We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
This past weekend, my elder son asked me to drive him to the outlets so he could get some Ralph Lauren shirts at a reduced cost. Frankly, I don't know where he got this penchant for name brand clothing, but it's his money, not mine. What is my money is the gas it takes to drive an hour to the outlets and the time I gave up to make the 2 hour (round trip) drive. I thought it would be a good lesson for him on 2 levels. First, I could teach him about opportunity costs by showing him why the trip was frivolous. Second, he'd get some driving practice so he could get his license in 2 weeks.
I wound up getting to fulfill my goals, he got his shirts, and we both learned a valuable lesson.
No good deed goes unpunished. In other words, Murphy was right. You can almost count on unintended consequences.
Currier and Ives' Skating in Central Park (Lots more trees there than in the 1880s but it remains rus in urba, more or less, with some of the best birding in the East in migration time as a green oasis in a sea of urbanization along the Atlantic Flyway):
Newt is right, of course. The very poor need to learn work habits as early as possible, and perhaps more so than middle class kids, who tend to be surrounded by adults who have successful work and marital habits (Newt doesn't mention the marital habits, of course)
"America's growing IQ stratification, and the resulting class war that the clever are waging upon the clueless, is one of the great unmentionables." The subsequent subprime disaster exemplified this.
The Democratic Party has been hijacked by the grifters, con men, and hustlers who should be behind bars rather than behind the Justice Department, the EPA, the National Labor Relations Board, or countless other useless, worthless agencies which serve no purpose and have long overstayed their usefulness.
Leading this pack of these charlatans is its leader, Barack Hussein Obama aka Barry Soetero. If Obama is not the killer of American greatness, he is most certainly its weapon of choice.
Ouch. I think plenty of Dems are beginning to realize this now.
If I when my wife is sleeping and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping and the sun is a flame-white disc in silken mists above shining trees, if I in my north room dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself: "I am lonely, lonely. I was born to be lonely, I am best so!" If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, buttocks against the yellow drawn shades, Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household?
Dr. Williams, a college pal of Ezra Pound at Penn, practiced medicine in Rutherford, NJ until 1951 and delivered over 3000 babies. An optimistic and humane man and poet.
I know it's been said by many people many times, but I'll say it again: Sometimes, cameras do not record things - they create them. Reader reminded me of the Palliwood video below, which reminded me of OWS: would those people have been there without the nightly TV cameras, and all the attention from all the people walking by taking their pictures? I doubt it.
Thus the thousands of mostly cheerful people who swarmed into Macy's on Thanksgiving weekend to enjoy giving up their hard-earned money to evil corporations were not a meaningful meme, but thirty scruffy malcontents still at Zuccotti Park got their daily TV notoriety, maintaining the deeply meaning meme. The former activity does not require the presence of cameras, the latter does and therefore is Palliwood.
Greedy for visual content, those with the cameras create the news. Then they create the narrative to go along with it. Yes, we all know this already.
It's the festive time of year here in the USA. Saturnalia, as I term it - with Advent and the baby Jesus squeezed in there somewhere, out in the barn with the animals, or in our hearts.
Too much festivity packed into too short of a time. Party-hopping, dining out after cocktail parties and open-houses, eating too much tasty stuff, drinking too much, and seeing too many friends, old and new, to do them justice. The whirlwind already began this week, for us. I love it, but it also fatigues me. Even ran into an old prep school classmate at a large party last night, a guy I hadn't seen in around 5 years. "Hey, you look great," I said (lying). "So do you" he said (liar). "Let's go shooting sometime" he said (liar). "Great, love to" I replied (truthfully).
Here's one cool trick to save hassle for your holiday dining reservations: Open Table.com.
I love the old phrase: "We have the answer. Now what was the question again?"
It's the corollary to "For a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail."
Re my post yesterday, I still cannot understand why a jelly shop needs to be licensed and regulated. Haven't farmers been selling jams, jellies, and pies to happy customers for hundreds of years?
Lengthy and complex regulations are employment schemes for government employees and lawyers as much as anything else. Forget state regs -there are 86,000 pages in the Fed Register. Nobody knows what is in there, but it you violate one of them, you can be screwed.
