Saturday, December 4. 2010
I know people usually do not feel that they have time to click on embedded videos, but this one captures so many conversations I have had, over the years, that I have to post it.
Maine Family Robinson's Maine Politics -- A Primer. The election's over, so it's time for me to pay attention to Maine politics, I guess. One quote from the guy who is truly not a Masshole:
All the candidates for governor said they were for education and jobs. The way they said "education and jobs" sounded like they were describing a Loch Ness monster or a Sasquatch or some other creature they'd heard of, but didn't have a current home address for. Since all the candidates vehemently pronounced their love for education and jobs, no matter what question was posed to them, I figured there must be a dastardly candidate that was for unemployment and ignorance, but I couldn't find one. My wife helpfully offered to write my name in.
Ilya asks whether there is anything the Feds cannot control via Commerce
Fun vid: Andrew Klavan: Is America Satanophobic?
Some sanity: Breaking: Japan refuses to extend Kyoto treaty at Cancun
Let no crisis go to waste: Gulf oil spill could usher in new safety agency. Related, in The Atlantic, Obama's BP Oil Spill Commission Gets It Wrong
Via Insty, Megan asks Should China Rethink High Speed Rail?
Prices are really useful. But in whole large sectors of the Chinese economy, particularly the banking sector, the government sets those prices. This means huge information loss, and the concomitant possibility that there is a vast misallocation of resources.
Don't those things happen in markets? Hell yes: witness the housing bubble. On the other hand, witness East Germany. To get a really catastrophic misallocation of resources, it seems to take a government; corporations can only screw things up on an artisinal scale. For that matter, it's worth noting that our government has spent the last seven decades trying to keep the price of housing low, and that much of that intervention, such as the creation of mortgage securitization, ultimately significantly contributed to the crisis.
258
There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are —
None may teach it — Any —
’Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —
When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death —
Friday, December 3. 2010
 Beethoven's Pastoral, with Charles Hazelwood discussing. It's 1 1/2 hours. (You have to click on the "play the program" bit.
Thanks, Buddy. It's a music education, and music gets no better than this.
Here's some fun Beethoven trivia.
 I think she is a celeb, and if she runs for office, she'll be a celeb candidate. Obama was a celeb candidate, and we see how that worked out. We live in a world of non-serious, lens-lice celebs who take themselves all too seriously, and I don't like that.
Furthermore, I refuse to get all tingly about any pol. I tend not to think very highly of pols, as a class, and I tend to be suspicious of any pol's seductive talents because it is so often a substitute for substance.
It's been explained to us here that Presidential candidates are just figureheads of vast, sprawling political parties and power and money interests. The candidate is "the talent," as they say in show biz and in the sports biz. I take that into account, and I know that in our TV and YouTube age, this applies to politicians much more than it used to.
This is not to say that I do not like Sarah. I do like her, and she's clearly a colorful figure and an exciting spokesperson for many people. I'd hunt or fish with her anytime.
My thoughts are in reference to Potemra: Rumblings of Discontent — on Palin
A Ghostwritten Psychiatric Book Hints at a Much Larger Problem: The Story That Is . . . and Isn't Told in Psychiatric Textbooks
Today, Psychiatry contains two camps: The psychopharmacologist "Biological Psychiatrists," and what I can only term "Whole person" Psychiatry. I practice the latter - or try to.
What makes my life difficult is that, with the growing dominance of the Pharmacology shrinks, "best practices" become redefined in favor of medicine treatments. We do have remarkable medicines nowadays but they do not really "fix" anything and, in my experience, are widely over-used.
I will get to the DSM personality disorder flap when I get the chance. Since I think the DSM is sort of silly anyway, it's hard for me to get excited about the topic.
12 years is the average difference in age between men and women, in second marriages.
I wonder why...
