, and was just woken by my opening the bag.
On the other hand, I may now have an excuse for not answering my wife's questions. Sales have fallen since introduction of the new bag. Maybe a new ad campaign for "Did you say something, honey?" will revive sales.
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles.
The deal is the social contract and the contract of civility.
By some fluke, in the past month I have consulted with three teens who have run afoul of the law, including one 16 year-old who could be facing many years in jail.
Not one of these kids realized or had ever considered that what they had done was criminal. It got me to thinking.
In my parents' generation, the kids took a course called "Civics." It was about our government, laws, civil behavior, civic responsibility, how to be a citizen of a free republic, etc. It was replaced, in time, by some strange Dewey-ish thing called "Social Studies" in public schools (but private schools, like mine, never did "Social Studies). My guess is that nowadays it's about recycling, respecting "others," and appreciating Serbian cuisine and folk dress.
When I met with the parents, I discovered that the parents had never discussed the laws with their kids. They figured they had "basically good kids."
Whatever that means.
I'd like to launch a movement to re-institute Civics. I'd like to see kids get classes from cops and criminal and non-criminal lawyers about the laws and the legal process. I'd like to see kids taught about being a citizen in a free repubic, and their duties and reponsibilities. I am certain that not all parents convey those things today, but if kids aren't taught these things they will find out the hard way. It takes lots of people to teach a kid how to be an acceptable member of society.
A good parental example is a good start, but not enough. They need feedback and simple information.
When I went to boarding school we had daily chapel. We acknowledged God and Jesus plenty, but most of the brief homilies were about how to be a decent member of a community. Those messages stuck, even to wanna-be sophisticated and wanna-be jaded young hipsters like I tried to be.
The core of the problem is the modernist assumption of "basic goodness." Frankly, that is pure BS.
A 16 year-old boy fondled a precocious and eager 14 year-old in his car after school. Another kid told the parents, parents called the cops, and the 16 year-old is facing many years in jail on pedophilia counts. The prosecutor has him as an adult pedophile. Nobody ever told him.
It's not the sort of topic that comes up over the dinner table, but somebody could have and should have told him about the laws.
Continue reading "It does take a village (to help produce kids who know what the rules are)"
Guy made a foolish mistake. He should have stayed home, down under, where the people live upside-down.
I think the prosecutors are reaching, but that is what prosecutors do in the US. Big cases are their scorecards, and the heck with justice, fairness, or reasonableness. Beware of ambitious prosecutors.
(Note: I do not play online poker, but I have been known to play a game or two with friends. The stock market is the real online gambling, imo. It is legal.)
At the Canada Free Press, The Media Loses Readers and Viewers to its Own Radicalism: The problem with the American media is that it doesn't speak to Americans. One quote (but read the whole thing):
 The left’s hijacking of American culture has turned institutions into rags and rubble, and it will only get worse. Because the left does not know when to stop. Does not understand that it should stop. That is why left wing revolutions that do succeed, eventually culminate in multiple levels of purges that exterminate many of the original revolutionaries, or send them off to fight and die somewhere else, turning them into convenient martyrs who look good on blood-red T-shirts.
Obama’s vision of the media was as purveyors of his talking points. To that end he kept it at arms length, even while using it non-stop to promote himself. By turning the media into his publicists, he helped accelerate a rapid slide that had already been under way, ending any real distinction between news and celebrity news, between opinion and reporting, and between the liberal media and the liberal government. And when Ezra Klein tried to occasionally draw a line between themselves and the politicians they cover, it was a line that was no longer there anymore, because the media had found its mission in the advocacy of liberal domestic and international policies, of convincing the public that their political way was best.
Since last Friday, when I wrote why I Just Disinherited My Alma Mater, the post has had “legs” about what I and others say is politicized indoctrination as official college policy.
Brooklyn College requires incoming freshmen and transfer students to read an absurdly slanted book that Arab-Americans are routinely rousted by law enforcement and discriminated against, which the author attributes to racism akin to Jim Crow discrimination against Blacks a century ago and due to American imperialism. Somehow, according to college authorities, this is supposed to create a beneficial, educational “common experience.”
