Wednesday, June 16. 2010
From Gateway:
Over the past 30 years:
Democrats have blocked the development of new sources of petroleum.
Democrats have blocked drilling in ANWR.
Democrats have blocked drilling off the coast of Florida.
Democrats have blocked drilling off of the east coast.
Democrats have blocked drilling off of the west coast.
Democrats have blocked drilling off the Alaskan coast.
Democrats have blocked building oil refineries.
Democrats have blocked clean nuclear energy production.
Democrats have blocked clean coal production.
But, they’re funding projects in Brazil.
We have the Chinese drilling off our southern coast, and Brazil is drilling everywhere they can. I think the Dems have an aversion to American oil.
 John Wesley (1703-1791), founder of what we now call Methodism (the term was originally used as an insult but was eventually adopted by Wesley), and his brother Charles spent some time in Savannah, GA. I lost a bet about that at a dinner party last year, which cost me a bottle of good Montrachet.
Methodism was the ultimate source of our 12-step programs: the Wesleyans liked to have methods for spiritual discipline. John Wesley was an evangelist, and liked to preach outdoors. He tried to convert the Georgia Indians.
He was a "by faith alone" preacher.
He got in a bit of a problem with a Georgia lady, and eventually returned to England. Here's a piece on Wesley in Georgia, and here's a Wesley bio.
The hymns written by John and Charles Welsey are among my favorites. Charles wrote 6000 hymns. John even produced a hymnal but, as this site notes,
Today people are much more familiar with some of Charles Wesley's hymns than with John Wesley's sermons.
Image of John Wesley above, Charles Wesley below:
More on Voegli's important new book, Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State, at Powerline. One quote:
Voegeli seems to understand welfare state liberalism like Whitaker Chambers understood Communism, from the inside. Jonah Goldberg has written of him: "Bill Voegeli has become my new James Q. Wilson -- the egghead I always read even if I don't think I'm interested at first."
Good online radio, from the Ivy League: WKCR. On Saturday they had a Howlin' Wolf festival which blew my mind. And right after, I went to hear Nozze di Figaro.
How much amazing music can a brain process in one day?
Powerline is clearly a Dartmouth-oriented website. Nary a month goes by without their talking about their attachment to their beloved Alma Mater. Volokh has Dartmouth connections too.
I just learned that American Thinker, another essential site, is sort of a Kenyon College site. Both Lifson, Publisher, and Baehr, founder and "Chief Political Correspondent," are Kenyon guys.
The IPCC consensus on climate change was phoney, says IPCC insider
Compare, contrast: News Judgment, Washington-Post style
Chantrill begins:
It is true that liberalism is cruel, corrupt, wasteful, and unjust. But one should never forget its delusion. The delusion is a simple one. It is a belief that government can be made rational and efficient. This delusion leads our liberal friends into disaster after disaster.
Applebaum: Acting like politicians can solve all our problems just makes us look weak
NPR Poll Shows Tough Road Ahead For Democrats
MSNBC bashes the O. Scroll down and see the Frank Luntz video. Good grief. Americans really can see through BS.
Powerline: Was Einstein bright?
Tiger: Meritocracy and teachers unions cannot coexist
A new friend in Iran? Ahmadinejad: Obama Is Immature
Remarkable: One-fifth of NYC supports Tea Party
Hillary Clinton: Secretary of Your Estate
No Soccer please, we're Moslems
Cruel, via Insty:
IN THE MAIL: From Mike Cullen, Whiny Little Bitch: The Excuse-Filled Presidency of Barack Obama. That’s rather harsh for a sitting President, but it does support my observation that Obama’s first term has already morphed into Bush’s second term. .
If not Carter's...
Steyn:
Now Mr. Bawer finds himself cited for "Islamophobia" in an official report from Norway's near parodically Orwellian "Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion". .
A repeat, which splains it all:
Tuesday, June 15. 2010
True and funky true. At Sipp.
Why wasn't I invited to the Kennedy sex parties? I heard about them, but did not know the right people.
Boortz: THE GOLDEN AGE OF GOVERNMENT UNIONS IS OVER
Legal Insurrection: Unions Rescued In Rhode Island
These things should be illegal. The intrinsic conflict of interest would never be legal in business.
Thanks to our friend Marianne for reminding us of this critically important day of National Awareness and Action.
Make sure you get out there and abuse at least one of those "elders" today. More, if you can find them. If they have any grey hair, go for it. Do not beat anybody under 30, as they used to say.
If you happen to be an elder, whatever that is (related to Elderberry?), then abuse yourself in your way of choice.
