Sunday, January 27. 2013
Highly enjoyable interview. What a charming fellow. A good chance to listen to him when he has time to talk. Not embeddable, but it's here.
In a dramatic part of the interview, he explains his conversion to conservatism.
 Customer Service: A Practical Approach.
We get paid for a thing, a service, or a thing plus a service. Most jobs entail some degree of customer service, whether the customer is a client, a buyer in a shop, or a boss. Yes, a boss is a customer, pays you for your service to him or her. This simple textbook might open your eyes to seemingly-obvious things you have been doing wrong to interfere with good business and good business relationships.
It's a lesson in humility. As I said last time, this course is about things many of us think we're too smart to need to learn.
Recap of prior postings in this course this semester:
Life Basics 101, Book #1. Are you really too hip to read this book?
He's complaining about 10 below zero (F). That's -23 C.
Heck, Mrs. BD and I have skiied at 10 below. Definitely brisk and exhilarating. I recall that I had a big old Ford Bronco at the time, and it was not too eager to get running but it did after coughing a bit. The skiing was just fine (short lift lines) but the chair lift, in the wind, was brutal. That was Vermont.
Government resumes pressuring banks to approve subprime loans.
What could possibly go wrong?
Luke 4:14-30
4:14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.
4:15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
4:16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,
4:17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
4:18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,
4:19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
4:20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
4:21 Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
4:22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?"
4:23 He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'"
4:24 And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.
4:25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land;
4:26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.
4:27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."
4:28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.
4:29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.
4:30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Saturday, January 26. 2013
 I have gotten deep into The Leopard, and I can report that I think (for what it's worth) that it is a masterpiece of modern literature. No, of literature. I've read a lot of books. I have not seen the movie with Burt Lancaster and Claudia Cardinale, but I don't need to.
It is sensual in imagery, poetically-written. Guiseppe di Lampedusa finished it shortly before he died, but, sadly, could never get it published.
The story is set in Sicily in the 1860s, during the time when Garibaldi's forces were constructing the nation of Italy, including the invasion and annexation of Sicily. It's a vivid portrait of Sicily which, even today, seems Italian in name only.
Lampedusa warned readers to keep track of the Prince's dog, Bendico.
While trying to research the rich Macaroni Pie the prince served as a primi (with chicken liver and hard-boiled eggs etc. in it), I stumbled onto this piece about the book and the food described in it.
Reposted -
10 Workforce Skills Every Student Should Gain Before Leaving College. A quote:
While getting a college degree dramatically improves a person's potential earnings over time, the sheepskin alone is not the sine qua non.
Certainly not, especially in a time when college degrees are so commonplace and when graduate degrees have lost their economic, social, and academic value through dilution.
Listed in the article are not things you learn in college, but things you can learn wherever you are: high school, college, armed forces, crappy job, or on the street. Basic life lessons which I began learning at 12. I have had paid jobs since then. That's where I learned about life even though my book-larnin' has been a blessing to me.
They could or should have said "should learn before leaving high school" because that is when adulthood is supposed to begin. Well before my time, college students wore suits to class. It was a serious adult endeavor. We don't know what it is now, except that they will give you As (or rarely Bs which used to be Ds and Fs) for paying the bill because the customer is always right except in math, physics or chem. Which is why employers like to see the tough courses and the demanding majors in college grads. They grade on curves, so the right stuff shows to potential employers.
Now that I am in a position to interview new hires at our place, it has been a very interesting experience. We are finally doing quite well after post-start-up challenges. I'll write up a post about our hiring process and our hiring filters when I have a chance.
We get 1000 applicants for each job posting at our little shop, but we do not delete the "overqualified" here if they are willing to take a chance with low wages to start.
What are you cooking today?
I'm doing the cooking today and not doing Mommys of America cheap 'n easy - I am making Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon for the kids. I browned the meat, carrots and pearl onions (doubled the amount of onions because I love them) and prepped the lardons last night. Also threw in some porcinis because I hate a meat stew without them, and a couple of dashes of ground clove. I do it the French way - large chunks of meat (2 1/2" or 3" x 3" - they shrink) and large chunks of carrot. It's meant to be about the stewed meat. I used a Chianti Classico because I had a glass last night and an open bottle, but should have used a Cab I think. Why not a Burgundy, as the name says? I don't know. I used a 3-pound chuck roast instead of venison, and cut it into large hunks. I don't know why I used the pearl onions because big old onions work just as well, or better.
Then it all goes into the big new crock pot for 7 or 8 hours, adding the pearl onions near the end. Since we old folks are going out to dinner tonight with friends, I hope the kids appreciate my efforts and will leave us some leftovers. I'll have egg noodles for it. They are the best thing for beef stews.