Glenn Reynolds' InstaPundit blog, which is read by about 200,000 each day, linked my post and on successive days two posts by others about my post. By contrast, my hometown San Diego Union-Tribune’s daily circulation is about 250,000. Many other blogs also picked up on my post.
Today, the New York Daily News, circulation about 570,000, reported the story after interviewing me: “Alum to cut Brooklyn College out of will over required freshman reading by 'radical' prof” Moustafa Bayoumi.
“Bayoumi did not return a call for comment.”
In a statement, Brooklyn College said it was "regrettable that Mr. Bruce Kesler misunderstands the intentions of the Common Reader experience and the broader context of this selection."
The National Association of Scholars wrote, however, that Brooklyn College does not understand, or understands all too well, the Common Reading Controversy at Brooklyn College.
We agree with those who find the assignment of this polemical book as common reading troubling. While much of How Does It Feel to be a Problem? seems a straightforward telling of stories, its central purpose is clear. It aims to establish Arab and Muslim Americans as victims and indict American society for making them so. By assigning this book as the sole one to be read by incoming undergraduates, most of whom will have little of the knowledge needed to evaluate its claims, Brooklyn College opens itself to the charge that it is using what should be an important education experience for ideological goals – a charge which the evidence of our study indicates could be made against a great many other colleges and universities as well.
Many readers have written about their “common experience” in indoctrination at their colleges. It is getting harder for slanted -- indeed, blatant -- indoctrination to hide behind ivy-covered walls. The reactions continue and builds.
P.S.: I just received this email from a former classmate:
I also had it with Brooklyn College and their attitude regarding Israel. I'm a retired N.Y.C teacher. I retired after 33 years in the system in 2001. I joined IRPE- a retiree organization at the college. I attended one of their lectures concerning the middle east. When we walked in, we were given maps of various mid-east countries. The so called conference became a hate session regarding eretz Yisroel. 3 speakers got up and one by one they denounced Israel. No one was allowed to respond to them. People walked out cursing them. When I wrote a letter to the college, they denied all of this. I left IRPE and would not contribute one further penny to the institution. Having worked, I graduated in 1969 and am the class representative for that year.
Congratulations on taking a stand.
IRPE is Brooklyn College's Institute for Retirees in Pursuit of Education.
See UPDATE
 Neo: Skilled workers wanted
VDH: The Sources of American Anger - Barack Obama, the great healer, is proving to be the most divisive president since Richard Nixon.
Sowell: ObamaCare’s Deadly Consequences
Headline: Glenn Beck is a poo-poo head
GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot. But Volokh wonders: Repub win good for Obama's career?
Althouse thinks about our Kesler piece, and the meaning of life. And AVI thinks about regrets in life. The longer you live, the more regrets you accumulate.
George Will: Major Gaps in Education Achievement Between Whites, Blacks
Now, from the Educational Testing Service, comes a report about "The Black-White Achievement Gap: When Progress Stopped," written by Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley. It examines the "startling" fact that most of the progress in closing the gap in reading and mathematics occurred in the 1970s and '80s. This means "progress generally halted for those born around the mid-1960s, a time when landmark legislative victories heralded an end to racial discrimination."
Hmmm. As I recall, anti-discrimination is not the only thing that was happening then.
Barack Obama's plan to nationalize the fishing industry
Isn't it sexist (and racist) to say that cutting the size of government is sexist and racist? I mean, isn't it biased and demeaning to people of gender and color to assume that they must be dependent on others?
“It Was Certainly a Dry Run”: Two Muslims Arrested in Amsterdam After Flight from Chicago
Don Juan's Dad was Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Austria. His Mom was Barbara Blomberg, a local singer who entertained Charles with music and fun while he passed through Regensburg in 1546.
