Saturday, October 9. 2010
 A review of a new book of his letters. One quote:
One journal entry tells us that he turned down a job at the University of Chicago lest Saul Bellow and the sociologist Edward Shils—both of whom taught there—discover that he was not as smart as they thought he was.
I love that humility from a politician. Readers know that I do not view poltics as a career: I like to view it as a temporary public service for care of country. However, I do understand that these people want jobs with good benefits. Who doesn't enjoy freebies with a job without heavy lifting?
He's rich and plays in politics because his father-in-law owns the Empire State Building, and presumably supports his life style. Video at Ace. What a weenie putz.
Linda has created jobs, built a large business, and knows how the world works.
You don't approve of wrestling entertainment? Then what job-creating, profitable biz could any candidate have been in that you would approve of?
How different is wrestling from MSM news? We need more entrepreneurs in government, and fewer professional politicians who know nothing except government. Government is a parasite. Blumenthal has been on the government teat all of his life - and I assume, the teat of his in-laws. It's all ego for him because he has never done anything real in his life.
Send this smarmy, slippery, phony jerk back to his poolside in Greenwich. He'll be just fine, like his dear buddy Spitzer (they are called "the twins") in New York who I think also lives off family real estate in NYC when he isn't busy with hookers.
For true Yankees, being able to sail is a basic outdoor life skill, along with riding a horse, tennis, swimming, ice-skating, log-splitting, starting a fire, dog-training, and shooting. Every region of the country, and the world, has its basics, doesn't it?
One-design racing boats. Sailing season is winding down in the Northeast US, but for no good reason I thought it time to review a few cool boats. If you have never raced, you have no idea how complicated and tricky this game is - or how athletic it can be. Talent, knowledge, experience, and skill win consistently.
The Star (or International Star, or "Starboat"). This 22' 2-man keelboat was designed in 1910. No spinnaker: whisker pole for the jib downwind. It remains an Olympic Class and a favorite of serious racers. Plenty of professional big boat racers would be happier racing a Star, but there's not much money in it unless you are a sail salesman on the side. Not much fun for a day sail.
A new Star goes for around $50-60,000; used $16-35,000, depending on equipment, quality, and age.
Another popular racing class, and also an Olympic class. The Etchells, designed in 1965 by Connecticut's Skip Etchells. A 30' 3-4-man keelboat. You can buy a used Etchells for $15-30,000. There is almost no reason to ever buy a new fiberglass sailboat. A new suit of sails and fancy rigging can cost almost the price of the used boat, however.
The good old Lightning. I could race one of these, blindfolded. A light hand on the tiller telegraphs even subtle wind shifts. The class is nowhere near as large as it once was, but is still one of the largest one-design classes. A 19' three-man racer with a centerboard, the Lightning also doubles as an enjoyable day-sailer.
Over 300,000 Sunfish have been built since the 1950s. Ancient lateen rig. No sailboat is more fun for two people, preferably you at age 18 and a girl in a loose bikini. People do race them - one man - for fun and for serious. We used to think it was amusing to capsize a Sunfish and listen to the girl squeal when her boobs fell out of her top, but the best was when my buddy and I would go out right after a hurricane and surf the 10-15'-foot waves on a Sunfish. (How, and why, did we survive? Our parents never knew we were out there, no life jackets, etc. My Mom would have killed me. She was a serious sailor, though, in youth.)
We learned a lot about boat-handling in the process.
My final boat du Jour, the 33' J-105. Quite popular these days, as a racer and a day-sailer or cruising sailboat. Not much overhead in the cabin, however, and it's a handful for amateurs in a stiff breeze. Over 700 of them have been built. Fast boat. A pal of mine just bought a new one (around $250,000), and promised me we would sail her before he puts her away for the winter. He is getting new carbon fiber sails made. I'd like to take her for a spin in a 25 knot breeze. We'll see whether he calls me...
 George Will:
If Democrats lose both houses, Obama will seem repudiated. If they lose neither, he will seem impotent. So, if Democrats lose big, he loses big. If they lose smaller, he loses bigger.
Union pushes for Obamacare, then is granted waiver
Socialism for thee but not for me
Rasmussen: Tea Party Participation Up As Election Nears
Am Thinker:
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $700,000 grant to a New York City theater company to finance the production of a play about climate change. A musical.
Good grief. This sounds like The Producers.
On the dole in the UK
EPA to drain $1 trillion from economy
The Google Bomb. Democracy at its finest?
Nobel Peace Prize Winner’s Wife has ‘Disappeared’
 Overture to a Dance of Locomotives
Men with picked voices chant the names
of cities in a huge gallery: promises
that pull through descending stairways
to a deep rumbling.
The rubbing feet
of those coming to be carried quicken a
grey pavement into soft light that rocks
to and fro, under the domed ceiling,
across and across from pale
earthcolored walls of bare limestone.
Covertly the hands of a great clock
go round and round! Were they to
move quickly and at once the whole
secret would be out and the shuffling
of all ants be done forever.
A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing
out at a high window, moves by the clock:
disaccordant hands straining out from
a center: inevitable postures infinitely
repeated—
two—twofour—twoeight!
Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.
This way ma'am!
—important not to take
the wrong train!
Lights from the concrete
ceiling hang crooked but—
Poised horizontal
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders
packed with a warm glow—inviting entry—
pull against the hour. But brakes can
hold a fixed posture till—
The whistle!
Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!
Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating
in a small kitchen. Taillights—
In time: twofour!
In time: twoeight!
—rivers are tunneled: trestles
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
the same gesture remain relatively
stationary: rails forever parallel
return on themselves infinitely.
Friday, October 8. 2010
Mitch is repairing my favorite 16 gauge, a boxlock manufactured nearly 100 years ago by John Blanch in London and bought in marginal shape (read "affordable") in the Hamburg, PA Cabela's store.
In answer to Bird Dog's 28 ga. question, just as a 28 ga. throws a better pattern than a 20 ga., so also does a 16 ga. throw a better pattern than a 12 ga. It was not for nothing that they were called "Sweet 16s". The Sweet 16 in the picture weighs 5-1/8 pounds, and so can be carried comfortably by Yrs. Truly (an ol' guy) until the Lab has retrieved a limit!
 Whose violent words? Not the Tea Party. Not Conservatives (via Gateway).
** Obama: “They Bring a Knife…We Bring a Gun”
** Obama to His Followers: “Get in Their Faces!”
** Obama on ACORN Mobs: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!”
** Obama to His Mercenary Army: “Hit Back Twice As Hard”
** Obama on the private sector: “We talk to these folks… so I know whose ass to kick.“
I have yet to hear anything close to this inciting from the evil Tea Partiers. This Tea Party sympathiser is planning to do some Right Wing violence this weekend though: I am going fishing, up around Montauk. Blood sport, and the freshest Striper sushi.
Slice of cucumber, piece of watercress, slice of wiggling Striper right out of the water, a generous slice of pickled ginger, and some wasabi. Maybe the slightest dip in the Teriyaki, and a few Coronas with lime. We'll be well-fed when we come back to the dock, and will have one filet to grill for supper plus a couple of Bluefish filets. We never keep more than one Striper. That is, of course, if we are lucky to get into fish this weekend.
Otherwise, it's the fish market. This is our final boating of the year.
 Rejection Therapy
Rejection is good for personal growth and humility.
Sullivan: There was no housing bubble. One quote:
You borrowed against your house to send your kid to college. Your kid now lives in your basement eating Cheetos and downloading porn all day instead of out in the workforce, sitting at a desk eating Cheetos and looking at porn on company time as God and Nature intended. But that's a college education bubble. A college loan bubble. You borrowed against a useful and valuable thing, your house, and your children learned Ida Tarbell's bra size, but nothing useful enough to make them employable in a recession.
Surber: An epidemic of epidemics
Each one requiring a government program.
Jay Cost: The Latest Sign of the Dem-Pocalypse
Life in the sticks: More on the South Fulton FD Brouhaha
Poverty Pimps
A culture of lying in the Middle East.
It's multicultural to understand that not all people share our values. Truth is far from a universal value, even in the West.
Freedom of speech on trial in the Netherlands
Higher-Ed-Bubble Update: Pansexuality Edition
WSJ: ObamaCare and the Election - The GOP needs to raise the health-care stakes in 2010, and beyond
Sowell: Red Herring Politics: Part II
Postcards from Vermont
I don't get why VT politics are so different from NH.
Via Neo's Left and right, Britain and here:
Not everyone believes Obama is a Marxist. Coming from England he seems pretty right wing to me.
The Battle for America 2010: Labor Unions Looking to Rescue Feingold in Wisconsin
Poll: Sarah Palin Favorable Rating Just 22 Percent.
The media's Newt Treatment worked on Sarah, but it almost always works on anybody who is targeted. I think she should have run for the Senate.
Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment at 10.1% in September, Underemployment, at 18.8%, is up from 18.6% at the end of August
Rove: Democrats and 'Poisoned' Politics - Incumbents launch personal attacks to divert attention from the economy's poor performance.
Delaware:
If these polls even come close to measuring the sentiment of Delaware voters, then Coons, an out-and-out leftist, will waltz into the Senate and begin serving at the beginning of the November lame duck session.
This did not have to happen.
Wellfleet Harbor, during our visit to Wellfleet on Cape Cod with Bird Dog & Co in September.
Thursday, October 7. 2010
Today’s federal district court decision on a challenge to ObamaCare’s mandated purchase of medical insurance seeks to so expand federal powers as to override all personal decisions about almost anything.
The Commerce Clause in the US Constitution has been expansively interpreted to allow the federal government to classify almost anything as an “economic activity” affecting interstate commerce. There are some guideposts laid out by the Supreme Court, basically that the regulation of economic activity be necessary to implement the regulatory purpose and that it be proper, not invading constitutional state sovereignty.
A federal district judge in Michigan today decided to further expand the federal government’s regulatory authority to “economic decisions.” In the case at hand, the judge says that the ObamaCare mandate to buy insurance is legit as the decision to not buy insurance may affect others who do by possibly shifting costs to the latter. So, even if aspirin will do the job, instead of a visit to the doctor, you are shifting costs to an insurance buyer.
At law blog Volokh Conspiracy, Randy Barnett points out:
By inventing a new “economic decisions” doctrine, Judge Steeh has gone beyond the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clause doctrines established by the Supreme Court. Only the Supreme Court is authorized to expand its own interpretation of the scope of Congressional power….
If the Supreme Court ever accepts the government’s “economic decision” theory, then there is nothing it cannot mandate in the future in the name of regulating “commerce . . . among the several states.” Congress will then have the general police power that both the Constitution and the Supreme Court has always denied it.
Ilya Somin adds:
The Michigan court’s decision doesn’t bind the Virginia and Florida district courts currently considering the two biggest challenges to mandate (those brought by 21 states and the National Federation of Independent Business). Moreover, Judge Steeh’s conclusion that this case is fairly easily covered by existing Commerce Clause precedent is at odds with the Virginia judge’s earlier ruling concluding that no previous precedent covers this case. It therefore seems to me unlikely that the latter will follow the Michigan reasoning in his own eventual decision (though he could of course uphold the mandate on other grounds). And of course both this ruling and those that will be eventually issued by the other district courts are subject to review by the US courts of appeals, and ultimately the Supreme Court.
Our post a while ago about Claire's Knee had me thinking about enchantment. You may recall that the Rohmer movie was about a gentleman who became enchanted, bewitched, charmed, by a teenage girl.
Nowadays, in our pathologizing way, we might say "obsessed" instead, even though it is an entirely natural thing for men to be bewitched by women (and, until very recent history, entirely normal for young teens to marry). It doesn't necesarily take much to have this effect: a knee, the way she holds a teacup, a dimple, a sexy imperfection, the delicate way her fingers touch your hand during conversation, or the way she says "Thank you." Feminine graces do have a magic to them. Men, piggish oafs that these adorable creations are, generally lack the magical effect on women... unless they are sociopathic or narcissistic.
We now say "What a charming person" without necessarily meaning too much. Perhaps just meaning that they are pleasant, use the right fork, and do not say the f word at dinner. However, the etymologies of the word charm, like enchanted (and certainly like bewitched) have powerful origins in notions of magic spells and of being captured or controlled by something. (And, interestingly, in singing. Music can be an enchantment, can't it?).
The things that these words describe have remarkable powers for good, and for destruction. Like drugs.
Editor's addendum: Some may recall that the three bat brothers in Pogo were named Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred. Always cracked me up, because my Godmother was named Mildred. She was from Tallahassee, dramatic in her graciousness and warmth, and always wore big, high-fashion hats. Would not go out without a hat. An enchanting lady who held my Godfather in her spell until he died.
Alan Greenspan cites fear as the cause for the non-recovery. It's fear mainly of the consequences of government actions. From what I see and hear, that seems right.
Money will sit dormant on the sidelines until people know what is coming next. No new investment means no jobs.
True Grit; One Awesome Trailer
Socialist ‘Success’: Food Stamp Use Breaks Record
A horror story about a small businessman vs the Feds. h/t Cafe Hayek
AVI contemplates how Libs view government differently
How Obamacare is already affecting medical practice
Postcards of the hanging
Blue collar folks abandon Dems. The wealthy still like the Dems.
Via Gay Patriot:
...in this election, Republicans are running more blacks in white majority districts than the Democrats are. Shouldn’t that be taken into consideration when accusations of racism are being hurled about?
Driscoll: Individuality is Fine as Long as We All Do It Together
How do they do it without Fannie Mae? International Comparison of Home Ownership Rates
More UK insanity: School installs £9,000 facial recognition cameras to stop students turning up late... and teachers could be next target
At Am Thinker: The Left's Terror Folly
The lesson from these attempted attacks is clear. Islamic radicals are trying to kill us not because of the policies of George W Bush or Tony Blair, or because there aren't enough U.N. or EU resolutions condemning Israel, or any other grievances the left are trying to project upon our enemies. The reason America and Western Europe are being attacked is because radical Islamists hate the Western way of life. They hate that we are not enslaved to their extremist version of Islam, and they hate the freedom and prosperity that we enjoy in the West.
Weekly Standard: Democracy is Winning in Latin America
Via Insty: Psychology: The Latest Threat to Campus Free Speech?
The interesting speech by Pinker about taboo thoughts is here.
A pleasure to watch, last Sunday afternoon. There is a good friend of Maggie's on the red boat.
Wednesday, October 6. 2010
Not yet, anyway. He seems to imagine that somebody thinks Obamacare can work. Of course it cannot. It is not meant to work.
It's meant to fail, and is doing so already. The greedy insurance companies will be blamed, and the Feds will step in...as long as the Lefties are in control.
Reading maketh a full man, conference, a ready man, and writing, an exact man.
Francis Bacon, as quoted at Rick Moran's REFLECTIONS ON SIX YEARS OF BLOGGING
It's the F List. Some Duke fellows are surely profoundly humiliated by this, but if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
Drunken frat boys have made these rating lists for many years about gals, so why not a chick? It's good satire, despite being true. I guess she is a modern woman.
My college experience was nothing like that. I had to study too hard and too long to do well, and having two adorable little sisters made it impossible for me to view gals as pieces of meat. (I remember predator guys referring to the new freshman gals as "the freshmeat.")
I think I am more lascivious now than I was then, but I am meeting independent, grown women, not goofy college girls.
From the story:
Cute gals can get it any time they want to study the subject. Not so easy for us guys, despite reports of all the desperately horny women out there. Many of them have standards: there's the rub.
Gagdad Bob takes on the Cosmos
Mao's little helpers in the Western intelligentsia
Former Secretary of State George Shultz to President Obama: “You’re out of your mind.”
Are Dems uninformed?
Breaking news: Bristol Palin eats at McDonald's. Horrors. We think that their Angus Burger with cheddar, mushrooms, and bacon is darn good.
Quote via Jammie:
I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age”.
--- Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic
Gov. Christie goes to Iowa.
Your Stimulus Dollars at Work: Teacher Pay Raises
A case of pure projection: On the right, hateful words are fired like bullets. Who, where, what, when?
This fellow Cravaack in MN 8th looks good
Conyers admits Obama care is just the first step to complete government control. As we always say, first they break it, then offer to fix it.
Chicago Boyz: Just say it! Teachers Unions are morally illegitimate
Levin: The War on the Young - Obama tries to fool them again.
Department of Climate Disruption: Coldest winter in 1,000 years on its way
Great idea for "at risk" kids: Unreal. New Hip-Hop Curriculum Refers to Founding Fathers “Old Dead White Men”
Iran Admits It Could Pull Nuke Trigger on US, Israel.
Tiger:
Our Congress is deeply, embarrassingly incompetent. Willful incompetence in my view is simply the equivalent of corruption. Incompetence which springs from ignorance is merely stupidity at work. Whether the current Democratic leadership of Pelosi and Reid is one or the other doesn't really matter. Of course, I have an opinion. But the result is the same.
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RAF leather flying gloves