Saturday, November 13. 2010
One quote from the interview:
One miserable November day I was down there on the sideline, wet, cold. And I looked up to the top of the stadium, and there was the press box. Shelter! I knew they had heaters in there with them, and these people were sitting there in complete comfort while we’re miserable down here on the field. They’re writing, they’re typing, and they’re warm. Then and there I decided to become a writer.
Is this image via Moonbattery fair, or just a cheap ad hominen shot along the lines of "Bush is retarded"? Name-calling.
As I understand it, "narcissism" covers a spectrum from wholesome self-respect (which must be earned), to dangerous sociopathy (manifested by an inability to care about, or even to deeply recognize, the existence of others except as tools).
The Wiki piece on Malignant Narcissism says this:
"The malignant narcissist is presented as pathologically grandiose, lacking in conscience and behavioral regulation with characteristic demonstrations of joyful cruelty and sadism."
That sounds pretty bad. To understand these things, one really needs to understand in detail how a person relates to others and what they mean to him. You can't do that by watching somebody on TV.
Here's a post on the topic: Narcissism in High-Functioning Individuals – Big Ego or Severe Disorder?
Sweeney Among The Nightingales
Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
The circles of the stormy moon Slide westward toward the River Plate, Death and the Raven drift above And Sweeney guards the horned gate. Gloomy Orion and the Dog Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas; The person in the Spanish cape Tries to sit on Sweeney's knees Slips and pulls the table cloth Overturns a coffee-cup, Reorganized upon the floor She yawns and draws a stocking up; The silent man in mocha brown Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes; The waiter brings in oranges Bananas figs and hothouse grapes; The silent vertebrate in brown Contracts and concentrates, withdraws; Rachel née Rabinovitch Tears at the grapes with murderous paws; She and the lady in the cape Are suspect, thought to be in league; Therefore the man with heavy eyes Declines the gambit, shows fatigue, Leaves the room and reappears Outside the window, leaning in, Branches of wisteria Circumscribe a golden grin; The host with someone indistinct Converses at the door apart, The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart, And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud, And let their liquid droppings fall To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
Friday, November 12. 2010
 I have never had bad grits, but some afficionados get fussy about their grits.
Come to think of it. friends gave us a big bag of stone ground grits a while ago. They were very good.
If people are doing better, increase taxes because they can afford it. If people are doing worse, raise taxes so as to be able to "help" them with more government spending.
Commenter John, here at Maggie's yesterday
Leaving this morning for an out-doorsy weekend. This pic made me notice how filthy my keyboard is. I need to run it through the dishwasher.
We discussed the rise of the black middle class earlier this week. Here's one piece on that. A quote:
Larry Tye helped answer an ages-old question: How did a high percentage of black people, who toiled as slaves and suffered under Jim Crow laws, shed that oppression to live middle-class lives and enjoy the American dream?
Telegraph: When people stop believing in God they start believing in Big Government and Obamaism
TIME: Happy Meal ban doesn't go far enough.
It's a wonder we can ever feed ourselves.
Driscoll: NYT Editor: Our Subscribers are Such Morons!
Not hot dogs for you.
This guy is an American hero
Everybody talks about the housing crash.
It has been no "crash." It's just the return from a bubble to the normal trend line.
Air power in Afghanistan.
Repub health care ideas are genocide
Another view of the deficit commission, from Mother Jones
More on those Russian spies
Map narrows for Obama reelection
VDH: The Obama Fabulists
Thursday, November 11. 2010
New York aristocrat Rosalie Edge was a crank, a Suffragette, and an ardent conservationist. A bio of her came out last year: Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature from the Conservationists.
Among the many causes she took up, one was protection of raptors from the mass slaughter of her era. She bought Hawk Mountain in Eastern PA and created the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. A high point on the Eastern raptor migration flyway, Hawk Mountain had been a popular site for the slaughter of raptors by gunners who believed they were going some sort of good while having fun.