Not much more is heard in history about Barbara, but we are grateful to her for bearing John of Austria, who led the allied navies against the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
It is believed that John was conceived during a one-night-stand in this old hotel in Regensburg (yellow one on the right, a week or so ago). An historic little hook-up indeed:
Monday, August 30. 2010
Bird Dog -
While certainly not as "dramatic" as your trip across the pond, we spent a week in the Maine woods, canoeing and fishing for Brook Trout and Smallmouth. We stayed at a traditional Maine "camp" http://www.bowlincamps.com/ Food was great (camp cooking and plenty of it). Other than rain for 1/2 the day on Monday, the weather was superb - temps in the upper 70's during the day and 50-55 at night. Camp is located 8 miles down a logging road (no cell phone or Blackberry - hooray!) and about an hour west of Patten, Maine. They have had little rain this year, so the river and stream levels were down, impacting the fishing. We caught some Brookies and one decent Smallmouth in five days of fishing. The fish were there, we just had to work for them. We canoed and fished the East Branch of the Penobscot River which is pretty daggone wild. We saw no other canoes or campers on the river. Saw a nice bear and wife almost got ran over by a moose while she was hiking. Had a flat tire on the Suburban so had to go to Houlton for repair (living where I do, I forget how nice the folks outside of the urban areas are to strangers. Guy at the tire shop just happened to have the exact size and make tire that matched the other three. It was used, but had better tread than the ones on the Sub. $50 on the vehicle. In and out in 45 minutes.)
Bowlin Camps is just a stone's throw from the Appalachian Trail. Guy came through for lunch - he was hiking from Gaspe Bay to Key West. Left Gaspe Bay in mid-June. No map, one pair of boots and I think, not a lot of money. Gave him our breakfast bars and some trail mix, for which he was sincerely grateful. Seemed like a nice guy, but maybe a bit too idealistic - hoped to make it to Key West by next summer.
Anyway, the camp was great, Pops, wife and the two dogs enjoyed themselves in the woods. We had hot showers, generator between 0630 and 2100 hours and gas lamps otherwise. Camp was getting ready for bear hunting season, which begins on August 30th. We saw several trail cam pics of bears that were 5-6 feet tall, which is a great black bear for Maine.
Couple of pics attached.
Your humble scribe - J
1. The WaPo is sad because the EU is failing in its collectivist goals.
It does not sadden me, because I view the EU as just one more misbegotten attempt to create a European empire. The Romans started it, and people have been trying ever since, whether with armies or with ink. This motley crew will never see eye to eye.
2. The Aussie election is still up in the air. Hey, you upside-down folks - we do care.
From Mead on The Greening of Godzilla:
...on issues the public follows closely, the scientific consensus keeps changing. Margarine was introduced as the healthy alternative to butter; now experts tell us that the transfats in many types of margarine are the worst things you can eat. Should you eat no fat or the right fat? All carbs, no carbs or good carbs? How much vitamin E should you take? How much sun should you get? How much fish oil should you swallow? How should you divide your time between aerobic and non-aerobic exercise? On these and many other subjects, expert opinion keeps changing. Perhaps the current consensus will last; quite possibly, it won’t — but the experts can’t tell you what will happen.
Nobody trusts experts to be right, except those with no scientific education at all. Furthermore, real experts are humble about things.
They have brief summers there. Like Maine, I think. Pretty much everybody has a small polyurethane greenhouse or two in the yard, near their house.
Flying East from SF Bay area over Rawlins Wyoming. Weekend was the annual hunt on the 35,000-acre San Felipe Ranch SE of San Jose. The furthest part of the ranch is a beautiful, tranquil valley surrounded by steep, high hills, and the air there was filled with dozens and dozens of whirling Red Tail hawks, Harlan's hawks (from Alberta or Montana) and Kestrels plus a golden eagle. It was the annual migration, and the Fish & Game biologist with me was whooping with delight and talking about putting the event "on the hot line!
Awaiting your pics, Gwynnie.
I mean totally. Look at this: Waiting for Mr. Obama. They must inhabit a separate reality:
It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‘Always do what you are afraid to do.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson, a man whose writings I have never been able to really understand. Even tried to read his bio. No dice. He was big on the lecture circuit once upon a time. Perhaps I am not smart enough.
