Saturday, February 16. 2013
 Reversibility
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,
and the vague terrors of the fearful night
That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate? With hands clenched in the shade and tears of gall, When Vengeance beats her hellish battle-call, And makes herself the captain of our fate, Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?
Angel of health, did you ever know pain, Which like an exile trails his tired footfalls The cold length of the white infirmary walls, With lips compressed, seeking the sun in vain? Angel of health, did ever you know pain?
Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know? Know you the fear of age, the torment vile Of reading secret horror in the smile Of eyes your eyes have loved since long ago? Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?
Angel of happiness, and joy, and light, Old David would have asked for youth afresh From the pure touch of your enchanted flesh; I but implore your prayers to aid my plight, Angel of happiness, and joy, and light.
Friday, February 15. 2013
We've posted about Prof. Saks in the past. Here's more.
 My Dad's eyesight is failing, but reading is his greatest pleasure. He refuses to watch TV. We got him one of these.
He loves it. Only drawback is that he cannot read in bed with it. It's a heavy machine.
 As a small side note, in case you missed my post last Tuesday, I'm not feeling very well these days, so haven't been blogging very much. But I feel pretty good today so I thought I'd do a little gobsmacking of the AGW industry.
Everyone needs a hobby.
I discovered a terrific site called The Straight Dope the other day, which is just filled with fun, biting questions and answers.
Fun, biting questions such as:
Should a baking potato be wrapped in foil shiny side in or shiny side out?
Has a passenger ever landed a plane after the pilot was incapacitated?
Why were dinosaurs so big?
Is a bullet wound in the shoulder as harmless as the movies make it seem?
I spent the whole day going through the archives and had a terrific time.
At least, until I got to the first global warming article.
All those silly up-and-down temperature cycles that have occurred over the past 10,000 years? Pfft! Ancient history, bud! Especially in light of the literally tons of CO2 we're dumping into the atmosphere on a daily basis.
Tons, he'll tell you, tons.
And it also appeared that — just perhaps — some of his questions were a bit 'staged' so he could show off his expertise. Questions such as:
If I were an evil genius, how could I go about melting the ice caps?
I won't link to the article since I'm going to quote most of it here.
So, okay, let's say man-made global warming is going to melt the ice caps and raise sea levels up 200 feet, or whatever the latest projection is.
But just how much energy would truly be involved in such an undertaking? Bear in mind as you read his first three hypotheses that we're comparing them to what's currently spewing CO2 into the atmosphere; that is, a smattering of coal plants and factories with more emission controls imposed on them than at any time in history, a bunch of small-engine cars that are emitting less pollution than at any time in history, and a 'green' culture that condemns the slightest waste of energy as possibly heretical.
So, what exactly would it take to actually melt the ice caps?
Continue reading "AGW update: Fighting fire with fire"
From Leef: The Spirit of Adam Smith Returns - At one time, professors were independent contractors paid by students; that relationship may return:
It is a bad habit Americans have gotten into that we often look askance
at learning opportunities unless they’re “for credit.” The return of the
free market in higher education will help break that habit, as people
again learn for the sake of learning (as Adam Smith’s students did) and
stop taking courses just because they need some credits.
Perhaps the new competition will end up determining who wants to learn things, and who just wants the credential.
Related: MOOCs, MOCCs, and HarvardX
“There is wide scientific consensus that the increased number and intensity of climate change induced natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcano eruptions, tsunamis and hurricanes, is of alarming concern,” said Ruppel, though adding that not all climate events lead to disasters.
Via Pirate. Somehow, the guy forgot to include meteors and solar eclipses.
Toon above via Theo
Russsian jets intercept meteor
Lawyers Panic Over Litigation Crisis Of Their Making
New husband inhibited in bed
Pre-K Government - The feds are going to educate your toddler no matter the evidence.
Pre-school education does no academic good. It's unionized baby-sitting.
Politicizing Philanthropy - A White House program blurs the line between government action and private charity.
Taking the Time out of Time Warner
Mayor Bloomberg Is Coming After Your Coffee Cups
What next?
Steyn: Every Man a Criminal
Hanson: The Decline of America
Former TNR owner/publisher has seller’s remorse
Michelle: Who failed Chicago?
What’s the Difference Between Romneycare and Obamacare?
