Sunday, July 7. 2013
Suddenly, unexpectedly, we have too many lobsters. I doubt that the lobster community would agree with that.
A few years ago, the cyclical decline in lobsters was blamed on global warming. Our local lobster, Homarus americanus, is the largest crustacean in the world, lives in cold water, and many people consider it a tasty treat. So do Striped Bass.
I think they are fun to eat once in a while, but there are many seafoods I prefer to lobster. If you want lobster, my advice is to get the biggest ones you can find. The bigger the lobster, the higher the meat/shell ratio and the more cost-efficient it is.
Phone the seafood market and ask them to steam a 5-pounder for you. There will be plenty of leftover lobster meat for sandwiches or lobster salad the next day.
Saturday, July 6. 2013
 Rancher blames global warming on Grizzly attack.
Two notes to that unfortunate rancher. First, if you live in Griz country, it is intelligent to be armed, on a horse, or in a vehicle. If hiking, at least make plenty of noise to warn them away. When we have hiked in a Griz preserve in Montana, we clap our hands and talk loud. Some hikers bang on pots, some use Bear Bells.
Second, Grizzly Bears are not mountain creatures at all. They are primarily creatures of the lowlands, especially river valleys and foothill marshes with the succulent vegetation they like to graze on. In berry season, they will go into the hills but not the mountains. Historically, they were common on the Great Plains of the US as far east as Ohio. They are not really predators except to fish, young helpless mammals, and anthills, but people can piss them off sometimes. They do not like to be bothered. Who does? They are powerful and fast and meat is a rare dessert for them.
When they are in forest or mountains, they are remnant refugees from their preferred habitat, trying to survive in marginal areas.
Rule of thumb: Never surprise a Griz.
Friday, July 5. 2013
This is a remarkably forthright and dismaying report from a teacher in an 80% black school: Before-It’s-Deleted Of The Day.
(h/t American Digest)
What happened to large numbers of American blacks between the beginning of WW2 and 1970? Before WW2, blacks, mainly in the South at the time, led aspiring, family-oriented, church-going, bourgeois lives (despite social segregation). How and why did this subcultural transformation happen?
I blame government policy and the Law of Unintended Consequences. Charles Murray gets it. So does Justice Clarence Thomas.
The high school teacher begins:
The mainstream press gives a hint of what conditions are like in black schools, but only a hint. Expressions journalists use like “chaotic” or “poor learning environment” or “lack of discipline” do not capture what really happens. There is nothing like the day-to-day experience of teaching black children and that is what I will try to convey.
Most whites simply do not know what black people are like in large numbers, and the first encounter can be a shock...
another:
Once I asked my students, “What do you think of the Constitution?” “It white,” one slouching black rang out. The class began to laugh. And I caught myself laughing along with them, laughing while Pompeii’s volcano simmers, while the barbarians swell around the Palatine, while the country I love, and the job I love, and the community I love become dimmer by the day.
h/t American Digest
Thursday, July 4. 2013
 Our True Founding Principle:
"To champion the nation's founding principles is to commit to a downsizing of government the likes of which can barely be imagined, in today's climate. Who in America is prepared to handle the whole truth and nothing but . . . or commit to so radical a cause? Who on talk radio would dare hint of mounting a righteous crusade of abolition against the welfare principle, as such? Which Tea Party candidate will run for office pledging to slash his constituents' benefits and put the civil servants in his district or state out to pasture?"
Related, from Judge Napolitano: How can we celebrate the degradation of liberty?
Related: Seventy-one percent of Americans think the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be disappointed by the way the United States has turned out, a Gallup survey released Thursday shows.
Wednesday, July 3. 2013
Inside the academy and out, subjectivity is starting to replace the objective search for truth.
One quote:
Perhaps the most aggressive and outlandish attacks against science are attempts to inject value-driven methods into traditional science. Two academics at British universities, Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, came up with the concept of “post-normal science,” a decision-making tool for situations when "facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high, and decisions are urgent." That is not the realm of science, but of politics. After all, who is to decide whether decisions are so “urgent” that they must be made even when “facts are uncertain?”
