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.
The hypocrisy, the outright lies, the vituperativeness, the purposeful avoidance of key issues, of leading Democrats this election season leaves me so sputtering that I'm almost speechless in astonished disgust.
My friend Ruth King, however, ably sums up the 2nd night of the Democrat Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina:
Did you all know there is no terror threat, no Iran, no Afghanistan no Iraq, no Taliban, no God, no Jerusalem (well maybe little God and Jerusalem, although the Nays among the audience were loud and clear) Nope…only back alley abortions and women subjugated to the back room. By Sharia laws you ask. Nope again. I was actually amused that Fluke’s controlled tantrum and Elizabeth Warren’s wampum was followed by Slick Willie whose treatment of “nutty and slutty” women is one for the records. But, never mind, he aimed his rapier into the heart of the failure of Obamanomics.
Give him another chance, he intoned:
“A lot of Americans are still angry and frustrated about this economy…..If you look at the numbers, you know that employment is growing, banks are beginning to lend again, and a lot of housing prices are even beginning to pick up.
“But too many people do not feel it yet…..If will you renew the president’s contract, you will feel it. You will feel it.”
And then he added this zinger:
“Folks, whether the American people believe what I just told you or not may be the whole election. I just want you to know I believe it. With all my heart I believe it.”
Now would this man ever lie? At least he didn’t wave his finger at his audience.
February 2010 was the ripping point of the Obama presidency. The only way the president could be a Hegelian Great Man of History — a doer of world-historical, taxpayer-subsidized deeds — was by sacrificing the ideals of unity and conciliation that had gotten him elected in the first place. For his transformative agenda was curiously unsuited to the times: Instead of confessing himself “childlike to the genius of his age,” he seemed to think he was living in 1933. He was blind to the fact that in 2010 not even a statesman of FDR’s gifts could have forged a consensus in favor of a centrally planned, state-run behemoth like Obamacare.
Win or lose, he is toast until he can get out of the White House and begin to make some serious bucks on the golf lecture circuit.
Charles Murray guesstimates that something between 1 in 10 and 1 in 30 can make the best use of Liberal Arts higher ed (ie, not as a credential but for the intellectual growth which is more difficult, but entirely possible - to do on one's own). For the rest, it's credential-buying, a rite of passage, an extension of high school, checking a social-advancement box, and/or delayed adulthood.
I've been impressed by how effective the petite 20-something blonde trainers are in encouraging middle-aged men to push to their limits during their 5 am work-outs at my gym. (I suspect the healthy-looking male trainers have a similar impact on the ladies.)
That should be no surprise, of course, given male psychology. Gyms and blonde trainers don't come cheap, however.
Even before Paul Ryan touted his enthusiasm for the Insanity program, I had been hearing about it from people (Ryan uses Insanity and P90X). I kinda like the way the woman in the Insanity ad says "I want to feel good about sharing myself with my husband for many years to come." That's a great attitude.
The problem with home work-out regimens is the self-discipline. On the other hand, challenges to self-discipline are how we build character. But, on the other hand...
This week's Mac virus is brought to you by the makers of BackDoor.Wirenet.1, a delightful little keylogger that has drawn rave reviews wherever it goes.
Keyloggers, to remind you, record all of your keystrokes and then periodically send them home to mama. A program then looks for 16 entered numbers in a row (your credit card) followed by 3 more numbers (your security code), then it's off to cadillac.com and some early Christmas shopping.
It also steals passwords:
The malware "also operates as a keylogger (it sends gathered keyboard input data to intruders); in addition, it steals passwords entered by the user in Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Chromium, and passwords stored by such applications as Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and Pidgin."
(Odd he'd mention the other browsers but not Safari?)
The fix is fairly simple. You delete some files on your computer and then block access to a certain IP address. Details are in the above link and one method to block the IP address is here, more info here. Even if you don't have the bad files on your system, you should still block the IP address.
Nearly 65 years after Israel’s creation, two Palestinian societies emerge, new study shows - 60 percent of Israeli Arabs say they would not allow their daughter to marry a Palestinian from the West Bank
Dems certainly do know how to get rich in politics. Hillary has made $30 million of her own - a tidy sum for a "life dedicated to public service." Bill, I heard, has made about triple that.
Who was Herman Hollerith? His company, the Tabulating Machine Company (1890), was renamed International Business Machines in 1924. IBM, with headquarters in Armonk, NY, is currently the second-largest private employer in the US. When I was young, key punch systems were still in wide use.
Another Labor Day has passed, and I hope all Maggie's readers had a fine, relaxing long weekend. Barbecues, beer, wine, lawn or lounge chairs, picnics, whatever you typically do on a fine summer holiday, I'm sure you had a good time.
