Saturday, August 7. 2010
We have written about Bryant here before," romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post." He was a prominent abolitionist, and a long-time resident of the Great Barrington area of the Berkshires. This is doubtless a Berkshire summer poem/
Summer Wind
- It is a sultry day; the sun has drank
- The dew that lay upon the morning grass,
- There is no rustling in the lofty elm
- That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
- Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
- And interrupted murmur of the bee,
- Settling on the sick flowers, and then again
- Instantly on the wing. The plants around
- Feel the too potent fervors; the tall maize
- Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops
- Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
- But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills,
- With all their growth of woods, silent and stern,
- As if the scortching heat and dazzling light
- Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds,
- Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven;--
- Their bases on the mountains--their white tops
- Shining in the far ether--fire the air
- With a reflected radiance, and make turn
- The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie
- Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,
- Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
- Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
- That still delays its coming. Why so slow,
- Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?
- Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth
- Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves
- He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge,
- The pine is bending his proud top, and now,
- Among the nearer groves, chesnut and oak
- Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes!
- Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in wives!
- The deep distressful silence of the scene
- Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds
- And universal motion. He is come,
- Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs,
- And bearing on the fragrance; and he brings
- Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs,
- And soun of swaying branches, and the voice
- Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs
- Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers,
- By the road-side and the borders of the brook,
- Nod gaily to each other; glossy leaves
- Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew
- Were on them yet, and silver waters break
- Into small waves and sparkle as he comes.
Friday, August 6. 2010
The twenty states and the National Federation of Independent Business reply to the Obama administration's brief to the US District Court in Florida. The Obama administration argues that the suit should be dismissed as the individual mandate is within the federal government's power. The plaintiff states and NFIB disagree.
Below, the plaintiffs' intoduction summary pretty well sums it up (footnotes omitted). There's 81 pages in the pdf at the link above.
Continue reading "For Your Friday Night Reading"
The big cheerful news of today is 131,000 jobs lost, and slowing economic expansion. Says the WSJ:
"It still feels like a recession," Jay Feldman, economist at Credit Suisse, wrote in a note. He pointed out that private jobs are still down 0.3% compared with 13 months ago, when the economy started to grow again. By contrast, private jobs were up by 3.5% on average in the job market recoveries of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.
I visited my dentist this afternoon, and he admitted to me that business was terrible. People are putting everything off.
 I wasn't surprised by that, but he told me something interesting: the dentists are offering Botox, lip plumping, and wrinkle injections now (Juvaderm, collagen, etc). He said they take a several-day course on weekends, take an exam, get a certificate, then have their receptionist ask "Would you like to consider some of our new services?"
"You can get a brand new smile."
He told me they do it for half of what the dermatologists charge around here for the same thing (the latter of which is around $1000 for a basic Botox routine).
Yes, "It still feels like a recession."
The only thing about this lengthy recession ( an ongoing recession for which, at this point, I blame federal government policies and plans) which brings a smile is the significant deflation in the price of good hand-made cigars.
You may not have read my piece this week, Preventive Medicine: Drive carefully, and make sure you have good genes. It's not the best post in the world, but it makes my point.
A propos of that topic, see Docs running to stand still in The American. A quote:
The general popularity of widespread preventive care rests on the shaky presumption that such medical services head off more serious medical conditions, save lives, and reduce healthcare costs. A lengthy literature actually challenges each of those premises; at least when recommended preventive care services are not limited to a shorter list of medical interventions and targeted to the most appropriate types of patients likely to benefit from them. But the broader political argument often is that “cost” should not be a disincentive to greater demand for such presumably necessary services, particularly when society as a whole is supposed to benefit in the long run from better population health.
I was reminded of this after reading Powerline's What Missouri Showed Me. The states, and the people, are not pleased with Imperial Washington and its mandarins.
 Climategate review: Jaworski from December: Climate Gate – Global Warming The Myth: CO2 The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time. Scathing.
How Chavez does it: Welcome to Censorship in the 21st Century
Morris: THE COMING CATASTROPHE: STATE GOVERNMENTS
Is this hyperbole? Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It
Q&O: Jobless claims “unexpectedly” rise
It's back: The Return of the $1,000 Down Mortgage
70% of the births at Dallas' Parkland Hospital are to illegals. Parkland makes a profit on that, via Medicaid. We are paying those bills. h/t NRO
Chicago Boyz asks:
Why does the Ruling Class, using Codevilla’s term, have such strong cultural confidence? And what can we do to undermine it?