Two doofuses:
Cannibalism is for nutrition. But what about flavor?
Friends Disagree Lots
Cubbing in Virginia
On Fermat's Last Theorem:
..there is Andrew Wiles, the frail knight who for seven lonely years pursues the proof that has ensorcelled him since childhood. He announces the proof to the world, is featured on the front page of the New York Times and in People Magazine, he has the respect and admiration of his colleagues and then he discovers the proof is wrong. He works another year trying to fix it but every time he patches one area another fault line opens up. Even speaking of it now you can see and hear his utter despair. It is not too much to imagine that he was on the verge of a breakdown.
Theo: Completely honest first date
WSJ Editorial on the Democrats’ Attack on For-Profit Colleges
Death by Power Point
It was an old-fashioned tent revival meeting
Hewitt: Where The GOP Goes Next: The Need for Speed
Hurricane Katrina and the race card: 5 years later
Via Protein:
Touring American campuses in the mid-1970s, Norman Macrae of The Economist was shocked “to hear so many supposedly left-wing young Americans who still thought they were expressing an entirely new and progressive philosophy as they mouthed the same prejudices as Trollope’s 19th century Tory squires: attacking any further expansion of industry and commerce as impossibly vulgar, because ecologically unfair to their pheasants and wild ducks.”
Neither the failure of the environmental apocalypse to arrive nor the steady improvement in environmental conditions over the last 40 years has dampened the ardor of those eager to make hair shirts for others to wear.
WSJ: The Death of Conservatism Was Greatly Exaggerated
WSJ: Spreading Hayek, Spurning Keynes
Prepare for war between taxpayers and public employee unions
Blair: The latest green $ scam
Vanderleun: Tolerance Does Not Require Approval
Frank Rich’s Tea Party Lies
Commentary: He Really Doesn’t Want to Be Commander In Chief
Image on top, h/t Moonbattery. We juxtaposed before Drudge, but after Moonbattery.
Sunday, August 29. 2010
 One place we did not get to on our trip was Salzburg. Wish we had had time to visit that medieval city which, as its name implies, got rich selling and transporting salt down the river.
Our guide pointed out to us how important salt was at the time - not as a condiment, but as a food-preservative. "White gold."
I wonder what salt mines were like in 1400.
Two pictures from the Mall in Washington.
MLK was a life-long Republican. The Dems hijacked him and twisted his message. I do not know how they did that, but I do know why they did that.
Also, The Media's Racist
I see nothing post-racial happening these days. I wish I could say I did. I see more racism charges flying around than I have seen in 30 years. Readers know that I am sick of the topic of race, and hate the concept. Your character, culture, and manner of living, on the other hand, are of interest to me...assuming I have any interest in you at all. I am of the Imus view of people: "What do you bring to the table? Ya got sumthin today, or ya got nuthin?"
 Hooters and fat waitresses. But lots of guys like Rubenesque figures, don't they? (Venus at a Mirror, c. 1614)
Did anybody see this movie? Enemy at the Gates.
Are Standardized Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit?
AVI ponders confessing the sins of others
Surber on Beck's rally.
Related: Make Believe Media: WaPo Claims Al Sharpton Brings Thousands to DC
Chris Matthews: Who Stole America? What???
Was Benjamin Whorf partly right? Does Your Language Shape How You Think?
Has Gov Schwartzenegger found his inner Christie? Too late. The guy was all hat, no cattle and no cojones.
Blair home number nine. What's that all about? Ans: Lefties love money.
At NRO:
In addition to a big stimulus program, Obama ran on the idea of heaping new taxes on upper-income taxpayers, including those small businesses that he says (correctly) are critical to the recovery. Congress did nothing. And so as 2011 creeps over the horizon, so too does a massive tax hike on middle-class families, upper-income workers, small businesses, savers, family farms, and on and on. Having done nothing about this tax cut for the last nearly two years, all these prospective tax-hike victims can only assume that Congress intends to hit them with the full tax hike from allowing the 2001 and 2003 tax relief to expire.
