The Scratching Post

In A Funk

2012-01-27T11:51:00.000-08:00

I've been in a funk lately, at home, at work and everywhere else. I don't feel like doing much of anything. I don't know about you, but when I accomplish some major goal, I fall back into a torpor until something excites me again. For about two years, my driving purpose was helping my daughter do well in school and make the high school soccer team. I spent lots of time, money and thought on this and now that it's paid off, all I want to do is lay around and watch English Premier League soccer.

Like this.
Do successes make you funkadelic?

Mitt Romney Is Driving Me Out Of The Republican Party

2012-01-27T07:25:00.000-08:00

I've been a Republican for more than 30 years. I dutifully supported Bob Dole and John McCain. My car sports a Fred Thompson bumper sticker, hence the moniker, the FredMobile.

I'm on the verge of leaving the party because of Mitt Romney.

It's not just that I find the fellow to be loathsome in the extreme and wonder what he's up to with his presidential obsession, it's that the entire Republican establishment has told me I need to support him. Why? If he was the second coming of Barry Goldwater, I'd understand it. He's not. He's a hyper-wealthy weasel with no core values who simultaneously puts on a cloak of piety and runs a vicious and dirty campaign.

The grand poobahs in the Republican Party could have stayed neutral. There was nothing forcing them to support a candidate. They knew Mitt was disliked by many and yet they all decided to rally around him. Again, he's not a principled conservative like Goldwater, he's just a standard-issue politician. What's behind all of this?

I don't know and it creeps me out. There's a better than even chance that I'll be writing a "Why I Left The Republican Party" post in the near future.

I hope he was worth it for them.

The Next Generation Of Police Helicopter

2012-01-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

Give this guy some decent sensors and you can forget about escaping the crime scene on foot unless you can get into a building. Give it a spray paint gun, it could tag you like an exploding dye pack in a bag of bank cash.

I Don't Even Have A Bubble

2012-01-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

How Thick Is Your Bubble?

Guest

Score » 13 out of 20 (65% )
Result

On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 13 and 16.

In other words, you don't even have a bubble.

Quiz School

Take this quiz & get your score

How Thick Is Your Bubble? » Free Online Quizzes

Why Gridlock Is Not The Answer

2012-01-26T06:16:00.001-08:00

It's often said that people like gridlock in Washington because it prevents the government from doing anything dangerously big. I'd like to suggest that over time, gridlock leads to decline.

Why can't we build interstate highways any more? Why does high speed rail cost so much? Why have there been no nuclear power plants built in decades? Government regulations.

Regulations accrete upon the nation like barnacles on a ship's hull. Every year new laws are passed that govern every aspect of our lives from the food we eat to the contracts we sign to the way in which the government is allowed to spend money. Each regulation is tiny in and of itself, but taken as a whole, they act to make it harder and harder to accomplish anything. Each year you get less output for the same money.

While gridlock will slow down the creation of new monstrosities like Obamacare or Dodd-Frank, it will do nothing to eliminate the growing mountain of regulations.

Full speed ahead!
Image source.

"She Might Sleep More Than Usual"

2012-01-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

Our Maximum Leader is getting up there in years and she recently developed arthritis in her right front elbow. From time to time it gives her problems and she'll limp. I took her to the vet and they gave her some joint medicine and some painkillers. They said the painkillers might make her sleep a little more than usual.

How am I supposed to be able to tell?

Cheezburger Of The Day

2012-01-24T16:37:00.001-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

The Origin And Nature Of The Tea Party

2012-01-24T11:04:00.000-08:00

... is well-captured at The Temple of Mut. It's worth a read.

Because They're Fascists

2012-01-24T05:37:00.000-08:00

... is the only answer I can come up with when I wonder what in the world Obama and his crew were thinking when they decided they would force everyone to cover contraception, sterilization, etc. on their employee health plans regardless of their moral positions on the topic.

Seriously, are these things that big of a financial burden? Is there some sob story out there about a young family who lost their home and now lives in a cardboard box because they couldn't afford a diaphragm? Did I miss that one on 60 Minutes or PBS?

Our Monastery of Miscellaneous Musings and B-Daddy over at The Liberator Today have covered the freedom aspect of this quite well. Let's turn that on its head and try to figure out the rationale behind the new law.

Like I said above, there's no financial reason for it. There's no access reason for it, either. It's not like contraception isn't available down to the point where you can buy it in vending machines in the bathrooms at bars. It's not that there's insufficient education about the topic - they no longer read Charles Dickens, but our kids know all about condoms and the pill.

So what is it?

Jonah Goldberg, in his book, Liberal Fascism, suggests that fascism is a worship of the state, a secular religion with all the attendant moral architecture that suggests. That's the only explanation I can come up with for what Obama and Katherine Sibelius have done. They believe that contraception should be free and instantly available to everyone at all times.

I am the State, thy god, and thou shalt have no other gods before me.
What did you expect from someone who is fine with allowing babies who survive abortions to die of exposure?

Is This Common?

2012-01-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

How often does the head of the International Monetary Fund warn of a global depression?

The global economy faces a depression-era collapse in demand if Europe doesn't quickly act to dramatically boost the size of its debt-crisis firewall, implement pro-growth policies and further integrate the euro zone, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned Monday.

"It is about avoiding a 1930s moment, in which inaction, insularity, and rigid ideology combine to cause a collapse in global demand," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said in prepared remarks before the German Council of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. "A moment, ultimately, leading to a downward spiral that could engulf the entire world," she said.

Christine, unfortunately, still doesn't quite get it. There's no money out there to hand to the IMF. We'd have to print it. She's not calling for immediate and drastic privatization of government entities, either. She's still clinging to the statist model.

Oh well. Give her time.

If Italy Is In Trouble Then England Is Totally Hosed

2012-01-23T05:40:00.001-08:00

Eternal sunny optimist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard points out some depressing facts about England's debt situation. Here's a tiny bit of what he has to say with the rest at that link quite worth a short read.

Over the last couple of years, while America's private institutions have been deleveraging (while the state has completely lost its mind), British entities, both public and private, have continue to borrow like mad until they are now in the same fiscal position as utterly doomed Japan.

Luckily, the English have all that lovely civilized culture to fall back on when the money finally runs out and the socialist paradise the Labor Party tried to create inevitably crashes into smoking ruin.

Oops. Britain and the Church of England abandoned their core moral principles in favor of relativism. Looks like they might be in for a wee bit of trouble.

Sunday In The Cat-thedral

2012-01-22T13:39:00.000-08:00

Tweet of the Week

2012-01-22T09:31:00.000-08:00

... borrowed from Legal Insurrection.

It's Over When Chuck Norris Says It's Over

2012-01-22T05:57:00.000-08:00

It's over.

For my wife, Gena, and I, we sincerely believe former Speaker Newt Gingrich is the answer to most of those questions and deserves our endorsement and vote.

We agree with our friend and governor of the great state of Texas, Rick Perry, when he suspended his campaign and endorsed Gingrich, that Newt “has the heart of a conservative reformer.” We believe Newt’s experience, leadership, knowledge, wisdom, faith and even humility to learn from his failures (personal and public) can return America to her glory days. And he is the best man left on the battlefield who is able to outwit, outplay and outlast Obama and his campaign machine.

Link Of The Day

2012-01-21T10:27:00.000-08:00

Charles Murray, a longtime favorite of mine, penned a piece in the WSJ discussing the cultural divide in America. It's a wonderful essay, bull of great stuff. Part of it deals with how America's elite are becoming increasingly isolated from the rest of the country.

And the isolation is only going to get worse. Increasingly, the people who run the country were born into that world. Unlike the typical member of the elite in 1960, they have never known anything but the new upper-class culture. We are now seeing more and more third-generation members of the elite. Not even their grandparents have been able to give them a window into life in the rest of America.

Read the whole thing. It's worth every minute.

Update: Our Monastery of Miscellaneous Musings has a perfect post to go along with Charles Murray's essay.

Rednecks Are Stupid

2012-01-20T11:50:00.000-08:00

... you can tell this because they can't handle their finances.

State	S&P's State Bond Rating
Florida	AAA
Georgia	AAA
North Carolina	AAA
Virginia	AAA
South Carolina	AA+
Tennessee	AA+
Texas	AA+
Alabama	AA
Arkansas	AA
Mississippi	AA
Louisiana	AA-
California	A

Greece Answers The Bain Layoff Questions

2012-01-20T05:50:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney's been routinely castigated for his brain-dead comment, "I like to fire people." It's been used as a clear example of how corporate tycoons destroy jobs without regards for the people involved. Romney, a horrific campaigner who can't manage to turn massive advantages into victory, is missing out on the best defense of his time at Bain.

When it comes to indiscriminate, heartless behavior, no one beats the government.

The BBC video on the rise of homelessness in Greece is not embeddable and I know many of you don't like to click on links, but I highly recommend clicking over there and watching it.

Defenders of capitalism want to talk about "creative destruction" and other esoteric concepts to ward off accusations that businesses lack compassion, but they're missing the bigger point. Without capitalism, government has nothing to hand out. In the end, after you've killed off big business, big profits, the rich and whoever else you envy, you're left with total poverty.

Barack Obama, more than anyone else, loves to fire people. And he's so completely clueless that he doesn't even know he's doing it.

I Guess We Should Walk To The Sundance Film Festival This Year

2012-01-19T15:26:00.000-08:00

... here's my path and it will only take me 10 days, 17 hours:

View Larger Map

Genius economist and chemist Robert Redford, who occasionally stars in utterly predictable and ponderous movies, is letting us know how happy we should all be that Canada will be shipping it's oil to ecologically conscious, non-profit China instead of the rapacious and filthy US.

President Obama has just rejected a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- a project that promised riches for the oil giants and an environmental disaster for the rest of us.

His decision represents a victory of historic proportions for people from throughout the pipeline path and all across America who have waged an uphill, years-long fight against one of the most nightmarish fossil fuel projects of our time.

While his movies are almost always indigestible pieces of leftist propaganda trash, Mr. Redford is universally considered a serious player in the world of biology, petroleum engineering and corporate finance.

Thanks for sharing your views, Robert! I can't wait to hear what you have to say about space travel!

Watch This In A Sound Proof Room

2012-01-19T11:19:00.001-08:00

Why Can't Every Play Be This Exciting?

2012-01-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

Cheezburger of the Day

2012-01-18T09:44:00.001-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

What They Need Is A Magician

2012-01-18T05:40:00.000-08:00

... to pull $600B out of his hat.

BRUSSELS—The International Monetary Fund has identified a need for $600 billion in additional resources to help fight the European debt crisis, a euro-zone official said Wednesday.

Umm, who's got $600B laying around to hand to the IMF?

The rabbit is worth $5. We just need to pull out 120 billion more rabbits.
Image from Fiery Darts.

Because You Needed To See This

2012-01-17T18:36:00.000-08:00

Go Patriots!

2012-01-17T11:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, with great sadness, I stored my New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers sweatshirts and t-shirts until next season. The forces of darkness and evil now reign supreme in the NFC. Like Godzilla and Mothra fighting over Tokyo, each more hideous and destructive than the other, the Giants and Niners will play for the chance to go to the Super Bowl. There, as any moral and decent person must surely hope, they will be utterly obliterated by the Patriots.

Surely no thinking person would have hoped at the beginning of the season that New England would get another trophy, but in these dark times one must find whatever comfort one can in the humiliation of inhuman creatures who are nothing but pure evil.

Let bloody vengeance take its final course.

What's The Payoff Behind Taking Down A Banner With A Prayer?

2012-01-17T06:10:00.001-08:00

Catholic polemicist Egnorance has posted a couple of times about a judge's decision to remove a small poster with a prayer on it at Cranston High School West in Rhode Island. The prayer had been there since the 1960s. A current Cranston student got the ACLU involved and they sued to have it removed.

What was the point?

I've got lots of things I like to do. Photography, cooking, blogging, soccer, old cars, gardening and so forth. Anything that competes for time had better have a pretty serious payoff if it's going to take me away from watching a Newcastle game or making Lambsicles.

What's the cost-benefits calculation that goes on when you decide to engage in a court case to make sure a tiny poster gets covered? In exchange for hundreds of hours of free time eaten up in meetings with lawyers and writing depositions and court hearings, you get ... what?

Here's an interview with the Cranston High student who wrote the prayer back in 1963. The prayer is pretty innocuous and reads as follows:

"Our Heavenly Father, grant us each day the desire to do our best to grow mentally and morally as well as physically, to be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers, to be honest with ourselves as well as with others. Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win. Teach us the value of true friendship. Help us always to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School West. Amen."

The judge claimed that the plaintiff suffered tangible harm from the existence of the prayer. How did that manifest itself? Tremors? Cold sweats? Fits? My first thought upon hearing that someone suffered tangible harm from seeing that prayer in a public place is that they needed professional help. If that's going to set them off, then who knows what else if going to cause them to suffer. Seriously, you have to feel compassion for someone who needs to world so utterly sanitized in order to keep them from suffering tangible harm.

I've been sincerely trying to understand the motives at work here, but the only response I've gotten is an Obsessive-Compulsive one - all laws must be enforced and there are laws against this. I don't buy that at all as one can see unenforced laws all around us every day. I know it's not charitable, but the most likely motive I can think of is hatred of religion.

