Tuesday, April 14. 2009
People vary enormously in their levels of life functioning, talents, and life-mastery, don't they? Nature confers variety - not equality - because variety is essential for a species to survive when circumstances change.
You could make a graph of the people you meet by rating their functioning in various areas on a 0-10 scale:
- Social skills, personal charm, manners, graciousness, general behavioral appropriateness and adaptability, dignity and demeanor;
- personality style and temperament;
- IQ, intellectual skills and depth, range of knowledge;
- physical skills;
- morality and strength of character, tendency to blame or to assume responsibility, and desire to assume responsibility;
- ability to delay gratification/impulsivity;
- coping abilities under stress, pressure, pain and strong emotion;
- sense of humor;
- emotional stability, predictability, and maturity;
- judgement, planfulness, and decision-making;
- capacity for kindness, thoughtfulness, empathy and love vs self-centeredness;
- degree of "neuroticism;"
- special talents and interests;
- reliability, and trustworthiness;
- work ethic, energy, persistence, perseverance despite fear or difficulty;
- realism vs. naivete and childishness;
- independence, ambition and initiative;
- risk tolerance, adventurousness and aggressiveness;
- curiosity and range of knowledge;
- self-discipline;
- creativeness, imagination and cleverness
...and so forth.
Feel free to graph yourself on these items - but do not call me if you feel depressed afterwards. We are supposed to identify our weaknesses, and to work on them if we feel motivated to do so.
Most of these qualities are subsumed under what we term "ego functions." (We shrinks use the term "ego" to refer to the tools we have to mediate between our "inner" selves and external reality, not the casual, non-technical meaning of "self-centeredness.") My well-exercised shrink brain tends to measure these things about people on autopilot, even when I try to turn it off. (I also "take my own inventory" frequently with pitiless honesty, and I have my own share of frailties.)
Nevertheless, all of these factors feed into one's ability to construct a life in a free country. Yes, a life must be constructed like a building, but usually with changes along the way.
Fortunately, the world offers things for almost every person to do - and in which to excel if they wish - regardless of how their unique graph maps out. It's generally the pattern of strengths and weaknesses that matters, not the overall "score."
However, I can say, after many years of careful observation of humans, that the folks I have known with the highest overall scores have been military officers, physicians, ranchers, and investment bankers. Don't argue that with me - that's just my own limited life experience.
Many of the most interesting people I have known have very high scores in some areas and very low ones in other areas. That might be part of what makes people interesting. Perfect scores would be the most boring person in the world.
But that doesn't matter, because in America we all play the cards we are dealt, and we all get to make the most of what we have - and to try to develop where we are lacking if we want to, and we get to play out our hand in whatever way we chose, given the heavy constraints of mean old Mr. Harsh Reality (including the chance to write run-on sentences).
On the weekend before trout season opens, our hunting and fishing club Chairman, the Fishing Chairman, and our manager perform the annual ritual of walking the length of our stream checking the beats, the conditions of the pools and of the paths, and generally making sure that things are up to snuff. We have a mile of this stream in CT, with some larger ponds and beaver marshes in it.
This was Friday, on a narrow section of the stream -
Monday, April 13. 2009
A 30-minute video by Capt. Irving Johnson as a young man in 1929, capturing, in vivid black and white, the reality of sailing around the world on the Peking - including a Cape storm. h/t to Powerline for finding this remarkable record.
In the old days, going to sea was like going to war. Men died. John doesn't like the Captain's narration, but I love it. Sounds like he's from VT or NH, that old-timey Robert Frost sound. (Nope, Hadley, MA. I know Hadley well.)
The Peking is currently berthed at South Street Seaport, NYC.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. P.J. O'Rourke
 The Martini Parties are a spontaneous grassroot national movement of the comfortable, but far from rich, edge of the American middle class.
We believe that all working Americans should pay income taxes, and not just the upper 50%. We're the folks who pay the bulk of the American taxes - lawyers, doctors, dentists, engineers, accountants and financial planners, small businessmen, managers, architects, pilots, ship captains, small-town stockbrokers, insurance agents, corporate VPs, B-school profs, consultants, medium-sized farmers, entrepreneurs, contractors, etc., etc. (The very highly-paid need not join and, of course, most household incomes of over $250 include two working adults.)
Our plan, designed over Easter brunch, is to figure out how to get our taxable incomes under Obama's $250,000 tax increase. It's a contest and a game. Since we already pay most of America's bills, we figure we are already doing our part and paying our fair share of the dues.
