Monday, March 22. 2010
So much for President Obama’s virtual colonoscopy, not approved as cost-effective for ordinary folks’ coverage. But, then Obama would have had to been out during a routine colonoscopy and VP Biden would have been President for an hour or two. Imagine how much worse that would have been! Senator Grassley tries to set matters right.
Grassley said, “It’s only fair and logical that top administration officials, who fought so hard for passage of this overhaul of America’s health care system, experience it themselves. If it’s as good as promised, they’ll know it first-hand. If there are problems, they’ll be able to really understand them, as they should.”
Grassley said the motivation for his amendments is simple: public officials who make the laws or lead efforts to have laws changed should live under those laws.
“This is the same principle that motivated me to pursue legislation over 20 years ago to apply civil rights, labor and employment laws to Congress,” Grassley said. Before President Clinton signed into law Grassley’s long-sought Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, Congress had routinely exempted itself.
The senior Congressional Committee and leadership staff who wrote the ObamaCare bills are also exempt from it.
Sunday, March 21. 2010
Our fathers and mothers, or grandfathers and grandmothers, were the “greatest generation” that took the world back from tyranny in WWII and from poverty after. Ask them, and they were just doing what was right.
Those who served in Vietnam and those who supported us took the world back from despair and, vets actually doing better than their age peers, built the prosperity of the ‘80s and ‘90s. We were just doing what was right.
Now, three generations who just did what was right will be joining with the next generation to just do what’s right.
Together, in the chilling dawn of the wake-up call that is the bankrupting powergrab sham that is ObamaCare and the sliming of integrity with which it has been pressed, with the abandonment of allies and the kowtowing to foes, the heavy prices will fall most upon them along with the rest of us.
“Damn Dems” will be the next greatest generation’s battle cry. A cross-generational battle cry.
BTW
This reminds me of this: It's not over 'til we say so.
Flag of the Resistance:
Inside the Pelosi Sausage Factory:
Never before has the average American been treated to such a live-action view of the sordid politics necessary to push a deeply flawed bill to completion. It was dirty deals, open threats, broken promises and disregard for democracy that pulled ObamaCare to this point, and yesterday the same machinations pushed it across the finish line.
NYTs Understated: Legal and Political Fights Are Looming for Democrats
 Our sermon today was one of the ones I would have liked to have taught/preached myself, had I the ability and the calling.
(It followed one of our missions updates about the prison ministry we support (good stuff indeed, but as a friend said in our Lenten Lunch study group afterwards, "Can we be as sharing of Christ's love to our next-door neighbor with the BMW as we can to the sick, the despairing, and the folks in prison?")
The sermon seemed unusual to me in being a preaching against religion. Our Pastor, instead, held up the vision of the primacy of a personal relationship with God through Christ, bypassing much of what is often referred to as "religion." I suppose it was, in part, a preaching about the sins of piety, spiritual pride, righteousness, pro-forma ritual, and self-righteousness but I cannot do justice to the message.
A personal relationship with God through Christ...that sounds kind of ordinary, but I suppose I was ready to hear the "relationship" part in a new way. Less abstract; more felt. I understand how the "religion" part is meant to be a help in building, guiding, and maintaining the relationship, but it can be a hindrance too. Religion can easily become idolatry.
He spoke about how he has learned to tell when he is out of relationship with God by his reactions to life and people, and mentioned, interestingly, that having been raised and lived all his life as a Christian was a handicap to him as a Christian because he feels that he has never had the experience of being entirely out of relationship.
He was speaking on Luke 18:9:
He spoke also this parable to certain people who were convinced of their own righteousness, and who despised all others.
"Two men went up into the temple to pray;
one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this:
‘God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’
But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying,
‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."
This specimen plant is a contorted variant of a member of the Hazel/Filbert family. It is of most interest when its leaves are off because the dense foliage conceals most of the branches.
Mine is coming into bloom with its catkins right now:
Saturday, March 20. 2010
 One Longs For 1776, The Other For 1936. It is true.
When our Dr. Bliss writes on the topic, she tends to put it in terms of peoples' dependency and security wishes which are placed on government, while imagining government as an altruistic, caring, "ideal" parent (as if an ideal parent were a constantly gratifying one without realistic limits, who can make everything right), or Santa or a god.
I know what she means, but I do not think of these things in those terms. I think of it in terms of power. Governments tend to accumulate power. People who work in government tend to enjoy power and, for reasons I cannot comprehend, tend to think that they are smarter and wiser than us regular citizens. Unlike wealth, however, power is indeed a zero-sum game. Any power our federal government accumulates comes from your own personal supply of it, or your town's, or your state's.
Wise adults are not prodigal with their funds, nor should they be with their far more precious freedoms: our funds are got by labor, but our freedoms from external powers are given by God but got by blood. America is uniquely formed on the ideal of limited government and maximum individual freedom. What is idealized, so to speak, is the genius of the individual - not the ancient notion of the divinity of rulers and government and their powers.
America is not for sissies, and was never meant to be. She was designed for the brave, the bold, the resourceful, and the independent. Designed for the New Man of the Enlightenment, rather than for the weary and government-oppressed and controlled of the rest of the world. People who wanted a chance, not to be ruled and "governed" and "helped" by their betters.
That's why people came here from all over: to take their chances for their dreams in a New World of freedom from the Powers. But how much of their - our - depressing history came with them?
What if the founding idea was wrong? What if most humans are more serf-like, dependent, and willing to be ruled than our founders thought? Our founders, after all, were not exactly ordinary people (whatever "ordinary people" means - I've never met one).
How many Lefties would be standing at the 1775 Concord bridge today with a squirrel gun to resist a "tyranny" which was peanuts in comparison to an admittedly elected American government of today? This is why I write here on occasion about the danger of selling our birthright of freedom for a lousy bowl of lentils (not to disparage the lowly lentil - lentils with chopped carrots, shallots, etc makes a fine bed for a medium-rare breast of Ruffed Grouse with a generous drizzle of gibier sauce over it all).
This CS Lewis quote is always worth repeating:
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Good Old CS saw it coming, didn't he?
Re-posted from just one month ago -
"Jesus tells us that everything we had ever thought about how to approach God is wrong."
 After church yesterday, my Lenten study group listened to a DVD of Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, teach on the prodigal son. (We are using Keller's Prodigal God as our guide this Lent.)
Among other fascinating points, Keller observes that Jesus used the parable to depict two kinds of lost sons - the seemingly-"good" kind and the obviously-"bad" kind. The elder "good" son is crippled with the sins of spiritual pride and self-righteousness, and the younger is just an everyday rotten kid. However, Keller's main point in this regard is that neither son loved the father - they both focus on what they can get from the father (the inheritance in the elder's case, and a job in the prodigal's case) rather than on loving the father. They are lost because neither is in a loving relationship with the father.
Keller holds up a vision of a Christianity which consists of a transformative relationship of love and communion with Christ and God which is, as he puts it, "beyond morality and beyond religion." He invites us to be reborn in a loving relationship with the Father. The fruits of that - the "fruits of the Spirit" - may emerge after and be more than the "clanging cymbals" of empty, dutiful, or self-validating virtue.
I like this message because I have never directly associated Christianity as being centrally about doing "good" or being "good." Indeed, I sometimes think a good church sign might be "Sinners only, please." Good character and behavior are damn important in life and important to the people we are involved with, but not basic to Christianity. Being respectable, honest, dutiful, responsible, self-controlled, reliable people are primarily secular and/or psychological issues, despite Calvin.
In Christ's time, the Pharisees (represented by the elder brother) were scrupulous about doing the right thing but lost track of their relationship with God during their search for goodness and correctness. Christ gave them hell for their pursuit of rightousness and, famously and scandalously, chose to hang out with lepers, whores, tax-collectors and the like (the sinful younger brother who might, someday, have to recognize a need for redemption).
One of my comments in our group was in this vein:
"Seems to me that there are many rational, practical, mature caring adult, legal, narcissitic, relational, and emotional reasons to be a good and upright person in this world and to live a life of decency and honor, but getting on the Father's good side and getting the Father to do what we want is not one of them."
As one reviewer of Keller's book asks, "Which brother am I?" My private answer: "A bit of both and, I hope, a bit of loving son."
There's a trailer of Keller's DVD here.
Friday, March 19. 2010
Many friends in town still without power etc. At some point, it gets a little old. A hot shower is one heck of a fine thing. A few more of my storm photos were posted earlier today. A few observations -
- You can get the phone co. to forward your regular phone to your cell phone on an emergency basis. That's a good service. Problem is, it pretty much wears out your cell battery while trying to get through to them.
- The power of nature is a majestic, frightening, unpredictable, glorious, exciting, humbling thing.
- Throwing out everything in your freezers is a bummer. Furthermore, the smelly garbage draws raccoons from all surrounding counties, who spill and drag it all around. Lovely. Thanks, fellas.
- It might be time to spring for a Home Depot generator like Gwynnie has. I am always the last person to have the techy thing.
- Memo to self: "Call your mother." Don't wait for an 80-something lady to call to see how you are doing. She said "Oh, we're fine. Your Pop and I are having quite an adventure with candlelight and the fireplace and the wood stove all going strong. We keep eachother warm. No stove though, so your Pop keeps sending me out five miles to Dunkin Donuts for coffee."
- The importance of fortunate timing: the BD pupette spent this week skiing in Utah with college pals - Deer Valley, where they offer you a hankie and a VSOP or glass of sherry on the lift line - instead of chilling here in the dark. Nice life to be a BD kid. I'd be happy to be one myself right now, around 20 years old with what I know now.
- No government was needed to get New England back up and running. All it took was neighborliness, dutiful utility companies, and tree companies from all over. The guys clearing our roads came down from NH and Quebec. I believe we also had every cherry-picker truck in Mt. Airy, NC, up here.
- No distractions: When you have no radio, TV, internet, phone, or power, you are pretty much stuck with your own thoughts. Sometimes that is interesting; sometimes it is living hell with memories, regrets, remorse, pain, etc. Dr. Bliss posted on this in A New Way to be Insane and in Try turning off the radio: Obsessions, Distractions and Diversions.
- My preferred living temperature is between 60 and 64 F. Keeps me alert, and comfortable in the proper dress code.
- All fossil fuel is just stored solar power. So is firewood. These things are solar power batteries. "Organic," too.
- It is said that fireplaces draw heat from a house. Perhaps that is true - but not in an unheated house. In an unheated house, a fireplace will radiate fairly well. Of course, a Franklin stove will do a much better job of that while burning less wood. Ol' Ben was quite a fellow, even if he was a jerk in some ways.
- Sheesh, Mr. Bruce Kesler! Now I see why people complain about the cheesecake on Maggie's. Every time I stopped by the library to check my email (they had power) and to see how Maggie's was holding up, out popped that seductive St. Paddy's leprechaun for all the world to see. I have to consider my reputation! However, she is one pleasant leprechaun.
Maggie's HQ was fortunate to regain heat, cable, and power last night, after losing those fine modern conveniences on Saturday. Here's how we lost them:
another one:
A photo of the HQ at dusk:
Thursday, March 18. 2010
The Democrats are exultant over the preliminary CBO score (preliminary because even the Congressional Budget Office hasn’t had time to examine whether it jives with the previous Senate bill) issued this morning. The score (costing) is on the Democrats’ reconciliation adjustments to the Senate ObamaCare bill that it remains under $1-trillion in spending and that together with added revenues will further reduce the deficit.
There’s increasing amazement at this bald-faced assertion. The real score will be seen this weekend in the Democrats' trickery vote and the consequences they face next November.
The Republican leadership is still trying to decipher the fine print, but are quickly getting to the bottom line. Senator McConnell issued a press release saying: “They get there with even higher taxes and deeper Medicare cuts than the first Senate bill.
“Let’s start with Medicare cuts.
“The Senate bill that Speaker Pelosi said Democrats are so afraid to take a vote on cut Medicare by $465 billion.“This latest bill increases those cuts by about $60 billion more.
“How about taxes?
“The Senate bill that Democrats are so afraid to take a vote on raises taxes by $494 billion.
“This bill increases those tax hikes by at least $150 billion.
“So if you were worried about raising taxes in the middle of a recession, this bill raises taxes even more.
“If you were worried about cutting Medicare for seniors, this bill cuts it even more.
That’s real. There’s more that’s real and unreal. The $500-billion taken from Medicare is real in its impact on seniors' health. That doctors will have their fees further reduced is not real, many already operating at a loss on Medicare business and losses being shifted on to private insurance plans. The tens of billions of spending in future years mandated upon the already near-bankrupt states for expanded Medicaid is real, though not counted by CBO. The negative impacts on employment and the economy are real.
The Washington Post’s WonkRoom says:
One of the most stunning numerical changes is in the excise tax on Cadillac plans. While the bill changes the indexing from inflation plus 1 to inflation — strengthening the provision [ed: meaning another buy-off to unions] — it pushes back the entire effort to 2018 and significantly raises the thresholds. I suspect the bill makes up the difference with the payroll tax and the savings from the college loan provisions. More to come.
The Washington Post reports on throwing into the unrelated health care bill the entirely unrelated federal takeover (except for Democrat Senator Conrad’s state) of student loan lending:
The legislation would also spread some savings among other Democratic education priorities and reduce the deficit by $10 billion over 10 years.
On the Cadillac Tax, the New York Times reports:
Mr. Obama and White House officials reached a deal with organized labor groups to delay the implementation and limit the impact of that tax. As a result, the excise tax will raise only $32 billion over 10 years, according to the budget office.
Of course, that meant coming up with another $118 billion elsewhere to plug the hole. Not a problem: the final legislation imposes a 3.8 percent tax on “unearned income” such as dividends and interest, or on regular income above $200,000 a year for individuals and $250,000 for couples.
The National Taxpayers Union says:
On page 8 of the report (found here) the CBO lists a quick add up of the kinds of new taxes and penalties they believe the American people will be facing in the next decade should this legislation pass. Turns out by 2019, this bill would be responsible for an additional 145 billion in taxes and penalties. Of which, 17 billion will be penalties paid by the uninsured (read: people making under $250,000) and 52 billion will be penalties paid by employers. Imagine trying to job hunt then! Whats more, thats really only a 6 year estimate because the politicians who crafted the bill wanted to make sure no new taxes were put in place before they had to face re-election. Which means a ten year score (2014-2024) of the taxes and penalties would be significantly higher.
Page 24 of today’s preliminary CBO score says that $129.7 billion will be taken from Medicare Advantage plans, versus the $118.1 billion the CBO said a week ago would be taken away.
Then there’s the timing shenanigan of loading revenues up front and costs at the backend of the first 10-years.
What else lurks in the hearts of the Democrats rammming down a non-roll call vote they are planning for this weekend? Will a stake be driven through it?
P.S.: Federal budgets expert Keith Hennessey adds much more info.
When I was in high school, our Headmaster never praised intelligence in his homilies on God and life in daily Chapel, but he did praise what he called "stick-to-it-iveness" and "going the extra mile" all the time. I thought "banal nostrums" at the time, but now I know better -
In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins - not through strength, but through persistence.
Buddha
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Thomas Edison
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas Edison
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.
W.C. Fields
Wednesday, March 17. 2010
FWIW, the man I respected most of any I've met in my life and to whom I was closest to came out as gay. He was a Navy veteran, who'd served at Pelelieu and elsewhere in the Pacific during WWII. I sat with him through his last year before he succumbed to AIDS. He was an accountant when I knew him and learned from him, who insisted on honest and informative numbers.
The VetVoice Foundation’s poll of Iraq and Afghanistan vets’ attitudes toward Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell says that:
[B]y six points Iraq and Afghanistan veterans under age 35 lean toward favoring allowing gay and lesbian people to serve openly (41% favor to 35% oppose) while veterans over age 35 lean toward opposing by five points (31% favor, 36% oppose). This recent bipartisan survey, conducted among service members in the United States, in many ways runs counter to the idea being asserted by many, that service members and the military cannot handle this change and are unwilling to do so.
That may or may not be so. The poll itself, however, has some problems.
1. Its service composition is off. The poll has the following service who say they served in Iraq or Afghanistan, 50% Army, 12% Marines, 18% Navy, 22% Air Force. According to Stars and Stripes in March 2008, for example, when most who’d served had been in Iraq, 73% were in the Army, 18% in the Marines, 3% in the Navy, and 6% in the Air Force.
2. The poll does not distinguish those in combat units (although many in non-combat units often were subject to hostile fire). One of the key considerations regarding Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell is how it may affect combat effectiveness.
3. The methodology of the poll is clouded. Proper polling standards require full disclosure of the methodology. This poll doesn’t. This is all it says:
* Methods: Lake Research Partners and American Viewpoint designed and administered this survey, which was conducted by phone using professional interviewers. The survey reached a total of 510 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) and/or Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). The survey was conducted February 8-23, 2010. Telephone numbers for the sample were generated randomly from a military sample and a radius sample drawn from military bases in the United States. The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 4.4 percentage points.
The respondents’ answer to whether they served and to where is self-reporting and unverified. How the sample was chosen is not detailed nor its representative validity presented. And, as seen in point 1 above, the service composition is off, and from point 2 above a critical question not asked.
4. The sponsoring organization is partisan. Although claiming the pollsters themselves “designed and administered” it, it is frequent that sponsoring organizations influence the design. VetsVoice Chairman is John Soltz, and only one vet Board Member is listed, J. Ashwin Madia.
On John Soltz (who supported disgraced Democrat congressman Eric Massa):
Mass was endorsed by the tough guy Veterans Political Action Committee (PAC) VoteVets. VoteVets is led by tough guys like Jon Soltz, a veteran of four months of duty in a division extended for fifteen months in Iraq. So far since 2006, VoteVets (click here for the This Ain’t Hell breakdown) has lied about Body Armor issues in a multi-million dollar campaign commercial used against Senator George Allen, had another veteran lie about his service in a Missouri Senate campaign commercial for Claire McCaskill. Still following? VoteVets used a veteran who lied about being a veteran in Denver. A veteran who is not a veteran. There are lies and then there are VoteVets’ Richard Strandlof who is now facing jail time for claiming to be a wounded warrior.
For the past week, Massa has further disgraced VoteVets in a gay scandal.
This is the legacy of VoteVets. You can’t blame them. When you are so desperate to prove your argument, even though you are absent factual truth or first hand testimony, you tend to get that guy on camera quick. So when you meet a fellow defeatist, pro-victimizing veteran, you grab them with both arms. Sometimes vetting these liberal “war heroes” would a good idea. But if Jon Soltz and VoteVets vetted everyone in their group claiming to have served in a combat zone, hell even Jon Soltz wouldn’t be a member of VoteVets.
On J. Ashwin Madia (who served as a Marine JAG in Iraq, defeated as a Democrat for Congress in 2008: “The district was ranked as one of the top ten most likely to switch parties in 2008. However, after a challenging campaign, the district remained in the Republican column.”):
I have experience advocating on behalf of unemployed people, immigrants, disabled children, battered women, and the LGBT community. In fact, I was one of the first marines to successfully defend a gay marine from “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Although influenced by Obama, I prefer to wait for the Department of Defense to complete and issue its study of Don't Ask/Don't Tell, in progress.
P.S.: I just received an Excel worksheet from the Defense Department's Press Operations Center breaking down by service and various demographics all those deployed from September 2001-January 2010. I'd be happy to email a copy to the pollsters or journalists.
President Obama has jettisoned the US’ Grand Strategy that since World War II protected Western interests, according to Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace writing in the Washington Post.
The old strategy rested on a global network of formal military and political alliances, mostly though not exclusively with fellow democracies. The idea, Averell Harriman explained in 1947, was to create "a balance of power preponderantly in favor of the free countries." Under Bill Clinton, and the two Bushes, relations with Europe and Japan, and later India, were deepened and strengthened.
What has Obama replaced it with:
Israelis shouldn't feel that they have been singled out. In Britain, people are talking about the end of the "special relationship" with America and worrying that Obama has no great regard for the British, despite their ongoing sacrifices in Afghanistan. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy has openly criticized Obama for months (and is finally being rewarded with a private dinner, presumably to mend fences). In Eastern and Central Europe, there has been fear since the administration canceled long-planned missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic that the United States may no longer be a reliable guarantor of security.
Meanwhile:
Who has attracted attention in the Obama administration? The answer, so far, seems to be not America's allies but its competitors, and in some cases its adversaries. If there were a way to measure administration exertion in foreign policy, the meter would show the greatest concentration of energy, beyond the war in Afghanistan, has been devoted to four endeavors: the failed first-year attempt to improve relations with Iran; the ongoing attempt to improve relations with Russia; the stalled effort to improve cooperation with China; and the effort -- fruitless so far -- to prove to the Arab states that the United States is willing to pressure Israel to further the peace process. Add to these the efforts to improve relations with Syria, engage Burma and everything with Af-Pak, and not much has been left for the concerns of our allies.
Obama's Wiley Coyote foreign policy is taking the US and its allies over the cliff with him.
Women of film:
Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Ruth Chatterton, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Vivien Leigh, Greer Garson, Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney, Olivia de Havilland, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, Deborah Kerr, Judy Garland, Anne Baxter, Lauren Bacall, Susan Hayward, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Audrey Hepburn, Dorothy Dandridge, Shirley MacLaine, Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno, Janet Leigh, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Ann Margret, Julie Andrews, Raquel Welch, Tuesday Weld, Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Catherine Deneuve, Jacqueline Bisset, Candice Bergen, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sigourney Weaver, Kathleen Turner, Holly Hunter, Jodie Foster, Angela Bassett, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Salma Hayek, Sandra Bullock, Julianne Moore, Diane Lane, Nicole Kidman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon, Halle Berry
Men of film:
Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Errol Flynn, Fred Astaire, Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Tyrone Power, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Gene Kelly, Burt Lancaster, William Holden, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, Anthony Quinn, Gregory Peck, Richard Burton, Jack Lemmon, Sean Connery, Sidney Poitier, Charlton Heston, Steve McQueen, Peter O'Toole, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, Warren Beatty, Dennis Hopper, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Harrison Ford, Kevin Kline, Kevin Costner, Michael Douglas, Christopher Walken, Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, John Travolta, Antonio Banderas, Tim Robbins, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, George Clooney
Tuesday, March 16. 2010
A map-equipped exercise machine can reenact any hike on Earth.
I suspect that it is a genetic defect specific to married women which causes them to object to the heavenly fragrance of the finest legal and illegal cigars.
Before you marry the gal, she will have no problem with the habit. After you marry them, all you hear about is how the smoke gets in the draperies and upholstery and the insanely-expensive "window treatments."
I have a friend who installed an old 12" brass ship ventilator next to his desk in his library containing a powerful fan, exiting out the wall. A custom design with a baffle to keep snopw from blowing in, and very cool.
In order to preserve an otherwise acceptable marriage, many hedonistic fellows have thought long and hard about how to smoke indoors, and to avoid the humiliating and less-than-relaxing experience of having your smoke out in the rain and blow and snow like a naughty child who has been banned from home and hearth. As a commenter on a relevant site says:
I smoke cigars and can only indulge once in a blue moon and that is basically because I have to go outside to smoke them, I can only smoke during seasons when it's not too hot or too cold, there's nothing to do while smoking, etc. I'd like to have a room where I can smoke a cigar while sitting in a leather chair and watching some TV or a movie or listening to some music. Also I'd like a place where I can play poker with my friends and not have to force them out of the house to smoke cigarettes.
Well, OK. I guess every married guy is pussy-whipped to some extent (and often enough for good reason - many males seem not to domesticate well).
The cheapest solution  is to create a negative pressure in your home smoking areas with a cheap window fan like this.
A more expensive solution is a powerful ceiling vent, like a kitchen fan.
The so-called "air purifiers" are a joke, in my view - and especially if you are the sort who likes to have some windows open in your house. Unlike Al Gore, you cannot purify the planet.
If you have a basement man cave, something like this makes sense.
If readers have any useful ideas short of evicting the spouse or of provoking one's own eviction, please share them.
My son and I are already watching pre-season baseball games on TV. We hosted a viewing of the great film "The Jackie Robinson Story" for his Little League team. Here's a book that examines the interracial baseball that barnstormed the country before then.
Interracial games had been a part of baseball for almost as long as the game has been played. Beginning as early as 1869 in Philadelphia, and becoming a component of professionalized baseball culture by the 1880s, teams of black players and teams of white players stepped out onto the diamonds and went at it for nine innings. Remarkably enough, it was possible for a team like the All Nations (with a roster of blacks, Native Americans, Cubans, Polynesians, Asians, and Italians) to “barnstorm” the country between 1912 and 1920, before they were transformed into the legendary Kansas City Monarchs of the original Negro National League. Otherwise, interracialism meant that all-white teams played against all-black teams. But even so, once the regular season ended, some of the stars of the Negro and Major Leagues (including Babe Ruth) would join the barnstorming tours for the competition, the fun, and the cash (though not necessarily in that order)....
And yet, even as Paige, Dean, and Feller demonstrated that baseball fans might well be ready for integration, the contradictions of Jim Crow America hung over them. Paige had mixed feelings about the prospects of integrating the game, successful as he was in the world of the Negro League and interracial barnstorming. What might integration hold in store for him? “You might as well be honest about it,” he reflected in the early 1940s, “There would be plenty of problems, not only in the South, where the colored boys wouldn’t be able to stay and travel with the teams in spring training, but in the North, where they couldn’t stay or eat with them in many places. All nice statements in the world from both sides aren’t going to knock out Jim Crow.”
Sunday, March 14. 2010
What the heck is the Hurva, and what is its current role in Israel-Palestinian and Israel-US tensions? The Hurva (“ruin” or “wreck” in Hebrew) has become a target for the Palestinian campaign to denigrate Israel’s Jewish heritage, and the Obama administration is cooperating.
Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to avoid being smeared as was former Prime Minister Sharon as justification for Palestinian attacks upon Israel and Israelis, that the Obama administration is in its misguided incompetence encouraging.
Former Prime Minister Sharon was falsely accused of inciting the Second Intifada by the Palestinians by his visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000. However, on December 6, 2000, the semi-official Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam reported as follows:
Speaking at a symposium in Gaza, Palestinian Minister of Communications, Imad Al-Falouji, confirmed that the Palestinian Authority had begun preparations for the outbreak of the current Intifada from the moment the Camp David talks concluded, this in accordance with instructions given by Chairman Arafat himself.
Before Israel’s independence, the most important synagogue in Jerusalem was the Hurva. The Hurva sat on the high ground in the Jewish Quarter.
Here’s an aerial photo from 1940. The Jewish quarter is at the bottom of the image. The two large domes are the Hurva Synagogue, at the lower right, and the Tiferes Yisrael Synagogue. Both were destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948, after starving out the Jewish inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter.
In 1948, British officers led their Arab Legion to destroy the Hurva, and other synagogues in the Jewish Quarter. The Jordanian commander is reported saying: "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible." In sum:
After the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem was captured, the destruction, desecration and systematic looting of Jewish sites began and continued. 57 ancient synagogues (the oldest dated to the 13th century), libraries and centers of religious study were ransacked and 12 were totally and deliberately destroyed. Those that remained standing were defaced, used for housing of both people and animals. The city's foremost Jewish shrine, the Western Wall, became a slum. Appeals were made to the United Nations and in the international community to declare the Old City to be an 'open city' and stop this destruction, but there was no response. This condition continued until Jordan lost control of Jerusalem in June 1967.
Christians also suffered under Jordanian rule.
In 1958, Jordanian legislation required all members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre to adopt Jordanian citizenship. In 1965, Christian institutions were forbidden to acquire any land or rights in or near Jerusalem. In 1966, Christian schools were compelled to close on Fridays instead of Sundays, customs privileges of Christian religious institutions were abolished.
Israel commemorated the Hurva site with an arch.
Eight years ago a reconstruction of the Hurva started, and is to be opened this Monday.
(Notice that the nearby Moslem minaret is undamaged under Israeli rule, as all Moslem and Christian sites are not damaged by Israel, in contrast to the fate of Jewish sites under Moslem rule.)
As an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal concludes: “What is clear is that the inauguration of the old-new Hurva—twice destroyed, and now twice rebuilt—represents a deep and irrepressible Israeli urge to heal and rebuild, not in order to obscure memory but to preserve it.”
But, the Palestinians, seeking another way to attack Israel’s Jewish history, claim that the new Hurva is part of a plot to take away their Al Aqsa Mosque built upon the Mount where the Jewish Holy Temple stood.
Saraya, the Islamic Jihad newspaper, says that Hurva is being built on an Islamic neighborhood, and says that the construction of the Third Temple will commence on March 16th. The Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation says that the Hurva dedication will take place on Sunday and Monday, also to be followed by the public start of the building of the Third Temple, as well as more Jews "storming" Al Aqsa for Passover at the end of the month.
The Palestinians are encouraged by the Obama administration’s reaction in February to Israel naming two of Judaism’s holiest sites as heritage sites, to be renovated.
The Obama administration sharply criticized Israel on Wednesday [February 24] for designating the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb, both in West Bank cities, to the list of Jewish heritage sites marked for renovation and preservation….
This reflected the Obama administration’s anxiety to show some progress after a year of alienating Israel and encouraging Palestinian intransigence by getting the Palestinians to agree to non-face-to-face talks with Israel.
Israel has good reason to be protective of its heritage sites, as demonstrated by the October 2000 Palestinian sacking and burning of Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus and the September 2000 destruction of archeological remnants of the Jewish Temple on the Mount. Other examples.
Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided not to personally attend the ceremony for the reopened Hurva. He says he’s “busy”. Knowledgeables in Israel say that Netanyahu is afraid of being provocative in the wake of the Obama administration’s stink about adding Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs to the heritage sites for renovation and protection. The Obama administration added stink in a teapot during Vice President Biden’s visit to Israel last week, protesting Israel’s right to build within Jerusalem, although Jerusalem was excluded by a previous Israeli ban to please Obama and the unpleasable Palestinians on building in the West Bank. The Obama administration adds fuel to the fire that Netanyahu is trying to avoid with the Palestinians by actually encouraging further intransigence by the Palestinians.
We know the Palestinians won’t be satisfied by anything less than the utter destruction of Israel. The Obama administration is on the same course of destroying Israel’s ability to be Jewish.
As Caroline Glick said last June in receiving a prestigious honor: “Our enemies are right in choosing their targets. They are right because they know who we are. We are the children of Jerusalem, of Zion. Our physical and spiritual survival is dependent on our willingness to dedicate our lives in every generation to guarding both the physical and spiritual walls of this city. “
P.S.: Worth reading at the Washington Post. The unreality of Obama's Israel policy. Also see Obamá's latest pretext for attacking Israel at Powerline.
UPDATE March 16: The New York Times reports on the Hurva dedication, sorta. But forgets to mention that Hamas announced a "day of rage" for Tuesday and that Fatah echoes in competition for being worthy negotiation partners, according to Obama anyway.
Saturday, March 13. 2010
From an essay of the above name by Craig and Fennell in The New Atlantis, which uses Wolfe's novel as a springboard for a discussion of cultural issues, but let me say that I hated the book, but I enjoy Wolfe's writing very much - the book was just too disgustingly real:
"I Am Charlotte Simmons is an indictment of the primary centers of higher education in America today. These institutions do not well serve the real longings and earnest ambitions of the young people who flock to them, at great cost and with great expectations, year after year. Instead of pointing students to a world that is higher than where they came from, the university reinforces and expands the nihilism and political correctness that they are taught in public schools, imbibe from popular culture, and bring with them as routine common sense when they arrive on campus. Of course, these two ideologies are largely incompatible: nihilism celebrates strength (or apathy) without illusion; political correctness promulgates illusions in the name of sensitivity. But both ideologies are the result of collapsing and rejecting any distinction between higher and lower, between nobility and ignobility, between the higher learning and the flight from reason."
Read entire.
Things are not always what they seem.
You think you're looking at a web page on Maggie's server, right? Nope, not even close. Every single item you see or hear on a web site has been downloaded to your computer first, and those are the files you're reading, watching and listening to. Everything, including all of those wild & wacky videos you watch, are sitting right there on your computer waiting to be saved for later enjoyment.
But no.
No, as cruel as it sounds, this is not an ideal world, and thus there are bound to be a few hitches and bumps along the way, such as your media player rudely spitting out "Unknown format" when you innocently try to play your latest YouTube treasure. But with stalwart heart and steely resolve, we'll solve the whole mess in one fell swoop. I'm not exactly sure what a fell swoop is — but I'm pretty sure there's one below the fold.
Continue reading "Doc's Computin' Tips: Saving & playing web videos"
 When I was a kid, Kedgeree was my favorite breakfast. My Mom was taken by it on all of her trips across the pond, and we kids just did not go for blood sausage. I think I first had it in Scotland.
This Indian-inspired Brit meal is as rare on US menus as Shrimp 'n Grits is on Maine menus. It's great thing for kids in the cool weather, or anytime. Supper too.
Rice, curry, haddock or smoked haddock, etc., and sliced egg on top. I like it with regular haddock, and even the frozen is OK with this. Wonderfully filling, tasty, and rib-sticking.
Here's one recipe, but it need not be so complex.
Friday, March 12. 2010
 Pic: Average student at Dr. Mercury's Computer School For Unwed Mothers upon discovering that a program she's just installed has added YET ANOTHER entry to the damb context menu!
P.S. I sure wish I had a lip ring. :(
On a Windows system, the 'context menu' is what pops out when you click on an icon with the right mouse button. Unfortunately, programs like installing their own entries on the context menu and things can get a bit cluttered after a while.
The solution is to use a simple program called ShellExView to remove the unwanted entries.
A download site is here. No need to install, just unzip and copy the folder to a permanent home. Then open the ShellExView folder, grab hold of the program's icon and d-r-a-g it over to the Start Menu and drop it in for future access.
Fire up the program and look for the company or program name on the left. Right-click on it and select 'Disable'. Go find an icon, right-click on it and see if the entry has been removed. If not, look for another entry by the same company or program. It should be there somewhere.
The issue of salt seemed to link with our post on Woodrow Wilson and all of our routine posts about Brit Nanny-Fascism.
Just skim this Tierney piece on the salt "controvery" in the NYT. "Advocates" are promoting their dire data, and the other side is promoting their own - or debunking that of the advocates. (Reminiscent of global warming - and salt, like CO2, is essential to life on earth.)
My point, though, is that the assumption seems to be that if excess salt intake is bad for some small minority, then the government should regulate it. That's the technocratic, government-by-expert thing we have been seeing lately.
Is there anything the scientific technocrat busybodies don't want to control in my life?
Where is individual choice, individual responsibility, and freedom in the equation? Whence a government's power to determine the salt in my food?
Thursday, March 11. 2010
 It's about time people began piling on the arrogantly naive goo-goo prissy academic Woodrow Wilson. See George Will today:
Wilson was the first president to criticize the Founding Fathers. He faulted them for designing a government too susceptible to factions that impede disinterested experts from getting on with government undistracted.
Undistracted by the people, that is. Like the EU. Also, from Jonah at NRO - quoted there:
Wilson, once a professor of political science, said that the Princeton he led as its president was dedicated to unbiased expertise, and he thought government could be "reduced to science." Progressives are forever longing to replace the governance of people by the administration of things. Because they are entirely public-spirited, progressives volunteer to be the administrators, and to be as disinterested as the dickens.
God save us Americans from such disinterested expert mandarins. We are the mandarins, and they are our servants! Makes me wonder who came up with the wacky notion of political "science"?
Here's some real Political Science:
 The magical biological and psychological chemical attractions to which we humans are heir is one of the more complicating, exciting, bewildering, and painful parts of life. Desire.
Sexual and romantic tension between two people is powerful stuff indeed. Without it, there would be very little music.
The French, like the cave-men did, routinely give in and just get the thing over and done with. Magic gives way to reality fast, in relationships that last longer than a few hours or weeks.
I wonder how our readers deal with this part of life, but I am not trying to collect Lenten confessions...
Wednesday, March 10. 2010
Robert Iger, CEO of Walt Disney Company since 2005, plays hard to get what he wants.
Case #1: Not Child Friendly
The New York Times reports today that under pressure from Disney The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood was evicted from the Judge Baker childrens mental health center in Boston that housed and sponsored it for a decade. The Harvard Medical School professor who oversaw the Campaign, psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint, also co-wrote books with Bill Cosby.
The campaign had for years fought Disney’s marketing of the Baby Einstein videos — short videos filled with colors, nature pictures, music and puppets — as educational; it contended that there was no evidence that babies learned anything. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under 2.
After the campaign filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint, Disney dropped the word “educational” from its marketing. But that was not enough for campaign officials. They forwarded their research to lawyers who threatened a class-action suit, prompting Disney to offer refunds of $15.99 for up to four Baby Einstein DVDs per household.
Barely two weeks after the story of the refunds appeared, Dr. Poussaint said, he and Dr. Linn were called before the Baker center’s executive board.
Dr. Poussaint wrote the board:
“You told me that the mission of C.C.F.C. — to protect children from harmful exploitation by corporate marketers — is not in line with the Judge Baker mission. Indeed, we were told that we could no longer criticize any corporations, even if they were exploiting children.”…
“It’s really chilling, that any corporation, and particularly one marketing itself as child friendly, would lean on a children’s center,” said Dr. Lynn, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard Medical School. “And it’s heartbreaking that a children’s center would cave in.”
Case #2: Democrat Friendly Exceeds Shareholder Friendly
Disney CEO Robert Iger is known for his support and funding of Democrat politicians and causes. For example, his 2009 political contributions counted by Open Secrets include $25,000 each to the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees, a $1000 to Walt Disney World’s Florida-home Republican governor and US Senate primary contender Charlie Crist, then another $14,600 to Democrat Senators.
Iger and Disney have refused to respond to why Disney refuses to sell the distribution rights or to re-air its subsidiary ABC-TV’s docudrama The Path To 9/11. The National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project, a Disney shareholder, has been speaking out at Disney shareholder meetings, including today’s, “warning Disney shareholders that CEO Robert Iger's progressive political bias puts investors at risk.”
"Iger's rejection of several offers to sell the distribution rights of the ABC-TV docudrama, The Path to 9/11, is a sign that his personal political views are affecting business decisions," said Free Enterprise Project director Dr. Tom Borelli, who has raised the issue personally with Iger at past shareholder meetings.
Big Hollywood offered more background.
A $30+ million project that aired without sponsors on two September nights in 2006, The Path to 9/11 dramatized the historical thread that connected the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Islamic attacks on American interests throughout the ‘90s, and the terrorism of that fateful morning in 2001.
Prior to its premiere, the producers at ABC were so proud of the impending project that they had high hopes of airing Path every 9/11 anniversary and showing it in schools across this country as an engaging educational tool – until an accusation of “conservative bias” (horrors!) on the part of the filmmakers quickly spun into liberal hysteria that the project was actually a “well-honed propaganda operation” on the part of a secretive, right-wing network-within-a-network….
Clinton administration alumni, fearing the miniseries would highlight their flaccid response to the growing threat of Islamic extremism and tarnish their political legacy, pulled out all the stops to suppress it. The show very nearly wasn’t aired at all – Robert Iger and Disney were pressured by the Senate Democratic leadership, led by Harry Reid – it hasn’t aired since, and today you cannot even obtain it on DVD.
And why not? Disney President and CEO Robert Iger explains without elaboration that it’s a “business decision.” Oh, well then, case closed. Not only does he refuse to re-air The Path to 9/11 or release a DVD, but he has no intention of even selling the DVD rights to another company. I’m no financial wizard, but I can recognize that, as business decisions go, willfully taking a $30+ million bath on your product when there is a vast audience hungry for it and distributors making offers, is not one of the more lucrative marketing strategies I’ve ever heard of.
Case #3: Lining Own Pockets at Others' Expense
Disney is a leading member of the US travel association’s lobby group, Discover America, that spent millions of dollars to pass its Travel Promotion Act, that was finally recently approved by the Congress and signed by President Obama. It will charge a $10 fee to travelers to the US that will go into a fund to promote tourism to the US. I was on the trail of its misrepresentations, starting in 2007. Tim Carney, muckraker at the Washington Examiner, joined in. Then, in February 2008, Jeff Birnbaum at the Washington Post wrote a 6,746 word expose Mickey Goes To Washington: Lobbyists for America’s richest mouse set out to persuade Congress to scare up $200 million to promote U.S. tourist destinations. In my summary post, which links to my earlier posts on this money-grab by the $1-trillion US tourism industry, I wrote:
The points I’ve been driving home are all there: The statistics Discover America ignores about the strong recovery of post-9/11 international tourism; The cynical marketing by Geoff Freeman, Discover America’s PR specialist; The “inside-beltway” lobbying that swells our federal expenditures and enriches lobbyists and Congressional staff’s future job prospects.
Exposed, the bill stalled until the Democrat Congressional sweep of 2008.
Foreign visitors will surely be thrilled by the added fee. Disney and its travel industry cohorts certainly are at getting others to pay for its own self-promotion efforts.
Isn't that how it works when you go to Disney Land?
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