Friday, December 19. 2008
Last minute Christmas present idea, recommended by a cigar afficionado friend: Hacker's The Ultimate Cigar Book. In my opinion, expertise often leads to wanting things that cost too much, and damages the enjoyment of ordinary pleasures. (And thanks, friend, for the box of Montecristos.)
A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Oscar Wilde (h/t, Dr. Bob)
Bad for the body, good for the soul. How about a coupla cartons of Luckies for Christmas? 
Thursday, December 18. 2008
A friend sent this to the NYT today: To the Editor:
"G.M. has said that it desperately needs $4 billion to survive through the end of this month .... Chrysler has said that $4 billion would allow it to avoid bankruptcy and stay in business through the quarter." NYTimes Dec 18.
I wish to update the US citizen on my request for $4 billion dollars to survive through the end of this month. I was deeply disappointed that the Congress did not even consider my request and look forward to discussing this with Secretary Paulson.
I too have been for years not selling cars. (In fact, for my entire adult life, I have not sold a car.) In order for me to survive, $4 billion will be fine. I live austerely, so unlike GM, Chrysler or Ford, I am not pressing the US citizen to shell out dough by the end of the month (although a couple million will take care of Christmas gifts for my children, my ex-wives, several girlfriends and my dog, Sam, who must chew a leather shoe, as I have run out of money to buy a chewy-toy for him. OK. A half million.)
I will soon be hiring a soon-to-be-unemployed GM Spokesman who will attest that he still has faith in me as CEO, as he did for the current CEO of GM. Further, I promise the US taxpayer that, like Harley Davidson, I will never again ask for financial support from the US government after the first $ 4 billion. I also will not shelter my money in offshore accounts. As for my private jet, unlike GM, I have never owned one. I do own a Prius, which I am willing to drive to Washington, like the auto exec's did on their second beggary trip, to formally request these funds ... or just to collect the check.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak directly to the taxpayer, whom I believe will shell out a few million for an honest fellow taxpayer who doesnt' sell cars.
I also will not charge people for not flying in planes.
Respectfully,
What ails literary studies? It's by a lit prof at Annapolis, Bruce Fleming. He begins: The major victory of professors of literature in the last half-century — the Great March from the New Criticism through structuralism, deconstruction, Foucauldianism, and multiculturalism — has been the invention and codification of a professionalized study of literature. We've made ourselves into a priestly caste: To understand literature, we tell students, you have to come to us. Yet professionalization is a pyrrhic victory: We've won the battle but lost the war. We've turned revelation into drudgery, shut ourselves in airless rooms, and covered over the windows.
It's good. Read it.
Wednesday, December 17. 2008
it's waiting for its brief period of glory before it dies: 
Liberal Catholicism and Liberal Protestantism at Inside Catholic, by David Carlin, author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America. He begins: Catholic liberals (by which I mean theological liberals, not political liberals) never cease to amaze me. On the one hand, they appear to have a sincere devotion to their religion. On the other, they campaign for moral and theological changes that, if carried into effect, would tend to destroy their Church. Why do I say this? Because the history of Protestantism has made it perfectly clear what happens when a Christian church turns liberal or modern. Unless a Catholic is quite unfamiliar with the sad history of liberal Protestantism, he would not call for the theological liberalization or modernization of Catholicism. In America, liberal Protestantism has always had three characteristics: (1) It is an attempt to find a compromise or via media between traditional Christianity and the fashionable anti-Christianity of the day. (2) In seeking this compromise, it drops certain traditional Christian beliefs as so much excess baggage. (3) To atone, so to speak, for this weakening of doctrine, it intensifies its moral commitments. Three great "moments" in the history of American liberal Protestantism illustrate what I mean here. The first was the emergence of Unitarianism in the first quarter of the 19th century. The fashionable anti-Christianity of the day was Deism -- as found, for instance, in one of the writings of Tom Paine (The Age of Reason). So Unitarianism, in pursuit of a via media, dropped the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, Original Sin, and a few other Christian doctrines. To make up for these discards, it strongly committed itself to the anti-slavery cause.
Sea levels would drop. Here's why. You can test it at home. Addendum: Well, it's almost true. Slightly off with salt water.
When the media uses a scary number, it is because the percentage is small. When the media uses a percentage without using a base number, it is because the number is small. Don Surber
Tuesday, December 16. 2008
Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor. H.L.Mencken (h/t, Vanderleun)
Rush likes to joke about enviro-Nazis, but I didn't know how Greenie the Nazis actually were. And no, I am not invoking Godwin's Law here.
