Samsung has one of these that is as big as a living room window.
Cool, but whatever it costs, it costs a lot. So make your own:
The big one is insanely cool, with touch screen capability, the ability to go completely dark, and a day/night option (backlight). I'd embed it, but the geniuses who run CNN Money's marketing group have embedding disabled. And so what is a fabulous interview and demo has 166 views. Awesome marketing.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
In which I challenge Baldr Odinson to an Internet duel
I apologize in advance for my language in this post. I endeavor to keep this blog PG-13, but some times a man has to say what a man has to say to other (I think) men. You've been warned.
Everyone, please stop feeding the troll. He won't post your comments, he controls everything on his blog to make sure that only the Right Thoughts™ appear there. You'll never win this way. Here's how you win.
Baldr Odinson (whoever you are, assuming I spelled your pseudonym correctly, which I don't care if I did or not), I challenge you to a man-to-man contest. I will prove by blog combat that you are a pussy, and that you are also an idiot. Your ideas are weak, yea, weak unto death. They make your blog weak, and everyone knows it.
I will prove this, to the Internet's satisfaction, or I will grovel and ask for mercy and forgiveness. As the Knights of old did, I offer to prove this, risking my body (well, err, traffic and Internet reputation) against yours. Not that I want your body. Ewww*.
You are a pussy** ***.
You moderate comments, not because you get so much traffic that you attract spammers (you wish), but because you are, y'know, a pussy. You can't actually take real criticism. Pussy.
You leave comments on the gun blogs, but flee when people reply to your comments. Your intellect is weak, and you take the safe but cheap route of tossing a grenade, troll-like, into a comment thread and then Sir-Robin-like scampering away. Pussy.
Your traffic (for someone who's backed by the Brady crowd) would best be described as "pussy-like", but that would be an insult to honest pussys throughout the Internet. You, on the other hand are a dishonest pussy.
And I can prove it, in front of everyone on the Internet. Here's my challenge:
- Open your comments, as mine are open here. I delete comments, but only if they are spam. For the purpose of this challenge, I will agree to delete *no* comments, even spam.
- Put up a post in reply to this post, accepting the challenge like a man. Someone who refuses to hide behind comment moderation.
- After seven (7) days, whoever has the most comments (on your post or mine) wins. If you win, I shall apologize handsomely, both in a comment to this post and in a separate post. When I say "handsomely", I mean "will exceed your expectations". As the Knights of old said, I will prove this at the risk of my own (blog) body.
- If you lose, you will post a simple "Borepatch was right" post. That's all I ask of the likes of you. Pussy.
You won't take me up on it, of course, because you're a pussy. You know that your arguments are weak, and can't convince anyone - as indeed the entire Gun Ban lobby has found to their dismay. Your practice of avoiding conflict and discussion has made you weak, and you know it. Even against a nobody blog like me.
And because you know you're weak, you're a pussy. You know it, I know it, and everyone on the Internet knows it. So put up or shut up. You've been called out. Man up, or crawl away to hide under a rock. And no whining about what a "brute" I am - these are words, dude. Sticks and stones, and all that. We'll never meet In Real Life, so don't piss your pants and everything. Or email me, and if we meet up, I'll buy you a beer and we'll talk about this (not fight, duh) man to man.
Let me say that again, so all the Internet can hear: man up to this challenge, or STFU and crawl away like a pussy to hide. There are no other choices.
To the Gun Blog community, that's how you deal with pussies. Stop feeding the troll. Stop putting up well reasoned arguments against what they post, when you know that they're too pussy to reply. Pearls before swine, and all that. It's making me cross to see such a waste of fine intellectual horsepower. It a stupid game, and we should stop playing - unless Baldr is (unexpectedly) willing to act like a man for a change. Which he isn't, because he's a pussy.
* Not that there would be anything wrong with that, of course, except that I don't swing that way, you pussy.
** No offense to honest women everywhere. Except Joan Peterson, who manages to be simultaneously an actual, you know, woman and an a weak, disengenious, two-faced lying comment-moderating pussy just like Bladr. I'd challenge her to a duel, too, except that a Man doesn't go after a lady that way.
*** I try to keep this blog PG-13, but enough is enough. If I can say that Mitt Romney is gayer than Twilight, I can say that Baldr Odinson is a pussy. Unless, of course, he mans up. Which he won't. Pussy.
Everyone, please stop feeding the troll. He won't post your comments, he controls everything on his blog to make sure that only the Right Thoughts™ appear there. You'll never win this way. Here's how you win.
Baldr Odinson (whoever you are, assuming I spelled your pseudonym correctly, which I don't care if I did or not), I challenge you to a man-to-man contest. I will prove by blog combat that you are a pussy, and that you are also an idiot. Your ideas are weak, yea, weak unto death. They make your blog weak, and everyone knows it.
I will prove this, to the Internet's satisfaction, or I will grovel and ask for mercy and forgiveness. As the Knights of old did, I offer to prove this, risking my body (well, err, traffic and Internet reputation) against yours. Not that I want your body. Ewww*.
You are a pussy** ***.
You moderate comments, not because you get so much traffic that you attract spammers (you wish), but because you are, y'know, a pussy. You can't actually take real criticism. Pussy.
You leave comments on the gun blogs, but flee when people reply to your comments. Your intellect is weak, and you take the safe but cheap route of tossing a grenade, troll-like, into a comment thread and then Sir-Robin-like scampering away. Pussy.
Your traffic (for someone who's backed by the Brady crowd) would best be described as "pussy-like", but that would be an insult to honest pussys throughout the Internet. You, on the other hand are a dishonest pussy.
And I can prove it, in front of everyone on the Internet. Here's my challenge:
- Open your comments, as mine are open here. I delete comments, but only if they are spam. For the purpose of this challenge, I will agree to delete *no* comments, even spam.
- Put up a post in reply to this post, accepting the challenge like a man. Someone who refuses to hide behind comment moderation.
- After seven (7) days, whoever has the most comments (on your post or mine) wins. If you win, I shall apologize handsomely, both in a comment to this post and in a separate post. When I say "handsomely", I mean "will exceed your expectations". As the Knights of old said, I will prove this at the risk of my own (blog) body.
- If you lose, you will post a simple "Borepatch was right" post. That's all I ask of the likes of you. Pussy.
You won't take me up on it, of course, because you're a pussy. You know that your arguments are weak, and can't convince anyone - as indeed the entire Gun Ban lobby has found to their dismay. Your practice of avoiding conflict and discussion has made you weak, and you know it. Even against a nobody blog like me.
And because you know you're weak, you're a pussy. You know it, I know it, and everyone on the Internet knows it. So put up or shut up. You've been called out. Man up, or crawl away to hide under a rock. And no whining about what a "brute" I am - these are words, dude. Sticks and stones, and all that. We'll never meet In Real Life, so don't piss your pants and everything. Or email me, and if we meet up, I'll buy you a beer and we'll talk about this (not fight, duh) man to man.
Let me say that again, so all the Internet can hear: man up to this challenge, or STFU and crawl away like a pussy to hide. There are no other choices.
To the Gun Blog community, that's how you deal with pussies. Stop feeding the troll. Stop putting up well reasoned arguments against what they post, when you know that they're too pussy to reply. Pearls before swine, and all that. It's making me cross to see such a waste of fine intellectual horsepower. It a stupid game, and we should stop playing - unless Baldr is (unexpectedly) willing to act like a man for a change. Which he isn't, because he's a pussy.
* Not that there would be anything wrong with that, of course, except that I don't swing that way, you pussy.