Link Of The Day

2012-01-16T14:46:00.000-08:00

Woof.

Just Because The ECB Can't Print Money To Buy Government Bonds, It Doesn't Mean The ECB Can't Print Money To Buy Government Bonds

2012-01-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

Italy was in trouble. Big trouble. No one wanted to buy its debt any more. 2-year bond prices had spiked to more than 7%, a completely unmanageable level. Thanks to the glories of secular socialism, Italy has an aging population and noncompetitive industries. Italy was going bankrupt in a hurry and there was only one player left who had the ability and motive to buy their bonds. The European Central Bank (ECB).

When a central bank buys government bonds, it is printing money and handing it to the government to spend.

See also: Zimbabwe, economic collapse of.
A central bank acting as lender of last resort is the clearest possible signal that the country is fiscally doomed. In the case of Italy, a fiscal collapse would wreak untold havoc on the European banks who hold hundreds of billions of Euros of increasingly worthless government debt. Run by clever people, the ECB found a (temporary) way around the problem. They printed gobs of Euros and loaned them to banks at 1%. After that, it was up to the banks to do something with the cash, wink wink.

Indeed, the problems are too far-reaching to be solved with a single measure from the bank's bag of tricks. But for all intents and purposes, the ECB's new strategy is just that -- a trick. By flooding the banks with cheap money, it is artificially generating demand for sovereign bonds. In doing so, it can also cut back on its own bond purchases, which have also been highly controversial within the bank itself.

For the banks, it's a fantastic deal. They can borrow money from the ECB for three years at the prime interest rate, which currently stands at 1 percent. If they used that money, say, to buy Italian bonds last Friday, they would get the much higher interest rate of 4.83 percent. Then they could turn around and deposit these bonds at the ECB as security, and borrow even more money at 1 percent.

This new ECB strategy would appear to benefit all the major players: the banks, the cash-strapped countries and the ECB itself. But it has also triggered worries that Draghi has merely created a kind of financial perpetual-motion machine. In any case, the strategy does nothing to alter the fact that the institution ultimately bearing the risks is still the ECB -- and, with it, the taxpayers.

Here's the plan in graphical form:

And thus, the ECB printed money to buy government bonds. The day was saved! Europe could go back to drinking little cups of coffee at outdoor cafes. Yay!

In a future post, we'll discuss why the banks ended up as suckers in this deal.

Cheezburger Of The Day

2012-01-16T05:49:00.000-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Just Because

2012-01-15T15:21:00.000-08:00

I left it big so you can click on the image and see the crashing wave in all its glory.

In The Future, You Won't Be Able To Sell Dogs

2012-01-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

... so get rid of them now.

Dig this. Angela Merkel is now saying she would consider measures to prevent large institutions from selling government bonds after a downgrade. That is, if you bought Italian debt in 2009 and it gets downgraded in 2013, you're stuck with it. Once you've loaned them money, they can spend it any way they want and you, manacled to those bonds, can only look on in horror as your investments fall apart.

Only a complete idiot would by European government bonds now. The real question is: Who will start dumping their bond holdings immediately?

When The Bottom Drops Out

2012-01-15T08:09:00.001-08:00

... finding a new lower limit to behavior becomes problematic.

Of all of the events of 2011, the London Riots had the biggest effect on me. This interview in particular was shocking as it ripped the veil off of the popular culture in England.

Related: Here are the lyrics from the #1 rap song as of right now.

The secular world has no answer to either of these. You cannot argue with either the two drunk British chicks or Jay-Z that what they are doing is wrong because it's working out just fine for them and who are you to tell them different? We've questioned and attacked moral authority until it has vanished from large parts of society. It's been replaced with nothing.

All the laws and police and social spending in the world can't save you from yourself.

The Momma Daisy Adventure Playset

2012-01-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

Momma and Daughter Daisy (and the new Granddaughter Daisy™) have been being nibbled by some creature. It could be birds, snails or caterpillars, but it's more likely grasshoppers. Their leaves have been shredded and I've cast about for some means of protecting my precious children.

Enter the Momma Daisy Adventure Playset*!

It assembled in minutes and at 2'x2'x2', it houses two large pots, one medium pot and one smaller pot.

I'll let you know how things go.

* - Actually, it's called a Flower House FHPH120 PlantHouse 2 Pop-Up Plant House, but I like my title better.

Something The Italians Did Not Need

2012-01-14T07:23:00.000-08:00

An Italian luxury cruise ship ran aground and sank yesterday, killing at least 3. After getting their debt downgraded, this put a cap on a pretty hideous day for Italy.

Say a few prayers for the folks involved, OK?

Learning Spanish

2012-01-13T15:07:00.001-08:00

My daughter is taking Spanish in high school. She has always struggled with the subject. We noodled about for a bit and thought, "How do Mexican kids learn Spanish?" Well, one of the ways they do it is by reading children's books*. We went to our local library and found plenty of beginning books in Spanish.

One book was about a little girl who was trying to train her dog, Paco, to do tricks. As one might expect, trying to teach the dog was an exasperating chore.

Paco is ordered to jump through a hoop.

Paco eats the hoop. Sounds like the Catican Guards, if you ask me**.
Reading these books has been easy and fun for my daughter. It's been quite educational, too. They're helping her learn about dogs as well as Spanish.

* - I've heard elsewhere that one of the reasons some adults have a hard time with foreign languages is that they don't expect to come at it like a child - little words and little concepts first. They expect to talk like an adult right off the bat.

** - We love the Guards dearly, but let's face it, they're not cats.

A Little More On Romney

2012-01-13T07:17:00.000-08:00

It just blows me away that the Republicans are about to nominate a Wall Street tycoon. Is it possible to be more tone-deaf?

Bonus question: Anyone want to put up an over-under on Romney and the Hispanic vote?

Wow.

2012-01-12T11:08:00.001-08:00

Just wow.

Concept Camera: The WVIL from Artefact on Vimeo.

Another Sunset Cliffs Sunset

2012-01-12T06:17:00.000-08:00

A friend took this shot and I'm borrowing it from her Facebook page. I love it.

My Take On The Glorious Romney Victory In New Hampshire

2012-01-11T05:50:00.001-08:00

Meh.

Unicredit, Italy's largest bank, is in trouble, in part because it loaned money to governments who spent it without return. There is massive capital outflow from Greece and all across Europe, the social programs that people have relied on, rightly or wrongly, are being slashed. Stories of human suffering from these budget cuts are only just starting. The Euros spent too much, borrowed too much and promised too much.

So did we. The same thing is coming to America. Johnson's Great Society, Bush's Compassionate Conservatism and Obama's infantile concept of the role of government were lies built upon borrowing future spending to feel good about ourselves today. It's all coming to an end.