So our Yankee-based Movement is this: Get a group of friends together and hire some planners and accountants, and figure out a way to get yourself below the bar - even if it means donating more than 10% of your income to your charities (although they are trying to eliminate those deductions too), increasing your mortgage (although they are trying to reduce that loophole too), putting money in trusts, reducing one's charges for loyal clients - or plain old working less.
Let's all of us prosperous non-wealthy do the Limbo Rock and get under the bar - even if it means that we work less and play more like the lazy Europeans - more boating, golf, tennis, fishin', hangin' out in cafes drinkin', and shootin' and huntin' - and more vacation time with less expensive vacations.
I ain't slaving for 36-43 cents on the dollar (which is where I would end up after Fed taxes, CT income taxes in which the marginal rate covers all income if you make over 250, and property taxes. I am patriotic, but not stupid. I do not want to be a victim of plunder. I also tithe to church and charities, but that doesn't count: it's voluntary.
And if I end up poor, no doubt the government will take good care of me.
 Here's the real story about who is and isn't covered by medical insurance.
Not that the facts matter all that much in politics - and everybody wants a free Easter buffet.
Related: How the government plans to create its own medical insurance monopoly. (Just like public schools.) And once they have done that, they will drive through their rationing, rules, and controls. - and freedom in medical care will disappear. At that point, Doctor, your proud and noble profession will be transformed into involuntary servitude to the State rather than voluntary servitude to your patient and, at that point, patient, your treatment choices will disappear.
Then watch "doc-assisted" suicide for those over 60 become all the rage in government circles.
It's one more government power and money grab.
Of the three white egrets that breed in New England (American, Cattle, and Snowy) the largest is the Great Egret, which I persist in calling by its old name, American Egret.
A reader sent in these photos of one from this weekend in salt marsh in CT. You can see some of their fancy breeding plumage, for which these birds were hunted to near-extinction through the 19th and early 20th Centuries until the Audubon Society was created to protect them. More about the Great Egret in CT here.
The populations recovered fairly well, as long as they have safe places to nest in their tree colonies - usually on small islands or the tip of a peninsula.
Saturday, April 11. 2009
 I had a very pleasant lunch and visit with our Roger de Hauteville (Roger ll of Sicily - not Roger l) and the heir, the young Prince of Sicily, this afternoon.
Roger knows a thing or two about big city politics (and many other things), and he made a strong case that Obama is relatively non-ideological; that he is a typical self-important ward-heeler who got "nailed to the bow of a big ship," anointed to figure-head the plundering pirate ship which is the Dem party.
In other words, it's all about getting jobs and money to your friends, and winning votes with jobs and money until nobody else can compete. Local one-party Chicago politics, gone national. O's "We won" just means "We got the money." The Lefty gestures are just to keep the Left on board. He also opined that the Tea Parties are "cute," but miss the larger political point of what is going on. I tend to agree with that.
He also asserted that Hillary, with her "Stalinist heart," would have been far scarier.
I am not entirely convinced by his whole thesis, but I hope he will condense what he said to me today for us to read. He said he already posted it under Welcome to the Plunderdome, but he didn't. Or maybe he did - but not in his own words.
A repost from a couple of years ago -
 This is a real American story about a true American idol. It's also a story about home-town America, which is, sadly, a disappearing way of true community life.
I met with an 83 year-old fellow the other day for a consultation. He was recovering from a heart attack from which he almost died ("I thought it was just a bad stomach ache but my wife didn't like the way I was sweating.") and a stent.
His cardiologist felt he was depressed, as often happens after serious cardiac events, especially with men.
He told me a little story, but first, a bit about him: Irish, retired policeman, living with his frail wife (a retired book-keeper) in the Boston suburb where he was born - same neighborhood and across the street from the house he grew up in (remembers horse-drawn fire engines down the block); daily Mass; in the church choir ("We sang at the Vatican in 1972 and we are proud of that."); plays trombone ("poorly") in his firehouse marching band; five attentive, devoted kids and 14 grandkids within twenty miles; does every charity thing he can find including Meals on Wheels (even though "I think I am older than most of the people I deliver to"); belongs to his local  Vets organization; a WW2 Vet - a gunner in a B-26 Martin Marauder with the 320th Bomber Group of the 12th (Army) Air Force, in Italy: "When flak hit the airplane, it sounded like somebody shaking a bucket of gravel."
Says "We weren't scared. We already knew we would die in this war to save Europe, and we were sort of OK with that, but we were damn well gonna get all of the bad guys we could, first. Heck, we were just kids, looking back now, and full of beans and bacon."
His story: "I was at a wake of a friend a few weeks, ago, drinking and partying of course, and up comes somebody I knew from second grade at St. Anthony's. He says "You need to join our lunch group. We meet once a month at .... restaurant in the back room." I felt flattered to be invited, so I went. My God, I met folks I hadn't seen in years, all from the same home neighborhood - the --th Ward. About 25 guys, retired doctors, teachers, lawyers, mailmen, firemen, mostly moved out of my home parish but all still in town. Somehow lost track of them. A great joy, since so many friends still in my neighborhood have died. We took about 15 minutes to eat, and talked for two hours and had a few beers. I almost said we should meet once a week, but it wasn't my place as a newcomer. I need to stay active, Doctor, because my wife needs me. Doc, life is good, and I'd like to make a few more of these lunches before the good Lord takes me."
God Bless America. And God bless him. No, he did not need me as a shrink: I need some more of what he's got: the true American spirit. One secret: we psychiatrists are more blessed by what we get from our patients than by what we have to give.
Details altered just barely enough for confidentiality (not that he would mind, but he would be embarassed by admiration and attention) - but not the 320th BG - that is accurate.
Thursday, April 9. 2009
 Yesterday morning's NJ post on "Quality Care" from the WSJ was enlightening, and just gives me one more reason to stay away from Medicare (besides the fact that they pay me peanuts, and that their paperwork requirements are over my head and take more time than my patients take).
I see how government "Quality Care" works: the academic medical experts take a vote, and that becomes "Quality Care." That's not medical care: that's government policy. Forget the individual patient and his or her unique situation, forget the Doc's experience and skills and insight, forget the Doc's judgement, forget the fact that academic Docs aren't always practical, forget that next week's new data will completely alter the information at hand. Just Follow The Rules and stay out of trouble.
I have seen plenty of cases go bad in the hands of young Docs who strictly follow the rules. It's not a good example of that, but when I was a resident one of "the rules" of the time included strict limits on the use of pain-killers, even for terminal cancer patients. Didn't want them to become addicts, you know. They forgot that pain relief remains one of a handful of the greatest blessings medicine has bestowed on humanity (along with anesthesia, antibiotics - and Lexapro).
One of the best things about seasoned physicians is that they are a cranky bunch who do not take orders, who think for themselves, who feel that rules are made to be broken, and who do not like to take crap from anybody - especially anybody in "authority". Your patient comes first, or you are nothing. There is a "House" inside every Doc. In most lines of work, you can't get away with that sort of attitude.
When government gets involved in things, they tend to screw them up. The article's example of high blood sugars in the ICU was a perfect example. Even I, who have not cared for ICU patients for more than a decade, know that tight sugar control for critical patients is insane and dangerous. Not only that, but it doesn't matter: if the patient survives and gets healthy, a few days of higher sugars with a good margin of error will not have hurt them one darn bit. But I am a Doc with a practical mind.
Expertise always has to be taken with a grain of salt, and government-emitted expertise with a tablespoon-full. I am not disparaging expertise, which I respect enormously. I just distrust the combination of expertise with power over others: anointed experts who want power instead of simply to educate give me the willies.
Non-"experts" often have loads of common sense. We take an ancient oath, too.
Ed. note: Somewhat related: Socialized medicine: A warning from across the pond
Wednesday, April 8. 2009
Mrs. BD had increasing pain in her right shoulder, then running down her biceps, for two weeks, finally keeping her awake at night. Gets an appointment with the #1 shoulder guy in the world at the Hospital for Special Surgery in three days (last Monday). He is a kind, caring fellow who takes time with her. She gets a shoulder MRI two days later. Gets the diagnosis of early frozen shoulder one day later. Begins physical therapy and anti-inflammatory meds one day later.
Feeling better already. Even Fidel Castro couldn't get that kind of care and help, nor could Obama get better. Do I want my neighbor to pay for this for me? No - but thanks so much for offering to pay her bill. I believe in taking care of my own.
The bad news for her: no tennis for at least 2 months. The bad news for me: I gotta do all the cleaning and scrubbing, right when it's time to begin enjoying yard and garden work.
Well, we have snow flurries today, thanks to global warming climate change, so I guess the gardens can wait a while.
1. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model: "I wan' all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan' all the kids to copulate me."
2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season: "I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first."
3. And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the 'Skins say: "I'd run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl," Matt Millen of the Raiders said: "To win, I'd run over Joe's Mom, too."
4. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins: "He treats us like men. He lets us wear earrings."
5. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann, 1996: "Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
6. Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh : "I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes."
7. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach: "You guys line up alphabetically by height." And, "You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle."
8. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison: "Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."
9. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker: "That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes."
10. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regime of heavyweight Andrew Golota: "He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is."
11. Chuck Nevitt, North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice: "My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt."
12. Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player: "I told him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?' He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"
13. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D: "Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."
14. Amarillo High School and Oiler coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips, Phillips responded: "Because she is too damn ugly to kiss good-bye."
15. Bobby Bowden, Florida States football coach, when ask why he didn't invest in condos, Bobby said, I am too old to use them now.
Tuesday, April 7. 2009
Our friend Nathan thought some of our readers might be interested in "Unspoken (Or What is Said After Death)" by Naftali Moshe.
Nathan says "The basic idea is what do you wish you could have said to someone after you have left; some unspoken words that resonate in your head and it is too late to speak them. Then, imagine the ultimate leaving - death; what if you could speak those words after death. What if you could tell someone whom you loved dearly what you had not been able to say before."
It's the reverse of what people usually talk about - what they wished they had told someone who died. The story is written in the voice of a Kosher butcher who has commited suicide. A quote from Chapter 1:
My last breath, my last precious breath, was the freest breath since I was twelve. I stood in Ulysses' and Aeneas' waters. Like the Baal Shem Tov, I test the Wusthoff's edge with a finger; drew a drop of blood; shed a tear of joy and sadness.
Brief pain as the knife drew across the skin, my throat slipping slightly beneath its edge until the knife could catch, bite. Then through the trachea for that final, but decades delayed fresh breath. The carotids bathe the knife, then my hands in last warmth. The Mediterranean took me.
My son, unlike Abraham over Isaac, unlike God over Jesus, I will not sacrifice you. But through you I, I could breath again.
And now I can speak to you from this dream-ether.
The story is serialized in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Here's Chapter 1.
Here's Chapter 2.
Mad about it. Mini DSLR with a fabulous Leica lens which is electronically stabilized and goes from (35mm equiv.) 27mm wide to 486mm telephoto (826.2mm with 1.7x add-on lens). The wide angle and telephoto shots of San Simeon illustrate the power of this lens (the box in the wide-angle outlines the telephoto). At 27mm, it is also f2.8 – very fast for a point-and-shoot. The other photos are of a walnut & wine operation in Paso Robles CA.
This camera will not replace our Canon EOS XTi, but that beauty and its lenses weigh 27 pounds, and are a bit difficult hiking or traveling! Oh, and Abe’s of Maine which we love offers it for $287.95!!!
Here's the Cameralabs review.
Here's the cnet review.
Photo I used it for in San Simeon last week. Go below the fold for more - and to see inside the box:
Continue reading "My new camera - Panasonic DMC-FZ28 from COSTCO"
Monday, April 6. 2009
No, this was not our local Ducks Unlimited banquet. We posted the invitations for this little cocktail party, but (fortunately) not too many guys showed up for the little shindig Theo and I hosted on Saturday night. Right Wing Prof would never attend such a thing, and I know Sippican's wife wouldn't let him come, nor would Tigerhawk's or Gwynnie's - but I was sure Vanderleun would show. He didn't. It was good wholesome fun, but a bit exhausting due to the guy-to-gal ratio. Yes, that is me in the center front, the Yankee Doodle Dandy, reluctantly yielding to dissolute feminine charms:
How the NYT does politics (h/t, Moonbattery). I know the NYT plays tricks, but this is beyond what I imagined. Are any reporters anywhere covering this story, or are they too much in awe of the NYT...or of Obama?
Or are they too chicken?
 Sunday's New York Times had an op-ed - a Sunday op-ed having particular prominence - by George Bisharat, “Israel on Trial.” Bisharat recites every charge raised by any source accusing Israel of violating international law in its treatment of Gaza.
Surely the NYT would defend its publishing of this screed as giving both sides of a story. A law professor who has known Bisharat, son of a Palestinian father, since law school remarks on Bisharat’s “Personal Intifada”:
Bisharat has devoted the past 25 years towards delegitimizing Israel. The links are too numerous to list, but almost everything Bisharat does and says is geared towards isolating and demonizing Israel. But Bisharat doesn't stop there, he also seeks to delegitimize Israel's supporters in the U.S.
One must wonder if the NYT publishing Bisharat’s op-ed means the NYT disbelieves its own reporting, and if the NYT is even sincere in its attachment to international law.
In January, the NYT examined the charges in long detail, “Weighing Crimes and Ethics in the Fog of Urban Warfare.”
