Saturday, August 14. 2010
 Regular News
Well, I promised you some good old-fashioned Maggie's Farm-style California bashing, so let's get right to it.
Californians' income falls for first time since WWII
Ah, the ol' schadenfreude feels pretty good, doesn't it? After we're through here we'll go pull the wings off flies.
Blogger calls popular California resort lake "terrible"
Famed California actor claims "Wherever I go, terrible things happen"
California women now have triple the nation's fat rate
In unrelated news, New York state, in an effort to maintain its plush welfare lifestyle, has decided to sell off its universities and roads.
The dead-wood Las Vegas Review-Journal, in a desperate bid to save itself, has hired a professional hit man to track down bloggers linking to online Review-Journal articles and sue them for copyright infringement.
No, that's not one great big typo.
In applied business news, here's how one enterprising fellow traded up on Craiglist from an old cellphone to a Porche.
Do you remember one of the great victories of the Obama Administration, the FAA limiting the time a plane can stand idle on the tarmac? Well, so much for victories.
Interesting article here on the primal ancestor of the eagle:
In a blink of geologic time an eagle the weight of a squirrel evolved into a giant predator that fed on animals twice as big as humans. It grew so large it approached the physical limits of flight, a new study suggests.
"There is a body mass above which normal flapping flight becomes physically impossible," said Holdaway, "Various studies have suggested that that occurs at a body mass of about 15 kilograms," which is the estimated weight of the Haast's eagle.
The good professor, however, is extremely puzzled how these fine and noble birds could have died out.
Why this happened is a question that continues to perplex Holdaway.
"The Haast's Eagle lived in a world that is now gone and it is very much a challenge to put together as much of the structure and process of that lost community, and to see how and why it unraveled so rapidly when people reached New Zealand," Holdaway said.
Yep, it's certainly a mystery. People arrive on an island to find these great big fat, barely-able-to-fly, ready-for-roasting turkey-sized birds... and they all disappear?
And say, by the way, what did this bad boy feed on, anyway?
The eagle fed largely on the moa, an extinct flightless bird somewhat like an ostrich.
But as the professor clearly states about the Haast's extinction...
"That has deep lessons for us today with much of the natural world under threat from human activities."
In other words, if the Haast eats the moa into extinction, that's good and natural, but if we eat the Haast into extinction, that's bad and unnatural. According to the good professor and his ivory tower ilk, we're a threat wherever we turn; the war of the humans against the natural world.
Well, speaking of threats, I suppose it's time to turn to the top political news stories of the day.
Political News
Vegetable garden to be planted on White House grounds
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
Entry drive, early morning, August.
Friday, August 13. 2010
At Pajamas, "Bob Dylan’s Great Travel Song, "When I Paint My Masterpiece" is a great summer vacation song—particularly if you’re heading to Europe, as right about now, a lot of Americans are." Touching base with their cultural roots and with history.
Since SONY has been removing Bob's things from YouTube - and I cannot find The Band's version - I can only offer good old Jerry with his pickin' version:
 It takes all kinds. Man lives as TV dog. Good for him. A world without eccentrics would be a dull as Singapore.
How advertising genius Albert Lasker transformed America
San Francisco proposal would limit toys in kids' meals. Will these cranks ban the toy in Crackerjacks too? Which is worse: Bloomberg or San Francisco?
Photos of opera houses. h/t, Thompson
Understanding your husband's sexual needs
More evidence that 'Recovery Summer' is a cruel hoax
Model corruption - The truth about the GM 'rescue'
The Dem strategy for November is in place. It's dishonest, but it's everyday politics.
Via NYM:
A thought experiment: I am grieved by Saudi policies — for example, Saudi religious discrimination, oppression of women, and persecution of homosexuals. If I were to express these grievances by blowing up a Saudi kindergarten, do you think Imam Feisal would say (1) the Saudi Royal family must share responsibility for the carnage, and (2) whether or not I had committed an act of terrorism is a “very complex question”?
Your daily dose of good wholesome sarcasm: Why Can’t You Selfish Ingrates Feel the First Couple’s Pain?
Says it all: Buchanan's Putting Government First. Quote:
...we have a situation where private sector workers in Middle America are being taxed, their children being driven ever deeper into debt to China, so government employees who have greater job security than they do, and earn more in pay and benefits than they will ever earn, can stay in Fat City.
