Thursday, December 17. 2009
Wednesday, December 16. 2009
 Tom Sowell's Christmas reading
How about a doppelganger for Christmas?
Militant Theophobes
Illegals, yes. Anatolie, no.
Climategate: Something’s Rotten in Denmark … and East Anglia, Asheville, and New York City
Copenhagen: 'This Guy's Just Showing Up to Collect His Check'
A good post with good links re Paul Samuelson
Good comments on our sexual addiction post
A book: Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans from Too Much Law. Interesting reviews there at Amazon.
Ann Applebaum: Some climate-changers are anti-human.
The 2009 Obama Achievement List
Climate Scientists and Ethics: Some Advice from a Finance Professor
How would the Reid bill affect the middle class?
Protecting Investors or Prosecuting Innocents? The Dangers of Vagueness in Financial Fraud Laws
Kimball:
...if it is hard to ginger up any enthusiasm for the topic of health care reform, it is even harder to contemplate what is happening in Washington without an overwhelming sense of alarm. The Obama administration is not only on the threshold of usurping some 20 percent of the U.S. economy, handing it over to government bureaucrats to oversee, it is also just a few signatures away from utterly transforming medical culture and the way you will be allowed to interact with your doctors. Do you really want this?
And via Insty:
ANN ALTHOUSE: Blaming Obama Is The New Trend. “People just don’t want this bill. I think the big mistake was skipping the step of winning public support for a particular plan. It wasn’t enough that people believed there was a problem. People needed to believe the solution wasn’t worse than the problem. We were supposed to look away and trust them. The trust was never won, never earned. It’s been a horrific mess, and it just looks messier and messier as time wears on. Obama kept his distance, which looks pretty smart now.”
Civil-Rights Panel Names 19 Colleges It Will Investigate for Gender Bias in
Admissions. And here we thought they wanted diversity.
Pop culture and politics. Driscoll on Guido Beach Meets The Great Relearning. Culture from the bottom, up?
The Underarm Thermometer sales gal. Borderline safe for work.
If those guys at East Anglia had thought of this temperature trick, nobody would be giving them any grief.
Sorry, this was shut down. We'll try to find it again -
Alex Massie in Spectator: American Exceptionalism & the Decline of Limited Government
Re health care, the O says we're "on the precipice." Truth, for once. No wonder he uses a teleprompter most of the time.
DOE sends a “litigation hold notice” regarding CRU
Harry Reid, Card Shark
York: Why Democrats push health care, even if it kills them
City Journal: Teachers’ Unions vs. Progress—Again. New York resists reforms that would bring in millions and improve teacher quality.
Faster? Please. Yet another proclamation that global warming is "accelerating, much faster than we anticipated," as activists have been telling us since the late '90s.
I think that was shortly after the decade of global cooling scares.
Tiger on what Jamie Dimon should have said to the O, including this comment: "...it is hard to see how anybody smarter than a reporter would be fooled by such silliness."
Woodstock, CT has always held a certain pride in the education of its children from colonial days to the present. Higher education beyond the basics of readin', writin' and 'rithmetic wasn't a staple of affluent farming communities during those times and Woodstock was somewhat unique in supplying the opportunity to colonial children. The "high" professions of religion, medicine and politics required a larger perspective on the world and the citizens of Woodstock provided that opportunity - mostly under the instruction of various religious and university educated leaders of the community.
As the town expanded and became more populous, the need for an organized "high" school became apparent. On January 12th, 1801 the town leadership "granted provision to build an academy on the North side of Town Common" and $100 was collected from 32 leaders of the community to build the facility.
Farmers from around the area supplied the appropriate amount of white oak and the raising was quite the social event. On Feburary 2nd, 1802, the building was opened for operation under the guidance of Preceptor Thomas Williams of Pomfret, CT.
Over the years, Woodstock Academy has both prospered and fallen on hard times. In the downturn of 1860, the original building was razed, basic post/beam construction saved and this building was it's replacement. Henry Bowen (remember him - Pink House?) donated $5,000 of the $20,000 raised and the rest is, as they say, history. Yale University had an interest in the operating of Woodstock Academy for many years (up until WWII) and supplied many of its original Preceptors and Instructors.
Woodstock Academy, while considered by the state as a public high school, is actually a private non-profit institution governed by a Board of Directors and operates outside the governance of the Woodstock Board of Education. It is considered a "free academy" - the only other similar institution in the US is also located in Connecticut, the Norwich Free Academy in Norwich, CT.
Tuesday, December 15. 2009
Talking points and debating points, at Daily Express. Not that facts matter any more.
Related: Al Gore's mosquito story is pure BS. Malaria is only a tropical disease due to public health advances, DDT, and drainage of marshes in the developed world. At the turn of the last century, malaria was endemic in New England. Russia, too.
Related: It's all about the $. A quote:
Leaders of fifty African nations came to Copenhagen asking $400 billion for the next three years to "offset" carbon credit "damages" which they claim to suffer. Inexplicably, two days ago, that demand was increased to an eye-goggling 5% of GDP (gross domestic product), estimated at $722 billion from the United States alone. There never was a response from the industrialized world.
Related: Copenhagen summit carbon footprint biggest ever. Why not? Who cares? Live it up with the Danish hos and the limos and the grand hotel rooms and the smorgasbord and the aquavit. It's all for Gaia, after all.
Related, via Dino from some psychotic, self-aggrandizing moron at Copenhagen:
I just sat there thinking: It’s not enough. We didn’t do enough. I should have started earlier. People are dying already.