Hawk Mountain is now a foundation engaged in conservation education programs. It remains an excellent viewing spot in fall migration season. (Photo from the Hawk Mtn website.)
How tasty does this look? These are the $12 lunches at Republic on Union Square, NYC. We love Asian rice-noodle soups and dumpling soups at Maggie's. We like Union Square too. I could tell you stories about what it used to be like, back when I lived for a while on University Place in the Village (just across from Dylan's old hang-out, the Cedar Tavern). It was really bad. The cops would pull dead guys out of the bushes and off the benches when making their morning rounds. ODs, some stabbings too. That was back, before Giuliani, when the pundits said that NYC could not be governed.
You should see it now. A bar and cafe with live music in the small park, a dog park, great restaurants all around. Two off-Broadway theaters. Park guys picking up litter, and even an unobtrusive police presence - on foot. Not in patrol cars. Putting cops back on the neighborhood beat has worked very well in NYC. Patrol cars should be only for back-up and rapid-response, in urban areas.
 Triceratops never existed
CATO: Fixing Transit: The Case for Privatization
Olasky: What's healthcare like for the poor?
NRO: Best Presidential biographies
Deficit panel's Rx: 'Cancer' surgeryBudget scalpel draws blood, howls
Is this bipartisan thing DOA?
Hugh Hewitt: No more time for California dreamin'
Pajamas: Back to the Future with Jerry Brown at the Helm in California
Jeffrey Lord: Mark Levin's book changed America
Is Mark Levin our Tom Paine?
Connecticut Residents Are Tops in Well-Being
Amusing football trick play
Bob Kerrey: Obama is so Incompetent He Needs Someone to Do His Job for Him
From CVS, of course
BAD NEWS: ‘Jaw-Dropping’ Data on Black Male Student Achievement. “According to the report, poverty levels are only part of the equation because poor white boys (defined by eligibility for subsidized school lunches) are doing as well as black boys who do not live in poverty.” It’s about the culture.
France is a dying nation
Irony: AARP blames ObamaCare for increased cost of employee health coverage
...an essential feature of successful presidents is that they find ways to broaden their coalitions. Doing the opposite—pursuing policies which shed support, but keep just enough of it to maintain a majority—is a very difficult needle to thread.
That's civil war.
Calvin Coolidge once said, "The chief business of the American people is business." The Democrats just lost America because they forgot that.
On second thought, you can't forget what you never knew. The Democrats running things the past two years proved they have no clue about the business of business. In their world, the real world of the private economy is an abstraction, a political figment.
Wednesday, November 10. 2010
From Dan Gardner's So is the world predictable or not? The environmentalists' contradiction:
I recently wrote a book called Future Babble (to be released Oct. 12), which is about expert predictions, why they fail, and why we believe them anyway. The experience of sifting through heaps and heaps of failed predictions has made me quite sympathetic to Suzuki's first theme of humility. We truly are awful at foreseeing what is to come. And there's little reason to think we'll get much better. Indeed, key properties of complex systems make prediction inherently impractical or even impossible. We really should be humble. And cautious.
But how can a humble and cautious man say we are "past the 59th minute"?
In a review of Gardner's new book, Steven Pinker says:
“It’s rare for a book on public affairs to say something genuinely new, but Future Babble is genuinely arresting, and should be required reading for journalists, politicians, academics, and anyone who listens to them. Mark my words: if Future Babble is widely read, then within 3.7 years the number of overconfident predictions by self-anointed experts talking through their hats will decline by 46.2%, and the world will become no less than 32.1% wiser.”
– Steven Pinker, Harvard College Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and The Stuff of Thought
I forget which rural burg in Ohio had this sign up. Near Rte. 62, obviously. I'd worry that the soup might have some salt in it. Salt is bad for you, right?
