Wednesday, November 17. 2010
 Brian Aitken's Mistake - A New Jersey man gets seven years for being a responsible gun owner.
Wilson Sonsini and Silicon Law
Use Wiki? Send them a few bucks.
Inflation = taxation. the stealth $600 billion tax increase
McGowan on the Blindness of the Times
I would read his book, but I already know what he is saying.
Advice on giving advice.
Related to advice, Gingrich: Obama should take off most of the rest of the year
Happy 5th Birthday to Pajamas.
Can these things make $?
Obama Whines: American - Journalists 'Never Say Thank You'
Show a little masculine dignity.
Prager: Fairy tales, and people aren't all good
Religion of Peace holds religious Death To America rally
Why the hate? Why the "hate speech"?
Waiver-mania! The ever-expanding Obamacare escapee list
We want a waiver for Maggie's Farm - staff and readers
Soros: China has better functioning government than U.S.
It's called a "dictatorship," shmuck. Move there, and tell them how to do their job better. Bring Friedman with you.
Is this an antique Colonial or a reproduction? Defend your judgement with details.
Tuesday, November 16. 2010
This morning, my 5th grader Jason asked me to help him choose a handicap for him to write an essay about for “abilities” day. I suggested “idiot savant”, since it demonstrated an advanced ability despite a severe disability.
His teacher had never heard of idiot savant! (Jason had the dictionary definition with him, to enlighten her.)
After school, we went to the annual Scholastic book fair. There wasn’t a single classic of literature, even in a child version. There wasn’t a single biography of a great person. There weren’t any geography books. There were no science books.
Jason reads at a 7th grade level. He read The Count Of Monte Cristo a few months ago. He invented something last term that a patent attorney is looking at now. He is in 6th grade math, doing elementary algebra.
I asked the teacher at the cash register where the classics were. She pointed at Diary Of A Wimpy Kid!
I asked where any books were beyond the 4th or 5th grade level ones there. She pointed at a cook book, saying that is difficult.
I guess that is why she is a teacher. Pablum is easy. And, this is one of the highest rated public schools in San Diego County.
That question is posed by Bryan Caplan on the signaling value of education, here, via our reader Mike's site, here. (Thanks, Mike)
My perspective on the topic is that educational signaling, like dressing well, good manners, or possessing a good pedigree, will only take you so far in life - maybe to your first or even second job, but it alone will not lead to a happy and productive lifetime white-collar career or careers. That requires fortunate combinations of personality traits including social skills, a bit of dignitas, leadership skills, savvy judgement, a quick penetrating brain, good ability to assess others, a cheerful but forceful disposition, integrity, good intuition, etc., of which many folks lack at least one element. (I lack more than one of those, which is why I am a Partner and not an employee. Like many Maggie's Farmers, I am not fit to be an employee but I am a darn good tough but caring boss: if you don't bs me, I'll be on your side when you screw things up - which you will.)
After the first or second job, the only real value of fancy academic signaling is social. The old school tie networking is highly over-rated these days (except amongst the Dartmouth Gang and the prep school kids who help their own tribe no matter what. Yalies? Not much anymore, since Yale went psychotic).
When we interview at my shop, we partners interrogate the candidates first, and glance at their resumes afterwards. We like to size a person up. Get the cut of their jib. We do not like slick, and we do not like negativity. We have a soft spot for vets and/or people with a strong sport because those things matter to us. We see through bs like a laser. We enjoy dry humor as well as raunchy humor, and are bored by conventional thinking and ordinary "nice" personalities. We try to decide whether this is a person we'd enjoy and benefit from having around every day, somebody we can learn from - and have fun with at dinners and parties. We like to be surprised, and we enjoy quirkiness when associated with brilliance and creativity. And we are looking for the beef: "Teach me something I don't know about ____"
(Admittedly, our candidates are screened first by our junior people, and how they do that is not my concern.)
The grand White Oak of eastern North America.
For the past 40 years, as farming has declined in the Northeast, it is not unusual to see one of these gnarly monsters among a woodland filled with younger trees. Sometimes in the midst of the stands of White Pines which often quickly fill abandoned pastures. The old White Oak is the sign that you are walking through an old cow pasture. Squint your eyes in the woods to eliminate all of the younger trees, and imagine dairy cattle chewing their cud in the shade of that old oak.
This is Frederic Church's View Near Stockbridge, MA, 1847:
I was good friends with one of these giants as a boy. Its lower branches reached almost to the ground, so that you could monkey up to 15' or 20' into the tree by going up those low limbs. Getting higher was difficult going - and slippery going from all of the moss growing on those big limbs.
New England is filled with second-growth forests, not too much climax forest yet. It's difficult to realize now, but in the late 1800s there was hardly a tree standing in rural New England other than in farmers' woodlots - and sugarbush.
My pic doesn't capture it, but this one has about a 5' diameter. We were hunting for Woodcock.
All worship was to him sacred, since he believed that in its most degraded forms, among the most ignorant and foolish of worshippers, there has yet been some true seeking after the Divine, and that between these and the most glorious ritual or the highest philosophic certainty, there lies so small a space that we may believe the Saints in Paradise regard it with a smile.
Via Potemra, who says "It’s from Elizabeth Waterhouse’s Thoughts of a Tertiary, and it was used by Evelyn Underhill as one of the epigraphs to her classic book Worship"
At Maggie's, we love the charms of both town and country - when they get it right. The decline of industrial urbanization and the (government-subsidized) rise of the suburbs - with the move of industry and corporate offices to the suburbs, have left many cities as hollow cores of their former selves.
Lively people like to live in cities if they are vibrant, safe, interesting, attractive - and if there is work. For example, much of Manhattan is so appealing that few can afford to live there.
Malanga at City Journal: The Next Wave of Urban Reform - Mayors Cory Booker and Dave Bing fight to save two of America’s most distressed cities. One quote:
Since the mid-1960s, many big-city mayors and Washington policymakers had argued that the problems plaguing America’s cities—rising crime, deteriorating schools, sluggish economies, and social dysfunction—resulted from national and global economic forces that urban politicians were powerless to resist. Out of that period came an array of ambitious federal programs to aid city residents and revitalize struggling urban neighborhoods. Even though the programs—many of them carried out under the banner of the War on Poverty—did little to boost cities’ fortunes, the refrain that urban woes were Washington’s responsibility became commonplace among mayors and remained so for nearly three decades.
But just a few years after the summit, America witnessed the rise of a new group of mayors who rejected the notion that the federal government—or anyone else—should be their savior.
Read the whole thing. Malanga tells the story well. Link above.
California’s government workers are protected from paying traffic violations the rest of Californians pay.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that California privacy law allows its 1.5-million government workers and some of their families to keep their home address private. A result: They “zip along toll roads and past red-light cameras with almost no worries about being caught because collection agencies have no address to send citations.”
The San Diego Democrat in charge of the state Appropriation Committee blocked legislation to close the loophole, failing to weigh the toll and fine collections against the estimated $3-million to use government employees’ agency address to collect.
The newly elected state legislature is facing a budget deficit of over $25-billion, and growing. First on its list of measures should be closing this loophole. Right?
An academic mercenary tells his story. A quote:
You've never heard of me, but there's a good chance that you've read some of my work. I'm a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can't detect, that you can't defend against, that you may not even know exists.
I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students. I've worked there full time since 2004. On any day of the academic year, I am working on upward of 20 assignments.
In the midst of this great recession, business is booming. At busy times, during midterms and finals, my company's staff of roughly 50 writers is not large enough to satisfy the demands of students who will pay for our work and claim it as their own.
From DiscoverTheNetworks, Organizations Funded Directly by George Soros and his Open Society Institute.
Related, Soros is targeting your state.
I've got to keep an eye on this guy, because his view of America and the world is so far from my own.
Monday, November 15. 2010
 Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just glad to see the TSA agent? With all the fuss about the TSA groping everybody's "junk," I think it's about time the TSA gave a waiver to Moslems so they aren't offended. No waiver for nuns, though. You never know what those sneaky nuns might be up to.
Anger is not a mental illness. Except when it is part of one.
Let's face facts: it can be fun to be pissed off.
Are we going to the dogs? Our de-aspirational society; or, a society aiming for victimization and tawdriness
I love that sort of cranky post.
So afraid of skin cancer that they get rickets.
Via Drudge, In-state tuition for illegal immigrants is preserved with California Supreme Court ruling
That's no way to run a railroad.
The Intellectual Class: New Book Calls Obama a ‘Philosopher President’
Good grief. Is he a Spinone?
Clarice's Pieces: Restoring American Stature Abroad
The Bower-in-Chief ain't the guy to do that.
Sarah Palin's true reality: 'Free' Alaska is a welfare state that enjoys generous federal subsidies
Sad but true. With all their oil, they should be supporting me. Oh, wait. I forgot. They can't drill.
Genius marketing: Buy Truck, Get Free AK-47
Solar power in Canada?
It's a joke, right? Or are they preparing for the Palm Trees in Saskatoon?
Health Care Reform Group Gets Waiver from… Health Care Reform?
Where can I get me my waiver?
Related: Unreal. SEIU Local 25 and 12 Other Union Groups Receive Obamacare Waivers
The super-rich tend to be Libs. Jacobson: Frank Rich Knows The Answer, He Just Can't Say It
Good news for Gaia is bad news for Greenies: Sea Life Flourishes in the Gulf.
Oil is carbon. Carbon is life.
No Pasaran: Everything you ever Really Needed to Know about the European Left
They hate Jews
Neoneo: Bush derangement syndrome vs. Obama derangement syndrome?
Coyote doesn't view voting as sacred. He'll take freedom anywhere he can find it.
Fan and Fred's New Boss is another 'affordable housing' advocate.
Brilliant!
Q&O: New York Times suddenly discovers governing as a priority for new GOP majority
Sometimes I confuse an Onion headline with a NYT headline.
Right Network video: Jackpot Justice: Lawyers Gone Wild
Left, Right agree: Obama’s G-20 performance worst ever
Is he a weenie, or a putz?
As Betsy considers, More evidence that Obama is in over his head in foreign policy
Sometimes I feel sorry for the guy - but not too often because I know he hates me.
Bridgeport's Missing Republican Votes
What happens in Bridgeport stays in Bridgeport.
Harry Reid wants more public employee unions.
They already own the federal government. What else do they need?
Gregory Kane: Nobody wants to talk about black America's gender crisis
It's racist to mention it.
The policy wreckage of the Chevy Volt. George Will.
It's a bad joke at the taxpayers' expense.
At NewsBusters.
In a sense, Krugman is right, and Palin was wrong to demagogue the issue. Why should Medicare (meaning us young folks) pick up the tab for elective, extra, and/or ineffective or marginally effective treatments? If people want those, they can pay for them, themselves. It is still legal, in America, to pay your doctor for his services.
Problem is that God rarely gives deep wisdom to expert panels.
 Get your John Galt t-shirts here. They're the in thing. Tiger wears one.
Rubin Museum: Sacred Symbols Across Two Cultures. Quote:
Almost every school kid know of his defense of the poor and slaying the dragon, a symbol of pagan Rome. Similarly, the Buddhist protector slays demons, but inner, psychological ones. He is depicted here as the six-armed Mahakala. In the Tibetan tradition his image is an object of meditation. As a "wrathful deity" his job is to quiet the mind or destroy the mind's chatter and help the person meditating reach a new level of awareness.
Aging brains and bloggers (h/t Insty)
Incoming Wisconsin, Ohio Governors Vow to Refuse Federal Money for High-Speed Rails
Reason: It's time to reform Social Security
Why the Fed Cannot Regulate ‘Systemic Risk’
Should there be a mortgage deduction? Should there be capital gains tax on sales of primary residences? NRO
Dino: Disputing the idea that “jobs won’t be coming back” is job one
Related at NY Post: Class dismissed: Why middle income jobs are not coming back
Lobbyists Upset About Demint Earmark Ban
Driscoll: Racist Nostalgia at the Village Voice
GOP Staking Claim to Obama's Coalition of Voters
Obama: ‘What About Compliments?’ Related at Powerline: American Narcissus
NPR switches story on tax money
Planned Parenthood Is Worried...and Should Be
32 degrees F at 5:30 AM. Perfect and balmy for morning coffee and cigar while strolling around outside and waking up. My snap did not capture the Vs of the Wood Ducks cruising in the small lake. Lots of Wood Ducks thereabouts.
Sunday, November 14. 2010
 I plead happily and mindlessly guilty to a habit of watching stupid action and sci-fi movies on my zone-out Saturday Night Stupid Movie cavalcade.
Last night I broke with tradition and watched a critically acclaimed film, one of the best who-done-its I’ve seen in ages, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
A notable theme: the beautiful, brilliant and troubled heroine refuses to be a victim or accept victimology-type excuses, holding others responsible for their actions and taking vengeance on those who commit heinous acts upon herself or others. The film is not for the squeamish.
There are two more films in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest. I really look forward to another two Not Saturday Night Stupid Movies.
The films are from Sweden, and if you go to Set-Up on the DVD you can get it dubbed well in English instead of distracting subtitles. You don’t want to miss a second.
The plans for the new National Museum of American Jewish History on Independence Mall in Philadelphia looked good to me. And, my friend, historian Judith Klinghoffer volunteered to be one of its first docents.
But, the newly opened reality, as Judith Klinghoffer describes, is empty of most of the American Jewish experience. As she puts it, “The architects were instructed to make sure that 'there was to be nothing religious in the Museum' and they have done just that.”
The contents of the exhibits:
Jews are indubitably free in America, but just how free do they feel? Or, to put it more precisely, how free do the museum creators feel? Do they feel free enough to assert their deep commitment to their age old religion? Do they feel free enough to acknowledge their ties to the global Jewish family? Do they feel free enough to take pride in their outsized contribution to America?
No. Instead, Judith wrote to the museum's leadership, "the museum almost seems to me an all out celebration of American Jewish radicalism."
Bummer.
Judith Klinghoffer has the credible background to criticize:
I have studied Jewish History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem with such eminent historians as Shmuel Ettinger and Saul Friedlander, have a PH.D. in American history, wrote numerous books and articles about a myriad of topics including on American Jewish history, my teaching experience ranges from Hebrew Day school to Graduate school and I currently write an acclaimed historical blog such eminent open minded rabbis such as Richard L. Rubinstein and Arthur Waskow deem worth reading and becoming my efriends.
Stick with it, and get past the Polar Bear example to the Einstein: A Hipbone Approach IV: Polar bears and polar opposites. He quotes CS Lewis:
What flows into you from the myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something but reality is about which truth is) and therefore every myth becomes the father of innumerable truths…
I could write, and run in circles, on this topic for days. So I won't. Plus I promised She Who Must Be Obeyed that I would clean up the kitchen. Fact.
Thanks again for the invite, dear friend. (If you wondered, it's gents only - and tobacco enjoyment is encouraged. Jacket and tie for dinner, of course. Traditional American, like Maggie's Farm.)
That's Harpoon UFO in the Growler. Their UFO is good stuff.
A fellow hunter at the lodge this weekend had his Spinone with him. (Pic of his pup below) This was a new breed to me. A pointer. They seem to run 70-80 lbs. His owner says that if you want one, make sure you buy it in Italy, not in the US. Relatively slow, methodical, and errorless hunters, it seems, with a style which sounds similar to that of the Munsterlanders: they do not run crazy, but search carefully and relentlessly, at a steady human pace.
It's all in the genes. (You would like this dog, Craig.)
His dog was very well-trained (in Italian commands, eg "Posto!"). He told me that they say in Italy that the face of a Spinone should look like an old philosopher. His dog had that look, and insisted on slobbering me with drooling kisses - perceiving, as any wise philosopher dog would, that Bird Dog is a dog guy.
The breed is said to be an ancestor of all of the pointers, with a pedigree dating to c. 500 AD. The fur is thick and wiry.
I could use a spare Spinone around the place (although they look like tick magnets). A good excuse for another trip to Italia.
Does due diligence need to include going undercover?
Some at the Brooklyn Law School have their panties in a knot about an authorized photo shoot by Diesel, known for youthfully pushing the clothing envelope.
For a fee to the school, Diesel took over the law library, and had fun hitting the books: “what they got was a steamy display of writhing young models in skimpy lingerie grinding against books and computers.”
The panties uptight response:
"It's gross. I work on those computers every day!" fumed a female student, referring to a shot showing two bra- and panty-clad women climbing over the machines toward an open-mouthed man.
"Ugh. The library fantasies are now relentless."…
Red-faced school officials said they were duped by Diesel.
"We are as shocked and mortified as you must be by these photographs," interim dean Michael Gerber wrote in an e-mail yesterday to students, faculty and staff.
My favorite:
In one shot, a woman crouches over a man lying facedown on a desk covered with legal tomes, with the rear of her pink panties bearing the words, "Today I am your school teacher."
His gray undies answer, "Tonight I am your student."
The law school spokesperson let this slip show:
But she admitted that Brooklyn Law events director Chris Gibbons was in attendance during the shoot, while the nearly nude models crawled all over the library's desks and each other.
The spokeswoman said she did not know whether Gibbons shouted "Objection!" when the ladies got lewd in the library.
See the photos for yourself. Now crack those books, and smiles.
h/t, Theo
Lib Walter Russell Mead does some introspection. A quote:
Give us more power because we understand the world better than you do, was the message. We are so smart, so well-credentialed, so careful to read all the best papers by all the certified experts that the recommendations we make and the regulations we write, however outlandish and burdensome they look to all you non-experts out there, are certain to work. Trust us because we are always right, and only fools and charlatans would be so stupid as to disagree.
Readers know that Soros really bugs me. He has the freedom to buy political speech, etc., if he wants, but I just can't stand the guy.
At Am Thinker, Soros Forgiven, Pope Not So Much.
Isaiah 65:17-25
65:17 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
65:18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
65:19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.
65:20 No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
65:21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
65:22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
65:23 They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD-- and their descendants as well.
65:24 Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
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