Wednesday, April 14. 2010
Stolen from Chicago Boyz:
"There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer are precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel. The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, excepting only a few of the smaller nations, like the Swiss and the Dutch, were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one’s neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority."
F.A. Hayek, Road to Serfdom.
 A shout-out to our Prez: Quit embarrassing me, you big pussy. And I even do like Burger King. But how come foreign leaders don't bow to Obama? And who is Chief of Protocol? Mrs. Earthworm?
AVI is re-reading Screwtape. He feels convicted in every chapter. But I feel convicted on every page - so I win!
The best teachers aren't trained to teach. All the fancy private schools know that.
How TV-watching can alter your view of reality: Cultivation Theory
The Roosevelt Mythtique
Some violence is OK - if it's from the Religion of Peace...
Angela Merkel - More American than the O
The shift of unions towards big government
MRC Special Report: How the Media Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Tea Party Movement
How propaganda works today: Volokh. Kopel responds earnestly, as if truth mattered in that game.
Speaking of propaganda, Krugman does it again
How much money do Profs make these days?
Tea Party founders were small government radicals
Palin Derangement Syndrome in Boston. It's not about Palin: same thing would and will happen to any Conservative who rises to prominence.
Why taxing the rich won't work in New Jersey anymore. Related video: Christie is Reagan with a Jersey edge. A few quotes from the big guy via the Hot Air link:
The children will be the ones to suffer from your education cuts. “The real question is, who’s for the kids, and who’s for their raises? This isn’t about the kids. Let’s dispense with that portion of the argument. Don’t let them tell you that ever again while they are reaching into your pockets.”…
Budget cuts are unfair. “The special interests have already begun to scream their favorite word—which, coincidentally, is my 9-year-old son’s favorite word when we are making him do something he knows is right but does not want to do—’unfair.’ . . . One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life, and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits—a total of $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?”…
Isn’t your talk of ’stopping the tax madness’ just another ‘Read My Lips’ promise? “[Mine is] much better than ‘Read my lips.’ I’m sorry, it’s just much better. Much stronger. . . . It’s gonna be how my governorship will rise or fall. I’m not signing a tax increase.”
Fred Singer: Climategate Whitewash
Robin of Berkeley's apology letter to America
Neptunus on his taxes:
Having recently completed my taxes for 2009 – and receiving rather a nasty shock at the bottom line – I can only hope to be less productive in 2019 than I am now.
Very soon now – if I am not there already - I simply won’t be able to afford to succeed.
NYT says it now: It's about rationing care
Money from wind: It's the subsidy that will make you rich. I believe that is termed rent-seeking.
Cheerful graph from Willisms:
Tuesday, April 13. 2010
 Gagdad Bob's Great God Almighty, I'm Free at Last! Now, Who Stole My Chains?! connected with a topic on which I have been reflecting lately, namely, how avidly people sometimes cling to symptoms and pathologies and, indeed, can feel lost without them.
In my field of work, we have to be careful with such things, following the lines of "If you break it, you own it," and "Primum non nocere."
Also, "Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Or, as I usually phrase it, "the good-enough."
I was much affected by Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom when I was in college.
People vary in how much freedom they can handle, whether from internal or external chains. I prefer the chains I deliberately select for myself.
Does a baggie with water and a penny in it keep flies away? Snopes has the answer.
And to make matters worse, try finding this federal tax on a receipt.
I would be in favor of replacing the federal income tax with a VAT, however.
Addendum: Excellent policy piece on VAT
 Like you, I always stay up with the latest trends in file backup technology. Heck, who doesn't?
Pictured: Who doesn't.
To be completely honest, you never did have much of an excuse when you lost those super-important files during that computer melt-down a while back and had lazily neglected to back them up. Oh, you made a big bid for sympathy, all right, but we just laughed and sneered. There have always been zillions of backup programs around, and they've always been real easy to use. No, you really had no excuse at all.
And now, sadly, with cheap terabyte drives available, you'll have even less.
To take it through the timeline, first we backed up our precious files to floppy disk. Then came hard drives, so we used a variety of backup programs that would 'sync' two folders together, copying the new files in the first folder over to the backup folder.