Tuesday, November 9. 2010
 Yesterday was a good day to pull some favorite field guns - bird and duck guns -�out of ye olde gunne closet for a little pre-season cleaning, check-up, and oiling. That .22? Haven't used it in years so I grabbed it too for a little maintenance. The old single-shot 12 ga. is for the little one to practice with. There was some new rust on the barrel of the beat-up Mossberg pump I use for sleet and mud and salt-water duck hunting, but a little surface rust doesn't bother me.
It's a good thing I checked things over, because I discovered that I have lost the choke tubes for my Beretta semi-auto and for my Browning o/u with the gold engraving that I use mostly for clays. The tubes are nowhere. I think I left them somewhere last year, probably on some hunting club's gun bench when I was changing chokes. This means a costly visit to Briley's website because these guns now all have skeet chokes in them, and I like a little more flexibility. For example, a light-modified choke for ducks (which shoots steel shot like modified - but I am giving up on steel, mostly, except maybe for large flocks of Snow Geese, which, as they say, "go down like a prom dress.").
Not that it really matters - I can't hardly hit anything anyway since I injured my shoulder a couple of years ago.
I store guns in these silicone-impregnated gun socks, always with the barrel down so any loose oil doesn't leak into the wood and weaken it.
 “America demonstrates invincibly one thing that I had doubted up to now: that the middle classes can govern a state…despite their small passions, their incomplete education, their vulgar habits, they can obviously provide a practical sort of intelligence and that turns out to be enough.”
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, via this new site.
That's a perfect description of us Maggie's Farmers. This French aristocrat understood America better than most of our own elites and pundits do today. de Toqueville came to love the idea of America - and Americans (despite - or because of - our not being French aristocrats).
 How to tell if Al Qaida has sewn a bomb inside your dog.
Is pain "God's megaphone"?
I hope not...
Is Economics a Science?
Economics and finance might be science, if it weren’t for people.
Right and wrong types of Hispanics.
For the Dems, the right sort are those who seek dependency and entitlement.
He hails from where the civil war began, but this black republican tea party favorite doesn’t want to be a leader on race.
This narcissitic absurdity mocks the very serious, necessary, and important work of Gender Studies, Italian-American Studies, and Skinny Studies.
Make my day, Ted Rall. My life needs a little more violence these days.
As demonstrated by the legal battle blocking power lines to wind farms in Kansas, environmental groups are increasingly against all forms of energy production.
Monday, November 8. 2010
 All about Rubio, at Weekly Std.
Move over, Sarah. This guy's the next big target.
Dino: ...the Chinese have been laughing at this administration for quite a while now
Am Thinker: Time to Tackle Right to Work
A little credit to the RNC
They did very well.
Fun with bureaucracy: What It Takes To Build a House
Allen West:
"I plan on joining, I'm not gonna ask for permission or whatever, I'm gonna find out when they meet and I will be a member of the Congressional Black Caucus," West, one of two black Republicans elected to Congress last Tuesday, told WOR radio. "I meet all of the criteria, and it's so important that we break down this monolithic voice that continues to talk about victimization and dependency in the black community."
He will no doubt be welcomed with open arms.
Ilya on the constitutionality of Obamacare:
In his decision in the Michigan case, Judge Steeh argued that the mandate is constitutional under the Commerce Clause because deciding not to purchase health insurance is an "economic decision."
"Economic decisions," he reasoned, include decisions not to engage in economic activity. This approach would allow the Commerce Clause to cover virtually any choice of any kind. Any decision to do anything is necessarily a decision not to use the same time and effort to engage in "economic activity."
If I choose to spend an hour sleeping, I necessarily choose not to spend that time working or buying products. Under Judge Steeh's logic, the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress to force workers to get up earlier in the morning so that they would spend more time on the job.
At Moonbattery:
Opposition politician Julio Borges accused Chavez on Sunday of trampling private-property rights and steering Venezuela toward Cuba-style communism.
Borges told a news conference that Venezuelans don't want to live in "a country of slaves, where the government is the owner of everything and the people aren't owners of anything."