Another ruse for promoting political agendas under the guise of using science is the “precautionary principle.” That principle is summarized as “[W]hen an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.” On the surface, this almost sounds reasonable, yet it is really just another deception to insert subjective values into the scientific process.
As they say in The Program, "Feelings aren't facts."
Tuesday, July 2. 2013
Journey Through the Checkout Racks. One quote:
Start with something that hasn’t changed: American women’s obsession with their figures. The January 1963 Redbook featured a cover line on a 10-DAY DIET TO HELP YOU RECOVER FROM THE HOLIDAYS; the February 2013 issue cajoles readers to “get to your best weight ever” and promises “the plan and the push you need.” The April 1963 Ladies’ Home Journal pledged ideas on how to “dine well on 300 calories”; the February 2013 issue offers a more cheerful take on weight control: “Yay! Retire your fat pants forever.” One shudders to think of the pounds lost and gained over five decades of readership...
Article here.
Traditionally first-timers have accounted for around 40 percent of purchases in the resale market. But in May, according to the National Association of Realtors, they were just 28 percent, down from 29 percent in April and 34 percent a year ago.
Big deal? Yes. If predominantly young, first-time purchasers are not entering the home ownership pipeline at anywhere near their traditional rate, at some point the system begins to choke...
Well, many figure that owning property is just a money pit anyway. Truth be told, my place has been an excellent investment, but I would never sell it. I'll die here. Where else? It's home. And the bank still owns 1/3rd of it anyway.
Even though I am opposed to the mortgage interest tax deduction, I am not retarded. I would never pay off a mortgage unless to get a better one.
Traditionally
first-timers have accounted for around 40 percent of purchases in the
resale market. But in May, according to the National Association of
Realtors, they were just 28 percent, down from 29 percent in April and
34 percent a year ago.
Big deal? Yes. If predominantly young,
first-time purchasers are not entering the home ownership pipeline at
anywhere near their traditional rate, at some point the system begins to
choke. - See more at:
http://bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/2013/06/student_debt_flunking_many_first_time_home_buyers#sthash.BXSGcD7E.dpuf
Traditionally
first-timers have accounted for around 40 percent of purchases in the
resale market. But in May, according to the National Association of
Realtors, they were just 28 percent, down from 29 percent in April and
34 percent a year ago.
Big deal? Yes. If predominantly young,
first-time purchasers are not entering the home ownership pipeline at
anywhere near their traditional rate, at some point the system begins to
choke. - See more at:
http://bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/2013/06/student_debt_flunking_many_first_time_home_buyers#sthash.yeVwqfD2.dpuf
Traditionally
first-timers have accounted for around 40 percent of purchases in the
resale market. But in May, according to the National Association of
Realtors, they were just 28 percent, down from 29 percent in April and
34 percent a year ago.
Big deal? Yes. If predominantly young,
first-time purchasers are not entering the home ownership pipeline at
anywhere near their traditional rate, at some point the system begins to
choke. - See more at:
http://bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/2013/06/student_debt_flunking_many_first_time_home_buyers#sthash.yeVwqfD2.dpuf
 They make them to fit your height, weight, and arm length. Pretty snazzy to own a bespoke scythe. They even make them for southpaws.
Scythe Supply.
They have good choices of blades and accessories too, some for brush and saplings. (h/t, reader)
I don't know whether I would have the time or energy to scythe the 8-acre brushy hillside meadow which sits above the bridge, but it would be good for some areas that we can't get the brushwacker into due to slope or boulders.
One of my grandpas, a capitalist industrialist who hated paperwork and hated business, loved nothing more than a weekend day scything at the farm until the sacred cocktail hour. Then Dewar's on the rocks, well-deserved. Usually two of them; one for the blood and one to stimulate the appetite along with Pall Mall cigarettes or a Habanos ceegar. He taught my Mom how to use a scythe, and she taught me. We still have his pedal-powered grinding wheel in the barn with the water pan.