Deciding requires an investigation into battlefield circumstances that cannot be carried out while the fighting rages, and such judgments are especially difficult in urban guerrilla warfare, when fighters like Hamas live among the civilian population and take shelter there. While Israel is the focus of most criticism, legal experts agree that Hamas, a radical Islamic group classified by the United States and Europe as terrorist, violates international law.
Shooting rockets out of Gaza aimed at Israeli cities and civilians is an obvious violation of the principle of discrimination and fits the classic definition of terrorism. Hamas fighters are also putting civilians at undue risk by storing weapons among them, including in mosques, schools and allegedly hospitals, too, making them potential military targets. While urban and guerrilla warfare is not illegal, by fighting in the midst of civilians, often in civilian clothing, Hamas may also bring risk to noncombatants.
But Hamas’s violations tend to be treated as a given and criticized as an afterthought, Israeli spokesmen and officials say. They say that Israel has never sought to hit civilians, medical workers or United Nations facilities or personnel. “The rules of engagement are very clear,” said Mark Regev, the government spokesman. “Not to target civilians, not to target U.N. people, not to target medical staff. All this is very clear in Israeli military doctrine.”
Continue reading "NYT Blows Itself Up In International Law Minefield"
Sunday, April 5. 2009
- Planted a ton of purple pansies from Home Depot today as a Palm Sunday celebration. It's cold as heck out, but those Pansies have antifreeze. Dosed them with Miracle-Gro, but they are probably too cold to absorb it.
- Mrs. BD ran down to NYC instead of church to take a long, cold, brisk walk with the Bird Dog-ette along the Hudson River. Chelsea Piers to Battery Park, and back: an fine urban hike. She works in finance. She still needs her Mom sometimes. Her job is secure: they cannot do without her - and she is cheap for what she does. She is worried, though. If her bonus is taxed at 90%, she and her roomates cannot afford their apartment. 80% of her compensation is bonus. The salary is just token. Speaking of token, she doesn't need subway tokens: she speed-hikes 40 minutes each morning in the dark to mid-town from Chelsea, and hikes back home in the dark. 15-hour workdays - and she loves it (most of it). Some people love daily math and complex structured finance challenges at a minute's notice with a 4-hour deadline to redo the details - and some don't. "It's fun. It forces me to think fast, Dad." 80-150 million dollar muni deals. It's not for everybody. A lot of travel too, but she loves that.
- A chat with the gentle young Moslem Bangladeshi mini-mart guy at 5 this morning, whose wife and mother-in-law have arrived after a four-year immigration wait. He takes a cab to work at 1 AM: he is saving all of his money instead of buying a car. "How's the family adjusting to America?" "Pretty good. It's cold for them. I had to buy them coats." "How's their English coming along?" "Good. They study every day. It's coming along fast. My wife just got a job." "Doing what?" "Customer service." "My friend, I love these stories. Tell them I welcome them to America." "I will. Thank you."
No doubt these people are "the poor." America's poor are the young, the new immigrants, the feckless, the self-destructive - plus some plain unfortunate folks who get struck by bad lightning. These new Americans from Bangladesh are as rich as Croesus in spirit, hope, and opportunity, and they ask for nothing from America but a chance to build a life and a friendly word once in a while.
What a wonderful country. No wonder every sturdy soul in the world wants to come here. Too bad we have so many crybabies, when we have people like my minimart guy. Meanwhile, the Obamanauts complain.
Saturday, April 4. 2009
 This is a re-post from one year ago
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
At Maggie's Farm, we tend to suspect that issues such as medical insurance, gun control, health, and climate fears are indeed Trojan Horse issues (as Coyote terms them), advocated to increase goverment control over our lives and to reduce our choices, freedom, and self-determination as free adults who are capable of managing our own lives, in our own ways - for better or worse.
No, not "capable" - "endowed by our Creator" and our history with that privilege and that freedom. One must be suspicious of motives when vast, costly government-control solutions are offered to trumped-up or imaginary "crises."
"We the people" are smart enough to figure it all out for ourselves, despite what the self-anointed "elite" might think: not one of the "elite" is better educated, or more worldly, than we ADD-victim redneck folks at Maggie's are. As we like to snobbishly say, "Who are these people?"
"I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 12/20/1787
The people who seek control are not necessarily evil: they no doubt believe that they are not only benign but virtuously-intentioned, and especially qualified to make decions for us. They almost certainly believe that they are more "caring" than I am.
