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Sunday, February 5. 2017

Stop wearing black at night

A note to you people who walk on the side of the road, or cross the road, between dusk and dawn in black coats, dark pants, and dark hats: One of these days I will hit you with my car, and it will ruin both of our lives.

Please stop it. You are invisible to me. When I am driving, I am not looking for people in the road. You road people have to make yourselves obvious to me. Cars have rear lights for a reason. I have already had a couple of close calls this winter and when roads are slippery it is even more dangerous. If you must wear black, all it takes is a strip of reflector tape or one of those light things to keep yourself safe and to keep me from a mess.

Posted by The Barrister in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 12:37 | Comments (11) | Trackbacks (0)

Je suis le bebe

Posted by Bird Dog at 11:05 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

From last week's Lectionary

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1:19 For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

1:20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.

1:22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,

1:23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

1:24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

1:25 For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

1:26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

1:27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;

1:28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are,

1:29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God.

1:30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

1:31 in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Posted by Bird Dog at 05:04 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Saturday, February 4. 2017

Superbowl Sunday

I don't follow pro football, so it doesn't mean much to me. It does seem like a decent excuse for a cheery mid-winter party, though. Just spare me the revolting chips and guacamole.

Serious football fans seem not to like Superbowl parties. My father-in-law would never attend one. Too much noise and distraction. When it comes to football, he likes to focus like a laser beam, in solitude.

Slightly related, The NYT Is Horrified That Members Of The New England Patriots Organization Are Friends With Trump. The NYT is horrified that anybody likes Trump, and they do not know anybody who does. I do not particularly like him, but I am impressed by what he is doing. Seems mostly like common-sense undoing of errors. His infantile lashing out, however, has got to go.

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 16:55 | Comments (17) | Trackbacks (0)

A book

We linked a piece about the life of H A Rey (Curious George) a while ago. Rey also wrote Find the Constellations and The Stars. I learned the constellations from those books.

I can still look up and find the North Star as long as I can find the Big Dipper (which is low in the sky this time of year). Basic life knowledge.

Constellations illustrate an interesting cognitive phenomenon. There is no pattern up there in the sky, but if you invent some, you will see them for the rest of your life.

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 15:23 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

"I'm an entertainer"

He certainly is. I wonder how many people were arrested.

Posted by The News Junkie at 14:25 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

Baby tortoises

Posted by Bird Dog at 13:57 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Jane Austin's juvenalia

Jane Austen was a rebel against the chick lit of her time. From a review:

This collection reveals a Jane who even as a fourteen-year-old—a little sister publishing within the family—is already compassionate, and also already something of a meanie, already artful in her depictions of the Demolition Derby that was an eighteenth-century drawing room. Moreover—and this is an odd thrill—this collection shows glimpses of a bawdy Jane...

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 13:50 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Saturday morning links

The Circus Dead, Animal Rights Kooks Target Rodeo

NLRB memo: football players at private schools are employees

Photos: Sea cliff at Kamokuna ocean entry collapses

California: Easy to Love, Impossible to Do Business In

How the Teleprompter Changed Public Speaking

U.N. Official Admits Global Warming Agenda Is Really About Destroying Capitalism

Bummer: ‘Climate Change’ Will Kill The Groundhog Day Groundhog Or Something

Who are Those Refugees Australia Doesn't Want?

The Bureaucrats Think That They Don't Answer To The President

How does David Brooks get it so wrong?

‘Born In The USA’ Singer Bruce Springsteen Tells Australian Fans He’s Embarrassed To Be American

A Return to Constitutionalism

THERE ARE FASCISTS ON CAMPUS. PROTESTERS DON’T REALIZE IT’S THEM, NOT MILO YIANNOPOULOS:

"The hard left, which has become so utterly anthetical to free speech in the last few years, has taken a turn post-Trump's election..."

Rabid NYU Professor Melts Down, Orders Cops To Assault Conservative "Vice" Co-Founder Gavin McInnes

CNN’s Don Lemon and Robert Reich: Conservatives Masterminded The Berkeley Riots

Shameless vendors of "alternative facts"

Media freakout: Another day, another media-instigated panic over Trump

This is Joy Behar. Today on live television she called
Milo Yiannopoulos (flamboyant gay who likes black guys) a racist
homophobe.

Gunning for Gorsuch — liberals' new normal

Trump Short Circuits Washington:

So unlikely did the election of Donald Trump seem to Washington and its denizens that the reality of it still has not sunk in. All of the city’s worst traits — the self-regard, the group think, the obsessions with trivia, the worship of credentials, the virtue signaling, the imperiousness, the ignorance of perspectives and people from outside major metropolitan centers and college towns — not only persist. They have been magnified with Trump’s arrival. There is so much negative energy coursing through the city that circuits are overloaded.