Then came CD blanks, then DVD blanks, so that became the medium of choice for a decade. Their permanency and ease of storage made the media very attractive.
But even it had its flaws, like having to divide things up so they'd fit on a disc, and the time and hassle of the burning process, itself.
But the biggest problem was simply the size limitation. I have about 200 gigs total, spread across two drives and nine partitions, so that's about 45 to 50 discs if I wanted to back up the works. Yikes.
But now, with the recent advent of inexpensive monster-sized (terabyte) hard drives, the rules change once again. Given how much easier it is to click on a single button in SyncToy and back up the whole enchilada, this is clearly the way to go.
If you're wondering about price, I picked up one of the Seagate drives used in this test at BestBuy the other day for $75 on sale. Hook it in as a spare drive, download the free SyncToy and you're good to go.
And the next time a computer glitch eats those super-important files, you'll be the one who's laughing last.
Continue reading "Doc's Computin' Tips: Back-up time"
h/t Theo
Jeff Goldstein posted a serious essay, “The Descent of Liberalism”. One quote:
A CNN poll conducted in February found that 56 percent of those questioned think the federal government has “become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.” The social reformer inspires in many Americans today the same dread he once inspired in John Stuart Mill, who in 1855 wrote that almost “all the projects of the social reformers in these days are really liberticide — Comte particularly so.” Such projects, Mill predicted, would lead to “a despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers,” and stood “as a monumental warning to thinkers on society and politics, of what happens when once men lose sight in their speculations, of the value of Liberty and Individuality.”
Liberals dismiss such fears as mere right-wing hysteria.
 More bowing to dictators. I think it's more than a twitch and I think it's more than a submissive character trait. What do our readers think?
Says Ledeen:
It’s worse than you thought, Victor. It’s not confusion at all. It’s a campaign to cut America down to size.
Insane: Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again
More insanity: Unlearning whiteness. He includes this quote:
To ignore race is to be more racist than to acknowledge race. I call it neo-racism.
Then call me a neo-racist. Call me anything you want. I don't care. Sticks and stones...
Wilkinson: Do Libertarians Have Anything Interesting to Say to Liberals?
Phil Jones is unraveling
Surber: "Here’s an idea: Let FedEx and UPS take over the post office."
The cynical politics of immigration
More cynical politics: Incentives Not to Work - Larry Summers v. Senate Democrats on jobless benefits.
VDH: The Ongoing Melodrama of Victims and Oppressors. A quote:
...the president seems to fail to acknowledge that there are plenty of actions an individual can take to avoid becoming part of that growing crowd of "less fortunate." Instead, in Obama's world, there exists a simple zero-sum melodrama of victims and oppressors.
Bad times in South Africa. Do they want to be Zimbabwe?
The hatred never ends: Hateful East Coast Leftists Attack Sarah Palin Before Her Boston Rally… Media Silent
WaPo: We Haven't Seen Any Evidence of Tea Party Racism Yet, But Hang Tight While We Investigate
Cookbook medical care coming to the US?
Prof B: Swapping their Birthright of Freedom for an iPad
Monday, April 12. 2010
 Anchoress: The Celibacy Lecture. I say, if you want perfection, look to God for it, not to clergy or any other mortal souls.
So generous: Washington will spend $31,406 per household this year. Where's my check?
Tom Smith:
I like women. I wouldn't want to do without them. But if I were making the case for men without women, I would find Maureen Dowd very useful. Glib, self-satisfied, and neither as smart nor as good looking as she thinks, she makes a long fishing trip with nothing but the guys and a case of scotch a pretty inviting prospect.
Bob Geldof: Buffoon. He thought Africans were so pathetic that they needed mediocre Western rock musicians to "help" them.
A reporter attended a workshop for community organizers. Apparently there are a lot of people with way too much time on their hands and very little contact with the real world...
The sexism in Vet schools is approaching the crisis point. Or do girls just "love animals" more than guys? Why do you want to be a Vet? "I love animals." Sheesh. So be a farmer. Or get a rescue dog. What the world needs now is more hot babe dentists..."Why do you want to be a dentist?" "I love teeth."
All Criticism of Obama Is Racist ... Again. I love that placard.