The single most damaging error of the modern age is the misperception of government as an agency of compassion. As a replacement for the "divine right of kings," this misperception has, for those in power, been an astonishing success. For the rest of mankind, it has frequently been a disaster beyond imagining. Government is nothing more than structured, widespread coercion, and the idea that it can implement compassion for us by force is simply a vile and cunning lie. It is cunning because people are primed and willing, even desperate, to believe it. - Glenn Allport
However, individual freedom does not enter into their equations as a caring virtue - or even as a virtue or American ideal at all. (We believe it to be a transcendent ideal, and a gift of God.) Hence what we view as the totalitarian or, as Goldberg and H.G. Wells would have it, "fascistic" proclivities of the Left.
"When your response to everything that is wrong with the world is to say, 'there ought to be a law,' you are saying that you hold freedom very cheap." - Thomas Sowell
Since we at Maggie's view individual liberty, and the responsibilitities which accompany it, as an almost religious, if not religious ideal, we must view those who wish to diminish liberty as enemies of man and of human dignity.
"...every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Ammendment." -- Justice Louis Brandeis (Olmstead v. US)
Are we paranoid about State power? Given human history, and the course of US history, we do not think so.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." - John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.)
Furthermore, we do not wish to rely on the judgement of anyone who wants to run any part of our lives. As Milton Friedman asks in this entertaining YouTube, "Where are these angels who are going to run my life for me?"
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." - James Madison, Federalist #51.
"It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power." - John Adams, 1788
No, we aren't anarchists. We do not object to drivers' licenses, or even hunting licenses. We will pay a fair share of taxes as a price of civilization. I do not even mind zoning if the people vote for it, and I am all in favor of national, state and local parks. But we are not willing to be "governed." That's where we draw the line. Being "governed" is for children (by "governesses"). Free citizens must learn to be self-governing as adults which, as our Dr. Bliss often reminds us, is no easy task but is a highly worthy and ennobling pursuit.
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." - George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutions, 1903
It's all about where you draw the line for government intrusion into one's life. Some of us still want to be Americans, not Europeans. But that's enough pontificating for now.
Top image: A photo of Westport, CT's Minuteman statue on Compo Road, near Compo Beach (via Dr. X). In my own, humble internet way, I want to continue our Minutemen's work and their radical ideal of individual freedom and responsibility in a country free of government tyranny. "We the people," (excluding those with their hands out) have more sense and more life experience than anyone in a government career, or any of the elites on the academic dole.
Lower image: An old lithograph of the Boston Tea party
Friday, April 3. 2009
Congress approves $3.5 trillion budget plan.
If you need a laugh, read to the end:
The House bill streamlines President Obama's $3.6 trillion proposal and seeks to trim the deficit to $1.2 trillion in 2010, compared to the president's figure of $1.4 trillion.
"Streamlines." I see everyone went to Creative Non-Fiction class at Community College, and emerged with only an Unintentional Humor merit badge. Whatever. I'm simultaneously amused by Republicans talking about creeping socialism. You're creeping socialists, too; you just want to spend other people's money on the things you prefer.
But this Senate/Congress/TOTUS tripartite turd isn't anything like creeping socialism. Everyone in the chattering classes is so far wrong about this thing they can't even understand that creeping socialism isn't the bad end result we should expect, it's the infomercial come-on for the plunder economy someone's really after. Socialism is the carrot, not the slippery-slope outcome stick. Forget socialism; this is feudalism redux. It's the Chicago way.
Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.
But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.
Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain — and since labor is pain in itself — it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.
When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.
It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work. All the measures of the law should protect property and punish plunder.
But, generally, the law is made by one man or one class of men. And since law cannot operate without the sanction and support of a dominating force, this force must be entrusted to those who make the laws.
This fact, combined with the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.
Frederic Bastiat
Thursday, April 2. 2009
 "We have to face facts."
Do we?
There is a common and normal human capacity to both know and not know something at the same time. Maybe it's politics or maybe some recent patients that got me thinking about the avoidance of reality - a maneuver which falls far short of the defence we call "denial" (which itself can also be entirely healthy at times, but often not).
I notice this in myself. For example, I noticed that I have not opened my last 2 quarterly 401-k statements. I know it's ugly inside those envelopes, but I see that I have avoided facing the facts squarely. It's avoiding the sharp pain, while tolerating the dull, nagging pain in the back of my mind. Besides the sharp pain, it's also avoiding whatever difficult or impossible decisions might or should be made.
I consider it to be a character flaw in myself - a weakness - but not a fatal one. Many of us dodge facing painful, pride-injuring, disappointing, or bias-challenging truths about ourselves or about reality and how reality works. I am in good company, but I do not approve of it.