Barone asks that question:
In the aftermath of the Republican disaster of 2008, some conservative writers hoped that the party could gain support from elite demographics—“the educated class,” as David Brooks calls it, meaning not so much “everyone who graduated from college” but more like “the kind of people we knew at school.” The results of the 2010 election, hugely encouraging for Republicans, indicate that the party’s gains came from almost all parts of the electorate except the elite demographic. I think it is extremely risky in a period of what I call open-field politics to make straight-line extrapolations from the results of one election to the next. But I also think that those conservatives aiming their pitch at their fellow Ivy League graduates, etc., are aiming in the wrong direction.
Does this mean that, if I wish to be respected by the elites, I should switch sides?
Thursday, December 2. 2010
This gives a fairly good idea of what it's like, in Yankeeland. Lots of brush-busting, little shooting. Hunting isn't shopping - it's off-road hiking with dog. The shotgun is mostly a burden. You just hope to have a chance to use it - and not splatter your pal with birdshot. (We have all done that once or twice. It's important to apologize. Most guys don't care much, unless you hit their dog. It's best to let low birds go.)
It's riverboat European travel. Maggie's recommends. It's a hassle-free way to travel, and boats are just plain fun. It's not grande luxe by limousine Liberal standards (ie each room does not have its own hot tub or bar - so John Kerry wouldn't like it), but it's plenty comfortable enough for any normal American Republican. Friendly, too, and great local food.
We loved travelling with them.
Most of the arguments are weak from proponents and opponents of the Pentagon study on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
Defense Secretary Gates argues that if repeal is not now then the intrusions by the courts into military discipline would be more disruptive. However, he fails to mention the failure of this administration’s Justice Department to vigorously defend DADT, the Congressionally-passed law, and that activist courts will continue to undermine many aspects of the Pentagon leadership’s supposedly well-laid plans.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen argues that repeal is both the American thing to do and that better leadership within the military will make it work. Simply, the military’s essential warrior culture is different than for civilian or corporate or non-military federal employees. Yes, according to the Pentagon’s survey, there is less resistance among non-combat troops, but they are the tail, and should not, must not wag the dog. It’s the teeth that count for the military’s effectiveness. Further, it’s hard to resist recalling the Pentagon’s mistaken assumptions and severe errors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mullen, also, suggests that the greater discipline within combat units will offset the greater, majority, resistance to repeal.
Mullens defends his attitude toward the combat troops’ resistance by saying he has led troops and cares about them deeply. No doubt he cares, but he has never been a “grunt” nor led ground combat units. Mullens’ disregard of the impact on retention of today’s warriors and recruitment of tomorrow’s is simply disgraceful, even if the actual impact is lower than the troops themselves say, and will not be offset, under any scenario, by liberals, libertarians or gays enlisting or serving in combat units. There is also the claim that the relative youth of combat troops makes their views less worthy of mature judgment. Guess what Mullens, combat troops are necessarily younger. According to the data file sent to me by the Defense Manpower Data Center, through January 31, 2010, of the 250-thousand active and reserve Marines deployed to Iraq, 66% of the active duty and 57% of the reservists were age 24 or under. They were mature enough to judge whether to enlist to risk their lives.
Opponents of repeal make some other weak arguments.
The focus of the Pentagon survey is criticized for not asking “should” repeal occur, and the methodology for relying upon a less than 30% voluntary response. The Pentagon is correct to argue that “should” is properly a Congressional issue and the survey provides useful info on the “how” and “impacts.” There are some weaknesses in the survey report, as in any, but neither crippling nor ignoring most of the impacts. The response, the Pentagon says, has been adjusted for representativeness. There’s no reason to doubt that, except the adjustments are not provided to make that conclusive. Further, analyses of voluntary responses in polling show that those with the strongest views have higher response rates, so – pro and con – there’s again little reason to believe that those with the strongest views were not represented. But, it is unknown whether the responses from combat troops were more than from non-combat, before the adjustments.