Good thing Borges isn't American; the media would denounce his views as extremist and call him a racist and a "teabagger."
Has Obama alienated almost everybody?
Driscoll points out that American whites have achieved the same levels of unwed motherhood that Moynihan was alarmed about in blacks
The U.S. as U.N. Punching Bag
Nobody loves or respects you just because you volunteer to receive abuse
My pal, recently of Israel, sends me this email:
The separation fence made a huge difference in civilian fatalities. A good example of when a government responds well to the fundamental safety of its citizens.
When I think about the fence and the screening of Arabs who want to enter Israel, it is a hardship. Just as trying to get onto a plane today is for so many people. It is a hardship precipitated by a small number of murderers that affects millions of innocent civilians. Same for trying to get into the US today: if you're an alien, the process is more difficult. (An Israeli friend described his "reception" in US recently. Very unpleasant. Yet, he does not hold it against the Americans.)
It is shortsighted to blame the government for doing somethings that protect its citizens (and adversely affects both foreigners and its citizens (Israeli citizens go through unpleasant, routine checks of car, body, etc... when entering any public hall or private facility).
The other side of this is how really effective this terrorist tactic is: make the lives of millions miserable with relatively little effort and cost.
Here's the chart of terror in Israel, before and after. - Fixed
Why are there are no "Men's Studies"? Because there's nothing much about the male brain to study except "Come naked, bring food."
Anon.
 Some climate scientists plan to go full-bore political.
That ain't science. That's politics. Idiots, too: who wouldn't enjoy some balmy weather in hunting season? It's sleeting here, this morning. More:
John Abraham panics, apparently he and the AGU are forming a “Climate rapid response team”
So maybe it's war, not politics.
Luntz: Republicans won the midterm elections. Now can they survive?
Doubt it. They're the Stupid Party.
Let Them Eat Biofuels: Enviros Largely Responsible for Worldwide Food Price Increases
Kill people. Gaia likes that. Gaia likes dead people.
Germany attacks US economic policy
Federal Government Fights Obesity, Pushes Cheese
That would be Government Cheese, I believe. I prefer the imported black market unpasteurized stuff, and not in moderation either.
72% OF BLACK BABIES BORN TO UNWED MOTHERS
That is very Progressive and Advanced. Moynihan was just too uptight and bourgeois.
Jacobson: Jewish voting is irrational.
No, it's Progressive and Advanced.
Matthews: Obama’s Travel Expense Questioned Because Of His Race
Obviously. They never would have questioned it with Bush...
The man who saved the whales. h/t, Coyote
Hint: It wasn't Jacques Cousteau. He just annoyed them.
Insty:
CHANGE: Janet Daley: The West is turning against big government – but what comes next? “So a generation after the collapse of totalitarian socialism, its democratic form is finally crumbling as well. And, oddly enough, the latter may take longer than the former to unravel.”
Via a Vanderleun post:
Sunday, November 7. 2010
Memo to file: Do not drive to Manhattan on the day of the New York Marathon. You can't get there from north and, if you do get there, you cannot get out. Here's the Marathon map.
We had an urge to see the Lod Mosaic and the Miro show at the Met today. Just a quick visit, in and out - but it seemed like every highway entrance and exit was closed, with extensive, traffic-jammed detours all around the periphery of the running route.
45,000 mostly out-of-town runners, with family and supporters on the sidewalks, and all the relevant bridges and roads and cross-streets closed, it's a miracle we got home.
We managed to get to the museum by parking 15 blocks away. I think I could have gotten home faster running than driving. I need a Manhattan pied a terre badly, but the government hasn't given me one, yet.
For all the hassle sometimes, and corny as it sounds, I really do love New York. Vitality, variety - all that. It's stimulating to me, just walking around and looking at stuff. Woods and meadows rarely surprise me, because I seem to know them so well. Humans - their works and antics - always surprise me.
