Sunday, June 7. 2009
 They say that fully healthy roses cannot be harmed by aphid infestations, and that may be true. However, we do not live in an ideal world, and it makes no sense to go out on strike until it appears.
We have abundant Rose Aphids this spring, but haven't seen them for the past few years.
We mix liquid dish soap at the rate of 1 tbsp/gallon in spray bottles, and spray the roses, especially their succulent tips, with it. Dead aphids by the thousands, without poisoning anything else. The surfactant suffocates the buggers. I brush off any Ladybugs first.
Mrs. BD claims that she is waterboarding them to death.
One treatment ought to do it. Best done before the first bloom. Had to do it today.
I tried to explain how the fun new plunder economy works to my friends the Republicans. Not interested, I guess.
I'll try once more. The only people listening to you, when you put on your tinfoil helmet and yelled as loudly as you could that Obama was closing only auto dealerships that belonged to conservatives, were other conservatives. They got the message. Just not the one you thought they would. Hey, here's a letter from Steny Hoyer and two other Democrats to President Obama:
Dear President Obama:
We are writing to express our concerns about General Motors’ and Chrysler’s decision to close profitable automobile dealerships across the country, and urge you to ask GM and Chrysler to delay final action on proposed closures pending further review of the decision to consolidate dealerships and the process by which Chrysler and GM selected the dealerships to close.
Closing these dealerships will put over 100,000 jobs at risk at a time when our country is shedding jobs at an alarming rate. We also question the criteria being used to determine which dealerships should be closed and the fundamental fairness involved in this effort. It is our view that the market rather than leaving it up to the manufacturers whose poor leadership contributed to their demise. Furthermore, we believe car dealers will be key players in any effort to revive the American auto industry...
Go on; speculate exactly how ***snicker*** Steny Hoyer knows these dealerships are "profitable." There's a bit more along this line in the rest of the letter. You can read the whole thing at Politico44. But allow me to translate for you:
Car dealers are all conservative, more or less. They've constituted a cash cow for the Republican Party up until now. They have now gotten the message that it's not safe to be a businessman and donate money to Republicans. They got that message from other conservatives. They've now showed up at Steny Hoyer's door, and pledged their fealty, and I'm sure cash, to become rock-ribbed Democrats from here on in.
There's an expression: Don't play checkers while the other side is playing chess. This is vaguely like that, except the right side of the blogosphere is playing checkers, and the Democrats are playing Kill the Man With the Ball. Keep it up, and you'll have the intellectual purity you seek. Intellectual purity is easy when you're all alone.
Saturday, June 6. 2009
There are more than two defense attorneys for each Guantanamo detainee, many from the US’ most prestigious law firms providing free services. Have they accomplished an extended rule of law, or have they degraded it? They’ve tied the US in legalistic knots, delaying justice, defamed the US before the world, and reduced respect or fear of penalty for those who terrorize and seek our destruction.
Arthur Herman writes in Commentary about “The Gitmo Myth and the Torture Canard”:
The enemies of Bush and Gitmo have succeeded brilliantly. But in so doing, they have done grave violence to the truth about the Guantánamo Bay facility, have aided in the release of prisoners who have since committed acts of terrorism outside the United States, and may yet succeed in having Barack Obama’s government release young men with terrifying ambitions for murder and mass destruction onto the soil of the United States.
I just started reading my friend Gordon Cucullu’s intensive first-hand study of Inside Gitmo. (Cucullu also has a website about the matter.)
As Cucullu says, read the truth and decide for yourself whether Gitmo has been and is the right way to deal with enemies sworn to murder and to abet our downfall.
The Gitmo detainees have able counsel from our lawyers, and liberal allies in our and the world’s media, to trumpet manufactured or exaggerated grievances, claims and rights. But, you are really the jury. Herman sums up for you: “the entire Gitmo myth…was constructed to ruin the Bush administration and blacken the reputation of the United States.” They got what they wanted, and now “However, human-rights groups and lawyers are just getting warmed up. They are now laying the ground for a similar legal assault on the American detention center at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, which they call Gitmo with a different zip code.”