Gotta love those headline writers. "Jobless Rate Falls" will be standard fare for the next week as the MSM continues its cheerleading to promote Obama's campaign. I'm not opposed to cheerleading if it makes sense. But we've heard all this before! It's a broken record.
More workers and lower unemployment are always good. But lying about their meaning is a huge problem. We don't have a hiring trend, let alone a trend meaningful enough to call for an economic recovery!
While part of the decline in the unemployment rate from 9.0 percent in October was due to people leaving the labor force, the household survey from which the jobless rate is derived also showed solid gains in employment.
In other words, about 3/4 of the drop in unemployment is from people leaving the workforce, while the long term trend since January 2011 is flat (at best). In addition, the size of the job gains are still minimal, don't represent a meaningful trend, and come as we gear up for - what? - holiday season. This is a snoozer from the MSM, but if it begins to show strength into 2012 (if we see 200,000+ jobs created in December, Jan, Feb), I'll happily eat crow. But we've seen growth of 122,000 jobs before during the recession. In fact, we've seen months of more than 200,000 several times. At what point does this story get old?
The rules are stacked against even the smallest of entrepreneurs. If and when I decided to set up my own thing, I already know what I'll need to borrow money for: Lawyers.
It is ironic that Jews are fighting the establishment on many college campuses, since Walt and Mearsheimer assert that Jews either are or control the establishment. However, an establishment has arisen at many colleges that tolerates, even supports, a leftist and pro-Palestinian alliance that attacks Israel and Jews and that undermines free speech and academic freedom.
The 1947 film produced by Darryl Zanuck, A Gentleman’s Agreement, stunned audiences with the exposure of upper-class bigotry toward Jews. It was elected the best movie of the year in the Oscars, won two more Oscars, and was nominated for five more.
This post, Jews Confront The Gentlemen’s Agreement On Campuses, is about two such groups that have been successful, and the depth of the gentlemen’s agreement on college campuses that is not only hateful or allows hate but is also inimical to free speech and academic freedom.
My deep felt thanks goes to one of the most prestigious publications, Arma Virumque of The New Criterion, and to its editor Roger Kimball, for posting an abridged version of Jews Confront The Gentlemen's Agreement On Campuses. As in all things, Kimball and The New Criterion stand up for the best of Western culture, under attack for its decency by those who would destroy it. (Just dive in to and savor The New Criterion's December 2011 issue, now online.)
In A Gentleman’s Agreement a reporter passes himself off as Jewish to explore anti-Semitism. He is shocked at how deep it runs among professional associates and friends, even his girlfriend. The gentleman’s agreement operated behind the scenes to discriminate against Jews despite laws or promises, while publicly denying its existence or that the perpetrators are bigots. Zanuck, not Jewish, decided to make the movie after he was rejected for membership in the Los Angeles Country Club who thought he was Jewish. Wikipedia continues: “Before filming commenced, Samuel Goldwyn and other Jewish film executives approached Darryl Zanuck and asked him not to make the film, fearing that it would "stir up trouble".”
Since then, American Jews have come to enjoy and expect successful acceptance in the United States. American Jews, also, took pride in the successes of Israel and Israel’s repeatedly almost-miraculous defensive wars against Arab invaders. Still, Israel and its bad neighborhood was thought of as far away. But, no longer.
Virulent pro-Palestinian groups ally with leftist groups that attack the US as they do Israel. Their demonstrations, their hate language toward Israel and Jews, their disruptions of pro-Israel speakers, their violence, have become all too common-place on US college campuses. Jews on campuses and outside have been shocked at this and have been even more shocked at the neutrality or support for these haters by some college administrators and faculty.
This post, Jews Confront The Gentlemen’s Agreement On Campuses, examines how Jewish groups are now fighting back against this new radical gentlemen’s agreement. Many Jews in “establishment” positions are as blind as the old Hollywood moguls, and complicit in not more forcefully confronting fellows in the establishment about this renewed anti-Semitism. Many Jews of the political Left are downright dismissive of the dangers of the excesses of the pro-Palestinian radicals they ally with.
Like Darryl Zanuck and the reporter in the film, the pro-Israel groups covered in my article are not afraid to “stir up trouble” to confront the hate culture that runs rampant on too many college campuses. More and more US Jews now know that Israel’s defense is no longer far away, and their own defense as Americans enjoying free speech, academic freedom, non-discrimination is under attack within academia, often looked away from or abetted by those in responsible positions who Jews once thought of as decent people.
For Internet posterity and additional guidance for those who may want to be more active, continue on to see “Jews Confront The Gentlemen’s Agreement On Campuses” in the much longer version of the article, which contains some differing views and lessons-learned/how-tos at the end.
Today, there’s a new gentlemen’s agreement on many college campuses that tolerates and often supports anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism. Shocked out of their comforts, many Jews are fighting back.
When we ask how our current political state of affairs measures up to the Founders’ standard, we usually find ourselves discussing whether a given law or program is constitutional, and soon enough get tangled in precedents and lawyerly rigmarole. But let’s frame the question a little differently: How far does present-day America meet the Founders’ ideal of free government, protecting individual liberty while avoiding what they considered tyranny? A few specific examples will serve as a gauge...
Read it. Wonderful essay. Another quote:
There’s indeed a lot of petty tyranny going around. The question is, at what point do many little tyrannies add up to Tyranny? Likely voters suggested a troubling answer in an August Rasmussen poll: 69 percent of them said they didn’t think today’s U.S. government enjoys the consent of the governed. And in September, 49 percent of respondents, an unprecedented high, told Gallup pollsters that “the federal government poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.”
So proclaims Andy Stern in the WSJ: China's Superior Economic Model - The free-market fundamentalist economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history.
A centrally-controlled Communist economy? Brilliant idea, Andy. Quite a novel idea. You in charge, of course?
You just have to laugh. I remember when the left envied the Soviet economy, the Cuban economy, the Japanese economy, the West German economy, the European economy. Now, the Chinese - until it blows up.
Spoiler alert: I usually just include a brief clip or two in my movie reviews so as not to give too much away, but the second part of this video is somewhat near the end so I figured it deserved an official spoiler alert. It's not the climax of the film, though, just a major hurdle to be overcome. As usual, this is designed to be played in full-screen mode, so click the little gadget on the player's tool bar to expand it, ESC to bring it back down.
The Viking god Thor was a pretty awesome dude, right? I mean, he was really strong and was the god of thunder and had that really cool hammer and-
Wait a sec.
A hammer? You mean, like, if a bunch of nails stage a rebellion, Thor's the guy to call?
A hammer? I warned him, "You know, you could put an eye out with that thing!" So, that's who you're up against? Someone who can give you a really nasty conk on the ol' noggin?
A hammer?
So there I was watching Thor the other night and wow, what a great movie. I confess I usually don't like 'superhero' movies. I thought Batman 6 stunk up the joint, every Superman has been absolutely terrible (except every scene with the irrepressible Gene Hackman, of course), I never bothered watching the other Spiderman movies after that first travesty, and the list goes on. Green Lantern and Captain America are both in my Netflix queue, but I'm not hopeful.
Side question: If you were producing the first major 'Superman' movie of the modern era, wouldn't you want the plot to be a little more plausible than "If you reverse the rotation of the Earth, time goes backwards"?
Anyway, not only was Thor terrific, but it also answered our original question:
A hammer?
Yes, Virginia, a hammer. Here are three ways in which he uses the empowered hammer Mjölnir, utilizing elements such as lightning, raw energy, and the awesome cyclonic power of the vortex.
Elements you would expect from the God of Thunder.
Like the last line in the clip, there are a handful of cute comedic moments blended in. When they first come across the handsome, unconscious Thor, one of the girls says, "Whoa, does he need CPR? Because I totally know CPR."
Given the temper of our time, perhaps Cook's recent brush with oblivion was to be expected. Cook's picturesque destinations -- Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Greece -- now offer torchlit barricades and street mobs spewing "off-with-their-heads" rhetoric. It is not exactly the stuff of tourist brochures.
Henninger: Bring Back the Smoke-Filled Rooms? The campaign-finance laws have made the presidential selection process a self-destructive mess. Eliminate the limits on individual donations.
The party elders used to select their candidates. Not any more.