Nonetheless, I enjoy a gas-powered brushwacker. It's a good workout just to muscle that heavy machine around, and it shreds everything to bits, even 2" saplings. Leaves no swaths of cuttings to suffocate the grasses.
Monday, July 1. 2013
As you can see, our bridge was washed out during the winter storms. Not entirely washed out, but undermined on the far end. The I-beams no longer reach the far bank. There is a 3-foot gap which the Ford tractor can not jump.
I got a consult from a local contractor who said it was a straightforward repair. He thought we could just jack it back up, add two I-beams to reach the far bank, and put in some cement blocks at low water in August to support the necessary extension. Around a $7000 job that he could do in two days.
But...he felt uncomfortable repairing it without a wetlands permit and an engineering OK. I explained that this bridge had been there for 60 years, and another bridge there for over 100 years before that, and that we had fixed it in the past without permits. He said I needed to consult an engineering firm to do the permitting and to ok his plan.
That has to be wrong, but instead of finding somebody else to consider the job, I did consult with a reputable local engineering firm. They inspected, and came back with an estimate of $27,000 for permitting and design, not including the actual repair. They said the permitting could take as much as two years, starting with the Army Corps of Engineers and ending with the Massachusetts Wetland Authority and the State and local DEP. Many hearings to be attended, apparently, by certified engineers. No guarantee, he said, that we could get a bridge repair permit in the end because the State wants "wild rivers." Mind you, this stream is in no way "navigable" except on barefoot, and is only as "wild" as a stream can be which winds through cow pastures and corn fields.
We do not have that kind of spare money in the farm's budget.
Meanwhile, one mile down the road, the state is widening a 1936 one-lane WPA cement bridge, about 20' long, over the same small river - a trout stream, really. Bulldozers, cement mixers, portapotties, portable office, road grinders, asphalt rollers, trucks, etc. Stimulus money. Modern infrastructure for a town of 600 permanent residents and more dairy cows than people. They have been working on it for four months, and it seems nowhere near done.
One problem is that we are required by our agreement with the local land trust to maintain the upper meadow with an annual mowing. We want to do that anyway. We can't get there now. There is no other way to get across the stream with a tractor because at least one side of the riverbank is always fairly high.
No wonder people get pissed off at government. However, I never consulted any government on this.
It's just a simple, ordinary repair. Property maintenance. I am sorely tempted to ask some illegal Mexicans to just come in with two 6' I-beams, a jack, a welder, and some cinder blocks to fix it. Nobody would notice - or care. No, you can't see it from the road. I'll find someone who wants to help me fix it the old-fashioned Yankee way: patch it and make it last.
This ain't the Brooklyn Bridge.
Sunday, June 30. 2013
If, coulda, woulda, shoulda about history may not change it but does change our understanding of what happened and why. The two gravest mistakes the US made in Vietnam were to participate in, even bless, the overthrow of President Diem and then to not use our overwhelming force to bring North Vietnam to its knees.
The overthrow of Diem in 1963 upended the South Vietnamese pacification efforts and disrupted the organization of the professional army, requiring the large-scale US involvement. The failure to then use our massive force, especially in the air on North Vietnamese strategic targets instead of sending multi-million dollar planes against cheap trucks, allowed the North to extend its reach and prolong the war.
Mark Moyars wrote the book "Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965." It details how Diem's efforts were succeeding and were destroyed by the coup. In the June 29 Wall Street Journal (behind the paywall) Moyar reviews three other recent books that come to the same conclusion. Wise guys in Washington should not be in such a hurry to think they can superimpose their ideal of Western democracy where the foundations have not been laid and in the midst of war requiring unified stern measures.
Of historical note is, not only in 1964-5 the failure to bring to bear the Joint Chiefs' recommendations for strategic targeting of the North, but how in 1970 there was a similar failure of will in Washington. As President Nixon showed in 1972 by launching such a ferocious air attack on Hanoi and Haiphong, the war could have been shortened and many thousands of lives saved. Rear Admiral Joe Vasey was right hand man to Admiral John McCain Jr, Commander-In-Chief Pacific Command during 1968-1972. In an exclusive to this blog, for historical record, Joe Vasey has agreed to publish the below "after inaction" report on what could have been in 1970. (My apologies for the spacing below, due to copying-pasting from an email.)