Who is defending your zip code?
Friday, June 5. 2009
 Kealey's talk which we posted yesterday is a wonderful revelation. It confirmed much of what I suspected in the back of my mind but never focused on or thought through. I would like to read his book.
Many things become sacred cows without any evidence for their benefit. Most famous example: the incredibly expensive Head Start program, whose benefits disappear after a year. The rug rats would be better off banging around the neighborhood or the fields and swamps, learning how to educate and entertain themselves. Just get rid of the damn TV.
These "programs" become sacred cows via their income constituencies and their penumbra of virtuousness - not their effectiveness.
The infantile fantasy of government as source of virtue is an insidious one because government is only about one thing: power, and the mediocrities who seek it and the money that accrues to it to maintain that power.
Is government funding for research little more than welfare for PhDs? Possibly. In my field, you would be amazed by the stupidity of most of the government research grants which are paid for by the taxes of modest, hard-working folks who would rather worry about their families than seek power over others. Must be fun to appear benevolent with OPM.
Cui bono?
In the Q&A, Kealey astutely points out that people seek ways to proclaim "I am a good person," and that being concerned about global warming is (or was?) today's fashionable version, just as eugenics was at the turn of the century, socialism in the 1930s, being a Dem during Reagan, and flag pins and bumper stickers after 9-11. Symbols and attitudes as effortless, non-sacrificial fashion statements.
Thursday, June 4. 2009
I've gotten around a bit.
I've rubbed shoulders with all sorts of kooks. True believers of the believingest kind, without much truth discernible in the final recipe. Holy rollers; snakehandlers. A few animists. Dopers, Buddhists, straight-up Leninists soldiering on long after Lenin lost interest. Knights of Columbus. People that wouldn't eat meat on Friday all the way to Sikhs that would stab you with their little dagger if you lit a cigarette next to them. People that speak Klingon.
But in all my travels I've never encountered a bigger bunch of intellectual anti-matter apocalyptic paranoid delusional wharrgarbll cult nonsense than this item from ABC News. Think about that. If David Koresh and Ted Kaczinski got married and started sharing notes, they couldn't come up with a less reasonable worldview than one of the three major networks serving as a news outlet to the american continent. ABC must be hiring interns from The Onion, because this is listed under Science and Technology:
It's an idea that most of us would rather not face -- that within the next century, life as we know it could come to an end. Our civilization could crumble, leaving only traces of modern human existence behind. It seems outlandish, extreme -- even impossible. But according to cutting edge scientific research, it is a very real possibility. And unless we make drastic changes now, it could very well happen. Experts have a stark warning: that unless we change course, the "perfect storm" of population growth, dwindling resources and climate change has the potential to converge in the next century with catastrophic results.
Well, they got it partially correct. I indeed "would rather not face" these "ideas," in the same way I don't want to face the ideas being yelled at passing cars by men who sleep on park benches and wet themselves regularly.
So people with misspelled signs, unkempt beards, and who wash themselves in the bubbler in the public park are my go-to guys for such apocalyptica. Who are the "experts" that ABC News goes to for their volcano-maiden advice?
Continue reading "Got Apocalypse?"
Wednesday, June 3. 2009
 A fellow former Marine who knows the family forwarded this to me. For those, few, who don't know what Semper Fi means, it's the shortened version of Semper Fidelis - always faithful. (I've removed the name of the recruiter; any Marine would do this for another.)
My dad Angelo was in the hospital in Tacoma, Washington. A former Marine and veteran of the Korean War, he was having his third knee replacement surgery. A long and very painful operation was going to be made even worse because dad was going through it alone. There was no one to hold his hand, no familiar soft voices to reassure him. His wife was ill and unable to accompany him or even visit during his weeklong stay. My sisters and brother lived in California, and I lived even farther away, in Indiana. There wasn't even anyone to drive him to the hospital, so he had arrived that morning by cab.
