Tuesday, May 18. 2010
Standing guard duty in Texas. Thanks, Buddy.
I have attempted to make the case for that fact many times here. Among other data, a post with the above title offers this:
“of the 30 jobs projected to grow at the fastest rate over the next decade in the United States, only seven typically require a bachelor’s degree.”
Popular CT Democrat and senatorial candidate Richard Blumenthal outed as a first-class snake and liar. Link fixed.
Also, the excellent CT Attorney General candidate Martha Dean has been saying these things about Blumenthal for years. She's a Repub, so nobody listened. See Martha Dean for AG. I have met her. She is great.
 They lent us the money, so it's their fault: Greece Considering Legal Action Against U.S. Banks for Crisis
Reason: We Are Out of Money -American governance won’t begin to inch forward until the political class faces basic facts.
Less Than One-Third of US Meteorologists Believe In Manmade Global Warming
More Moslems in bikinis, please
Bruce Walker: The Left's War on Free Speech
The wrecking of Venezuela - Venezuelans are starting to fall out of love with their president. Will they be allowed to vote him out of power? h/t, Fausta
From Black and Right's Obama’s Risky ‘Southern Strategy’ II,
With the latest crisis that can’t go to waste, the Obama Administration is now using the Arizona immigration law to codify the Latino vote against Republicans in an attempt to save the Democrat majority. I guess one could say it’s ironic that the same party that excused its own segregationist past by revising the intent of the ‘Southern Strategy’, has now implemented its own.
Obamacare: “Is the Cure Worse than the Disease?”
Samuelson: How Much Should the Government Spend?
Vanderleun finds the bullshit in the gelato
Kinsley tries to explain why the Tea Partiers are much worse people than the 60s protesters. Lame.
Globe: Health care fails small businesses. Related, A Technocrat's Fantasy - and our nightmare
Why does the O avoid the press?
Monday, May 17. 2010
From Ranson in the WSJ, The Revenue Limits of Tax and Spend:
...this year the U.S. government declined to lay out any plan to balance its budget ever again.
and
The feds assume a relationship between the economy and tax revenue that is divorced from reality. Six decades of history have established one far-reaching fact that needs to be built into fiscal calculations: Increases in federal tax rates, particularly if targeted at the higher brackets, produce no additional revenue. For politicians this is truly an inconvenient truth.
Read that whole thing. Related: States’ Tax Collections Falter, Widening Budget Gaps.
From David Warren's Making Things:
In his heart, the hyper-modernist not only still believes in progress (or, "hope and change") in the face of all evidence to the contrary. He also deeply believes that nothing matters, because everything is going to change anyway. Hence his inability to make anything worth keeping.
We have a society that ought to be haunted by Chartres: by the fragments of our landscape over which great steeples once rose, declaring truth in stone meant to outlast ages. Instead we look around at a clutter of cheap franchise operations; and traffic accelerating from nowhere to nowhere.
Yellowfins hitting a school of baitfish. More photos here.
Peter Beinhart’s essay in the leftwards, critical of Israel New York Review of Books, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment”, is garnering praise from the usual quarters for asserting based on a seven-year old focus group that younger American Jews are not as committed to, even conscious of, Israel as their elders. Beinhart: “One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens.” The mission: “Saving liberal Zionism in the United States—so that American Jews can help save liberal Zionism in Israel—is the great American Jewish challenge of our age.” Beinhart’s “liberal Zionism” is difficult to distinguish from that of ultra-left Jews who bash Israel or demur to the bashers and apologize for Obama’s dangerous domestic and foreign inanities.
In effect, Beinhart is saying that he wants to export American liberal illusions to Israel, which would increase the support for Israel among liberal Americans, Jewish or other. Beinhart’s cure for the failure of American liberals’ illusions is to enlarge the illusion by blaming its failures on those who live in the real world for not embracing it.
There’s another approach to criticizing much of the American Jewish leadership. They forget when liberalism entailed recognizing the difference between friend and foe, and cling to liberalism’s current inability to be willing to deal with unaffordable largesse and unpersuadable enemies. Most are in schizo crisis between their attachment to the Democrat Party and their own access to the halls of power versus their recognition that it has become an undependable ally of Israel.
Israel is successful, exists, because – aside from a vocal but tiny minority clustered behind Ivory towers – it prospers due to the breakout of entrepreneurs from past socialist dominance over the economy and it endures due to being willing to fight when necessary.
Beinhart is simplistically blind to his and fellows’ priority in being part of the liberal herd, regardless the consequences. Following the Beinharts of American liberalism is to leap with the lemmings.
P.S.: Another critique.
People who value money are not the successes on Wall Street or in finance. The real successes are the people who don't value money. Yes, the money-grubbers and the money-counters and money-hoarders are necessary and often do OK and buy nice cars and have money for retirement and second and third homes, but I think the real successes on Wall Street are the ones who want to build things and to make things happen, build businesses, try new ideas, take big risks, fail a few times, and can say 'the heck with my money.' I think that is success on Wall Street. The builders and the dice-rollers who aren't into money and just like to do things.
