We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
While I was away last week searching for golden eggs in Las Vegas, my piece about the California Association of Scholars report on the left-leaning eggheads laid by the University of California was widely linked.
About an hour's scenic drive north of Hoover Dam along Lake Mead is the Valley of Fire. In the early morning or late afternoon, the sun really brings out the rock's colorations. There's fascinating rock formations formed by thousands, millions, of years of winds. Like this one: looks like a face.
Or this one, an arch. Weaker sandstone is eroded away, and eventually so will the crest of the arch be and fall.
The family and I spent the past week in Las Vegas. Most visitors don't get far from the Strip, but if they did they'd see some knockout scenery.
Before leaving, Gavin blew away the track at his Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.
On the drive to Las Vegas, we stopped in a great '50s diner, Penny's in Barstow, then went over to the Railroad Museum showing some of the trains from Barstow's rail hub history.
On the way back to the highway, we stopped for this memorial to the New York Fire Department heroes who perished in 9-11.
It's still chilly up here in Yankeeland. 30s (F) at night, low 50s at midday. An Irish coffee is good way to begin - or end (or both) a celebratory day.
- 1 or 2 shots of Irish whisky - 1 or 2 tsp brown sugar (I like that crystallized brown sugar called "Sugar in the Raw") - strong, hot fresh coffee - lightly whipped or shaken cream - not fully-whipped cream
Put brown sugar and Irish whisky into a coffee glass, or a wine glass with thick walls. Add hot, strong coffee up to 1 cm (1/3 inch) from the glass rim. (If you are cautious and don't want to risk cracking the glass, leave the spoon in the glass to absorb some of the heat.) Carefully add the lightly whipped cream over the back of a tablespoon.
Alternatively, you can make it the way some Irishmen I knew in NYC did it: Pour 1/3 of your cup of deli take-out coffee into the gutter, and splash some Seagram's 7 into it to fill the cup. Tastes disgusting, but it is warming and the right combo of upper and downer.
Now to marinate our leg of lamb (7 lbs., bone in) overnight. Sounds like Easter dinner, not brunch. Roasting it medium-rare is always a trick, even with the meat thermometer. 130-135 is about right, but the dang thing always keeps cooking after you take it out. Nobody likes brown lamb except the dog.
Professionals use Milorganite for their lawn fertilizing. It is also a good deer-repellant to put on things like Hostas.
It doesn't smell good for a day or two, but it is slow-release (8 weeks), organic, and it cannot burn a lawn. Milwaukee has been producing it since 1925. It is, basically, made from the pee and poo of the population of the great city of Milwaukee. Big eaters and, one might suppose, big poopers.
People from there say they are from "Mwawkee" like people from NYC say they're from "Nyork" or, if from the boroughs, "Nyawk."
Several years ago, my wife purchased a gift card as a Christmas present for my parents. It was for a meal at Rat's Restaurant on the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ. My parents used the card 2 years ago, they have since returned twice. Their third visit was two weekends ago, and we joined them. Unfortunately, some personal issues limited our time on the grounds prior to dinner, but for 45 minutes we wandered among the artwork. What we saw was impressive and enjoyable.
The Grounds for Sculpture opened in 1992, the vision of J. Seward Johnson (of the Johnson & Johnson family). He took 42 acres, formerly the NJ State Fairgrounds, and transformed it into part botanical garden and part sculpture garden and museum. Johnson creates some of the work, though most is provided by other artists. It is an eclectic mix of styles, designed to fit within the existing environment, although at times the environment is altered slightly to work with the art.
In 1984, J. Seward Johnson, sculptor and philanthropist, envisioned a public sculpture garden and museum in Hamilton, NJ. His desire was to make contemporary sculpture as an art form more accessible and to offer people from all backgrounds the opportunity to become comfortable with contemporary art. Grounds For Sculpture was conceived as a place where audiences could experience sculpture in a familiar, accessible, and informal setting.