** No offense to honest women everywhere. Except Joan Peterson, who manages to be simultaneously an actual, you know, woman and an a weak, disengenious, two-faced lying comment-moderating pussy just like Bladr. I'd challenge her to a duel, too, except that a Man doesn't go after a lady that way.
*** I try to keep this blog PG-13, but enough is enough. If I can say that Mitt Romney is gayer than Twilight, I can say that Baldr Odinson is a pussy. Unless, of course, he mans up. Which he won't. Pussy.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Why do you need a gun in your home?
Republican Governors Gone Wild.
I wonder who paid for what. And RTWT, especially the "finish what he started" bit.
I wonder who paid for what. And RTWT, especially the "finish what he started" bit.
Bad ass computer
I used to work around Big Iron, back in the day at Three Letter Agency. The basement there was filled with stinking huge IBM 3090 mainframes, and different flavors of Cray Supercomputers (each painted a different color so you could recognize at a glance the one you were working with; we called the purple one "Barney"). But the most bad ass of all the computers there was this:
Of course, the rooms were dark, so walking past this always made me feel like I was near the warp core of the Death Star, or something. The lights would be continually in motion; I'm not sure what it was for, but I suspect that each LED mapped to one of the 64,000 CPUs in this beast. Rumor was that it was so fast, it would answer your question before you asked it.
What I hadn't known was that Richard Feynman was the first employee hired at Thinking Machines, Inc. It's quite a story:
That man was so smart that he left smartprints when he walked across the carpet. Figures he had to have been involved with one of the most bad ass computers ever made.
Postscript: it seems that you can go see that very same computer, now on display at the National Cryptologic Museum.
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Of course, the rooms were dark, so walking past this always made me feel like I was near the warp core of the Death Star, or something. The lights would be continually in motion; I'm not sure what it was for, but I suspect that each LED mapped to one of the 64,000 CPUs in this beast. Rumor was that it was so fast, it would answer your question before you asked it.
What I hadn't known was that Richard Feynman was the first employee hired at Thinking Machines, Inc. It's quite a story:
That man was so smart that he left smartprints when he walked across the carpet. Figures he had to have been involved with one of the most bad ass computers ever made.
Postscript: it seems that you can go see that very same computer, now on display at the National Cryptologic Museum.
Forget "What's the matter with Kansas" - what's the matter with the Nanny State?
Thomas Frank wrote the famously clueless book, What's The Matter With Kansas, mewing doe-eyed* about why the voters of Kansas kept voting for Republicans when it was "clearly in their economic interest" to vote for Democrats. He didn't understand that the people of Kansas knew what he didn't, which is that this is nonsense on stilts. The Democrats are terrible to the working class, speaking in economic terms.
As Reagan liked to say, there they go again:
The only mystery, really, is why Thomas Frank and other Right Thinking People™ are mystified as to how those moronic redneck hicks in flyover country, clinging to their guns and religion and antipathy to people (like Frank) who are different from them, actually understand their own economic self interest better than a PhD like Frank.
* I have got to stop milking this dead horse about the intellectual left.
As Reagan liked to say, there they go again:
Bull. The science is a guarantied cinch to be junk, with the study flawed to the point of meaninglessness and the statistics cooked. Probably funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, too, although it's I'm sure entirely unexpected that it supports yet another Big Government, Nanny State power grab tax on poor people. A complete coincidence. Didn't see that one coming. No siree.
Medical scientists in San Francisco have sent a chill wind blowing through the IT industry as they issue a call for swingeing taxes on "soda, fruit punch, sweet tea, sports drinks, and other sweetened beverages".
A collection of health profs and other researchers led by Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo (associate professor of medicine and of epidemiology and biostatistics at California uni's San Francisco campus) say they have now put numbers on the horrific toll exacted as Americans poison themselves with no less than 13.8 billion gallons* of disgustful pop annually. Furthermore they say that huge numbers of lives would be saved if only the government would slap a hefty tax on the sugar-laden beverages of death - to the tune of a cent per fluid ounce.
"You would also prevent 240,000 cases of diabetes per year," says Bibbins-Domingo, whose team has just published a paper outlining their ideas in the journal Health Affairs.They estimate that such a "penny-per-ounce" tax on sweetened beverages would prevent nearly 100,000 cases of heart disease, 8,000 strokes, and 26,000 deaths every year. It would deliver a hefty $13bn in revenue to the hard-pressed US exchequer, and save $17bn in medical expenses.
The only mystery, really, is why Thomas Frank and other Right Thinking People™ are mystified as to how those moronic redneck hicks in flyover country, clinging to their guns and religion and antipathy to people (like Frank) who are different from them, actually understand their own economic self interest better than a PhD like Frank.
* I have got to stop milking this dead horse about the intellectual left.
Muffole! Muffole! Muffole!
Well, it looks like Mittens has it all sewed up. Oh, well - it's unlikely that I shall be disappointed*. And 2cents is probably correct that Romney is the least scary Republican in the General election. Newt? Scary. R0N P4U1!!1!? Heck, he scares me some of the time. Mittens? Aw, so cute and cuddly.
Oh, and the post title? Well, a while back I said that Mussolini could beat Obama this year.
But "Duce" has a harsh, scary sound to it. Romney is all cute and cuddly. Maybe Simon Grey is right: Romney needs Game.
* Because my expectations are so pathetically low for him that it would be fail of truly epic proportions for him to, err, "exceed" them.
Oh, and the post title? Well, a while back I said that Mussolini could beat Obama this year.
But "Duce" has a harsh, scary sound to it. Romney is all cute and cuddly. Maybe Simon Grey is right: Romney needs Game.
* Because my expectations are so pathetically low for him that it would be fail of truly epic proportions for him to, err, "exceed" them.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Moonlight
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a Joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
- Percy Bysshe Shelly, To The Moon
Backwards in high heels, baby!
With a baby. Awesome.
Via Theo, who's on fire. You do read him every day, don't you? Err, from home, as some of it is NSFW.
Knock it off, Mittens
He thinks I'm dumb enough to fall for that drivel. Newt takes him to the woodshed for as satisfying a thrashing as I've seen in a while. Good grief, what a maroon. He thinks he's as good a liar as Bill Clinton. He's not.
And I think I figured out what's so gay* about Mitt. Look at the goofy grin he has at around 1:40, while Newt is ripping him a new one. Just level with the American People is damn right.
* Not in a, you know gay sense (not that there is anything wrong with that), but in a gayer than Twilight sense. I have got to photoshop some sparkles onto Slick Willard.
Via Theo.
Look, Robin! The Bat signal!
This is classified, burn-before-reading stuff, but has the potential to have a huge marketing release with very high Internet visibility.
Matter of fact, any Marketing/PR types, send me an email. We want to make a splash, and while I have done a fair bit of marketing in my day, I'm not a real Marketeer - I only play one on TV. With a face made for radio.
Unlike you, with your Internet skillz. Let's show those
UPDATE 10 January 2012 19:50: Thanks to the League of Superheros who responded! Looks like our subversive army is fully staffed.
Now that's a snowstorm!
Holy cow:
Of course, it's all caused by Global Warming. What's that you say? Why is it caused by Global Warming? Simples: everything is caused by Global Warming:
I hope that it's soon hot hot hot in Alaska - maybe even up into the 40s ...
I grew up in Maine, and so am no stranger to snow shovels. But this is over the top. Best wishes to the good people of Alaska.
National Guardsmen were recruited to help dig an Alaskan fishing town out from under record-breaking snow, the Associated Press reported.
