Thursday, January 6. 2011
 Women like their men to be brave in the face of what life presents. Women appreciate men who will take it on, and not hide, retreat, or run from the things in life. Furthermore, they appreciate men who will get out there and take things on, new things, challenges, and mix it up with life. Not in a sociopathic way, but boldly.
However, many or most men are full of secret fears and timid in some ways about the risks in life. In many ways, more so than the average female (but that is another post). Fears of being hurt, killed, lost, confused, vulnerable, humiliated, ego-damaged, etc. Especially ego-damaged.
An important part of being and feeling manly is confronting fear, uneasiness, and discomfort, and overcoming the fear. Vitality entails risk. I suppose those are cliches, but true. Males are supposed to put on a game face when they are nervous or afraid. Life isn't meant to be easy, and males are meant to exit the comfort zone and to enter the jungle. The women of America are sick of pussified, metrosexual males who are afraid of splinters, rock-climbing, snowstorms, rough water, and strong women.
Two things brought this ancient topic to mind:
Banning Bravery: From Yale to the NFL
Are Americans Wusses or Just Fond of Trash Talk?
From History House. Can't believe everything you read.
From RailPictures, this pic of the Nevada Northern #93 operating on the Heber Valley Railroad line for the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, near Wildwood, Utah, by G. Brubaker. (That site has over 300,000 rail photos):
Life is a long lesson in humility.
James M. Barrie
NYT columnist: If censoring “Huckleberry Finn” gets more people to read it, why not do it?
Anybody who thinks they are in a position to bowdlerize Mark Twain needs to be sent back for re-education.
Hennessey: The ten most important American economic policy issues of 2010
Pethokoukis: ‘Cut and grow’ is really the only way forward
Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving
McArdle: Commercial Real Estate on the Mend?
Via Neptunus:
"The New York Times is just basically being a mouthpiece for political correctness,” King said, later adding: “These are very legitimate hearings.”
Miller begins:
Feminists began to embrace and promote the legacy of author Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) in the 1970s, starting with an article by Alice Walker in Ms. magazine. This rescue effort was necessary, according to a pair of Harvard professors in the Chronicle of Higher Education, because Hurston had lapsed into obscurity “probably due to her political views.”
Reb recalls The vicious lie behind the global warming scare
Russian News Discusses Rise of Communism in New York City
Television Losing Ground to the Internet as a Main Source of News
No Pasaran:
...the percentage of the world living poverty is shrinking, and no-one sought Europe’s permission for that to take place.
Volokh: District Court Upholds Stolen Valor Act Again First Amendment Challenge
The value of Facebook: Take the money and run
Anonymous on the internet: Schniederman
Watts: Are huge northeast snow storms due to global warming?
Wednesday, January 5. 2011
Whoever forgot his wife or girlfriend at my place after the party is asked to please come and get her ASAP.
Beth insists she's got to go!
(Sorta but not quite SFW)
Continue reading "Beth insists she's got to go!"
From Dr. Ablow:
I now see more clearly than ever that helping people identify and embrace their own beliefs, inclinations, hopes and dreams is essentially helping them embrace God. And if I may have been timid about saying so before, I am no longer.
As we quote more than once in The 7:
You are the temple of God.
We linked to David Brooks' confusing column this morning. Jennifer Rubin responds to it, in the WaPo. One quote:
It is noteworthy that the policy preferences that Brooks attributes (correctly) to Republicans all have to do with shifting money and control away from the public to the private sector ("a flatter, simpler tax code with lower corporate rates, a smaller debt burden, predictable regulations, affordable entitlements"), not simply redirecting the trillions that we already spend. Republicans' formula for arousing energy, spurring social mobility and helping people to transform their lives is to limit the size of government and allow the public sector (with the benefits of sound money, predictable regulation, a reliable legal system and low taxes) to flourish; Democrats don't buy that.
The reason the parties fight about the size of government is because it matters so much. It would be nice to imagine we can avoid that fight, but ignoring the growth of government is precisely what has landed us in the current predicament.
 Reader Buddy prompted me to refresh my memory of the Children's Crusades.
While of no historical importance, there is a cautionary tale in the story.
The story begins:
One day in May 1212 there appeared at Saint-Denis, where King Philip of France was holding his court, a shepherd-boy of about twelve years old called Stephen, from the small town of Cloyes in the Orléannais. He brought with him a letter for the King, which, he said, had been given to him by Christ in person, who had appeared to him as he was tending his sheep and who had bidden him go and preach the Crusade. King Philip was not impressed by the child and told him to go home. But Stephen, whose enthusiasm had been fired by his mysterious visitor, saw himself now as an inspired leader who would succeed where his elders had failed. For the past fifteen years preachers had been going round the country-side urging a Crusade against the Moslems of the East or of Spain or against the heretics of Languedoc. It was easy for an hysterical boy to be infected with the idea that he too could be a preacher and could emulate Peter the Hermit, whose prowess had during the past century reached a legendary grandeur. Undismayed by the King's indifference, he began to preach at the very entrance to the abbey of Saint-Denis and to announce that he would lead a band of children to the rescue of Christendom. The seas would dry up before them, and they would pass, like Moses through the Red Sea, safe to the Holy Land.
 *for a whole two hours!
I think I'll be a sociologist in my next lifetime. I've always been intrigued by cultural conditioning and changing perspectives. Even more so when I'm the subject of the aforementioned changing perspectives.
Following are two posts on the subject. The first was made a few years ago, when I bought my 40' liveaboard boat. And, as if that wasn't enough of a perspective change, what happened the other day actually put me in the greenie class.
The topic is wind power. Like you, I've mocked, scorned and belittled it for years. What a fraud! Without fat government subsidies, it'd be as dead as geothermal energy and ocean wave power. Just another greenie notion without a lick of sense.
Until.
Continue reading "Doc goes green*"
At The American, Living in the Political Wake of the Bubble. A quote:
One of the biggest causes of the bubble and financial crisis was the government itself. How will this highly political body be able to criticize the government? Let us recall the excellent question posed to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke by Senator Jim Bunning: “How can you regulate systemic risk when you are the systemic risk?”
My girlfriend always laughs during sex - no matter what she's reading.
Steve Jobs
Was going through photos, and liked this one from the lad's Woodstock, VT wedding in Aug. 09.
This is the Simon Pearce factory (and restaurant) in Quechee, where we had the jolly rehearsal dinner. That's the party on the porches. If you wanted to walk around, you could go downstairs and watch the glass-blowing.
Tuesday, January 4. 2011
I see Oil price ‘threat to recovery’.
Crude oil pricing is fascinating to me, but I know little about it. I do know that OPEC controls the big spigot, and thus controls global supply and global pricing. (Pricing is global, not local, and I do know that it is determined, in the final details, by global commodities exchanges.) But, in an interesting and rather cool feedback loop, if oil is too high, it can begin to strangle economies, reducing demand and thus reducing the prices the oil producers can get.
I also know that the American oil companies are, sadly, rather small players on the world scene, nowadays:
We probably have readers who can explain the vicissitudes of crude oil pricing, from the producers to the pump. If you can, please do. In 100 words or less (or is it "fewer"?).
At Smithsonian. Always wondered how they filled that space with water for the mock sea battles.
This January, the BD family is devoting itself to enjoyable DVD series from Santa. That Ken Burns Jazz series is one (the old photos, film footage, and the music are well-worth it).
And, as part of our planned summer trip, we are alternating the Jazz with Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor and the History of Ancient Egypt.
The Teaching Company has some good sales on right now. You can really pick any random course and find it interesting and life-expanding. Plus, unlike college, you get the best teachers, collected from all over the world. Home schoolers should use these courses. Lots of libraries have them now. Each one comes with a study guide.
We love these courses. Some are fine on audio, but some require the DVDs.
The trip (cruise, that is) for which we are preparing is below (we are only doing the Rome to Athens leg of the voyage, due to time and $ constraints). I have been eager to get back to Turkey.
