Friday, July 15. 2011
 Now here's an interesting question:
Of all the astronomical discoveries over the years, which was the most profound? Which discovery, upon further examination, opened more new doors to philosophy, deep thought and science than any other?
Certainly the discovery that the Earth wasn't at the center of the solar system would be most people's pick, since it only relegated a couple thousand years of religious belief to the dust bin of history.
But when you think about it, that particular discovery didn't really alter our view of the cosmos; it was more just a matter of a small physical realignment in the immediate neighborhood. It certainly had religious repercussions, and certainly made calculating planetary orbits easier, but not much else. Switch the Sun and the Earth around and we still have no further idea what all those little twinkling lights up there are.
But in 1863, an Italian astronomer named Angelo Secchi invented the heliospectrograph, which breaks a star's light into its spectral bands. He eventually charted the light from almost 4,000 stars.
At one point, he turned it on the Sun and compared its chart to the others. And what a stunning moment.
Our Sun is a star.
To me, if there was one fulcrum point upon which our entire understanding of the cosmos turned, that was it.
Our Sun is a star.
I'm currently halfway through a terrific series on our solar system called Wonders of the Solar System. It's a 3-disc set; I got mine from Netflix. The following video is from the episode 'Empire of the Sun'. That's the only segue from above; the actual clip is specifically about the Earth. Very specifically, as you'll see.
Apart from the usual breathtaking photography and computer graphics, what makes it particularly enjoyable is the host, Dr. Brian Cox. Like the great science hosts of yore (Carl Sagan, James Burke, et al), Cox doesn't get bogged down in technical talk and he uses easy-to-understand examples of the physics he's describing. He also carries across that unabashed 'wonderment and awe' that Sagan used to wear on his sleeve. Nothin' wrong with that.
On the other hand, I'm no slouch with this cosmos stuff, m'self. Until I see otherwise, I believe my Life On Other Worlds: By The Numbers is the definitive work arguing against there being intelligent life on other worlds.
Which is why the following clip interested me. It's yet another link in the chain of events that are extremely unlikely to happen to the average planet.
Does the average planet have... a spinning molten iron core?
The full 1-hour episode is here.
I cannot count the number of times I have flown nationally and internationally over the past 20 years. I am a Christian, native-born, tax-paying, property-owning, passport-holding American with kids, with no criminal record (yet). If I am not a "trusted traveler," I don't know who is. True, I often fly with firearms in my checked luggage, but nobody cares much about that.
(Although I do not really mind some basic security precautions at airports, I much prefer flying privately with friends who have, or treat me to, their NetJets deals, where you just drive onto the tarmac and the co-pilot loads your gear for you and then asks you whether you want a drink while some helper takes your car to the lot. Can you have a cigar on private and charter jets? Certainly can.)
Maybe there is some hope. The bumbling, expensive, soon-to-be-unionized joke (termed by pilots "Thousands Standing Around") of the TSA to roll out ‘Trusted Traveler’ program. (I have to mention that I still think Bush's Homeland Security Dept. was a dumb and unnecessary move.)
Anyway, trust me, Uncle Sam. Sign me up for this. I do not like being treated like a criminal.
I admit I got busy and didn't read through many of the comments in my election post last week, but I presume you all came to the logical conclusion that I was right about everything.
Today, I'd like to toss out some thoughts on a small variety of subjects.
Point In Time
According to the site stats, no one's fired up a site using my new Speakup! 2012 site yet. Unsurprisingly, of course. It's early. The election's still a million miles away.
Or, is it? Here's something to ponder:
Couldn't it be argued that we didn't lose the last election during the general election — we lost it in the primary?
While it might be true that we didn't have a chance in hell last time no matter who we threw up there, this time around things are different. While Obama still has the media in his pocket, many other factions are starting to crumble around the edges (the black vote, youth vote, Jewish vote, hipness vote, etc) and this time we've got a real chance. Except that the media is going to do everything in its power to promote this kind of behavior:
Pawlenty Blasts Bachmann's 'Nonexistent' Record
This infighting is going to cost us dearly down the road.
Burning Scott Brown's Playbook
Do you remember Scott Brown's Massachusetts senatorial win a few years ago after Senator Ted Kennedy passed away? It stunned everybody. It was, I believe, the first time in 232 years that a Republican had won that seat.
And just how did he beat his opponent, ol' whats-her-name?
