Saturday, December 11. 2010
So, guess where I spent Election Eve?
In the Tea Party Ballroom in Washington, D.C.
That's ol' Doc, the party hound.
A few days before I was giving 5-minute lectures at an energy expo on the perils of Cap & Trade and scaring the holy bajeepers out of everybody.
A few days before that I attended Jon Stewart's inspiring "Let's Save America From The Racist Homophobic Teabaggers" rally. Luckily, I still had my love beads from the 60's so I fit right in.
More on all that later.
 Bird Dog raised the question of transferring vinyl record albums to CD a while back, and an excellent question it is. While most old albums have been put on disc, certainly not all have. And the impracticality of keeping a record player hanging around is obvious — and that's assuming that slick new 'home entertainment center' you just bought even has a 'Phono In' jack to begin with.
Why would it?
And there are 'custom' albums that were never commercially pressed, like the old 'pirated' releases of the Dead, Dylan, et al, as well as albums cut in private studios.
And yes, those old vinyl albums of yours are disintegrating as we speak. From a modern, digital perspective, they simply couldn't have picked a worse, more fragile medium for long-term data storage. In all fairness, though, I suppose it beats using tin foil cylinders.
Below the fold I'll elaborate on the two common methods to transfer albums to CD, as well as the pitfalls of each, including one interesting problem using the 'automatic' method that people usually don't think about until it's too late.
Continue reading "Doc's Computin' Tips: Copying records to CD"
At Legal Ins. Where's the change?
 Saw a Hermit Thrush hopping around my shrubs yesterday. Unmistakable with his chestnut tail and spotted breast. A few years ago I had one over-winter here. He would roost each night under a bush next to my chimney.
They are the only Thrush which winters in North America (unless you count Robins, which are in the Thrush family).
I am not being an internet hermit this season. We hit two very nice Christmas parties last night, another one tonight, and tomorrow we are taking my in-laws to a nice lunch and a show down in NYC. (Gwynnie always tells me I need to get out more, so I do.)
 Pic: The O walks away, leaves presser to Clinton.
WHT? Something weird
The most expensive gift at 12 American retailers
True Loves Will Have to Dig Deeper This Year
News to me: You can get high on Salvia
We have Salvia in one of our borders
Judgment Day for Climate Change Litigation
What the teachers are learning.
Good grief.
LA bans new fast food restaurants in poorest area of the city
Let them eat cake.
Krauthammer says the tax deal was the O's best swindle of the year:
Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
And he gets all this in return for what? For a mere two-year postponement of a mere 4.6-point increase in marginal tax rates for upper incomes. And an estate tax rate of 35 percent - it jumps insanely from zero to 55 percent on Jan. 1 - that is somewhat lower than what the Democrats wanted.
Rope-a-dope?
Read the Mead piece that we posted last night. Please.
Dawn Treader: Potemra enjoyed the movie more than the book.
OK, I'll go see it.
Global cooling killing Manatees
Use more oil - Save a Manatee
NY Post: A recent survey finds that countless MDs will respond to ObamaCare by limiting which patients they'll see.
At Driscoll:
For 30 years the Democrats have refused to think “dynamically” about the connection between tax rates and economic behavior (or, for that matter, between regulation and business activity). It is precisely because liberal Democrats (who are particularly well represented in Congress) have rejected dynamic tax policy for so long that they are now experiencing a spasm of frustration and anger.
It’s not easy coming to grips with the 21st century, when your view of taxes, labor and the economy is permanently stuck somewhere between the years of FDR and Harry Truman.
h/t, Vanderleun - Richard Burton reads Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem 'The Leaden Echo & The Golden Echo'.
Friday, December 10. 2010
The 1920s Christmas pics on this site are great fun. Some can be embiggened, with wonderful detail. (I don't know how to enable embiggening on our site.)
I notice that Santa did not seem to use wrapping paper back then.
At Insty. One quote that he quotes:
...approximately 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the BLS considers relatively low skilled—occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less. Only a minority of the increment in our nation’s stock of college graduates is filling jobs historically considered as requiring a bachelor’s degree or more.