Dozens of troops arrived Sunday evening in Cordova, the small coastal town hit hardest by the snow, which has triggered avalanches and even trapped some people in their homes. At least three buildings have collapsed and six homes are deemed “severely stressed” by wet snow.
“We had no alternative but to declare an emergency,” said Cordova Mayor Jim Kallander. “It became a life-safety issue.”
Southeast Alaska has been crushed with weeks of persistent snow, kicking off one of the snowiest winters on record. More than 18 feet of snow has fallen in the past weeks, the Guard reported, and another storm is expected to hit Cordova on Tuesday.
Of course, it's all caused by Global Warming. What's that you say? Why is it caused by Global Warming? Simples: everything is caused by Global Warming:
I hope that it's soon hot hot hot in Alaska - maybe even up into the 40s ...
Monday, January 9, 2012
Fear and dependence, hope and courage
One of the arguments that I often use - an indictment, really - of the Intellectual Left is that while in the first half of the twentieth century they convinced many conservatives to cross over to their side, that never happens now. On the contrary, the Right (and the Libertarianosphere) is filled with people like me, formerly liberal, now thinking for ourselves.
Their arguments and philosophy have become tragically weak, weak unto the death of their movement.
The Gun Control crowd are squarely in this death spiral. People cross over, but it's always from the anti-gun side to the pro-freedom side. But it's not often done with this from-the-heart eloquence:
Second, her journey to the gun side is in may ways like mine. It is a psychological voyage, of leaving behind an old world view and choosing freedom. I wrote of my own journey down that road, a year ago:
Welcome, citizen.
To everyone else, go read her post which will be the most moving thing you will read all day.
Their arguments and philosophy have become tragically weak, weak unto the death of their movement.
The Gun Control crowd are squarely in this death spiral. People cross over, but it's always from the anti-gun side to the pro-freedom side. But it's not often done with this from-the-heart eloquence:
You, you who hate guns, you gave me nothing.This struck me, for a couple of reasons. First, Older Brother adopted three kids from Russia. That journey wasn't about the years, but about the miles over unpaved roads. Agirlandhergun has driven those same roads. It's doing the Lord's work, and I don't say that lightly.
No hope.
No tools.
All that was offered me was a life of fear, of resentment, of bitterness, of dependence...
The gun community has offered me hope and strength, and courage.
They have taught me to have belief in myself.
They have asked nothing of me in return and, yet, I would give them my life.
Funny thing is, they would never ask me to.
Second, her journey to the gun side is in may ways like mine. It is a psychological voyage, of leaving behind an old world view and choosing freedom. I wrote of my own journey down that road, a year ago:
But the meaning goes beyond the (quite modest) firepower of the rifle. It's a statement of freedom, the mark of a citizen, not a subject. We could use more citizens, not more subjects.To agirlandhergun, we need more citizens, like you and me. We ought to have arms, by right as free citizens. Hope and Courage never live precariously, or at discretion.
This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...This is my rifle. There are none like it, because it marks the transition from a subject to a free man.
No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.
Welcome, citizen.
To everyone else, go read her post which will be the most moving thing you will read all day.
Drink like a Real Man
Not a bad list, although I don't like his Old Fashioned recipe. But that's just me, and it's traditional to argue over the Old Fashioned recipe.
There's a punchline, too, in the comments, along with what he left out of the recipe.
Hat tip: Foseti.
There's a punchline, too, in the comments, along with what he left out of the recipe.
Hat tip: Foseti.
Someone is stealing my posts
Google Blogsearch tells you interesting things about who's linking to you. It led me to someone who is stealing each and every one of my posts. No link, but if you go to audrey.zoko.in you'll find it.
Strangely, it seems to tweak the words every now and then, in a bad Google Translate sort of way. But it's clearly posts from here: Camp Borepatch, #1 Son and #2 Son.
I tried leaving a couple comments which were never passed through moderation. So a question for all y'all - has anyone ever seen something like this? I can't believe that they're making any money off of blog adds, and there doesn't seem to be any obvious spam there, so I'm kind of at a loss for the motivation behind this.
Strangely, it seems to tweak the words every now and then, in a bad Google Translate sort of way. But it's clearly posts from here: Camp Borepatch, #1 Son and #2 Son.
I tried leaving a couple comments which were never passed through moderation. So a question for all y'all - has anyone ever seen something like this? I can't believe that they're making any money off of blog adds, and there doesn't seem to be any obvious spam there, so I'm kind of at a loss for the motivation behind this.
Random photos
The Missus has a post up that's quite a trip down memory lane, from back before we had kids (B.C. - Before Children) and took some vacations in the south of France. She has some spectacular photos - so spectacular, in fact, that I suspect that she didn't scan them but rather found them on The Intarwebz. Ah, for the days of two incomes and no kids in College ...
But it got me thinking about days gone by, and how it had been quite some time since I'd posted random photos. So here you go.
I haz a tired ....
Little One-Eyed Dog. Good thing she's so cute, because she's quite the hellion.
Little One-Eyed Dog did not like it when Crash came to live with us. Neither did the mice. Crash got one under #2 Son's bed one night, chasing it between the toy bins stashed under there. #2 Son said it was a hair raising racket. Crash caught the mouse, and then proudly dropped the carcass outside #1 Son's door. Groggy and barefoot in the morning, #1 Son stepped on it. Good times, good times.
#1 Son and #2 Son. Man, that was a long time ago. I have this picture with me here at FOB Borepatch. They roll their eyes at me, but I don't care.
But it got me thinking about days gone by, and how it had been quite some time since I'd posted random photos. So here you go.
I haz a tired ....
Little One-Eyed Dog. Good thing she's so cute, because she's quite the hellion.
Little One-Eyed Dog did not like it when Crash came to live with us. Neither did the mice. Crash got one under #2 Son's bed one night, chasing it between the toy bins stashed under there. #2 Son said it was a hair raising racket. Crash caught the mouse, and then proudly dropped the carcass outside #1 Son's door. Groggy and barefoot in the morning, #1 Son stepped on it. Good times, good times.
#1 Son and #2 Son. Man, that was a long time ago. I have this picture with me here at FOB Borepatch. They roll their eyes at me, but I don't care.
Why SOPA is unnecessary
People will pay for content:
And so, the MPAA has bought a bunch of Congressmen, to make institutionalized contempt and suspicion the law of the land. Compare that to Louis C. K. He put up his show with no DRM, and people downloaded it on the honor system. After paying for it.
Can someone please explain to me the "problem" of piracy?
Comedian Louis C.K. recently self-released a video of his stand-up special, “Live at the Beacon Theater,” for $5 online. He personally paid for the production costs up front in an experiment to see if this was a cheaper, more efficient, and less restrictive method of getting his content to his fans. In doing so, he cut out paying the middlemen — including the marketing team — and avoided the red tape of working with studio executives.It's harder to treat your customers as, well, customers than it is to tell them to take what you serve up and like it. It's no mistake that the MPAA came out of the Film and TV world, where their customers are expected to passively sit back and watch. But treating their customers as being a bunch of thieves has not developed a relationship that lasts.
In twelve days, Louis C.K. earned more than $1 million from people downloading the special — far more than the $170,000 it cost to produce the video ...
Without the luxury of stardom, Louis C.K. sold $1 million of video downloads by trusting his audience. He showed this by selling DRM-free videos, then gently asking them to purchase, not pirate. This openness built a relationship of mutual trust and respect with his fans. Companies looking to create successful online marketing campaigns should try to build similarly long-term relationships with customers based on trust and direct communication.
And so, the MPAA has bought a bunch of Congressmen, to make institutionalized contempt and suspicion the law of the land. Compare that to Louis C. K. He put up his show with no DRM, and people downloaded it on the honor system. After paying for it.
Can someone please explain to me the "problem" of piracy?
Sunday, January 8, 2012
In re: the Election
Philip Greenspun brings the Quote of the Day:
Certainly the elites see it this way. My sense is that much of the country doesn't, which explains the wide spread discontent (both the Tea Party and the #Occupy movement). But as long as the establishments think that they can trim their way to a tactical victory (*cough* Mitt Romney *cough*), they will continue to refuse to address any of these problems.
We know that a country of people who earn a median wage of $16.27 per hour (source) cannot afford to pay $100,000-200,000/year pensions to policemen and firefighters who retire at 42 or 50. We know that we can’t afford our massive military or unlimited payments to Medicare providers. We know that we can’t afford to pay working-age people to sit at home and collect 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. We know that China is growing 10 percent per year because businesses find employees there who have a better education and work ethic. We know that countries like Singapore now enjoy a higher per capita income than the U.S. does partly because they’ve figured out how to deliver basic government services as a tiny fraction of the cost (as a percentage of GDP). We know that our public schools are set up to benefit employees rather than students and therefore the outlook for competitiveness is not improving.
We don’t want to do anything about these issues, however, which is why reelecting our current crop of politicians, including Obama, is the most sensible thing to do.
When I sailed through Wood's Hole
And #2 Son's secret Super Power is not falling off the tube, even when I goose the throttle.
But Wood's Hole is no joke. The tidal current runs up to 6 or 7 knots at times, and there are BIG ships that dock there, on a regular schedule that I expect the Captain is paid to keep to. I was glad that my Mercruiser V8 (likely the most powerful engine of any vehicle I ever owned) let me go where I had to, when I had to, when I went through Wood's Hole harbor.
And I only drew about 18" draft. Paul took a lot bigger vessel into Newport. Seems some rich dudes (not "The 1%" - more like "The 0.01%" decided to take a regatta of antique yachts across the harbor channel as his ship headed in to dock. Of course, the "Rules of the Road" say that a vessel proceeding only under wind power has right of way.
Ya know, when I was active in the Coast Guard Axillary (recommended), I learned the "Rule of Tonnage":
A bigger ship will crush you like a bug, if it ever hits you. If you had the Right Of Way, I hope that you're wearing your Personal Flotation Device.And Buzzard's Bay is damn cold. Anyway, the Newport Rag Baggers decided to cut off a large ship in a narrow channel - which also has Right Of Way, even over sailing vessels.
Hilarity ensues.
But I guess that you can't really blame those rich Newport guys. I mean, after all they're on a boat:
Oh, and I would so like to drink beer with Paul and Uncle Jay, even if I have to pick up the tab ...
Camille Saint-Saëns - The Carnival of the Animals
And if you like your music très romantique, you'll like Camille Saint-Saëns, the late Romantic French composer. If he'd been American, he'd likely have served in the War Between the States. Of course by then he was recognized - by Franz Liszt, no less - as being the greatest organist in the world. He was a musical prodigy - perfect pitch at age two, reading music at age three, his first composition (now lovingly preserved in Paris at the Bibliothèque Nationale) at age four.
But he was more than just a musical prodigy; he was an intellectual prodigy as well. Not content to limit himself to music, he wrote scientific and historical papers on acoustics and ancient Roman theater design - while he wasn't composing or wowing the jaded Parisian audience with his weekly organ improvisation concerts at the Church of La Madeleine in the heart of Paris (a block from our favorite hotel, as it turns out).
But while he missed the American Civil War, the Atlantic didn't shelter him from the Franco-Prussian War which was a disaster for France. Saint-Saëns founded a group to preserve and advance French music, much like Pierre Curie did for French science. Science and technology seemed intertwined with his life: he wrote the first score for a major motion picture (in 1908). He outlived the Great War, living to see the New World (sailing through the newly completed Panama Canal to conduct an orchestra in San Francisco). Quite a life, all 86 years.
He's best known for his Carnival of the Animals, which is a diverse suite of 14 short movements. Some are whimsical (L'elefant), but the best are heartbreakingly romantic. In short, the perfect music for a candle light dinner. The Swan (Le cygne) is the most famous of these:
While not as famous, I expect that Saint-Saëns - with his film background - might like this video of another movement, The Aquarium:
Neat-o Torpedo, you might say. Ogden Nash in the 1940s wrote some verses to go with each of the movements - often, they're preformed that way today. Nash did quite a good job of capturing the music and reflecting it back in his half doggerel, half profound poetic style. The Fossils:
Those of you lucky enough to be with your sweetheart might think about a candle light dinner (Valentine's Day is only 5 weeks away). Saint-Saëns is the perfect musical score to go with your French Champagne. What, your sweetheart isn't worth the real thing?
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| Image via Wikipedia |
But while he missed the American Civil War, the Atlantic didn't shelter him from the Franco-Prussian War which was a disaster for France. Saint-Saëns founded a group to preserve and advance French music, much like Pierre Curie did for French science. Science and technology seemed intertwined with his life: he wrote the first score for a major motion picture (in 1908). He outlived the Great War, living to see the New World (sailing through the newly completed Panama Canal to conduct an orchestra in San Francisco). Quite a life, all 86 years.
He's best known for his Carnival of the Animals, which is a diverse suite of 14 short movements. Some are whimsical (L'elefant), but the best are heartbreakingly romantic. In short, the perfect music for a candle light dinner. The Swan (Le cygne) is the most famous of these:
While not as famous, I expect that Saint-Saëns - with his film background - might like this video of another movement, The Aquarium:
Neat-o Torpedo, you might say. Ogden Nash in the 1940s wrote some verses to go with each of the movements - often, they're preformed that way today. Nash did quite a good job of capturing the music and reflecting it back in his half doggerel, half profound poetic style. The Fossils:
Those of you lucky enough to be with your sweetheart might think about a candle light dinner (Valentine's Day is only 5 weeks away). Saint-Saëns is the perfect musical score to go with your French Champagne. What, your sweetheart isn't worth the real thing?
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
On December 7, 1941, the United States was deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. Nobody had seen that coming, and the US Military personnel had to adjust as best they could. The attack took place early on a Sunday morning, soon after reveille. The defenders scrambled to their battle stations, plans for the morning Church service in shambles. Some of the ratings asked Chaplain (Ensign J.G.) Forgy what they should do. His reply is famous:
Today the gun banning crowd wants everyone to light a candle for the people who have died from gun violence. It's not a bad sentiment, as far as it goes, and I'm actually sympathetic to a lot of the thought. People who found themselves facing sudden death, unexpectedly, deserve our remembrance.
But we should also remember Chaplain Forgy. Violence can sometimes appear out of a bright morning sky. At that point, good men and good women should praise the Lord, and use the tools that the Lord and human ingenuity have given them. If some Meth addled thug pulls a knife on me as I walk back from the supermarket, I will put my faith in the Lord, in jacketed .45 ACP hollow points, and in 19-by-God-11.
I lit a candle for the innocent victims, praying that the gun banners would stop trying to disarm them. And to those who would unleash violence unexpectedly on good people, I agree with Col. Cooper:
And to the animals who brought unexpected violence to then, I offer this:
Or the 1911. It'll kill the goblin just as dead. Think of the muzzle flash as lighting a candle.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.Sometimes death seeks you out unexpectedly. Sometimes, you're caught off guard, or unawares. Chaplain Forgy tells us that you have to do the best you can with what you have. Of course, it's better to make sure that what you have is something worth having.
Today the gun banning crowd wants everyone to light a candle for the people who have died from gun violence. It's not a bad sentiment, as far as it goes, and I'm actually sympathetic to a lot of the thought. People who found themselves facing sudden death, unexpectedly, deserve our remembrance.
But we should also remember Chaplain Forgy. Violence can sometimes appear out of a bright morning sky. At that point, good men and good women should praise the Lord, and use the tools that the Lord and human ingenuity have given them. If some Meth addled thug pulls a knife on me as I walk back from the supermarket, I will put my faith in the Lord, in jacketed .45 ACP hollow points, and in 19-by-God-11.
I lit a candle for the innocent victims, praying that the gun banners would stop trying to disarm them. And to those who would unleash violence unexpectedly on good people, I agree with Col. Cooper:
One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure—and in some cases I have—that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.To the innocent victims, I pray: Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
And to the animals who brought unexpected violence to then, I offer this:
Or the 1911. It'll kill the goblin just as dead. Think of the muzzle flash as lighting a candle.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Connection
Things change a lot in 75 years, and a lot has changed for the better. This great old song never fails to make me cringe:
The casual racism of the 1940s is on full display. Boy (certainly referring to a fully grown man). You can give me a shine. We've come a long way in those decades.
I say this not to put down those who lived then - different times, and I am a product of mine, not theirs. Rather, it's to recognize that as a product of my own time, there are parts of theirs that I don't mind seeing fall by the wayside.
But the connection is still there. Music today also contains the echo of the steel rails and the power of the locomotive. It's just been updated a little.
Thanks to RobertaX for kicking over a trip down memory lane today.
The casual racism of the 1940s is on full display. Boy (certainly referring to a fully grown man). You can give me a shine. We've come a long way in those decades.
I say this not to put down those who lived then - different times, and I am a product of mine, not theirs. Rather, it's to recognize that as a product of my own time, there are parts of theirs that I don't mind seeing fall by the wayside.
But the connection is still there. Music today also contains the echo of the steel rails and the power of the locomotive. It's just been updated a little.
Thanks to RobertaX for kicking over a trip down memory lane today.
When I road the Super Chief
It was 1964, and we went from probably St. Louis to Los Angeles on the Santa Fe Super Chief. Grandpa had just died, and Mom and Dad used the little inheritance money to take us to California to see her parents. While this commercial is over the top in that 1950s marketing way, it's exactly how I remember it - I was 5 at the time, so it really stands out in my mind.
While we were in California, we took the Southern Pacific Coast Daylight train to San Francisco, and then the California Zephyr back east. There was a kind old gentleman in the Vista Dome observation car who taught older brother and me how to play pinochle. And the tunnels that you see at about 8:30 here were etched in sharp relief in my five year old memory.
That was a different world age. The fare for the trip cost $592.10 in 1964 dollars - about $4500 today. But the memories are priceless, from a world long gone. A world that had its own music, now long gone as well.
Of course, I wouldn't want to go back to that as my only transportation choice. Instead of two days from Chicago to San Francisco, I can now get a Jet to take me there in 4 hours. Instead of $4,800, I can go for around $400. But there's still something lost, something finer than the flying bus of today.
Nothing could be finer. Cheaper, yes. But not finer.
While we were in California, we took the Southern Pacific Coast Daylight train to San Francisco, and then the California Zephyr back east. There was a kind old gentleman in the Vista Dome observation car who taught older brother and me how to play pinochle. And the tunnels that you see at about 8:30 here were etched in sharp relief in my five year old memory.
That was a different world age. The fare for the trip cost $592.10 in 1964 dollars - about $4500 today. But the memories are priceless, from a world long gone. A world that had its own music, now long gone as well.
Of course, I wouldn't want to go back to that as my only transportation choice. Instead of two days from Chicago to San Francisco, I can now get a Jet to take me there in 4 hours. Instead of $4,800, I can go for around $400. But there's still something lost, something finer than the flying bus of today.
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| Image from the Northern Pacific Cookbook. |
Nothing could be finer. Cheaper, yes. But not finer.
Choo Choo Ch'Boogie
There are just too many great songs about trains - they are caught up in the musical history of this nation as perhaps nothing else. And so offered for your approval, more trains:
Little Richard - Rock Island Line
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| Image via Wikipwedia |
The first effective land transport was steam trains. Suddenly, people and freight could move where they wanted, when they wanted, faster than the wind or waves would carry them. The Iron Horse gave the world freedom from geography. It was a bright line divider - before was a static population, effectively bound to the land; after was the lure of the Open Spaces. Go west, young man.
This runs deep in the Western spirit, and so music has picked this up and lovingly preserved it long past the days when passenger rail is all but dead. The songs have an excitement to them, one that lets us imagine life on a Kansas farm. Holding up the plow team to watch the train go past. The Rock Island Line is one of the storied railroads of this land, old enough that Abraham Lincoln acted as legal counsel to them in a lawsuit.
And storied enough to have one of the great old songs written for it. Pretty much everyone has covered this one. Here's Little Richard, who pours on extra coal and opens all the valves.
Rock Island Line (Songwriter: Kelly Pace)
The Rock Island Line it's a mighty good road
The Rock Island Line it’s a road to ride
The Rock island Line it’s a mighty good road
If you want to ride it got to ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line.
Oh cloudy in the west and it looked like rain.
Around the curve come a passenger train,
North bound train on the south bound track.
He did alright leaving but he won’t be back.
Whe Rock Island Line it's a mighty good roadThe railroad has been passed by, at least for passenger traffic. Short trips are handled more conveniently and less expensively by automobiles. Longer trips are handled faster and less expensively by plane. The railroads are doing a booming business, on freight - but on freight alone.
The Rock Island Line it’s a road to ride
The Rock island Line it’s a mighty good road
If you want to ride it got to ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line.
Oh I may be right and I may be wrong
But you gonna miss me when I’m gone.
The engineer said before he died
Tthere where 2 more drinks that he’d like to try
Conductor said "what could they be"
A hot cup of coffee and a cold glass of tea.
he Rock Island Line it's a mighty good road
The Rock Island Line it’s a road to ride
The Rock island Line it’s a mighty good road
If you want to ride it got to ride it like you find it
Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line.
But the distant whistle still stirs the wanderlust, and not just in the souls of Progressives. I don't want to have to pay for the boondoggle that is high speed rail or mass transit light rail, but the romance is still there. Just look at the songs. You don't get songs like this for airplanes.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Best video game mashup EVER
It only starts with the cute Kinectimal kittens ...
You might want to turn the speakers down on this one. Via #2 Son.
You might want to turn the speakers down on this one. Via #2 Son.
Learn slang fast!
With flash cards!
They also have Corporate ones, so you can be all corporatey and everything. I wonder if they have one for "Alignment"?
Via #1 Son.
Via #1 Son.
I'm sorry, we don't serve your kind here.
No politicians allowed in the Diner. Or reporters. I'm sorry, that's the policy; I'm afraid that there's nothing I can do about it.
If you're not reading Northern Blog every day, you're missing out.
If you're not reading Northern Blog every day, you're missing out.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
That's the worst unexpected sinking since the Titanic
Sund00d proposed to his sweetheart on the Jumbotron. Perhaps like the UCLA Bruins, he had more optimism than was called for.
If you think my blogging is a bit off, it's because this is the sort of thing that 2cents used to email to me. Now it's on his blog, so I have to do the work myself. Oh, bother.
If you think my blogging is a bit off, it's because this is the sort of thing that 2cents used to email to me. Now it's on his blog, so I have to do the work myself. Oh, bother.
Culture War
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| (Image source) |
During the drive back to FOB Borepatch, I had a lot of time to think. Just what is it that's most important about this election? What is it that's "must have", and what is it that's "nice to have"? What will make or break the next two decades? After all, Napoleon said that on any battlefield is a single decisive point. Anything that happens there is everything; anything that happens elsewhere is nothing. So what's the single point of decision on this electoral battlefield?
I think that it's the clash between two views. One side has been ascendant for decades, with a brief intermission during Ronald Reagan's first term. This side believes that experts should run things, that experts should make decisions, and that the population is too dim witted to be allowed much in the way of independent course of action. This takes the form of large government departments issuing vast reams of regulations, it takes the form of a "living" Constitution that means pretty much what the elite want, it takes the form of Congress passing hundreds of new felony laws each year, it takes the form of a large increase in the cost of government. Whether that is paid by you and me, or by our children, or by the "1%" is pretty much irrelevant to the overall world view. While individuals have their own preferences, the overall goal is centralization of power in the hands of a self-selected elite.
The other side is basically the traditional American philosophy of limited government, with enumerated powers granted by the People to the government. It's the American philosophy that was able to build the Empire State Building in 29 months and to build a two-ocean Navy and simultaneously beat the Nazi and Imperial Japanese supermen. It's the American philosophy that put a man on the moon and brought him home safely, all in the span of a decade. It's the American philosophy that did it not because it was easy, but because it was hard.
This is a conflict of world views, very much like the Cold War. Communism collapsed suddenly and completely, but for decades it looked like it might have been the side to bet on. The reason is that all the data that we could use to compare the performance of the West against the performance of the Warsaw Pact was cooked - by the commies. Reagan went very much against the conventional wisdom when he decided that we were going to win, and they were going to lose. Even the CIA thought that the USSR was the second or third most powerful economy. Reagan forced the issue, and the balloon popped, leaving the illegitimacy and incompetence of the system exposed for all to see.
So who will do this in 2012? Because that is the most important priority. The critical point on the battlefield is destroying the elite's image of competence, because without that, there's no justification for them to get more power. Everything else, while perhaps desirable, is irrelevant. So here's my scorecard for who's doing this right now.
Ron Paul
He's the most effective at this, so far. He may be crazy as a coot on foreign policy, he may be racist (unlikely) or incompetent (probably) with the newsletter thing, but he's by far the most effective in getting this message across: you should be the captain of your soul, not some self-important busybody. Even the apolitical #1 Son mentioned that he might vote for Ron. And quite frankly, there's no question whether Paul would slash the size and power of government. That clarity, in fact, is his biggest asset.
Newt Gingrich
Newt comes with a lot of baggage, part of which is a tendency to become a bit professorial. Not a surprise, as he was a professor, but we can be forgiven for being a little leery of another Professor-in-Chief. However, Newt understands that the battle is our world view vs. theirs. I've posted before on the ideas which cut through the elite vision, but this is a simply outstanding (if long) recitation on the Second Amendment's proper role in America's history, and of the respective roles of the citizen and the political elite. It's worth watching in full:
There is no question where he stands on this issue. There's no question as to whether he can flay the muscle from the bone of the elite world view of ever more centralized control.
Rick Perry
I expect that he understands the American vision. I'm not convinced that he can articulate it, or do more than delay the elite's power grabs until Europe is done collapsing. At that point, their world view takes a substantial - but perhaps not fatal - hit. In short, it's not clear that Perry is the right candidate to crush the elite's philosophy, and this is the point of decision.
Rick Santorum
Not going anywhere, despite his Iowa win/almost-win. He sold his platform with retail politics, going to thousands of meetings in 99 counties in Iowa over six months. He simply cannot do anything like that in the two weeks before New Hampshire, and then the next two until South Carolina.
He's a footnote, whether this is fair or not.
Whoever else
Whatever. Stick a fork in them.
Mitt Romney
Notice what Romney does not bring to his campaign? Anything that would undermine the mirage of elite competence. He is the elite, it's part of his image. While he likely would do less harm than Obama, he will leave the Elite Worldview entirely intact, and indeed will almost certainly aggressively expand its reach in some important ways.
Just as he did in Massachusetts with health care and the assault weapons ban.
Discussion
Both Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich have serious baggage to overcome. Perry less so, and Romney perhaps least of all (with the bulk of the electorate, at least). But this is not about tactical maneuvering, this is about crushing the opposition's ability to enact their agenda. Go back and watch the video of Newt on the Second Amendment, and listen to his last sentence. Paul would try to say that (and might succeed - although not so brilliantly), Perry would try (and very well might fail). Mitt wouldn't even try.
Multiply this by the other issues that all revolve around the way to share power between individuals or the elite, and you'll see the same thing: Ron Paul and Newt being the only ones forcefully attacking the very foundation of the elite's self image - not as just being wrong, but Reagan-like, attacking it as illegitimate. As being unworthy of a great nation.
On every battlefield is a single decisive point, and moment, when the enemy will be met and can be overthrown. Fear must be cast aside, and all possible force committed there and then, regardless of the cost elsewhere. Our enemy bases all on his sense of intellectual and moral superiority. That is the battle, to discredit that. Our advantage is that they are incompetent and arrogant, and have given many obvious examples of how they are unfit to rule over us.
That is the battle. That is what we must win, or we face the long, slow twilight of extinction, as an increasingly powerful elite drives us into subservience. Their smug but fragile egos must be crushed, utterly.
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| (Image source) |
And who knows? Maybe Paul or Newt might win. But the battle is over this: individual power, or elite control. We faced down the Soviet Bear, at the cost of blood and treasure. Before that, we sent millions of G.I. across two oceans and darkened the sky with our air fleets. Abraham Lincoln kept firing Generals until he found some that would fight. History tells us that America can be hurt, but if we stay true to our heritage, and like in days past simply refuse to give up, we will come out right side up.
We just need a General that sees the decisive point on the battle field, and who will fight.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Burial
Something happened 60,000 years ago in what is today known as Shanidar, Iraq. Someone died, and was buried by his friends or family.
It's the burial that was different. Before this, the dead were left to lie, exposed to the elements much like a dog pack might leave a deceased member. But this was different. Men buried one of their own, covering him with flowers in his grave.
This is considered to be the first fossil proof of when Man became Man. More than Beast. Aware of the infinite, and of our place therein. No longer Homo Erectus, but Homo Sapiens. Thinking Man.
Well, some of us. Alan Colmes is not just impolite, he's presumably not homo sapiens. He doesn't think, or he doesn't know about this basic idea that separates Man from the Beasts.
The fireworks begin at about 1:00. Alan Colmes is an ignorant asshat. He's since apologized to Santorum, but this doesn't change the fact that he's an ignorant asshat. It's a guarantee that Colmes has never for a second wondered if the Santorums buried their baby with flowers, like that man at Shanidar so very long ago.
R.I.P. Gabriel Santorum. May flights of Angels sing you to your rest.
Stay classy, lefties!
Hat tip: Mad Medic.
It's the burial that was different. Before this, the dead were left to lie, exposed to the elements much like a dog pack might leave a deceased member. But this was different. Men buried one of their own, covering him with flowers in his grave.
This is considered to be the first fossil proof of when Man became Man. More than Beast. Aware of the infinite, and of our place therein. No longer Homo Erectus, but Homo Sapiens. Thinking Man.
Well, some of us. Alan Colmes is not just impolite, he's presumably not homo sapiens. He doesn't think, or he doesn't know about this basic idea that separates Man from the Beasts.
The fireworks begin at about 1:00. Alan Colmes is an ignorant asshat. He's since apologized to Santorum, but this doesn't change the fact that he's an ignorant asshat. It's a guarantee that Colmes has never for a second wondered if the Santorums buried their baby with flowers, like that man at Shanidar so very long ago.
R.I.P. Gabriel Santorum. May flights of Angels sing you to your rest.
Stay classy, lefties!
Hat tip: Mad Medic.
Welcome back
Sitemeter tells me that everyone's back at work. I expect to see January economic data through the roof.
Top Ten songs on my iPod meme
I must confess that I don't often listen to my iPod. I use Linux, and you can only manage the iPod (well) via iTunes, and there's no iTunes for Linux. And so I'm stuck in the old geek joke:
The last 5 or 6 years haven't been particularly good. It's not the years, it's the miles - but a lot of those weren't paved. The music was all from this period. It's strange how the music selection can take you back in time. This one is a dull knife, sawing through my guts. Cool song, just the juxtaposition isn't very good for me:
This one, too:
And so I won't do this again for a while. CDs and FM Radio for me. The last few years have I think made me a harder - not a better, or a stronger - man. I find myself unwilling to once again pull the curtain back on those years. And the Top Ten?
I don't want to look. Sorry. Hope this year is better.
Infinite Loop. n. See Loop, infinite.As a result, everything on my iPod is old - probably 4 years old or more. Driving from Atlanta to Austin yesterday, I got sick of the commercials on radio, and so I put the iPod on. And was suddenly transported back in time to a not very good part of my life.
The last 5 or 6 years haven't been particularly good. It's not the years, it's the miles - but a lot of those weren't paved. The music was all from this period. It's strange how the music selection can take you back in time. This one is a dull knife, sawing through my guts. Cool song, just the juxtaposition isn't very good for me:
This one, too:
And so I won't do this again for a while. CDs and FM Radio for me. The last few years have I think made me a harder - not a better, or a stronger - man. I find myself unwilling to once again pull the curtain back on those years. And the Top Ten?
I don't want to look. Sorry. Hope this year is better.
From Newt's lips to God's ears
Newt: Mitt Romney is a liar:
Someone (other than me) needed to say this. I'm glad it's out there. Oh, and I like the way he deals with the CBS News' people on Obama as a risk to the country:
Win.
Video here (the good stuff starts around 3:04).
I blow hot and cold on Newt, but this captures precisely my problem with Mitt. He's a liar, he's poll-driven (You like that? I do too!), and he'll trim his sails to suit the Mastodon Stream Media - appointing squishy judges. And the expected Republican Congress won't stand up to him.
It's just like this pretense that he's a conservative. Here's a Massachusetts moderate who has tax-paid abortions in 'Romneycare,' puts Planned Parenthood in 'Romneycare,' raises hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes on businesses, appoints liberal judges to appease Democrats, and wants the rest of us to believe somehow he's magically a conservative.
I just think he ought to be honest with the American people and try to win as the real Mitt Romney, not try to invent a poll-driven, consultant-guided version that goes around with talking points, and I think he ought to be candid. I don't think he's being candid and that will be a major issue.
Someone (other than me) needed to say this. I'm glad it's out there. Oh, and I like the way he deals with the CBS News' people on Obama as a risk to the country:
If you don't think Barack Obama isn't a risk to this country, you can vote for him.
Win.
Video here (the good stuff starts around 3:04).
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
More on Intellectual Idiots
Norm Geras (a principled man of the Left) highlights an article that illustrates the casual, unthinking contempt that most "intellectuals" hold us in:
You might say that we're bitterly clinging to our respect for the military and the idea that sometimes you just have to fight. And that sometimes the world is a better place because you did.
I read a post on Comment is Free just before Christmas, and figured I'd leave it alone just then as I didn't want to do anything to interrupt the build-up towards peace and goodwill. The post is not of any great significance in any case, but I like it for the neat illustration it provides of a mindset in which, when it comes to issues of war and peace, the assumption is fixed in stone that there is only one viable point of view and that the writer is in possession of it and everyone else but the malign forces of government would share it with him were they not being duped by those malign forces.
...
Reading this piece, it isn't just that one might disagree with him on certain points - as I do. It's his self-contained certainty that there's nothing to weigh on the other side of the question, nothing at any rate that merits being registered in order to supply an answer to it. The guy doesn't mention that Britain first went into Afghanistan in response to the attacks of 9/11 and did so with considerable public support; that one consequence was the overthrow of Taliban rule in that country, which has had some benefits for its people; or (at the end) that sometimes going to war is justified and necessary. The whole thing is framed as if George Chesterton just knows the truth and everyone else would be with him in recognizing it had they not been mistaught and mischaperoned.
Newt Gingrich: slippery as an eel
Seems that it wasn't just sitting on the sofa with Nancy Pelosi:
So just what does Newt think about climate change, Cap and Trade, and government control over energy? We don't know, and it seems that Freedom Of Information Act requests regarding this are being stymied.
WASHINGTON — American Tradition Institute, a non-profit research institute dedicated to restoring science, liberty and accountability to the environmental debate, filed on Dec. 10 a Public Information Act request with Texas Tech University relating to collaboration on a book, using public time and resources, between “climate” activist Professor Katharine Hayhoe and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
Texas Tech was to produce responsive records by early last week. To date, ATI has not received a response.
...
Hayhoe, who preaches that human activity is destroying the climate and that Christian stewardship compels acceptance of the ‘climate’ agenda, had been publicly identified as a contributor to Gingrich’s forthcoming book “Environmental Entrepreneurs.” Hayhoe had gained notoriety for urging evangelical Christians into supporting the controversial, costly and according to all computer models, climatically meaningless ‘climate’ agenda. News outlets now report that Gingrich, under fire for his left-of-center views on the environment from presidential competitors and Tea Party activists, quickly deep-sixed Hayhoe’s chapter last week.
Monday, January 2, 2012
TJIC is back blogging, sort of
Not at his old blog, but food blogging at Foodie Douchebag. Lots of pictures and "how to", plus what looks like a useful (if non-scientific) metric:
The Moroccan recipes looked pretty good, though.
It is my habit to rate every recipe I cook, writing the date, grade, and notes directly into the cookbook.
My grading scheme:
Mourad’s bookbook is off to a good start.
- A – would definitely cook again
- B – has promise: adjusting my technique or following the recipe better might make this good enough to enter the permanent rotation
- C – meh. No intention of cooking again
- D, F – actively dislike this recipe
- chickpea spread: A
- roasted eggplant: A
- za’atar: A-
- flatbread: A
Android Scareware is here
Hey, who doesn't trust a dolphin? Well, if Flipper tells you that your Android phone is infected and he can clean it up for the low, low price of $50, he's blowing bubbles up your tail pipe:
None of the legitimate antivirus vendors do this. None. So anyone who does this can't be legit, right? Even if they're a dolphin.
Fake antivirus software, or "scareware" scams have been one of the tried and true methods that crooks have used to make illegal profits online in recent years. The scams often offer convincing replicas of legitimate anti malware software to trick users into installing malicious programs that can steal sensitive information or encrypt hard drives and extort money from the owner to decrypt the data.
Windows systems have been the target of choice for scareware scams. But now, with the explosion of mobile device use, Kaspersky Lab researcher Denis Maslennikov says that online scam artists have begun targeting users of Android mobile devices with similar offers of phony virus scans and bogus antivirus software. Writing on the Securelist blog, Maslennikov says that Web searches for popular mobile applications, such as the mobile version of the opera Web browser, have turned up scam Web sites offering "free" virus scans of mobile devices, including Android.