I am not referring to an unconscious defense mechanism like repression: I am referring to a conscious and deliberate maneuver, like the suspicious wife who refuses to check to see if her husband is really at another very late business dinner. A reality-ducking means of coping.
We do not have a good term for this sort of thing in Psychiatry, although "suppression" comes close.
There is a spectrum from psychotic denial and distortion (anorectics believing they look fat), to ordinary denial (I don't have a drinking problem, or I am not doing anything wrong), to repression (my brain won't permit me to think this unpleasant thought), to seeing but not believing (It just can't be!), to the sort of avoidance I am talking about (I know what is there, but refuse to look or listen because it will upset me), to the gold standard of bravely facing and dealing with facts, problems, and the limits of reality. As I say daily, Reality is the best but harshest teacher of all.
She - or he - is one tough and ruthless SOB.
Wednesday, April 1. 2009
 Simon pointed out that a lot of our (legal) economy depends on heroin, and explains how they do it in Switzerland. (It's the way it used to be done here.)
Related: We are locking up too many people who do not belong in jail. I agree. I want non-violent crims off the public payroll, and paying for their crimes with $ fines. Last I heard it costs us taxpayers around $70,000/year per jailbird.
I would prefer that they pay us for their crimes - with money.
I am back from Atlanta with this rather obvious thought: those of us who think about policies rationally, practically, and with a modicum of economic knowlege are hopelessly naive. Policies are foremost about politics, and achieving political advantage. It's a street game with no rules. I have always known that, but I keep forgetting it. Politics is where the action is, and people get termed "statesmen" when they don't seem to get the political games, or who find them distasteful. Especially true since the 16th and 17th Amendments (which I think were disasters).
I think this is why so many talented people either stay away from, or get discouraged by, politics.
This time, I am fully resolved to stop expecting reason or principle from public policy. I am sure this resolution will last about as long as most of my resolutions.
The Democrats have long had one-party control in California, aided by their radical environmentalist cohorts, and give us a good look at our national future.
They defeated an oil company's attempt to drill for oil off of Santa Barbara using slant drilling from shore, not an offshore platform. Their rationale was that it would 'only slow the switch to renewables.' Nobody had the nerve or knowledge to question “what renewables?”
They refuse to allow any more nuclear power here, so at the present time Los Angeles gets 50% of its electrical power from coal.
An earlier attempt to reduce vehicle emissions with MTBE in gasoline resulted in a lot of contamination of water supplies.
Now they are even considering banning the sale of black vehicles in California because they more energy to cool their interiors: Click here: California’s Plan to Reduce Emissions...
“The California Air Resources Board has withdrawn an unpopular set of plans that would have effectively banned black vehicles as a way to reduce emissions. . . . Never mind that black is the second most popular car color.
“Instead of black, paint makers fiddling with compliance were finding a color described as “mud-puddle brown. The air resources board’s rule follows the accepted fact that the darker the color of car, the more it takes to cool the car, thus the increased emissions.
“Now, after facing global ridicule, the air resources board says it has no plans ‘at this time’ to regulate the color of car paint, according to a Los Angeles Times blog.”
Meanwhile, funniest of all, Sen. Feinstein is pushing legislation to prevent the development of both solar arrays and wind turbines in the Mojave Desert. Click here: Watchdog Politics Examiner: Sen. Feinstein says no wind turbines in nearby desert
“Senator Diane Feinstein of California has made it known that she does not want to see new energy projects, including that creating solar and wind power, in the pristine desert. “The area she is concerned about is between the Mojave National Reserve and Joshua Tree National Park, off the old Route 66 between the towns of Ludlow and Needles. About 800,000 acres make up this area. The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing 130 applications for solar and wind energy development in the California desert, covering 1 million acres of public lands. “While Feinstein is being backed by the Route 66 Alliance, Myron Ebell, an energy expert with the pro-market Competitive Enterprise Institute said that this is ‘the first example of how hard it is going to be to realize President Obama's dream of a green-energy economy.’” However, Feinstein says that she is not engaged in a not-in-my-back-yard campaign. “I’m a strong supporter of renewable energy and clean technology--but it is critical that these projects are built on suitable lands. “The area she is concerned about includes desert tortoise habitat, wildlife corridors, cactus gardens and the Amboy Crater--an inactive volcanic crater.”