Continue reading "What could have beens in Vietnam"
Readers know that I consider the trend in Psychiatry to obsess about diagnoses and nosology to be a silly pursuit. From Gary Greenberg's latest:
(Dr. Alan) Frances has become the loudest and most influential public voice questioning the DSM’s latest revamp. “The fact that we had a descriptive system only revealed our limitations,” he says. “If you believe that labels are only labels, you don’t want to keep changing the language arbitrarily. It just confuses everybody.”
Frances has been warning everyone who will listen that the newest DSM revision will turn even more of human suffering into mental illness and thus into grist for the pharmaceutical mill. I once asked him whether he thought a good definition of a mental disorder would establish a bright boundary line that would definitively sort the sick from the unusual and keep psychiatry in its proper place.
“Here’s the problem,” Frances said. “There is no definition of a mental disorder...”
Cui bono?
 A friend drove a Tesla msp85 around 100 miles last weekend. The guy knows cars. Said it was the best car he had ever driven, by a long shot.
He said the power, comfort, and design were stunning. Goes about 400 miles before a 6-8-hour recharge with the super charging device. Consumer Reports says it's the best car they have ever tested.
I don't want one, even without the $125,000 price tag of that model. I'd be happy to try one out, though.
Each Tesla is made to order. When you think about it, they basically run on coal but the coal-burning is remote.
Friday, June 28. 2013
Instapundit found this: The Tyranny of Choice.
Fortunately, in America one is free to make the choice not to patronize a therapist who thinks like her. I think she imagines that her problem with freedom is everybody else's problem too.
I'd bet $5 that she is "Pro-Choice." Short version: I think she is as absurd as Cass Sunstein, a "soft totalitarian" whose choice is for me to follow their choices.
Being reasonably sane, I don't need anybody to share my choices in life. This video critique is pretty good, but takes her too seriously.
Madness Made Them Great - Thomas Jefferson, Steve Jobs, Estée Lauder, and Charles Lindbergh suffered from the same mental illness.
I do not think any professional would term obsessionalism to be a "mental illness." It's a character trait which exists on a spectrum, more common in men than in women. A good dose of it can be highly adaptive in life. Too much can be paralyzing.
 I am opposed to prison time for much non-violent crime. In fact, I don't even want Bernie Madoff in prison, living on my nickel at around $70,000/year. I'd rather see him shamed, shunned, fined unto poverty, and working as a greeter at an Orlando WalMart after spending a few weeks in the stocks on Wall St. or downtown Miami.
He would have made an excellent WalMart greeter.
I am also opposed to prison time for drug possession and, in fact, I am opposed to drug prohibition generally. Drug prohibition causes violence and craziness, makes drugs expensive, and feeds gangs and gang warfare.
This is not an endorsement of meth or heroin or even pot use, just pointing out that prohibition doesn't work and costs society more in the long run. If people mess up their lives and make themselves stupid with abuse and addiction, it should not be my problem. The prohibition is what makes it my problem.
Here's an article: Responsible Prison Reform.
"Legal" does not mean that you have to approve of it.
Thursday, June 27. 2013
When people ask whether there is a constitutional right to gay marriage, I can't understand where they are coming from. The people do not have enumerated rights. It's the federal government which has enumerated powers. It's about freedom from the federal state.
I am not aware that the power to regulate marriage is among the federal powers. The case for polygamy:
As a man, I can only imagine how much more efficient it would be to have one wife in the workforce and another wife at home with the kids. This would be much better for the children than shipping them off to some nursery school. And having three parents is a lot better than having just one … or none.
How about two wives working on Wall St., one wife home with the kids, and the dude fishing and hunting all day? Well, I guess that would not be very manly in today's world and might not attract committed women.
We recently posted the report that Google is not particularly interested in interviewing American grads with college degrees.