PC Pinheads Want to Ban the Word 'Obese' So As Not to Offend Fat Kids. Did Michele O get the memo? Is Pinch a poofter? Love that word.
First, go out and catch yourself some fat trout. Then try this recipe at Cooks.com. This was dinner last night, with winter squash and mashed parsnips with garlic, and a bottle of Chalk Hill Chardonnay:
Good, fun, basic, math. Here.
We have seen what happens when climate science is politicized. Here'a a taste of what happens when medicine gets politicized.
"In the year 2000, American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, CA, was one of the worst-performing middle schools in the state."
So what happened?
Sana'a, or Sana. Population 1.7 million, but certainly off the beaten path.
Yemen, known by the Romans as Arabia Felix, was once famous for their Frankincense trade.
More photos of the mud-brick city here.
 Spittlegate. A MSM scandal
What really drives climate changes? The Milankovitch Cycle
For Mad Men fans, a post on their props, via a piece at Driscoll
The people who do not want medical insurance
Dalrymple: Very Few Innocents in Housing Market Collapse
Parks on Leftist racism. A quote:
...I also knew that I believe in the uncelebrated work fellow black conservatives do to this day (and endure) as racism is only allowed in our society when it’s aimed at us, and instead of turning tail and running, we keep on. I think we’ve shown more guts than any ratings-driven media pundits anyday.
Comments on the Ferguson essay about behavioral economics, which we posted yesterday, at Volokh
What entitlement crisis?
The Islamist Ghost Haunting Europe
Hennessey: Should taxpayers subsidize underwater homeowners?
Amil Imani: Jews as scapegoats
The KKK in Rhode Island. It's a crisis.
Crash course: Your illustrated guide to the Tea Party saboteurs
Sunday, April 11. 2010
 Ferguson's excellent essay at Weekly Standard, titled Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink: Behavioral economics—the governing theory of Obama’s nanny state, quotes the Prez:
“Far more is now known about regulation—not only about when it is justified, but also about what works and what does not. .??.??. In this time of fundamental transformation, that process—and the principles governing regulation in general?—should be revisited.”
Gee whiz, it sounds very "scientific." My response to the notion that my supposed betters need to regulate and nudge me and my life is not printable on a family website such as Maggie's. I do not care whether it "works" or not. Mussolini made the trains run on time, too.
I believe that our Maggie's team and our readers know far more about life than Barack Obama or Cass Sunstein will ever know.
Robin Hanson begins his piece of the above title, about "forager norms," thus:
Food isn’t about Nutrition
Clothes aren’t about Comfort
Bedrooms aren’t about Sleep
Marriage isn’t about Romance
Talk isn’t about Info
Laughter isn’t about Jokes
Charity isn’t about Helping
Church isn’t about God
Art isn’t about Insight
Medicine isn’t about Health
Consulting isn’t about Advice
School isn’t about Learning
Research isn’t about Progress
Politics isn’t about Policy
His conclusion: "We signal covertly and unconsciously because our ancestors were strongly punished for overt and conscious signals."
Signaling theory is interesting, but I do not accept the reductionistic notion that signaling is all that people do when they are together (I should say, neither does Robin H.).
A re-post from June, 2008. Was it that long ago? Seems like yesterday...It was a fine trip.
We took a day, last week, to hop the train over to Lake Como (and to stop by the Como Duomo), and took the fast ferry up to Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo - and then across the lake to Bellagio to see the equally renowned gardens of Villa Melzi.
The 17th-18th century Villa Carlotta and its gardens were a traditional and necessary stop on the "Grand Tour" of "the Continent." We anglophiles like to follow in those old paths.
It is impossible to capture on camera the feel of such vast and varied gardens, which are, in effect, both botanical gardens with worldwide collections of plants, and ornamental gardens designed to impress as much as to delight - some formal Italian and some English-style.
For example, these gardens have bamboo groves, Sequoia groves, acre-sized plantings of azalea, palm collections, collections of cacti, citrus arbors, etc. Even a turtle pool with happy and smiling American southern Red-eared Sliders and Cooters.
This photo is the entrance:
More of my mediocre photos on continuation page below -
Continue reading "Villa Carlotta"
Jars of Clay are wonderful, but I'd like to hear Dylan do this one with Paul Simon:
|