The error is in considering a BA as job training. It is not. It is a paper credential for sure, but I am not sure it makes sense to view it as an investment. America needs more gunsmiths and plumbers and software developers and small business creators, not more BAs in Anthropology.
A skilled gunsmith makes more money than any anthropologist - if income is what one wants. My gunsmith charges $170/hr for metal work, a bit less for wood work, and leads a fun, interesting, and adventurous life and gets to meet and befriend all sorts of fascinating people (like me). My local digital equipment repairman charges $175/hr. Scholarly types go to college for spoon-fed intellectual nurturing and development, but I am not convinced that those things "pay off" very much in a financial way - especially nowadays, when anybody can go to college. There are plenty of schools eager to accept a fat check from anybody who can sign their name.
"Twenty years of school and then they put you on the day shift..."
When people are curious and want to learn everything, they will do it with or without a BA, and they will never quit doing it until they die even if they never make a penny from it. Real learners never quit reading and learning and trying new thoughts. It's easy to identify real scholars - after they finish whatever formal schooling they do.
 A good pal and his charming and lovely missus recently moved to Austin, but stopped by up here this week for a hello and for a sentimental taste of our Yankee chill.
I advised a gun rack for his Porsche, and alligator boots (When in Rome, etc.).
The Lucchese customized gator boot pictured here is nice for formal wear. Better, of course, to get a pair made for your own feet like the stars do.
Put something like this on your list, old buddy. Might need something to put on that gun rack, too. We can offer advice on that.
Still driving the Iranians nuts. This is not your ordinary worm.
 Need this? I need it: Pray on the Full Armor of God.
Also this one: The Spiritual Warfare Armor Of God
Prayers of comfort for Aretha Franklin. Went to see her at a benefit performace a year or so ago. Gotta love her. She has added lots of beauty to my life.
WSJ: The Grapes of Wrath Democrats: For Obama and the Democrats, the new economic royalists are anyone with a taxable income over $200,000.
Around here, those royalists could be a cop married to a grade school principal, or a middle-manager married to a nurse, or the guy who owns my dry cleaners.
Is SAC in the SEC's crosshairs?
SAC is a biggie. However, the SEC seems to be expanding the definition of insider trading to the point of good, aggressive research.
What Congresscritter Fred Upton (R - Middle America) will be up to in January
Sounds good to me.
Greg Sullivan: The Copper Thieves Are Back - The current government is not sweet, is anything but clueless
Ron Paul, Author of `End the Fed,' to Lead Panel Overseeing Central Bank
Imagine that.
Am. Thinker: Class Warriors Got What They Wished For:
A funny thing happened on the way to spreading the wealth: wealth dried up.
That caribou was organic. All natural, like at Whole Foods.
WaPo: Wasting tax dollars on ethanol. A quote:
...the policy directs cash to farm states that are rich in political influence, lawmakers are rallying to save this payoff from expiration. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who insisted Sunday that President Obama's fiscal commission didn't go far enough in its deficit reduction plan, has paired with Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) to press for renewal of the gratuitous corn ethanol tax credit and the ethanol tariff through 2015. Typically, the farm lobby has won out on such issues. But this year it's meeting stronger than usual opposition from a bloc of fiscal conservatives and environmentalists, backed by such strange bedfellows as Tea Party organizer FreedomWorks and ultra-liberal pressure group MoveOn.org - even Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Al Gore.
Thursday, December 9. 2010
States and government employee unions are united to hide the true extent of the cost of pension promises, and the impacts on other basic government services. Leading Republican congressmen have introduced legislation to shine light on these costs.
The Pew Center On The States reported last February that:
$1 trillion. That’s the gap at the end of fiscal year 2008 between the $2.35 trillion states had set aside to pay for employees’ retirement benefits and the $3.35 trillion price tag of those promises.
Why does it matter? Because every dollar spent to reduce the unfunded retirement liability cannot be used for education, public safety and other needs. Ultimately, taxpayers could face higher taxes or cuts in essential public services.
