Monday, July 11. 2011
“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”
Frederic Bastiat, via Marginal Rev's excellent The Great Fiction
Polar Bear populations have been increasing steadily since 1950. Image from a piece at Watts.
 Scrubbing your mug shot from the net is a growing business.
But at $99 per mug shot, who can afford to remove them all? I suggest government subsidies.
The UN’s plan to dominate the world of energy and to redistribute wealth? “Climate change”
What's their Plan B? They might need one if they still want to rule the world.
VDH: The Great Madness of 2004-10
The hatred, the worship, the diagnosis
Met Office supercomputer tops polluting list:
But the Met Office is less than happy with the accolade. It said in a statement: “We recognise that our DEC rating [carbon dioxide emissions] is large but it is also necessary. Our supercomputer is vital for predictions of weather and climate change.”
Translate that as "vital for their jobs."
Chávez Is Believed to Have Colon Cancer
Heather MacDonald responds to defenses of DSK's maid
OK, Heather - but it is still not right to stiff your sex workers
Wehner: A Jobs Report That Defies Description
Reason: The Price of Big Government - Do the benefits ever outweigh the costs?
Bookworm: Why poor people should pay taxes (not lots of taxes, but some)
We agree that every person or family should have some skin in the game, or just be parasites
View from the Left (the NYT): The Worst Time to Slow the Economy
Their plan: raise taxes and increase government spending. However, that is always their plan for everything. Their faith never wavers.
Joe Klein: Time to Ax Public Programs That Don't Yield Results
His example is Head Start
Dan Greenfield: Government of Sociopaths
Unemployment Unexpectedly Up, President Hardest Hit
Geithner tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that it's a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people "it's going to feel very hard, harder than anything they've experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come."
Apparently he has no Plan B and is plumb out of ideas. Thanks, Timmy. We understand that a government cannot control an economy, but you guys did the opposite of what Reagan did. You guys jumped on the recession as a golden opportunity to increase the size of the federal government - and for pork.
Source: Dealing with Obama: “…beyond bizarre”
Sunday, July 10. 2011
Some shutters are inside the glass, some outside. They are all used, not ornamental.
The reason they are there is because, in stone, stucco, or brick construction, you have natural daytime air conditioning if you don't let too much sunlight in during mid-day. You will never see air-conditioners, because they don't need them except in modern office buildings.
The low-humidity Med climate, with cool nights, is perfect for humans with stone buildings.
I just stumbled on the random fact that Hartford CT, Cape Cod, Rome, and Istanbul all exist on latitude 41 N. Of course, just along that latitude is not the quickest route. Great circles and all that.
From Mead's Beyond the Big City Blues:
...we need to realize that many of the most pressing problems of the inner city cannot be solved by the government. We can find ways to decriminalize drugs and to reform the legal system so that fewer young people are incarcerated for long periods for non-violent offenses — but government cannot mend broken homes or put addicts in touch with a higher power able not only to ease their craving for drugs but to help them rebuild their lives. Government cannot take a nine year-old child who has never seen a healthy family and give the child the kind of psychological balance and strength children get from growing up in a loving and stable home. All the social workers in the world can’t fix this stuff.
What goes on in some of these families and communities after generations of breakdown and decay needs a kind of healing and care that government programs can’t provide — especially in a country like ours that for good and valid reasons has chosen to separate church and state. Some demons only come out with fasting and prayer, and the US government isn’t much good at either one.
 Our friend Nathan sends us this slice of pop culture from his visit to San Francisco. I never heard of Diesel, but Maggie's is light on pop culture. You might say that it's not really our beat.
Attended my first Diesel opening Friday.
OK, my first anything opening.
L., who helps Diesel, an Italian label, find possible stores and set up their design in U.S. cities, had invited me. Thursday late, she called, saying that Francis or Danieli of Diesel had called desperately saying that they needed extra props for the store: old TV sets, beat-up furniture. The theme was to be the aftermath of a tornado. We hulked a dusty tubed TV into her BMW, then over to the store on Market Street, where we were met by a cheerful helper, who opened the car door and announced, “Hi, I’m Jeremiah,” which name was also tattooed on his left neck, should a vampire be interested in the brand name of his source. But, easy to overlook Jeremiah’s name tattoo amongst the other skin art on him and others.
Branson also was helping with the design. He tops two meters and his height is enhanced by a dyed black hair wave that brings to mind Hirokawa’s tsunami prints; a flip of the wave at the top gives him a lopsided look, which he straightens with a smile. As we lugged TV, he unloaded broken branches for the window display. Tornado-esque.
Continue reading "Diesel Opening"
 I don't suppose NASA will mind my posting this ancient clip of the first "moon landing" (ha-ha, wink-wink). I'm sure they'd hate to see those ugly 'hoax' rumors start up again.
"NASA CENSORS BLOGGER - WHY??" screams the New York Post.
No, along with their global warming hoax, I'm sure NASA will want to keep this baby free from any controversy and safely under wraps. We won't be bothered as long as we toe the party line and at least pretend it happened.
With that said, this clip is a refreshing breath of air from the usual frenzied documentary-style show, where the scene changes every 2.1 seconds and you rarely get a chance to just sit there and contemplate the damn thing.
If you're really old and were alive back in the 80's, you might remember those airplane shows where each 1-hour episode would be on a specific plane. It'd be on some ancient WW II bomber and there'd be endless minutes of it just... flying... along.
No machine guns a'blazing, no enemy fighters on the attack, no 500-pounders being dropped, no narrator blathering away; just the big plane lumbering along and the drone of the engines. Using the same camera angle. For minutes upon end. You had to be a real lover of flying to watch those shows — but for those of us who were, it was terrific.
This reminds me of that.
 It's been Babyland here this Spring at ye olde New England homestead. Lots of nests, lots of baby birds fledging right now.
Within 15 yards of our cabin, this year we have successfully harbored nests or homes of:
2 pairs of Robins
1 House Wren family
1 Mourning Dove family (in our Wisteria, pooping on our porch chairs)
1 Catbird family
1 Cardinal family
1 Ruby-Throated Hummingbird family - a male and female are around all day, so I assume a tiny nest very close by
2 Cottontail bunny families - 2 litters each, I think
and, just a bit further away, a Red Tailed Hawk family which feeds on the baby bunnies and baby squirrels
1 (at least) Chipmunk family
Several Grey Squirrel families
1 Red Squirrel family
What's the secret? No cats and plenty of dense shrubberies, gardens, and evergreens. A big brush pile and some weed patches too. When the leaves fall, I will find other nests I didn't realize were there. Usually, a Song Sparrow, Goldfinch, or a nifty little Warbler nest.
I did not have the chance to do a breeding list for the entire Farm this year. It's easily done: You go out at 5 AM in early June and cover all of your land, listening for territorial songs while keeping your eyes open. At night, the owls. Next year...
Pic: The House Wren family is raising their babies in there. Every once in a while, one peeks out.
 Jeter Homers for 3,000th Hit, First Yank to Do it
Perfect families and divorce: Cultural Commitments & Marriage
New Internet Top-Level Domains Coming
It's about time
Sowell said it in 1975
McArdle: Hoover Was No Budget-Cutter
Disgusting. Memphis Reporter Mocks Mitt Romney’s Mormonism
Mitt would be better off as a Muslim
Priuses: Battle Formation! The Implacable Left Reads Obama the Riot Act
Media Matters and Dem Groups Form Organization to Track GOP Candidates with Army of Videographers
Dirty tricks, basically. My theory is that Conservatives are all too busy doing or creating real jobs to do this sort of thing.
The GOP's Demographic Problem
Media Bias 101: How liberal lies seep into our pop culture and become “fact” (UPDATED)
The New York Times: Lying For The DFL
At Overcoming Bias:
1. Why such a consistent focus on the same three charity-related areas over such a long time? In general the simplest way to help folks is to give them cash. One needs other relevant factors to explain a desire to help in other ways. And to explain a consistent focus over many centuries, such factors must stay relevant over many centuries.
2. Why did charity-like spending grow from a tiny to a huge fraction of GDP? Why are we today so much more eager for charity-like spending?
Genesis 25:19-34
25:19 These are the descendants of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham was the father of Isaac,
25:20 and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean.
25:21 Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived.
25:22 The children struggled together within her; and she said, "If it is to be this way, why do I live?" So she went to inquire of the LORD.
25:23 And the LORD said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger."
25:24 When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb.
25:25 The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau.
25:26 Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
25:27 When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.
25:28 Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob.
25:29 Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished.
25:30 Esau said to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!" (Therefore he was called Edom.)
25:31 Jacob said, "First sell me your birthright."
25:32 Esau said, "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?"
25:33 Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.
25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
We often use this story as a metaphor for what Americans have been doing with their birthright of individual liberty, but I know that's not what the story is about.
Saturday, July 9. 2011
More on Skepchick and Dawkins. I'm with Dawkins on this one.
Guys have to be bold enough to hit on girls that charm them. Bars are the worst places to do that, but there is no best place. Elevators? Well, I dunno, but the location is not the point. If guys wait for gals to do it, they might wait forever, and the human species ends.
If a gal doesn't want to be approached, she can wear a wedding ring, or a button that says "F-off." Or a facial expression that says the same thing. Don't try to look Lesbian - some guys will view that as a challenge unless you are butch and fat.
Read the piece. The comments are fun.
 We love Fawlty Towers, and can quote most lines from them, and Brideshead Revisited was darn good, but the best series ever made for TV was from John LeCarre's book Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Six hours of dark, haunting intrigue, with the best casting imaginable. Alec Guiness is understatedly great, of course, but the others are equally remarkable. The character development is the best part of the series: the spy stuff provides the dramatic tension.
Even in the post cold-war era, one hell of a story. Perfect TV. See it.
 We grow them in pots. Pretty colors, but the main point is for salads.
The smaller leaves (the largest leaves are a bit tough) add a spicy, peppery flavor to a salato misto. We also like to throw Nasturtium flowers on top of a salad (after tossing it). The flowers look good and taste good.
Here's a link about Nasturtiums as food.
 The great Thunderbird email program just went through a major revision and a number of its add-ons stopped working. According to the sleuths over at their forum, many of them actually still work, but have a built-in limit as to their validity (which versions of T-Bird they'll work with), so when Thunderbird hit the big 5-point-oh, they declared themselves to be 'possibly incompatible' and T-Bird took that to mean they were toast.
What makes this program so great is that it handles multiple identities, yet treats them completely separately when it comes to ISP configurations, passwords and the 'From' identity when replying to people. Plus, it nicely lists the identities along the left sidebar, each one followed by its own 'Inbox', 'Sent', etc, folder. Not bad for a free program. My page on it is here.
As far as the wayward add-ons go, I use one to organize the sidebar and another to minimize the program to the SysTray, both of which turned belly-up with the latest update and both of which I found working replacements for. They're on the page above. For the rest, you'll either have to do a Google search, looking for "thunderbird add-on" and a concise description of what you want it to do, or tweak the version number of your current add-on as described on the above forum page.
From: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
 What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
Read entire below the fold.
Continue reading "Saturday Verse: William Wordsworth (1770-1850)"
This is one of our Pee Wee Oakleaf Hydrangeas. It shows what happens when you prune them: almost no blooms. Even though it is a dwarf version Oakleaf, it outgrew its space and I had to shape it aggressively this winter.
Next year, it will be fine if I leave it alone.
Friday, July 8. 2011
 From Ace: When Government Liberals Are Set Free - Nightmare In Connecticut. (Thanks, reader.)
It's a vicious cycle. The more you drive enterprise away, the more you need to soak the remaining people and the remaining businesses who have any money, and thus the more you drive business away or out of business.
Plunder only works to a point, and then you end up with Detroit or Greece.
CT even just placed a stiff tax on non-profit hospitals, if you can believe that. It is bad, and getting worse. One might easily imagine that they are trying to drive all of us to Florida. Personally, I do not care for Florida very much, and snow doesn't bother me at all. Weather is what you make of it and I make the best of it.
It's getting to the point that my state is only a good deal for the very rich (who can afford to avoid taxes or who don't care what they are) and the very poor. Oh yes, I almost forgot - and for government unions. The urban, unemployed poor, the government unions, and the limo Liberals in West Hartford, Litchfield County, and Fairfield County, own my state, at the moment.
It hardly seems like rugged Yankeeland here, politically, anymore. It's Gimme-land. The people with the olde codes have died or are no longer breeding. And to think that our Conservative governor candidate lost by only 6000 votes found, several days after the election, in bags in a Bridgeport warehouse or post office or something. Maybe it was legit. I don't know, but anything in Bridgeport is dubious these days.
 By Dr. Joel Levine: When the Doctor Goes Home: The Coming Indifference of American Medicine.
Thirty years ago, the training and practice of medicine was deeply rooted in "inherited" values as much as craft. Physicians were in a noble discipline recast into paladins protecting society, even a bit of its soul, against an implacable adversary. Training was both arduous and flawed (inflated egos and autocratic mice that roared) but with a central purpose. When done well, doctors successfully confronted their most difficult internal challenges, fear of the power of illness and the willfulness to make important decisions when the consequence was uncertain. This "old" medical culture was best expressed by a single term: "My patient." It was as far from provider and client as you could possibly get. "My patient" conveyed both bond and responsibility.
We are about to burn the bridges to this tradition from both ends.
Read it all, because this is what is coming to your town soon with Obamacare. Some of you have already seen it. Mass-market medicine, by the rule-book, "delivered" by anonymous "providers" to the masses. I plan to stick with the old ways for as long as I can.
From George Leef: A Book President Obama Should Read - “Professor X” underscores the folly of luring hordes of weak students into college.
A quote:
A theme that recurs throughout the book is that most of X’s students aren’t in college by choice. They aren’t in his class because they want to learn about literature or even because they realize that they are weak in reading and writing. Instead, they’re in college because they have to get the credential!
Drawing an analogy to the housing bubble (as we at the Pope Center have on several occasions), Professor X writes, “In much the same way the country spent the first decade of the 2000s redefining what it meant to be a homeowner (to disastrous effect), so too have we reclassified which jobs require a college degree of some sort. Industry, including the civil service, wants its workers to be as credentialed as possible.” Therefore we find college degree “requirements” for jobs like managing a video store.
One result is that poor kids (and sometimes middle-aged adults) who want to escape from the drudgery of their current jobs and have a chance at even such mundane work as managing a video store have to get college degrees. Their coursework will enhance their ability to do that job scarcely one smidgen, but it’s the credential that matters. They have to spend or borrow money to take X’s evening course (and many others) just to get out of the “no college” trap.
Well, since others are weighing in with their election predictions, I thought I'd do the same. No sense in dawdling, right?
Obama in a landslide.
Pending change in circumstance, I hastily add.
As it stands now, I just can't see a Republican win. All of the declared candidates contain major flaws which the MSM will mercilessly exploit, both overtly and covertly, blatantly and subliminally, and I find none of the candidates inspirational in the slightest.
And the poor selection is only one of our worries.
The one, basic, inherent problem here is that conservatives are conservative. I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. And, as such, by definition alone they're not very activistic, tending to sit around on their duffs while the liberals make all the moves. It's no mystery why so many institutions and the major media realms, including the tech world, are dominated by liberals. It's because they try.
My job here is to get some of you to try.
My initial leap into the upcoming election was to create SpeakUp! 2012, a how-to guide for putting together a snappy blog site and then spreading the word around. If you want to show a little gumption and have a say in the election, that's the way to do it. The free WordPress software (the stuff that Power Line just switched to) is terrific and very easy to use. The guide will walk you through the entire process from this moment on. Plus, you've got me trapped here to pester with questions if you run into a snag.
Below the fold I'll run through the candidates in my usual calm, careful, deliberate manner as I soundly castigate, shred, thrash, defile, lambaste, maul, abuse and abase view them with the same objectivity I always show.
Which is to say, none.
Continue reading "Election 2012: A tough row to hoe"
Michelle Bachmann replies to whether remark is sexist that her "sex appeal" is attractive to voters:
Well, listen, I’m 55 years old. I’ve given birth to five kids and I’ve raised 23 foster kids, so that sounds like good news to me.
(H/T: Ed Morrissey)
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The Big Apple Celebrates the King James Bible