High desert photo by Gwynnie last week:
Meanwhile, one hundred miles northwest, is the great Tehachapi wind farm, about which a blog in – of all places – Germany has the following notation:
Wind Plants of California's Tehachapi Pass
The Tehachapi Pass is one of the world's largest producer of wind-generated electricity. The more than 5,000 wind turbines in the Tehachapi-Mojave wind resource area of Kern County generate approximately 1.3 Terawatt-hours (1,300,000,000 kWh) per year. This is enough electricity to meet the residential needs of more than 500,000 Southern Californians or nearly one million Europeans. The Tehachapi Pass is two hours north of Los Angeles and is frequently used by Hollywood producers for its dramatic scenery as in the movie Terminal Velocity. Every May the Kern Wind Energy Association and the Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club lead a hike on the Pacific Crest Trail to view the spring wildflowers and the wind turbines. The hikers shown here have stopped for lunch atop Cameron Ridge, which affords spectacular views of the area's wind power plants, the Tehachapi Mountains, and the Mojave Desert.” http://www.ilr.tu-berlin.de/WKA/windfarm/tehcal.html
There you have it folks – even the Sierra Club appreciates hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (the West’s equivalent to the Appalachian Trail) and looking at this vast wind farm. (However, the skeptic will note that the foregoing appreciation may not be the opinion of Diane’s desert tortoises or cactus gardens).
Nevertheless, visitors to the premier desert recreation area of Palm Springs, whether of human, animal or Hollywood origin, pass directly through California’s second largest wind farm area, the perpetually windy San Gorgonio Pass, and do so with no objection. Indeed, as we passed through the Pass last week, we experienced a sense of awe and respect for the pioneers of wind power. This area’s 3,500 wind turbines produce enough power for 350,000 people.
Now, folks, remember we said that 50% of the electricity in Los Angeles is produced by burning COAL! 800,000 acres of wind power would provide power for 3,500,000 homes.
However, unless someone who uses reason rather than pure emotion can communicate this concept to Senator Diane, wind power is a dead issue in the United States.
Oh, did I mention that she also wants the desert to be a no-go zone for solar power?
San Gorgonio Pass Windmills:
Tuesday, March 31. 2009
We had three pretty good posts here about making money yesterday (scroll down), so it seems timely to post Francesco's "money speech."
 The freedom to create wealth - indeed the very notion of the regular energetic person creating wealth if he or she wants to - is as essential an American freedom as all of our others. Ace reminds us of Francisco's famous speech. One bit:
To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.
"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.
"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.
"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."
The whole speech is here.
 When I was a kid, my babysitter would take me fishing for Blue Crabs off the dock. What it required was a string with a hunk of bacon tied to the end. When you gently pulled it up to just below the surface, you needed a crab net to scoop up the crabs clinging to the bacon. Otherwise, they would let go of the bacon.
My Mom was never disappointed to find a bucket of two dozen crabs when she got home.
We have posted, somewhat disparagingly, about the Blue Crab's natural history and the Blue Crab as dining material, (too much effort, basically) but we never have disparaged good Maryland crab cakes, especially when consumed in volume with volumes of bad beer in low-life Maryland tatoo pubs with dogs walking around, after a day of duck hunting.
The subject comes up because we noticed projects about the aquaculture of Blue Crabs. Very cool. Fresh water? Who would have thought it?
Here's how they raise them from broodstock.
What a clever country we are. Speaking of clever people, Sippican sends this recipe:
CRAB CAKES
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, beaten lightly
6 tablespoons sour cream
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley leaves (preferably flat-leafed)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste
2 pounds lump crab meat, picked over
2 cups fine fresh bread crumbs
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup vegetable oil
tarragon tartar sauce as an accompaniment
lemon wedges as an accompaniment
In a bowl whisk together the butter, the eggs, the sour cream, the pa rsley, the
lemon juice, the Worcestershire sauce, the paprika, the salt, and the cayenne and
stir in the crab meat and the bread crumbs gently. Form 1/2-cup measures of the
mixture into twelve 3/4-inch-thick cakes and transfer the crab cakes as they are
formed to a baking sheet sprinkled with half the cornmeal. Sprinkle the crab
cakes with the remaining cornmeal and chill them, covered with plastic wrap, for
at least 1 hour or overnight.
In a large heavy skillet heat the oil over moderately high heat until it is hot but
not smoking and in it sauté the crab cakes in batches, turning them once, for 3 to
4 minutes on each side, or until they are golden, transferring them as they are
cooked to paper towels to drain. Keep the crab cakes warm on another baking
sheet in a 200°F. oven. Serve the crab cakes with the tarragon tartar sauce and
the lemon wedges.
Makes about 12 crab cakes, serving 6.
I'd skip the bread crumbs. They dilute the crab meat.
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