And folks wonder why so many Americans detest government.
Related: Why people aren't hiring-
 Finally, somebody remembered to give me this book for my birthday.
Just need to finish reading my Baroque book first.
Does it seem to you that they keep making books with smaller and smaller print these days...?
That's a term which has come into fashion lately, and it deserves to. Counterfactuals are a specific variety of BS, as our commenter notes.
The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective. The key to it is its conditionality (If...,then...might have...); the past subjunctive, combined with its lack of factual content. For example, "You bozo - you left a burner on. You could have burned down the house." Well maybe - but it did not happen. Thus no fact.
(An "indicative conditional," by way of contrast, is a past conditional which is founded on a real, factual consequence which occurred. For example, "If you bozos hadn't left the gate open, the dog would not have run into the street." Indicative conditionals are also debatable, due to their speculative nature, ie, cum hoc ergo propter hoc. For example, in my case, almost every time I water the garden, it rains afterewards.)
Counterfactuals are often used (abused) to make emotional arguments. "If the stimulus had been 3 trillion dollars, our unemployment rate would be 4%."
Free Dictionary offers this:
adj
(Philosophy / Logic) expressing what has not happened but could, would, or might under differing conditions
n
(Philosophy / Logic) a conditional statement in which the first clause is a past tense subjunctive statement expressing something contrary to fact, as in if she had hurried she would have caught the bus.
"Are you a Ranger or a Hobbit?"
"I think I offended a group of very fine, upstanding law students." A tough talk, quite entertaining.
Of course, nobody expects you to take a job in which the demands do not meet your wishes. That's just called "a bad fit." When people complain about legal work hours, they should consider doctors' hours, Wall St. hours, the hours of an infantryman in Afghanistan, or the hours of an entrepreneur, by way of comparison. One quote from the piece:
Nothing world-changing has happened within the limited confines of the nine-to-five work week. Nobody can wake up in the morning and say, “I’m dedicating myself and my family to my fellow man, but only so long as I keep exactly the kind of balance that would make my therapist proud.” Eight hours per day can help make one happy (maybe), but is happiness the point? Do we even know in any given day, week, or month what will make us happy over the medium to long term? We think we do, but I know many, many people who get exactly what they want . . . and then find out it wasn’t as great as they thought it would be.
Vanderleun is right: these 1940s color pics are fascinating slices of American life. I have seen some of them at Dr X, in the past. Part of the message for me is how soft and luxurious our lives have become over the past 60-70 years. Women had muscles then, but not from working out at the health club.
Here's one of the pics:
 Lucy’s Kin Carved Up a Meaty Meal, Scientists Say. h/t, Dr X. I think they were cannibals. They look like cannibals.
Energy crisis and peak wood
Obama: Slaves on the Government Plantation. All persons of skin tone must return to their barracks immediately.
Weather liars. Flat, outright lies, and fully-deliberate.
I heard last night that an estimated 1 in 8 babies born in America last year were born to illegals.
How Pres. Hoover damaged the economy: raised spending and raised taxes
Home Ownership: American Dream or American Headache? It's natural for people to want to own stuff. Not always sensible, though.
Related: Feds rethink policies that encourage home ownership. I want to see federal policy to encourage boat ownership. Boatie Mac, or something. No money down.
Stimulus Pushers -The latest bailout for public unions and spendthrift states. The irresponsible and the unions get the dough.
Q&O: Is the US bankrupt? Well, we are just pwned by China.
Harry Reid is sane? Harry Reid ad: Sharron Angle 'dangerous,' 'crazy'. She seems just like an ordinary citizen to me.
Public favors Tea Party over top Dems
Juan Williams: White Votes Are Irrelevant
The threat of the 'fake fishermen': How BP may be paying out millions in oil spill compensation to fraudsters. Hey, I go fishing every chance I get.
Wow. A Dem won a Dem primary
Some thoughts about how liberals are made
American Conservatives have "new ideas"? No, they don't. They have 1776 ideas. Liberals have 1912 ideas.
Sports feminists want space on the sports pages. h/t, Insty. Are they talking about newspapers? They should quit bitching and just create some good women's sports websites, and make some money. Or not.
Fla. AG McCollum Pushes New Immigration Law Tougher Than Arizona's. We are looking at the unfolding of a rebellion.
Thursday, August 12. 2010
 ...I'd buy this W. 12th St. townhouse as a pied a terre. I'd let all my millions of best friends use it, too, when they visited NYC. There would be a maid and a cook who lived on the top floor, and three reserved parking spots at the garage down the street.
All day long I'd biddy biddy bum...
With the lousy economy, and the closing of so many Wall St. firms, prices are coming down a bit, but such places remain pricey from my humble standpoint. They are asking $29 million for this typical and rather ordinary one (see photos at link). I guess lots of people want to have places in Manhattan these days.
People who are not familiar with 19th century NY townhouses do not know that they all have pleasant little gardens in the back. Lots of landcaping businesses in NY specialize in townhouse mini-gardens. Little fountains, mini-patios, quiet lighting, pots, plants that like the city, etc. I once knew somebody whose Mom kept her pet tortoise in her NY garden for many years. Animal probably outlived her. It fed on bugs, worms, weeds and grass in the garden, and vegetables left-over from Chinese take-out. Crunched up those skinny dried hot peppers without batting an eye. It lived in the kitchen in the winter.
I think it was a Greek Tortoise (Testudo graeca) that she snuck home in her luggage from a trip to Corfu in the late 1950s. Gerald Durrell, brother of Lawrence Durrell, loved those tortoises when he summered in the Greek islands. Those animals can live well over 60 years. They become precious living heirlooms, like parrots.
Photo of T. graeca in its natural spartan habitat:
Discussions about what "caused" the Civil War never end. From Wilson Quarterly, A century and a half after the first state seceded from the Union, a lively debate over what caused the Civil War continues. A quote:
Whether or not they owned slaves, Southerners almost universally professed the doctrine known then and now as states’ rights, grounded in the federal system as originally understood, at least by the followers of Thomas Jefferson. When the South lost, states’ rights lost with it, and the unquestionable supremacy of the central government has been with us ever since. That abstract phrase “states’ rights” as used before the Civil War immediately prompts the question, states’ rights to what? “The right to own slaves,” McPherson explains, “the right to take this property into the territories; freedom from the coercive powers of a centralized government.”
States' rights were and are about lots more than slavery. It's a historical tragedy that slavery and Jim Crow ended up being the poster children for states' rights. The war was a mighty tragedy too.
From Megan's retirement post:
...there is no conceivable system that is going to allow the vast majority of the population to spend a full third of their adult life in retirement, at anything like the same standard of living they had when they were working.
Jack Nicklaus, 70, sank a 100-foot putt in an August 10 champions game for charity (with Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Jonny Miller) at the opening of the new golf course he designed in Benton Harbor, Mich. Nicklaus called the putt "Pure Frickin Luck." Yeah, sure. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I need to practice more.
Sorry, the ESPN clip isn't working at youtube.com, but here it is from the AP.
...that if we swallowed a watermelon seed, it would grow in our stomachs. Here's a pesky Pea.
Toon above via Powerline. See new surge of layoffs.
Never a bad idea: a summer visit to the USS Constitution, still commissioned in the US Navy. Old Ironsides (that was southern Live Oak) never lost a fight.
Bill Gates: watch for the disappearance of the physical university. Right now, you can eddicate yourself pretty good with The Teaching Company. We love their courses, but no term papers (bad) and no exams (good).
Legal Ins, to the Left:
Obama has accomplished as much as he could for you. He has put in place laws which will enable him to accomplish through regulation that which he could not accomplish through legislation. Obama is playing the long game, and you are short-sighted.
The savvy Leftists always keep their eye on the long game.
Majority of voters consider Democratic agenda “extreme”
Dalrymple on conservation and aesthetics
More violent rage from the Left: N.H. Dem Airs Palin Death Wish on Facebook. Where's the tolerance and sensitivity to differences?
Prof B: Coerced "caring" is not compassion
McArdle: The End of Retirement as We Know It. People used to expect to work until they keeled over. What's wrong with that?
Bird Dog and entourage take off tomorrow for vacation in Vienna, the Danube and Prague. To help him keep in touch, here's a couple of Austrian postage stamps to use.
Wednesday, August 11. 2010
Wrote this post back in January, before we finalized our travel plans - not going to the Veneto this year...maybe next year. Or maybe Provence...or if the Dems entirely ruin the country, nowhere fun and just farm drudgery.