My wife and I, after having drinks with friends at the local swim club on Saturday, relaxed on a rainy Sunday then decided to head into the city on Monday to take a look at the Freedom Tower. We usually drive to Jersey City, park at a mall, and take the PATH train in. Parking and PATH for 3 people (our remaining homebound son joined us) was $22, much cheaper than driving into, and parking in, Manhattan.
They've done plenty of work on the tower and the area is finally starting to look as developed as it was prior to 9/11/2001. We checked for tickets to the 9/11 Memorial, but had 4 hours to wait. We decided to pass on that, and take a walk. Note to self, next time order tickets online before going in. They are free, but donations are welcome.
We headed up through City Hall Park, then turned and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and into the DUMBO section of Brooklyn, where we decided to have pizza for lunch. Grimaldi's is the big name pizza place under the bridge. But the line was too long and we couldn't wait. Ignazio's is around the corner, and turned out to be a great alternative. Good pizza, great location near the water and also under the bridge. I give it high marks for food, service and views.
If you've never walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, I highly recommend doing it sometime. It's worth the effort. Not only do you get to soak up some of its great history, but the views are amazing. Some pictures below the fold. Unfortunately, it was not a bright, sunny day. We had some rain, it was overcast. It was still an enjoyable trek.
There are many people who hate math but are great poker players, but there are hardly any players who lack the people reading abilities and still manage to be good poker players,” said Vonk. “Mathematical knowledge can to a large extent be replaced by intuition and experience. After a player has played a million hands of poker, even if he does not know the math at all, he will have a decent feeling about when it is profitable to draw to a flush and when it is not.”
That said, knowing the math means you can acquire this kind of knowledge much more quickly, and those skills can give an edge in very rare situations that don’t often occur in a poker game. “To be a great player, you need both!”
Deep thinker Alec Baldwin thinks Obama would be 17 points up in the polls if he were white. I think he'd be 17 points down if he were white. His skin tone is a large part of his appeal, I believe.
I'm a fan of Cory Booker. I do not share his politics, but there is much to compliment him on at a local level. I can appreciate how he has improved Newark, a city very close to where I live, and how he has created a strong working relationship with Chris Christie, the Republican Governor of New Jersey.
When he goes national, though, he tends to put his foot in his mouth. Most recently, there was his commentary on Bain Capital, calling out Obama's campaign.
Now he's given a speech at the DNC which makes a claim that is outlandish.
"being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare—it's patriotism. But we all know—it's common sense—that for an economy built to last we must invest in what will fuel us for generations to come."
Mia Love On Obama: “I Think He’s Stripping Away the American Dream & the America As We Know It”
VDH: The New Reactionaries - The causes of poverty, the effects of liberal policies — such things are undiscussable. One quote:
If today an observer were to state that the number of children one chooses to have should be in part predicated on the income one reasonably expects to make (I think that is why so-called yuppies often choose to have two rather than five children), then he would be branded illiberal or worse — despite the fact that societies have accepted that premise for centuries, and the middle classes implicitly follow such common calculations. Thanks to today’s government help, the illegal immigrant from Oaxaca might eventually achieve rough parity with the American-born middle class if he were to have two children; however, with five it is impossible.
These elegant stone barns were the dairy operation on the Rockefeller family's Kykuit Manor estate in Pocantico Hills, NY -a charming semi-rural hamlet nestled between the remarkably named villages of Sleepy Hollow and Pleasantville, one which has probably the highest-performing public schools in NY if not in the entire USA. Also, a famous Matisse and Chagall church.
The family recently deeded 1200 acres of their pasture and woodlands to New York State as parkland, now Rockefeller State Park Preserve. It has 20 miles of scenic riding and hiking trails, many overlooking the Hudson River. The parking lot was filled with horse trailers.
This land is only 25 miles north of Manhattan, 8 miles north of White Plains in Westchester County. That's what is remarkable about it.
The stone barns area of the preserve is now operated as a demonstration organic farm (definitely not vegan - they grow their own free-range pigs, beef, chickens, lamb, turkeys and geese), and is the site of the Blue Hill Restaurant. They only cook local, and pretty much all of their food comes from their farm, year-round, like old-timey farmers. They do not make their own Coke or Scotch whiskey, however. We stopped by for a stroll and a late lunch last weekend. Blue Hill has no menu, reservations required, but their cafe is casual.
OK, I think eating local is silly and that "organic" is a foolish fad. Harmless efforts, though. I did happen to notice that the natural gas which runs their a/c is imported from out-of-state because NY still has no fracking. Same for the greenhouse heating system for winter. Local food, imported energy. Guess that passes as "green" these days.