A patient of mine, a retired Wall Streeter, who has gone back to work to raise a hedge fund with a friend for which the company profits will go towards starting small businesses in Africa and Haiti. Retirement did not suit him.
 I put in my tomatoes, cucumbers, squash seeds, herbs etc. I think we're done with the frosty nights, finally.
I also fertilized my Money Tree, and planted a row of Beer Plants (cover your empties with about 2" of soil spaced about 6" apart, water, and wait). I like to time my Beer Plant planting every two weeks so there is always a fresh crop throughout beer season. I planted some Coors Lites, the usual Rolling Rock, and a couple of Sam Adams. In two weeks, I will plant some Guiness and some Old Milwaukee. Maybe some Ballantine Ale too.
Gardening is one of the few ways to get untaxed value.
Sunday, May 16. 2010
Woody Allen: "It Would Be Good If Obama Could Be a Dictator for a Few Years".
As he sometimes does and has done, usually with humor, Woody captures a certain arrogant, elitist, Upper-West-side Manhattan world view of the world. I, for one, at this point, find it despicable, hateful, and anti-American. Furthermore, it shows a condescending contempt for relatively decent and ordinary people like me.
With the history of western Socialist dictator-types - Robespierre, Bismarck, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, etc, it is remarkable to me that somebody like Woody would long for another.
Heck, maybe we could have a utopia if I were dictator for just a few years. I am fairly intelligent, Ivy-League educated, and knowledgeable, and have lots of experience about how things work in the real world (far more than most career politicians), and I have informed opinions on almost everything too.
Problem is, I have no interest in having power over anybody else. I hate power, except over my own life. I have studiously avoided power during my entire fairly-successful career, and have refused a number of offers of power, large and small. Power over others is revolting to me. That's why I post on Maggie's Farm.
Woody's attitude is just freaking amazing to me, and says a lot. As much as I enjoyed Sleeper, I am done with the guy. He had no morals anyway but I tend to give "artists" a little leeway. Why? Because I am stupid and like to be entertained.
Authoritarian Leftism is a sickness, and as evil as sociopathy. Maybe it is a form of sociopathy. I don't know. These people need to learn a little humility...and a few other things too.
MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) brings us an exceptional debate in Kuwait over whether a performance in Kuwait of the internationally enjoyed song Hava Nagilah, performed by all races and nationalities, should be forbidden as legitimizing Israel.
What makes the debate exceptional is that, for a change, more than one side is heard in an Arab country. Highlights of the debate are below the fold. Worth reading. (Or, be doomed to endlessly dance to the Macarena.)
Meanwhile, here’s Harry Belafonte sharing the song’s joy with an audience in Italy in 1988.
Translation of the objectionable lyrics:
Let's rejoice
Let's rejoice
Let's rejoice and be happy.
Let's sing
Let's sing
Let's sing and be happy.
Awake, awake brothers!
Awake brothers with a happy heart.
Continue reading "Debate In Kuwait: What's Wrong With Hava Nagilah?"
For those who feel that they do not have enough Bob Dylan in their lives, there is always Dylan Radio. All Dylan, all the time. A bit of an overdose, in my opinion. They never mix it up with any Schubert concertos.
It brought to mind an interview with the late great Lena Horne which Mark Simone replayed on the radio the other day. She was saying that she approached a song as a short play, and that she focused on telling the story more than on the music. She said she talked the song-story before she ever added the music. Simone told Horne that Sinatra had once told him something similar; that he wanted to distinguish himself from other singers by making the the words more important to him than the tune or the notes. He disparaged other pop singers as note-hitters wedded to the tune, rather than good story-tellers. Of course, Horne and Sinatra could do both.
You obviously cannot compare Dylan's singing to those two masters, but you can compare his phrasing, word-handling, and story-telling to anybody's. Plus he writes his songs himself. Writing a good song that sticks to the soul is lots tougher than writing a good poem - which is plenty tough itself.
But I don't know what I am talking about...I truly do not.
As you know, Lena Horne died last week.
P. J. O'Rourke's classic. Best graduation speech ever given. Wonderful advice for life for da youts.
Attorney General Holder reminded Dino of "Who's on first?" Dino posted the Holder exchange.
I think Holder knows darn well what is really going on, and is just following the party line as he has been instructed to do. He has a political job.
Acts 16:16-34
One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, "These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation."
She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, "These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe."
The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted in a loud voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay.
He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
Saturday, May 15. 2010
One of the songs mocking the old daily, then weekly, then merged, then gone, Worker, “Our Line’s Been Changed Again”, referred to the slavish contortions of its adherents as the approved line from Moscow veered and twisted to fit whatever was deemed its current self-preservation.
Such genuflective transmutive party line writing today is steered from Washington where its anointed leader is in the White House, its main apologist is Ezra Klein at the Washington Post – and its disappearing irrelevant Newsweek, and its dissemination is via his network of quick parroters assembled at Klein’s secretive JournoList of Left writers at blogs and major media.