The next president is going to have to put a stop to major social spending programs. He's going to have to say "No" quite a lot. Because big-government supporters spent the money we could have used to take care of the truly needy, there are going to be a lot of truly needy people out there who will truly start needing very soon. The next president is going to lead during a time of austerity.

Right now, our choice looks to be between a complete idiot who can't tell a freight train is about to hit him and this guy:

Here's someone who can relate to the common man and explain why Medicare is being slashed.
Romney / Obama is a recipe for societal conflict.

Link Of The Day

2012-01-10T12:29:00.001-08:00

A 3D, virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel. Awesomeness squared!

Cheezburger Of The Day

2012-01-10T09:01:00.001-08:00

Point Loma Street

2012-01-09T21:00:00.000-08:00

I love this view from the crest of Point Loma, looking down one of the streets that lead to Ocean Beach and the Pacific. I left the image particularly large so you could enjoy the scene. It's worth a click.

Uh Oh

2012-01-09T08:27:00.000-08:00

Italy's largest bank is Unicredit. As you read this, think of BofA here in the US to get a sense of scale.

Unicredit is in serious trouble. It's way undercapitalized. That is, it doesn't have enough money to cover the proper percentage of deposits. I've done a little research this morning, but I've not been able to uncover the source of their losses, although some articles are pointing at government bonds as the problem. Here's the key tidbit from the WaPo story linked above.

Banks are an integral part of Europe’s debt crisis because they hold government bonds. A default or steep fall in the value of government bonds could inflict heavy losses on banks and choke off credit to the European economy. That’s why the regulatory authorities want Europe’s banks to raise their buffers by $115 billion (149 billion) over the next few months.

This isn't the greedy corporations screwing us all or the banksters stabbing us in the back or even the work of ruthless speculators. This is government borrowing wrecking the country's financial system.

This video is a bit dry, but the payoff for me is at 0:50. Speculation on my part: Selling off assets means selling off loans. The only loans anyone will want to buy will be commerical ones, not government bonds. This will add to the total of commercial loans out there on the market making it harder for businesses to borrow money. This is, quite literally, government borrowing squeezing out the private sector.

I Love This Ad

2012-01-08T16:24:00.000-08:00

Suggestion For A New Creature Movie

2012-01-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

Vampires, werewolves and zombies. Snore city.

Chicks in black spandex jumpsuits flinging ninja stars and firing guns that cause massive explosions. Boring.

Sultry teenage boys glowering. It's so passé.

We need a new kind of creature. One that's unexpected, one that doesn't follow convention, one that is totally unpredictable and wild*.

We need a movie series about Weresloths.

Can't you see it now? Terse, cliche-ridden dialogue ... moments of total panic ... ominous music ... yawning. Sort of like this, only with more dark, brooding teens.

* - Well, maybe not wild. More unexpected.

What The End Of The Progressive Dream Looks Like

2012-01-08T08:16:00.000-08:00

(Some of) The Greeks are starting to get it. In a commentary looking forward into 2012 at ekathimerini.com, is this paragraph.

Above all, our citizens were betrayed by the sense of security that had been cultivated for decades -- that they need not worry, that when the time came, the state would come to the rescue. Even as we discovered repeatedly that this was an illusion -- that the state was either incompetent or cruel or indifferent -- we maintained the hope that some kind god would protect us. Now we fear everything: that neither our health system, nor our pensions, nor our deposits are safe. The old social contract does not apply. On the issue of pensions alone, we see that those who paid dutifully all their lives are those who are suffering the greatest losses.

So much for the politics of compassion.

Link Of The Day

2012-01-07T15:08:00.000-08:00

Go visit Tim. No, really, go. His work is consistently beautiful and educational.

We'll still be here when you get back.

I Saw A Grasshopper. We're All Doomed.

2012-01-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I posted this bit about being subconsciously worried about our mild winter because of the pervasive fear of ~~Global Warming~~ Climate Change that fills our culture. I think the point got a bit muddled as I used the nuclear war terror of the 80s as a comparison, so I'm taking another run at it.

What if it was insects instead of weather? What if the news and movies and schools and zoos were filled with stories of chemical-resistant bugs or uncontrolled bug population growth or scientists finding ever-larger insects? Properly massaged, I have no doubt we could find data to "prove" all of that.

I have no idea what the ~~Global Warming~~ Climate Change data actually says*. I don't know anything about the equations or methodology or experimental processes or even if they have any possible way of isolating individual factors out of the hopelessly complicated, impossibly huge system that is Earth's weather. All I know is that lots of people tell me I'm supposed to be deeply afraid of it and so, despite my skepticism and my understanding of how science funding is doled out, I am. When the weather is warm, I wonder about ~~Global Warming~~ Climate Change.

If they'd been telling me horror stories about insects for the last 10 years, I'd be terrified every time I saw something like this.

Might as well take up serious drinking. We're totally screwed.
* - Neither do some of the key scientists. They lost it all.

500,000

2012-01-07T06:38:00.000-08:00

We hit 500,000 visits yesterday here at The Scratching Post.

I don't blog for links or hits any more, I just want to share whatever I think will be provocative or interesting or make you smile and then learn from your deep, collective wisdom.

Thanks for stopping by.

12' Waves Today

2012-01-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

... down at Sunset Cliffs. It's clickable.

Sunset Cliffs At Sunset

2012-01-06T09:14:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you get lucky and you have your big camera in the car at just the right time. I left the original pretty large. It's worth clicking on the image.

Cheesecloth

2012-01-06T05:28:00.000-08:00

I bought cheesecloth from Amazon earlier this week after looking for it at lots of local grocery stores. With Amazon Prime, it was shipped to me in 2 days for free.

Why didn't I just go to Amazon in the first place?

Unbelievable.

2012-01-05T16:12:00.001-08:00

<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/video?vid=fac369d7-cda9-4662-a062-1b4b3af67df7" target="_new" title="">GOTD: Howard scores amazing Goal</a>

A Favorite Holmes Clip

2012-01-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

... in honor of the new Sherlock Holmes movie which features cannons, handguns, chase scenes and, for all I know, Holmes covered in tattoos and shooting his 9mm gangsta style after engaging in a threesome. Instead, I offer you this wonderful bit of Jeremy Brett as Holmes.

The Weather Is Mild. We're All Doomed.

2012-01-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

Back in 1986, at the height of Ronald Reagan's crazy nuclear cowboy foreign policy against the totally reasonable and pacifist Soviet Union, I was living in a studio apartment in La Jolla, in the path of the flightline at Miramar Naval Air Station. For years, the popular culture had been infused with the terror of nuclear war. Any day now, that crazy Reagan was going to press The Button and kill us all.

One night around 2AM, a pair of F-14s took off from Miramar and turned on their afterburners right over my apartment. The whole place shook and I awoke with a start. My very first thought, and I remember it like it was last night, was that the missiles were in the air and the Navy was getting their jets out of town as fast as they could.

We were all doomed. We were going to be incinerated in sheets of atomic fire in a matter of minutes.

It's been a very mild winter so far here in San Diego. The highs have been in the low 70s and the nights have been cool, but not cold. After a decade or so marinating in the fear of ~~Global Warming~~ Climate Change, I can't help it. Every time the weather is unexpectedly warm or cold or wet or dry, my subconscious connects the event with ~~Global Warming~~ Climate Change.

Once again, we're all doomed. The seas will rise, the hurricanes will come and the nation's cornfields in Nebraska will bake until they look like the surface of Mars.

This happened. No, really, it did! Well, the part about chicks with huge hair and everyone wearing monstrous glasses. That happened. So, in a way, all the scaremongering was validated.

Cheezburger Of The Day

2012-01-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Is It Time To Get Back Into Diamond Offshore?

2012-01-04T05:49:00.000-08:00

Here's the news from Libya.

TRIPOLI—Two Libyan militias once allied against Moammar Gadhafi battled for nearly two hours in central Tripoli, leaving four dead and a renewed sense of unease across a capital where the nascent government has struggled to maintain authority.

Iran is rattling sabers again, Iraq without the US is unstable and so on and so forth. Diamond Offshore (DO) makes deepwater drilling rigs and leases them out to clients. Extracting oil off the coasts of Brazil and Norway looks a lot more profitable than trying to get it out of Libya or Iraq.

Diamond Offshore has taken a beating in the last few years, so now might be a good time to get back in.

Diamond Offshore Drilling Stock Chart by YCharts

On Missing The Mormon Forest For The Trees

2012-01-03T12:38:00.000-08:00

A while back I posted a bit about my thoughts on Mormons. It was an attempt to discuss discoveries of my own bigotry, but it came out too harsh against the Mormons, so I took it down and now I'm taking another run at the topic.

The Old Testament is not a perfect historical document, nor is it tuned to the sensibilities of 2012. In an argument about slavery over at Egnorance, I was confronted with biblical verses about slavery, marriage rights, child abuse and so on. I know of these, but they don't bother me as a Catholic. Further, I don't feel the need to look into why they're not important. I've read plenty of Catholic thinkers and every major question I've ever had has been answered to the point where it all makes sense.

Having found no glaring mistakes, I've assumed that other issues have been similarly well-addressed and have moved on to more interesting things like daisies, photography and soccer. Throwing Old Testament verses in my face doesn't do any more to me than statistical chemistry equations. I can't derive them and I may not even understand them, but I've no doubt that trustworthy people have worked them out and I can get on with life.

This brings me to the Mormons.

If you search the web for Mormon archaeology or Mormon biology contradictions, you quickly come to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon has no historical basis at all. This has hung me up forever. How can otherwise wonderful, rational people believe in this nonsense? Elephants in South America? Please. It's ridiculous. The Mormons have spent tons of money and done lots of excellent archaeology in the New World and have found nothing at all to validate Joseph Smith's claims.

So what?

Just as I don't bother finding out the Church's positions on Old Testament teachings, who's to say they don't simply punt on their stuff as well and just go back to what is relevant to them - behavioral and moral issues. Every Mormon I can think of from my own life has been a wonderful person - moral, hard working and a good friend. If they were Catholic, I'd be pointing to them as exemplars of our faith. My issues with Mormons aren't real, they're theoretical. I need to get over them.

I still think they'd be better off on the side with the cool hats.

Preserving Herbs

2012-01-03T06:04:00.000-08:00

Here in the Catican Compound, we have two very nice raised beds where we grow herbs and vegetables. We've got a couple of herbs that are not only huge, but rarely used. It's time to harvest and preserve them to free up the space for more interesting things.

I spent some time noodling around the Interweb Tubes and came up with this video.

While I don't like the microwave idea, I love the freezing idea. I would think that freezing them would work perfectly. The expansion of the water would wreck the cell walls of the plant material, but since all you're really after are the aromatic oils, I can't see how those would be broken down by freezing at all. In fact, breaking the cell walls would probably help to release the oils once the herb was thawed and cooking.

From The Dome Of The Cat-thedral

2012-01-02T15:53:00.000-08:00

You can participate in conversations in the family room ...
... and watch the critters in the raised bed garden boxes outside.

Cheezburger of the Day

2012-01-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Keynesians Unclear On The Concept, Gold Medal Finalist

2012-01-02T07:03:00.000-08:00

The NYT, always a trusty source of bloggable idiocy, has come up with another howler of an article. Voluntary austerity, they claim, is killing Europe.

Despite criticism from many economists, though, most European governments are sticking to austerity plans, rejecting the Keynesian approach of economic stimulus favored by Washington after the financial crisis in 2008, in a bid to show investors they are serious about fiscal discipline.

Err, not really. It's not voluntary at all. They're not thumping their financial chests and flexing their fiscal biceps to try to impress the girls on the beach, they've run out of people to tap. In one syllable words, here's what's happening.

No one will lend to them.

But wait, there's more! Delving deep into the minor leagues, the NYT visits the Graduate Institute of Geneva to talk to "an economics professor." (How do they even find these places?)

“Every government in Europe with the exception of Germany is bending over backwards to prove to the market that they won’t hesitate to do what it takes,” said Charles Wyplosz, a professor of economics at the Graduate Institute of Geneva. “We’re going straight into a wall with this kind of policy. It’s sheer madness.”

Umm, it's not madness, they're just out of options, save for going Full Zimbabwe on the problem.

I love these articles; they're so totally disconnected from reality. They show how far the progressive education system has gone in removing the mental connections between earning and having in the culture. What's happening in Europe is simple mathematics - compound interest tables at work. It's nothing more than that and it's a total mystery to the NYT.

More! Print more!

Hoppin John Tonight

2012-01-01T16:48:00.000-08:00

... from Terry Thompson's excellent cookbook.

Because you gots to have your black-eyed peas on New Years Day!

Cheezburger of the Day

2012-01-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Once The Money Is Out Of Politics

2012-01-01T08:26:00.000-08:00

... we'll enjoy the fruits of a total dictatorship, assuming we can figure out what "getting the money out of politics" even means.

Our Monks of Miscellaneous Musings posted a George Will - Robert Reich clip from some debate show. Robert Reich brought up the claim that "we need to get the money out of politics" and blatted on about income inequality. On the latter point, George Will whiffed badly, but more about that later.

Getting the money out of politics assumes that money is somehow corrupting what the government does, that there is some best solution to whatever set of problems we're trying to drown with three-and-a-half trillion dollar bills. If we got the money out of politics, then our political leaders would make wise decisions that were best for all of us.

Sort of like Mussolini did. There wasn't much money in politics in fascist Italy.
But the best set of decisions depends on what you're trying to achieve. Over in Greece, they've pretty much done the things that Robert Reich has been suggesting for years and they're now starting to throw their poor and elderly out into the street. So much for finding wise political leaders who can make your decisions for you, eh Robert?

If we could just get the money out of politics, then Deep Thinkers like Alan Blinder could come up with more ideas like Cash for Clunkers.
And what does "getting the money out" even mean? The government contracts out to private companies for much of its work. If there's a customer out there with $3.5T to spend it's utterly childish to think that marketing dollars aren't going to gush forth in pursuit of that prospect. (You can solve this problem by nationalizing all industries so that everyone is inside the government and no one outside. See also: Union, Soviet.)

The only way to get the money out of politics is to get the money out of the government. Given the track record of geniuses like Alan Blinder and Robert Reich, that's probably a good idea for lots of other reasons, too.

Finally, a bit of George Will's response to income inequality. George took the collective position and made points about government being the cause of problems and blah blah blah. This really ought to stop. Income and wealth don't simply happen to you. You're not plankton floating around with the tides. Income and wealth are markers of behavior. Next time a Robert Reich launches into an income inequality tirade, someone ought to bring up the behaviors that lead to poverty and ask Robert just how successful we've been at dealing with those through politics.

Making Bouillabaisse Tonight

2011-12-31T15:25:00.000-08:00

I've got at least four blog posts in my head, but it's 3:30PM here in San Diego and I plan on making Gulf Coast Bouillabaisse* tonight, so I need to get started. Rather than try to do too much and botch the posts, I'll just say,

Happy New Year!

I'm very grateful for the good friends I've found through this blog and others on the Internet. It's been a wonderful year here in the Catican and we all wish you the very best in the year to come. God bless you all.

* - Here's the cookbook for my recipe - it's filled with great stuff: Crescent City Cooking: Unforgettable Recipes from Susan Spicer's New Orleans

Cheezburger of the Day

2011-12-31T10:05:00.001-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Why I Love Wolves

2011-12-30T11:27:00.000-08:00

... not the animals*, the English Premiere League team**.

First, there are a few things you must know. At the end of the season in the 20-team EPL, the bottom three teams are sent down to the minors and the top three teams in the minors are promoted to the EPL. That would be like seeing the Washington Senators sent down to AAA and the Albuquerque Dukes moved up into MLB. It makes the season exciting on both ends of the standings. The Wolverhampton Wanderers, aka Wolves, are a terrible team. Last year, they finished with the same record as the #18 team, but had a one goal advantage in goal differential, a goal they scored in the last minutes of their last game, a game they lost. Only through the most ridiculous of circumstances did they manage to stay in the EPL.

That's Wolves all over. They'll get their brains beaten out by a mediocre team one week and the next they'll beat Manchester United. Their games are filled with inexplicable, boneheaded blunders and logic-defying, preposterous heroics. Last weekend was the perfect Wolves game.

They went into Emirates Stadium (Arsenal's home field) to play Arsenal. They'd never even tied there before, much less won. They had lost their last 6 away games and it looked to be a total stomping of Wolves by an Arsenal squad that was absolutely on fire. What happened? Well, they gave up a breakaway goal to Arsenal in the first 8 minutes in a positively stupefying mental breakdown. And then ... well, dig this***:

wolves11yt5 by arsenalist

In a wacky 5 seconds of pinball craziness, Wolves managed to score and tie the game. I loved the look on the Arsenal keeper's face. You can just see him thinking, "You have got to be kidding me." Wolves had almost no other scoring opportunities and the other 89 minutes, 55 seconds of the game was a marathon of impossible melodrama as Wolves thwarted attack after attack after attack. Wolves tied mighty Arsenal, 1-1.

Glorious. Simply glorious.

* - Well, I like the animals, too, so don't get me wrong.

** - I love EPL soccer. I've skipped blogging about it up to now, but it's just too much fun not to share. I'll try to keep these posts as interesting as I can.

*** - Despite the fact that the highlights are available for free on foxsoccer.tv, they don't give you an embed option and the EPL is crazy serious about hunting down and stamping out highlight videos on YouTube. The Arsenal fan who posted this one to DailyMotion recorded it from a Spanish-language broadcast. You can see the official EPL highlights of the game here. I'm not sure how long that link will be good.

Who Took Away The Insulin?

2011-12-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

Walter Russell Meade, in a lengthy piece about the Eurodebt crisis, links to an NYT article describing the human cost of the Greek austerity measures. Here's the quote he lifts.

The free clinic here opened about a year ago to serve illegal immigrants. But these days, it is mostly caring for Greeks like Vassiliki Ragamb, who was sitting in the waiting room hoping to get insulin for her young diabetic son.

Four days earlier, she had run out of insulin and, without insurance and unable to pay for more, she had gone from drugstore to drugstore, pleading for at least enough for a few days. It took her three hours to find a pharmacist who was willing to help.

“I tried a lot of them,” she said, gazing at the floor.

There will be plenty more stories just like this one. For years, the socialists have screamed about the greed of the wealthy and the corporations. They slandered anyone who opposed new social programs as being heartless and cruel. Well, the money is gone now because they couldn't be bothered making sure the money was earned before it was spent.

And so is the insulin for Vassiliki's son.

Cheezburger Of The Day

2011-12-28T11:40:00.001-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

The Help

2011-12-28T07:10:00.000-08:00

Last night, my wife watched The Help. (I watched Wolves vs. Arsenal upstairs.) I saw a tiny bit of The Help and in the little bit I saw, the rigid, narrow-minded, rich, white, married, Southern mom talked about how she read that being gay could be cured. I wanted to puke.

I just can't take another drop of gay-rights moralizing at any level. I feel like it's jammed down my throat constantly. I'd be much more interested in some movies or TV shows about this.

I'm not holding my breath. Hollywood hates people like me.

But I Still Eat Bacon

2011-12-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

... and cook with bacon grease, despite the fact that science has shown that it's not good for me. And I'm even a (lapsed) scientist!

Sam Harris has written a book on how science can determine moral values.

I'm sure it can. The question is: Will anyone listen? Knowledgeable people thought the Facebook Revolution in Egypt would lead to enlightened self-rule, too. That didn't turn out so well. People don't always behave in ways that are rational to the academic world.

Moral codes are only as good as their enforcement mechanisms. That goes for Greeks avoiding taxes and Mafia goons breaking the knees of people who don't repay loans. I'm sure Mr. Harris has argued coherently and has whiteboards full of flow chart diagrams, but unless he's found a way for the powers that be to agree with him, he's just another guy in a coffee shop pounding away on his laptop generating moral codes for himself and a few thousand readers. If he does it in the wrong country, he's just another guy in prison.

The Hitler Blade Has Struck Again

2011-12-27T05:58:00.000-08:00

Long ago I blogged about one of our Cuisinart blades that ought to be melted down and formed into little statues of Hitler because it gashed me so often. Well, it did it again. I keep it with the other Cuisinart odds and ends in a plastic water pitcher. I went to use the pitcher and somehow the blasted demon-blade leaped up at me and sliced the end of my left middle finger. That was a few days ago and it still hurts.

I hate the thing.

The blade and a Hitler statue. The resemblance is uncanny.

Cleaning Algae Off The Bottom Of A Birdbath

2011-12-26T16:53:00.001-08:00

We've got a stone birdbath where the bottom is unsealed, either from manufacture or age. The bowl of it looks like this.

The algal growth has gone into the stone and is impossible to remove with cleansers or bleach. Looking it up on the web, it seems as though the best way to deal with this is to sandblast it clean and then give it some kind of epoxy coating like you'd use on a garage floor.

Updates as events warrant.

Cheezburger of the Day

2011-12-26T14:18:00.001-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

The Problem In One Photo

2011-12-26T07:24:00.000-08:00

From the Puppy Blender's post on the higher education bubble comes a perfect statement of a problem that bedevils the West.

It's kind of late to be asking this question after you've borrowed the money, don't you think? Note that this image applies equally well to Greece, Illinois, Social Security and any number of municipalities.

Somewhere, we lost the ability to grasp the concept of earning what we consumed. There's a cure for that.

Update: The photo is even deeper than you might think. It's easy to understand why she's yelling, but what's remarkable is that she is yelling at us. She either thinks it's our fault or she wants us to do something about it.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T08:21:00.000-08:00

Here's wishing you joy and love as we celebrate the ultimate inflection point in the history of Man.

In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life: and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness: and the darkness did not comprehend it.

I Don't Think We're Paying You For This

2011-12-24T12:37:00.000-08:00

The smaller of the Catican Guards slacking off.

December Sun Cat

2011-12-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

It's been a little chilly here in San Diego, but then there are days like today where the sun is shining and if you've got a nice coat of black fur, you can find a place to get toasty warm.

Some Christmas Swing

2011-12-23T06:18:00.000-08:00

... from Louis Armstrong. Crack open an Abita Turbodog beer and enjoy some serious trumpet playing from the master!

By the way, the song was written by Steve Allen of all people. I knew he designed race cars, computed lunar orbits for NASA, advised the UN and hosted The Tonight Show, but I didn't realize he wrote music for Louis. That dude had some serious creative juices, cats and kittens!

Roger Corman Made Movies About Stuff Like This

2011-12-22T16:40:00.000-08:00

The Ooze From 5,000 Fathoms starring Ward Bond and Barbara Payton!

A Very San Diego Christmas

2011-12-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

Surfers at Sunset Cliffs today.

Reflected Warmth

2011-12-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

Good friends of ours have a daughter who just returned from 15 months in Ecuador where she served with Heart's Home. Here's the scoop on what they do:

Heart’s Home is an international Catholic non-profit organization that works to promote a culture of compassion around the world through a range of charitable and cultural efforts.

There's lots more here. Here's a photo from where they live and work in Ecuador borrowed from their website.

We contributed financially a tiny bit to the effort, but we reaped tremendous benefits from her work. The reflected radiance from her love and kindness far away warmed us through her parents. We went out to breakfast today and her father spoke of her return home with tears of pride and joy in his eyes. I'm still smiling, thinking about what she did and the difference she made in people's lives.

Cheezburger of the Day

2011-12-21T15:34:00.000-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Does Politics Kill Creativity?

2011-12-21T10:20:00.001-08:00

I've been noodling around the web today, looking up things that hinder creativity. It appears that negative emotions are bad for your imaginative side. Since political discussions are invariably negative, wouldn't focusing on politics seriously damage your creativity?

It's A Tiny Bat And I Couldn't Stop Watching It

2011-12-21T06:31:00.000-08:00

H/T: Wannasmile.

Cheezburger of the Day

2011-12-20T17:39:00.000-08:00

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Saying No To A Tablet

2011-12-20T08:16:00.000-08:00

... for now.

For the last few months, I figured that #1 on my Christmas list would be an Android table like the Samsung Galaxy. I walked past them at Costco a week or so back and took a long look at them.

Meh.

I've got a killer laptop that's got the performance (and size and weight) of a Lamborghini. It's got a 17" screen, a 1 TB hard drive and an i7 processor with full Adobe Creative Suite 5 installed. The tablets have a 10" screen. That means as long as I'm willing to stay seated with my laptop and not prance around the house, I can browse over to foxsoccer.tv and watch Newcastle thump Wigan on a screen almost 3x the size of the tablet.

It's all about mobility vs raw power. Is the ability to pick up your Internet device and wander around like a gypsy more important than the ability to pick out the greenery in the teeth of the Wigan keeper as he grimaces, download the video and play with it in Adobe Premiere? Mind you, I'd have to pay $450 for the privilege of gypsification. In the end I had to say no. I could think of lots more interesting things to do with my $450.

Do I want this or a Prius?

For Ligneus, Tim and Dean

2011-12-19T15:34:00.000-08:00

I just figured out how to work the Blogger comment spam thingy. I found lots of your comments stuffed in the spam folder while plenty of marsupial sex toys comments got through. Sorry about that! I went through and published all of the unjustly spam-accused comments of yours and went back to October and marked a bunch of the creepy comments as spam.

Contemplating A Change In Christmas Gift Giving

2011-12-19T09:01:00.001-08:00

At our house, we have 6 people in the immediate family and two grandparents on hot standby. We have three birthdays within 30 days of Christmas. The combinatorics of Christmas alone give us a need for 8*7=56 gifts at a minimum, not including stocking stuffing and multiple gifts between spouses and from parents to kids. Add in the three birthdays and you get to 77 gifts required.

All of us have plenty. We try to make Christmas lists, but there's usually not more than one or two things that we're just dying to get. The end result is lots of stress and bother. The lists are quickly exhausted and freestyling becomes difficult when the thing we all need the most is more free time together.

Over on Facebook, I proposed a Feline Christmas. We stay home, eat delicious foods and lay quietly. I posted that as a lark, but quite a few people liked the idea. Last night at a friends' house, a family Christmas vacation was suggested. This morning, driving in to work I considered the possiblity of a secret Santa program where we each draw two names out of a hat and buy for those people. That would mean each person would have two things to open on Christmas, inter-spousal gifts and stockings not included.

If you've got a take on this, I'd love to hear it.

Update: The thing I'd like to do the most is to go to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and have a family volunteering excursion where we all go spend time with people who need it. Unfortunately, shopping is taking the place of both of these things.

The Plankton Model Of Human Life

2011-12-18T15:08:00.000-08:00

John Rosenberg, blogging over at Discriminations, posts an ironic essay, Why Not A Marriage Tax? Here's a tidbit.

With the unwitting help of Ruth Marcus, liberal Washington Post opinion writer, I have a suggestion for you: revive and increase the marriage tax.

“The marriage gap presents a real cost,” Marcus writes.
If current trends hold, within a few years, less than half the U.S. adult population will be married. This precipitous decline isn’t just a social problem. It’s also an economic problem.

Specifically, it’s an income-inequality and economic-mobility problem. The steadily dropping marriage rate both contributes to income inequality and further entrenches it.
That’s because the educated and rich are marrying more and getting richer; the uneducated and poor are marrying less and falling further behind. “Family structure,” Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution told Marcus, “is a new dividing line in American society.”

John makes some great points, but allow me to suggest that he's missing the underlying assumption which is the most amazing part of all.

When people talk about these inequalities, they imply that marriage and education are things that just happen to us. Just as plankton has no way to influence the tides, we are driven along by forces too large for us to control and these forces lead us to learn and get married. Each of us has a doom laid upon us, a doom we cannot escape. That's the entire basis for our social spending. We don't seek to reward some behaviors (self-denial) and punish others (hedonism). Instead, we treat the symptoms of these behaviors as if their sources were a complete mystery.

Hey, plankton isn't even aware of the tides.

Is this all there is to our lives?

If You Constantly Complain About Politicians

2011-12-17T08:12:00.001-08:00

... then you've probably given them too much to do. Here in the US, handing them $3.5T at the national level might be a smidge high.

Like almost everyone else on the planet, Jeffrey Sachs, writing at The Guardian, laments the poor quality of our political leaders.

The year 2011 will be remembered as the year of failed summits. Governments proved themselves time and again to be failures at addressing the growing crises engulfing the world, whether the eurozone debacle, climate change, or budget politics in the US and Europe.

So the folks we elected haven't managed to find a way to give us everything we want for free, stop all wars and control the weather. It all seems so simple. If only we had the right people in charge, these things wouldn't trouble us and we could go back to watching TV.

Peter Drucker, in one of his books on management, said that if your plan requires above average people to succeed, it's probably not a good plan.

The New England Primer

2011-12-16T13:37:00.001-08:00

or, "Things Aren't As Static As They May Seem."

I recently bought myself a copy of The New England Primer. It's a book that was widely used to teach reading and English comprehension in schools both public and private up to 100 years after the establishment of the US Constitution. Every page has a reference to God and/or Jesus. It is as much catechism as it is reading instruction.

We've spent a good deal of time and effort over the last 50 years attempting to purify ourselves of every vestige of religion in our governmental affairs. Los Angeles recently redesigned its official crest to remove a tiny cross that apparently stained the thing with subtle attempts to convert you to Christianity. "Separation of church and state" is invoked like a magical incantation whenever any tiny blot of faith is found in public places.

It was not always thus.

Reading The New England Primer, it is absolutely impossible to come to the conclusion that our current obsessive compulsive disorder for removing religious symbols has any basis whatsoever in the actual Constitution. The people who wrote it, debated it and signed it and then produced case law based upon it for 100 years allowed their children to be taught with this book. Unless you're going to make the case that they were too busy holding truths to be self-evident to notice that little Hezekiah or Constance were being instructed with a catechism book, there's no historical basis for our mania at all.

Instead, you pretty much have to make the argument that you believe the Constitution is a living document that must be reinterpreted by each generation, informed by the culture of that era.

If that's the case, what prevents us from turning around and going back to claiming that crosses here or there or Bible study in public schools is perfectly OK?

Gorgeous

2011-12-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

What a beautiful ad. Try it in HD and full screen.

Link of the Day

2011-12-15T13:19:00.000-08:00

Click on the image. It's way cool.

Cheezburger of the Day

2011-12-15T08:58:00.001-08:00

How Can You Tell If You Falsely Believe Yourself Free?

2011-12-14T13:16:00.000-08:00

Our Monks of Miscellaneous Musings have the photo below in this post. (Read the post. It is most excellent.)

I'm sure Goethe was a fine fellow, but this quote doesn't make much sense. How would you know if your view that you were free was false? If you continually test the hypothesis and the data causes you to deduce that you are indeed free, what difference does it make if you are somehow not free? In all the ways that matter to you, you are free.

I think Goethe had washed his tonsils with one too many steins of beer when he thought this one up.

Meanwhile, Back In The Real World

2011-12-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

Italian bond rates continue to climb while European politicians debate new and increasingly complex governmental structures to deal with the fiscal crisis. It's kind of sad, really. Raised in a stew of secular progressivism, the leadership of Europe is utterly unable to cope with the concept of earning money to pay their bills and people taking responsibility for their own lives. The idea that government is just an inefficient conduit for taking money from one person and handing it to another has been obscured by their worship of the State as a force for moral good.

Meanwhile, the inexorable freight train of financial doom continues to highball down the tracks.

You can put all the governmental regulations and organizational process documents in front of it you want. It ain't stopping.

What's The Difference Between Ron Paul And Mitt Romney?

2011-12-13T06:38:00.000-08:00

A factor of 2.

The Cat-thedral

2011-12-12T08:02:00.000-08:00

As an early Christmas present for our Maximum Leader, we got her a new piece of furniture so she can relax in comfort and splendour in our family room, watching over her subjects and providing guidance. It's called the Cat-thedral and she took to it right away. The Catican Guards can now provide their services at a properly respectful distance.

What is thy bidding, Your Serene Furriness?

Blogging From My TV

2011-12-11T08:05:00.001-08:00

My Logitech Revue recently updated to the new version of Android and it's got an improved version of Chrome and lots of great new apps. It doesn't turn my TV into the big beast PC that is out in the Catican, but it's good enough for text blogging and surfing the web. The Twitter app on it is pretty nice, too.

I recently moved all of my music up into the cloud on Google Music an the Revue has an app for that as well. I love it. There's a couple of my favorite apps - Google Listen for podcasts being one - that aren't yet available, but all in all, this is much closer to the vision of every screen in the house, from the big TV to the tiny smartphone, having the same capabilities.

Sadly, Logitech has shut down their Revue production line. They lost a ton of money on the release of the thing, something like $100M. I think shutting it down was a mistake. I might even see if I can pick up another one on the cheap. Sony is still in the game with Google TV, though, so the concept lives on even if Logitech is getting out.