Wednesday, September 29. 2010
Tuesday, September 28. 2010
Ellison's sailboat, without its rigid racing sail. She can go 3X wind speed. That is scary.
Monday, September 27. 2010
Thanks, Sipp.
Sunday, September 26. 2010
Larry Ellison seeks to change the America's Cup rules, so it's not just for billionaires.
You know - I hope he pulls this off. It's his prerogative to change the design rules and site for racing - I hope he does it. When you consider the amount of money these one design hi-tech maxi-racers burn through, it sounds like he's on the right track.
State-of-the-art one design smaller boats with strict rules sounds good to me. Then it is all about wind, weather and tactics and not the biggest and deepest pocket.
Saturday, September 25. 2010
 My NYC pal, who happens to be a "private wealth" money manager, and I had an interesting a conversation this week.
I commented to him that it seemed to me that, the more money people had, the more they worried about money. (I also told him about some doubtless BS study that said that peoples' general life happiness doesn't improve much after an income of $75,000. - assuming the life they constructed is not totally dysfunctional.)
He told me that he had thought about this too, and that his observation about my point was that wealthier people did tend to worry more about their money the more money they have - up to the point of $17 million in the bank.
At 17 million, he said, for some psychological reason, prosperous people generally stop worrying unless they are highly neurotic - or if they try to live as if they had $100 million.
He also said, however, that "Everybody is neurotic about money. The hard part of my job is the Psychiatry, because it's not rocket science to determine a good bond price and it's not rocket science to preserve capital."
Friday, September 24. 2010
Thanks to all who have taken the time to respond to my questions this week.
 My final question is just for fun.
You have just won a one-week trip, all expenses paid (except gratuities), with however many passengers the airplane can hold (or fewer), on a round trip flight on a G-650 to anywhere - but only to one destination to which the airplane can fly non-stop - and an airport on which it can land.
What's your destination?
Thursday, September 23. 2010
Readers have been generous with their comments on my questions this week, and it's all been helpful and sometimes inspiring. (This question series is only for this one week.)
Here's my question for today:
Men are often viewed as the lustful ones with sinful hearts if not actions, while tradition has often held women to be more contained, demure, and lacking in ordinary lust. While men often tell me about their almost-drooling at babes while walking down the street - even happily married men - I rarely hear that from women. (Obviously there is a huge range in sex drive and sexual interest and imagination between individuals.)
So are women just quieter about reacting to hunks they see, or are men really more lascivious? In other words, are women just as prone to purely physical attraction as men, or do they really need a "relationship" to become interested? Or, to put it another way, are women as likely to make daily life as much of a pornographic experience as men do, on average?
Wednesday, September 22. 2010
How much sex is a person "supposed" to want? I don't think anybody can answer that question.
Short video: Is sex addiction a disease?
One of my (many) problems with Psychiatry's DSM is one of making "diseases" out of things I might either view as symptoms, or simply as behaviors which deviate from some shrinks' view of "normal."
When it comes to movie stars and the like (as the link mentions), it's another matter. Many of them seem to live like kids in a candy shop, relatively insulated from consequences. When handsome men or lovely beauties are throwing themselves at you all day long, what's a person to do? Especially after a few drinks, a few lines of coke, etc.
Psychiatry is able to justify viewing substance addictions as diseases because, for many people, continuous substance abuse can lead to an alteration of the reward pathways in the brain, resulting in a drive which is challenging to resist.
With sex, however, those reward pathways are already built in to the system as one of the strongest animal instincts we have to grapple with in life.
As usual, I must leave this post at mid-thought, but I will pose the question to our readers:
Is "Sex Addiction" a disease? Or is the idea a "diseasification" of decadent people with lousy self-control and poor capacity for delayed gratification?
Soft tyranny, manliness, Western Civ, the Leftism of the campuses, etc. Video interview with Harvard's Harvey Mansfield thanks to Powerline.
It's a long interview, and well-worth every minute. I am now a confirmed Mansfield fan.
Tuesday, September 21. 2010
Prost!
Monday, September 20. 2010
Mrs. BD found this good deal from our friends at Club ABC: 8 days in Prague and Budapest. They do a very good job making world travel possible for the non-weathy and for those who are willing to fly economy and maybe endure a stopover.
I've always been more of a Mediterranean and UK traveller, but the Holy Roman Empire is growing on me. It's probably just a phase.
You can make online reservations for music and opera tickets way in advance. She wants to see Janacek's Kat'a Kabanova at the Prague Opera (where Mozart first conducted Don Giovanni).
I have never been to Hungary. Mrs. BD wants to see Hungarian folk music and dance troupes, and try some of the historic coffee houses. Here's a nice Budapest restaurant. Looks just like I would expect:
Thank God that the commies are gone from Czecho and Hungary. Maybe Cuba will be next.
Amusingly, they do have a Hammer and Sickle Times tours in Budapest. Join us, Comrades and ex-Liberals:
Go back to the good old times to experience how life was when Big Brother ruled our every move, we drove Trabants, drank spirits at work, lived in block flats, stood in banana lines, had two passports, coupon books, no TV on Mondays and no freedom of speech! Written and raved about every year in major newspapers around the world, don't miss out on this bygone era.
They also have this more cheerful tour: Historical Revolution Walk. This one is about the good guys.
Thursday, September 16. 2010
The oyster farmers get out onto the mudflats at low tide, with their trucks and boats, to tend their oyster cages or to harvest the humble but tasty Wellfleet Oyster:
One of many vast Wellfleet salt marshes. These are happy homes for Diamondback Terrapins, on the northern edge of their range. I think they hunker down in the mud at low tide, then come out to feed on worms, crabs, and snails when the water comes back in. They never leave the water except to lay their eggs, and are rarely seen. Some Mallards and Black Ducks breed there, but you never see many ducks up there until winter, when the sea ducks come down from the north in large numbers - Eider, Old Squaw, and all of the Scoters.
Miles of "empty" beach. This is on Cape Cod Bay, roughly across from Plymouth. Endangered Piping Plovers breed along this stretch of beach. Montana is not the only place with big skies (but we do love Montana - been there many times).
Wednesday, September 15. 2010
The parlor of the place where we plant ourselves on Cape Cod. Tiny antique rooms, all with views of marsh and harbor.
Tuesday, September 14. 2010
From Wind in the Willows (a book without which no child should be)
"Is it so nice as all that?" asked the mole, shyly...
"Nice? It's the only thing," said the Water Rat Solemnly, as he leaned forward for his stroke. "Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
"Simply messing...about in boats -- or with boats... In or out of 'em it doesn't matter. Nothing seems to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."
"Look here! If you've really nothing else on hand this morning, supposing we drop down the river together and have a long day of it?"
Photo is of Lightnings. Info and some links about that class here. Watched one flying past in Wellfleet Harbor, despite being loaded with 5 guys. I grew up racing that class, still love them because they double as comfortable little day-sailers. My late lamented uncle used to take his half-waterlogged wood Lightning out on a Saturday afternoon alone with his pipe and some beers, placidly contemplating life and enjoying toying with the fickle breezes. I am far from being an old guy, but I even sailed wooden Lightnings as a youth. Played lots of tennis with wooden racquets too. Jack Kramer Pro Staff was my favorite in that department.
As understood by the USMC:
- BEARING - Creating a favorable impression in carriage, appearance, and personal conduct at all times.
- COURAGE - A mental quality that recognizes fear of danger or criticism, but enables a Marine to proceed in the face of it with calmness and firmness.
- DECISIVENESS - Ability to make decisions promptly and to announce them in a clear, forceful manner.
- DEPENDABILITY - The certainty of proper performance of duty.
- ENDURANCE - The mental and physical stamina measured by the ability to withstand pain, fatigue, stress, and hardship.
- ENTHUSIASM - The display of sincere interest and exuberance in the performance of duty.
- INITIATIVE - Taking action in the absence of orders.
- INTEGRITY - Uprightness of character and soundness of moral principles.
- JUDGMENT - The ability to weigh facts and possible courses of action in order to make sound decisions.
- JUSTICE - Giving reward and punishment according to the merits of the case in question. The ability to administer a system of rewards and punishments impartially and consistently.
- KNOWLEDGE - Understanding of a science or an art. The range of one's information, including professional knowledge and an understanding of your Marines.
- LOYALTY - The quality of faithfulness to country, the Corps, and unit, and to one's seniors, subordinates, and peers.
- TACT - The ability to deal with others without creating hostility.
- UNSELFISHNESS - Avoidance of providing for one's own comfort and personal advancement at the expense of others.
Monday, September 13. 2010
Monastery on a hill overlooking the Danube, early morning light, a few weeks ago. No, the Danube ain't blue.
Home from a four-day mini-vacation to Wellfleet for a homeopathic salt-and-pine-and-sand-and-shellfish infusion before autumn sets in. It was too cool to be good beaching weather, but perfect walking weather. We did get in one good swim. Wellfleet Harbor, early morning (yes, I am an early-riser):
Sunday, September 12. 2010
This was done to glorify God. Gilding the lily, in my Protestant view, but it's a heck of a sight. They have the bony corpse of a saint in an altar on the side, under glass. Memento mori.
That must be some American kid in the Nantucket Red.
Saturday, September 11. 2010
A fantasy trip, that is. NetJets to Vienna. Five days at the Hotel Sacher with opera tix etc. Then onward maybe to Bucharest and Budapest. And why not Trieste, then down to Venice? Or tack on five days of skiing at Innsbruck or Zermatt? Those nice NetJets pilots will be there whenever needed, and the copilot will load and unload your skis and luggage and mix your drinks for you, and a car and driver will be waiting for you on the tarmac.
It's like I said about boats...
I don't need to go back to Venice, but the rest seems fine to me. That's why I buy Powerball tickets. Foolish not to.
A re-post. This is an important essay about individual freedom. From Peter Saunders
The problem for those of us who believe that capitalism offers the best chance we have for leading meaningful and worthwhile lives is that in this debate, the devil has always had the best tunes to play. Capitalism lacks romantic appeal. It does not set the pulse racing in the way that opposing ideologies like socialism, fascism, or environmentalism can. It does not stir the blood, for it identifies no dragons to slay. It offers no grand vision for the future, for in an open market system the future is shaped not by the imposition of utopian blueprints, but by billions of individuals pursuing their own preferences. Capitalism can justifiably boast that it is excellent at delivering the goods, but this fails to impress in countries like Australia that have come to take affluence for granted.
It is quite the opposite with socialism. Where capitalism delivers but cannot inspire, socialism inspires despite never having delivered. Socialism’s history is littered with repeated failures and with human misery on a massive scale, yet it still attracts smiles rather than curses from people who never had to live under it. Affluent young Australians who would never dream of patronising an Adolf Hitler bierkeller decked out in swastikas are nevertheless happy to hang out in the Lenin Bar at Sydney’s Circular Quay, sipping chilled vodka cocktails under hammer and sickle flags, indifferent to the twenty million victims of the Soviet regime. Chic westerners are still sporting Che Guevara t-shirts, forty years after the man’s death, and flocking to the cinema to see him on a motor bike, apparently oblivious to their handsome hero’s legacy of firing squads and labour camps.
Environmentalism, too, has the happy knack of inspiring the young and firing the imagination of idealists. This is because the radical green movement shares many features with old-style revolutionary socialism. Both are oppositional, defining themselves as alternatives to the existing capitalist system. Both are moralistic, seeking to purify humanity of its tawdry materialism and selfishness, and appealing to our ‘higher instincts.’ Both are apocalyptic, claiming to be able to read the future and warning, like Old Testament prophets, of looming catastrophe if we do not change our ways. And both are utopian, holding out the promise of redemption through a new social order based on a more enlightened humanity. All of this is irresistibly appealing to romantics.
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