Their God -- that is failing, again -- is that the Democrat Party and its President is the most progressive force to alter mankind and its institutions, and that this end justifies the means of increased central power over the economy and individuals’ lives.
Five years after graduating college with a political science degree, with no work experience except for writing, Ezra Klein churns out advocacy that excuses the latest line or attacks uncomfortable facts, and his disciples echo his sleights of hand.
In rebuttal one might hear that other writers are slavish to the Republican Party or have a following. That smacks of old attacks on the fractious Trotskyists, Republicans actually containing disparate and battling interests, political figures, and writers, inherently unable to cohere around any line except vague restraints on central power.
Neither socialists nor Trotskyists brought down communism or Moscow. Rather, communism and Moscow were unable to maintain their spin in the face of their flailing failures recognized and rejected by the true masses living in the real world when coupled with firm resistance from those with power.
Today’s Tea Partiers lack a manifesto except for crying out “BS” to the transparent excuses of any – Democrat or Republican -- who go along with Washington’s self-serving funny business as usual. Those – either Democrat or Republican – who are seen to pay lip service but not consistency and will to actually reversing statism’s growth are not trusted.
As with any revolution from below, the big question remains of whether anyone will emerge to lead and be followed who will not waver, accommodate or sell out.
As with the Worker and their "God That Failed", there is no question that those who align themselves with state power will find new “progressive” rallying points for their same-old, same-old.
Ezra Klein will become an obscure footnote in the tedious history of the Left. So may the Tea Partiers as a temporary insurrection join the Trotskyists in the dustbin of history.
But, the real masses never will submit, and stand ready – armed by the vote in a democracy -- to emerge in strength when their primary interest in personal freedoms is trampled. The powerful or monied who are wise enough to see their fate as tied to the masses need to step up to the podium and to contribute heavily to the pot of clarifying insurrection before their narrow self-interests are eliminated. Their feeding at the trough in Washington will not save them, but transform them into lackeys.
(There are too many allusions and references above to weigh down with links, footnotes, and detailed explanations. Enjoy the learning experience, unless repeating the past is preferred.)
Some sauce:
I was asked two questions at dinner last night, both on the "Feelings aren't facts" theme.
1. "Do people with strong insecurities and feelings of inadequacy tend to be people with plenty of inadequacies - or not?" A good question.
My reply: "Some people who feel inadequate are quite "sufficient," and some are wise to doubt themselves and their life skills. Bear in mind, though, that every human has his share of inadequacies and shortcomings. Some people magnify their own for neurotic reasons and some deny their own for neurotic reasons. The best thing is to be realistic about our strengths and weaknesses, and to get to work on the weaknesses - if we want to."
2. "Do people with strong self confidence tend to be people for whom it is justified, or not?"
My reply: "Could be either. However, I tend to be a little wary of those who project noticeably strong general self-confidence. But plenty of people learn how to give the appearance of strong self confidence when they need to, to fake it; a game face is a good thing, when needed. Also, strong confidence in a specific area in which it is merited is one of the finer things in life."
Then I finally said, "So tell me, what are you and your kids up to this summer?"
 That was an email late last night from the pupette I mentioned here yesterday, informing me that she just got another call-back for a Hollywood movie role for which she has, unbeknownst to me, been auditioning.
I thought her summer plans sounded perfect, so I do not know what to say except "Break a leg, babe."
Having kids keeps life from getting dull, routine, and inexpensive. There is always something to ponder; good and bad and neutral.
Now, back to the gardens to be an outdoor slave to Mrs. BD. (Perhaps The Wagoner's Lad had it backwards? Well, in the right mood, I will do anything for the Mrs. In the wrong mood, nothing. Doesn't bother me at all to be a difficult person sometimes, and I often feel I need to be more so.)
Thing is, I have always enjoyed manual labor, especially the semi-skilled sort when the tasks are well-defined. Brain-work fatigues me, but physical labor invigorates me.
Next weekend, a big invigorating 2-3 day job at the farm. I sent out a flash email to all sibs, telling all to bring all tools (chain saws, hedge-trimmers, weed-wackers, etc.) and promising to provide beer and water and gas and cigars and lunch. We have a 25-acre field up on the hill to clear, now that the tractor bridge over the trout stream is fixed after the big wash-out two winters ago. The meadow will need a twice-over with the tractor and the brush hog, and the wind-fallen White Pines will need my baby bro with his 3' chain saw and his cutting skills. He won't say much and he is not overly friendly, but he is a youngish retired exec and he likes to work non-stop. Always in motion.
My Mom always tells me "Your Grandpa would use a scythe for that." I say to her "I love my power tools."
The swimming hole needs to be dredged out too. We have a small but adequate dredge that will hook to the tractor with chains, but I am not sure we will have time to get that done next weekend. Not sure where the long chains are either.
 Aubade
I work all day, and get half drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says no rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing
that this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
We were reminded of this Larkin poem by Dick Cavett's NYT blog post about his Yale reunion.
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AVI on 
How QVC sells stuff. 
Today is Armed Forces Day