Monday, June 30. 2014
 A newly married man asked his wife, 'Would you have married me if my father hadn't left me a fortune?'
'Honey,' the woman replied sweetly, 'I'd have married you no matter who left you a fortune."
Bill Clinton: States should experiment with marijuana legalization
Pot should be decriminalized everywhere, state by state. It should never have been criminalized in the first place. All it does is make you stupid, lazy, and hungry. If you want to be a pothead, be my guest. Like heroin, you can already buy it cheap on any street corner in the US. It's a free country. Waste your life if you want, but not on my nickel.
How screwed up is the Ukraine? Very.
Canada pulls the plug on the U.S. Keystone Pipeline – will send oil to Asia
Such a greenie victory, to let the Chinese burn it. Great.
The SCOTUS decisions today? They don't really mean that much, despite the howling hysteria.
Pope Francis has stated that Communists are "closet Christians."
I like Pope Francis, and I think he has said and done many good things to date. I think his comments on Capitalism were misplaced, and so is his current commentary on Communists.
Points in time like these remind me why we need to teach basic Economics in our schools. Capitalism has done more to reduce poverty and improve the economic prospects of the poor than Communism ever did.
More importantly, and this is where Pope Francis goes veering off the rails, Communism forces people to 'be good', rather than allowing them the right to choose the proper path of behavior. It is true that certain miseries and unfair behaviors take place under Capitalism, but these are more than mitigated by the greater gains of all individuals across society. Communism, on the other hand, uses force and coercion to fix perceived inequalities and creates a permanent political class system which is not just economic in nature, but capable of enforcing its whims on those who are not part of the class.
It's worth remembering that Economics was originally called "Moral Philosophy." While Adam Smith is considered the father of Economics, he considered himself a Moral Philosopher and was merely seeking to determine how people made their decisions to act in certain ways. As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy points out:
Moral philosophy can deepen our love for virtue, refine our understanding of the virtues, and enrich our understanding of ourselves, all of which can conduce to a firmer moral disposition and to a wiser, more careful approach to moral decisions, but it cannot and should not replace the common-life processes by which we actually make those decisions. Philosophy is an abstract, intellectual, and solitary activity, while moral decision-making is and should be concrete, driven by emotion as much as by the intellect, and shaped by our interactions with the people affected by our actions.
The racket begins to unravel, but only a little. US Supreme Court: Public union can't make nonmembers pay fees
 Operatic Naiveté - The Metropolitan Opera’s indefensible decision to stage The Death of Klinghoffer
The home refrigerator, a vital but modest technology, is 100 years old.
5 Year-Old Bullying VICTIM Forced to Sign ‘Sexual Misconduct’ Confession
Peaceful Indians: Evidence of Hobbling, Torture Discovered at Ancient Massacre Site in Colorado
The race to stop Las Vegas from running dry
Duh.
US regulators okay Israeli-made robotic legs
Should You Get Your DNA Tested to See if You’re More Likely to Get Cancer?
Pentagon: Young Adults Too Fat, Tattooed, Uneducated for Military
All Education Is For-Profit Education
An Open Letter to Swarthmore's Board of Managers
Common Core Tests: So Difficult, Bureaucrats Had to Implement a Curve Under Which Kids Can Guess Randomly and Still Pass
The Week’s Climate Embarrassment
Putting Americans First…Not So Much
Barney Fife Meets Delta Force - Hypermilitarized police departments are more dangerous than whatever they fight.
How the middle class is hobbling the economy - Unless
incomes for these Americans can rise along with productivity growth
again, the country may suffer a long period of stagnation
What to do in a post-Great Books age?
Roger Simon on moral narcissism
Liberals Delude Themselves About the Tea Party
Dear Feminists: In The Name Of Fighting Poverty, Can We Call A Truce About Marriage?
From Sultan:
The ongoing problem on the right is that it talks 'extremist' and
legislates 'moderate' while the left talks 'moderate' and legislates
'extremist'.
Sunday, June 29. 2014
 A sample of Luther's table talk, from a piece at Scriptorium Daily:
Although I know this [i.e., that I am to rejoice in the Lord and expect good of him], I am of a different mind ten times in the course of a day. But I resist the devil, and often it is with a fart that I chase him away. When he tempts me with silly sins I say, Devil, yesterday I broke wind too. Have you written it down on your list? When I say to him, you have been put to shame, he believes it, for he does not want to be despised.
Another:
Oh, if I could only pray the way this dog watches the meat! All his
thoughts are concentrated on the piece of meat. Otherwise he has no
thought, wish, or hope.
Luther was an outspoken, plain-speaking fellow. The piece is here.
Gallup: Only 22% of Americans Favor Increased Immigration.
This poll did not ask about legal vs. illegal, it was just general. I think Americans feel that we already have enough unemployed, able-bodied, dependent people. Country is full of them, almost everywhere. At the same time, I don't think anybody minds legal immigrant math, physics, and computer geniuses from China and India. Lots of them in NYC, taking jobs from decadent and lazy Americans. It's not about race, it's about what you have to contribute to society.
If people want to change the immigration laws, then change them, but open borders ought to apply to Canada and China and The Philippines, not just Mexico.
- Yes, it is the Great American novel
- Baltimore: My black friends call it Murderland. My white friends call it Charm City, a town of trendy cafés. I just call it home. Sounds like plenty of anarchy.
