Sunday, October 17. 2010
San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Gretel Kovach has been reporting for the past six-weeks on her embed with the US Marines in Afghanistan.
Today, she writes her summary of what she has observed and learned, 'Time. It will take some time'. It is straight-forward reporting, and as good a comprehensive insight as you'll find in major media. Very well-worth reading.
 Any Hoyt Axton fans at Maggie's? (He died in 1999.)
He wrote Joy to the World, Greenback Dollar, etc. His Mom wrote Heartbreak Hotel. Bio here.
 Merkel says German multicultural society has failed
Desmond Tutu: Obama’s Other Anti-Semitic Guru
Murdoch: The goal is to make Israel a pariah
David Warren: End our 'multiuniversities'
Gelinas wonders whether TARP was good or bad, effective or ineffective
Tides Foundation CEO To Fox News Advertisers: Drop Glenn Beck Or Have Blood On Your Hands
Ilya Somin on The Florida District Court Decision Rejecting the Federal Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Case Against the Individual Mandate
A great example of an elitist viewpoint, with takedown by Dino
Betsy: Teachers putting themselves ahead of their students
Ahmadinejad’s Deadly Triumph in Lebanon
Driscoll: All the Way with LBJ!
Union Bosses Are Funneling Millions to Democrats to Keep Money Flowing To Them
Rasmussen:
Voter nervousness about the economy, Rasmussen noted, is clear in the declining number of people he finds who feel their own finances are “in good order.” Two years ago, he recalled, 43% of Americans felt their finances were in good order, 38% felt this way the day Barack Obama was elected, and 35% felt that way on the day he took office as President.
“At the beginning of the year, that figure dropped to 32%,” he added, “and today, it is down to 30%.” Rasmussen also said that more than half of homeowners are “unsure if their home is worth more than their mortgage.
2 Timothy 3:14-4:5
3:14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it,
3:15 and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
3:16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
3:17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you:
4:2 proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.
4:3 For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires,
4:4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.
4:5 As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.
Saturday, October 16. 2010
 Maybe our most common winter sparrow in the NE, the White Throated spends most of his time on the ground and in low shrubs looking for berries, seeds and hibernating bugs. Likes bird-feeders.
He'll be coming down from the breeding grounds in Canada around now, and will give us a chance to hear his familiar pleasant songs (the link has songs).
Mead explains that all it does is to export pollution and jobs to places like China. From his essay:
The left leaning Guardian newspaper in Britain let the cat out of the bag yesterday, reporting that while the EU’s emission of CO2 declined by 17% between 1990 and 2010, this apparent progress was bogus. If you add up the CO2 released by the goods and services Europeans consumed, as opposed to the CO2 thrown off by the goods and services they produced, the EU was responsible for 40% more CO2 in 2010 than in 1990. The EU, as the Guardian puts it, has been outsourcing pollution — and jobs — rather than cutting back on greenhouse gasses.
EU “progress” on greenhouse gasses in the last twenty years was a mirage. And the only reason that the EU can pretend to look green is that it was outsourcing economic growth to countries like China.
Barone: The Democratic 'D' Now Stands for Demagoguery
If we tried to start The Home Depot today, it's a stone cold certainty that it would never have gotten off the ground.
Peter Wehner on the discontent in the White House
The Texas Model: Texas created half the news jobs in the US last year. How?
Government Regulation of the Economy Is the ‘Silent Killer’
Neither of these seems too swift to me, but Reid lost the debate to Angle
Private Health Insurance Will Be Dead in 3 Years
People aren't spending money
Roger Simon: Is California Insane? A quote:
It is a depressed place made up of terrified people, clinging to the solutions of another era. The idea that the electorate could even consider electing Jerry Brown in 2010 attests to that. At least you can understand the union workers — who are desperate to maintain their unsustainable pensions — supporting him, but the rest of the populace? You are dealing with a form of habituation so deep reality has no place in the equation.
California now is the state of the childishly threatened.
It's difficult for anybody to keep up with the most current correct views on homosexuality
The French really do not like to work. It's much more fun to protest, meet chicks, drink wine, etc.
Nanny Bloomberg and the truth about second-hand smoke. (It is harmless.)
Mankiw: Barney Frank, Then and Now
Iowahawk: Beltway Adventure. Wonderful.
Our wonderful, invigorating cold weather is finally upon us, despite the warming alarums. I got my wood. It's a start, at least. That's about two cords, and I'll need another two to get to Spring.
I am not good for much, but I can split wood pretty good.
Friday, October 15. 2010
From Dick Morris:
The single most amazing thing in this year’s campaigns is that no one is defending President Obama’s legislative accomplishments.
Obama’s impact has been revolutionary: radically changing our health-care system, betting our national solvency on “stimulus,” erasing the line between the public and private sectors. Yet there is an almost total lack of support for his program on the stump.
At American Thinker, America's Food Stamp Culture. One quote:
Nationwide, 6 percent of food stamp benefits are spent on sugary beverages, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program.
and
...despite food stamps and myriad other social programs created by big-spending liberals, poor Americans are more unhealthy than ever -- overweight and even obese, and suffering high levels of diabetes. Contrary to what Harrington argued, poor Americans are unhealthy because of their personal choices and lifestyles. It's likely that many are poor for the same reasons.
True. Furthermore, poverty is by no means the worst thing in life - especially when it is by choice. For one example, the hippie goat farmer down my road. For another, the fourth-generation dairy farmer down our road who still puts his cattle out on grass. Trust me - these skinny folks do not take food stamps even though they could qualify.
Here is a re-posted sample of a few decent places to stay for your New England grouse hunting, ranging from the simple to the quite comfortable (some have fishing too):
 Bosebuck Mountain Camps
Miramichi Inn
King and Bartlett
Partridge Cabins
Lopstick Cabins
and in the Adirondacks, The Hungry Trout
These are just some of the places we've been to or heard about first-hand. Here's a good source for Maine outfitters.
Photo: A cabin at Bosebuck, where the only heat is your wood stove and your dog, the bunks are lumpy, the Canada Jays steal the dog kibbles of a slow eater, and where the locals cruise the dirt roads and shoot the partidges along the road from their pick-ups, while the sports in their expensive attire bust the brush with their dogs. Grouse huntin' ain't shopping. It's a rare occasion when I've limited out at 4 birds in an 8-hour, leg-testing day in the woods and marsh edges (think 8 hours of singles tennis in mud, bogs, raspberry brambles and cage-like alder thickets). It's a work-out. At some point, you start wondering how long it is to cocktail hour. The Woodcock keep it interesting and varied. It's a 20 ga. sport, or even 28 ga.
Hunting grouse is wonderfully difficult, challenging, and frustrating - but you get to spend time in the wild woods with dogs and pals and guns, smoking at will and accumulating precious memories to re-live in your old age.
 From Sipp, or Greg Sullivan, or whatever his current alias is. A quote:
Me, I'm self-employed, so I always have to be on the lookout lest my next meal comes out of that dumpster I mentioned earlier. My resellers went bankrupt with a bucket of my money, my biggest customer went bust and handed me a five figure loss, the forty percent equity I had in my house might as well have been forty dollars, the state of Massachusetts demanded I purchase $13,000 worth of health insurance with an adjusted gross income that was hovering a little above that just then, and the banks that lent me money at 3% would like it paid back at 30%. Or immediately. Immediately would work for them, they said. Time for a change.
It's illegal to vote with your feet using the method I had in mind for many of the people foremost in my mind last year --using a shod foot like that is a felony -- so we decided that we'd move instead.
Read the whole thing. It's America today. Also, if you happen to be a Down-easter, read the Meteor. It's your only reliable source of info...assuming you can get contact with the intertubes up there.
Last night, Professor Barry Rubin, Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center in Israel, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, author of over 50 books, was the guest of the San Diego Israel Coalition (SDIC).
The SDIC, with about 600 Jewish and Christian members, near packed the large auditorium in La Jolla, and heard good news from Israel. This may have come as a surprise to many, accustomed to the gloomier commentary in the US from supporters and adversaries of Israel.
According to Barry Rubin’s view from Israel, Israel is in the strongest situation in decades. It is the West and Arab states that are in the weakest.
Continue reading "Some Good News From Israel"
How worrisome is habitat loss? I find it highly worrisome. There are many ways for free-market Conservatives to be Conservationists. I am just one example. There are tons of us tree-hugger and turtle-lover Cons out there.
Boot: Shift in momentum in Afghanistan
Tea Partiers love killing miners? The guy has fallen off the reality cliff.
News flash: First Lady eats burger and fries
Krauthammer on "appearances":
He is a tax-and-spend Democrat. He spent a trillion dollars — and we’re going to have to borrow or tax it — on the stimulus. He‘s going to spend $2 trillion to $3 trillion on health care — we’ll borrow or tax it. Cap-and-trade is spending that you’re going to have to [tax for]. That’s [a tax-and-spend Democrat] what he is. That’s why the electorate is against him. It’s not appearances. It’s substance.
Jonah: Obama's Arrogance Starting to Get Noticed
Feed the Indians, get votes.
Prof B:
The basic problem I have with behavioral economics is that its proponents have never met a problem that could be solved without legislation or regulation. Indeed, it's practitioners seems to skew heavily towards liberal paternalism. As Josh put it, "the behavioral law and economics literature nearly uniformly applies the insights of behavioral economics to justify paternalistic intervention."
I have a father. Do not need another one. But, Prof B, watch your "it's"es.
Scott Brown endorses in MA
Barone: They ignored us
Am Thinker: Three Things Government Cannot Do:
Our federal government does not, and cannot, (1) produce products, (2) create wealth, or (3) provide jobs that pay for themselves.
The interconnectedness of these economic truths is not well-understood (especially by the political classes).
Thursday, October 14. 2010
As Dr. Newmark points out in his post, psychiatry remains profoundly different from the rest of medicine, where diagnosis is everything, in this respect. If a patient presents with chest pain, it is supremely important to know whether it is due to a heart attack, aortic dissection, bronchitis, pulmonary embolus, gastroesophageal reflux, or costochondritis, because each of these calls for clearly distinct treatments. Psychiatry is not like that. Deciding whether a person's diagnosis is depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia will suggest moderate differences in treatment, but the latter will derive more from specific symptoms and personal background. This goes to show that psychiatry remains far more art (or "art") than science. The research-powers that be have yet to persuade the practitioner otherwise.
I agree with everything in his post, and my colleagues agree that the DSM is pseudo-scientific and pseudo-medical, designed for insurance forms and research purposes.
Brooklyn College English professor Moustafa Bayoumi’s books continue to be at the center of whether fact or fiction will prevail at Brooklyn College. This might even be viewed as indicative of the wider struggle within US academia over the influence of the Left and many of its adherents’ support of Islamist views.
Last month, as an alumnus, I posted my disinheriting the college in protest against one of Prof. Bayoumi’s books being the required sole Common Reading for incoming students. Unexpectedly, this touched a wider nerve which led to all three major NYC newspapers and many prominent blogs (here and here are follow-ups) reporting on the issue and one of the major newspapers blasting the college’s selection in an editorial.
The two books are Prof. Bayoumi’s required reading for entering students, the sole one, that Arab-Americans are excessively the brunt of discrimination, and his current book attacking the Israeli actions regarding the Mavi Marmara blockade-running attempt to deliver supplies to Gaza.
We have one of the college’s most Distinguished professors, Broeklundian Professor Robert Cherry of the Economics department, self-professed man of the Left, expert in discrimination against minorities in labor markets, revealing the false statistics at the core of Prof. Bayoumi’s continual arguments that Arab-Americans are disproportionately discriminated against.
We have the administration of the college continuing to act without transparency as to how Prof. Bayoumi’s book came to be selected for all incoming students to read, in the absence of other books or views, and failing to publicly address how that process may be improved in the future. Perhaps, Prof. Cherry’s talk next Tuesday at the college’s Hillel, of which I have the draft text (below the fold), will spur more procedural openness and caution against ideological recklessness.
Meanwhile, we have the Managing Editor of the campus newspaper, who in 2005 blessed (“Amen”) 9/11 Trutherism, writing a paean to Prof. Bayoumi’s collection of essays criticizing what the book titles the Israel “attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla” ship Mavi Marmara. Perhaps, students or faculty at the college may be spurred to pay attention to the news coverage, including from sources usually critical of Israel, to the contrary.
Both perhaps are to be hoped for, but not to be counted upon unless there is more pressure from within the campus and its alumni.
Continue reading "Fact and Fiction at Brooklyn College"
A few people asked me for the lyrics of "The Little Bell" which we posted a few days ago.
I wanted them too. I know no Russian, but the song hardly needed English lyrics to be understood. Here's a Red Army Chorus rendition of this heart-wrenching tune, with English subtitles. This is Russian soul music, and Russians have soul if nothing else.
h/t to SDA for reminding me of this old Milton Friedman talk Lesson of the Pencil. Basic economics.
"Nobody knows how to make a pencil."
Jerry Brown claims we need fewer jobs and more welfare. If jobs are bad, why is he trying to get a job as governor?
Often, these days, reading the news threatens my sense of reality. Consensual reality just is not what it used to be.
Today, jobless benefits applications rise.
 Bake a split Butternut Squash until cooked but with the meat firm - not mushy.
Sautee some chopped onions with garlic, butter, and olive oil. Then toss in 1-2" cubes of the peeled squash, with salt and pepper, a teaspoon or two of sugar, and chopped sage, and sautee it all together for a little while, but don't let the squash cubes disintegrate. Add more butter and oil, and a little water, if it gets too dry.
Some people like to add hunks of turkey sausage, and some like to add a splash of brandy.
I think this sauce works best with a chunky pasta like Farfalle.
As I remind people, always stir pasta with the sauce in the sautee pan before serving. That's why they make big sautee pans - to mix the sauce with the pasta. Sauce plopped on top is not the right way to do it.
Top with a sprinkling of parmesan and some pignolis.
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