I have planned my day to find a crew of those elders in line for the Early Bird Special at my local Long John Silver's. It's right next to Red Lobster, so we'll have a chance to abuse quite a few seafood-eaters.
I hate to do it, but it's for America. And, let's admit it: sado-masochism is exciting.
I had best post this live performance today, before it's taken down from YouTube. It's a rare performance, from last week, of his What Good Am I?, from his 1989 Oh Mercy! album.
What honest human has never asked himself such questions?
What good am I, if I'm like all the rest
If I just turn away when I see how you're dressed
If I shut myself off so I can't hear you cry
What good am I ?
What good am I if I know and don't do
If I see and don't say, if I look right through you
If I turn a deaf ear to the thunderin' sky
What good am I ?
What good am I while you softly weep
And I hear in my head what you say in your sleep
And I freeze in the moment like the rest who don't try
What good am I ?
What good am I then to others and me
If I had every chance and yet still fail to see
If my hands are tied must I not wonder within
Who tied them and why and where must I have been.
What good am I if I say foolish things
And I laugh in the face of what sorrow brings
And I just turn my back while you silently die
What good am I ?
This is in Linz (home of the Linzer torte, and a place I will visit in August). That is Bob noodling on the organ.
Remember CBS’ 60 Minutes Mike Wallace? One of the most feared questions used to be, “I’m Mike Wallace, and I’d like to ask you a few questions,” as Wallace showed up with camara crew at someone’s front door. As this tribute DVD to Wallace summarizes his career, “Take any great event in the last 50 years, and CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace has been there – asking the tough, frank, and even impertinent questions of the famous and the infamous.”
Now we have a young person daring to just ask a congressman whether he supported the Obama agenda, actually “"Do you fully believe in the Obama agenda?" The congressman repeatedly asks, “who are you?” The young person repeatedly answers, “a student.” The congressman grabs the questioner. (It is still unknown who the questioner is.)
It may be an “assault” by the congressman, punishable under law. It is a congressman acting excessively, when he could have just walked away.
It is, also, a sidewalk interviewer, accompanied by another shooting video, refusing to identify himself.
I would ask the same question as the congressman did, and without an answer or an answer that would lead me to not talk with the interviewer, I would walk away. (Scott Johnson at PowerLine agrees, and still reminds us that the congressman acted like a “bully and a nut.” I think neither, but rather unhinged as the congressman apologized for acting.)
At least Mike Wallace identified himself.
Yes, there is fear being struck into the hearts of liberal Democrats by being exposed as fools and tools by ambush journalism. Liberal journalists are defending the congressman.
There’s also many fools and tools among Republican congressmen.
Will those who defend anonymous ambush journalism be as defensive of it when Republican fools are similarly exposed?
Anyone being interviewed has the right to know who the questioner is, and the right to not reply to questions. Anyone asking a question of another should have the civility and integrity to let the interviewee know who the questioner is, at least if asked. Unless assaulted themselves, the target of the interview does not have the right to assault the questioner. That much is clear.
What isn't clear is whether ethics, journalistic or otherwise, flow both ways. It should.
Monday, June 14. 2010
NYS borrowing from pension fund to make annual required payment to pension fund. Just like Euroland.
I have heard of people who use credit cards to pay the interest on other credit cards.
From a discussion about the current education of men in America at Chicago Boyz:
Boy/men seem not to be dropping out to “do” something but dropping out to do even less. The number of young marriages in which not only is the wife the breadwinner but the husband isn’t even taking care of children is increasing. These often dissolve – perhaps because women are too conventional to respect a mate who plays video games all day while they work or perhaps because women want children of their own rather than merely a needy husband. (No, I’m not going to diss a stay-at-home dad – I’m sure it is a useful choice; but many are childless marriages. Few women are at home for the years pre-baby.) And we should at least recognize that a woman does offer something in terms of child-bearing and child-nursing a man doesn’t. Besides, I don’t see choices – I see drift.
Like I always say, most men were made just for fishin, huntin, and lovin.
Addendum, from a post by AVI:
I started opining 20 years ago that feminist resentment was largely driven by women who had followed the directions and played by the rules, excelling in school - which was considered the automatic qualifier to success. We were all told To get a good job, get a good education, not just the girls. Then they left school and found that there were other, less-familiar laws of the marketplace which had seldom been mentioned. Heck, I felt the same way. Those boys and young men they had beaten, beaten fair and square at school, were finding all these other routes to success.
A re-post from Aug. '09, for Flag Day -
 All of the flags on houses in our Woodstock, VT photos reminded me that we have not had a flag since we rebuilt the side entry porch about 14 years ago.
Shame on me. It's a grand old flag.
I ordered a set from this place today. I will place the bracket low, so I can easily pull the pole out in rain or at night. I am not in favor of those night-lit flags, but I recall that Barry Goldwater had an automatic flagpole at his place in Arizona that lowered and boxed the flag at evening, and raised it in the morning.
I loved Barry, but that sort of hi-tech flagpole seems cheesy - and lazy - to a Yankee like me.
An American GI has been exploring the caves of Okinawa since 1966.
The New York Times’ headline could have been “Turkey’s Islamist Government Is Just Doing the U.S. A Favor, Wink, Wink” instead of “For Turkey, an Embrace of Iran Is a Matter of Building Bridges,” by Sabrina Tavernise.
With the imprimatur “News Analysis”, the NYTs bureau chief in Istanbul, Sabrina Tavernise, with a 1993 B.A. from Barnard College in Russian Studies, tells us that “Top leaders of Mr. Erdogan’s party believe that only a Turkey that is independent from the United States will be an asset for Washington in the long run.” Tavernise adds, “Turkey is not lost, they say, but simply disagrees with the United States over how to approach the problems in the Middle East.”
Although mildly disagreed with by some sources in her article, her “news analysis” is an apologia for Turkey’s Islamist government siding with Iran, Syria, Hamas against the US, Israel, and the West. Oh, and now Hizbullah. Erdogan has invited the head of Hizbullah, on the recommendation of Hamas, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may attend also, to attend a rally in Turkey honoring Erdogan.
Tavernise is mostly carrying water for the Erdogan government, akin to the NYT’s Walter Duranty for Stalin’s.
Continue reading "NYTs “Walter Duranty” Bureau Chief In Istanbul"
Sunday, June 13. 2010
From City State at The American:
For the first time in recorded human history, more than half of the world’s population has moved into a city or its environs from rural areas and small towns.
Considered historically, this process of urbanization has moved at lightning speed, especially in the past half-century.
Walked past the Joyce the other evening. $10 sounds good. Mrs. BD was trying to remember how many times she has seen Appalachian Spring.
I remember when old Martha herself would wobble out to the stage at the end of the performances.
A re-post -
The Greeks colonized Poseidonia - now Paestum - on the south-west coast of Italy (90 miles south of Napoli) around 650 BC. Poseidonia became the Roman city Paestum in 273 BC.
Paestum contains the finest complex of Greek temples in the world, which was discovered in 1762 by a road crew. They were built before the Parthenon was completed in the 400s (BC).
The modern town of Paestum is a seaside resort, but the reason to go there is to see the Greek temples outside of town. Our Dylanologist did just that (and brought me back a Paestum t-shirt!).
The splendid, if heavy-looking, Doric temple in this photo is known as The Temple of Hera ll.
Here's a photo of the 450 BC Temple of Hera l, later rededicated to Neptune. More info on the Hera l temple here.
Here's a photo bank of the contents of the Paestum Archaeological Museum.
A bit of commentary from the Great Buildings Online website:
When the ruins of Paestum were 'rediscovered' by 'antiquaries'�chiefly Johann Joachim Winckelmann�in the 1750s, "the ruins [were] then made widely known, and an enthusiastic appreciation of Greek art and architecture was also sparked...Because of Paestum, the Classic Revival was born with Greece, not Rome, ascendant."
� Deborah Fritz from G. E. Kidder Smith. Looking at Architecture. p16.
The three Paestum temples are all in the Archaic Doric style of heavy columns with capitals that are squat, or as Goethe termed them, 'oppressive.' By the time the Parthenon was finished (438 B.C.), columns were elegantly slender, capitals had an alert, load-bearing profile, and refinement attended every detail. Moreover, they were carved from Parian marble; Paestum's now crudely exposed shellstone shafts, it is only fair to say, were originally covered with lime stucco. As in Greece proper, the temples at Paestum face easterly so that the rising sun will awaken the statue within."
� G. E. Kidder Smith. Looking at Architecture. p16.
I wrote earlier today that Mozart had a negative feeling towards Roman Catholicism. I don't know where I read that. He certainly was a Freemason, and at least impatient with Catholic requirements, but never formally left the RC Church.
By coincidence, today Potemra has a post about Merton, Barth, and Mozart. A quote:
Merton and Barth were both wrestling with what it meant to be created in God’s image, and — as in the famous passage, Matthew 18:3 — saw that image most clearly in human beings who could express childlike joy.
Since I am specializing today in posting statements which I cannot source, I may as well mention that I once read that Barth said that this song summed up all anybody needed to know about Christian faith.
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Oil is a blessing,