Actually, the gap may be closer to $3-trillion, as this National Bureau of Economic Research study lays out. In April, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) study reported a $3.04-trillion shortfall in funding. The AEI recommended that pensions must disclose greater detail regarding investment risk and pension plans should reform their accounting methods to include the market value of plan liabilities. Then, legislators could have a better idea of how to reform and plan.
Continue reading "Republican Pension Reform Vs The States And Unions"
Reversing aging in mice.
I can tell you one thing: those researchers are having a lot of fun in their lab, inserting genes and turning genes on and off. You can term this level of genetic engineering Playing God if you want to. I say Forget any practical application - this is fascinating basic biological research, and it is just cool as heck.
One of the sectors who won’t directly benefit from the tax deal -- which evicted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is demanding revisions even though it hasn’t even been written – is about 5.7 million state and local government workers and about 600,000 federal workers. They don’t pay Social Security taxes, as they contribute to government pension plans, so they won’t benefit from the proposed 2% reduction in employee Social Security tax.
The New York Times reports, “’We are aware of it,’ said Gregory King, a union [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] spokesman, ‘and we are discussing it with the appropriate leaders in Congress.’” The NYT mentions that union alone “spent $90 million to help elect Democrats during the last election cycle.” Add in the other campaign spending by other government employee unions, like about $50-million from the SEIU, and the grand total is in the hundreds of millions, almost all to Democrats.
Hey, I’ve got an idea: Let the government unions cut their dues from government employees, instead of spending the dues on electing Democrats, even though many of the unions' members vote Republican.
 Prof. Cass Sunstein is one of them. As Scott at Powerline notes,
By contrast with the doctrine of rights conferred by God and nature set forth in the Declaration of Independence, Sunstein holds, in Tom Palmer's words, "You owe your life -- and everything else -- to the sovereign. The rights of subjects are not natural rights, but merely grants from the sovereign. There is no right even to complain about the actions of the sovereign, except insofar as the sovereign allows the subject to complain. These are the principles of unlimited, arbitrary, and absolute power, the principles of such rulers as Louis XIV."
Having his own view of things is fine, but his views are profoundly un-American. He doesn't get what America is about. The American ideal is - or was - that we are born with freedom, and granted a tiny bit of it to the State for specific, limited purposes. For heaven's sake, Prof. Sunstein, we created the State in 1787 - it didn't make us, or give us anything.
Mind you, this guy is the Regulation Czar in the White House.
Furthermore, his arrogance is unbelievable. A 56 year-old University of Chicago Law Prof who probably never held a real job in his life wants to structure how I live? He knows more about life than me? Has deeper wisdom than I have? Give me a break. That's a bad joke. He's just a control freak - with power.
I have a much better idea: How about I tell him how to live? For his own good, of course.
Watts: More Than 1000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims – Challenge UN IPCC & Gore. One sample - from a member of the IPCC:
We’re not scientifically there yet. Despite what you may have heard in the media, there is nothing like a consensus of scientific opinion that this is a problem. Because there is natural variability in the weather, you cannot statistically know for another 150 years.” — UN IPCC’s Tom Tripp, a member of the UN IPCC since 2004 and listed as one of the lead authors and serves as the Director of Technical Services & Development for U.S. Magnesium.
Let's have a worldwide debate. I think it's all about money and power and politics, and that science has little to do with it. The Wikileaks confirm that. Over my years here at the Farm, I have become convinced that 99% of "crises" are trumped up. Always ask "Cui bono?"
That I believe that some warming would be great for the planet and for mankind has nothing to do with it. It's too cold in NYC today, and I don't have 150 years to wait and see.
There are many different views and they collide. Control should only be extended to the most dangerous and the most destructive, and the rest should be compromise. Compromise does not excite but it is very necessary. Values collide so it is very difficult to have perfect liberty and perfect equality. We should try to prevent intolerable choices and alternatives.
Isaiah Berlin, from these Berlin quotes
At Big Government, it's all about the Pigford scam. One quote from a CSM piece:
...critics cite several concerns with the soon-to-be-law. One is that about 33,000 black farms were in existence at the time of Pigford's original filing, yet 80,000 claimants have filed for settlement. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) of Minnesota, for one, recently called Pigford II "a complete fraud."