And, via Driscoll's It Was Necessary To Destroy The Carbon In Order To Save It:
Woodstock, CT, last week:
Does that, or should that, exist as a medical diagnosis?
I doubt it, although the idea of diagnosis nowadays is rather arbitrary and designed mainly to complete insurance forms.
In light of Tiger's family problems, I have been hearing the term "sex addiction" used a lot by non-professionals and by some quasi-professionals. Rock star-types have endless temptations and opportunities for recreational sex. And so does any guy who doesn't mind going to massage parlors or titty bars.
It seems to me that pathologizing hedonistic behavior of any sort tends to diminish the fact of human choice - and moral choice. We primates are wired for sexual adventurism, but also wired for restraint and for considerate behavior.
What do you think? How many of our guy readers could resist lovely young women constantly throwing themselves at them, and licking their ear?
Since we're doing sort-of fancy Christmas stuff, I am telling Santa that I like Christian Louboutin. Our gentlemen readers' wives or girlfriends might like that stuff too.
 Feeding the ego by going green
Terrible poll numbers for the O. Why?
Gimme money. That's what Copenhagen is all about.
WSJ: The 'Cost Control' Bill of Goods - How Peter Orszag and the White House sold a health-care illusion.
Didn't they say the polar ice would be gone in five years, three years ago? They are moving the goalpost.
Pick just one thermometer
Good political advice from Newt (video) h/t, reader
Thompson: The wrong kind of rich
30% of Dems believe in astrology. Good grief. Explains a lot.
Powerline: Are the wheels coming off healthcare?
Monday, December 14. 2009
From a Maggie's pal, seeking intertube fame and immortality no doubt. Nice dogs, though - including "Maggie":
Went preserve hunting on Saturday in Delaware. We killed 16 of the 20 pheasants
and 39 of the 40 chukars that were put out for us. The two best looking
critters in the picture are obviously the German Shorthaired Pointers, Maggie
and Ellie. Both absolutely broke solid. So-so retrievers but so-so was good
enough. The outiftter included his venison chili for lunch as part of the
deal. An excellent time was had by all.
A practical Christmas.
Around here, the son and heir needs a new business suit or two from J. Press, and some new dress work shoes like these from Nordstroms. He is supposed to look professional at work. Suits only, it seems. J. Press or Brooks are always ok unless you work at Goldman. Those oxford shoes from Nordstrom's are great, very comfortable shoes for the price. I have a pair of em in brown which had been hiding in the back of the closet, but there are plenty of custom hand-made Italian- or Brit-shoe snobs around here who would only wear such things on rainy days. Not me. They are plenty good enough for me.
Decent shoes, if you have a few of them, last at least half a lifetime (or until gravity broadens your footsies and the old shoes don't fit). The lad could also use a pair of classic Brooks' tassel loafers too, but Santa is on a budget. Santa will try to help a little bit, but a fellow's permanent professional wardrobe is built over time. Fortunately for most guys, fashion doesn't play a role in it. What was appropriate from Brooks Brothers in 1960 is about right today in most work settings.
Me? I should dress well for work, but I can't be bothered anymore. A character flaw maybe, but I just got tired of it.
Who among our readers knows what "Shoes for Industry" refers to? Or, I should say, "to what 'Shoes for Industry' refers." And, in passing, where the heck do those " s belong? Inside or outside the . s?
Send a thanks, if you agree with him, to my independent and independent-minded Senator Joe Lieberman (with whom I agree about 30-40% of the time), for his strong stand against government-controlled medical care.
Here's his email.
I just sent him one. "Thank you, Sen. Joe."
 I made a batch of Gingerbread Men yesterday. Only three are left on the plate.
I guess they ran away. Gingerbread Men are known to do that.
 Oopsie daisy. Story at Dr. X. Luckily, it wasn't occupied yet. Only 1 guy was killed.
Government vs. Markets: Q&O
Vanderleun defuses Gore's lethal poem
Diversity Infects Medical School. Brilliant!
Heather Mac Donald: The Bilingual Ban That Worked
Thomas Sowell dissects intellectuals
How Mossad hacked the Syrian computers for their raid on the mysterious facility
Teddy Kennedy From The Grave: Medicare As A Path To Single Payer
Jimmy Carter: Abuse of Women Including Genital Mutilation is the Fault of Catholics & Southern Baptists.Everybody knew that.
Mark Steyn: Obama goes from dazzle to drone. A quote:
Can you believe this line made it into the speech?
"I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war."
Well, there's a surprise.
David Horowitz on Better Red than Dead.
Related, from Michelle: Hollywood & Howard Zinn’s Marxist education project. Good grief.
Why docs and hospitals are wary of government medicine, via Marginal Rev:
State Medicaid programs, by the way, are easily the worst payers, according to Athena's annual ranking. In New York, for instance, claims must be tendered on a dead-tree form instead of electronically and in blue ink—black is grounds for rejection—and then go on to spend a full 161 days, or almost a half year, in accounts receivable.
I was sent this photo of American Black Ducks ("Blacks") by a reader in CT. Blacks are never abundant, but they are around. These northeastern dabblers, which are closely related to the Mallard, breed around both fresh (expecially beaver ponds) and salt water (mostly salt marshes).
You can read about these fine ducks at CLO.
Sunday, December 13. 2009
Or five ducks, or a goat. World Vision
A wonderful Christmas hymn written by the Baptist English newspaper editor James Montgomery in 1816. Over the years, the lyrics have been sung to different tunes.
One verse I like:
Sages, leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great Desire of nations;
Ye have seen His natal star.
I am no sage, but I am happy to escape my contemplations to view a brighter vision. The lyrics and a midi of the music here.
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