The thought of my dad lying there alone was more than I could stand. But what could I do from here?
I picked up the phone and called information for the Puyallup,Washington, Marine Corps recruiting station, where I joined the Marines ten years before. I thought that, if I could talk to a Marine and explain the situation, maybe one of them would visit my dad.
I called the number. A man answered the phone and in a very confident voice said, "United States Marines, Sergeant XXXX. May I help you?"
Feeling just as certain, I replied, "Sergeant XXXX, you may find this request a little strange, but this is why I am calling." I proceeded to tell him who I was and that my father was also a former Marine and 100 percent disabled from the Korean War. I explained that he was in the hospital, alone, without anyone to visit and asked if Sergeant XXXX would please go and see him.
Without hesitation, he answered, "Absolutely."
Then I asked, "If I send flowers to the recruiting station, would you deliver them to my dad when you go to the hospital?"
"Ma'am, I will be happy to take the flowers to your dad. I'll give you my address. You send them, and I will make sure that he receives them," he replied.
The next morning, I sent the flowers to Sergeant XXXX's office just as we had planned. I went to work and, that evening, I returned home and phoned my dad to inquire about his surprise visitor.
If you have ever talked with a small child after that child has just seen Santa Claus, you will understand the glee I heard in my dad's voice. "I was just waking up when I thought I saw two Marines in their dress blue uniforms standing at the foot of my bed," he told me excitedly. "I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. But they were really there!"
I began to laugh, partly at his excitement, but also because he didn't even mention his operation. He felt so honored; two Marines he had never met took time out to visit an old Marine like him. He told me again and again how sharp they looked and how all the nurses thought he was so important.
"But how did you ever get them to do that"? he asked me.
"It was easy. We're all Marines, Dad, past and present. It's the bond."
After hanging up with my dad, I called Sergeant XXXX to thank him for visiting my dad. And to thank him for the extra things he did to make it special: wearing his dress blue uniform, bringing another Marine along. He even took a digital camera with him. He had pictures taken of the two Marines with my dad right beside his bed. That evening, he emailed them to me so I could see for myself that my dad was not alone and that he was going to be okay.
As for the flowers, they hardly mattered, but I was glad for the opportunity to express my feelings. The card read: "Daddy, I didn't want just anyone bringing you flowers, so I sent the World's Finest.
Semper Fi.
Tuesday, June 2. 2009
 President Obama says that if his health care program doesn’t pass Congress by this summer, it’s dead. It’s dead already among Americans, but that hasn’t yet penetrated the heavily Democrat Congress or the liberal majority of boosters among the major media, seemingly determined to proctologically ram it in.
Rasmussen sums up the polling: (here and here)
· 50% more Americans say reducing the federal deficit is more important than a new health care scheme;
· Just 25% are willing to change their current coverage;
· 29% say a government-run health system would be better than now;
· 77% are opposed to taxing employer-provided health insurance;
· 19% believe a new health care scheme will lead to lower costs.
In poll after poll, basically, those favoring the Obamacare schemes are those at the leftmost wing of the Democrat Party. Probably progeny of former snake oil purchasers.
See Wall Street Journal: Why the health care rush? Democrats don’t think their bill can stand public inspection. “Democrats are trying to rush the largest entitlement expansion since LBJ into law with a truncated debate and as little public scrutiny as possible.”
I didn't know this (from Armed and Dangerous):
Punctuation marks originated from notations used to mark pauses for breath in oral recitations, but 17-to-19th-century grammarians tied them ever more tightly to grammar. There remains a minority position that language pedants call “elocutionary” - that punctuation is properly viewed as markers of speech cadence and intonation. Top-flight copy editors know this: the best one I ever worked with was a syntactic punctuationist on her own hook who noted that I’m an elocutionary punctuationist and then copy-edited in my preferred style rather than hers. (That, my friends, is real professionalism.)
I think our blog punctuation style is elocutionary.
Kind of cool. (h/t, Ace). I would like to see more.
Many of those lunches look darn good, but the crap the American kids seem to want looks disgusting. Anyway, if I ate lunches like these I'd be asleep for two hours afterwards. An apple is about all I can handle if I have things to do.
Photo is a school lunch in China. Looks good to me - especially that fried fish.
Monday, June 1. 2009
This came in over the transom, I know not whence:
THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE CRUISE
To The Point is excited to offer the ultimate adventure cruise along the pirate-infested coast of Somalia!
We board our luxury cruise ship in Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea, and disembark in Mombassa, Kenya seven adrenaline-charged days later.
Starting at $5,200 per-person (double occupancy, inside room) and $6,900 (veranda complete with bench rest), you'll relax like never before.
That's because you are welcome to bring your own arsenal with you. If you don't have your own weapons, you can rent them from our onboard Master Gunsmith. Enjoy reloading parties every afternoon with skeet and marksmanship competitions every night!
But the best fun of all, of course, is Pirate Target Practice.
For the object of the cruise is to sail up and down the Somali Coast waiting to get hijacked by pirates. The weapons rental costs are as follows.
Rent a full auto M-16 for only $25/day with ammo attractively priced at $16 per 100 rounds of 5.56 armor-piercing:
On a budget? Rent a full-auto scope-mounted AK-47 for only $9/day with 7.62 ball ammo at $12 per 100 rounds:
Hello! Nothing gets a pirate's attention like a Barrett M-107 .50-cal sniper rifle; only $59/day with 25 rounds of armor-piercing ammo affordably priced at only $29.95.
Need a spotter? Our professional crew members can double as spotters for only $30/hour (spotting scope included, but gratuities are not.)
Want to make a real impact? Rent an RPG for only $175/day with three fragmentation rounds included!
Also included: Free complimentary night vision equipment - and throughout the night, coffee, pastries and snacks are always available on the main deck from 7pm until 6am.
Our deluxe package comes complete with gourmet meals and all rooms offer a mini-bar.
But that's not all! Twin mounted miniguns are available for rental at only $450.00 per 30 seconds of sustained fire!
We guarantee that you will experience at least two hijacking attempts by pirates or you'll receive an instant $1,000 refund upon arrival in Mombassa.
How can we make that guarantee? We operate at 5 knots just beyond 12 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia, thus in international waters where pirates have no rights whatever. In fact, we make three passes through the area's most treacherous waters to ensure maximum visibility by Somali "mother ships".
We repeat this for five days, making three complete passes past the entire Somali Coast. At night, the boat is fully lit and bottle rockets are shot every five minutes with loud disco music directionally beamed shoreside to attract maximum attention.
Testimonials from previous participants in the Somali Cruise:
"Six attacks in 4 days were more than I expected. I bagged three pirates, my wife nailed two, and my 12-year old son sank two boats with the mini-gun. This wonderful cruise was fun for the whole family" -- Fred D., Cincinnati, OH
"Pirates 0, Passengers 32! Well worth the trip! Can't recommend it highly enough!" -- Ben L., Bethesda, MD
"I haven't had this much fun since flying choppers in 'Nam. Don't worry about getting shot by pirates... they never even got close to the ship with the crap they shoot and their lousy aim... reminds me of a drunken juicer door-gunner we picked up from the motor pool in Phu Bai!" -- Dan J. - Denver, CO
Come on board and bag your own clutch of genuine Somali pirates! But cabin space is limited so you need to respond quickly. Reserve your package before May 31st and get a great bonus - 100 rounds of free tracer ammo in the caliber of your choice. So sign up for the Ultimate Somali Coast Adventure Cruise now!
Addendum 9/13/09 - We have just learned that this post came from the fine Doug Ross Journal: http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/05/somali-coast-cruise-package.html
The sheer size of the fiscal hole that the Obama administration is digging us into, or burying us within, is mindboggling enough. But, that isn’t stopping them from purposely adding to our confusion as they try to dig the hole deeper.
Tom Blumer exposes the tomfoolery at his valuable everyday read Bizzyblog.
Until now the US Treasury has hidden the size of our deficits by including Social Security taxes, and treating them as if in a Trust Fund although there is none and the monies have been spent, so Social Security is actually in negative cash flow within the next two years.
Now Blumer finds the Treasury Department under Wall Street-import Tim Geitner bringing along the tricks that sank Wall Street. The Treasury is now reporting the deficit of receipts versus expenditures as $175-billion less between last October and March. How? The Treasury is somehow calculating a Net Present Value of its TARP bailout expenditures, in other words what they think they’re going to be worth.
As Blumer points out:
Mixing hundreds of billions of dollars of NPV into what has essentially been a cash flow report turns the Monthly Treasury Statement, and deficit reporting in general, into an exercise that will become not only become ever more difficult to comprehend, but one that will also be routinely subject to political manipulation. Judgments as to what discount rate to use, how collectible loans are, and even what should and should not be considered an “investment,” will have multi-billion dollar impacts on the publicly reported deficit. NPV might even directly affect policy. Why should Geithner or Obama allow banks chomping at the bit to get out from under TARP to do so, when their repayments will only increase the reported deficit? Already, the administration, which has projected a fiscal 2009 deficit of over $1.8 trillion, has avoided the political embarrassment of estimating a shortfall that would round off to $2 trillion using true cash-flow reporting.
Hope ‘n Change requires prestidigitation, otherwise known as quick fingers, picking our pockets.
Saturday, May 30. 2009
Here's one way to guard your stuff: Shave your dog:
Here's one of the many cave canems from The Dogs of Pompeii:
Here's my sign, which we picked up in a hardware store in Italy:
Friday, May 29. 2009
 I may be one of the few guys around this site who bought the Band's Big Pink the day it came out. I brought it over to a girl's house, and made her listen to it twice on her dad's record player, and then we had tea. I still have the vinyl.
Re Big Pink, said Robbie Robertson: "This is emotional and this is story telling. You can see this mythology. This is the record that I wanted to make."
I didn't think of "The Weight" as being the centerpiece of the record; I thought the record was all of a piece.
Anyway songs and poems are not puzzles. They just are what they are. Still, it's diverting if pointless to look at their references. Vanderleun tracked down a piece on The Weight. The piece seems foolish at some points but interesting at others.
I liked this Robertson quote in the piece:
If I read the lyrics to some of my favourite songs, they don’t mean shit to me. But if I hear ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’, it is so powerful and emotional. All I want out of any of these songs is the right emotion. I don’t give a shit what the lyrics are. Dylan rambled on way too much for my liking. I remember years ago saying to him: ‘listen to ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’; I like this more than any of the songs we’re playing. This is emotional to me; our songs are clever. I don’t care for clever. Let’s try and get somewhere that has an emotional thing.
Also got a kick out of this Rick Danko quote:
So Levon spoke to this chick he was dating. Her name was Kathy and she was the most beautiful girl in Toronto… 16 years old when he met her, and she was a gorgeous, gorgeous lady. She looked beautiful and no one could resist her. Anyway, Levon explained the situation to her, and she kindly gave this cop who was trying to crucify us a blow job. Then she told him she was 14 years old. He was the chief witness against us, but this was some weird shit for him, and he disappeared, we never saw him again. In the end everyone else got off, and I received a year’s suspended sentence on probation.
 I'm not sure what to say to my Republican friends anymore.
I honestly thought all the pearl clutching paranoids pulled the lever with the D next to it, but I guess I was mistaken. You ran the least attractive candidate possible for President and lost by a little and you're ready to commit suicide in your Ayn Rand bunker after you're finished homeschooling your kids.