Another criticism of the Pentagon report and the media reporting of it is that there are actually relatively few who see the problems or impacts as positive. The bulk of responses to many questions are in the category of positive-and-negative, which the report and media reports group with the positive. The report says that the analysis of cross-tabs, reactions to other questions, justifies these in-the-middle repliers being grouped with the positive. However, that analysis detail is not included in the report, and the report does not allocate to positive or negative based on such an analysis. There’s important distinctions and weightings that deserve more depth and understanding. Perhaps the report authors’ judgment is correct, but that remains to be seen. Opponents should be demanding the report’s detail data-analysis. Aside from this, an important refinement of the already published data, the critics of the report’s methodology and conclusions are on weak ground.
The move to repeal DADT right now is criticized as a political move by the President’s Democratic Party, before their Congressional numbers shrink in January. That is so, and that is what Congress is, political. Opponents of immediate repeal can and will use their means to block it being forced through now, or can reverse a repeal in January.
In short, there are too many serious issues to be better understood by and detailed to the Congress, and for all Americans, than in the report or from its supporters statements so far. A few days to digest the report and a few days of Congressional hearings are grossly inadequate.
Tomorrow we hear from the service chiefs, a little closer to operational realities, who as the New York Times reports "All have expressed reluctance about repeal." After them, there are more to hear from. Congress adjourns next week, and there simply isn't enough time for a sufficiently informed and prudently considered vote.
P.S.: Paul Mirengoff at Powerline does an excellent job of Separating Facts From Spin in the Pentagon's DADT Report. Among other things, one of the report's two chief authors never served in the military and is an active liberal and Obama supporter. Opinions abound despite empirical data to the contrary.
Update: Military Chiefs Recommend Keeping DADT For Now
Using arsenic. Well, it still must have DNA of some sort, I think, or some comparable sort of replicatory mechanism. This may be a bigger deal, or a smaller deal, than I think. A smaller deal, most likely, but still quite interesting from a biochem standpoint.
I did take a year of Biochem in college. Stupid not to, unles ignorance is your academic pursuit. (I used to want to be an informed journalist who understood math and science and statistics and real life, etc. Quit that field for business a while ago, as our readers know. They were fun guys and gals, but they didn't know squat about life, much less algebra. I work much harder, now, and learn more. Less time for Maggie's right now. These days, working in journalism is like working in non-profits - minimal challenge and accountability in a sickening atmosphere of self-congratulatory virtue with a political edge, while trying to collect money from people who make it and do real things in the world. Been there, done that. Glad I escaped that strange, insular world.)
h/t, Insty - who should be working today instead of blogging.
I have been neglecting my Fallacy portfolio here at Maggie's for quite a while. My bad.
Category Error is not a complex notion, but it was formulated in a somewhat complex way by the brilliant Gilbert Ryle in his classic work, The Concept of Mind (this via Wiki):
The term "category-mistake" was introduced by Gilbert Ryle in his book The Concept of Mind (1949) to remove what he argued to be a confusion over the nature of mind born from Cartesian metaphysics. Ryle alleged that it was a mistake to treat the mind as an object made of an immaterial substance because predications of substance are not meaningful for a collection of dispositions and capacities.
Specifically, the phrase is introduced in chapter 1, section 2. The first example he gives is of a visitor to Oxford. The visitor, upon viewing the colleges and library, reportedly inquired “But where is the University?"[1] The visitor's mistake is presuming that a University is part of the category "units of physical infrastructure" or some such thing, rather than the category "institutions", say, which are far more abstract and complex conglomerations of buildings, people, procedures, and so on.
Ryle's second example is of a child witnessing the march-past of a division. After having had battalions, batteries, squadrons, etc. pointed out, the child asks when is the division going to appear. 'The march-past was not a parade of battalions, batteries, squadrons and a division; it was a parade of the battalions, batteries and squadrons of a division.' (Ryle's italics)
His third example is of a foreigner being shown a cricket match. After being pointed out batsmen, bowlers and fielders, the foreigner asks: 'who is left to contribute the famous element of team-spirit?'
He goes on to argue that the Cartesian dualism of mind and body rests on a category-mistake.