Monday, December 15. 2008
Bernard Goldberg's amusing speech on Bias Like Never Before. One quote from the Q&A: My first job, four days out of college was with the Associated Press. In those days, it was, "Just the facts, ma'am," kind of news organization. Now, they actually have a policy. It's not by accident. It's a policy that they want their reporters to inject what they call accountability journalism into pieces. Accountability journalism, in plain English, is opinion journalism. And I've read stories on the AP wire that are as biased as can be. Nobody would argue, but that's what they want.
So when the AP, which is 162-year-old organization, decides that objectivity is old hat, it's yesterday, it's not exciting enough, I'm telling you, there's not going to be much left of the mainstream media to throw over the side of the ship. They're doing it themselves.
But that's another point, if I could make it briefly. When they finally are so irrelevant that none of us really give a damn about them, you know who they're going to blame. They're going to blame all of us, that we somehow poisoned the well, that conservatives turned the public on them, but the final wound will be self-inflicted. They're doing it to themselves.
 "Depression lust" on the part of the press.
World's most beautiful woman is Russian. It's true. They make beauties there. It's one of the few things Russia does well. Update on the Marc Dreier investment scam. And re the Madoff scam, look at the "sophisticated investors" he fooled. When a deal sounds too good to be true... I love the way Bush handled this press guy. The Brussels Journal and Tribal Nationalism: LGF Why are we still in Afghanistan? Beethoven and the Illuminati How Tom Daschle could destroy new drug development The change we wanted? Now Richardson under investigation. Dems have a greed problem. Ask Dr. Helen: How can I keep my students from becoming little Marxists?
We are still interested in more of your favorite venison recipes. Put 'em in the comments on that post, and we'll post it annually towards the end of deer season. Here's some venison on the hoof from a friend's Cuddeback scouting camera in Michigan earlier in the fall: 
 Watt's Up notes:
This is almost enough to make me turn in my Skeptic union card, but increased CO2 warming the earth makes some sense to me, the magnitude is in question. The fact that polar sea ice not melting is not an insignificant point. It is also important to realize that the changes are too small to fit with IPCC statements about the trend. Unlike trees, ice does make a good thermometer. I can’t say this strongly enough— This is a strong indication of substantial errors in the computer models and temperature data which needs to be addressed before we throw what’s left of our global economy to the wind. How would Earth’s total sea ice ignore such substantial warming? It’s a good question which deserves an answer.
Computer models aren't facts: far from it. Despite Al Gore's recent hysteria, there has been no loss of Arctic ice. I agree with others who observe that, as climate data fail to conform to computer models, the fearmongers become more shrill and desperate. This over-the-top AP story contains so many inaccuracies that it hardly counts as a news story. It's shameful climate propaganda, and satirizes itself by concluding that any global cooling is due to global warming. John at Powerline does a good job with it. Our position is that we are open to facts, but that the topic of climate has become politicized - which is never helpful to scientific endeavors. Furthermore, we suspect that some warming would be good for mankind, but unfortunately the data show that we have experienced ten years of climate cooling, with 30 years more of cooling predicted. So I think everybody should just chill. Photo: Last week's New Hampshire ice storm from No Looking Backwards
Sunday, December 14. 2008
Thanks to our pal Dr. Bob for finding this. Apparently Edward Feser and Heather (who we also like very much) have been having an exciting correspondence about religion and politics. Feser more or less begins thus: The source of my dispute with you is the criticism that you (like Kathleen Parker and others) have been making of religion – not of this or that kind of religion, and not of this or that individual religious believer, but of religion per se – to the effect that it is irrational, and that this irrationality has something to do with its purported lack of scientific grounding.
Read the whole thing (link above).
 A techie reader likes these handy machines: ASUS Netbooks.
 Bismarck. Global cooling is our new crisis. New Hampshire is in the deep freeze, with ice storms and unseasonable cold - and their power is out. Not mine.
All we can do to help is to drive our Hummers to the mall. Eagerly awaiting explanation from Al Gore. Oh, he did have something to say: North Pole to disappear in 5 years. Is that a promise? So how come the ice cap is growing? And who cares anyway? His fear-mongering hyperbole has turned him into a joke.
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From Drudge yesterday: