Maggie's Farm

We are hearing the voices of Greek infants. Do they think money grows on trees? Why we connect Plato and Socrates to modern Greeks is a mystery of geography.

Mead explains how modern Greeks think.

We are admirers of Steyn. His writing on any topic rivals that of PJ O'Rourke, and that is saying something. Furthermore, he is able to talk just like he writes.

Have you read Steyn's Wiki bio?

“In this election… we have got to realize there is no longer any such thing as a conservative Democrat. It doesn’t exist. I used to be one of them. When I worked for Bill Clinton, that’s what I was. Now I’m extinct. There are no more of me. I’m a dodo bird. Now you are either a Reid-Pelosi Democrat or you are a Republican.”

Dick Morris

Re Goldman, from Cardinalpark at Tiger:

The one thing I thought the Goldman executives should have remarked, when questioned about their tactical short overlay to reduce their long exposure to the mortgage morket, would have been to add that, had they not gone net short, they very likely would have been in line testifying with Dick Fuld from Lehman Brothers. And I know which questioning, however ignorant, I would prefer to face.

Today, I am a proud Goldman alum.

Is Congress ignorant about how business works, or do they feign ignorance for populist, political purposes; boob bait for the bubbas? Hard to tell. For certain, the WH is ignorant, as Dino reminds us via this reposted IBD chart:

At Politico today: The Wall Street-Washington divide. My gut tells me it's all a big diversion.

From Smith's The Ghetto-ification of America at Pajamas:

What big government has done to the nation’s inner cities and poor blacks is nothing short of a moral crime. Unless the Democrats are stopped, a lesser though damaging crime will be committed against every other community. Ghetto-light may be your neighborhood all too soon.

It is reminiscent of Dalrymple's observations in the UK which I linked a week or so ago.

The grown-ups of Euroland do not want to further enable the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) in their profligacy, but they are all tied together now, for richer or poorer.

Good summary in The NYT: Greek crisis poised to spread.

Also, good at Mead. He explains why we should care. I don't think Americans do care very much, unless they are in finance.

Who he?

Dan is running in Southwestern CT against Jim Himes, who washed Chris Shays down the drain in the Obama win.

This November is a chance to remove Himes, a likeable ex-Wall Streeter but a Lefty Pelosi Dem, and to replace him with a new breed of bold Conservative.

Dan has an impressive resume, is an excellent speaker, and a personable fellow. We have met him several times.

He says:

I am running for Congress to restore the values of free enterprise and individual liberty to Washington.  Fairfield County families want practical solutions on the economy, healthcare, and transportation. I will use my background as a businessman and a State Senator to implement new ideas to get our economy growing again and create jobs for our families.

All the answers coming out of Washington are for “more government”—whether bailing out banks, taking over auto companies, building record deficits for pork-barrel stimulus, or having government take-over our healthcare system. Our current Congressman, Jim Himes, has been a rubber-stamp for this big government agenda. I believe there is a better way. Through solutions that support small businesses and empower middle class families, I believe that we can get our country back on the right track.

He is trying a 3-day $30,000 money bomb. Send him a few bucks if you can. This could be the year for Blue State Conservatives.

More on the Stanford education prof's failed charter school at Pajamas. A quote:

EPA Academy students are graded on a five-dimensional rubric, based on (1) Personal Responsibility; (2) Social Responsibility; (3) Communication Skills; (4) Application of Knowledge; and (5) Critical and Creative Thinking.

Only 20 percent of the grade is based on knowledge, notes Michele Kerr, who taught an ACT prep course for disadvantaged students at a nonprofit from 2007-09. Compared to district high school students, East Palo Academy tutees had “the lowest skills and the highest grades,” Kerr recalls. Students with high A averages turned out to have very poor reading and math skills, though their writing was relatively strong.

The Cigar Bars and Cigar Lounges of NYC.

Plus a reminder: in NYC, despite Nanny Bloomberg, you can still abuse tobacco like an Indian a Native American in the outdoor sections of restaurants and pubs.

h/t, Carpe Diem:

I mumbled briefly about Positivism last week, alluding to its potential as a fuel for hubris. No philosophy is the "cause" of human evil and destructiveness, but Human Nature is. Pure rationalism (if there is any such thing) is a frightening way to run the world, or to run anything.