The only real hassle with Julia's recipe is having to drain the stew and reduce the sauce instead of just ladling it out of the pot. Worth the trouble, though.
But this is a post on lardons. Or was. While catching up on the subject of lardons, I noticed this country-style French bread: Fougasse de Foix. Baked into it is Gruyere cheese, creme fraiche, and lardons. How good does that sound?
More good info about Wolves.
There are no "mass extinctions" going on
Why We Have Guns
Being armed is a sign that we are neither slave nor serf nor willing victim
An "edgier strategy" for the obesity problem: "a carefully calibrated effort of public social pressure" to provide "a shock of recognition."
Unintended pregnancies on the rise in servicewomen
Obama: Reagan of the Left - The president sees himself as the unabashed apostle of the ever-expanding federal state.
The Worst Five Years
Aussies Strike Black Gold
Milwaukee Teachers Earn College Credits for Taking Class to Heal Their Racism
Natural rights and the Second Amendment:
Gun-rights supporters often say their right to keep and bear arms comes from the Second Amendment.
They're wrong. That right comes, as do all of our rights, from God.* The Founders and Framers presupposed and accepted as self-evident "unalienable rights, endowed by our Creator". None of the Amendments grant us any rights; what they do is forbid the government from infringing on them, as rulers have always done from the beginning of history.
In America, the government does not confer rights. The ideal of freedom, and self-reliance, preceded government. Many immigrants and descendents of more recent immigrants from lands with authoritarian histories don't understand that, nor do many African Americans whose ancestors were involuntary immigrants and even less free than indentured servants or serfs. My ancestors, however, did invent a government to ensure our freedom, and deliberately handcuffed government power for the same reason. Americans do not have delimited rights - the government has delimited powers. That was the radical idea which remains too radical for statists. Such was intended by our Constitution, anyway. Since then, government, intoxicated with its importance, has been at war with our radical Constitution.
From Eritosthenes (h/t Vanderleun):
The pattern continues: With our fever yet unbroken, we treat weakness and need as some kind of a commodity to be exchanged for products and services, and strength, capability and service to others as some kind of a blight to be tolerated only churlishly, or not tolerated at all. Strength and weakness, each one treated as the other, as the opposite of what it truly is.
Adding to our handy-dandy blogroll:
Acculturated
Real Psychiatry
There's not much of his voice on this  reconstruction of an old wax cylinder recording, but Whitman fans will relish
this voice from the past.
America
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair’d in the adamant of Time.
Friday, January 25. 2013
Gun Laws and the Fools of Chelm† - The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so. By David Mamet. A quote:
Violence by firearms is most prevalent in big cities with the strictest gun laws. In Chicago and Washington, D.C., for example, it is only the criminals who have guns, the law-abiding populace having been disarmed, and so crime runs riot.
Cities of similar size in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and elsewhere, which leave the citizen the right to keep and bear arms, guaranteed in the Constitution, typically are much safer. More legal guns equal less crime. What criminal would be foolish enough to rob a gun store? But the government alleges that the citizen does not need this or that gun, number of guns, or amount of ammunition.
It's always gratifying to see a formerly knee-jerk Lefty come around to rational sanity. None of us is required to think the way we thought twenty years ago. We are meant to learn as we go through life.
In arguments about government intervention and control, it is usual for the Leftists and statists to produce straw men with whom to debate. There is a lot of space between government intrusion and life in the jungle. Lots of space. None of us Libertarian/Conservatives want no elected government, but we do want to be left alone. We have morals and we have brains. I always thought that a function of government was to provide the basic conditions (eg protection from foreign invasions, etc) so that we can go it alone in life. Americans are not raised to be Euroweenies, but we gather plenty of resources to help us get along in life, and give us avenues in which to do good deeds, which have nothing to do with government: friends, family, neighborhoods, churches, organizations, business affiliations, etc. All the things which so impressed de Toqueville about the American spirit.
From The "acting alone" fallacy:
The private sector isn't just a bunch of people "acting alone." As Matt Welch pointed out in his critique of the speech, making and selling an object as basic as a pencil is such a complex endeavor that it takes lots of different specialists. No one person has the knowledge to accomplish that seemingly simple task; that's how decentralized knowledge is in society. And with a truly complex product, like a computer or movie, the need for people to work together is even greater still. The private sector isn't fundamentally about everyone being secluded and isolated from each other; it typically involves many people working together. Government regulation often rules out the options people would otherwise want to pursue that would let them work together more. The idea that you're "alone" unless you're being directed by the government strikes me as dehumanizing and almost abusive. So I resist this scare tactic of presenting the government as the alternative to being "alone."
I entirely agree with 1 Boring Old Man.