It's tiresome stuff. I'm going to try to explain it to you one more time. Obama, and all his accomplices in his co-prosperity sphere, are not "secret" anythings. Not secret muslims, socialists, communists, antichrists or Illuminati. He'd adore it if you spent the next eight years looking for his birth certificate, because he knows it's a colossal waste of his enemies' time, and that's a natural born fact.
It's a straight plunder economy. Why are you so confused and surprised about this? You keep talking about all sorts of ill effects that are going to appear in decades and verify your wild hypothesis about the guy. But the effects are always immediate and visible. He's not playing a deep game here.I take that back. Maybe he is. He's confused a lot of people into thinking he's confusing.
Poor Rich Moran. He's all shocked that maybe car dealership closings under the watchful eye of Democrat mandarins are going to fall along party lines, and figures it's earthshaking.
This story is about ready to explode. All the ingredients are there for a gigantic political scandal that would shake the Obama administration to its foundation and perhaps take down several high ranking officials. All that's needed is one connecting piece of evidence that would tie the White House Automotive Task Force to some political arm of the Democratic party.
Continue reading "Obama Thanks You For All The Free Advertising"
Thursday, May 28. 2009
A planted space (aka "a garden") isn't a "space" without the sense of, a suggestion of, or the reality of, enclosure - regardless of scale; whether the scale is a 20X20' herb or rose garden or a 50-100 acre meadow bounded by woods or windbreaks. Just like a picture wants a frame.
I think that comfortable feeling is deeply embedded in the human soul, and it is the reason garden designers speak of outdoor "rooms." I kinda prefer designing or thinking about outdoor "hallways" - the paths which lead from space to space. Hallways, though, must lead to rooms or they have no meaning and no purpose.
Wednesday, May 27. 2009
 Websites like ours and AVI's have a deep respect for the power of tribalism in the human psyche.
For better or worse, it seems like an inevitable human force for birds of a feather to flock together regardless of our basic biological similarities.
Early Colonial America had very few tribes: The evangelical and intolerant Protestants, the crazy Dutch entrepreneurs, the various warring Indian tribes, and the small handful of welcome Jews in Rhode Island and Catholics in Maryland. And African slaves in both the South and North (and some free Africans in the North).
Today, we have all sorts of tribes all over the place, from all over the world. In a way, I can view the Sotomayor affirmative-action nomination as a nod to the tribalism that we acknowledge here as being a powerful force.
The "progressive" identity politics of the Dems meets primitive tribalism. Politics gets very strange when the shape of your genitalia and your ancestry determine your career and power. Full-circle to primitivism.
Tuesday, May 26. 2009
In an essay of the above title, Will Wilkinson compares David Brooks with Glenn Beck, and wonders what "Conservative" means in actual policy terms.
I think it's well-worth thinking about, if only for fun. One quote:
... individualism works. As Brooks himself notes, individualistic societies tend to be wealthier than collectivist ones. And studies show that individualistic societies, which emphasize choice and personal fulfillment, tend to produce happier people than do collectivist societies, which are anchored by conformity, honor, and inherited obligations. By almost any measure, individualism is a success.
So does Glenn Beck win this round by a knockout? That would be funny—but also a misreading of the Right’s populist persuaders.
Why? Because the “individualism” of latter-day disciples of Goldwater and Reagan has a strange way of disappearing as soon as they stop arguing about marginal tax rates. Glenn Beck is no different. Scratch him and you’ll find a vehement nationalist whose fiery cable gospel breathes populist life into David Brooks’ abstract collectivist theology.
Read the whole thing. What we're talking about here is where abstract ideology and abstract terms and abstract rallying cries like "individualism" and "freedom" meet reality in the form of politics.
Me? I am a small-scale collectivist (family, church, village, charities), and decreasingly collectivist as power and money move further away from my personal experience and purview, and into the hands of people who pursue personal (mainly careerist) goals and games with money and power they have taken from me.
Barrister comment: I had read that Brooks piece. Wilkinson rightly notes "... Brooks goes wrong when he leaps from the biological facts of life to the “illusion” of individual agency and the desirability of a more communitarian culture." In fact, we view Individualism with its Judeo-Christian-Greek underpinnings as one of the, if not the most remarkable, contribution to Western civilization, and a giant advance for the human spirit on the external control cultures which preceded them. That revolutionary individualism said that a man can be his own master, that he need not be mastered or be a serf, and that the sacred spark in everyone requires this. Socialists, Communists, Liberal Communitarians, Totalitarians, Dictators, Mussolini-style Fascists, Kings of the Jungle and Kings of France are all communitarians who place the individual second to the whole.
Editor reply to The B: Thanks for that, B. By coincidence, but I was working yesterday on an entirely non-political post about ant colonies, and your comment seems relevant to that.
 TigerHawk agreed with what I have said here many times: Retirement is over-rated. What is your number? The false promise of idle retirement.
He doesn't get to all of the important considerations, though.
First, many have no option but to retire. Laid-off career guys in their 50s have a tough time finding employment. Some (esp government) jobs offer pensions after x years which make continuing in the job economically silly. OK, they can do something else - and many do.
Second, as Tiger notes, many have jobs which they do not particularly enjoy or with which they have become bored - yet have life responsibilities to fulfill. An "attitude adjustment" might be nice, but it ain't so easy. The main reward of many if not most jobs is the sense of fulfilling a family responsibility rather than the work itself.
Third, many value the notion of being "idle." "Idle" may be the wrong word, though, because most retired folks seem to stay pretty busy, from what I see. It can mean more time for hobbies, for fishing and hunting and boating and mowing your own lawns and fields, doing your own home repairs, spending more time with friends, volunteering, and maybe more trips.
Fourth, I think "the number" is important. If you hit your number (which few can say they have right now), work can be more enjoyable because it seems more optional. You know you can say "Take this job and shove it" whenever you want.
Monday, May 25. 2009
 Here's something worthwhile and wonderful.
Vitruvius at SDA recommends the highly enjoyable and accessible MIT required freshman year intro Physics courses - Classical Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism. Prof. Walter Lewin, who teaches both, says his goal is to make the student love Physics, and to see the beauty in it. He succeeds. (If you fail one of the required courses, you are sent home.)
I don't know why any college would bother lecturing on these topics when they can use Dr. Lewin's recordings. Both entire series of lectures are on YouTube, for those of us who could not have gotten into MIT with an H-bomb because of our B+ in BC Calc:
MIT Physics 8.01, Classical mechanics
MIT Physics 8.02, Electricity and magnetism
Prof. Lewin makes it all vivid, clear, and entertaining, and the math is straightforward and clear as a bell. Plus no exams, so it's a wonderful way to get some free education, or to refresh your old, fading memories.
For me, Physics, Music (which is Physics + a twist by the human soul), and Religion merge into one sublime cosmic entity which is the awe-inspiring, terrifying, love-inspiring miracle of Creation. I have never understood how anyone can feel like they can feel close to God without knowing all the Physics they are capable of, but I know that is stupid of me.
Photo is Prof. Lewin. Here's his bio.
Saturday, May 23. 2009
 Nantucket summer rental prices are getting reasonable this year. Recession pricing. Places that were $55,000/week now $45,000/week.
Polpis cottage in upper photo now available for only $20,000/week in August.
Lower cottage only $2700/week and available now in August. Seems a lot more reasonable to me, and less pretentious. But outdoor shower "not enclosed"? What? OK, watch me shower in the sun if you want to.
Once you have showered outdoors, you never want to shower indoors again.
Via RCP, a superb essay by Carl Schramm Up From Poverty. How economic growth occurs remains a mystery to economists - or at least a subject of endless debate.
An enduring truth often forgotten (or ignored) by proponents of state-led development: economic growth owes more to the forbearance of the state than to its intervention. Governments do not, indeed cannot, make wealth-only their citizens can. And when government protects their freedom, the world's growing population of entrepreneurs, in the bargain, expands human dignity and establishes the foundation of ongoing growth on which civil society ultimately depends.
One quote from the essay:
In the touchstone year of 1820, 84% of the world's population lived in what would today be judged "extreme poverty." Today, only 16% do. That is such an astounding achievement that it is difficult even to comprehend. According to the World Bank, in the last 30 years alone-a time of rapid globalization-the number of people living in extreme poverty fell by 25%, or 500 million people. The outbreak of entrepreneurial capitalism within the Communist political system of the People's Republic of China accounts for most of this achievement, but almost every region of the world has seen a decline in the share of its population living in extreme poverty. Bright spots such as Israel and Mauritius, moreover, have proven that growth can occur in regions previously thought allergic to it.
Wednesday, May 20. 2009
The new garden path that I mentioned on the Spring to-do list. Besides looking nice, it solved the problem of the previously muddy route that the dog always takes on his routine patrols for enemies and intruders. Fortunately, he likes the new path. No, I did not build it myself but I could have, given the time.
The Mrs. did a nice job with her new semi-shade border, but it will take a year or three to mature. As you can see, I pruned the heck out of that young Crepe Myrtle behind the hybrid Rhodies. Maybe too much. That's a small Kousa Dogwood on the corner.
Tuesday, May 19. 2009
 There’s a new gang in town. They’re not trying to act tough. They don’t have to. They’ve already proven they are. They’re not trying to look tough. They look like your neighbors. They’re not teenagers. They have become worthy adults by passing difficult hurdles.
But, they do have colors. They’re red, white and blue.
The new gang is called the Warrior Legacy Foundation. The warriors are not just military veterans but anyone who reveres the contributions and sacrifices of veterans, and wants to see their commitment honored and passed on to coming generations, whether serving in the military or not.
The binding commitment is to the military code of conduct: “I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free.”
As one of the founders remarks, “Veterans make the community in which they live a better place.” That community ranges from their block to the world. Think for a moment about how your community would be lacking if not for veterans.
To me, what makes a warrior, in any walk of life, is the willingness to give 110%, more than they themselves thought they were capable of, donating comforts not for glory but for being the best and furthering the betterment of others. Those are the traits that distinguish a worthy life and neighbor and citizen.
The Warrior Legacy Foundation is not out to make claims for government benefits. It is focused on raising the profile of the warrior class as a guide to what we all need to be and raise our children to be. Go to the above link and sign up to be part of this important mission. Be a neighbor and not just a bystander.
Some more info here.
The words for the Mauldin toon are "...forever, Amen. Hit the dirt."
 You're never going to understand the contemporary fringe left until you understand what happened to Oliver Cromwell. Maureen Dowd got caught plagiarizing a blogger in her New York Times column the other day. But calling the lockstep mindset she's channeling "plagiarism" is superfluous. She's cribbing the homework of someone who writes something called Talking Points Memo, after all. They can all finish one another's sentences, or start them to get the ball rolling. Makes no never mind. They never have an original thought, just endless permutations of the same drivel about George W. Bush. They all think if they rearrange the words a little one more time, George Bush will be guilty and Karl Rove will be arrested or Alberto Gonzales won't be able to rent movies from Netflix or... something. Or maybe they'll all be tried in absentia in some weird traffic court based in a European country whose GDP is less than Al Gore's electric bill, and George will be forever unable to travel to some frosty HMO masquerading as a country to pick up the Nobel prize they'll never award him anyway. It seems like trying to invest heavily in tulip bulb futures at this point to any sane observer. George wasn't running in the last election; he's very, very unlikely to stand in the next one. But still they persist. If you are a monomaniac, you try to convert others to your mania. Smart people give you the cold shoulder immediately. If you listen a little, you're going to have to listen a lot. It's the reason you don't make eye contact with people yelling at traffic in the street. It doesn't pay to seem interested and polite.
Continue reading "George W. Cromwell"
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