Yes, I think it does. But... I think, therefore I post things at Maggie's Farm. From another site, here's a simple formulation of this common and basic fallacy:
These fallacies occur because the author mistakenly assumes that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts. However, things joined together may have different properties as a whole than any of them do separately. The following fallacies are category errors:
- Composition (Because the parts have a property, the whole is said to have that property)
- Division (Because the whole has a property, the parts are said to have that property)
Give us some solid examples. I don't have time think up some good ones today. Duty before pleasure.
A quote from the good piece I linked this morning, Can environmentalism be saved from itself?
Before they were sucked into the giant vortex of global warming, environmentalists did useful things. They protested against massive Third World dams that would ruin both natural and human habitats. They warned about invasive species and diseases that could tear through our forests and wreck our water systems. They fought for national parks and greenbelts and protected areas. They talked about the big things too – such as how the world could feed another three billion people without destroying all the rain forests and running out of water. They believed in conservation – conserving this beautiful planet of ours from the worst of human despoliation – rather than false claims to scientific certainty about the future, unenforceable treaties and radical utopian social reform.
I agree with all that. Furthermore, we non-politically-driven conservation types usually did the work ourselves - without asking governments and powers to do it. We even bought machines to restore filled-in and drained marshes (and even helped to undo Saddam Hussein's destruction of Iraq's vast marshes, which he did to eliminate those too-independent Marsh Arabs who wanted to be left alone).
For one example, Ducks Unlimited. Something like 12 million acres of wildlife habitat under protection now in the US, Canada (and some in Mexico), done with private donations. (59 million acres "influenced and conserved" - that includes things like farmlands operated in habitat-compatible ways supervised and assisted by DU). While warmist bureaucrats party in Cancun and try to figure out how to control the world, DU works to raise money and protect habitat from development and degradation every day.
Maggie's Farm supports DU.
Here's one guide to a prayerful Advent this year.
I find that guides help me with this, and with many other things.
That's Fra Angelico's (aka Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, aka Guido di Pietro) Adoration of the Magi. When you're in Florence, take the bus ride 20 minutes up the hill to Fiesole and see his little chapel and monastery. It's an active convent now, so they might not let you in. Our thanks to the BD art fiend and art-finder pupette (now Wall-Streeter but still art-finder) who turned us on to that chapel.
BTW, we think it's more fun to stay in the pastoral hills of old Etruscan Fiesole when visiting Florence. The bus runs until late, it's a quick cheap one-Euro ride, you get to ride with the locals, and the views are great. On our last visit, I think we only needed to use a cab once. Our pupette's Georgetown abroad semester was out of the old Rockefeller villa in Fiesole. Cool place. I should revisit those pics one of these days.
If you tax something, you get less of it.
If you subsidize something, you get more of it - even if the costs exceed the benefits
 Prager: Want To Raise a Good Person? Stop Nurturing Your Child's Self-Esteem
You don't have to abuse those kids gratuitously, but let them earn a little of their own self-esteem - if they can. Nobody deserves much of it.
We ought to blogroll this site: Global Warming Policy Foundation
Italian mashed potato recipe.
We had mashed potatoes in Sicily, as a bed for Swordfish in raisin-wine sauce (with the fish stuffed with pignoli-herb butter). Near Agrigento. I will feed on mashed taters anytime, anywhere, any way.
Some good soul made a Cape Cod History and Geneology site.
Good one: Can environmentalism be saved from itself?
Happiness as a mental illness.
Related: Garlic mashed potatoes.
Happiness is garlic mashed potatoes. Extra garlic, please. Is that mentally ill? Perfect with roast chicken.
What's the carbon footprint of the big party in Cancun?
Do you know who "The Rat Man" was?
Would you like to become a Maine Professional Guide (aka Maine Guide)?
If not, why not?
Now they say driving is better for Gaia than walking.
But I like to walk. Screw those Greenies with their virtuous limos and SUVs. I'm gonna walk whenever I can.
Franco Correlli sings the Flower Aria in Carmen.
US to support EU financial stability with dollars?
I'd be opposed to this. I'd be opposed to Federal dollars to bail out California too. After all, these "Federal dollars" are all borrowed from China or someplace, plus these people have no claim on my income tax.