Here's another: DSM5 Dead on Arrival!
 We have posted in the (ancient) past about what Greek temples and sculpture looked like when they were built. Vividly-painted.
Smithsonian used chemistry to recreate Aphrodite removing her nightie.
It's a Roman copy of a Greek sculpture, but "what difference does it make"?
No doubt about it. The press has abandoned their function. Ace's We Must Do Something About The Media:
What we are witnessing is the full and seamless fusion of media power with government power.
The media used to hide it a bit, in their actions; they would temper their scorn of conservatism, throw them a bone now and again just to prove they were capable of such a thing.
No longer. The media no longer hides it in their actions. They are fully fused with the Obama Administration and DNC. The only way in which they do hide it is by simply lying when confronted about it: They'll issue a snide denial, then go about doing precisely what it is they were accused of doing.
Related to the post we linked this morning from (the Liberal Dem) Mead on one of the assumptions of modern Liberalism (ie the notion that most of the masses will never do much or reach full self-sufficiency in a modern economy), here's A nation of takers.
Naturally, we wonder to what extent that could be a self-fulfilling notion.
Somewhat related, from Dino: Innovation and technology are killing the economy?
 Hilarious climate science fail by the warmists at GRIST (and now CNN)
Muslim Group Accuses Lego Of Raaaaacism
Rotten to the Core: Obama's War on Academic Standards
Europe’s Dream Becomes Its Nightmare - The EU and a less imperialistic U.S. are not proving to be a boon for Europe.
Cameron: I don't want a country called Europe
Kansas’ Governor and G.O.P. Seek to End Income Tax
Cuomo: Governor government
Walter Williams: Experts Aren’t Deities
More Conservative Boehner Emerging as Speaker
When it comes to end of life decisions, the state does not love you
Student uses AR-15 to fend off armed home invaders
Mead: Futuristic Blues:
The concept of an elite guiding national development for the benefit of those it governs remains operative today among blue partisans, but what’s changed is that the blue elite no longer sees a bright future for the masses. It turns out that there are two ways to think about the trajectory of liberal society. The traditional view is that over time the differences between elites and non-elites can and should shrink, and it is the proper goal of liberal policy to ensure that they do.
The other view is to believe that differences of talent and ambition ensure that the world will always be divided between a creative minority and an inert majority, and that the goal of social policy isn’t to eliminate that ineradicable difference, but to ensure that the process of recruitment into the elite is genuinely fair. Once the privileges of race, gender and fortune have been neutralized so that the elite is a purely meritocratic body, the members of the elite are obliged to concern themselves for the welfare of the majority, but there is nothing more to be done about equalizing their condition with that of the elite. Authority must rest in the hands of the qualified; those who score poorly on aptitude tests, don’t do well in classes and/or lack extraordinary beauty, artistic talent or ambition must resign themselves to taking direction from the natural aristocracy that a well ordered society has brought so smoothly to the fore.
Via Drudge, the Pope tweets in nine languages
Thursday, January 24. 2013
Ed Glaeser has a fine essay up, The GOP and the City - Conservative policies have greatly benefited urbanites. Why won’t Republicans seek their votes?
I doubt that even Rudy Giuliani, to whom a generation of New Yorkers owe gratitude, could have won NYC in a national election. As Glaeser notes,
The Republicans’ abandonment of the city is good neither for their party nor for urban America. The GOP clearly needs a heftier percentage of the urban vote, but winning it by means of fiscal pandering or redistribution isn’t the way to go—partly because such a strategy would cost rural and suburban votes and partly because it would be wrong. A better approach is to offer the good ideas that cities desperately need. Republicans have plenty.
Why is that, when Republicans have demonstrated effective answers to urban issues in the cities in which they have had influence while most deep blue cities are either dying or drowning in red ink?
It's embarrassing, really.
Whenever I do a movie review, I always include a clip highlighting the main actor doing his or her thing.
What a disgrace.
It seems as though I'm bedazzled by star power, completely ignoring all the lesser actors; those who really make the movie click.
But not this time.
No, this time I'm determined to focus on the supporting cast, those who really make the movie work; those who provide the surrounding aura so that Keanu Reeves may shine.
It's only fair.
I don't believe any further review is necessary.
 By 1880, New England had been almost completely deforested. Moose, Wolf, Black Bear, and Wild Turkey were gone or limited to tiny habitat islands. Deer were rare. Then profitable farming moved west to the rich plains of Ohio and Indiana. Good-bye to rocky New England.
With reforestation, Moose and Wild Turkey have rebounded, and Beaver, Bear, and White-Tailed Deer have become pests in some areas. So have the highly-adaptable coyotes, who moved into wolf territory (coyotes were never native to the Northeast) and are now considered pests in New England with generous hunting and trapping seasons for eastern coyotes, coydogs, and coy-wolves if any.
Those critters are all Wolf food, including coyotes. Maybe not the bears.
The new coyotes of the Northeast are larger than those of Western US and Canada, may have a few wolf genes, and a large male is easily mistaken for Wolf or German Shepherd.
There is only one species of Wolf in the world - Canis lupus. The species has - or had - a global reach, with all of its various subspecies (subspecies means races - of which the domesticated Dog is one. The Grey Wolf and the Eastern Wolf are probably the same subspecies, but there is much controversy about wolf subspecies genetics).
All domestic dogs in the world were genetically engineered from the Eurasian Grey Wolf subspecies, including African domestic dogs, beginning around 14,000 years ago. Wolves - dogs - were domesticated before any other animal but your average wild wolf cannot be civilized, even if raised from birth by man. Humans must have found the rare wolf individuals with civilizable genetic flaws as in photo below:
North America's Grey Wolf was an immigrant across the Bering Strait from Siberia and, along with the Cougar, were the dominant predators across the entire US and subarctic Canada.
Dominant predators require large ranges of undeveloped land, preferably without roads and cars. The Cougars will have a tough time repopulating the Northeast, but the Wolves can come down from Quebec. In dribs and drabs, they have been doing so. Probably lone wolves. Visual reports are not reliable, but DNA testing is so the animal has to be shot or trapped to be tested to distinguish the animal from a coydog, a coy-wolf, etc. I don't know why coyotes and wolves can interbreed if they are separate species.
There are no records of confirmed Wolf breeding or pack-forming yet in New England, but these occurences would not be surprising, and would be welcome to many. Wolves remain common enough in Canada to have popular hunting seasons for them. Wolves leave people alone, unlike foolish Cougars who sometimes confuse a jogger with a deer and eat them up.
Here's one report from the Adirondacks
About wolves in Maine
Some reports re wolves in New England
 About the Taurus Judge. That's what Marianne had. It will shoot a .410 cartridge.
Mayor Bloomberg never goes anywhere without his firearms
If the GOP wants to regain political power it will also have to find a middle ground on abortion. The demographics insist.
Where did European Jews come from?
U.S. Union Membership, Both Rate and Number, Continues Dropping
Liberal Blogger: ‘How Dare You Smear Hillary by Quoting Her Accurately!’
'What Difference Does It Make?' Mrs. Clinton finds herself in a familiar, if ironic, role.
Indoctrination about "white privilege" probably won't make kids into little liberals.
Hinderaker: Is Liberalism Doomed?
Top Obama Aide: U.S. System Not Worthy of Obama
The High Cost of Obama’s America
If They Were Baby Seals Instead of Just Babies...
NBC Panel Scolds Prince Harry: 'Why Do You Need to Antagonize the Taliban?
Heather on women in combat: "I am not aware of any comparable crusade to create gender-integrated football teams. At least America knows what’s really important."
Cameron promises Britain more freedom from European Union
Surprise! Mafia Heavily Involved With “Green” Energy
Wednesday, January 23. 2013
Cabin Fever Brown Ale from New Holland Brewery. It's cold outside.
The government now is on track to control medical care. What next? Michael Lind has just two items on his wish list: Voting rights for felons, and universal government child care.
However, we know that Leviathan's hunger for money and control is never sated. If you imagine that there is ever "enough," just ask a Leftist where the endpoint should be, the point at which government's task is complete.
There will always be a list, the job will never be done, and, still, utopia will never arrive because dystopia always arrives first.
Related: Gerard found that One Cosmos has reviewed Our Logophobic President, with his sarcasm button turned on. One sample:
"A great nation must protect its people from life's worst hazards and misfortune."
Hmm. Does that include protection from the most devastating hazard and misfortune of them all, the tyrannical and intrusive state?
Because if the 20th century taught us one lesson, it is that there is nothing more destructive than the all-wise and all-powerful state predicated on the fantasy that it will protect its citizens from all of life's unavoidable exigencies. I mean, just protect me from domestic and foreign enemies, okay? And stop violating with the Constitution. Then we'll talk.
What are life's worst hazards, anyway? Probably the same they've always been: war. Famine. Disease. Poverty. So, why don't we cure hunger by imitating the Soviet Union and putting the state in charge of food production and distribution? While we're at it, why doesn't the federal government create millions of pretend jobs and lavish its worthless employees with absurdly generous wages and benefits?
Oh, right. I guess Obama noticed how effectively that model is working here in California
Females today are "overrepresented" on almost every educational metric.
I propose affirmative action for boys to compensate for adverse impact.
|