Prof Bainbridge's post on Conservative style attracted much commentary. From Tom Smith's post:
...take Sarah Palin, who graduated from the University of Idaho, whose alma mater was sung at my father's funeral, so don't neg the U of I around me. She's not as well educated as Michelle Obama. She's not as well educated as a President or Vice President should be. But had she gone to Harvard Law her ideas about the constitution would be a lot less sound than they happen to be. That is what we have come to.
More on that from Insty.
And from AVI
A friend and reader emails this, re the old Wellfleet place we posted a couple of weeks ago:
I've been in a bunch of really old shacks down that way. The people that built them were really amazingly flinty and resourceful. I've attached a picture of a threshold of a door from Truro. They couldn't manage to have a door sweep, so they made a sort of rain gutter with a drain hole in the nose. You know how the rain comes at a house down there. There was never any overhang in those old houses, so the rain sheeting down the door would probably flood the floor, and some poor bastige named Higgins or Crowell or Snow or Starbuck got it off the honeydew list as best he could. Marvelous.
Thursday, August 5. 2010
In the London Review of Books.
I must say that I enjoy French haute cuisine enormously, but that might be because I indulge in it so infrequently. There are two or three restaurants in the vicinity who do it up grand. Pricey. $50. entrees, etc.
My 3-star French chef hunting buddy has cooked for me and friends a few times. He can make anything, but his favorite things to make are peasant foods - rabbit rillette, wild duck terrines, a wild game broth consomme with woodcock ravioli and black truffles, cassoulets, tarte tatin, and things like that. His favorite food to eat is indeed a Big Mac and fries.
A re-post from a couple of summers ago -
Two young Carolina Wrens fecklessly fluttered into our den today while the door was open. The pup promptly swallowed one, as any half-trained retriever will do, but I gently grabbed the other and carried him out to a safe branch. He crapped in my hand, but I don't mind that at all. Glad to be of service. I will take it as a frightened "Thanks," like when God grips you.
Birds frequently fly into our house. A couple of years ago, two dumb young flickers flew down the dining room chimney, and their beaks are sharp. They were tough to catch with the 11' ceiling. But I will never forget my friend who found a befuddled Screech Owl perched on an andiron in his fireplace. He called me and asked what to do. I said grab him firmly but gently around his wings, and open your hand outdoors. It worked out fine, but the bird was confused a little by the sunlight and took a magical minute or so to compose himself perching on his hand, reorient himself, and then to fly into a dark, dense pine.
Our Carolina Wrens are noisy in spring (a piercing "teakettle teakettle teakettle"), invisible during their breeding season, and out and about again now. I thought they were migratory, but I had one at my feeder last winter, and apparently they are not, entirely. Harsh winters kill them off, but their populations bounce back.
They look twice the size of our happy House Wrens, and are noisier. Rugged little guys.
Without my normal, being long-winded, I say ditto to this on "gay marriage."
(HT: HotAir)
Related at Legal Ins: Deconstructing marriage
Tom Jones in May, 2010, with Dylan's 1989 What Good Am I? (h/t, The Englishman)
Readers know I am a bit of a skeptic on the topic of ADD (but not of ADHD in childhood).
To give you a sense of why I am a skeptic, I include a screening test (below the fold) from this website.
Let us know how you scored, in the comments. We'll pretend this is a random sample.
Continue reading "Take your free adult ADD screening test here!"
You can get almost anything at Costco
Hard Drinkers, Meet Soft Science
Home Alone
Lessons from Ma Bell
Michelle: Mad Maxine’s minority fat-cat bankers
Insty: Is higher ed a waste of money?