Rush Limbaugh has an epiphany about Obama
Dino:
The 18-29 crowd say government should do more, more, more, and that’s the way they vote. These young people, who have been miseducated and conned by politicians, are in for quite a surprise. Not only are they unemployed in record numbers and can’t afford their student debts, there’s this: if the national debt fell solely on their shoulders (which much of it does), that would be another $300,000 they’d each be responsible for. A mortgage without a house to go with it. They’re going to be pretty angry if ever they wake up.
Mead: Interest groups fighting over scraps in the ruins—this is where the blue model leads.
Cable news replayed the clip of Rubio sipping water more than 200 times yesterday
HURT: Dr. Carson a good remedy for what ails U.S
The multiculturalism plague in Sweden
I'm on Key Largo this week. The is the M/Y By Grace. By grace alone?
Thursday, February 14. 2013
Vanderleun. Real life for St. Valentine's Day. Words. You can write a blog post, write a song, or tell a friend. Putting it into words is the thing.
Civil Rights Leaders to Obama: Amnesty Will Crush Black Employment
Milton Friedman responds to President Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage, the most ‘anti-black law in the land'
 "Everybody has won, and all must have prizes, the Dodo said."
Student Gets Low Grade, Sues University for $1.3 Million
Related, Wesleyan University panders to grievance-seeking manipulators and grudge-filled neurotics: Speech Code of the Month: Wesleyan University
The world has gone insane.
Via Shorpy. I doubt that the John Gilbert BED was a waterbed. Also, are we talking about The Order of the Garter, or, preferably, the dramatic and erotic Removal of the Garter?
Cool. It is 17 million digits long. Primes are a deep mystery.
I thought it would be a nice gesture to offer up something spicy for the ladies on this special day.
Presenting: Porn For Women
Continue reading "Valentine's Day treat"
Wednesday, February 13. 2013
 At best, the merger of
romantic love and marriage is relatively recent and relatively localized.
We have posted in the past about the history of romance being converted into covenant marriage. Marriage has always been in transition, and, for better or worse, it is in transition now.
As I have said countless times here, I don't know how people can run an orderly, complicated, and productive life without a committed partner, much less create a family with all of the things family entails - finances, traditions, social life, stability, values and religion, disciplines, etc. The very wealthy always could do that, but not otherwise.
I never forget the story of how Thomas Lincoln (Abe's father, a prosperous and prominent Kentucky farmer and real-estate investor at the time) hopped on his wagon and drove to the nearest city, leaving the kids in charge of themselves, to quickly fetch a new wife after Nancy died. I believe he fetched the first widow he could find, Sarah.
Today, he would be arrested for leaving the kids on their own.
 Do things have purpose? Nagel's new book has provoked plenty of reaction. From Your point is? -Science can’t stop talking in terms of ‘purposes’, but if the universe cares about us, it has a funny way of showing it:
In Mind and Cosmos, subtitled Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, Nagel revives the concept of teleology on the basis of his conviction that the mind-body problem has more serious ramifications for evolutionary science than is ordinarily accepted. How does the electrochemical activity of neurons in the human brain produce subjective, first-person experience? Nobody knows. Nagel says that the appearance of conscious beings such as us can be described as the universe waking up. Yet to him it seems unlikely that life would ever have got started in the first place, somehow springing forth from ‘dead matter’; still more unlikely that some forms of life would have developed consciousness; and extremely improbable that one form of life would have acquired the ‘transcendent’ power of reason. In order to explain these events, Nagel suggests, you need more than simply the ‘mechanistic’ tools of the laws of physics, natural selection, and so on. You need not just physical theory but ‘psychophysical theory’. And you might even need teleology.
It’s a bold claim, but not in itself an unscientific one. Indeed, what Nagel’s critics rarely conceded was the fact that teleological talk remains rampant to this day in popular and even academic science writing. Vast subterranean seams of purposive metaphor imply a picture of final cause not only in modern biology but in chemistry and physics, too. It has long been accepted that ordinary descriptions of biological function, such as ‘The heart is for pumping blood’, are teleologically inflected shorthand. But we also commonly read, for example, that subatomic particles ‘know’ or ‘choose’ the ‘right’ path to take; that molecules rearrange themselves ‘in order to’ achieve a certain energy state; or that traits in organisms evolve ‘in order to’ allow the animal to do something new.