Shelby Steele: The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin - The absurdity of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton is that they want to make a movement out of an anomaly. Black teenagers today are afraid of other black teenagers, not whites
Jewish suffering has been universalized into multicultural pablum that has nothing to do with Jews anymore. The hijacking of Jewish history has been so comprehensive that Jews have become the new Nazis in the mythology of multiculturalism. They wear uniforms, don't they. They have a state that they're proud of. And they're fighting against all the Mohammed Merahs who only kill because they haven't gotten their fill of tolerance. Clearly Jews are the new Nazis.
"...for the assembled "news" hounds — the most vaunted gathering of news executives from across the country — it was all very serious swooning. They were like a bunch of dogs in heat." (h/t, Am Digest)
"Central to the Pesach seder is the recounting of the ten plagues. As moderns educated in natural science, the story strikes us as childish, as primitive, as mythological. Yet we may be missing the point of these extraordinary events if we understand it as an ancient superstition. Instead the miracle is a symbol of the spontaneity in history, a faith in the changeability of oppressive regimes. What appears as a historical necessity, a small people subject to a great empire, is revealed as an illusion. God's miraculous intervention in Egypt presents history as an open-textured drama. There is an unpredictable Power present in the universe, the God of surprise.
"Belief in miracle is the basis of the "hope model" of Judaism. Exodus becomes a call to revolutionary hope regardless of the conditions of history. Out of this memory of redemption, they can defy the given conditions. The act of protest against their environment can occur because the Jews possess a memory of the impossible that became possible. The order that people observe in the cosmos and in history, is not irreversible. Tomorrow will not necessarily be like today."
So we repeat:
"In every generation one is obligated to see oneself as one who personally went out from Egypt. Just as it says, 'You shall tell your child on that very day, It's because of this that God did for me when I went out from Egypt.' " (Exodus 13:8)
I've seen some migrating Ospreys in the past couple of days. Heading up along the lakes, rivers, and coasts to their summer cottages.
Ospreys are Fish Hawks. They can handle a big fish once they get to carrying it aerodynamically, but they have been known to be drowned by latching onto really big ones.
Thus (obviously) if you are 20 lbs. overweight, your knees experience it as equivalent to an 80 lb. backpack - plus the normal effect of the rest of your ideal weight. Knees were not designed for 80-lb. backpacks 24 hrs./day. Over years, the damage increases of course until, one sad day, you finally begin to feel the accumulated damage.
...individuals who lost 10 lbs. would be subject to a total of 48,000 less pounds of pressure for every mile walked.
Walking when overweight is brutal to knees and, from the knee point of view, probably is to be minimized until losing weight. Driving is kinder. Being carried by slaves in a litter is even better because it is kinder to Gaia.
Besides trauma (eg accidents, athletic injuries, athletic overuse and related overuse as in dance), extra weight is the main cause or exacerbation of knee arthritis. It's all about gravity and the pounding your knees take with every step.
Unless the idea of knee replacement appeals to you, the kindest thing you can do for your knees (or your hips, for that matter), is to lose weight - or to be carried around town. Or, like you see in WalMart, maybe Medicare will buy you a $25,000 electric wheelchair.
Americans eat too much, and far too many carbs than is good for them. (Soon, I'll repost the Dr. Bliss diet which I follow diligently to stay under 130 - plus lots of athletics. It is essentially carb-free, except at Birthday Parties and special occasions. Absolutely no fruit allowed - fruit is sugar and a sugary dessert, and there is nothing "healthy" about it.) Here are some links about weight and arthritis.
One of the highly developed talents of President Barack Obama is the ability to say things that are demonstrably false, and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring.
Our Dicentra is beginning to bloom right now. Early, this year. The plants begin to bloom as soon as they are out of the ground. No plant shoots up as quickly, and it's almost too early to enjoy their brief period of glory. Not counting the early bulbs, Dicentra is our first bloomer.