... the PhD is not being hired for anything other than part-time teaching; the JD is reduced to the law library gofer; the freshly minted MD is the equivalent of a salaried, high-paid nurse; the credentialed high-school teacher is subbing; the engineer is a draftsman; the carpenter is cobbling together home repair mini-jobs. The new plum job? Landing one of those federal or state regulatorships, inspectorships, or clerkships, which are paid for with borrowed money, produce little, and grow as those they audit and fine shrink.
In other words, we are seeing the proverbial chickens coming home to roost in an economy that has run up $16 trillion in debt, regulated its way into paralysis, hounded the private sector, and demonized profit-making.
It's time for a new approach. I hope the youngsters will realize that before the talents of an entire generation are wasted, and hope for the future (besides a hope for free birth control) is destroyed by hopey-changey.
Most public officials are mesmerized by the egalitarian fantasy. They insist that investing more in higher education will even out inequalities by helping those at the bottom get an Associate's Degree to compete with Ivy League graduates. No Virginia, Santa Claus cannot help those baffled by Algebra I to earn millions doing mind-boggling Wall Street swaps and derivatives. And take heed, Occupy Wall Streeters: next year's 1% will be even smarter and richer than today's 1% as the pool of applicants to top colleges expands as a resul tof growing worldwide wealth. In fact, thanks to this relentless upward pressure from an ever larger pool of applicants, today's 1% may eventually be displaced by those with even higher IQ's.
Those who wave the bloody flag of "fairness" in the income distribution are doomed. Exceptional talent, as any sports fan can tell you, does not come cheap. Bill Gates was once asked to identify his greatest competitor. He said Goldman Sachs. A puzzled interviewer asked why, and Gates responded that both Goldman and Microsoft competed for the same prime intellectual talent at the very edge of the bell curve's right side. Finding and rewarding top intellectual ability in today's global economy is incompatible with economic leveling though, ironically, this "unfair" meritocracy that looks nothing like those below will bring greater prosperity to everyone.
I'd prefer a more intimate, less insistent, rapid, and more modulated delivery, but Marco delivers the basic conservative message as only the kids of immigrants can do. He will mellow and ripen with age. (He is welcome to email me for advice!).
My other problem with his fine speech is equating power and/or money with the American Dream. There are over 300 million American dreams, no two of them identical. Freedom from the state, and opportunity with real risk and the possibility of real personal satisfaction with the shaping of unique lives, is what matters. The chance to follow your own heart and mind, bearing in mind that it might not work out and everybody might need a Plan B and a Plan C.
Only immigrants and the kids of new immigrants can remind us of how entitled and decadent we have had become.
...the biggest, most rotten zombie we will see in Charlotte is the class-warfare rhetoric that has already dominated Obama’s campaign. Obama and crew have no new ideas for rescuing the economy from a Greece-like meltdown. Nor do they have an answer for the Republican Convention’s celebrations of self-reliance, self-improvement, hard work, entrepreneurship, and acceptance of risk and responsibility that success requires and that freedom makes possible. These all are part of America’s DNA, the virtues that made this country the richest and most powerful in history. And the alternatives to these virtues––the dependency, stagnation, passivity, indolence, rent-seeking, and buck-passing that for more than a century have attended every species of big-government socialism that ever existed––these alternatives to American virtues have been tried for a century and failed miserably. Indeed, we’re watching their slow-motion dissolution in the Eurozone even as we speak.
Today is a holiday in the US, one in which we celebrate the antiquated, retrogressive (but once-necessary) union movement with beaches, beer, barbecuing, and fun. My celebratory efforts entail tennis in the morning and kayaking in the afternoon. How about you?
The left has died as an intellectual force worth taking seriously. Its mission belongs to another time. It is reduced to fighting for political power alone, and its weapons are what we recently called “the politics of personal destruction.” It’s the only way they can hope to win. None of us should be surprised when the leftists accuse the righties of pushing old women off of cliffs, or murdering cancer-afflicted employees, or waging war on women, and so forth. They have to destroy their opponents one by one. They no longer have a “movement” of any significance.
That’s what happens when you become an anachronism. For me, the greatest line of the week was Ryan’s, the one about the fading Obama poster on the wall of an unemployed young American.
Once upon a time, the left was able to lay claim to intellectual and moral superiority, and to look at the conservatives with imperious disdain. No more.
This must be what Bill Clinton meant by referring to Obama as "an amateur." Woodward on how
I've been impressed by how effective the petite 20-something blonde trainers are in encouraging middle-aged men to push to their limits during their 5 am work-outs at my gym. (I suspect the healthy-looking male trainers have a similar impact on the ladies.)
This week's Mac virus is brought to you by the makers of BackDoor.Wirenet.1, a delightful little keylogger that has drawn 
Kentucky WWII Vet Earl Jones, 92, 
VDH: 
Chart via 