The fact is that the meaning of Higher Ed has changed in the past 100 years in the US. In 1900, around 2% of Americans had BA degrees. That was a meaningful socio-cultural marker, but as the numbers now exceed 35%, and as even the most elite schools do not seem to know what their mission is, it no longer means very much more than a piece of paper required to manage a McDonald's store.
For a couple of decades, as BAs became commonplace, graduate degrees seemed to become more meaningful and popular as markers. Now, however, we are overrun with unemployed and marginally-employed MAs, PhDs, JDs, D. Divs, and MBAs with huge loans and no way to pay them off. And, assuming that MOOCs begin to take off thanks to the internet, there will be far less need for Profs.
Voegli has written a very important essay on the topic: The Higher Education Hustle
One quote:
How do all the other tenured, morally self-congratulatory educators live with the knowledge that many of their students, after having had their narrow certainties and provincial visions broken down, face years of indentured servitude? We can begin to understand by thinking of the 2,774 U.S. institutions that (as of 2010) grant bachelor's degrees as being in the credentials business rather than the education business. The Daily Beast's Megan McArdle, summarizing an interview with economist Bryan Caplan, points out that it's "actually fairly easy to get a Princeton education for free, as long as you don't want the degree: just walk in off the street and sit in on the classes. It's unlikely that a professor will kick you out, or even notice." No one does this, of course, since no matter how much you might have learned auditing courses, your degree-less self will fare no better in the job market than will the next autodidact.
Many students do the opposite, however: earning, or in any case receiving, college degrees after learning as little as possible. After all, writes McArdle, college students "cheer when class is cancelled. This makes no sense if the goal is accumulation of human capital. In no other business are customers excited to get less than they were promised."
Large public universities, where millions of Americans enroll, are especially conducive to the avoidance of intellectual exertion and achievement. As John Merrow, a journalist specializing in education, discovered in 2005 after investigating academic life at the University of Arizona, "learning seems to be optional." Many undergraduates, in the words of one administrator he interviewed, are "‘maze smart'—they have figured out what they have to do to get through: buy the book, find out what's going to be on the exam and stay invisible." Another spoke of the "mutual nonaggression pact," in which the professor gives the students high grades for mediocre work, and the students give the professor generous evaluations for indifferent teaching. As Arizona's dean of students acknowledged, "We have a lot of students whose motivation for coming here is to get a good job. They think, ‘How do I get the grades?' instead of trying to learn."
Like most of us Maggie's Farmers, I get my education now via a pre-MOOC. If you like to learn, that's what you do. It used to be called The Teaching Company, but now it's called Great Courses. Once you're hooked, you will never waste time on TV or movies again.
Books are good, too. Some students give it up after a paper credential, but some use it as a launching pad for a lifetime of curiosity and intellectual pursuits. In my view, the latter are the only ones deserving of a liberal arts education.
Wednesday, June 26. 2013
Lyme Disease (Borreliosis) is endemic in the Northeast US, and probably always has been. That complicates diagnosis because so many people in the area have been exposed to the germ, and thus show some degree of antibodies to it. Many if not most cases of Lyme are subclinical and never diagnosed.
The spirochete-like bug is transmitted by the bite of a mostly-mouse-born tick called a Black-Legged Tick or Deer Tick. The Tick is much smaller than the common dog tick, and much harder to find on your body. Ordinary dog ticks are harmless, if annoying, and can not be confused with the Deer Tick.
Lyme Disease is readily treated with antibiotics, but about ten years ago one of those disease fads came along, so appealing to hypochondriacs and hysterics, called "Chronic Lyme."
As with other fake disease fads like Chronic Fatigue and, in my opinion, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Lyme believers often made themselves into invalids with vague aches and pains.
I thought the Chronic Lyme fad had passed into the history of medical faddism, but I see this odd and credulous article in The New Yorker: The Lyme Wars. The Lyme-disease infection rate is growing. So is the battle over how to treat it.
There are two serious errors right in the title. The infection rate is not growing: the diagnosis is growing and probably many people with aches and pains are being unnecessarily treated for Lyme just because they have been exposed to it at some point in their life. Second, I have never heard of any credible Infectious Disease doc in New England who had any question about how to treat real Lyme.
Here's one brief index to fad diagnoses but I am sure there is a better, more comprehensive one. The current fad is "gluten intolerance." There are a few quacks out there, but many more crocks.
Tuesday, June 25. 2013
Ran across a post on ZeroHedge last Friday, about the emasculation of men in the US today. The post itself was not particularly enlightening, but the topic is rather interesting. It's a theme my father and I discuss somewhat frequently.
What does it mean to be a man? There's the Y chromosome, and some private parts. But we are different from women in other ways, and we are under attack, in my view. I suspect one of the reasons we're under attack is because many men were raised with minimal male influence over the last 50 years or so. Divorce may play a huge role in the current attack on male society. My father was not your typical 'guy's guy'. He didn't play a huge role in my upbringing until late in my teens, because my parents were divorced. His personal tastes are less Hemingway and more Fitzgerald (though he enjoys Hemingway in a literary sense). He is definitely a red-blooded American man. He does the lawn, can use a chain saw, and enjoys a good fire. He doesn't share too many of his emotions, except when it's really necessary. I was lucky, however, to have several uncles who stepped in immediately, and later a stepfather, to fill the vacuum of a male presence. Most of the younger men in my office could use a lesson or two on being more masculine, though.
I think it is fairly common for commercials, and TV in general, to exhibit men as outlandishly stupid beings. Men on TV are usually infantile, unable to think about anyone but themselves, engaging in moronic behaviors, if not generally portrayed as drooling neanderthals. The media has gone out of its way to diminish the male psyche. It's evident in many ways. Why are there "Women's Studies" programs at universities and no "Men's Studies"?
I also think many high-profile men today are effete snobs, starting with our president and Joe Biden.
I'm all for women's rights, by the way. So it's not like I'm opposed to women in the workplace, seeing them succeed or even earning a just wage. But I don't understand why, every day, I'm told I need to think, act, or behave more like a woman. Women and men are different, and those differences are positive things. We complement each other extremely well. I don't believe women are more capable or smarter than men. I've taken classes (on the recommendation of women) on "Emotional Intelligence". I was underwhelmed, but I can see why women view the concept of "emotional intelligence" as important. To me, the recommendations were really just another way of saying "Because you're a man, you're incomplete."
Monday, June 24. 2013
 I had the pleasure of seeing a Least Weasel scurry past the front of the garage yesterday, going from one pachysandra patch to another. They are not uncommon in their multi-continental, northern-hemisphere range, but I rarely see them. It makes me happy when I do.
Most often, they are seen hurrying across a country road.
Least Weasels like to be in cover, not out in the open. They are both daytime and nocturnal hunters, and active all winter in the snow, when they have all-white fur.
They are said to be the world's smallest mammalian predators, around 8-9" long. Bloodthirsty little guys.
On further thought, that guy could have been an Ermine. Not sure I can tell the difference because they move so quickly.
Sunday, June 23. 2013
From The Economist:
The moralising stridency of so many arguments for cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, and global emissions treaties was founded on the idea that there is a consensus about how much warming there would be if carbon emissions continue on trend. The rather heated debates we have had about the likely economic and social damage of carbon emissions have been based on that idea that there is something like a scientific consensus about the range of warming we can expect. If that consensus is now falling apart, as it seems it may be, that is, for good or ill, a very big deal.
Finally, even The Economist has become skeptical about weather alarmism. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Obama to Announce Sweeping New Powers on Tuesday – Will Regulate Power Plants to Save Country from ‘Global Warming’
Why not cut off power to the federal government first? Heat, a/c, and electric. That would show real leadership. Pres. Lincoln managed fine without electricity, central heating, or a/c, and he rode around town on a low-emission horse powered by biofuel. First, the gummint should cut the power to the NSA and the IRS. Then, the White House. Then Congress. Our moral and intellectual superiors should show us the way.