The tax hike itself is bad enough, falling as it will on a stuttering economy. But the bigger issue is still confidence.
USA Today trying to figure out how to survive
Rick Moran: The O is American enough
Shut down the federal Dept of Education. It's not a federal responsibility, duty, or power - whatever the Bushes thought.
American Muslim leaders are not instilling confidence
Has the MSM lost confrol of the Leftist narrative?
Tax fuel to be green. Then raise taxes to help the fuel-poor so they can use more fuel. It all makes perfect sense.
Luke 14:1, 7-14
14:1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
14:7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable.
14:8 "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host;
14:9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.
14:10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.
14:11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
14:12 He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.
14:13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.
14:14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
Saturday, August 28. 2010
Watch your mouth when in the UK. Did Euroland ever have free speech?
We became somewhat expert in locks. When we got to the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal, we took locks uphill over the continental divide, then down the other side. An engineering marvel. It's all gravity-driven and, as I have said, you can travel from the North Sea and Amsterdam to the Black Sea, by water, today. That trip would be a fine 30-day vacation.
The width of ships and barges is limited by the width of the locks, and the height is limited by bridges. In some locks, we only had about 6" space between the walls. I asked the Captain how he managed to get into those tight ones without scraping the sides. He laughed, said "You just go straight." (Our ship had a joystick like a Hinckley Picnic Boat, not a wheel. Bow thrusters, but no stern thrusters because the driver could turn the props to 90 degrees.)
I hear you asking what music our Dutch Captain liked to listen to when he had the con. Seemed like he was partial to Mark Knopfler and Van Morrison. Chugging up the Danube, listening to "We gotta move these refrigerators..." was memorable. I thought some Creedence might have been good, but maybe trite.
He had read some Mark Twain, said he liked Life on the Mississippi. Our Captain was a hearty and cheerful bloke who liked his wine and beer when off-duty. It seemed that the crew and staff responded well to his upbeat attitude towards life, making for a happy boat. Good cheer is contagious. Negativity is a plague. He constantly displayed warmth and appreciation towards his crew, but you cannot be a Captain without having a tough and serious core. As Dr. Bliss would say, not everybody is made for that.
Photo inside one of the many locks we went through.
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Lots of pics below the fold -
Continue reading "Locks, and other miscellaneous trip pics"
The Borderline Sociopathic Book for Boys. Example #1:
Ride a bicycle without a helmet. You heard me. And no spandex spangled with lavender and chrome yellow blotches and French words. You'll wear canvas shoes, too. You will not have anything with you that people with helmets refer to as "hydration." Eventually, you can get a blast of rubber-tasting hot water from a garden hose.
More on books: Van der Leun's 330 Word Guide to Writing Book Proposals. I wish I had read that before I wrote my book.
Guarding Your Heart in Marriage
Legal Ins: And These People Want To Run Your Health Care / Update - And Your Kids' Education. With another wonderfully common-sense Christie vid. The guy is a genius.
Steve Forbes on Obama: “He Thinks He Will Change America From a Greedy Nation to a Quiet Socialist Nation That Knows Its Place in the World” (Video)
David Brooks says we should be more like Germany
Am Thinker: President Obama's Compulsive Appeasement Disorder
J Post: Back to basics on Israel’s security
The Betrothed, by Kipling
"You must choose between me and your cigar."
-- Breach of Promise Case, Circa 1885
Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.
We quarrelled about Havanas -- we fought o'er a good cheroot,
And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.
Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider a space;
In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie's face.
Maggie is pretty to look at -- Maggie's a loving lass,
But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.
There's peace in a Larranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay;
But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away --
Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown --
But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town!
Maggie, my wife at fifty -- grey and dour and old --
With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!
And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,
And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar --
The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket --
With never a new one to light tho' it's charred and black to the socket!
Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider a while.
Here is a mild Manila -- there is a wifely smile.
Which is the better portion -- bondage bought with a ring,
Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?
Counsellors cunning and silent -- comforters true and tried,
And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?
Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,
Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,
This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,
With only a Suttee's passion -- to do their duty and burn.