By August, the plant will wither up into nothing. Early-bloomers do that.
More about Bleeding Hearts here. The wild, native woodland version is white.
I read the headline of this article, and expected to see a discussion on why Wall Street is indispensible. Instead I found a discussion on the election and specifically Romney. It's clear he's going to be the Republican nominee, so it's probably best to start cleaning up his somewhat tarnished image. I agree with much of the commentary. But there are a few comments and insights which should be shared.
First, the economy can function without Wall Street. You don't need a capital market in order to have a functioning economy. It's useful to have a capital market, it makes acquiring capital for progress much easier. In fact, stock corporations were originally performed to raise revenues for large projects which were determined to be 'outside the scope' of government responsibility. What most people are critical of is the very concept that Wall Street considers itself indispensible, and uses that as a lever to charge very large fees and pay outsized salaries. These are not required for a fully functioning economy. I'm not opposed to a person making, or earning, whatever he or she can. But even the corporate titans of the Gilded Age put some of their more public displays on hold during times of economic duress.
Second, as a Libertarian, I'm usually opposed to the government regulating anything. But I admit there are some instances where oversight and enforcement are required. The question is - what KIND of oversight and enforcement? Certainly not the kind we're seeing out of this administration:
Ross refers to the Dodd-Frank Act as "at best a very generalized blueprint" that addresses regulators' concerns, and he worries that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established as part of Dodd-Frank, will have unforeseen consequences for Wall Street and Main Street.
"I think the regulatory uncertainty and the growing fear that this agency (CFPB) will be witch-hunting are definitely impeding bankers' willingness to make loans," he says.
Sarbanes-Oxley has done nothing to stop the fraud it was supposed to stop. It has added several weeks of work to the audit process in many companies, though. In other words, usually regulations result in nothing but increased costs of doing business.
Finally, I was amused to see Bain Capital misspelled as 'Bane' at one point. I would hate to say this is deliberate, but given my cynicism toward journalists today, I am likely to believe it was. Then again, spelling isn't a strong point with journalists these days. It's a rather unfortunate sign of the times.
Glenn Reynolds, with his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, captured something yesterday that I had been collecting a few links about, in Faith in science? Why skepticism is rising. A quote:
...while one should trust science as a method — honestly done, science remains the best way at getting to the truth on a wide range of factual matters — there’s no particular reason why one should trust scientists and especially no particular reason why one should trust the people running scientific institutions, who often aren’t scientists themselves.
In fact, the very core of the scientific method is supposed to be skepticism. We accept arguments not because they come from people in authority but because they can be proven correct — in independent experiments by independent experimenters. If you make a claim that can’t be proven false in an independent experiment, you’re not really making a scientific claim at all.
And saying, “trust us,” while denouncing skeptics as — horror of horrors — “skeptics” doesn’t count as science, either, even if it comes from someone with a doctorate and a lab coat.
There are a number of reasons it makes good sense to be always skeptical of scientific claims (as scientists are trained to be). Here are a few:
1. Careerism and greed - there is big money to be made in science these days, especially if you come up with the "right" results 2. The use of computers for data-mining - which is not the scientific method 3. The reluctance of journals to publish negative results in favor of positive results 4. The lack of scientific literacy in journalism 5. The impression that scientists often have an ax to grind and cannot be impartial about their pet ideas
There are others. Those are just for starters.
Without getting into the huge global climate boondoggle, here are just a few examples from my medical profession:
On Tuesday, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences heard testimony that the number of scientific papers that had to be retracted increased more than tenfold over the last decade; the number of journal articles published rose only 44 percent.
Ferric Fang of the University of Washington, speaking to the panel, said he blamed a hypercompetitive academic environment that fosters poor science and even fraud, as too many researchers compete for diminishing funding.
"The surest ticket to getting a grant or job is getting published in a high-profile journal," said Fang. "This is an unhealthy belief that can lead a scientist to engage in sensationalism and sometimes even dishonest behavior."