This topic came up the other day: Survey on physicians’ religious beliefs shows majority faithful
So did this topic: Dylan's unusual movie, Masked and Anonymous (2003)
House climate panel to be axed
First good thing to come out of the election. We are sick of posting about this BS.
Adding to our shrink blogroll: International Psychoanalysis
Obama Blocks US Companies From Drilling Off Coasts – Cuba Will Proceed With Drilling Plans
A good deal for Cuba. We'll buy our own oil from them. Who planned that?
Let's all strip for climate change...or something. H/T, Linkiest
These kids just want an excuse to take their clothes off. For extra excitement, they should try it near a schoolyard.
Report: Giant life insurance lobby key force behind estate tax
Eliminating the estate tax would put a lot of lawyers, accountants, and insurance divisions out of business.
That's a Theo pic, above. We believe in the importance of female self-defence.
Wednesday, December 1. 2010
 Unlike Leninism, Socialism, Marxism, Keynesianism, capitalism is not a theory. I may be naive to think that this is an important point. Capitalism is just what humans naturally and practically do to survive, to exchange things, and to try to thrive, when they are left in peace by Power. It's win-win transactions in which people get what they want without killing or otherwise using force against eachother. That's all it is - a benign and highly productive aspect of human nature.
Those Wyoming obsidians found on Long Island, NY, a few years ago in a buried Indian cache tell it all. I try to imagine the capitalist transactions involved, from wampum to beaver pelts to who knows what other currencies, all the way across the USA. Whether the item is obsidian chips or Italian credit-default swaps, it's all the same: if you want it, compensate the owner.
Adam Smith did not invent capitalism (or even use the term - yes, it was Marx who made it an "ism") - he just tried to explain what energetic and creative people do when they can do it peacefully, and by free choice.
Unless our kids take some real economics courses, or open a lemonade stand and figure out how the lemons got to them, or discuss real life with their parents, they won't get it at all. They are too insulated from reality nowadays, due to the prosperity of trade and capitalism.
At Wkly Std, More Adam Smith, Please . . .and less Barbara Ehrenreich.
In Socialist fantasies, I sometimes think they imagine that money and wealth come from Daddy. That's probably why the college kids like it.
Editor note: Re obsidian arrowheads, just Google the topic to find out how many people are knapping arrowheads, knife blades, and spearheads these days - for fun and profit. That's called capitalism, hard at work on the obsidian trade even today. Even real Indians are doing it to get into the game.
"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted."
Albert Einstein
 Re one of our men in uniform: It’s All Your Fault… Wikileaker Bradley Manning Only Released the 250,000+ Documents Because He Was Teased For Being Gay (Video).
Everybody gets teased. If teasing makes you go postal, how are you with real bullets, soldier?
Our schools are teaching our fragile young'uns that teasing is harrassment. All I can say is that, if you can't take teasing, harsh criticism, and harassment, you can't take real life.
 Just yesterday we discussed more of the serious legal risks of free speech in Austria. Now this: Man fined for yodeling.
It offended some delicate, hypersensitive Moslems.
Bob Geldof hates those two songs he wrote.
So do I.
Scientists call for rationing in developed world
Sowell: Why a tax increase for high earners doesn't make sense
Evan Sayet: Social Justice and the Modern Liberal Modification therapy - Seeking not “Truth” but “true lies.”
We like Evan.
End of the line for ethanol?
Let's hope so. Putting food in a car's tank is plain wrong.
More in support of the TSA
John Bolton interview: Obama's in over his head
On the NYT's decisions to publish, via Driscoll:
“The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.”–New York Times, on the Climategate emails, Nov. 20, 2009
“The articles published today and in coming days are based on thousands of United States embassy cables, the daily reports from the field intended for the eyes of senior policy makers in Washington. . . . The Times believes that the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match.”–New York Times, on the WikiLeaks documents, Nov. 29, 2010
Is S-510 a solution in search of a problem? The summary
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NYT: