Wednesday, December 29, 2010
"A SCREAMING COMES ACROSS THE SKY"
Don Sensing uses the above quote, which comes from Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow, to set the mood for this post, in which he outlines the likelihood of massive Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel.
The quote in the Pynchon novel refers to the German V-2 missiles which were launched against London in the closing days of World War II. It would be as unreasonable to expect the Israelis to calmly accept rocket bombardment, without forceful military response, as it would have been to expect that same thing from the British in 1945.
Yet such supine acceptance is undoubtedly what a large proportion of the "progressive" media and intellectuals, and the politicians across the various shades of the Left, do demand of Israel, and you can be sure that their denunciations in the contrary event will be swift and vitriolic.
This broad hostility must surely have an impact of Israel's strategy. The degree of hostility toward Israel from the U.S. Executive branch, in particular, is something entirely without precedent. Don observes that "Israel knows that President Obama will not support it as all prior US presidents have done regardless of party. So if Israel is drawn into open war against Hamas, it will attack extremely violently and comprehensively from the beginning."
Not very cheerful holiday reading--but read the whole thing anyhow
4:51 PM
Sunday, December 26, 2010
MY TOP POSTS OF 2010
I did several posts over the last year that I un-humbly think were particularly significant, and link them below for any potentially-interested readers who missed them the first time around.
Sleeping with the enemy. A forgotten novel by Arthur Koestler sheds light on the West's loss of civilizational self-confidence.
Faustian ambition. An analysis of the theme of ambition in Goethe's great play.
What happened in Germany? Sebastian Haffner, who grew up in Germany between the wars, tries to understand how his country became "a pack of hunting hounds directed against humans."
From a galaxy far away. The extreme oddness of Obama's mind and emotions.
Faux manufacturing nostalgia. How cultural factors are involved in the problems of American manufacturing. See also dancing on the ruins.
The limits of radicalism and expertise.
Eisenhower, Obama, diplomacy, and sensitivity.
Is "liberal guilt" a myth? An essay by C S Lewis, written more than half a century ago, provides some psychological insight.
Computation and reality. As incredibly fast as modern computers are, there remain many important problems for which they are completely inadequate.
Heartsignals. A selection of popular songs in which person-to-person communications media...letters, telegrams, telphone calls...play a role.
Krystyna Skarbek. An agent of the WWII British organization called Special Operations Executive, who worked underground in Eastern Europe as well as in occupied France. Also, a review of Between Silk and Cyanide, written by Leo Marks, who was SOE's Codemaster.
Cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
5:44 AM
Friday, December 24, 2010
CHRISTMAS 2010
Rick Darby has some thoughts on the season. More here.
A Christmas reading from Thomas Pynchon.
The first radio broadcast of voice and music took place on Christmas Eve, 1906. Or maybe not.
An air traffic control version of The Night Before Christmas.
Silent Night in Gaelic
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, sung by Enya
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Steve Blank
Neptunus Lex
1:21 PM
Thursday, December 23, 2010
GRATITUDE
Some thoughts from Chicago Boy Lexington Green.
7:50 AM
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
OWNING A CASH COW
...can make smart companies do dumb things.
The author's follow-up post is here.
4:08 PM
Monday, December 20, 2010
THE PAST OF THE FUTURE
Commenter Erin, at the Assistant Village Idiot, links a series of predictions about the year 2000 which were made in a Ladies Home Journal article dated December, 1900.
continued at Chicago Boyz
8:48 AM
HAVE YOU BEEN A BAD BOY OR GIRL THIS YEAR?
...Christmas is coming and you'd better beware of the Krampus.
8:28 AM
Thursday, December 16, 2010
WORTHWHILE VIEWING & LISTENING
Special Seasonal Edition
Christmas photos from the 1920s
A wonderful 3-D representation of the Iglesia San Luis De Los Franceses. Just click on the link--then you can look around inside the cathedral. Use arrow keys or mouse to move left/right, up/down, and shift to zoom in, ctrl to zoom out.
Vienna Boys Choir, from Maggie's Farm
A Romanian Christmas carol, from The Assistant Village Idiot
In the bleak midwinter, from The Anchoress
French Christmas carols
DC winter lights, an interesting series of photographs (from 2009) by AnoukAnge
Update: Lappland in pictures, from Neptunus Lex
Shabbat lights, at Robert Avrech's place
Update 2: Snowflakes and snow crystals, from Cal Tech. Lots of great photos
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz
5:59 PM
THE PAST OF THE FUTURE
Predictions about the then-distant year 2011, from 1931.
Previous the past of the future post
11:21 AM
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
INTERESTING METAPHOR
The political class as copper thieves
(via Instapundit)
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
4:36 AM
Sunday, December 12, 2010
A PLAGUE OF STICKY GOVERNORS?
The object shown is a governor for an engine. This device was invented by James Watt for use with his steam engine, and has been applied, in one form or another, ever since. It allowed the engine's use in applications where precise speed control was essential, notably textile manufacturing, and was an invention of great economic and conceptual importance.
It strikes me that the role played by the legal profession and the financial industry is analogous to the role of an engine governor. Like the governor, law and finance are control systems; they are essential enablers and regulators of the activities of the rest of the economy. But also like the governor, the percentage of total system resources that they themselves consume should be reasonably small.
What would we think of a governor that scarfed up 30% of the horsepower of the engine that it was serving? Most likely, we would conclude that it was either poorly designed or inadequately maintained, or both.
continued at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
7:55 AM
Saturday, December 11, 2010
EXTREMELY COOL
Dancing dog
9:47 AM
WORTHWHILE READING
Walter Russell Mead on The Crisis of the American Intellectual
Update: Related thoughts from Chicago Boy Michael Kennedy
9:39 AM
Friday, December 10, 2010
COOL RETROTECH
Someone has replicated the Antikythera mechanism in Lego.
More about the original device, which was created in ancient Greece for astronomical calculations, here.
via Isegoria
7:34 AM
BOOKS BY BLOGGERS
Celia Hayes, who blogs as Sgt Mom, has a new book coming out in April: Daughter of Texas, which she describes as: A drama of a woman's life in Texas, before the cattle drives, before the Alamo, before the legends were born!.
She's running a special promotion: From now until January 1, 2011, anyone who buys a copy of any of her other books will be eligible for a drawing to win a free advance copy of Daughter of Texas.
Previous Books by Bloggers post
Cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
6:13 AM
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
PEARL HARBOR DAY
A date which will live in infamy
See Bookworm's post and video from last year; also, some alternate history from Shannon Love.
Jonathan notes that Google did nothing to mark the date on their home page; on the other hand, Microsoft's Bing has a picture of the USS Arizona memorial, as they do on this day every year.
Neptunus Lex has a video of FDR's speech, accompanied by relevant newsreel footage. See also his eloquent post from 2006.
12:53 PM
Sunday, December 05, 2010
WORTHWHILE READING & VIEWING
Erin O'Connor on yet another emerging threat to free speech on campus
Joanne Jacobs: Story problems in ancient Babylon
Athens and Jerusalem: Shared labor vs shared consumption
Paul Graham: Persuasion vs discovery
Yahoo Finance: The impact of Obama's hostility toward oil and gas drilling
Bloomberg: China spending $511 billion to build up to 245 nuclear reactors. In the U.S., though, Carl from Chicago notes that construction of new energy facilities of all types has been made difficult to the point of impossibility.
360 Cities: An 80 gigapixel panoramic view of London.
5:25 AM
Saturday, December 04, 2010
MOVIE/BOOK REVIEW: THE AWAKENING LAND
The Awakening Land is a made-for-TV movie which first aired in 1978 and has only very recently been released for home viewing. Shortly after the American Revolution, the Lucketts, a backwoods family from Pennsylvania, travel to create a new home for themselves on the Ohio frontier. We first meet Sayward Luckett (Elizabeth Montgomery), the central character, as a 15-year-old girl. Although Sayward is completely illiterate, she marries the most erudite man to be found in the vicinity: Portius Wheeler (Hal Holbrook), aka "the solitary," a former Massachussetts lawyer and an agnostic. The story follows Sayward, her family, and her neighbors from the early days of sparse settlement up through the creation of a thriving town.
A wonderful film, highly recommended. The movie was based on Conrad Richter's trilogy The Trees, The Fields, and The Town. The books are also excellent...reading the first two of the series, it struck me that Richter is better at descriptions of the natural environment than at describing the inner life of the characters--however, this changes noticeably in the third book, where the characters become much more fully-developed. The books are also very much worth reading.
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
9:53 AM
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
PORTLAND AND CLOSED SYSTEMS
The attempted terrorist attack in Portland was thwarted by the FBI. Ironically, in 2005 the Portland city council voted (by 4 to 1) to withdraw their city's police officers from participation in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Now, Portland's mayor says he might ask the council to reconsider the decision about participation in this task force. Is it because he realizes that the threat of terrorism is real, and that anti-terrorism efforts like those being conducted by the Joint Task Force were indeed justified?...ie, that Portland was wrong in its initial decision? Not at all:
"[Adams] stressed that he has much more faith in the Obama administration and the leadership of the U.S. Attorney's office now than he did in 2005"
I was reminded of something Arthur Koestler wrote about closed systems and the people who believe in them.
continued at Chicago Boyz
5:15 AM
Friday, November 26, 2010
RECENT READING: BLACK ON RED
By Robert Robinson with Jonathan Sleven
In 1930, Robert Robinson--a black toolmaker working for the Ford Motor Company in Detroit--accepted a one-year assignment to apply his skills in the Soviet Union. He didn't get out until 1974. His first renewals of his Soviet residency were voluntary; his later residency there, not so much.
Robinson gives a detailed account of day-to-day life in the Soviet Union and of the attitudes he encountered toward blacks and Americans; he also comments on the postwar rise of anti-Semitism. His book gives a good feel for what it must be like to live in an environment where everything you can do is entirely dependent on the government. He describes, for example, the joy of the peasants when Malenkov briefly replaced Stalin and it was announced that "all peasants are free to sell to sell their personally grown agricultural products in the free market."
continued at Chicago Boyz
8:36 AM
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
THANKSGIVING AND TEMPORAL BIGOTRY
(Basically a run of an earlier post)
Stuart Buck encountered a teacher who said "Kids learn so much these days. Did you know that today a schoolchild learns more between the freshman and senior years of high school than our grandparents learned in their entire lives?" ("She said this as if she had read it in some authoritative source", Stuart comments.)
She probably had read it in some supposedly-authoritative source, but it's an idiotic statement nevertheless. What, precisely, is this wonderful knowledge that high-school seniors have today and which the 40-year-olds of 1840 or 1900 were lacking?
continued at Chicago Boyz
11:49 AM
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
WORTHWHILE READING
City Journal: How entrepreneurs built New York City
Bookworm: Pizza, preferences, and politics
Brendan O'Neill: The increasing hostility toward free speech on college campuses
Erin O'Connor: What should a core curriculum encompass?
Deirdre McCloskey: Respect for the bourgeoisie as the key to modern prosperity
Evolving Excellence: Creativity in the sauerkraut and supermarket businesses. I've said it before: Creativity is by no means something that is relevant only in "high-technology" businesses. Our fate, dear Brutus, is not in our SIC codes but in ourselves.
6:57 AM
Friday, November 19, 2010
THOUGHTS ON LIBERAL EDUCATION
The president of the State University of New York at Albany has decided to terminate the university's programs in French, Russian, Italian, classics, and theater. Although he blames the state legislature for providing inadequate funding, it looks to me as if the president himself is not doing a very good job of making intelligent budgeting priority decisions.
In response to SUNY's action, Gregory Petsko defends the value of the traditional humanities.
John Ellis, on the other hand, argues that most universities have already dismantled traditional humanities programs in favor of a mishmash of courses driven by political radicalism, and that "defend the humanities" is hence a false flag under which to sail.
(Petsko link via Cold Spring Shops)
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
6:22 AM
Monday, November 15, 2010
BOOKS BY BLOGGERS
Bill Waddell, a blogger and a good thinker who comments occasionally at Chicago Boyz, has a book coming out later this week. Bob Barker, president of Parker Aerospace and EVP of Parker Hannifin, summrizes Bill's book as follows:
Simple Excellence is a quick and easy read that finally describes a simple, logical, way to conduct business. Simple principles like, focusing on the customer, eliminating waste, driving costs down, and managing cash are not complex enough for academics and the latest business book gurus to deal with. It’s reassuring to know that many of the principals espoused in this book are the same concepts we focus on here at Parker Hannifin.
Previous Books by Bloggers posts here and here.
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open.
7:45 AM
Sunday, November 14, 2010
ANNALS OF ENERGY INSANITY
Scotland is risking widespread blackouts, as nuclear, gas, and oil-fired power stations are shut down--without adequate replacement capacity coming on-line.
In Britain, economic and "climate change" concerns are driving the dimming or turning-off of large numbers of streetlights.
And in Massachussetts, a large solar (photovoltaic) facility is being installed, under the advertised belief that such facilities will eventually provide an economical replacement for the oil-burning furnaces now common in New England.
Are things like this merely a reflection of widespread technological and economic ignorance, coupled with dysfunctional politics? Or are we seeing a manifestation of a subconscious suicide instinct pervading Western civilization?
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
9:15 AM
Friday, November 12, 2010
WORTHWHILE VIEWING--SPECIAL CHINESE EDITION
The Great Chinese State Circus performs Swan Lake. Don't miss this--it's really incredible.
GE-Shanghai has a photography contest.
9:03 AM
Thursday, November 11, 2010
VETERAN'S DAY 2010
Neptunus Lex has some thoughts.
Do not fail to follow the link to this music video: The war was in color.
9:44 AM
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
POWERING DOWN
Patrick Richardson:
Kansas is ranked second in the nation behind Montana for wind energy potential, a fact which should have environmentalists jumping for joy. Instead, they’re trying to block the construction of transmission lines to wind farms in south central Kansas and north central Oklahoma. Why? Well it all has to do with the lesser prairie chicken. According to a story by the Hutchinson News in February of this year, ranchers and wildlife officials in the area are teaming up with groups like the Sierra Club to block the construction of the lines, which would apparently run through prime breeding territory for the bird.
and
Environmental groups, which are as quick to fang each other as they are dirty polluters, are lining up in opposition to the lines and to wind farms in general. In fact, they’re lining up against most current sources of renewable power: the Audubon Society hates wind farms because the blades kill birds and bats; hydroelectric covers up large swaths of land and releases “greenhouse gasses” when decaying material is exposed to the air; the Sierra Club has opposed solar plants in the Mohave. Apparently, even geothermal creates toxic waste no one wants.
Environmentalists tend to favor new energy technologies such as wind and solar as long as they're purely theoretical. Once they start to become real, it turns out that these technologies, like everything else in the world, have drawbacks, and hence, while the in-theory approval may continue, practical deployments are fought.
continued at Chicago Boyz
4:44 AM
Saturday, November 06, 2010
WORTHWHILE READING
Richard Fernandez contrasts Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. In a related post, Dr Sanity expands on Fernandez's thoughts, focusing on the differences between healthy and unhealthy narcissism. And Elizabeth Scalia offers some advice to Palin and to Tea Party candidates in general.
NeoNeocon has a rather unbelievable quote that illustrates just how out-of-control Obama's ego really is.
ShrinkWrapped links an article about the open racism of the future state of Palestine and adds thoughts of his own.
Cold Spring Shops writes about high-speed passenger rail.
The Wall Street Journal has an article about Gavriel Salvendy, a Hungarian-Israeli-American industrial engineer who is now working as a professor at a Chinese university--and who is apparently making very significant contributions to improving the productivity of Chinese factories. As an example, Salvendy's restructuring of operations at a Chinese shoe factory resulted in a rapid 20% productivity improvement--and this was followed by another 20% improvement, achieved by better balancing of the production line. The WSJ article suggests that improvements such as these may wind up being a more important factor in US-vs-China balance of trade than the much-more-discussed currency valuation issue.
GE researcher Bob King has been working on electric car development for 40 years.
2:50 PM
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
POLITICIANS: GETTING FRUSTRATED AND ANGRY AT US
Congressman Richard Kind (D-WI) shoves a blogger's camera outside an event in Wisconsin.
Previous link in this series.
6:25 AM
Monday, November 01, 2010
SAD AND DISTURBING, BUT NOT SURPRISING
Three links this morning that fall under the above category:
1) Darren, a teacher in California, says:
We have a librarian at my school only 2-1/2 days a week, as she must split her time between 2 high schools. When she's not there, parent volunteers staff the library so that it's available to students.
A union grievance was filed, and today we were told that the library cannot be open anymore when she's not there. Teachers can take their classes in there, but books cannot be checked out. The library will no longer be available for students to do make-up tests in on the days when our official librarian isn't on site.
The next time a teachers union tells you something is "for the children", you remember this story.
2)Election officials in Illinois don't seem very concerned about ensuring that the absentee ballots of soldiers serving overseas are distributed and counted properly...and this seems to be just fine with Obama's Justice Department.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Board of Elections is going to great lengths to ensure that inmates in the Cook County Jail get their ballots in timely fashion.
3)In July 2010 the National Endowment for the Humanities sponsored a workshop for college professors at the University of Hawaii. The title of the conference was "History and Commemoration: The Legacies of the Pacific War." As one of the 25 American scholars chosen to attend the workshop, Professor Penelope Blake anticipated an opportunity to visit hallowed sites such as Pearl Harbor, the Arizona Memorial and the Punchbowl Cemetery and engage with scholars who share her interest in studying this often neglected part of World War II history. Instead, Professor Blake was treated to the most disturbing experience of her academic career, a conference which she found to be driven by an overt political bias and a blatant anti-American agenda. Follow the link to read the whole dismal story.
The above items are indeed sad and disturbing, but should not be surprising, because they are examples of trends which are growing increasingly strong: the bureaucratic micromanagement of all aspects of life, cynical and ruthless political corruption, and the rewriting of history in the name of political correctness. All three of these trends are features, not bugs, in the eyes of today's Democratic Party, and if you would like to see a future in which we have a lot more of this kind of thing, then definitely be sure to vote for every Democrat on the ballot tomorrow.
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
7:07 AM
Saturday, October 30, 2010
HALLOWEEN
From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye
And the spirits that stand
By the naked man
In the Book of Moons, defend ye!
That of your five sound sense
You never be forsaken
Nor wander from
Yourself with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon
The moon's my constant mistress
And the lonely owl my marrow
The flaming drake
And the night-crow make
Me music to my sorrow
I know more than Apollo
For oft, when he lies sleeping
I see the stars
At mortal wars
And the rounded welkin weeping
With a host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander
With a burning spear
And a horse of air
To the wilderness I wander
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond
The wide world's end
Methinks it is no journey
(Not specifically a Halloween poem, but it certainly sets the mood, doesn't it? This is Tom O'Bedlam's Song, dating from sometime around 1600. There are lots more verses, and many different versions.)
2:51 PM
BARACK OBAMA, JOAN JETT, and the OBAMANOMETER
A Huffington Post piece from 2008, by a lawyer who knew singer Joan Jett back when her name was Joan Larkin...and who knew Barack Obama in law school:
When I met Barack Obama, in our first year of law school, he had already put on his big-time politician act. He just didn't quite have it polished, and he hadn't figured out that he needed charm and humor to round out the confidence and intelligence. One of our classmates once famously noted that you could judge just how pretentious someone's remarks in class were by how high they ranked on the "Obamanometer," a term that lasted far longer than our time at law school. Obama didn't just share in class - he pontificated. He knew better than everyone else in the room, including the teachers....I wonder -- was there a moment in his life when he did the presidential equivalent of dying his hair black and putting on a leather jacket? I'm betting there was, but he'd already done it by the time I met him....In law school the only thing I would have voted for Obama to do would have been to shut up. When he made that speech almost exactly four years ago, I wanted to vote for him. For something, for anything. Now, as his vision of himself becomes a real possibility, though, I find that he may have filled out that suit all too well.
Read the whole thing.
(via Isegoria)
5:29 AM
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
CAREER PLANNING INFORMATION
...for those thinking about becoming lawyers
...and for those who want to be English professors
(videos)
1:17 PM
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
APPLEBAUM vs DRUCKER
In his book The Age of Discontinuity, Peter Drucker--an Austrian who earned his doctorate at the University of Frankfurt--contrasted the European and American systems of higher education. I was reminded of his remarks by a recent column by Anne Applebaum, in which she defends the Ivy League against charges of elitism.
Here's what Drucker wrote, way back in 1969:
That so much of American education before Sputnik (and still today, I am afraid) was content with mediocrity and rather smug about it, is a real weakness of our knowledge base. By contrast, one strength of American education is the resistance to any elite monopoly. To be sure, we have institutions that enjoy (deservedly or not) high standing and prestige. But we do not, fortunately, discriminate against the men who receive their training elsewhere. The engineer whose degree is from North Idaho A and M does not regard himself as "inferior" or as "not really an engineer"...The Harvard Law School might like to be a Grande Ecole and to claim for its graduates a preferential position. But American society has never been willing to accept this claim.
and
It is almost impossible to explain to a European that the strength of American higher education lies in this absence of schools for leaders and schools for followers. It is almost impossible to explain to a European that the engineer with a degree from North Idaho A and M is an engineer and not a draftsman. Yet this is the flexibility that Europe needs in order to overcome the brain drain and to close the technology gap...the European who knows himself competent because he is not accepted as such--because he is not an "Oxbridge" man or because he did not graduate from one of the Grandes Ecoles and become an Inspecteur de Finance in the government service--will continue to emigrate where he will be used according to what he can do rather than according to what he has not done.
continued at Chicago Boyz
7:07 AM
Sunday, October 24, 2010
A NOTE ON COMMUNISM AND FASCISM
In this post, OnParkStreet cited Walter Russell Mead on the similarity between communism and fascism. I totally agree that there is much similarity between these systems--in their theory, in their practical effects, and in the psychology of their supporters. I also believe, however, that there are some significant differences between communism and fascism, and I discussed some of these in the comment thread at OnParkStreet's post.
Yesterday I picked up a book called Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century, by Mark Mazower, which contains quite a bit of information and analysis relevant to this discusion.
continued at Chicago Boyz
4:09 PM
Saturday, October 23, 2010
IMPORTANT READING
Richard Fernandez argues convincingly that the practice of persecuting people for blasphemy has returned.
UPDATE: Related thoughts from Neo-Neocon, who cites a personal experience she finds consistent with Fernandez's analysis.
8:28 PM
SENATOR "CALL ME SENATOR" GETS ZUCKERED
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) famously complained about being addressed as "ma'am," demanding that the general she was interrogating call her "senator" instead. This incident, among other things, led producer David Zucker to regret the $5000 he once donated to her campaign. He mas made amends for this mistake by producing a pretty funny video.
More from Zucker here. Via Pajamas Media.
4:50 AM
Thursday, October 21, 2010
HEGEL, GRIM, AND CASSANDRA
...have a discussion about seeing the ideal and the real in friends and lovers.
1:40 PM
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
CONGRESSIONAL AND VOTER ATTITUDES TOWARD ISRAEL
Israpundit has done a useful analysis of the votes of individual Congressmen on issues affecting Israel--it seems to have been distributed only via e-mail, and not available on their site. The format of the data is pretty unwieldy, so instead of posting the whole thing I've done a bit of analysis. If this issue matters to you, then you might want to check and see if your current Congressman is on the list below. In any event, I think the data is pretty revealing.
continued at Chicago Boyz
8:24 AM
Monday, October 18, 2010
THE ACCIDENTAL ELOQUENCE OF MRS REARDEN
I'm a bit reluctant to post anything that mentions Ayn Rand, for fear of triggering some very heated and off-topic discussion...but recent trends in the political and business spheres have reminded me of a line in Atlas Shrugged which was spoken by Henry Rearden's mother:
All business is just dirty politics and all politics is just dirty business.
continued at Chicago Boyz
8:46 AM
Sunday, October 17, 2010
JUST BECAUSE I LIKE IT
One of the poems we read in the 7th grade was an autumn hunting poem said to be of American Indian origin. In recent years I've made a couple of stabs at finding it on the Internet, without success. Rebekah's post on how much she likes this time of year inspired me to try again--and this time, the poem showed up in several places.
It's called "The Blue Duck," and it was written down by the poem/outdoorsman Lew Sarett, who spent nine years among the Chickasaw, sometime in the early 1900s...it's not clear how much of this is a translation from the Chickasaw language versus how much of it is Sarett's own work, inspired by the rhythms and symbolism of a medicine dance. Either way, it's a great poem, especially for this time of year.
The hunter-moon is chipping at his flints,
At his dripping bloody flints
He is rising for the hunt
And his face is red with blood
From the spears of many spruces
And his blood is on the leaves that flutter down
The winter-maker Bee-bo-an
Is walking in the sky
And his windy blanket rustles in the trees
He is blazing out the trail
Through the fields of nodding rice
For the swift and whistling wings
Of his She-she-be
For the worn and weary wings
Of many duck--
Ho! Plenty duck! Plenty duck!
Ho! Plenty, plenty duck!
Lots more verses here.
4:55 PM
Saturday, October 16, 2010
EXCITING NEW GAME
...Beltway Adventure!
5:00 AM
Friday, October 15, 2010
THE SUPPRESSION OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Ken Langone, a co-founder of Home Depot, has an article in today's Wall Street Journal in which he offers some advice to the President. A key excerpt:
We opened the front door in 1979, also a time of severe economic slowdown. Yet today, Home Depot is staffed by more than 325,000 dedicated, well-trained, and highly motivated people offering outstanding service and knowledge to millions of consumers.
If we tried to start Home Depot today, under the kind of onerous regulatory controls that you (Obama) have advocated, it's a stone cold certainty that our business would never get off the ground, much less thrive.
Regarding Obama's comments at a town-hall meeting he attended, Langone says:
I must say that the event seemed more like a lecture than a dialogue. For more than two years the country has listened to your sharp rhetoric about how American businesses are short-changing workers, fleecing customers, cheating borrowers, and generally "driving the economy into a ditch," to borrow your oft-repeated phrase.
My question to you was why, during a time when investment and dynamism are so critical to our country, was it necessary to vilify the very people who deliver that growth? Instead of offering a straight answer, you informed me that I was part of a "reckless" group that had made "bad decisions" and now required your guidance, if only I'd stop "resisting" it.
Read the whole thing.
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
1:43 PM
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
PUT A ROCKET SCIENTIST IN CONGRESS?
Ruth McClung is running for Congress in Arizona's 7th District. She seems like an interesting person--physics degree, works in rocketry at an engineering company, worked her way through college, enjoys rock climbing, an amateur painter whose work has been displayed in local galleries.
Views on specific issues aside, it's great to see so much true diversity among some of the new people running for office. Too many of the old crowd are made in the same mold...typically lawyers, who have spent their entire careers in public office, government "service," or in pseudo-private positions (lobbyists, attorneys focusing on regulatory issues) which are closely connected to their governmental experience..or activists and "community organizers," types of activity which are really just other kinds of lobbying...and many them appear to have little intellectual or emotional depth and no real interests in life other than the acquisition of personal political power and influence.
continued at Chicago Boyz
9:14 AM
NICELY PUT
There's an irony to occupying the Oval Office. When presidents think they're bigger than the job they hold, they shrink in office. When they think they're smaller than the honor they've been temporarily bestowed, they grow into it. Obama has done nothing but shrink.
--Jonah Goldberg
6:10 AM
Monday, October 11, 2010
PRESTIGIOUS PHYSICS PROFESSOR PROTESTS POLITICIZATION
(Sometimes I can't resist the opportunity for a little alliteration, even when the subject matter is very serious)
Harold Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a former member of the Defense Science Board; a former member of the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards and the President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee; also co-founder and former Chairman of JASON; and a former member USAF Scientific Advisory Board.
Here is his letter of resignation from the American Physical Society. Excerpt:
The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare.
continued at Chicago Boyz
7:43 AM
Saturday, October 09, 2010
WORTHWHILE READING & VIEWING
Jeremy Jennings writes about Mao's little helpers in the Western intelligentsia.
Thomas Lifson sees a close connection between "progressivism" and feudalism.
Erin O'Connor cites some interesting remarks by Mario Vargas Llosa
A column by Peggy Noonan prompts Cassandra to some thoughts about moral hazard.
Why does the IRS want to exempt all attorneys and CPAs from its proposed licensing requirements for people in the tax-preparation business?
Neptunus Lex reports on a new analysis of an old map, which suggests that many German cities are 1000 years older than they had been thought to be.
Bictopia, who lives in Hungary, visits the Ukraine.
Update: The 8 most insanely obvious signs in the world. (via Newmark's Door)
Photographs from Montana
From General Electric, electric car photos and a brochure for a battery charger, from the early 1900s
6:35 PM
Friday, October 08, 2010
GALES OF NOVEMBER
Last year, I wrote about the historic steamboat Delta Queen, whose withdrawal from passenger service was forced, on what appear to me to be very spurious grounds, by the federal government. One of the main perpetrators of this act was Congressman James Oberstar (D-MN), head of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
So I was especially pleased to see that Oberstar faces some serious competition in his race for re-election. This 18-term incumbent trails Republican candidate Chip Cravaack by only three points (42-45 percent). Quite an achievement on the part of the Cravaack campaign, given that Oberstar has something like a 10-to-1 money advantage.
There are plenty of reasons to support Cravaak over Oberstar in addition to the Delta Queen matter---indeed, some might say that the continued passenger operation of one steamboat is trivial in the context of the massive isues we face as a country. But the symbolism is important. In literally thousands of ways, the "progressive" Democrats have sought to restrict American freedoms, as the Lilliputians tied down Gulliver with threads. Your ability to choose your own light bulbs and shower heads, to have swing sets in your child's schoolyard, to buy or sell pizza by the slice, to sell home-baked pies at a church sale, to have a transparent or translucent sunroof for your car, to decide for yourself whether or not to buy a Barbie doll for your daughter...all of these rights have already been constrained or are currently under attack. Not to mention the ever-tightening constraints on your ability to start your own business and make it succeed. Consciously or not, "progressives" seek to convert Americans from citizens into subjects, and the Delta Queen matter was simply one very visible symbol thereof.
continued at Chicago Boyz
7:46 AM
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
WWII AIRPLANES ON TOUR
The Collings Foundation Wings of Freedom Tour this year includes B-17 and B-24 bombers and also a P-51 Mustang fighter. You can visit the airplanes for a small donation and, for a substantially larger donation, you can actually take a ride! If the tour is coming to an airport near you, these planes are well worth seeing. Schedule here.
The P-51 has an interesting history. Its design was led by James "Dutch" Kindelberger, a high-school dropout who had worked as a draftsman and taken correspondence courses before gaining admission to college. Kindleberger became president of North American Aviation in 1935. When his company was approached by the British govenment to manufacture a batch of P-40 Tomahawk fighters, Kindelberger proposed instead that a new design be built. Fortunately for the world, his proposal was accepted, and the first P-51 was flown only 6 months after the order was placed.
The P-51 had considerably greater range than previous escort fighters. Hermann Goering told his interrogators that it was when he saw P-51s over Berlin that he knew the war was lost for Germany.
Aerial warfare is of course not only about machines; it is also about men. Randall Jarrell, a major American poet, served in the U.S. Army Air Force during the war, and wrote many poems centering around WWII air combat.
continued at Chicago Boyz
5:05 AM
Monday, October 04, 2010
SAD AND DISTURBING, BUT NOT SURPRISING
The German company HDW is building a few submarines for the Israeli navy. Subs need extensive testing before delivery, and HDW had leased a port in Norway for the explicit purpose of testing the submarines that it builds. But several weeks ago, Norway's foreign ministry advised HDW that it will no longer allow the company to use its territory for testing of submarines intended for the Israeli navy. This follows another action taken by Norway a year ago, when the Norwegian State Pension Fund announced it was dropping Elbit Systems due to their involvement in building the West Bank separation fence.
I hope HDW's lease for the port was not done via an up-front payment. And other companies thinking about doing business in Norway should carefully consider the risks of Norwegian government interference with their plans.
12:07 PM
Sunday, October 03, 2010
THE SCRIBES AND THE IDEA OF FREEDOM
I haven't read Jonathan Franzen's novel, Freedom, but Erin O'Connor has been reading it and reviews it here. Based on her summary, it seems that Franzen's basic opinion about freedom is this: he doesn't like it very much. Consider for example these excerpts:
...the American experiment of self-government, an experiment statistically skewed from the outset, because it wasn’t the people with sociable genes who fled the crowded Old World for the new continent; it was the people who didn’t get along well with others....also: The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage.
Erin summarizes:
"Freedom," for Franzen, is a red herring. As a national ideal, it paralyzes us, preventing government from behaving with the rationalism of European nations (there are passages about this in the book). And, on a personal level, it is simply immiserating. Every last one of Franzen’s major characters suffers from the burden of too many choices.
In a novel, of course, one cannot assume that opinions expressed by the characters are those of the author himself--but in this case, it seems to me that they likely are, and this opinion appears to be shared by most commenters at Erin's post.
What really struck me in Erin's review is her remark that I am starting to think that this novel may amount to a fictional companion piece for Cass Sunstein’s Nudge..the referenced work being not a novel, but a book about social, economic, and political policy co-authored by Cass Sunstein, who is now runnning the Office of Regulatory and Information Policy for the Obama administration. (See a review of Nudge, Erin's post about the book, and my post about some of Sunstein's policy ideas.)
continued at Chicago Boyz
6:59 AM
Friday, October 01, 2010
ORBITS
Vasafaxa writes about...well, it's kind of hard to summarize: planets, and asteroids, and men (and, implicitly, women), and relationships. Worth reading.
8:39 AM
Thursday, September 30, 2010
AUTHOR APPRECIATION: CONNIE WILLIS
SF authors are generally viewed as being mainly concerned with the future, but Connie Willis is more interested in the past...and, particularly, the way in which the past lives in the present. Her novels and short stories explore this connection using various hypothetical forms of time displacement.
In Lincoln's Dreams, a young woman starts having strange and very disturbing dreams. With the aid of the man who loves her (unrequitedly), she discovers that her dreams are, in fact (despite the book's title) those of Robert E Lee. In the introduction, Willis writes:
In the first part of Lincoln’s Dreams, Jeff is offered a job researching the long-term effects of the Vietnam War. He turns it down. "I'm busy studying the long-term effects of the Civil War." And I guess that’s what I was doing, too, writing this book.
Because the Civil War isn’t over. Its images, dreamlike, stay with us — young boys lying face-down in cornfields and orchards, and Robert E. Lee on Traveller. And Lincoln, dead in the White House, and the sound of crying.
The Civil War disturbs us, all these long years after, troubling our sleep. Like a cry for help, like a warning, like a dream. And we pore over it, trying to break the code, its meaning just out of reach..
continued at Chicago Boyz
5:58 AM
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
IT'S FINALLY OVER (sort of)
The First World War, that is.
The Telegraph reports that Germany has made the final payment on its reparation obligations for World War I. (Actually, it appears that the payments being made by Germany since the end of WWII were not technically the reparations themselves, but rather repayment of bonds that were issued under Weimar to help fund the reparations. See this link.)
continued at Chicago Boyz
11:09 AM
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
THE MIDNIGHT COURT
Sibling of Daedalus explicates and illuminates a Gaelic poem from around 1800.
7:50 AM
THE BIG ASSUMPTION
I am surprised by how much difficulty people have in defining the goals of a liberal education. Typically, they resort to clichéd expressions like broadening horizons and critical thinking. The goal and method are actually quite simple. It is a two step process.
First, one particular assumption must be disproven. This assumption is so fundamental and widespread that I will call it The Big Assumption. I believe that it has been held by every person who has ever lived on the planet. Moreover, I am convinced that the Big Assumption has profound consequences for politics, economics, psychology, and sociology.
To find out what The Big Assumption is, continue reading here.
7:22 AM
Monday, September 27, 2010
AN INCIDENT AT THE HEALTH CLUB
Neptunus Lex, after a round of golf, stopped by the health club for a massage.
Have you ever killed anyone? asked the therapist, after learning that Lex had been in the Navy.
Read the whole thing.
See my related post, an incident at the movies, also an interesting historical parallel.
8:29 AM
Sunday, September 26, 2010
INTERSECTING CIRCLES
The Mommyblogger and the Navyblogger
6:30 AM
Saturday, September 25, 2010
THE LIMITS OF RADICALISM AND EXPERTISE
Rick cites a remark by Senator Christopher Dodd about the financial regulation bill: "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works." My observation is that Dodd's remark was actually true, and would have been true to a substantial extent even if the bill had been properly read, debated, and analyzed. A more perceptive man than Dodd might have seen this as a reason to avoid making such overwhelming changes all in one fell swoop.
Several years ago, I posted about the failure of the FAA/IBM project for a new air traffic control system. The new system was known as the Advanced Automation System and was intended to be "as radical a departure from well-worn mores and customs as the overflow of the czars," in the words of a participant. Another participant described the radical ambitiousness of the project as follows:
"You're living in a modest house and you notice the refrigerator deteriorating. The ice sometimes melts, and the door isn't flush, and the repairman comes out, it seems, once a month. Then you notice it's bulky and doesn't save energy, and you've seen those new ones at Sears. The first thing you do is look into some land a couple of states over, combined with several other houses of similar personality. Then you get I M Pei and some of the other great architects and hold a design run-off..."
continued at Chicago Boyz
9:32 AM
THE EVIL OF ASPARAGUS?
Gongol explains
6:26 AM
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
CAPITAL GAINS AND INFLATION
Christina Sochacki demonstrates the unreasonableness of a capital gains tax that is not indexed for inflation. A nicely-done 5 minute video.
3:37 PM
Monday, September 20, 2010
BEST HEADLINE OF THE DAY
We Want a Warranty for Our Czars
WSJ headline for a letter to the editor regarding a story on the auto-industry bailout:
What was most striking about Steven Rattner's account of White House deliberations regarding the auto industry ("The White House Car Czar," Weekend Journal, Sept. 11) was the sheer arrogance and egotism of the parties involved. Mr. Rattner's description of the bailout decision makers reads like a group that managed to meld the worst personality characteristics of Wall Street masters of the universe with the vanity and narcissism of Hollywood divas.
I believe this content is available without subscription--read the whole letter, here.
See also ruler of the auto industree, a little song I wrote (with some help from Gilbert & Sullivan) in honor of on of Obama's junior czars.
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
6:29 AM
Saturday, September 18, 2010
FREE SPEECH UNDER ATTACK
Molly Norris is--or was--a Seattle cartoonist, best-known for coming up with the idea of "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day" as a way of asserting American First Amendment rights. She has been threatened with murder for having violated Sharia law, and the threats against her have now reached such a level that--on the advice of the FBI--she is changing her identity and going into hiding. Her cartoons, at least for now, have stopped. The terrorists have silenced an American citizen.
This is not the first time that American individuals and institutions have been subject to intimidation by radical Islamic zealots, but it is one of the most blatant and serious.
continued at Chicago Boyz
6:35 PM
Friday, September 17, 2010
A TEACHER AND A BOOK
Back in 2003, Sheila O'Malley wrote about her 10th grade English teacher, Mr Crothers and about The Great Gatsby, which he taught. Mr Crothers himself showed up in the comments. Sounds like a great teacher and a great class.
Sheila has a more recent post about Mr Crothers, here.
8:54 AM
Thursday, September 16, 2010
MORE ON PALINOPHOBIA
Whatever one thinks of Sarah Palin's views and qualifications, surely there is something disturbing about the insanely vitriolic intensity of the attacks directed against her. Clearly, is something else going on here beyond differences of opinion about policy.
Several days ago, I linked a post by Shannon Love in which he analyzes the roots of the anti-Palin fury: Palin and the Left's Status-Anxiety. In response to a commenter at that post, Shannon also posted this, and also followed up with this critique of the theory that more education always leads to more wisdom.
Lexington Green, another Chicago Boy, has related thoughts.
4:35 AM
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
SIR KEITH PARK
Tomorrow, on Battle of Britain day, a statue of Air Vice Marshal Keith Park will be unveiled in London's Waterloo Gardens. Military historian Stephen Bungay:
The Battle of Britain was the most important campaign in the history of the RAF. That it was fought and won was down to three men. The first was Winston Churchill. He decided to fight it. The second was Hugh Dowding. He built the system that made victory possible. The third was Keith Park. He wielded the weapon that Dowding had forged and Churchill decided to use.
One of the top Allied air aces of the war, Johnnie Johnson, said of Park "He was the only man who could have lost the war in a day or even an afternoon." And as Churchill said, "The odds were great, our margins small, the stakes infinite."
More about Park here.
Via Mrs Moneypenny at Financial Times
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
6:41 AM
Sunday, September 12, 2010
WORTHWHILE READING & VIEWING
Shannon Love analyzes the anger directed at Sarah Palin
Via a commenter at the above-linked post, here's an interesting 2008 post by an Orthodox Jewish writer who sees a strong similarity between Palin and the women who tend to achieve leadership roles in the Chabad movement: Chabad women and Sarah Palin don’t dialogue. They talk. And they don’t talk down.
Mark Perry on the college textbook bubble
Victor Davis Hanson on multiculturalism
Margaret Soltan makes the case that: University education takes place in the theater of the classroom. It can’t be put online. See also her post on Cardinal Newman and his view of the nature of a real university education.
What you get for $40,000/year as a Gender Studies student. See also Erin O'Connor.
Speaking of gender, Vasafaxa has been thinking about femininity
Incurable Sanity develops an analogy between music and conversation
Bictopia: photos and paintings from the Adriatic: here, here, and here
Anouk has an interesting collection of Impressionist paintings
Update: Joanne Jacobs links and summarizes an article on why college grads can't write. Diagnosis: too much theory, too much influence from the social sciences and the public education establishment.
Update 2: Erin O'Connor has thoughts and a discussion thread on the $40,000/year gender studies student.
5:08 PM
Saturday, September 11, 2010
9/11 PLUS NINE YEARS
(This is basically a rerun and update of my posts from this day in 2006-2009. Some new links added this year are at the bottom of the post.)
I am increasingly worried about our prospects for success in the battle against those who would destroy our civilization. America and the other democracies possess great military, economic, and intellectual strengths--but severe internal divisions threaten our ability to use these resources effectively.
Within days of the collapse of the Towers, it started. "Progressive" demonstrators brought out the stilt-walkers, the Uncle Sam constumes, and the giant puppets of George Bush. They carried signs accusing America of planning "genocide" against the people of Afghanistan.
Professors and journalists preached about the sins of Western civilization, asserting that we had brought it all on ourselves. A well-known writer wrote of her unease when her daughter chose to buy and display an American flag. Some universities banned the display of American flags in dormitories, claiming that such display was "provocative."
continued at Chicago Boyz
4:52 AM
Thursday, September 09, 2010
A NEW SYNAGOGUE IN LITCHFIELD?
The Historic District Commission of Litchfield, CT has--on grounds that many consider as pretty questionable--rejected the application of the Chabad Lubovitch group to renovate a historic house and turn it into a synagogue. The remodeled building was also to have included an apartment for the rabbi, and a swimming pool for the Chabad-sponsored summer camp. Story here.
I don't know if the denial of this application is or is not consistent with the rules under with the Historic District Commission is supposed to be operating, but I do think that some of the comments reported to have been made during the discussions were pretty inappropriate and pretty disturbing.
Now, maybe I missed it, but I haven’t seen the speech in which President Obama defends the Litchfield synagogue in the same way that he defended the Ground Zero mosque. Nor have I seen Nancy Pelosi demanding an investigation of synagogue opponents in the same way that she demanded an investigation of GZ mosque opponents. And will the “human rights activists” and liberal clergymen who have been so fervent in their defense of the mosque project also step up to defend the Litchfield synagogue project? I think we all know the answer.
continued at Chicago Boyz
6:16 PM
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
AFTERMATH
Cara Ellison dated a man whose wife had been killed in the 9/11 attacks. Her post here is short, memorable, and beautifully written.
5:48 AM
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
JOURNALISTS
...getting frustrated and angry with Americans who fail to show proper appreciation for their hero.
Related: Politicans: getting frustrated and angry at us
2:35 PM
A SCREENWRITER'S WORKDAY
Robert Avrech talks about his craft.
5:20 AM
Monday, September 06, 2010
THE FUTURE OF U.S. MANUFACTURING
..an appropriate subject to contemplate on Labor Day. Here's a worthwhile article in The Deal Magazine.
Via Kevin Meyer, himself a manufacturer.
6:27 AM
Saturday, September 04, 2010
MORE ON THE HIGHER-ED BUBBLE
Stuart Schneiderman cites a report that aggregate student loan debt has now surpassed $840 billion..and is still climbing. He suggests that these debts will have a major impact on the choice of marital partners, via a sort of reverse-dowry effect, as well a creating a long-term overhang on the housing market.
continued at Chicago Boyz
3:01 PM
Thursday, September 02, 2010
ADVICE FOR COLLEGE KIDS
..from Walter Russell Mead. Actually, applicable to just about everybody.
via Newmark's Door
4:31 AM
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
On this day in 1939, Germany launched a massive assault on Poland, thereby igniting the Second World War.
Britain and France were both bound by treaty to come to Poland’s assistance. On September 2, Neville Chamberlain’s government sent a message to Germany proposing that hostilities should cease and that there should be an immediate conference among Britain, France, Poland, Germany, and Italy..and that the British government would be bound to take action unless German forces were withdrawn from Poland. “If the German Government should agree to withdraw their forces, then His Majesty’s Government would be willing to regard the position as being the same as it was before the German forces crossed the Polish frontier.”
According to General Edward Spears, who was then a member of Parliament, the assembly had been expecting a declaration of war. Few were happy with this temporizing by the Chamberlain government. Spears describes the scene:
Arthur Greenwood got up, tall, lanky, his dank, fair hair hanging to either side of his forehead. He swayed a little as he clutched at the box in front of him and gazed through his glasses at Chamberlain sitting opposite him, bolt-upright as usual. There was a moment’s silence, then something very astonishing happened.
Leo Amery, sitting in the corner seat of the third bench below the gangway on the government side, voiced in three words his own pent-up anguish and fury, as well as the repudiation by the whole House of a policy of surrender. Standing up he shouted across to Greenwood: “Speak for England!” It was clear that this great patriot sought at this crucial moment to proclaim that no loyalty had any meaning if it was in conflict with the country’s honour. What in effect he said was: “The Prime Minister has not spoken for Britain, then let the socialists do so. Let the lead go to anyone who will.” That shout was a cry of defiance. It meant that the house and the country would neither surrender nor accept a leader who might be prepared to trifle with the nation’s pledged word.
continued at my Chicago Boyz post from 2007
5:30 PM
YOUR TAX DOLLARS, FUNDING PALESTINIAN PROPAGANDA
The U.S. government is funding an ad campaign in Israel featuring billboards of Palestinian officials asking: "We are partners -- what about you?" The Agency for International development "invested" $250,000 toward the billboards.
Via Michelle Malkin, who notes that a Democratic Congressman has been circlating talking points about how great this administration's support for Israel has been.
Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorists have murdered four more Israelis, right down the road from Daniel Jackson's house.
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
4:10 AM
Sunday, August 29, 2010
EXTREMELY COOL
A 1929 Ford Tri-Motor airliner is now on tour. You can take a ride for $60.
Within a few months of the model's introduction in 1926, Tri-Motors were used to provide coast-to-coast air service...which was actually a rail/air hybrid, with passengers flying during the day but taking the train for the night legs of the journey.
At least one of these airplanes was still flying in scheduled airline service in the early 1970s.
1:10 PM
WORTHWHILE READING & VIEWING
Don Sensing on honor, shame, the Middle East, and the American Left
James Taranto on Oikophobia
NeoNeocon cites a 1944 essay by Arthur Koestler: on heeding warnings
Richard Fernandez has an important essay on the Inner Circle and the professional Left:
America was conceived as an experiment in creating a land run for amateurs. The Founding Fathers appear to have taken the view that the Towers of Power would always be with us, but attempted to keep them low. They tried craft a society in which the power of elites would limited, with no established religions; no runaway central authority; hedged with prohibitions on government. It was an attempt to enshrine amateurism as a means of pre-empting the establishment of Byzantine structures that would eventually encrust the majority will with their own agendas. One of the reasons for the reaction against President Obama’s agenda is the perception that the elites are about to succeed, perhaps forever; that the experiment of July 4, 1776 is at an end.
Bird Dog cruises the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal (photos)
Update: Cassandra has posted the photos from her trip to Seattle, including some shots from the Museum of Glass.
5:59 AM
Friday, August 27, 2010
MALINVESTMENT AND THE HIGHER-ED BUBBLE
Workers with specialized skills like electricians, carpenters and welders are in critically short supply in many large economies, a shortfall that marks another obstacle to the global economic recovery, according to a research paper by Manpower Inc. The study mentions an Ohio shipbuilder that had to bring in experienced workers from Mexico and Croatia and a French metal-parts maker that hired Manpower to find welders in Poland.
The paper blames the shortage in part on the "social stigma" assigned to skilled blue-collar work, and cites a poll finding that only one in 10 American teenagers see themselves in a blue-collar job as adults. (The proportion was even lower in Japan.)
continued at Chicago Boyz
8:16 AM
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
DRAWING THE FIRES
The EPA has drafted a new set of regulations for emissions from industrial boilers, via imposition of "Maximum Achievable Control Technology." The National Association of Manufacturers has raised serious concerns about the advisability of imposing these regulations, particularly at this point in time: a very detailed analysis is here
Industrial boiler regulation may sound like a pretty esoteric topic, but actually I think it is an important one, both in terms of tangible impact on the economy and in terms of what it symbolizes about the way we are heading as a society.
continued at Chicago Boyz
8:01 AM
JUST UNBELIEVABLE
A Milan-bound train ended up in Zurich..about 150 miles away...instead. Stephen Karlson, who knows quite a bit about railroading, explains the total weirdness of this event.
7:46 AM
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
WORTHWHILE READING & VIEWING
Kevin Meyer reports from China
Victor Davis Hanson on punitive liberalism and America-bashing
Howard Owens suggests that newspapers are making things worse for themselves by de-emphasizing text in favor of graphics (via Lead & Gold)
Margaret Soltan excerpts a New York Times article on the use of the web as an alternative to traditional peer review for scholarly papers
View from the Right observes that "political correctness," aka the "progressive" war on common sense, has inhibited rational thinking about the crimes of Maj Nidal Hasan and the actions necessary to prevent similar future events (via Maggie's Farm)
A horrifying animated map showing the growth of unemployment in the US since March 2007, using data which goes down to the county level
Jeff Sypeck has some great butterfly pictures
Update: Speaking of butterflies...General Electric, with support from DARPA, is working on applications of butterfly tech
4:54 AM
Monday, August 23, 2010
EXTREMELY COOL
A 70 gigapixel panoramic view of Budapest.
via Newmark's Door
5:27 AM
Saturday, August 21, 2010
INCREASINGLY UNHINGED
1)Obama has stated that the US and Iran have a "mutual interest" in fighting the Taliban, and that Iran "could be a constructive partner" with the US in creating a stable Afghanistan.
Reality: A State Department report, issued the day after Obama's expression of his fantasy:
Iran’s Qods Force provided training to the Taliban in Afghanistan on small unit tactics, small arms, explosives, and indirect fire weapons. Since at least 2006, Iran has arranged arms shipments to select Taliban members, including small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, and plastic explosives.
continued at Chicago Boyz
7:10 AM
Thursday, August 19, 2010
THOUGHTS ON LEADERSHIP
..from Dee Hock, founder of VISA and a contemplative sort of guy.
via the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog
6:39 AM
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
REGULATION FOR FUN AND PROFIT
The National Association of Broadcasters and the Recording Industry Association of America are lobbying Congress to have the government require that FM receivers be built into cell phones and other portable electronics devices.
The squandering of resources that would required by this proposal, should it become law, would not be as visually striking as 20 miles of railroad track filled with unused lumber cars, but would be real nonetheless.
How much of America's economic output and growth potential is being wasted on politically-driven but economically-irrational subsidies of one kind or another? The number would be hard to calculate, but it is surely large, and certainly growing very rapidly.
Related: Apparently, more than half of Britain's wind-power farms have been built in places where there is not enough wind. Anyone want to bet that there is nothing similar happening here?
FM-receiver link via Code Monkey, lumber-car link via Instapundit, wind-farm link via Maggie's Farm.
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
5:50 AM
Monday, August 16, 2010
THE HIGHER-ED BUBBLE, CONTINUED
Much concern has recently been raised, and appropriately so, about the sleazy practices engaged in by many for-profit colleges...practices that often leave students with large student-loan balances that will never be paid, and training whose value is highly questionable. A study cited in this post indicates that only 36% of the for-profit graduates actually repay their loans. (What does "repay" mean in this context? Repay in full, or does some level of partial repayment count?) But the repayment rates at conventional colleges are nothing to brag about, either--54% for public colleges and 56% for private nonprofits...and many conventional colleges graduate an alarmingly low percentage of their students in four, five, or even six years.
continued at Chicago Boyz
2:31 PM
Sunday, August 15, 2010
STARTUPS AND JOBS
Most people who follow business are generally aware that a high proportion of job creation is due to relatively small companies and specifically to startups. This post offers some interesting data demonstrating just how powerful this effect really is.
7:58 AM
Friday, August 13, 2010
OFFSHORE DRILLING AND THE ECONOMY
Read about the economic harm being perpetrated by the administration's continuing efforts to establish and maintain a moratorium on offshore drilling.
Obama, a man who knows absolutely nothing about any economically-productive form of activity, demonstrates again and again his willingness to visit confusion and destruction on the American economy in order to replace it with his own ungrounded fantasies.
5:54 AM
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
DANCING ON THE RUINS
The phrase "dam busters" originally applied to RAF flyers who attacked German hydroelectric dams during WWII. Now, the term is being applied to individuals who advocate the destruction of American dams, for what they claim are environmental reasons.
I was aware that there was much hostility toward dams among the "progressives"...see my post frankly my dear, I do need a dam...however, Ed Driscoll's post yesterday makes it clear what levels this hostility has now reached. In a 2007 WSJ article that Ed quotes, the author observes that anti-dam forces are seeking the destruction of the Klamath River dams, the O’Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, the Elwha River dam in Washington state, and the Matilija Dam in Southern California. (See this post by Bookworm about the lobbying to destroy the Hetch Hetchy dam, which provides San Francisco with about 85% of its water.) And I'm sure it doesn't end there.
We have come a long way from the days when the liberals and leftists viewed the TVA as a major national accomplishment and celebrated the Columbia River dams with Woody Guthrie's song:
Roll on, Columbia, roll on
Roll on, Columbia, roll on
Your power is turning our darkness to dawn
So roll on, Columbia, roll on
While 1930s liberalism/leftism was a child of the Enlightenment...often a bastard child...today's "progressivism" has a distinct reactionary, counter-Enlightenment flavor.
I'm reminded, as I often am, of a post by a now-defunct Italian blogger who called herself Joy of Knitting:
Cupio dissolvi...These words have been going through my mind for quite a long time now. It's Latin. They mean "I (deeply) wish to be annihilated/to annihilate myself", the passive form signifying that the action can be carried out both by an external agent or by the subject himself...Cupio dissolvi... Through all the screaming and the shouting and the wailing and the waving of the rainbow cloth by those who invoke peace but want appeasement, I hear these terrible words ringing in my ears. These people have had this precious gift, this civilization, and they have got bored with it. They take all the advantages it offers them for granted, and despise the ideals that have powered it. They wish for annihilation, the next new thing, as if it was a wonderful party. Won't it be great, dancing on the ruins?
cross-posted at Chicago Boyz, where comments are open
6:31 PM
RARE EARTHS
The rare earths are a collection of 17 elements in the periodic table: lanthanum, cerium, and erbium, to name a few. These materials play an important and increasing role in electrical and electronic devices, including batteries and magnets (which are used in electric motors and geherators.) Considerable concern has been raised lately about the concentration of rare-earths production in Chinese hands: see for example today's Business Insider post, which deals with the Chinese government's push for consolidation of that country's rare-earths industry into a smaller number of companies. See also this post regarding dependency of key U.S. military systems on rare earths.
I'm interested in discussing rare earths from two standpoints: overall U.S. economic and security policy, and investment opportunities/risks.
continued at Chicago Boyz
6:28 AM
Monday, August 09, 2010
HAFFNER, CONTINUED
Back in January I reviewed Sebastian Haffner's memoir, Defying Hitler. Haffner grew up in Germany between the wars, and the book is the best analysis I've seen of how that country became a pack of hunting hounds directed against humans.
Neo-Neocon linked the review yesterday, sparking considerable discussion in the comments.
The review is here...again, I urge everyone to read Haffner's thoughtful, vivid, and deeply-moving book.
4:07 AM
Sunday, August 08, 2010
WORTHWHILE READING & VIEWING
NYT: The coming class war over government-employee pensions
Gay Patriot: The double standard on Hollywood anti-semitism
Salim Mansur: Talking with ordinary Palestinians. "..when they insist on hearing my views I remind them gently of the verse from the Qur’an that God does not change the condition of people unless they change what is in their hearts."
Undersea cables to Africa: An interesting map.
Cassandra: Reporters versus conservative Black leaders.
Assistant Village Idiot: Resentment.
Flavia: Facebook as an enabler of political conversations among people who otherwise wouldn't be talking with each other much.
David Solway: Browsing the Leftist mindset. He cites Milan Kundera: "Hell is already contained in the dream of paradise."
Vasafaxa: Stories, lies, and seduction
Cassandra again: Musings about sex and relationships
Anouk: Air and Space (photo collection)
6:18 AM
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