This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,
Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.
The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,
When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.
I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,
So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.
I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,
And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.
For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between
The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.
And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,
But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;
And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light
Of stums that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.
And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,
But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love.
Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?
Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?
Open the old cigar-box -- let me consider anew --
Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.
Light me another Cuba -- I hold to my first-sworn vows.
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for Spouse!
Friday, August 27. 2010
Pinetop Perkins, and Honeyboy Williams. It's good to know that some Brits appreciate such wonderful, old-timey American characters.
I just updated my will and trust and, with heavy heart, cut out what was a significant bequest to my alma mater, Brooklyn College.
What caused the disinheritance is that all incoming freshmen and transfer students are given a copy of a book to read, and no other, to create their “common experience.” This same book is one of the readings in their required English course. The author is a radical pro-Palestinian professor there.
When I attended in the 1960s, Brooklyn College – then rated one of the tops in the country -- was, like most campuses, quite liberal. But, there was no official policy to inculcate students with a political viewpoint. Now there is. That is unacceptable.
Continue reading "I Just Disinherited My Alma Mater"
"The war inside." Interesting story, from a combat doc. Not all people are natural warriors. Few, really, unless their own home or family is threatened.
I have known some military docs. Some were warriors, most were not. Quite a few Vietnam vets ended up in medical school. There was an ex-company commander in my class. Tough SOB. Went into Psychiatry like me.
 It's about time the scientists admitted it: Ogling beautiful women a natural reflex for men.
Fellows just can't help it.
"A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar."
H.L.Mencken. h/t, Vanderleun
When govt tries to go into business: Burlington Telecom
Statisticians take on warmists
Not tonight dear, we're married
Rove: Honey, I Shrunk My Approval Ratings
To be "intellectual" today requires knowledge of science and technology.
Krauthammer: The last refuge of a liberal:
Now we know why the country has become "ungovernable," last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?
From Belmont:
Although there are still some who believe that President Obama’s Keynesian cures will work, the counter-thesis may be that the supposed “cures” are in fact the cause of the disease. That the attempts to create European-style “rights” enforced by Euro-scaled bureaucracies on a Federal tax revenue base has created a bureaucratic monster in Washington sustained principally by borrowed money.
Is Michelle O pregnant?
Dino:
Fixing the economy is a hard slog, but it’s not rocket science. But if you’ve chosen advisors who know nothing about the business of America, as Obama has……well, it’s just too depressing to think about.
More evidence that Head Start does nothing
"The government is pushing these food poisoning events because they want to over-regulate."
Lowry: How the Democrats lost the middle:
Since 1992, according to Gallup, ideological opinion has been roughly constant: Self-described moderates have been 40 percent or a little lower; conservatives in the high 30s (although they've spiked to 42 lately); liberals in the high-teens to low-20s.
Both sides need the center, but especially liberals. It'd be rank foolishness to try to govern on the strength of only one-in-five people. But such has been the Obama-Pelosi project -- with unsurprising results.
Thursday, August 26. 2010
You get off the plane from NYC, dump your stuff off at the boat, then hop on the subway and get off at Stephansplatz. Suddenly, you are in a new world, like not Kansas anymore. Even for folks like us who have travelled quite a bit, it was awesome to climb up the subway stairs and to be greeted with this. With a dose of jetlag, it feels hallucinatory:
More snaps below the fold -
Continue reading "Some of my random snaps of Vienna"
Via Jungle Trader, a 155-Year-Old Drum Company Marches On.
The snare drum is basically a military instrument, with an interesting history. Ottoman armies used these drums to communicate orders.
"You have to act like an MD before you can become an MD."
Anon. ("MD" being Managing Director, but you could also insert "Partner" in the same sentence.)
 From Viking's post (I agree):
It's long been my position that Social Security was meant to help elderly workers who could no longer do the labor of the Depression era. We're not a nation of ditch diggers and washwomen anymore. The government has set up a system where (with today's life expectancies) we subsidize a third of a lifetime in retirement.
