Saturday, August 29. 2009
Several days ago I presented clips from some reviewers about Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Inglourious Basterds. I’m not a violent person, and I have always avoided it whenever possible. But, when necessary and forced, I’m not one to back down. The film may be, as some have said, Jewish fantasy porn, as only Tarantino can take it so over the top. Still, there is an underlying harsh reality to be faced: Sometimes it is better to take off the other guy’s top than he yours.
One of the characters in the film, the “Bear Jew”, is played by Eli Roth. That character’s baseball bat to the heads of Nazis is unsettling to some. I offer you my personal take.
An old friend just attended the wedding of Eli Roth's younger brother. I wrote my friend:
Do me a favor, really. Shake Eli's hand and say thanks to the "Bear Jew" from another Brooklyn Jew, me. He did it Brooklyn style, the way I grew up. Some may have f**ked with me, but none came away unhurt, and never did again.
My old friend sent me this email:
Bruce,
I read your email to Eli and his parents- they all loved it and
that led to the handshake pictured here.
My old friend emailed me some of the film making anecdotes he picked up at the wedding. Here’s one:
The other thing Eli mentioned was that Tarantino hired a few Jews to play the roles, but Eli cautioned him that these were not "tough" Jews, that they were like the kids he knew in Hebrew school growing up, delicate, fastidious, soft; one of them had to do a scene using a rifle and he kept stopping to clean his hands because he didn't like getting dirty, even for a role. So Tarantino finally fired them and got some other guys to play the roles--but Eli remained Tarantino's main man.
Friday, August 28. 2009
A re-post from 2007 -
 No living author does black humor and devilish satire as well as Carl Hiassen. For a look into the dark side of south Florida, give him a try. His novels are populated with brutal sociopaths, daffy idealists, the lost and deranged, corrupt politicians, and saints.
He is now an editor at the Miami Herald, but his books will cause you to consider staying far away from south Florida. I think that must have been partly intentional because he has a deep love for the unspoiled and undeveloped Florida.
I just finished Lucky You so I am up to date with all of his stuff. Here's his website. Here's his Amazon listing.
The photo is from this interview.
Part 1 was posted yesterday morning. This is from Dr. Bliss.
The Headmaster also had a policy that all administrators had to teach something - from the Admissions officer to the Provost and the Dean - and coach a sport too (however badly - nobody there cared if you were a lousy coach as long as we all got 2 hours of strenuous sport and fresh air). That was wise. Everybody was a teacher first. Every kid had to take 4 years of an ancient language and 4 years of a modern language, and you had to take math at least up to pre-calc. Plenty of kids flunked out. They would say to the parents "Sally does not seem to want or to be ready to take what we have to offer her here."
One of the teachers (or masters, as they were called), with or without their spouse as they wished, presided over every (assigned) table at all meals except breakfast, which was a free-for-all. You could not miss a meal. We students rotated the table service duty, and also the dish-washing duty (in what we called the Wombatorium).
We had required, monitored study hall (in old, panelled study halls) every night after dinner except Saturdays, from 7-10. Except for seniors. No talking and no non-textbooks. There was a prayer before breakfast and dinner, which was rotated through the students regardless of their religion.
Yes, everybody had to be in a sport, every semester. And every teacher was "Sir" or Ma'am." No complicated "dress code" - just a school uniform which made school shopping very inexpensive. The beds were hard and the rooms were cold in the winter. The only TV was in the snack shop, which opened after sports and closed before evening chapel.
Everybody rotated through School Duties: Dinner serving, Sunday Faculty Tea serving, scullery duty, lawn care duty, janitorial duty in the halls and common rooms (dusting, vacuuming), etc. No excuses.
There was brief chapel every evening (announcements, a prayer, a Bible reading, a homily, a hymn), and Sunday church, all presided over by the Headmaster with all faculty (and with all spouses and families on Sunday) in attendance. All the features of a low-Anglican service. The Jewish, Protestant (which I am), Hindu, and atheist kids never were converted (as far as I know), but they did learn to appreciate the virtue of a daily rhythm of contemplation and worship. Plus they learned a lot about Christianity. It is worth knowing about.
Darn good organist, who was also a Music teacher.
My parents sacrificed quite a bit for me to go there: new cars, trips, etc. I am true to my school. I still miss it, in a way.
From Prelutsky's The Case Against Mortarboarding:
If I were running things, most high school grads would enter trade schools. America will always need nurses, plumbers, carpenters, glaziers and mechanics. What nobody needs is some 21-year-old schnook who’s wasted four years and most of his inheritance majoring in black, Hispanic or lesbian, studies. And, then, to make matters worse, because like the Scarecrow of Oz, they have a sheepskin, they’re actually convinced they’re smarter than their parents.
One of my readers, Penny Alfonso, of Glendale, California, shared a conversation she had with her daughter. “I told her I won’t pay the tuition for any classes that end in the word “studies.”
Most people agree that the meaning of a college degree has degraded over the years, and is certainly no longer an indication of scholarship or advanced learning. With the commoditization of higher ed, colleges across the country have become glorified high schools. It cannot be otherwise, because most people aren't scholars. Just think about it: Does a college degree today guarantee that a person knows anything about anything?
Of course not, and employers know this.
I agree with Mr. Prelutsky that more people need training in trades, whether in apprenticeships of trade schools, whether in computer programming and software development, or in farming, carpentry and gunsmithing. A serious high school education ought to be a good start for anyone's life-long learning - if they want it.
Thursday, August 27. 2009
Our Editor wanted me to post this draft of a reminiscence about my wonderful boarding school (which will go unnamed), so here 'tis:
My boarding school had a required 4th form - sophomore - course we called "Shit He Wants Us to Know," which we labelled "Shwuk." Real name of the course was something like: 4th Form Required Headmaster's Course. That's where I got my love for stats, and lots of other things.
Besides How to Lie with Statistics - and a week on Liebnitz (who amazed him), the course also involved reading about half of the Bible - with a focus on Samuel - he made it great fun - and Moby Dick, plus one Shakespeare play which changed every year - and whatever else our Headmaster thought any person educated in his school ought to know. The history of Baseball, the history and chemistry of plastic, wood, and cement, Aristotle's Poetics, and how sails and windmills supposedly work. It also included the math of the Parthenon's design (those guys knew the keys to perspective way before the Renaissance), and every tiny detail of The Last Supper - including a discussion of the meaning of cannibalism in religion up to the symbolism of the Mass.
His class was like a real Intro To School. He was a Brit, an Anglican priest with an apparently blissfully affectionate marriage to a beautiful, reserved, distinguished lady who occasionally did book reviews for the NYT and The New Republic, and who loved to shoot grouse in Scotland. They were both shooters. They had four Ivy League boys, who, as I recall, who did extremely well forging their paths in life - at least one of whom returned to the private school world after making bags of bucks on Wall St. Another went to Yale Theological Seminary after Harvard College. I forget the others.
About The Last Supper, I remember him saying something like this "Would you eat human flesh, if cooked properly? Would you? Humans used to do it every chance they got. The Maoris called it "Long Pig" in the south Pacific because it tastes like pork. So they say. They made a feast of it when they were able to spear an enemy tribe in the jungle. Well, many claim you do it every week, if you are a believer, in Communion. In some spiritual sense, I do consume this human flesh too, but from a hunger of the spirit, not the hunger of the flesh. How wonderful it is that we reach back to stone age times for our most powerful ideas to nurture us. Drink this, this is my blood, shed for you. That is powerful stuff, ladies." And then "Now, Miss Bliss, tell us why Leonardo has Christ pointing to a glass of wine, and the what and why of the emotional reactions of the people at this Passover dinner. It's not a great painting, nothing to be nervous about - just a too-famous picture by a hugely talented mind. Explain to us what Leonardo might have had in his mind - besides wanting to get paid - when he painted this scene on the wall of the refectory. Begin on the left side." He was good fun, and there was always a twinkle in his eye.
The only political science was Plato's Republic and Burke's Reflections. Oh, a bit of Locke too. We all had to shoot rifles and shotguns, and learn the basic physics of ballistics. We learned renal physiology, because he though the kidney was a miracle in its ability to make sea-born creatures like us capable of maintaining ocean levels of salts under our land-dwelling skins.
We took a bus to West Rock (same geological formation as the Hudson Palisades) to learn Triassic paleontology and geology. Nothing superficial, he made us dig into it - with real shovels. A serious Christian (he wanted us to know Jesus, but he did not try to convert anybody because he assumed many or most of us were religiously-rebellious teens anyway). He loved Darwin and his Expressions of Emotions in Man and Animals - we had to read it along with modern research on the topic. And Orwell's Politics and the English Language.
Class met twice a week in small groups of around 15-20, around a circular table. It was the best and perhaps most demanding course I ever took in my entire education. The volume of reading would be incredible to kids today. The guy was interested in everything - Adam Smith, baseball pitches, kidneys, aviation, chlorophyll - and he treated it all as an adventure and infected most of us with his curiosity about everything. His attitude was "Let's figure this out" because he never claimed to be smart. Never "This is what it is." For him, everything was "What the heck is this?" - whether a butterfly, Hamlet, Freud, God, Newton, or ballistics.
Plus, through this course, the Headmaster got to know each one of us personally, and he was one shrewd dude to do that. No slacker escaped his gaze, and committed slackers were sent packing for good, because he did not believe in offering treaures to those who did not wish to partake in treasure-hunting. If your mind wandered, he would say "Miss Bliss, I Will Throw No Pearls Before Swine. You can day-dream later, or you can do it at home with your Mommy and Daddy if you want." Then he would make you stand and try to explain what he had been talking about. Tough. Love. Loved life and loved people. A lifetime role model.
I recall there was no hiding in his classes. He just said "Stand and deliver, Miss Bliss. You have one generous minute. Tell us everything you know about the Bernoulli Effect." There was no paper and no exam: all based on class performance. That's the great potential of private schools: you can demand performance. And he had a school to run, so could not be bothered with reading puerile or stolen papers. He wanted to know what you had to say for yourself, and he only gave one "A" per group. For that A, he'd write you a gracious college recommendation.)
You cannot be a powerfully inspiring teacher without being a natural learner who assumes his own stupidity. His unique course followed his inquisitive nose, and the model remains with all of us. He did not teach so much as share his enthusiasm and curiosity, but you had better have the answer about how kidney tubules handle sodium concentrations - with the math: he had a talent for integrating things, from the biochemical level to the math to the culinary - he gave us his favorite recipe for steak and kidney pie with his method for not making it smell like a urinal as part of his sessions on the kidney. According to his interests, he would alter the course a bit each year.
It was his personal introduction to the life of the mind, to a life of curiosity. Doing this course was his great joy in life, probably a greater joy to him than his little old farmhouse in Greece.
Did we make fun of his enthusiasm? Of course. Young people do stuff like that. It means nothing.
Wednesday, August 26. 2009
- Should you take an aspirin, or a baby aspirin, daily or every other day to reduce your risk for nasty cardiovascular events (heart attack, stroke)? Check it out. As I once mentioned here in the past, all male docs I know over 40 take a baby aspirin daily.
- Middle-aged women get Frozen Shoulder. Know what it is? It's not an excuse to avoid vacuuming, doing the dishes, or sex. It's a nasty thing.
- Also, I recently heard a talk about ADHD. There is a strong association between ADHD and Social Phobia, which I thought was interesting. However, it's confusing because ADHD is such a confusing pattern of symptoms since it is so commonly combined with other diagnosable problems: bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, depression, conduct disorder, antisocial personality, etc. It's a mess of a diagnosis.
Enough already. I do not need to add to it nor can I, as I can do neither saccharine nor sentimental very well. I have yet to hear the word "controversial" or "extreme Left-wing" or "limousine Liberal." If the guy was such a saintly historic figure, how come nobody told me before today? (It does sound as if he was kind to people in person, but I never thought much of his personal or political integrity, even if he had good manners.)
Not to be mean-spirited or anything - just being normal Yankee-grumpy. Now I see the Left is already politicizing his death. Never waste a crisis death. And now here it comes, just as Rush predicted a year ago (and was given hell for saying).
Addendum, from Mr. Tiger:
...Ted Kennedy did more to push American government and civil society toward a European social welfare model than any politician of the post-war era, with the possible exception of LBJ. By my reckoning, he left the country worse off than he found it, and to the moment of his death supported legislation that, if enacted, will make it a lot harder for the generation of my children to succeed, thrive, and reach for their own stars. So I will end on perhaps a churlish note: I wish Ted Kennedy had not led the life he did.
Addendum: Scott at Powerline thinks that Kennedy's "borking" of Bork was his most shameful action. After Mary Jo, I assume.
Mary Jo, and the chicks in the Georgetown pubs that he and Chris Dodd reportedly entertained constantly, were probably the only regular people he ever knew. But "he cared" - always with other peoples' money, of course.
But I am voluntarily off duty for news, so I will shut up.
Tuesday, August 25. 2009
Our corner of Maine, where we try to spend much of August boating, blueberrying, catching up on reading, playing tennis and golf and socializing over cocktails has broadband now, astonishingly. Re cars: Right now, I drive an oldish Lexus sedan, hubbie drives a fairly new F-250. Spare car? A 2002 Suburban for when needed, which we are considering replacing with a Toyota minivan. I'll begin with this minor rant -
 I hear that Cash for Clunkers - a wonderful subsidy for the Japanese auto makers - has had to extend their time frame for reimbursement from the government. Today is the latest deadline, but who knows?
The car dealers need the money to pay their bills.
It's the amount of paperwork, plus government computers crashing and making terrible errors. And most car dealers do not have, and cannot afford, the staff to get the government forms entered properly. Why would they? They are in the private sector...
That's why I refuse to get involved in government medicine. I don't have the time, and I cannot afford the staff to do their paperwork. And these bozos think they can run American medical care? They do not have a clue.
Errors on government paperwork are potential felonies. Who needs the hassle? Not me. I just want to be a simple doctor, and I would rather be paid with a bushel of potatoes from your garden than with a puny and way-overdue government check.
 Need something interesting to do, and a reasonably safe adventure? The Great Loop is just the thing. It's 5500-7000 miles (depending on your route), so it takes a while depending on your pace.
It's the boating version of the Appalachian Trail.
To make it longer and more adventurous, some Loopers skip the Hudson River and go around the Gaspe Peninsula and down the length of the St. Lawrence.
First, you have to find the right looper boat.
Here's the American Great Loop Cruiser's Association site.
Of course, for car trippers, there is The Great American Road Trip. Everybody probably ought to do it once. I only got as far as Denver and a bit of New Mexico when it was time to turn around and get back to school. Every 100 miles, my pal and I would trade off running a mile or two along the road to stay sane (difficult to do on an airplane trip, unfortunately). Good essay on the topic at Smithsonian.
I'm sure we have plenty of readers who have done the latter, but do we have any Looper readers?
Monday, August 24. 2009
 The "health care" war - and it is a war - attests to the extent to which Americans are divided on the proper role of government in their lives, not to mention in the most personal and sensitive areas of their lives.
For example, Coyote in a piece titled US Medicine - The best in the world, he said this:
I had a professor that used to poll his class — he would ask them if they would prefer a society where the gap between rich and poor was narrower but where the poor were, on an absolute basis, worse off than in the less equal society. He reported the vote almost always split about 50/50. (of course the is a purely utilitarian formulation of the question. Adding in individual liberties issues makes the question far more stark, as to achieve an egalitarian society one must give up both wealth and liberty.)
As a more-or-less Conservative person who was raised in the heart of the American Revolution, my instincts are to distrust centralized power (power is a zero-sum game, unlike money and wealth) and the wisdom and trustworthiness of politicians - and to trust the people to figure out their own lives as best they can (while providing the abundant safety nets we have now for those who stumble and fall).
I know that Lyndon Johnson's Medicaid and Medicare (for the poor, the chronically disabled and the old - imagine considering 65 to be old!), were viewed as first steps towards universal government medical care. Those measure took care of those people that everybody felt badly about.
The Left, which pretends to see "market failures" everywhere as an excuse to place as much as possible under the control of the State (see Dr. Clouthier: Simply put, the government needs to relearn its place, who notes the Left's tendency to promise the sun, moon and stars for free, for all.)
Does Government Know Best? I doubt it very much. There are few people in government, I believe, who are as educated, honest, informed, or thoughtful as I am (and that's not saying much). Regan at American Thinker asks Does Government Know Best?. One quote:
Frighteningly, team Obama and the Democratically-controlled Congress -- who have taken on the role of the prudent parents of juvenile Americans -- have proven to be more than occasionally wrong for the country. In their desire to completely control American lives, they have progressed from losing their tempers to losing their way. Americans are now living in a nanny state in which the Democrats in power are implementing policy after policy designed to reduce freedom of choice and increase government control. Big government, socialized institutions, and sharing the wealth are policies supported by the Democrats - the party whose membership includes academics, Hollywood pseudo-intellectuals, and community organizers. The members of the Democratic Party are those who believe that they are smarter and wiser than the average American and that government intervention in all aspects of our lives is necessary in order to prevent social and economic catastrophe.
William Anderson at Weekly Standard says what I wish to say much better than I can in his Who Owns Your Body? One quote (my bold):
We are berated, ad nauseam, with imprecations that America is the only advanced nation that fails to have universal health care. This statement is often followed by the rueful remark that the debate over government controlled health care has been going on without progress for 60 years and, ipso facto, it is time to settle it.
All right, let's do that. Let's look a little deeper. Why is there no settlement of the issue, and why is America unique in its obstinate reluctance to follow the example of our older cultural brothers in Europe?
When a debate continues for decades without resolution, it is prudent to consider the deeper underlying assumptions. Principles which underpin the arguments are likely being ignored and marginalized rather than addressed in a forthright manner.
America is the only advanced country whose founding assumption is popular sovereignty. This is a proposition that stands with hardly a seconding voice throughout the contemporary international community. Yet it is the taproot of American exceptionalism.
Even here, however, the principle of government subordination to the people is by no means universally accepted. It has never been firmly ratified by our political class, those spiritual descendants of Europe's nobility. Our soi-disant elite appear to view with dismay their countrymen's continuing preference for self-rule.
Thus arises the question of corporal ownership. For Americans, the answer has been settled. Since the terrible bloodletting of the Civil War, and now excepting military service, ownership of one's body is a matter between the individual and God, with no intermediation by government.
Yet assertions are now being made that government should have responsibility for, and thus authority over, the maintenance of our bodies. It necessarily follows that government must have the power to approve or withhold care. This concept collides destructively with the founding principles of individual responsibility and autonomy upon which popular sovereignty depends.
This is the reason that the debate never ends. It is also the reason that any resolution of the question will necessarily either confirm or deny the original intent of the Founders.
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I have occasionally posted here about the sad, if not pathetic, willingness of some to sell their American birthright of individual sovereignty and freedom for a bowl of lentils. This is especially sad for a shrink because part of our job is to help people emotionally mature. It is no help to a shrink's job for government to be an enabler of perpetual childhood and dependency. Read Anderson's whole good essay (link above).
Sunday, August 23. 2009
John McAfee of the famous software company has seen his net worth go from $100 million to $4 million. He is just one of many of the wealthy who have experienced similar things over the past couple of years.
The NYT recounts some of these stories. (h/t, Mankiw). I have seen quite a bit of this happening in clients at the firm - none on the scale of McAfee, but plenty of folks who have dropped from, say, $4 million to $700,000 or $1 million. A few folks who were heavy in Citibank, for example, and a couple of families in Madoff. That hurts if you are 70 and thought you were all set for a comfortable retirement.
The collapse of the value of stocks, real estate, and other investments has led to greater "equality." Achieving greater financial equality in this way doubtless evokes schadenfreude in the envious, happiness in the hate-the-rich populists, and delight in those who erroneously believe that money and wealth are zero-sum games.
But does it do any good for anybody? Probably not. When the rich lose money, government revenues drop, requiring higher taxes on the middle class. When the rich lose money, those who provide the goods and services they enjoy end up in trouble too - like boatmakers, travel companies, landscaping businesses, interior decorators, masseuses, restaurants, furniture-makers, hospital employees, government employees - and lawyers (our firm's income is down 27% thus far this year).
I believe that the Lefty notion of economic equality is insane. If anything, we need more rich people - the more, the better. I want everybody to be rich - if that is what they want in life.
Saturday, August 22. 2009
 This (former) weekly Saturday morning feature will slowly, over time, turn you into a full-fledged computer expert. More info here.
Lesson 17: Facts & Fallacies
This is the wind-up to the series.
I was reading some comments on RedState the other day and one of the commenters — an obviously very knowledgeable fellow — was clearly and concisely explaining to everyone what the word "bandwidth" meant. By the confidence with which he wrote, there was little doubt he knew precisely what he was talking about.
And he couldn't have been more wrong.
Nor am I criticizing him. There's a lot of confusion out there, often because a term has two different meanings depending upon context, and such was the case here. With other terms, it might be a matter of people believing the ad hype, or a word's meaning has simply evolved over time.
With all this in mind, here's a Points of Confusion list I've come up with:
Definitions
'Bandwidth'
'Image'
'Resolution'
'Web' & 'Internet'
'Disc' & 'Disk'
The Internet
Connection & Download Rates
Download Accelerators
Web Site Hits
What You're Seeing Isn't The Web
Cookies
Software
Mac vs the PC
Firefox
Macs, Firefox and Malware
Newer Isn't Necessarily Better
Screensavers
Backing Things Up
Hardware
Memory & Hard Drives
Faster CPUs
Computers Wearing Out
Defragmenting Hard Drives
Printer Ink Costs
The goods are below the fold. You might bookmark the page so you can throw it in some blowhard's face the next time you see someone spouting nonsense. For example, it's amazing how many people think that computers "wear out" over time, like a car. In truth, your computer (the hardware part) is just as fast as the day it was made. It's the software that "wears out", but that's easily remedied. If you've found your machine slowing down over time, the solution might be below.
Continue reading "Dr. Mercury's Computer Corner: Lesson 17 - Facts & Fallacies"
Friday, August 21. 2009
 An experienced outdoorsman can identify most of the plants and trees in the areas with which he is familar - but not so much elsewhere. Like learning languages, though, he can learn a new area quickly because he has woods-sense based on the types of habitats he already knows.
An experienced outdoorsman can also predict what birds and critters are likely to be found in a given habitat. Woods-sense is one of the few talents I have. I like to attribute it to my Iroquois blood.
It used to be called Woodcraft, then Natural History, and now it's called Science: Barcoding plants by their DNA. It's sort-of cool, but it is soul-less and not woodcraft.
Photo: An Alder thicket - a common lowland and streamside habitat in the northern US. I have busted my way through more of these nearly-impenetrable things than I can count. The branches pull your hat off constantly, and sometimes you feel like you are in jail, with no exit. And if you try to raise your gun for a Grouse or Woodcock, there's always a branch to stop you. Good stuff.
I take the view that the core tenets of all religions are essentially the same and should guide each individual, and as applicable to what should be governments’ very limited role in our personal lives should guide the role of governments.
The Seven Noahide Laws are found in the same Testament basic to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and are similar to tenets found in Eastern religions:
1. Belief in G-d
2. Respect for and praise of G-d
3. Respect for human life
4. Respect for the family
5. Respect for others’ rights and property
6. Creation of a judicial system
7. Respect for all creatures
To quote my religious guide to the importance of these basics:
Without these laws as a bedrock of government, a society will either have despotism, where individuals’ lives are compromised and possibly abused, or anarchy, where every person pursues his or her own needs without regard for the law.
There are varying views of the relationship of politics and religion. At one extreme, government forbids or represses or dictates the activities of one, a few or all religions. The ideology of the state, and avoidance of any challenges to its sole power, is paramount. We have too many real examples of this. At the other extreme, the dictates of a religion, or of a segment of a religion, dictates or is allowed to substitute for the usual role of government. Islamic Sharia courts and laws are one widespread example. Another is in Israel where the traditional Orthodox maternal lineage to be Jewish, and a traditional Orthodox conversion to be Jewish, is government policy. Although those following more relaxed standards are not persecuted or otherwise, they are still at a disadvantage in some important respects.
At both extremes, sometimes or often the reasonable differences or even the essential rights of individuals may be injured.
In the United States, we more than other nations have taken great care to walk the fine line. Still, in the past few decades, this fine line has been challenged by tensions expressed in two major issues, abortion and marriage, and now we can add health care.
When government requires that taxpayer funds pay for abortion or that private health insurance pay for abortion, and even moreso when government requires that medical practitioners perform abortions regardless of individuals’ conscience or religious scruples, government has crossed the line.
When government requires that the legal privileges and obligations of voluntary union between two consenting adults only be between a man and a woman, government has crossed the line. Civil unions are the role of the state. Sanctification as marriage is the role of religions.
Government has an accepted and important role to play in the protection and furtherance of public health, most particularly as regards pandemics but also in promoting better and more widespread health care. Experience in the United States, and elsewhere, demonstrates this is most accomplished when there is the freer choice and competition in the private sector, to the maximum degree possible, that best serves adaptivity, innovation and individual circumstances.
In the current health care debates, the overwhelming majority of Americans reject that government should take over control of health care. Unfortunately, primarily due to the strong arm tactics and language of its advocates both polarizing and enlarging opposition, we may for now also lose the opportunity to make some far smaller but important incremental improvements.
President Obama has now crossed another important line. His phone calls to garner support from religious leaders of several faiths who lean toward liberal political views is not objectionable in itself. (Neither is it objectionable for religious leaders to have political views, but they should refrain from imposing them on their flock or ignoring the contending justifiable moral, practical and factual considerations.) What is objectionable, far over the line, is that President Obama requested they preach from their pulpits support for his political position.
This is an important issue. It is a completely inappropriate and precedent-breaking overt effort by President Obama to use our religious leaders as his mouthpiece/propaganda "tools." If our religious leaders do, they are "fools." If we tolerate this, we are being badly used, such congregations’ majority political leanings toward liberal indeed being abused, for manipulation by President Obama. Then, are such congregations a religion or a political party? If the latter, it indicates one of the reasons why so many depart from organized religions in the US. Individuals in congregations, and those in leadership positions in congregations and our community, should speak out strongly to our religious leaders how truly inappropriate this is, as well as dangerous, to our communities of faith, to be a propaganda arm of any Washington administration, political party, or policy. President Obama's steering of sermons is far beyond anything that's ever been tried before, and should be recognized for what it is, blatant and disrespectful. At least, do our religious leaders have any self-respect or respect for us in their congregations? If not, they have forfeited respect, and should forfeit their pulpits.
Remember when Calvin insisted to his teacher that "Bats are birds"? (Correction - thanks, reader. I guess it was "Bats are bugs...". I was wrong again! That makes wrong twice in one week.)
New England is the home to around 7 species of bats, all nocturnal insectivores and most with some migratory habits.
Our most common bat is the Little Brown Bat (photo above) often found sleeping behind shutters or in crevices in sheds and attics during the summer and early fall. We had one who got into the house a few years ago. We managed to scoot him out a window. Wonderful - no, miraculous little critters, but worth keeping away from because they can carry rabies.
I noticed seeing very few bats around at twilight this year. I miss them dodging, diving, and ducking around in their bug-catching aerial antics. I checked it out. It turns out that there is a contagious bat disease in the Northeast. Whether this fungal infestation is the cause, or an effect of something else, is still not certain. It's a damn shame.
I hope their populations bounce back in my lifetime because these silent fluttering critters are one of the delights of the evening sky around here.
Thursday, August 20. 2009
 Just one humble thought about the government's apparent desire to control the purse-strings of medical care, and then to hire "experts" - our betters, no doubt - to ration it "rationally" (ie on an amoral, communitarian utilitarian basis) to cut costs:
It's our money. All of the government's money is our money. If we didn't make it, they wouldn't have it.
What went wrong in American history such that a government could even imagine making such personal decisions for us, with our own earned dollars?
Yes, I know that I am politically naive. I intend to remain that way.
Wednesday, August 19. 2009
If you like it, feel free to borrow or steal parts or all this email which I am sending (all Senate and House addresses here). It's just my first draft -
To my President, my Senators and my Congressman:
I strongly urge you not to support anything that would, could, or is covertly designed (which has been obvious) to lead to a government-controlled medical system. The idea of a government bureaucracy and government "experts" making decisions about my body is horrifying to me. But if government pays for it, they will have the ultimate control.
Everybody knows that the Dem goal is government rationing and control. Why Dems want that in a country that stands for individual freedom is beyond my comprehension. Furthermore, everybody knows that Pres. Obama is lying in his salesmanship. (If it's such a good thing, why lie?) As Rick Moran puts it:
...establishing a system that is deliberately designed to eventually replace private insurance with a single payer government program would never fly in a million years in this country and the left knows it. Hence, the lies about the public option.
The reality that Veterinary care in England and Canada is better, prompter, and more caring than human care is a cautionary tale about government control.
There must be a problem when I see a far-Left Liberal like Nat Hentoff getting worried:
Nat Hentoff: "I am finally scared of a White House administration" [Andy McCarthy]
After all the battles over all these decades, it took Obamacare to scare the daylights out of the renowned libertarian lefty (whom I read in the Village Voice as a kid, debated on Iraq and the Patriot Act, and have always admired for his honesty). His column in the Jewish World Review is here.
The problem is the nationalization of a person's body, ultimately. I want the government's hands off my body and out of my personal life as much as possible. People like Dr. Zeke Emanuel (who does not practice medicine) are the sort of arrogant "We know what's best for you" types that disturb me the most.
Only I know what is best for me and my family. I want to be able to make the choices, to buy whatever insurance I want, to pay medical bills out of pocket if I want the services. And I do not want to see a politicized medical system where the loudest whiners get the money.
Let's step back from the ideological issues (I know the powerful Dems always want more government control of everything and rarely include personal freedom in their political calculus, while Conservatives want government to have less power), and look at the real problems.
The real problems, I think, are these:
1. People equate insurance with medical care. Wrong. That has been an unfortunate accident of history, and it was the fatal error of Medicare. We need much more Major Medical available for people. It is affordable, and it is true insurance.
2. Medical insurance businesses ought to be able to compete across state borders.
3. Portability. People ought to be able to keep a coverage they have.
4. Pre-existing conditions. Insurance regulations ought to require companies to pool those with pre-existing conditions, same as is done with multiple-claim drivers with auto insurance.
5. The costs of the Medicare program. It's almost free to the beneficiaries, regardless of their wealth or poverty. Government created that mess, so fix it, if you can, over time. (I think it should have been means-tested, but too late for that now. How about inching up the age? People in their 60s still work, nowadays. In their 70s too, and plenty of them longer than that.)
6. The uninsured. Let's think a bit about who they are, and what, if anything, ought to be done about them. Medicaid already covers the poor. I know that when I pay a hospital bill it includes a charge for the uninsured, the illegals, etc., just the same as my kids' tuition bill includes an additional charge for the scholarship kids, and just as the price of something at the store includes an additional charge for theft and pilferage. I quote from this essay:
As Steve Chapman argues in the Chicago Tribune, Obama and his allies are proposing way too big a hammer to address the nail representing what is wrong with American health care. The great majority of Americans are happy with their health care. Despite the propaganda, there are not 46 million uninsured Americans who cannot obtain health care or insurance. If you are here illegally, that might explain why you don't have health insurance (nearly 10 million of the 46 million). If you earn over $75,000 a year, and have no insurance (10 million of the 46 million), it isn't, except in very rare cases, because you cannot afford to buy a policy. You have made a choice on how to spend your money, and in essence, have chosen to self-insure . If you qualify for Medicaid or some other government program and don't sign up (another roughly 4.5 million, if not more), whose fault is that? Another 6.5 million of the so-called uninsured are actually insured by Medicaid or S-Chip, but the census taker does not know it. Sally Pipes argues that the number of "uninsured" who would qualify for existing programs is much higher -- as many as 14 million people.
7. Malpractice tort reform. All physicians admit to unnecessary expenses for CYA purposes. Legal concerns rather than medical judgement plays a far larger role in American medicine than people realize.
8. The money spent on medical care in America. I happen to think it's great. We spend more money on medical things because that is what people in wealthy nations do. Dental implants, new knees and hips, physical therapy, psychotherapy, arterial stents, antidepressants, Alzheimer treatments, lazer vision treatment, cornea transplants, etc. That's why Americans at age 70 are so active and in such good shape compared to anywhere else in the world. It's a good thing for medical care to be such a big driver of the economy: what better use of money is there? It only becomes a "problem" when government has to pick up the tab.
In conclusion, I ask that you folks in government please stop doing things "for us." We Americans can figure it out ourselves. We always have, through good times and bad.
Best regards,
Bird Dog
PS: If you wish to respond, please do not respond with the standard talking points. I do not buy them.
Tuesday, August 18. 2009
 Bremelanotide. It's a nasal spray, works quickly. Looks like it can be bought online.
Is it a party drug, or a medical drug? I do not know. Haven't tried it yet, personally, but I probably would if only for my educational purposes...
All of the late middle-aged docs I know are "scientifically" curious about it. It is said to be the only true aphrodisiac. If it has no serious side effects, I can see this drug leave Oxycontin in the dust on the black market.
Not everybody, for sure, is fully satisfied with his or her sex life, unless young and in love.
Monday, August 17. 2009
 My plan, after today, is to stay away from the news until Labor Day. Not other interesting subjects, just news.
I'd never read the news if my American freedoms were not under daily threat by government (of any or either political party).
I need a short sabbatical (sitting by the pool hallucinating by watching the mermaids in my pool and letting my blood pressure return to normal) from my active membership in the highly-organized mob, from our secret cabal of hate-spewing, un-American evil ones who worry about too much Federal government power over our lives and who have the intolerable audacity of hope to say so, and to question our Dear Leaders.
(As I said the other day, in a mixed economy as the US has (if we can keep it), government becomes just one more special interest with their own goals and agendas, their own desires for money and power and chicks, their careerists, their criminals, their corruption, their cupidity, their influence-peddling, and their hordes of dependent bureacratic employees. Their only difference from most other organizations is that they do not have to show a profit and they do not have to be smart.)
However, given the attempted government take-over of medical care in the US (see list of their tactics, and dig this about how much they are spending on ads), this seemed an important cautionary tale:
Canadian Health Care "Imploding"-- Doctors Meet & Discuss Private Options
What a genius idea! A private option! As in freedom to pay for the medical care you want, and to buy whatever insurance you might want? Like in America?
Maybe the government-centric view of life isn't all it's cracked up to be. I am an adult. I am a man, I spell M-A-N. If government is supposed to be my parent, I prefer to be an orphan. Nor do I want a Philosopher-King. I am my own Philosopher-King of my own life, thank you very much. That's the whole point of America.
Our friend Ace has a remarkably serious post on the topic of medical insurance. I wish I had written it, but I was too busy having fun with the horses. He says - and I totally agree -
The reason that employees at companies that pay for insurance get most of this paid for is that their employer is merely paying them wages in a different form; i.e., rather than pay you an extra $10 a week or $500 per year, they'll pay $500 of medical expenses you would otherwise have to pay yourself.
They're not "insuring" you. You cannot be "insured" against a "risk" 100% guaranteed to occur.
They're just delivering wages in a roundabout fashion.
and
Individual mandates, for one.
To be perfectly honest with you, I personally am not completely opposed to this one, in principle, assuming it would take a tolerable form.
But I don't assume that. It will take an intolerable form. I assume it will take the form of the stupidest, vote-buyingest, most socialistic scheme possible, so I oppose it in fact.
So long as it's not greatly socialist -- e.g., young people, with barely any need for insurance at all (which is why they skip it) are overcharged ludicrously so they are forced to subsidize the elderly, who use a lot of insurance dollars. Or rich people are forced to pay money for the poor. In that case, I could kinda get behind it, or at least not bother myself to oppose it strenuously.
Or it covers anything except unpredictable, rare, catastrophic health crises.
This idea that taxpayers ought to pay for someone's eyeglasses or routine visits to the doctor or utterly-predictable need of antibiotics or flu immunizations is, well, two words; In. Sane.
As my final point on the topic for a few weeks, I see the WSJ is repeating what I always say: Who has a better use for their money than to treat their disease or to keep their health? It's what prosperous people do. One quote:
Though it hasn't been widely realized, the desire for shelter was a major driver of the U.S. economy during the second half of the 20th century and the first several years of the 21st. About one-third of the new jobs created during the latter period were directly or indirectly related to housing, as the stupendous ripple effect of the bursting housing bubble should make painfully obvious.
Once these material needs are substantially met, desire for health care—without which there can be no enjoyment of food, clothing or shelter—becomes a significant, perhaps a principal, driver of the economy. A little-noticed feature of the current recession is the role of the health-care industry as a resilient driver of the general economy.
Yes, spending on medical treatment is a wonderful thing and a great privilege. People should want to spend more on it. Just check out my dental implants, or read my (stainless steel) left hip. Good stuff, but not cheap - but worth every penny, and only easily available in the good old USA.
Sunday, August 16. 2009
“Grunts” are the front-line fighting Marines and soldiers. My friend R.J. DelVecchio is moved by the following article by a leading commentator on, and supporter of, the tasks faced by Grunts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their comments are not intended as, nor should they be read as, despondent about either our mission or prospects. They, however, should be read as a necessary corrective to the thinking of those who feel that wars can be fought in comforts or oblivious to their primary necessities, especially that of crippling and killing the enemy. This is a long post, and for those who care to read it may help clarify our dilemmas in Afghanistan.
Here’s DelVecchio’s email:
Here is the question- if we are going to make our guys always carry 70+ (often up to 100) lbs of stuff all the time (as if there is no chance of chopper resupply of anything), and they have to use a Rule of Engagement sheet that runs over a page single-space last time I heard, and they have to worry about what some lawyer back at battalion will do to them if he even thinks they may have violated the ROE, and best of all, now the bad guys can fire at will from villages or buildings where there just may be civilians and we cannot fire back, and we can't really just use our masters of the night aircraft to kill anyone they see coming across the border into Afghanistan so that the people in the Pakistan bases of the Taliban finally figure out that to even start that journey is to die.... then have we put ourselves again in a situation where as long as the
other guys are determined enough to stretch this out long enough, eventually enough people at home and in Congress will decide they don't want to play this game anymore and we bring our guys home and everything they have fought, suffered, and died for goes to hell anyhow?
I always tell the high school classes I lecture at that the lessons of Viet Nam are three simple rules-
1- do not send Americans to fight somewhere unless you have a clear and
reasonably simple goal of what it is you want to get done
2- do not send Americans to go into that fight unless you have a pretty
good idea of what it will take to win not just the battles, but the whole war
3- do not sent Americans to go and fight and die in that war unless you are fully prepared to do whatever it really takes to win it
If that means using napalm sometimes, laying down minefields sometimes, using herbicides to kill foliage or crops sometimes, (none of which are now allowed to us) and accepting the sad fact that when the enemy deliberately hides among and uses the local population as a major tactic, collateral damage is utterly unavoidable if you are to really fight them, then those are the things you should be doing.
The most moral thing you do in any war is fight hard, as hard as you can, to smash the enemy and get it over with. A short nasty and intense war with mistakes and some tragic collateral damage is infinitely better than the long drawn out "let's be nice and careful and not upset anyone in the international community" attempt at war that ends in failure anyhow. That seems to be a lesson that has been utterly lost in America today.
That is what I think.... what about you?
S/F
Del
Here’s the column by Bing West from Small Wars Journal website (a link to his bio is at the end):
Tactics or Strategy?
I came back from my latest month in the field in Afghanistan disquieted about our basic military mission. Is the military mission to engage, push back and dismantle the Taliban networks, with population protection being a tactic to gain tips and local militia, or is the military mission to build a nation by US soldiers protecting the widespread population, with engagements against the Taliban as a byproduct?
It appears our strategy is nation-building, with fighting and dismantling of the Taliban a secondary consideration. Thus, the number of enemy killed will not be counted, let alone used as a metric. This non-kinetic theory of counterinsurgency has persuaded the liberal community in America to support or at least not to vociferously oppose the war. But we have to maintain a balance between messages that gain domestic support and messages that direct battlefield operations.
We must understand what our riflemen do in Afghanistan every day. The answer is they conduct combat patrols. That underlies all their other activities. They go out with rifles to engage and kill the enemy. That is how they protect the population. For our generals to stress that the war is 80% non-kinetic discounts the basic activity of our soldiers. Although crime isn’t eradicated by locking up criminals, we expect our police to make arrests to keep the streets safe. Similarly, our riflemen are trained to engage the enemy. That’s how they protect the population. If we’re not out in the countryside night and day – and we’re not – then the Taliban can move around as they please and intimidate or persuade the population.
I’m not arguing that we Americans can ever dominate the Taliban gangs. There’s a level of understanding and accommodation among Afghans in the countryside that culturally surpasses our understanding. During the May poppy harvest, the shooting stops on both sides and men from far and wide head to the fields to participate in the harvest. That’s an Afghan thing. Only the Afghans can figure out what sort of society and leaders they want.
That said, we should strive to do a better job of what we are doing for as long as we are there. I condensed several hours of firefights I filmed during various patrols into the 30-second clip I posted here on 10 August (Not a Tactical Hurdle). The purpose is to illustrate a tactical problem that is strategic in its dimensions. Simply put, our ground forces are not inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. However, the annual bill for the US military in Afghanistan exceeds $70 billion, with another four to six billion for development. We’ve already spent $38 billion on Afghan reconstruction. Congress may eventually balk at spending such sums year after year. The problem is we’re liable to be gradually pulled out while the Taliban is intact. Nation-building alone is not sufficient; the Taliban must be disrupted.
Our soldiers only get a small number of chances to engage the enemy. Our battalions average one arrest every two months, and one platoon-sized patrol per day per company that infrequently makes solid contact. On average, a US rifleman will glimpse a Taliban once a month. The Taliban initiate the fights because they know they can escape. Our patrols have firepower but lack mobility. Our soldiers are carrying 70 pounds; a Taliban is carrying ten pounds. The Taliban have the distinct edge in mobility. Because the Taliban are well-concealed and scoot away, our superior firepower does not yield precision aim points to do severe damage.
More senior-level attention must be paid to inflicting severe enemy losses in firefights and to arresting the Taliban, so that their morale and networks are broken. A recent directive forbids applying indirect fires against compounds where civilians might be hiding. That directive upholds human decency and may reduce enemy propaganda. But indirect fires – helicopter gunships and jets – used to be called “precision fires” and gave the US its enormous advantage in combat. Now that such fires are restricted, what provides our advantage when the enemy sensibly fights from compounds? Don’t expect Afghan soldiers to do it for us. We have equipped and trained the Afghans in our image. They are as heavy and slow-moving on the ground as we are, and rely upon our advisors to call in the firepower.
This is my third war. It has the highest level of military scholars. Those scholars who emphasized the concepts of non-kinetic counterinsurgency need also to design concepts that bring more lethality to the ground battlefield. We’re pumping billions into UAVs. Surely we can find technologies and techniques for the grunt.
Bing West’s bio
This may, also, be of interest: Why We Need More Troops in Afghanistan
The question still remains, whether President Obama will pursue half-measures or go full in to accomplish something more possibly lasting.
 I am going for a ride after church on this lovely August day. If I take a bad fall or hit a branch and break my neck, rest assured that I not only have private major medical insurance and thus will be no burden to you, but I also have a living will. If I am permanently wrecked, shoot me. (.45, base of the skull. Closed casket is fine with me anyway, because I hate having people staring at me whether I am living or dead unless they are shapely 20 year-old blonds. Also, undertaker take note: I am allergic to Formaldehyde.) I would do the same favor for a horse or a dog - and I have done so.
This a quote from Acton:
In a fast-paced society, we have a tendency to leap past the basic questions into a morass of detail. Single payer or government as one provider among many? Mandates requiring every citizen to buy health insurance? Control over utilization by some board of experts? These are all important questions, but they should come after a consideration of our core values. The United States prides itself on being a nation with citizens possessed of a freedom given by God and thus not subject to the whims of human government.
The great Wilhelm Roepke, architect of West Germany’s miraculous post-WWII economic recovery, viewed the tendency toward ever larger government with alarm. He correctly ascertained that the more areas of life the government brings under its responsibility, the more it will eventually dictate the basic conditions of those areas of life. Democracy combined with a lack of appreciation for human independence from the government results in a “pre-totalitarian” society.
It is a sober and somber essay.
Related: I think Whole Foods is a joke and a half - and a rip off joint for the Volvo and Chardonnay set - but their CEO gets it about medical insurance. Good on him. As he points out:
 Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.
Yes, the Socialist Utopia Awaits. All you have to do is to turn yourself into an ignorant, helpless infant first.
A snap of the Billings Farm in Woodstock. Yes, it's a museum farm, but they do a good job with their Jersey cows. Are mixed farms museums now?
My pal and I stole a couple of apples off their trees from over the fence during a morning hike last weekend: very good Macintosh apples - cold and crisp and spicey at 7 am. (This free ad is our in-kind payment.)
That's their cornfield in the background, and some hayfields behind that.
I thought to myself that no real farmer and orchard-keeper would have such meticulous lawns around their apple trees:
Saturday, August 15. 2009
Now I am talking about Woodstock, NY. I was at that dumb thing. I was young, but I did attend that weekend concert with some friends in their van. We did not have the $18 three-day tickets, like most of the people who showed up. The fences and admission booths were long trampled when we got there.
It sucked. I never understood why such a big deal was made of it. Rain, mud, overflowing porta-potties, stoned teenie-boppers, music you could hardly hear. Some of the stoned teenie-bopper girls took off their shirts and danced in the rain while long-haired sociopathic predators prowled all around for a peek, hoping to get stoned and laid in the mud. "Got any grass, man?" Like, really groovy.
We brought our own cooler of food and beer.
We got out of there after 24 hours or so, as I recall. Maybe 36 hours. It was not easy getting out of there on the muddy, rutted dirt road and, at points, you had to drive off the road onto the soggy pastures, but we finally made our escape. People are impressed that I was there, but they are wrong to be. We were just young and foolish, but we recognized a shit show, as they say on Wall St., when we saw one.
Bob Dylan was wise to stay away. Ritchie Havens, as I recall, was pretty good but I do not know why he did Beatles songs. We did not have any pot, but maybe we did. I don't remember, but I never saw the point of it anyway except once. The guys from Sha-Na-Na were my buds from college, so I did not need to hear them. Jimmy Hendrix? I do not recall whether we heard him in the distance. Probably not, but I also heard him live in Bridgeport, CT one time, on the high school football field right behind the jail.
Yes, he was an exciting performer. No doubt about about it.
I’ve nothing against the Woodstock get-together nor its good music. For those there who enjoyed the rain and mud, and those who addled their brains with drugs – most temporarily and some permanently, you’re welcome to it. What many object to is that Woodstock has been raised to an almost holy event to be honored as symbolic of our generation. Meanwhile, the far many more young people who wouldn’t have thought of attending, and the many more young people who weren’t there because they were serving in the armed forces, the hollow hallowedness attached by the media to Woodstock is seen as, as usual, blatantly one-sided and ignores the real sacrifices faced by others.
The VFW Magazine tells the tale of the 109 Americans killed in Vietnam during those four days in August 1969.
Time gushed with admiration for the tribal gathering, declaring: “It may well rank as one of the significant political and sociological events of the age.” It deplored the three deaths there—“one from an overdose of drugs [heroin], and hundreds of youths freaked out on bad trips caused by low-grade LSD.” Yet attendees exhibited a “mystical feeling for themselves as a special group,” according to the magazine’s glowing essay….
Meanwhile, 8,429 miles around the other side of the world, 514,000 mostly young Americans were authentically serving the country that had raised them to place society over self. The casualties they sustained over those four days were genuine, yet none of the elite media outlets were praising their selflessness….
So when you hear talk of the glories of Woodstock—the so-called “defining event of a generation”—keep in mind those 109 GIs who served nobly yet are never lauded by the illustrious spokesmen for the “Sixties Generation.”
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Rennselaer, NY
A college professor friend who is authoring a book about those from NYC who did serve in Vietnam asked me to send him this, below, which I’ve kept in a scrapbook buried in my garage. The photo is me, in the center, leading a June 1968 Flag Day parade around my college campus, just before graduation. Soon after, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. During Woodstock, I was training to go on to Vietnam. The sentiments in the poem are those of another Marine, in Leatherneck Magazine, which mirrored my own.
Hey, Bird Dog. That was not a tornado you experienced on Monday. That, I believe, was a Microburst. Most people have never experienced them, so you are a lucky one.
Microbursts are violent, brief (10-15 minute), very localized downdraft weather events with the power of tornadoes.
As one guy reported on his experience of one of these,
Microbursts are caused by a collapsing thunderstorm. What happens is, a thunderstorm rides up and over some hot dry air. This causes the rain that the thunderstorm is trying to drop to evaporate, which in turn, causes that hot dry air to suddenly cool off. Cool air falls fast, in fact so fast in this case, that it steals all the energy rising up into the thunderstorm. The sudden downdrafts cause all of the storms energy and moisture to drop in place. It would be kinda like placing a bunch of the little green plastic soldiers on your patio and then standing up on a picnic table, pouring a pitcher of water straight down on them. As the water hits the concrete, there is no where for it to go but out sideways with great force. That is what causes all the wind damage.
It is very hard to predict a Microburst. Later, the ABC station showed their Viper Radar loop. Indeed, there were sheer indicators that popped up right over us right as the Microburst occurred. It only showed on radar for about a minute or two and then was gone, but it sure did a bunch of damage in the short time it was here.
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