Driscoll: Paranoia, Short-Term Thinking, and the Ongoing Media Death Spiral
Sowell: Democrats Bite Democrats: Part II
WSJ: Liberal Piety and the Memory of 9/11
What was that movie where they handicapped everybody? Universities That Use Kindles vs. the ADA
Missouri's Prop C will be ignored. McCaskill: Message received (that the voters don't get it). Says Brewton:
If the practical effects of this conflict between state and federal law are likely to be limited, more importantly, Missouri’s vote revealed once again that the country is still aghast over President Obama’s health-care presumption. Earlier this week, the Congressional Research Service reported that the new bureaucracy the bill created is so complex and indiscriminate that its size is “currently unknowable.” Capitol Hill’s independent policy arm added that among “the dozens of new governmental organizations or advisory bodies,” it is “impossible to know how much influence they will ultimately have.”
No wonder Missourians rebelled, as with voters in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia last year. There will be more such what-have-they-done ObamaCare moments. Wait until the public discovers the government is now literally determining what qualifies as “health care” in America.
Fighting the union for school innovaton
Am Thinker: The Revolt of the States. It's about time.
GOP aims for House seats in New England
Wednesday, August 4. 2010
As an intro, see the fourth toon down. I am not willing to pay $45. to post it. (I would pay up to $3. to use it.)
When I was a lowly intern, I was presiding over an ER when we got a radio call around 9 pm about an accident in a mall parking lot involving two cars with kids in them. A head-on, both cars going about 35 mph (that equals a 70 mph accident). When the ambulances arrived, four kids grey, not breathing. DOA. A Mom, still almost pink but dying with head trauma. A Dad, straight to trauma surgery for internal bleeding.
I have never assigned so many people, so quickly, to body bags and the morgue.
So when I read pious government utterances about "preventive care," I just have to laugh. People who talk about that have no idea what they're talking about. Doctors advise people to lose weight, to exercise, to quit smoking, to lower their carb intake, to drink only two wines/day, to wear bike helmets, to use condoms, to eat your vegetables (why? I don't know), to take their medicines, etc., every day. Blah, blah, blah. I might as well advise them to never leave the house because they might get hit by a bus. In the end, people do what they want, and adults are adults. Nobody lacks information and, in my view, if you want to be fat, then go for it.
Personally, I intend to remain trim, fit, athletic and energetic, but I am not interested in sacrificing my life and fun and adventure on the altar of "health" and "safety." There is no vitality or joie de vivre in that. I enjoy a little danger, stress, and excitement. I have crossed crevasses and climbed mountains and kayaked Grade 5 rapids (and almost drowned) and spent many hours on the back of motorcycles. I faced a p-ed off Cape Buffalo (and killed it. Regret it now - there was no point to it), and I sky-dived once. We always drove too fast. We quit all those things when we had young kids, despite the fact that my brother could have raised them very well indeed, and we had good life insurance.
Since everybody dies, and, with modern medicine, dies in a lengthy and expensive and often wretched drawn-out process (80% of US medical costs are in the last year of life), all "preventive medicine" can even hope to do is to delay the process a little bit.
However, it cannot even do that, really. It's 90% wishful thinking: The Big Lie of Preventive Care.
Another good toon from The New Yorker: "Tell me straight, Doc. How long do I have to ignore your advice?"
Why is this? Why is desiring Constitutional government anti-black and anti-brown people? (toon is h/t Lucianne)
My view is that the assumption that people with more skin pigmentation cannot make a decent life in America without government hand-outs and special favors is insulting, condescending, racist - and simply untrue.
Am I a racist for saying this? America has tons more white folks on the various government doles than folks of color. I'd like to see them all get their act together, regardless of pigmentation. America is the least color-conscious nation on the planet. Nobody here cares about that, anymore (except for the race-mongers who still try to make careers out of it).
And yes, Larry Campbell can play the guitar - and lots of other instruments too. And this is one of The Band's best songs.
Several Republican US Senators are now supporting hearings into whether there should be a Constitutional amendment restricting birthright citizenship, anyone born on US soil is a US citizen.
There’s some electoral opportunism there as well as recognition that most Americans want more restrictions on illegal immigration.
About a fourth to a third of illegal immigrants in the US are parents of children born here. In some localities, the majority of births are to illegal immigrants, many of them coming into the US specifically for that purpose. Although by laws these parents are denied most governmental benefits, they are permitted to stay to care for their children, and many do work illegally. The children may petition for legal entry of other family members.
There is no legal doubt that the US has the complete right to govern entry and citizenship. There is doubt as to whether the post-Civil War 14th Amendment, aimed at the citizenship of former slaves, intended to allow the birthright citizenship that we see today. Advocates of restriction cite the statement of a co-sponsor of the 14th. However, the language of the 14th has been interpreted in various ways by scholars and politicians over the next years and century-and-a-half. There are some peripheral court cases but the US Supreme Court has not specifically weighed in.
At this point, it seems that only a well-drafted Constitutional amendment would be able to restrict birthright citizenship. Surely there would be majority consensus to do so, requiring at least one parent to already be a citizen.
However, there are implications that must be considered. Should such children already here be allowed to retain citizenship? I’d guess yes. Should their parents be allowed to stay? I’d guess yes, with a path to citizenship. Should the children of legal entrants who have not yet become citizens be automatically granted citizenship? I’d guess not, at least until the parents have qualified and the children too. Some may consider that rewarding past behavior, and it is, but in a grand bargain and out of compassion, I’d guess there’d be the overwhelming support required for a Constitutional amendment.
I’d suggest the language can be as simple as “Only a child born of at least one US citizen will be a US citizen. All others are subject to US laws of entry, residence and citizenship.”
Yes, there will be resistance from those who want virtually open borders and those who benefit from hiring illegals, and from politicians whose constituency is such, but they are a minority and have little or no legal basis. There are valid emotional appeals to our past and to compassionate values but they, if not a purposeful distraction, are a recipe for enlarging the problems. Our past did not have the current practical burdens upon citizens or entrants.
As strong border controls are essential to reducing illegal entry, so are removing incentives to illegal entry or staying. Uneducated illegal entrants are the main problem in net costs to our economy and government budgets. The US has need of some, and some are or will become or their offspring become net contributors. But, not as many as once or now or in the future. A Constitutional amendment to restrict birthright citizenship directly deals with a substantial part of the problem in a reasonable, cost-effective and widely-supported way.
UPDATE: According to the respected PEW Research Center's Hispanic Center, there are over 4-million children in the US of illegal immigrants, and they make up 8% of the US birthrate.
 Everything about dating blunders. h/t, Linkiest
More on The Higher Education Bubble
Related: Colleges Serve the People Who Work There, Not the Students
Update on Open Water At The North Pole
Brilliant: Police: Officer Baited In Altercation That Injured Him. Cop goes to black church to discuss public safety, is ambushed. Doubt he will volunteer to help those folks in future.
The folly of banning online gambling. Gambling is legal: see "stock market" and "Las Vegas" and "race tracks" and "football pools" and "Indian casinos."
With Dems in Hot Seat, the Times Undergoes a Sudden, Cynical Softening on Ethics Charges
Lowry: "If you want to find a grown-up in government, don’t look in the Oval Office or the Capitol. Look in the statehouses of New Jersey and Indiana."
Breitbart: I Got My Correction Thanks to the The New York Times — Now Who’s Next?
Princess Robin of Berkeley: My mate is sleeping with the enemy
Voegli:
(The) tactile aspect of liberalism is the one that causes so many conservatives to pound their heads on the table in frustration. I refer to the moist-eyed, quivering-voiced, morally preening affirmation of the tautology that when the government gives people stuff, the people it gives stuff to wind up with more stuff than they had before the government started giving them stuff. After they calm down, conservatives say, “Fine. Stipulated: Benefits are (or at least can be) beneficial. Now, can we please talk about how we’re going to pay for all these programs? And how we’re going to make sure that the Santa Clausification of American government does not transform us from a republic of free and equal citizens into a nursery of wardens and wards?
The 100 worst stimulus projects
Instead of arresting the guy, I'd hire him to work in the ER
Is it greedy to want to make money? Were the 80s the Decade of Envy instead?
Last I heard, envy was a deadly sin. Last I heard, wanting to make an honest living and to be productive was a basic adult responsibility. Greed, also one of the 7 deadlies, is "an insatiable desire for wealth." It's a sin because it makes an idol of wealth, replacing God.
Government cannot run something this big and important and complex: Rethinking Socialized Medicine In Canada
Related: America's first vote on Obamacare
Related: Folks with Medicare are already beginning to feel the changes. Soon, the rest of us: Wave of Health Reform Provisions Coming Next Month.
By forcing insurance to cover things we do not want and do not need, in ways that are not sensible for us, they will drive up prices with the goal of putting all of us on a one-size-fits-all government plan. And what's this about covering your kids until they are 26? That's insane. Why not until they're 40, when real adulthood begins nowadays (if it ever does)?
From Betsy:
When civil-rights groups such as the NAACP and National Urban League come out condemning charter schools, you know that they have decided to fall down on the side of the teachers rather than the students. As Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West of Harvard point out, many charter schools serve minority populations and are increasingly popular among minorities. These organizations are ignoring the needs of the families who are crying out to get their children in the charter schools and out of the regular public schools.
The Other McCain:
“Everyone must come to grips with and make sense of their own failures. Excuse-making, blame-shifting, scapegoating — ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ — prevents us from learning the lessons of our failures. . . . Persistently attempting to externalize blame for our own failures is a recipe for moral disaster.”
What's that thing behind the old VW?
Answer below -
Continue reading "What's that?"
Tuesday, August 3. 2010
From Dr. Bob's The Doctor Will See You Now – Or Else!
Mark my words, we are witnessing the disassembly of the American system of medicine — a system which, for its many flaws, has provided the best and most advanced health care the world has ever known. For some, its destruction will be a victory, flush with the naive utopian vision of universal, government-controlled health care.
For you, the patient, the outcome will prove far less sanguine.
Douglass at Am Thinker spells out the details. It is rather amusing. Krugman was once an economist, but has been a political hack for years. One quote from the piece:
Paul Krugman has spent his career as a pundit advocating that government bureaucrats and political process replace markets. He knows that there is a large literature that says that this is a bad idea. That literature is transparently relevant to Krugman's only policy proposal. And yet Krugman has not read it...and admits that he has not read it, without embarrassment.
By July, Krugman had lost his "Battle of the Blog." On July 23, Latrina commented, "Who is this Sean from Florida? He takes everything that [the] Professor [says] and shreds it, piece by piece. He shouldn't be allowed to post his comments on this blog since he seems to be winning all the debates. We progressives need to stick together and embellish our talking points without someone from the outside pointing out fallacies in our ideology."
Bingo.
"Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline."
G.K. Chesterton
City Journal: What Social Science Does—and Doesn’t—Know. Our scientific ignorance of the human condition remains profound.
No Big Bang: A new model of the cosmos. h/t, Vanderleun
When The Government Owns GM… the other auto-makers are not going to be treated very fairly.
Challenge to Health Care Law Advances
State and Local Debt Bombs Ticking Throughout US Heartland. Beware of muni bond funds.
Via Thompson:
And then there’s the leftwing think-tank, the New Economics Foundation, whose Head of Social Policy, Anna Coote, tells us we would become “better parents, better citizens, better carers and better neighbours” if only our incomes were dramatically reduced. “We,” she says, will be “satisfied” without the “dispensable accoutrements of middle-class life,” including “cars, holidays, electronic equipment and multiple items of clothing.” The preferences of the British electorate – whose taxes fund the NEF - don’t figure in this brave new world and the NEF’s deep thinkers simply know what’s best for us. What’s best for us is “introducing measures to reduce the gradient between high and low earners,” “growing our own food,” and “mending and repairing things.”
Top Ten Most Left-Biased Working Journalists
The Secret History of Climate Alarmism. It's about German politics.
At Volokh: Philipson and Posner on the Causes of Obesity. Some of the comments there are very good.
Ace on Paul Ryan's Roadmap:
I honestly would be in favor of the conservative bait and switch in '12 and pay the price in '14 if we got anywhere near the results the Democrats have gotten in the last year and a half. Somehow though, the Republicans never seem to pull the trigger.
Rep. Pete Stark: Federal Government Can Do Most Anything:
Has this guy ever read the Constitution? Didn't he have to swear to uphold it? People like this are dangerous.
Q&O: Bush tax cuts – it’s not your money, so quit whining
David Stockman on the debt: Four Deformations of the Apocalypse. He wants a tax hike. Kudlow .takes on Stockman
Up on the roof garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is Big Bambu. You can take tours up through it. I guess you would call it an "installation." It is an endless work-in-progress. I wonder how it would stand up to a good Nor'easter.
The views from up there are magnificent, overlooking Central Park.
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