Personally, I've been a supporter of switching back to a gold standard, even if only temporarily, in order to impose budgetary discipline and promote economic growth.
Regardless, it was only a matter of time before Emerging Economies started to catch up. In the long run, this will benefit the United States, because at some point their workers will want to live like us, demand wages like us, and spend like us. Outsourcing will shift back to high productivity areas like the US.
In the meantime, the question becomes a relatively simple one. Would you rather see the US grow at 2% a year and the rest of the world at 1% or less, or see the US grow at 3% a year and the rest of the world grow at 5% or more? The first is the situation we've been in, recently. The second is more likely over the long haul, because as other small nations grow, they will demand more from the US.
So I reject the concept that we're "finished financially" and suggest we're at a turning point, and the direction we go is dependent on whether we make intelligent economic decisions, or continue to engage crony capitalism financed by fiat currency.
Where we go is dependent on how we choose to manage our current state. Artificially, as we are now, or by focusing on our strengths, such as creativity, marketing, and education. We are entrepreneurs at heart. The rest of the world benefits from the vision and effort the US exhibits.
Let’s face it, most students want jobs or to get into good professional and graduate schools and therefore care little about useless general education courses and the formative process of education; Corporate America wants skilled workers, not philosophical or reflective employees (who might then question some of its practices); therefore, the marketplace reinforces the economic value of higher education and dictates the nature of the curriculum and the priority of the courses that are taught. To keep up with current trends, many colleges and universities market their product as “a major investment,” as the president of a selective four-year liberal arts college, stated, and then added: “And with returns that will last a lifetime, it’s one of the best investments anyone could make.” But students aren’t buying this highfalutin talk. They are buying degrees so that they can make money because Mass Culture U.—television, music, movies, advertising, celebrities—tells them that that means success. Like religion, the life of the mind can wait until, as one student told me, after she gets a job, gets married, has children, and settles down. Then she’ll have time to think about “art and books and all that stuff.”
I agree about the value of a "useless education." I also agree with his distinction between "liberal arts" and "job training." I think Prof. Anderson is likely an inspiring prof.
However, I think liberal arts education has become insanely and unnecessarily expensive, so that people feel forced to regard it as a financial investment. Ask me whether I think higher ed is a credentialling racket, or expensive babysitting for superannuated adolescents.
Also, I do not think "the life of the mind" is for everybody. Seems to me that we have many people feeling obligated to "attend college," whatever that means, when they would feel more motivated and engaged in "training" to do something practical instead.
#48 is a good one: You beat 50% of the people by just showing up. You beat another 40% by working hard. The last 10% is a dogfight in the free enterprise system.
This is kind of an 'observation test'. Let's see if you can figure out the answer to the question, "Why can't I market this remarkable item?" before the end.
How about a coffee mug that keeps your coffee warm up to ten times longer than a normal coffee mug?
Sounds pretty amazing — and sellable — doesn't it? I mean, lots of people prefer their coffee hot, and probably subconsciously drink it faster than they normally would, just to get it while it's still warm. Me, I use a coffee mug warmer plate which keeps it hot and allows me to drink it at a leisurely pace.
And think what an ad would look like for The Magic Coffee Mug. You'd have a bar graph showing how long various popular mugs keep the coffee warm, and while the other bars on the graph would be a quarter-inch high, The Magic Coffee Mug's would be four inches high. Very impressive, and sure to ignite a million sales.
Alas, I can't market this amazing product, even though I could probably get them for dirt cheap.
The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene in the United States' Capital this Christmas season. This isn't for any religious reason. They simply have not been able to find Three Wise Men in the Nation's Capitol.
A search for a virgin continues.
There was no problem, however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.
Danse Russe
It's the festive time of year here in the USA. Saturnalia, as I term it - with Advent and the baby Jesus squeezed in there somewhere, out in the barn with the animals, or in our hearts.
I love the old phrase: "We have the answer. Now what was the question again?"
What will make her happier: a new Hoover vacuum or this: 
From J.M. Anderson's 
This is kind of an 'observation test'. Let's see if you can figure out the answer to the question, "Why can't I market this remarkable item?" before the end.
Old-timey