Yes, it is crazy. Retirement should be by economic choice, or for the disabled. It is crazy for the young to subsidize the golf of the grey folks like me who have more wisdom and experience to contribute to the workplace than the dopey kids.
Nothing against golf, mind you. Nothing against sitting on the beach reading and smoking, either. There is a time for every purpose under heaven.
Home ownership vs. renting. Coyote.
Deep thinking:
Global warming is real, it’s caused by human activity that goes straight back to the capitalist energy markets they worship, and it is really bad. None of these things are up for debate with sensible, reality-based people.
A Physics major, no doubt.
Do Cougars exist?
Via SDA:
"Tourism chiefs in Serbia are hoping their annual testicle cooking competition will do for the region what whisky did for Scotland."
Serbian cuisine, the envy of the world. Chow down, Feminazis.
Ace: Obama Administration To UN- Sorry That America Is So Awful. In Fairness, We Inherited This Lousy Country But Are Working On Remaking It
When is a speech code not a speech code? When it’s a “code of ethics.”
Obamacare: Dems’ Fatal Conceit?
Mankiw on Nantucket house prices. Did this study make his summer vacation tax-deductible?
Ebay, Adobe, EA Games Leaving California For Utah Over Confiscatory Tax Rate
Only in New York: Taxing a Cut … of your morning bagel. Just put the shmear on top of my uncut bagel.
Why Nerds Like Games. Games are stories.
New Republic: Moderate Muslims Are Not the Answer
ACORN flies under the radar
This is dumb: E-Cigarettes Spark New Smoking War. This is the safest smoke that exists. What's the big deal? Nicotine is harmless.
Fake tea party candidates
Taxes: The Left and its delusions
The Professional Left vs. the Amateur Right
Via Insty:
REASON TV: Wheat, Weed, and ObamaCare: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful.
Author of Obamacare did not read it. If it's too long and complicated to read, then...
Michelle: Obama’s Beltway Chainsaw Massacre
Wednesday, August 25. 2010
You go to the home of Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn, and so you naturally want to hear some of their music there. That was good.
However, what was most mind-boggling for me (and my son) was the Breughel collection at the Kunst Historische Museum:
It was a long, jet-lagged and befuddled but scenic trek to get there on our first day after a sleepless plane ride, but our Breughel mission was worth it to get close to those pictures. They have a third of the existing Breughels. They are quite large paintings with many small details, and no reproductions can do them justice. Some are oil on board, and some are tempera. You have to go and see with your own eyes. They have comfy leather sofas to sit on, too.
Pictures tell stories. If they don't, they are just "design." That's my opinion, anyway. People sure do love stories, especially when well-designed. I do not mean to disparage design: Picasso was a master of design. Matisse too, and the genius cave painters of Lascaux.
Hunters in the Snow (1565), his haunting hunting masterpiece:
Peasant Wedding, another masterpiece:
A good summary of Breughel's career here. It's interesting to me that the wealthy churchmen and princes of Austria found this Flemish painter's work so collectible. I guess they just had good taste in art.
Instead, some more thoughts collected from our trip. A Part 2 of my Guten Morgen post.
- Next time I travel with a group of family or friends, I will bring my 5-mile walkie-talkies that I use for hunting trips. A great way to call in and say "Want to meet for lunch?', since each subgroup seems to go off in their own direction.
- I forgot to mention how immaculate the bathrooms are. And, unlike NYC, you can just walk into any cafe and use theirs. They don't mind.
- I was amazed by how many people are crippled, hobbling around on crutches or in wheelchairs. Young and old. It made it clear to me how socialized medicine saves money on orthopedic procedures. In Regensburg I saw a pregnant young lady with, I think, moderate scoliosis, wobbling around town on two crutches, carrying a bag of groceries. That would never happen in America, even if poor. HSS would fix her up overnight - and thank her for the privilege.
- The vast majority of Austrians, and Bavarians too, are Roman Catholic. They go to church. Some Lutherans in Bavaria, and some Evangelical Lutherans too. Their old churches are still alive - not museums.