I am not blessed with superior brainpower, but I believe I was blessed with a capacity to be enchanted by the details of life.
The Roman mosaic was good to see in person - the teeth of the fish are cool - and the Miro show was fascinating. Miro is always fascinating to me. I don't think of his stuff as surrealism, but instead as just plain hallucinatory. Completely strange, like an acid trip. His work always goes "Ding," Boing," "Snap," "Whirrrrr," "Wheeee," "Pop!" to me. Auditory, synesthetic.
The small show was about his short series of paintings called Dutch Interiors, based on old Dutch images and paintings which he transformed through what he termed his "tragicomic" method.
The show moved from the Rijksmuseum to New York last month. Here's one of the pictures from the show:
I took some random pics, as usual.
I have been told that Grace's Marketplace on 3rd Ave. is the best place to buy cheese in NYC. They generally offer 220+ varieties. Some folks prefer Citarella's, which has a location a few blocks away from Grace's on Third Ave. Better prices, but I know that fancy chefs get their cheeses at Gracie's.
A few more of my lousy NYC pics from today, below:
Continue reading "Miro vs. the NYC Marathon"
Pic is from my first visit to a WalMart two weeks ago. It was a 24 hr/day Supercenter. Yes, I was impressed. It was stocked to the gills, clean as a whistle, and the old codger Greeter at 7 AM was just great.
Wal-Mart vs. The Morons
1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!
3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.
4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.
5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world's largest private employer, and most speak English.
6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.
7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only fifteen years.
8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.
9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.
10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.
11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)
12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.
You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.
To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature,
It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:
a. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
b. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
c. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
d. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor." We still have the poor, and they only demand more. Still waiting for the "Thank you's."
e. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
f. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
g. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.
AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM?
 Nice place for sale: Hedge Fund Billionaire Selling the Farm
And here are some $1000 homes
The Berkshires: Saving Where the Wild Trout Are
How the rich stay rich: Using a Family Trust Company to Secure a Family Fortune
Gotta get me one of them.
University of Virginia Eliminates All Speech Codes, Earning FIRE's 'Green Light' Rating
GOP to Use Debt Cap to Push Spending Cuts
That won't work
Politico: The ego factor: Can Obama change?
The Dems lost a battle, won the war
Taranto: ObamaCare, a Catastrophic 'Success'
A Nation of Slack-Jawed Yokels?
That's me.
"I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary."
I wonder what that feels like.
Via Nyquist:
...we find, at our local Borders book store, a small paperback titled The Anti-American Manifesto, written by Ted Rall. In this book the author says that America is collapsing. The U.S. is going to end soon. According to Rall, "There's going to be an intense, violent, probably haphazard struggle for control. It's going to come down to us versus them." Rall is a Communist in Chambers' sense of the word. He warns the "downtrodden and the educated" that the hardcore uneducated fundamentalist Christians are preparing to seize power. According to Rall, "They can't wait to unleash their venomous hatred on the city-dwelling commie hipster fags they despise. They are armed. They recognize that the system is doomed. They've seen this coming." He names the Tea Party as the main decentralized organ of the enemy. "A war is coming," he says. "The government, the corporations, and the extreme right are prepared to coalesce into an Axis of Evil. Are you going to fight back? Will you do whatever it takes, including taking up arms?" He basically suggests that the Right is coming to exterminate the Left, so the Left had better get ready. The book is basically a call to civil war -- American versus American.
Psalm 17:1-9
17:1 Hear a just cause, O LORD; attend to my cry; give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit.
17:2 From you let my vindication come; let your eyes see the right.
17:3 If you try my heart, if you visit me by night, if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me; my mouth does not transgress.
17:4 As for what others do, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent.
17:5 My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped.
17:6 I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me, hear my words.
17:7 Wondrously show your steadfast love, O savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.
17:8 Guard me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings,
17:9 from the wicked who despoil me, my deadly enemies who surround me.
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