Do I need a better camera?
Via Mankiw, from Tierney: Economic Optimism? Yes, I’ll Take That Bet. A quote:
You can always make news with doomsday predictions, but you can usually make money betting against them.
A reader sent in this pic of dying, discarded Christmas trees. Mine is still standing proud, outdoors, in its stand in the snow. I hate to let them go.
How Obama Gets to 270 in 2012. "It's all in the math — and the numbers aren't looking good for the GOP."
 Image from Don't Touch My (Area of government intervention Here) Junk
As frustration grows, airports consider ditching TSA
Earthquakes and climate change: Stupidity of the day
Intelligence is for stupid people
Insty noted this Harry Stein Book: I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next to a Republican: A Survival Guide for Conservatives Marooned Among the Angry, Smug, and Terminally Self-Righteous [Paperback]
Synthstuff reports from the small biz arena
The Alexandria Church Bombing: The Plot Thickens
Iconoclast: Don't blame the West - The 'root causes' of Islamist terrorism do not lie in poverty or western imperialism
In The Arena:
D-Day is coming for Republicans. They can't keep this charade of being the party of fiscal discipline much longer without showing America their plan for cutting the deficit. The won an election without doing it but they can't govern without doing it. They have been big talkers up to this point but no specifics. America awaits how they plan on cutting spending and taxes at the same time and making a dent in the deficit. Maybe it is not their D-Day but their Waterloo.
Reason on Obamacare: The law will penalize doctors to pay patients and penalize patients to pay doctors. A quote:
... the administration is defining Medicare fraud down to include “unnecessary” and “ineffective” care. And to root this out, it plans to make expanded use of private mercenaries—officially called Recovery Audit Contracts—who will be authorized to go to doctors’ offices and rummage through patients’ records, matching them with billing claims to uncover illicit charges. What’s more, Obamacare increases the fine for billing errors from $11,000 per item to $50,000 without the government even having to prove intent to defraud.
This is utter insanity. And it has been caused by the transformation of health care into a government-controlled industry where the natural, self-regulating forces of the market have been badly subverted.
George Will: Sarah Palin Cannot Be Elected President
If she tries to run, she will damage her brand. She's a fine spokesperson, for now. She should run for some other office if she wants to be a pol. I think she's better as a voice in the wilderness.
Salcedo: The Spaghetti Strategy: Advice to Republicans - A strategy to advance freedom by keeping President Obama and his radical appointees on the defensive
Gateway: Russia to Lay Off 200,000 Federal Employees, Cuba to Lay Off 1,000,000 Federal Employees, Obama Hires 25,000 More Federal Employees
Europe starts confiscating private pension funds
Monday, January 3. 2011
At Reason, Ronald Reagan, Ron Paul, & the Fed: Q&A with David Stockman. I can remember when Stockman related how Reagan was never really serious about shrinking government.
Stockman caught hell from the true believers for that blasphemy.
How Videogames Are Changing the Economy - From Silicon Valley to China to media, they are leading the next productivity revolution. So hug a geek today.
I have never played a video game, and have no idea how anybody finds the time in life to do so. I am either blessed or cursed with more things I like to do, and more people I like to spend time with, than I have time for. However, the article says that there is much of real use emerging from the technology.
At Powerline, Europe's Doomed Generation.
Educated, over-credentialed, and entitled. Sounds familiar, and it is not a good thing. I wish I had a solution to propose, but I don't. Perhaps many people will need to be inventive and create their own work.
He sounds like our own Bruce Kesler when he says:
That is what happens when government inserts itself into every employment decision and when labor unions are given quasi-official powers and status. The result is economic disaster, a disaster first suffered by the young. What has happened in Europe, especially Southern Europe, is a flashing red alert, warning the United States not to follow the same path of government interventionism and union empowerment. Yet that is exactly the direction in which the Obama administration is trying to take us. It is deeply ironic that Obama came to office in part because of support from young voters who are too ill-informed to see the effects that his policies, if implemented, would have on them.
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