"This is what happens when government rings the dinner bell, and it's an indication of just how loose the rules are for vetting past injustices, real or not," Investors Business Daily wrote Tuesday in an editorial.
Jimmy Dismuke, a black hog farmer from Arkansas, claims he's seen fraud first-hand in the Pigford process. In a recent story published at Big Government.com, a conservative website, Mr. Dismuke says he has counted more than 300 fraudulent Pigford claims in Arkansas alone, including a case in which people who kept potted tomato plants claimed to be farmers and got $50,000. He also claims that private lawyers made the rounds in black churches, enticing potential claimants with easy payouts.
"Pigford is the biggest rip-off this country has ever known, and there are lots of people in positions of power that know it," Dismuke writes. "Politicians are using it to buy votes. Trial lawyers are using it to get rich."
Yup.
Heads up! Meteor showers and Lunar eclipse this month
And later in the month, heads up for Santa and reindeer.
Concerning Wikileaks, Governor Mike Huckabee said: "If we want to keep our nation's secrets 'SECRET,' store them where President Obama stores his college transcripts and birth certificate."
The American: Demography vs. Geography: Understanding the Political Future
Hot New Fashion Trend: The Femiman
Trolls, Spoiled Boys and Tired Women
Chart below via Shrinkwrapped's Misunderstanding the Tea Party Movement:
Waivers Double to 222 as More Unions ‘Opt Out’ of ObamaCare
Honey, I got trapped in the pub by the snowstorm
Yes, the Gore Effect is on track this year. Record chill for Cancun.
Also at Watts: Cancun COP16 attendees fall for the old “dihydrogen monoxide” petition as well as signing up to cripple the U.S. Economy
Harsanyi on the O:
...this is the thanks he gets?
Obama gave us health care reform. In the middle of a downward economic spiral, he turned all his political capital, all his considerable power, all his impressive popularity and his two congressional majorities into a grab bag of liberal policy schemes that, in the end, could only be passed with reconciliation.
True, some squishy Democrats wouldn't go for the entire single-payer nationalization scheme — which was, until today, considered "compromise" — but give it time. "When Medicare started, it was a small program. It grew," explained the president on Tuesday. Things grow. This thing of ours, he explained, "is a long game; this is not a short game."
There - he said it again. The long game, the long march. Pure Gramsci/Alinsky.
Obama Opens The Door To Raid Social Security
Wednesday, December 8. 2010
You can address a curious bear with some confidence when you are a deer hunter and have a firearm on your lap. I'd guess the bear smelled the hunter's breakfast burrito.
Wisconsin has an army of deer hunters.
We could use them around here.
[T]he first priority for addressing the budget deficit has to be getting the economy growing again at a rapid rate." The tax deal, he said, "offers the best prospect that was available for achieving the kind of escape velocity that we've been seeking for the past two years.
Larry Summers, as quoted in American Thinker's Larry Summers - Oh, You Don't Say? The author of that piece surely gets what this is all about.
 WSJ thinks maybe Bob should retire from touring.
It's been years since Bob could sing like a bird. Now he croaks like a frog. So what? It's not opera, and he still has the phrasing.
Pic is Bob at his house in Woodstock, NY, 1960-something.
The rump Senate may tonight try to force a vote on repeal of DADT.
One of the arguments raised for the US Congress repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is the experience of Israel’s military in allowing those openly gay to serve. Israel’s Defense Force (IDF) is generally considered one of the more able in the world and there is little reporting of major reported problems with the policy. But, prominent studies of the matter are deficient to argue from the Israeli experience.
(It well may be so that DADT should be repealed at some point. Not now. There are too many issues of fact to be determined. There are too many effects that are yet unclear. There are too many management issues to be decided and implemented. There are too many more pressing stresses on the US military today, particularly upon our combat forces who are in majority opposed.)
The DADT report from the Pentagon released November 30 offers little worthwhile information regarding Israel, or other countries’ experience with the impact on combat effectiveness.
Continue reading "Gays In Israel’s Military"
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