Romans 6:12-23
6:12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.
6:13 No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.
6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
6:15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
6:17 But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted,
6:18 and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
6:19 I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
6:20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
6:21 So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.
6:22 But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.
6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 A cool plant for those of us who live north of regular southern Hibiscus-land. It is aka Rose Mallow.
They produce large, dramatic, July-Oct blooms, die back in the winter and return slowly - then quickly - from their large, deep, and study roots in Spring. Full sun, and water. If you like cottage-door (biennial) Hollyhocks, these are similar but reliably perennial, and just as popular with butterflies and hummingbirds.
Some varietals grow 3-4' high in a bushy way, others 5-7' high in a hollyhock style.
(This is not to disparage Hollyhock-lovers. I do understand. Everybody's grandma had them at the back door and they are a sentimental favorite, same as Delphiniums.)
A northern shrub, Rose of Sharon, has similar-looking blossoms, but it's a real shrub, not a "flower".
Saturday, June 28. 2014
11 or 12 Things I Learned About Life While Daytrading Millions of Dollars
When I was first working in NYC, back in the early 80's, sights like this were common from my office. In the 90's, I worked across the street from Radio City Music Hall and the Rockettes would use the roof to sunbathe. We kept the binoculars in my office. I was living in Hoboken at the time and used the roof of my apartment for parties and relaxing on weekends when I was stuck in town.
I don't typically sunbathe, my Irish heritage has limited my hours in the sun. My boys are working outdoors this summer and keep their sunscreen with them all day. We know that any SPF over 30 is a waste, and reapplication is the key to good management of sun on skin. I just hope this early 80's sunbather was using some. My friends in high school would use iodine mixed in baby oil. I tried that once and came away with the most wicked burn I can remember.
 Greedy Group to Sue Chief Wahoo for $9 Billion
#Instagramming Africa: The Narcissism of Global Voluntourism
A pic of ENIAC
Ted Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels, MD) takes a look at the Brit underclass
Transgender kindergarteners allowed to pick bathrooms in CA
"Unscheduled, unsupervised, playtime is one of the most valuable educational opportunities we give our children.
10 TIPS AND TRICKS TO PICK UP ANY LANGUAGE
Can Residential Solar Be Competitive Next Year?
Study: All Employment Growth Since 2000 Went to Immigrants
Despite White House Claims, Up To 80% Of Migrant Children Can Legally Stay In
Country
The EPA Overreaches Again - A new EPA rule is a disaster for farmers and the traditional
understanding of the relationship between the federal government and the
states.
Sweeping income and corporate tax cuts on the way…in Spain?
Is a Hillary Clinton Presidency Inevitable?
Elizabeth Warren: The Obama of 2016
Shocking Audio of Race-Baiting Ads Used In #MSSEN Race
It’s Jew-Hatred, Stupid
Chuck DeVore: Small businesses give CA 'F' grade
San Bernardino Surrenders - The bankrupt city gives in to California’s public pension giant.
Now what?
Of all the nations in the world, why is Israel the only one with a Divest Movement?
Fact Or Fiction: Humanity Still Surprised That 'Megalomaniacal Pricks' Decide Everything
“My old boss, my sorority president, my congressional representative, my current boss—they’ve all been soulless, backstabbing dickheads whose only concern is getting what they want,” said administrative assistant Sheryl Gittens of Fort Worth, TX, who went on to list the bully back in her seventh grade class, her homeowners association president, and the coordinator of her Bible study group among the legions of selfish jagoffs who have inexplicably been granted commanding roles by the acquiescent masses. “What’s even more annoying is that we essentially reward these people for only thinking of themselves and repeatedly screwing us over. If you stop and think about it, that’s pretty messed up.”
“Jesus,” she continued. “What the hell’s wrong with us?”
 Beauty
I am as lovely as a dream in stone;
My breast on which each finds his death in turn
Inspires the poet with a love as lone
As everlasting clay, and as taciturn.
Swan-white of heart, as sphinx no mortal knows,
My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;
I hate all movement that disturbs my pose;
I smile not ever, neither do I weep.
Before my monumental attitudes,
Taken from the proudest plastic arts,
My poets pray in austere studious moods,
For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,
Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,
The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.
Friday, June 27. 2014
Mental Illness And Crime: What The Legacy Of Dorothea Dix Hath Wrought:
Dorothea Dix was the activist whose efforts led to the first generation of American mental asylums. At the age of 39, she happened to visit a local jail to do a Sunday school sermon for female inmates. She found that criminals, retarded people and the mentally ill all lived together in terrible, unheated conditions. When she asked why, she was told "the insane do not feel heat or cold" (Viney&Zorich, 1982).
This came in over the transom, not sure where it was published
Slaying, yet again, the idea that the languages we speak shape the thoughts we think.
I understand that the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is out of favor if not largely disproven, but it still makes sense to me in many instances, especially with more abstract concepts.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."
Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time (h/t Ace)
Thursday, June 26. 2014
 "A life of perpetual motion, not rootedness, is obviously Bob Dylan’s default condition."
“If you are renewed by grace, and were to meet your old self, I am sure you would be very anxious to get out of his company.”
Charles Spurgeon, from this selection of Spurgeon quotes
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A few links:
Newly discovered 50,000-year-old poop proves the Neanderthals ate better than you do