The man who wouldn't take "no" for an answer
The Republican primary is interesting, in that the supposed front runner (Mitt Romney) can't seem to break past 25% support in the polls. There have been a lot of challengers - Perry, Cain, Gingrich - and all have faded. When that happens, you'd expect Romney's support to tick up a couple points. After 3 or 4 times, he should have picked up 10-15% more support. So where is he?
This is really bad news for the GOP establishment. While Romney seems competent in fighting off challengers (over and over again), he doesn't seem to be gaining any support from this. All the talk of "inevitability" sure doesn't help him much.
Yeah, yeah - it's just Iowa, small state, who cares. Repeat that for New Hampshire, because a lot of Romney's support there is nothing more than name recognition from his time as Massachusetts Governor.
My take is that Republican voters do not like him much, even if he won't take "no" for an answer. This will be a long, long slog, and candidate endorsements will be significant if and when they happen.
The Des Moines Register poll, in an unusual announcement, revealed that Santorum was much stronger in interviews that were conducted on the final two days of the four-day survey period than in the first two days. Santorum placed second to Romney in that later period. The overall results were Romney at 24%, Paul at 22%, and Santorum at 15%. But in the final two days, Romney was at 24%, Paul was down to 18%, and Santorum was at 21%.Romney is Mr. Twenty-Five Percent.
This is really bad news for the GOP establishment. While Romney seems competent in fighting off challengers (over and over again), he doesn't seem to be gaining any support from this. All the talk of "inevitability" sure doesn't help him much.
Yeah, yeah - it's just Iowa, small state, who cares. Repeat that for New Hampshire, because a lot of Romney's support there is nothing more than name recognition from his time as Massachusetts Governor.
My take is that Republican voters do not like him much, even if he won't take "no" for an answer. This will be a long, long slog, and candidate endorsements will be significant if and when they happen.
Still home
Glad my butt isn't in the Jeep right now. Matter of fact, I expect I'm in bed (scheduled this post last night).
Not a good day to drive, so I'm enjoying the day off, and the family time.
Not a good day to drive, so I'm enjoying the day off, and the family time.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
It sure has been nice being home
Sure stinks packing to leave again.
The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.
- Thomas Jefferson
The honesty of anti-intellectualism
Eric Raymond has a post that breaks down the different varieties of anti-intellectualism:
And yet during this decline, Progressive Intellectuals' self-regard has only increased, their plans for reshaping society (with themselves at the top) have only become more grandiose, and their distaste for argument has become absolute. And that's the rub.
As they've taken over the Press, Hollywood, the University, they've been increasingly able to prohibit increasing types of opposition argument. Campus speech codes, the MSM narrative black hole (compare and contrast: coverage of the Tea Party and coverage of the Occupy movement). Dissent from their program is not allowed, and is met with withering contempt. They consider it not just wrong, but illegitimate.
And this really is the mother lode vein running through their philosophy. Their reaction may be paternalistic, as in Obama's bitter/clinger remark or Frank's What's the matter with Kansas, or it may be naked contempt - anything to do with Sarah Palin or George W. Bush. But at the heart, it's the same instinct.
It's been like this for a long, long time, but has gotten very blatant over the last 25 years (say, since Ronald Reagan). If you don't agree with them, you're stupid, or ignorant, or misguided, or suffer from false class consciousness. Or something - anything to avoid actually listening to your ideas and fearlessly debating them the way that a true intellectual would.
Raymond, of course, sticks the knife in:
And yet the contempt of that intelligentsia is turned on us, because we dare to stare dumbfounded at the ruin of their hothouse philosophy. It doesn't matter which of Raymond's types of anti-intellectual you are, you can feel the contempt they have for you.
That's the source of our returned contempt. The differences are merely one of form; the motivation is the same. As a generation of intellectual ankle-biters turn their scorn on the American public, it's not at all surprising to see that scorn returned, with interest. And at least the anti-intellectual sentiment has decently strong arguments on its side - arguments unafraid to clash in the rough and tumble arena of ideas.
... the intelligentsia has displayed a consistent political pattern over the last 150 years: believing in its own intellectual and moral superiority, it has sought a leading role in politics, promoting a vision of itself as benign philosopher-kings who can steer society to virtue, equality, and fulfillment.The whole post is very interesting, and the only thing that I would add is that the source of all the types of anti-intellectualism spring from the same source. Progressive intellectualism has been in decline for at least fifty years, and has become so degraded that there are no longer any first rate Progressive Intellectuals (such as John Kenneth Galbraith) - or even second rate intellectuals like Pat Moynahan. Instead, we're left with dregs like Thomas Friedman and Thomas "What's the matter with Kansas" Frank.
And yet during this decline, Progressive Intellectuals' self-regard has only increased, their plans for reshaping society (with themselves at the top) have only become more grandiose, and their distaste for argument has become absolute. And that's the rub.
As they've taken over the Press, Hollywood, the University, they've been increasingly able to prohibit increasing types of opposition argument. Campus speech codes, the MSM narrative black hole (compare and contrast: coverage of the Tea Party and coverage of the Occupy movement). Dissent from their program is not allowed, and is met with withering contempt. They consider it not just wrong, but illegitimate.
And this really is the mother lode vein running through their philosophy. Their reaction may be paternalistic, as in Obama's bitter/clinger remark or Frank's What's the matter with Kansas, or it may be naked contempt - anything to do with Sarah Palin or George W. Bush. But at the heart, it's the same instinct.
It's been like this for a long, long time, but has gotten very blatant over the last 25 years (say, since Ronald Reagan). If you don't agree with them, you're stupid, or ignorant, or misguided, or suffer from false class consciousness. Or something - anything to avoid actually listening to your ideas and fearlessly debating them the way that a true intellectual would.
Raymond, of course, sticks the knife in:
Of course the intelligentsia, sensing this, caricatures the opposition as yokels, know-nothings, and reactionaries. But the uncomfortable questions won’t go away. If you’re so bright, why the constant sucking up to dictators? If you’re so bright, why are modern art and literature such a depressing wasteland? If you’re so bright, why do so many of your grand social-engineering schemes end in corruption and tears?The Progressive Intellectual movement used to be more self aware, and self critical. It used to do a much better job of policing it own, of slapping down silliness like North Korea not starving its population (seems that's "not documented", or something), or how Vaclav Havel was worse than a Stalinist hack. The drivel that comes out of the degraded Progressive Intelligentsia these days is simply stunning in its childishness.
And yet the contempt of that intelligentsia is turned on us, because we dare to stare dumbfounded at the ruin of their hothouse philosophy. It doesn't matter which of Raymond's types of anti-intellectual you are, you can feel the contempt they have for you.
That's the source of our returned contempt. The differences are merely one of form; the motivation is the same. As a generation of intellectual ankle-biters turn their scorn on the American public, it's not at all surprising to see that scorn returned, with interest. And at least the anti-intellectual sentiment has decently strong arguments on its side - arguments unafraid to clash in the rough and tumble arena of ideas.
Athénaios AthenaÃou - First Delphic Hymn to Apollo
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| Image via Wikipedia |
The tablets were discovered in 1893 embedded in a wall, used as construction material some time after they were originally inscribed (a rather common ancient form of recycling). Both vocal and instrumental parts are inscribed separately, and pitch and duration of the notes is given. The composer's name translates roughly as "Athenios son of Athenios", and it's believed that he wrote this for the Pythian Games - a religious festival held every 10 years, accompanied by Olympic-style games.
I just thought this was cool. It's sort of music from another planet.
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