This weekend, in timely fashion, I stumbled on a review of Grayling's latest screed against irrationalism by the esteemable John Gray. One quote from the thoughtful review:

Reading Grayling, it is hard to resist the impression that he believes Western civilization would be much improved if it did not include the Judeo-Christian inheritance. Absurd as it is, there is nothing new in such a claim. It is one of the most venerable clichés of Enlightenment thinking, and Ideas that Matter is a compendium of such dated prejudices. When Grayling condemns religion on the grounds that “a theory that explains everything, and can be falsified by nothing, is empty,” he takes for granted that religions are primitive theories, now rendered obsolete by science.

Our Editor recently described himself, and Maggie's Farm, as "resolutely middlebrow." I cannot disagree, but with the caveat that we repeatedy take adventurous forays into the lowbrow.

As confirmation of the above. I have been thinking about Positivism lately and found myself needing to refer to Wiki for a refresher on the late Enlightenment thinker Auguste Comte, known as "The Pope of Positivism," and the inventor of Sociology.  

Comte, interestingly and paradoxically, wanted to use a science of society in order to create a new religion for humanity. His grandiose dream lives on.

For the cranky contrarians among us (h/t, Blair):

Genius Stanford educational experts started a charter school. Their ideas didn't work.

But will they learn anything from their experience?

I continue to believe that the average schoolkid learned more in the US in 1830 in one-room schoolhouses with hornbooks and the teacher armed with a good paddle, with the teacher supported by donations either in kind (eg firewood, or housing a teacher or providing him or her food) or in cash, by the parents of the kids who ran, and paid for, their school. 

And don't tell me "it's a more complicated world" now. It is not. Try training a horse, building a barn, making a living on a farm, making a winter coat from a couple of sheep, or smithing every iron item a family might need. Life is easier now. We don't even need to make our own beer, and 99.9% of us do not even understand how computers work. Including me.

Readin', writin', and 'rithmetic haven't changed one bit since then.

J. Robert Smith has exactly the right metaphor at American Thinker. Who gets to be Zoo-Keeper, though?

Speaking of zoos, Dalrymple recently visited some government zoos in the UK, and it was not pretty. Old steel towns where the main jobs involve welfare administration.

The construction of the Spruce Goose (h/t, Theo):

The Gallardo has a lot of carbon fiber in it, plus a V-10:

Via Chicago Boyz:

…There is also the problem of the elite’s lack of humility. I’m a pretty smart guy, and I think I could do a decent job of re-ordering the world if given absolute power.
 
But … It wouldn’t be right. It is not up to me to tell my fellow humans how to live. I think bowling, for instance, is stupid, though many people enjoy it. What/who gives me the right to tell bowlers that they should be going to the symphony instead?
 
But nobody is forcing me to go bowling and nobody is using my tax dollars to subsidize bowling, so I don’t care. Not my business, and not a problem. This is the essence of liberty.
 
For a thought experiment, substitute guns, french fries, or abortion for bowling above and see how you feel. The realization that you do not have the Moral Authority to try to construct a perfect world that eliminates what you dislike is the essence of humility. Many very bright people lack humility.

We have recently commented, several times, about our admiration for the brains and savvy of the Goldman Sachs crew. Here's more evidence of it.

Yes, I do own shares. Foolish not to.

- First, the salt story. As people say, No, it's not from The Onion. Government has gone insane. CO2, transfats - and now salt? One does not know whether to laugh or cry. Or to just dump some more salt on one's fries, and call it a Boston Salt Party.

- "Those who think they can control their destinies are happier." That's from an old story about why Repubs and Conservatives are happier people. People with some faith in themselves - and God - feel better about life, regardless of income. It's the psychology, stupid. Feeling weak or like a victim makes life miserable, but that is up to each one of us.

- Did the Dem stimulus cost us 4 million jobs?

- Our friend Roger: Humor vs. Contempt: Obama and the Question of Character

- The man said "I'm a Democrat, but I'm not a Communist." As Ferrara notes, many Dems could not quite say that:

Obama is not the only one. Ultraleft San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi, a nice lady whose feet are not firmly planted in the real world, serves as House Speaker. Far Left Henry Waxman, the Congressman from Hollywood, serves as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Uberliberal Barney Frank, the Congressman from Boston, serves as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. Leftover '60s liberal David Obey, a self-described Robert La Follette Progressive from Wisconsin, serves as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Charley Rangel, the Congressman from Harlem, serves as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. John Conyers, the Congressman from Detroit, with his own past Communist Party ties, serves as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Until recently, ultraliberal Howard Dean from Vermont served as Democrat party national Chairman. Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont, as liberal/left as they come, serves as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.