44% is not very good. More on that story: Can Most Cancer Research Be Trusted? - Addressing the problem of "academic risk" in biomedical research
Well ok. You might expect a Con Law teacher to remember the date of Lochner but, giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, I think he is simply spewing spin and propaganda, hoping most voters won't notice.
How many voters care about Lochner? Or even about the Constitution? Even the President, who did swear to uphold it, admits he doesn't really approve of it.
Perhaps his back-up plan is to run against the Court - and the Constitution. It could work. Politics ain't beanbag.
He speaks as though the problem—our unsustainable entitlement state—were the solution, and as though the solution—a budget that restrains the growth of spending, modernizes and reforms our collapsing entitlement and welfare programs to avert their collapse, and charts a path toward economic growth—were the problem. In this upside-down, inside-out world, Barack Obama accuses Paul Ryan of putting the future of America’s younger generation in danger and inviting American decline.
Sowell "A long-standing legal charade was played out again recently, when Federal Express paid $3 million to settle an employment discrimination case brought by the U.S. Department of Labor."
Is a life without some form of spiritual (I hate that word) communion a half-dead, or dead, life? Many who partake of it would say that it is. Christ offered "life in abundance" (John 10:10) - and he did not mean toys, money, entertainment, comforts, food, or trinkets.
We got on this topic of communion at my men's Bible group on Friday (we were reading Mark 14 - a key chapter in the NT).
I thought I had recalled that the communion had first been a reference to the communal meal at the end of the early house churchs' worships, of which, of course, bread and wine were part. A "love feast." A communion with Christ, or with brethren? Both, I'd suppose. It's all the same.
The Eucharist ("Thanksgiving") as a formal church ceremony and a sacrament to the Catholics emerged hundreds of years later. The communal, celebratory meal became a symbolic meal and then, in the Catholic Church, a miraculous meal as was made official dogma at the Council of Trent in the 1500s.
(In my Protestant church we do both the symbolic meal and a serious, carb-packed breakfast spread afterwards which I term "the cocktail party." No vino, however - because it's too early in the day for most of us.)
Christ's simple instructions, followed by the "Do this in remembrance of me" at the last supper (Passover) were altered versions of the Passover traditions, in which, in claiming His New Covenant of salvation and anticipating his death and resurrection, Christ related it to himself (I will not get into the topic of the Trinity because it's over my head, nor will I get into the symbolic cannibalistic imagery).
So a question we had in mind was whether the remembrance is for every meal, for communal meals, for special times like Passover (which my church celebrates with a traditional Passover meal, in silence), for church ceremonies - or even whether it might apply to our Bible study's coffee - but not to confuse Dunkin' Donuts with the church's Welch's Grape Juice. We also wondered whether the tone is best solemn, or celebratory (our church does the solemn).
As a Protestant, I tend to think Christ was asking to be remembered at every meal with brethren. However, I have been wrong often. I'd welcome any enlightenment on these topics from readers because I am probably wrong about much of this.
Most Protestants use these words, quoting Paul:
"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes again."
"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else. And root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"
If you think he's on the right track, send him a couple of bucks. He's gonna need it, because he is up against every spare goverment union dollar in the country.
A pal of Mrs. BD was astonished that Mrs. BD was not a Downton Abbey follower, so she obtained the 2010-2011 episodes.
I watched the first episode. It's an Upstairs, Downstairs-like drama, beautiful to look at, but perhaps more of a chick thing. Maggie Smith is great. The BD daughter would say "perfect production values."
Perhaps it's about nostalgia for the Britain of the past, comfortable warts and all.
While Bird Dog searches for eggs on his lawn today, here’s a few he may miss:
Sometimes It Takes Money to Make Money (From Insurance Fraud)
Allan Bloom
Andrew McCarthy: 
Tonight is the first night of Passover, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 also began on Passover.
Each 
How Do We Fall Asleep?
I read the headline of 
"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,