Obama’s “for the children” climate change video announcement – only a few hundred views so far
It's always "for the children" when there is no good argument. Now, I think Save the Polar Bears is a better angle to tug at the heartstrings. So cuddly, unlike bratty kids. The problem is that the bears are reproducing like crazy and are going to eat all the cute seals and all the Eskimos they can catch. But wait - the Kennedys are shooting seal pups. Too many seals? WTH?
Do the seals get a vote on that? At least the Kennedys aren't shooting the Eskimos who kill the Polar Bears and Killer Whales which would otherwise eat the supposedly "extra" seal pups, etc., etc.
I am waiting for the next crisis: Polar Bear population explosion attributed to global warming.
Saturday, June 22. 2013
 Most people don't need one very often, but they are darn handy when you do. Using the magic of leverage combined with the human arm and the ratchet, one can apply remarkable power either vertically as a hoist or horizontally for pulling.
We are using a come-along today to install some new barbed wire in a 50-acre field. Not too tight, not too loose. Most of the posts are solid enough but the wire helps hold them in place and we use trees for the machine. We used to have an electrified fence but the barbed works fine. It's for the cattle, not for the horses.
If you wanted to, you could pull a tree down with one of these, but a chain saw makes better sense. Pictured is a 1.5 ton lever, but they come in varied powers.
Tugit makes good ones. Good, cheap, powerful tool. With a little grease and some pine boards you can easily move your shed, chicken coop, or outhouse with it.
Friday, June 21. 2013
One of my problems with economic analyses of society is that they tend view society, naturally, through an economic lens. Although almost everybody could find some good application of more cash, in my experience most people do not make the pursuit of cash their only goal in life, or even their primary goal, beyond providing decent living conditions for one's family. One must assume that people construct the life they want, or do their best to attempt to.
If people want more money, they can find a second job, or start a business. That's the American Way.
One thing large economic inequality can breed, however is envy and resentment. Envy is bred from an ignorant view of wealth as a zero-sum game. It also happens to be a Deadly Sin.
The problem is this: You create your Marxist materialistically-egalitarian utopia or dystopia or whatever, with only your Dear Leaders getting the limos and caviar and palaces, and then a Steve Jobs or Lebron James or Picasso or Steven King or Spielberg or Bob Dylan or Bill Gross appears, and everybody wants to buy their work. What then? Their work is not a commodity because they have a talent and make the effort to produce unique creations that people want to spend money on, and they expect to be compensated for it.
I want all Americans to be wealthy and Americans are, compared to the rest of the world. I am not in the .01%, or even in the 1%. I am in the 5-10% I suspect, and, while I believe I am especially good at the work I produce, it's basically a commodity. We have a comfortable life, but not so cushioned that I could stop working even if I wanted to. Which I do not.
Harvard Prof. Mankiw has a good essay on the topic: Defending the One Percent
Thursday, June 20. 2013
Reposted -
Came home from a busy and exertional family day last weekend to notice some of Mrs. BD's Digitalis in glorious bloom.
Whenever I see Digitalis - Foxglove - in bloom I remember "the Shropshire Crone," renowned in medical history for promoting the use of it for "dropsy" - congestive heart failure. The astute and open-minded Dr. William Withering took notice and got all of the credit - hence the continued use of Digitalis for heart failure. Many people we see walking around would be either dead or bed-ridden without this herbal treatment. Digitalis increases the contractility of the failing heart, but in higher doses it kills you.
Digitalis is a biennial, and self-sows generously when in a happy spot - half-day sun, rich soil. That is Nepeta in bloom in the foreground, and the low-growing Little Lamb's Ear Hydrangea on the left, which will bloom white in late summer.
Up here in the land of snow, we treasure our gardens especially because our growing season is so darn short. Our plants have to know how to carpe diem even if we do not. We try to learn from them. Winter is coming.
I am not sure why schools of education exist. It seems like an odd concept to me. It would seem to me that an apprenticeship system would work better for the lower grades.
The best private schools do not demand teaching credentials, and do not want to hire education majors. Likewise, college faculties do not need to be taught how to teach.
For what it's worth, Report Sharply Rebukes Universities Nationwide For Shoddy Teacher Prep
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