Considering a visit to Padua (just a few minutes outside Venice) to see the Arena Chapel with its Giotto interior while visiting the Veneto and Dolomites this summer (maybe). It's a famous chapel - more famous than the Matisse and Chagall Church in Westchester - but it looks very much like the Giotto stuff in the chapels in Santa Croce, which I have seen.
I read that, to visit the Capella, you need reservations, decontamination, etc. Plus a time limit and no photos, as is usual in Italian historic churches.
 I guess I should have known that the title of that email was going to be a Canadian pharmacy hawking Viagra, but for a second there my crazy brain thought it might be about how to want to bed geriatric women.
You know, a Zorba-type thing. What a great movie. The inspiration for Mr. Tambourine Man, I have heard.
The financial burden on the states of illegal immigration is among the arguments for the Arizona law that increases local enforcement of federal immigration laws. Little commented upon is that the $26-billion the Democrats in Congress just voted in additional aid to the states, primarily to reduce or avoid layoffs of teachers and indirectly, it is said, of police, is the federal taxpayers helping the states meet this fiscal burden from illegal immigration.
According to the July 2010 study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, (102-page pdf ; Executive Summary), the overall annual cost at the state and local level of illegal immigration is estimated at $84.2-billion and at the federal level another $29-billion. Particularly impacting education expenditures are the estimated over 3-million “birthright citizen” children of illegal immigrants and those here temporarily on entry visas, $49.2-billion from state and local government coffers for the education of children of illegal immigrants and temporary residents.
The FAIR study repeatedly states its numbers are based on estimates and extrapolations, but it uses the available wide-range of piecemeal studies from legitimate sources to base them upon. FAIR itself has been justly and unjustly criticized for harboring extremists. On the other hand, FAIR has not been critiqued for existing for the self-enrichment of its officers or fundraisers. It is recognized by Charity Navigator as a 4-star 501(c)4 which “Exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in its Cause,” on a par with the ACLU and ADL for its score on use of donations and assets for its goals. Other immigration focused organizations also receive 4-stars, like the National Immigration Law Center and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, while others receive 2-stars, like the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund or the Appleseed network of public interest law centers in the US and Mexico.
Charity Navigator does not rate unions. Unions have spent more than any other lobbying group in many current and previous federal, state and local issue and election campaigns, overwhelmingly to Democrats and for causes that will protect or increase the jobs and pay of its members. The $26-billion federal bailout for the benefit of unionized state and local government employees is one of its victories. Many unions have been exposed as inordinately feathering the nests of their officers.
There is an urgent need for more comprehensive and well-sourced studies of the fiscal impact, to taxpayers and to citizens generally, of illegal immigration, including from “birthright citizenship.” Some studies do indicate that the FAIR study may be overblown or that there are other benefits to the US not as easily counted. However, until there is such a new study that will do a far better job of taking into account all the impacts and benefits, the FAIR study deserves to stand as an indicator, at least, of the hole we’ve dug ourselves into by the holes in our borders and laws, including the unintended one in the 14th Amendment.
PEW Too: According to the widely-respected PEW Research Center's Hispanic Center, there are over 4-million children of illegal immigrants in the US, 8% of the US birthrate.
Laura Ingraham speaking to Howard Fineman, via Driscoll's The MSM Sure Grades on a Curve:
How is it though with all these smart people at Newsweek – I went around the block with Evan Thomas about this as well. How did you all think that a guy who basically went from the Harvard Law Review, to some community leafleting, organizing, whatever you want to call it, to a short stint, a few lectures about constitutional law at [the University of] Chicago, very short stopover in the state Senate, and a very short stopover in the U.S. Senate. How does that add up to experience to run the biggest economy and the biggest military in the world? And why wasn’t Newsweek, instead of doing these celebrified covers of Michelle and Barack as historic, and celebrity culture, and all this love-love-love-love-love, why wasn’t – Why weren’t those questions asked before this election took place? Because to me, those were the questions to ask. . It wasn’t about personality. It was about experience and outlook.
and note this bit:
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt gathered the NBC reporters together in early 2009 and scolded them for reporting negatively on Barack Obama. GE owns 80% of NBC Universal.
A buddy had an Aussie field biologist friend who used to like to get drunk and recite this potty-mouth ditty around the campfire to much merriment: The Bastard from the Bush.
It's a new one to me, but probably all Aussies know it by heart.
Liberals believe you build a good society from the top down; conservatives believe you build a society from the bottom up.
Michael Medved, via Reb
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