He ignored her.
Instead, he used ol' whats-her-name as a proxy for Obama's failures, with a "Here's how I'll do better" approach.
That's what the media will be desperately trying to stave off. They want that sordid chapter of American history to die a quiet and natural death. The media wants it to be a knock-down, drag-out playoff between contenders, whereas the candidates should be emulating Scott Brown and telling the people Here's how I'll do better straight through the primary and all the way to the White House.
The Positions
I suggest you not give a rat's ass about some candidate's 'position' on this or that issue at this point in time. It's all going to change when the primary officially begins, it's going to change again during the general, and what eventually happens after they take office may not have any relation to their previous positions. You know all those campaign promises that Obama has broken? Rest assured, he didn't want to break them.
And then there's the bullshit of 'past indiscretions'. So what if Romney signed some AGW 'pact' three hundred years ago? One of the biggest tropes of both the left- and right-wing propaganda machines is focusing on something the opposition did a zillion years ago (Bill Ayers, please pick up the white courtesy telephone) while conveniently dismissing their own candidate's checkered past.
What makes the whole thing pathetically hypocritical is that the same site that soundly castigates someone for something he or she said years and years ago will then make a post on some 18th century philosopher praising man's ability to think in the here-and-now and instantly being able to change his entire course with one new scrap of critical information. Kind of a strange juxtaposition, isn't it?
It isn't just sentience that makes us special.
Furthermore, I-
"Excuse me, Doc?"
"Yes, boss!"
"Mary said some nice things about you at the meeting yesterday. Hope you enjoyed your dinner. By the way, you got anything fresh on that Perry guy?"
"Comin' right up!"
Taking a Look at the Flip-Flopping Governor Perry, Back When He Was a Democrat
"Outstanding! Keep up the good work!"
"You bet, boss!"
Well, I'd like to talk more but, as you can see, duty calls!
I never meant this to be a Hinckley week (the Offical Maggie's Farm Sailboats are the Alerion line, or maybe plain Cape Cod catboats), but this is an example of what Hinckley used to be best known for: classic, elegant cruising sailboats. In my experience, they can't point worth a darn but they are a good ride.
This 1986 Hinckley Bermuda 40 yawl is for sale for a reasonable $330,000.
Thursday, July 14. 2011
"Good morning, everyone. And how are you all today?"
"Fine, chief".
"Mornin', sir."
"Wow, that Sarah Palin sure is hot!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Okay, everyone, let's get down to work. Jim, you're fired. Now, before we begin, let's all keep our main goal in mind. Just as we did in 2008, we want to make sure the winner of the Republican primary is the person least likely to win the general election. Mary, you and your people did a superb job last time. Taking some loser who got his ass shot down by the enemy and turning him into a 'war hero'? Absolutely brilliant."
"Thanks, boss. We admit they make it easy. What those idiots know about winning elections wouldn't fill a thimble."
"And lucky for us. Okay, today we're going to be focusing on the Witch. She's starting to pull ahead in the polls, so let's knock her down a peg or two. Anyone got anything? Steve?"
"Got just the thing, boss."
Pawlenty Blasts Bachmann's 'Nonexistent' Record
"Outstanding! Nothing like a little dissension among the ranks, eh? But we'll need someone to back him up."
"No sweat."
GOP Veteran Ridge Says Bachmann Not Ready
"Perfect! We'll have to print her response, of course, but let's make it sound kind of weak and insipid. Ideas? Yes, Jane?"
"Feast your eyes upon this, boss."
Bachmann: Who needs executive experience if it means more big government?
"Outstanding! 'Who needs executive experience?' That probably cost her a percentile point right there. Good work! Yes, Jim?"
"I'm thinking we should also stamp the Intolerant label on her. It would dovetail nicely with her being so unqualified."
"Good idea. Shirley, that's your department. Got anything for us?"
"Of course, mein leader!"
Report: Bachmann's Clinic Tries to Cure Gay Patients
"Wow, nice piece of misdirection! But the few people who actually read the thing will see it's her husband's clinic. Can we get any more dirt on him?"
"Boss, you're talkin' to pros!"
Bachmann Husband's Clinic: More Harm Than Good?
"And that's a video, boss, just full of heartbreaking stories from people who had barely broken free of this mad cult before the damage had been done. We made hubby come across as the reincarnation of Edgar Allen Poe; pit, pendulum, ravens and all."
"Shirley, you and your team never fail to impress. Have we got anything on the Witch, herself? Yes, Mack?"
"I've been saving this gem for months, chief. Check it out."
Michele Bachmann in 2004: Homosexuality is "Personal Enslavement"
"Jeez, Mack, that almost makes me want to weep with joy. You got any more gems like that tucked away?"
"I ain't sayin', boss, but...yes!"
"I'll tell you, people, it's an honor working with such professionals. Now, back to wielding the Intolerant label effectively, have we snagged anyone else yet? Shirley, you've got that usual smug look about you."
"Well, guys, I was kinda saving this for next week when we focused on the Moonbeam Mormon, but here goes."
Romney Refuses to Sign Anti-Gay Marriage Pledge
"In other words, he's secretly gay?? Excellent work! Now, as a lead-in to next week's focus on the Moonbeam, have we got anything else on him? Maybe some no-name beating him in one of those fake polls? Mary, your folks usually handle that. Got anything for us?"
"Boss...happy birthday!"
Cain Beats Romney in Conservative Leadership Conference Straw Poll
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Mary, whoever came up with that one gets a free dinner at Chad's, compliments of the house. And tell him or her to bring a friend."
"That would be Doc Murky, boss. Man, the dirt he can dig up on the Repubs is just mind-boggling. He says the only one he's worried about is Perry."
"Oh, yeah, speaking of him, anybody got the latest? Shirley, you've got that devilish gleam in your eye again."
"Boss, happy birthday...and Merry Christmas!"
Poll: In Presidential Matchup, Obama Would Beat Perry in Texas
"Holy crap! And in Texas? Tell Doc he needn't worry and to enjoy his dinner. This guy is toast."
"Got it, boss."
"All right, folks, you know what to do. Let's get to work!"
Wednesday, July 13. 2011
From Oliver Wendell Breyer at Volokh:
These Progressives advocated deference to the government for the same reasons Breyer articulates: reverence for experts, belief in majority rule, and the need to protect society from itself.
As a result, Progressive judges approved segregation laws, laws banning private schools, laws limiting women’s ability to participate equally in the workplace, and more. Most infamously, Justice Holmes vigorously approved of forced sterilization of the allegedly mentally infirm, relying on the public interest as articulated by contemporary experts. “Three generations of imbeciles are enough,” he wrote.
While well-intentioned rather than imbeciles, Progressives since Holmes' and Wilson's era have demonstrated more faith in powerful elites, technocrats, social engineers, scientists, and other assorted (mostly academic) experts than in individual freedom - which includes freedom to ignore the experts du jour. The Progessives (ie, modern "Liberals") been misguided about that, ever since. The examples are endless. There's no fool like an educated fool and, as CS Lewis said, there's no totalitarian as dangerous as the one who wants to do you good for your own good.
95% of experts on any topic are shown to be wrong, in time. Not so with common sense, which has endured through history. The unwise, impressionable, and self-impressed are vulnerable to having the common sense educated out of them, and arrogance put into them.
 This is actually a little embarrassing. It's like I'm giving away all of my secrets.
Because I am.
I got to wondering just how many 'official' secrets I knew, ranging from the secret of Subway sandwiches (tastiest thing in the house and it's not even on the menu), all the way to an iridium deposit out in the wilds of Nevada that I, alone, know exists.
So I wrote them all down.
Subway Sandwiches — Best thing in the joint and it's not even on the menu
Amazon.com — A penny for your someone's thoughts?
Amazon.com II — Know anyone with a printer?
The Perfect Drink Coaster — And they said it couldn't be done
For Men In Their Mid-30's Only — This is only of concern if you enjoy sex
The Terriblest Truth For Men — The saddest truth you'll ever learn about females
My Best Medical Tips — I'm living proof that none of these will actually kill you
— Preventing Summer/Winter Colds
— Preventing Sore Throats
— Preventing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
— Preventing Allergies
— Healthy Gums & Teeth
— Stopping A Sneeze
— Stopping Hiccups
Growing Pot — Two little tips and you just increased your yield about 1,000%
How To Contact Every Member of Congress — This can only be done once, maybe
How To Get On TV At The Olympics — Well, possibly
How To Get Into Guinness — Okay, this might take a few bucks, but what price, fame?
The Hippies — One of the biggest lies you've ever been told
Usenet — A wonderful source for pirated software, high-quality TV shows, etc
Miracle Cure — A marketing idea that could be worth zillions
The Magic Elixir — I accidentally invented the first 'elixir' in a thousand years
The Iridium Strike — A real treasure hunt from 40 long, dry, dusty years ago
Welcome to Doc's Secrets
Monday, July 11. 2011
 When I was in training, a wise old Doc told me to tell the old folks to eat all the salt they like, but to take their blood pressure medicines if they have hypertension.
It's Time to End the War on Salt. The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science.
Still, if you have congestive heart failure, it might help your management to limit salt intake.
There are countless myths about diet and health. The truth is that most of it is driven by wishful thinking, the wish that we might control our fates as easily as by deciding what to have for supper.
The only dietary-related thing (besides basic sustenance) that probably helps health to some extent is to get your Vitamin D from plenty of natural sunlight (instead of from pills or diet) over much of your body, while avoiding sunburn and avoiding obsessive use of sunblock.
Prediction: There will be many of Hollywood's sexier actresses attending Marine Corps Balls next November 10, thanks to Marine Corps balls.
Another reason today's Marines are the best yet, and deserve to have more strut in their stride:
In Vietnam, one of the guys sent a letter to the president of Hunts Foods asking him to send a case of Hunts Snack-Packs. The Hunts president wrote back that his son served in Vietnam and he was very pleased to send a case. Immediately, we were all writing to presidents of various food companies asking for a case of our favorite. My choice was for Ring Dings. Although squished and melted when a case arrived, I had a big chocolate smile all over my face.
But, none of us had the sense of one of today's Marines who sent a Youtube message to Hollywood actress Mila Kunis asking her out to the next Marine Corps Ball. She accepted the invite.
I bet more Youtubes are being sent now to other sexy Hollywood actresses. Beats Ring Dings. And, melts in your mouth, not in your hand.
Sunday, July 10. 2011
Some shutters are inside the glass, some outside. They are all used, not ornamental.
The reason they are there is because, in stone, stucco, or brick construction, you have natural daytime air conditioning if you don't let too much sunlight in during mid-day. You will never see air-conditioners, because they don't need them except in modern office buildings.
The low-humidity Med climate, with cool nights, is perfect for humans with stone buildings.
I just stumbled on the random fact that Hartford CT, Cape Cod, Rome, and Istanbul all exist on latitude 41 N. Of course, just along that latitude is not the quickest route. Great circles and all that.
 Our friend Nathan sends us this slice of pop culture from his visit to San Francisco. I never heard of Diesel, but Maggie's is light on pop culture. You might say that it's not really our beat.
Attended my first Diesel opening Friday.
OK, my first anything opening.
L., who helps Diesel, an Italian label, find possible stores and set up their design in U.S. cities, had invited me. Thursday late, she called, saying that Francis or Danieli of Diesel had called desperately saying that they needed extra props for the store: old TV sets, beat-up furniture. The theme was to be the aftermath of a tornado. We hulked a dusty tubed TV into her BMW, then over to the store on Market Street, where we were met by a cheerful helper, who opened the car door and announced, “Hi, I’m Jeremiah,” which name was also tattooed on his left neck, should a vampire be interested in the brand name of his source. But, easy to overlook Jeremiah’s name tattoo amongst the other skin art on him and others.
Branson also was helping with the design. He tops two meters and his height is enhanced by a dyed black hair wave that brings to mind Hirokawa’s tsunami prints; a flip of the wave at the top gives him a lopsided look, which he straightens with a smile. As we lugged TV, he unloaded broken branches for the window display. Tornado-esque.
Continue reading "Diesel Opening"
 I don't suppose NASA will mind my posting this ancient clip of the first "moon landing" (ha-ha, wink-wink). I'm sure they'd hate to see those ugly 'hoax' rumors start up again.
"NASA CENSORS BLOGGER - WHY??" screams the New York Post.
No, along with their global warming hoax, I'm sure NASA will want to keep this baby free from any controversy and safely under wraps. We won't be bothered as long as we toe the party line and at least pretend it happened.
With that said, this clip is a refreshing breath of air from the usual frenzied documentary-style show, where the scene changes every 2.1 seconds and you rarely get a chance to just sit there and contemplate the damn thing.
If you're really old and were alive back in the 80's, you might remember those airplane shows where each 1-hour episode would be on a specific plane. It'd be on some ancient WW II bomber and there'd be endless minutes of it just... flying... along.
No machine guns a'blazing, no enemy fighters on the attack, no 500-pounders being dropped, no narrator blathering away; just the big plane lumbering along and the drone of the engines. Using the same camera angle. For minutes upon end. You had to be a real lover of flying to watch those shows — but for those of us who were, it was terrific.
This reminds me of that.
 It's been Babyland here this Spring at ye olde New England homestead. Lots of nests, lots of baby birds fledging right now.
Within 15 yards of our cabin, this year we have successfully harbored nests or homes of:
2 pairs of Robins
1 House Wren family
1 Mourning Dove family (in our Wisteria, pooping on our porch chairs)
1 Catbird family
1 Cardinal family
1 Ruby-Throated Hummingbird family - a male and female are around all day, so I assume a tiny nest very close by
2 Cottontail bunny families - 2 litters each, I think
and, just a bit further away, a Red Tailed Hawk family which feeds on the baby bunnies and baby squirrels
1 (at least) Chipmunk family
Several Grey Squirrel families
1 Red Squirrel family
What's the secret? No cats and plenty of dense shrubberies, gardens, and evergreens. A big brush pile and some weed patches too. When the leaves fall, I will find other nests I didn't realize were there. Usually, a Song Sparrow, Goldfinch, or a nifty little Warbler nest.
I did not have the chance to do a breeding list for the entire Farm this year. It's easily done: You go out at 5 AM in early June and cover all of your land, listening for territorial songs while keeping your eyes open. At night, the owls. Next year...
Pic: The House Wren family is raising their babies in there. Every once in a while, one peeks out.
Saturday, July 9. 2011
More on Skepchick and Dawkins. I'm with Dawkins on this one.
Guys have to be bold enough to hit on girls that charm them. Bars are the worst places to do that, but there is no best place. Elevators? Well, I dunno, but the location is not the point. If guys wait for gals to do it, they might wait forever, and the human species ends.
If a gal doesn't want to be approached, she can wear a wedding ring, or a button that says "F-off." Or a facial expression that says the same thing. Don't try to look Lesbian - some guys will view that as a challenge unless you are butch and fat.
Read the piece. The comments are fun.
 We grow them in pots. Pretty colors, but the main point is for salads.
The smaller leaves (the largest leaves are a bit tough) add a spicy, peppery flavor to a salato misto. We also like to throw Nasturtium flowers on top of a salad (after tossing it). The flowers look good and taste good.
Here's a link about Nasturtiums as food.
 The great Thunderbird email program just went through a major revision and a number of its add-ons stopped working. According to the sleuths over at their forum, many of them actually still work, but have a built-in limit as to their validity (which versions of T-Bird they'll work with), so when Thunderbird hit the big 5-point-oh, they declared themselves to be 'possibly incompatible' and T-Bird took that to mean they were toast.
What makes this program so great is that it handles multiple identities, yet treats them completely separately when it comes to ISP configurations, passwords and the 'From' identity when replying to people. Plus, it nicely lists the identities along the left sidebar, each one followed by its own 'Inbox', 'Sent', etc, folder. Not bad for a free program. My page on it is here.
As far as the wayward add-ons go, I use one to organize the sidebar and another to minimize the program to the SysTray, both of which turned belly-up with the latest update and both of which I found working replacements for. They're on the page above. For the rest, you'll either have to do a Google search, looking for "thunderbird add-on" and a concise description of what you want it to do, or tweak the version number of your current add-on as described on the above forum page.
Friday, July 8. 2011
 From Ace: When Government Liberals Are Set Free - Nightmare In Connecticut. (Thanks, reader.)
It's a vicious cycle. The more you drive enterprise away, the more you need to soak the remaining people and the remaining businesses who have any money, and thus the more you drive business away or out of business.
Plunder only works to a point, and then you end up with Detroit or Greece.
CT even just placed a stiff tax on non-profit hospitals, if you can believe that. It is bad, and getting worse. One might easily imagine that they are trying to drive all of us to Florida. Personally, I do not care for Florida very much, and snow doesn't bother me at all. Weather is what you make of it and I make the best of it.
It's getting to the point that my state is only a good deal for the very rich (who can afford to avoid taxes or who don't care what they are) and the very poor. Oh yes, I almost forgot - and for government unions. The urban, unemployed poor, the government unions, and the limo Liberals in West Hartford, Litchfield County, and Fairfield County, own my state, at the moment.
It hardly seems like rugged Yankeeland here, politically, anymore. It's Gimme-land. The people with the olde codes have died or are no longer breeding. And to think that our Conservative governor candidate lost by only 6000 votes found, several days after the election, in bags in a Bridgeport warehouse or post office or something. Maybe it was legit. I don't know, but anything in Bridgeport is dubious these days.
 By Dr. Joel Levine: When the Doctor Goes Home: The Coming Indifference of American Medicine.
Thirty years ago, the training and practice of medicine was deeply rooted in "inherited" values as much as craft. Physicians were in a noble discipline recast into paladins protecting society, even a bit of its soul, against an implacable adversary. Training was both arduous and flawed (inflated egos and autocratic mice that roared) but with a central purpose. When done well, doctors successfully confronted their most difficult internal challenges, fear of the power of illness and the willfulness to make important decisions when the consequence was uncertain. This "old" medical culture was best expressed by a single term: "My patient." It was as far from provider and client as you could possibly get. "My patient" conveyed both bond and responsibility.
We are about to burn the bridges to this tradition from both ends.
Read it all, because this is what is coming to your town soon with Obamacare. Some of you have already seen it. Mass-market medicine, by the rule-book, "delivered" by anonymous "providers" to the masses. I plan to stick with the old ways for as long as I can.
Well, since others are weighing in with their election predictions, I thought I'd do the same. No sense in dawdling, right?
Obama in a landslide.
Pending change in circumstance, I hastily add.
As it stands now, I just can't see a Republican win. All of the declared candidates contain major flaws which the MSM will mercilessly exploit, both overtly and covertly, blatantly and subliminally, and I find none of the candidates inspirational in the slightest.
And the poor selection is only one of our worries.
The one, basic, inherent problem here is that conservatives are conservative. I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. And, as such, by definition alone they're not very activistic, tending to sit around on their duffs while the liberals make all the moves. It's no mystery why so many institutions and the major media realms, including the tech world, are dominated by liberals. It's because they try.
My job here is to get some of you to try.
My initial leap into the upcoming election was to create SpeakUp! 2012, a how-to guide for putting together a snappy blog site and then spreading the word around. If you want to show a little gumption and have a say in the election, that's the way to do it. The free WordPress software (the stuff that Power Line just switched to) is terrific and very easy to use. The guide will walk you through the entire process from this moment on. Plus, you've got me trapped here to pester with questions if you run into a snag.
Below the fold I'll run through the candidates in my usual calm, careful, deliberate manner as I soundly castigate, shred, thrash, defile, lambaste, maul, abuse and abase view them with the same objectivity I always show.
Which is to say, none.
Continue reading "Election 2012: A tough row to hoe"
 It's an upscale village of 19,000 now, but 25 years ago it was just turning from semi-rural to suburban. The farms are all gone. Even with a train connection to NYC, it's a hike. Wiki again:
The town is one of the most affluent communities in the United States. In 2008, CNN Money ranked New Canaan first in the nation with the highest median family income.
(Prosperous, indeed, but what those stats really mean, in part, is that there are no poor neighborhoods there to drag down the average.)
The comfortable colonial (built 1936) pictured is for sale for $4 million and change, but 3 years ago it would have been 6 or 7.
Thursday, July 7. 2011
Who works "9-5" anymore in America?
Most folks (if lucky enough to have work to do) work far more than that these days.
I work 7:30 to noon, then a little more than an hour in the gym or just walking around outdoors (then an apple, cigar, and a coffee for lunch while preparing a Maggie's post), then around 1:30 - 6 or 6:30 (on a typical work day). I have a roughly 35-45 minute commute, too. Not sure whether you'd call that a 10 or 11-hour day, but it suits me just fine. When I have deadlines, I work weekends but I try to avoid that as much as I can during the summertime. And I am linked into the office at home.
"Man May Work from Sun to Sun; But Woman's Work is Never Done." Is that still true? I find that my work is never "done" either. "Done" is when you're dead.
What are your usual work hours?
Wednesday, July 6. 2011
Glenn Reynolds offered this provocative post:
FURTHER THOUGHTS ON DAN SAVAGE: So I’m thinking of the connection between “If you are expected to be monogamous and have one person be all things sexually for you, then you have to be whores for each other,” and “a good wife is a good sex worker.”
"Whores for eachother"? Hmmm. Here's a piece in the NYT on Savage's views of the virtues of infidelity.
I recently posted on this topic: People desire new sexual and romantic experiences.
We humans have a remarkable talent for rationalizing our feelings and behaviors. The world is full of hot guys and hot babes, and all sorts of other tempting things. One cannot have them all.
Tuesday, July 5. 2011
 A perfect example of it: Climate Confusion: Global Warming Halted by Pollution.
The alarmists are playing whack-a-mole with any data which does not fit their hypotheses and predictions. This is the stuff of politicians, children, and litigators, not scientists.
One definition: An error in reasoning in which one assumes that the observed relationship between current events and some historical events represents a causal relationship.
Such reasoning is not consistent with the scientific method. When data don't fit your hypothesis, you can't makes excuses for your data while leaving your hypothesis unchanged.
If you play that game, you also violate the rules of Falsifiability by making a non-falsifiable hypothesis. My bold:
(Karl Popper) A conjecture or hypothesis must be accepted as true until such time as it is proven to be false. Popper maintains that scientists approach the truth through what he calls "conjecture and refutation." In actuality, scientists approach the truth not through conjecture and refutation, but through conjecture and CONFIRMATION, i.e. demonstration, by means of careful experiment, that a hypothesis corresponds to the facts of reality. Until the phenomenon is proven TRUE there is no obligation to base my attitude toward it on the assumption that it MIGHT be true. If there were such an obligation, then I would be obliged to give serious consideration to every crackpot notion that has ever been put forward.
If an hypothesis cannot be refuted by data, it's not science: it's a belief system. The evidence that there has been no warming for over a decade is difficult data indeed in light of their hysterical predictions, so now they have invented covert warming. This is pathetic and embarassing. Tweaking computer models to fit unexpected data is not science. It's overt fudging.
As a commenter at Watts pointed out, with some math adjusting you can prove Ptolemy's solar system to be an accurate model.
(Thanks to Hogeye Bill's Dictionary of Logical Fallacies)
Related: Breaking: A peer reviewed admission that “global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008″ – Dr David Whitehouse on the PNAS paper Kaufmann et al. (2011). The comments there are great. One example:
What... emerges from this is a convenient flexible device to explain any climate change and blame it on humans. Is there warming? Its caused by CO2. Cooling? It can only be smokestack particles.
Quoted by Old Urbanist in Slums, Titles and the World's Simplest Zoning Code (my bold):
"Just like we can’t make the organic morphology of slums fit into the modern rules of property ownership, we can’t make traditionally emergent cities through the current planning system. (All efforts to produce traditional neighborhoods have so far produced only imitations of them.) ..."
Indeed, a neigborhood can not be "made." I think of planned development like Disneyworld: phoney to the point of creepy. Stepford places where you can't grow things in your front lawn.
Have you ever seen a new housing development in the US with a corner store, a cheap barbershop, or a local pub? Apparently there is a market for the unreal and sanitized.
Monday, July 4. 2011
Time-saving projects always take more time than one expects.
We have always been partial to a gardening mix with hanging baskets, large pots, and planters. According to my local expert Mrs. BD, pots can add structure and height to flower gardens. The only thing that drives her nuts are clashing colors, and she does not like to permit annuals to steal the show from precious perennials and flowering shrubs with their frequently more subtle colors. (Furthermore, she believes that varied and interesting foliage is just as important in a garden as are blooms.) Red annuals? Fugeddaboutit. She says they are for McDonald's and banks - commercial-looking. She is right that overly-bright flowers look commercial and tacky rather than homey unless they are the only thing you are growing.
You could say that she feels that using any annuals is cheating, but I am not so doctrinaire about the elite gardening rules.
Our gardening trick for in-ground gardens is to use plenty of mulch instead of using irrigation, but if you enjoy pots and planters the way the Italians do, and do not always remember to, or bother to, lug watering cans around every night or every morning with all of the other things that need doing, you can assemble one of these sorts of cool dripper systems, set the timer, and forget about them until frost. Our cousins on Nantucket use them for all of their rental houses, and they work great. The mini-hoses are invisible.
Trust me. They'll look much better and grow better with daily water. Pots and planters dry out in one sunny summer day. (Smaller pots don't even make it through a day.) The occasional light dose of Miracle Gro in planters doesn't hurt either.
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