AVI on Refugees

How France has become the number one target for extremists in Europe and has been repeatedly brutalised in
terrifying new war against terror

A Return to Constitutionalism

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:08 | Comments (60) | Trackbacks (2)

Friday, February 3. 2017

Newsy items

Good summary of the past exciting week or so at Betsy

Why Democrats are declaring war on Trump: They're terrified

Trump’s Political Blitzkrieg

He has very little time to normalize things, but he is a Honey Badger for sure.

I think the "Hard Left," with which many ordinary Dems have now allied themselves, will discredit their party and their even their reasonable arguments.

Insty:

Conspiring to engage in political violence aimed at depriving others of their civil rights, such as freedom of speech and assembly, is a federal crime. I hope that the administration will investigate it as thoroughly as the Obama Administration would have investigated a similar violent campaign conducted by the right — had such a campaign ever existed.

Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 14:04 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

Reality Therapy

I have posted in the past about my ideas about how Reality Therapy can help people be their best. Hiding from discomfort gets us nowhere. Bumping against reality teaches us our limits and weaknesses, and invites us to either accept them or to try to figure out how to overcome them.

I have advised people, over the years, to seek rejection as a way to help them deal with their rejection fears. Rejection fears are not neurotic really, just human because we all know that nobody can love or appreciate us as much as Mom did when we were little. Also, because we know our flaws and, as adults, we know we are not precious snowflakes but just ordinary people who are fortunate if we are liked, much less loved.

I once urged a shy, awkward young man to approach the girl he most admired in his class to engage his courage and to face rejection gracefully. Experiment failed: She liked him.

Good stuff:

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Psychology, and Dr. Bliss at 13:19 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Friday morning links

Zuckerberg Steps In It In Hawaii

Fight for 15? Meet the Big Mac machine

The danger is that entry-level and teen jobs will disappear

The search for the African Einstein

Boy Scouts to Admit Biological Girls After New Jersey Transgender Lawsuit

If We Can’t Unite Against Rioting, We Can’t Unite at All

Berkeley Blowback: Milo Book Sales Soar 12,740% Overnight

Sarah Silverman Calls for Military Coup of Trump Administration

Liberal Journalist On Twitter Says Milo’s Words And Ideas Make Him Feel Threatened

Experts: California voter registration system 'highly susceptible' to fraud

"Agree With Trump Or Not, He Seems Determined To Enact What He Promised"

Trump Overseeing the Destruction of the Democrat Coalition

VDH: When normalcy is revolution - Trump raises ire only because he is undoing the Obama upheaval

Trump's no monster... and he's not mad either: While the liberal elites literally lose their minds the polls show that common-sense people quite like the big bad boy in the White House

‘Homegirl in a hijab’ returns - Linda Sarsour, an activist venerated by the left, does more damage

NY Daily News: How Democrats are getting played

“Spontaneous Protest” At Supreme Court Within Minutes Of Gorsuch Announcement Shows Up With Professionally Made Signs…

Federal employees receive “resistance” training

You can't fire them. Can you just eliminate their jobs?

What Is the Democratic Party?

On Boycotting Radical Islamic Nations

Outrage at Trump's 'Muslim ban' yet silence over the Middle Eastern 'ban on Jews'

Theresa May SMACKS DOWN Anti-Trump Socialist In Parliament

NYT Misreports Trump’s Statement on Israel

Sweden extends border controls until spring 2017

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:37 | Comments (22) | Trackback (1)

Thursday, February 2. 2017

Depressed

A big reader friend told me at lunch yesterday that she had had the depressing realization last weekend that she will never be able to read all the books she wants to read in her lifetime.

She is a very active, adventurous person whose appetite for new experiences equals her appetite for new knowledge. Rather than depressing, I found her comment uplifting. We'd like to die, maybe, dropping a half-read book onto our chest. Is there a library in heaven?

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:45 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

Price basics - very basic

A Price Is a Signal Wrapped up in an Incentive

Posted by The Barrister in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:12 | Comments (20) | Trackbacks (0)

More Milo derangement

Via Althouse:

“Although we object strenuously to Yiannopoulos’s views — he advocates white supremacy, transphobia and misogyny — it is rather his harmful conduct to which we call attention in asking for the cancellation of this event.”

A reference to his gay romps?

Director Judd Apatow Supports Far-Left Berkeley Riot, Warns ‘This is Just the Beginning’

Who is this guy who is threatening violence?

Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 14:11 | Comments (18) | Trackbacks (0)

Milo speaks about the Berkeley violence

Posted by The News Junkie at 10:49 | Comments (28) | Trackbacks (0)

Thursday morning links

Is Groundhog Day one of your top ten favorites? In New England, we call them Woodchucks.

The “Niceness” of the Elite

CalExit? Go Ahead. Make My Day.

Protesters at U. Michigan March Against Campus Deer Cull

Black Ivy League Student Claims “Trauma” After White Professors Refuses To Acknowledge Their “Privilege”

UC Berkeley cancels right-wing provocateur’s talk amid violent protest

The Goldman Sachs Effect - How a Bank Conquered Washington

Trump might end up being the most consequential conservative in American history—and he is not even a conservative.

For The Last Time: Stop Throwing ‘Never Trump’ Delusions In Our Faces

Z-man's The Cloud Party goes to war:

There are plenty of Republicans who support Trump and a surprising number of people in the bureaucracy who know reform is long overdue. Some of the harshest critiques of the state you will hear come from people in the system. There’s also the fact that Trump is proving to be an exceptional political athlete. He has a knack for baiting the media in order to gain public support for his positions. No person has moved the Overton Window further to the right than Trump has done in my lifetime. It truly is amazing.

Even so, the next year will be about the Cloud Party conspiring to undermine the Trump administration, while Trump figures out how to work around the system to undermine the system. His immigration order is a foreshadow of what is to come. Instead of looking for compromise, Team Trump will go big in order to trigger the political class and their media to overreact. This tends to turn off the public and thus turn the Cloud Party assets into liabilities, as we are seeing with these ridiculous protests.

At some point, the Cloud People will shift gears, but for now, the game will be Trump picking fights and the establishment going bonkers.This gives Trump cover to do some important stuff, like we see with the H1B executive order. While the Cloud People are wailing about the so-called Muslim ban, they did not have time to notice the order to shake up the visa program Silicon Valley uses to screw its employees. This sort of cat and mouse game is how an insurgent party must use its speed and agility to overcome the establishment’s size.

Suddenly, The NY Times Has A Big Problem With Using A Pen And A Phone

Flashback=> Obama: “We Simply Cannot Allow for People to Pour in, Undocumented and Unchecked”

Refugees and the Right to Immigrate

Trump’s PATCO Moment: Emanating Reagan, the
President Takes Control of Federal Government to ‘Protect the Country
and Its Citizens’

Leaked Executive Order Reveals Trump's Plans For H-1B Visas

Obama Refused 91 Refugees – Sent Them Back to Castro’s Hell-Hole 2 Days Before Inauguration – Liberal Media Was Silent

Sultan: 3 Questions to Keep Future Muslim Terrorists Out of America

Is the New York Times Hysterical or Just Lazy?

Kimball: Donald Trump vs. Immanuel Kant

McArdle: Trump's Doomed War on Regulations

AP: Republicans “Rammed” Nominees Through Committee With “Brute Political Muscle”

Althouse: "No one has ever tried moving at Trump’s speed before."

Democrats are becoming the party of secession

Chris Matthews: Dems who vote for Gorsuch “will have to answer” for it for 30 years

Slate: Gorsuch is not a villain

CNN Lets Pelosi Smear Gorsuch As Opposed to Air, Water, Food, and Medicine Without Challenge

Gorsuch nomination a lose-lose for the Democrats

European Council President Says Trump Is ‘Existential Threat’ to Europe

After Eight Years Military Casualties Are Front Page News Again

Germany may be the land of engineers and chocolate makers, but it is also the home of the world most dangerous morons too.

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 06:45 | Comments (26) | Trackbacks (0)

Posted by Bird Dog at 06:25 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Wednesday, February 1. 2017

Fun with replying to spam

It can be fun. John Podesta didn't know this.

Posted by Bird Dog at 15:55 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Gorsuch

Pic is Gorsuch with Scalia in Colorado. Gorsuch is a gentle, warm, refined outdoorsman, a Christian, with a crushing resume. He is 49 years old. A remarkable individual, superstar intellectual. We are fortunate that he is willing to do this job.

With Gorsuch, Trump got his Supreme Court pick right

The three numbers that will keep Democrats from blocking Neil Gorsuch

Neil Gorsuch upheld the rights of hated prisoners and Muslims

Trump’s Supreme Court Pick: "The Best The Left Could Have Hoped For"

Obama’s Solicitor General: Neil Gorsuch ‘Thoughtful and Brilliant’

Posted by The Barrister in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 12:18 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)