- If Freud had not been a Jew, he would never have come up with Psychoanalytic theory. Despite being a prominent young Neurologist and researcher/scholar, a Jew could not be appointed Professor in Vienna. The Gentile docs just referred him the wacky patients they did not want to bother with, so he decided to try to listen to them and to try to make sense of what ailed them. Had he not been a Jew, he would have been a wealthy Herr Professor of Neurology. Necessity is the mother of invention.
- Riverboat cruising has become a big deal over the past ten years. It's really a new form of vacation travel. I like it. I love ships and boats in general. No moving from hotel to train to hotel to car, and you always have guides right there when you want them. Our boat cruised back and forth between Budapest and Amsterdam, but most people just did legs of the trip (as we did). The boat had plenty of bikes to use, too. Just sign up for them.
- Wiener Schnitzel: I still don't get what is supposed to be so good about this cardboard-like food. Why do people eat it?
- Kesler reminded me of a thought I had had, regarding our deep Germanic cultural roots. (By "our" I mean especially Brit, Swiss, American, Aussie, Canadian, Dutch, etc.) Even our language is Germanic, not to mention our meat-and-potato diet. German is the easiest language for English-speakers to learn, and these folks live, act, and work like Americans. Quite a cultural contrast with Italians, French, and Spanish.
- One of the things that makes German and Austrian beers so good, over there in the biergartens, is that they are fresh, usually unpasteurized, and often unfiltered. Makes a big difference. Our big brand American beers really are not very tasty - but you knew that. Is Coors Lite or Bud Lite the best-selling "beer" in the US?
- Did we shop and buy stuff? Darn little. Mrs. BD bought a bracelet in Regensburg for 14 Euros. My daughter bought a cheese serving plate. I bought two sets of beer glasses from pubs, and a couple of beer mugs from a biergarten, all for 2-3 Euros each. Oh, also bought an umbrella at Schonbrunn when it started raining, but we left it behind somewhere after two days. Photos and experiences are what I like to bring home.
- Random factoid: The remarkable Marcus Aurelius died in Vindobona (now Wien - Vienna) while touring the edges of the empire. He was always at war with the Germans, but Roman civilization never extended much north of the barrier of the Danube.
Photo: Passau again, from the Oberhaus. I especially enjoyed Passau and Regensburg. Note the rotting mess of a 1960s-era, now-abandoned cafe up there on the left, while the c. 900 castle and fortifications stand strong and proud. Note also, from a high vantage point, how clear the demarcation is between town and country. No sprawl. That's their land use laws at work.
Economy Caught in Depression, Not Recession. Government-created, in my view. We need a Reagan recovery, not an Obama economic swamp.
Our pal Nathan emails this cell phone pic from the Hagiwara Tea Garden, San Francisco. He gets around.
Tuesday, August 24. 2010
A friend returned this week from 14 days in Umbria and then Florence. This family is a high-energy biking group, and the first thing they do when they go anywhere is to rent bikes. They go everywhere on their bikes regardless of terrain or traffic. 20 miles of hills is a warm-up for them.
They told me about biking to Civita di Bagnoregio. Biked over the bridge, of course. I had not heard of this interesting, deteriorating wreck of a place. An image which sticks in the brain, because all of mankind's works come to this except some things that are put into words or math or musical notes.
Surber:
In issue after issue — from drilling for oil to the Bush tax cuts to the stimulus and the bailouts — Washington is out of step with the American public.
Ain't that the truth?
More disorganized snaps from our trip. This is steaming through the green Wachau Valley in early morning fog and drizzle.
More pics below the fold -
Continue reading "A second, bigger photo dump of Austria and Bavaria, including Freud's potty"
Via Patriot Post Humor:
I recently submitted a building permit application for a new house.
It was going to be 100 ft. tall and 400 ft. wide with 9 gun turrets at various heights and windows all over the place and a loud outside entertainment sound system. It would have had parking for 200 cars and I was going to paint it snot green with pink trim.
The City Council told me to forget about it.
So, I sent the application in again, but this time I called it a Mosque.
Work starts on Monday.
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