Our metaphors are teleological, our language and understanding is metaphorical. Where does it all end?
Students Push Diversity Mandate at Cornell.
I'll say it again: America is the most tolerant place on earth, even to a fault. We even tolerate totally ignorant, highly annoying bs.
Today is Ash Wednesday.
6:1 "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 6:2 "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 6:4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:16 "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6:17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 6:18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 6:20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
 This is Kate Upton wearing body paint, and only body paint
Cute as a button.
Recalling the Disco Decade
Rock Fans Outraged As Bob Dylan Goes Electronica
Benedict and The left's antipathy towards traditional religion
The Physician Assistant Will See You Now
Bloomberg Cajoles 21 Companies to Remove Salt from Products
What an obnoxious putz. Sowell: Paging Doctor Bloomberg - Random thoughts on the passing scene.
Dr. Ben Carson: ‘Someone Has to Be Courageous Enough to Actually Stand Up to The Bullies’
Sultan: Winning the minority vote
Thoughts from a Democrat strategist on 2014
SOTU 2013: 2.6 Million More in Poverty, 45 Million on Food Stamps, Median Income Down 10%, Record Unemployment, Record Gas Prices
In State of the Union, Obama puts government at the center of Americans’ lives
That's the problem. It's supposed to be on the periphery. Unless I'm mistaken, that was the whole idea of America.
Obama's Economic Growth Record Is The Worst In 60 Years
Government cannot create economic growth. It can either get in the way, or get out of the way, of peoples' efforts and aspirations
“Food Stamp Rolls in America Now Surpass the Population of Spain”
Free Doritos for all!
Millions Improperly Claimed U.S. Phone Subsidies
Pravda on the Hudson - The New York Times's weird coverage of the president and the pope.
Glenn:
A government limited to few things can probably do those things well, and thus it's likely to be trusted. A government that tries to do many things, might do them badly, and be less highly regarded.
Rubio last night:
“But President Obama? He believes it’s the cause of our problems, that the economic downturn happened because our government didn’t tax enough, spend enough and control enough. And, therefore, as you heard tonight, his solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more.”
Tuesday, February 12. 2013
Malanga's thorough essay deserves to be widely-read: The Right Immigration Policy. He begins:
The right debate should be about what kind of immigrants America should be admitting. It should ask how immigration can best benefit our economy and citizens. Countries with booming economies, countries that are, like the United States, immigrant magnets—Australia and Ireland, for instance—have set their immigration priorities in precisely this way, creating much more rational systems than ours. Managed as part of our broader economic policy, immigration can provide America with badly needed skills, boost productivity, and raise our living standard.
But we’ll never get to an immigration system that serves our national interest until we stop debating the issue in terms set down 50 years ago...
I agree with everything he says.
The ‘Scrooge’ Who Begat Plenty.
Silent Cal is one of our very few presidential heroes. One quote:
What compelled Coolidge to persevere and enabled him to succeed? The
traditions of Vermont and its “hardy self-contained people,” as he
described them, always inspired him. Respect for the written law
animated him, but he also cherished the spiritual and what we call
natural law: “Men do not make laws. They do but discover them,” he told
Massachusetts state senators in 1914. His wife, Grace, one of the most
beautiful first ladies, gave him the confidence to move forward. A
ferocious discipline in work proved crucial as well. As documented in
White House appointment books, whereas other presidents met sporadically
with budget advisers, Coolidge met faithfully and weekly with his
Budget Bureau director, General Herbert Mayhew Lord. An intuitive
understanding of the struggles of small business aided Coolidge. Though
he was not, like Margaret Thatcher, born over a storefront, Coolidge was
born beside one. A keen sense of timing also helped him: Coolidge, a
shrewd politician, knew when to fight and when to wait. A thorough
understanding of the devices of government, and a willingness to use
them, proved key too. Also crucial was the Coolidge willingness to be
unpopular, which he displayed while still governor of Massachusetts,
when he stared down the striking Boston police, or when, as president,
he turned down his own people, farmers, by repeatedly vetoing subsidies
for them.
A survey: What Do Professors Really Think? One example:
36.7 percent agreed "strongly" or
"somewhat" with the statement, "Most of the students I teach lack the
basic skills for college level work"
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