Cheezburger of the Day

On The Irrelevance Of Robert Fulton

Pondering yesterday's visit to my daughter's school where the teachers were focused on the racial aspects of their topic areas and whose classrooms were festooned with racial posters, I wonder what has come of learning about the lives of people like Robert Fulton.

Fulton is best known for his work on steamboats, but he was also a pioneer in submarines as well. He was quite the entrepreneur, seeking funding from anyone who happened to be nearby, swearing allegiance to them if he thought it would bring him financial backing. He studied as an artist and then an engineer and his accomplishments were considerable.

Unfortunately for the children of my daughter's generation, it's doubtful she will hear much more about him than to associate his name, in a dim and distant way, with steamboats. Her classes are so full of tales of bigotry and how people suffered under racial discrimination that there's not much room left for businessmen, inventors or explorers.

In this video, Robert Fulton gets his groove on.

Why The Black Santa Matters

A short post on a topic I hadn't planned to touch, but whose meaning seemingly just leaped out at me and grabbed my legs*.

I stopped by my daughter's public high school just now to talk to the History and English teachers. I was looking for some extra credit she could do over the Christmas break. Both teachers discussed race. In History, I was encouraged to have her see movies and write about slavery. In English, it was slavery and Hispanic discrimination. There was nothing aggressive about it, it was all very matter-of-fact as if that's the sort of thing that should take up at least 85% of all class time.

Of course people who marinated in the public education system for 16+ years think Santa doesn't have to be white. Just how weird would you have to be to even suggest otherwise?

St. Nicholas of Myra. A black man, to be sure. Just like George Washington.

 * - I hate it when that happens.

A Little More On David Brooks And Authoritatianism

Yesterday, I had some fun with Dean's excellent post wherein he was shocked to see yet another NYT columnist come out in favor of authoritarian rule. I linked to Leni Reifenstahl's Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will. Doing a little more digging today, I came across this wherein was this tidbit.

The film's most enduring and dangerous illusion is that Nazi Germany was a super-organized state that, although evil in nature, was impressive nonetheless.

In reality, Nazi Germany was only well organized to the degree that it was a murderous police state. The actual Reich government was a tangled mess of inefficient agencies and overlapping bureaucracies led by ruthless men who had little, if any, professional administrative abilities. From the Reich's first hours in January 1933 until the end in May 1945, various departmental leaders battled each other for power, and would do anything to curry favor with a superior Nazi authority and especially with Hitler, the ultimate authority.

I found that interesting as I had always associated organization and efficiency with the Nazi state. Clicking around the Interweb, I found lots of corroboration. Why I had thought that the Nazis were any different than the Soviets, the Peronists or the Italian fascists, I'm sure I don't know.

NBC Sports For The Win!

In the past, I've been harsh on the way NBC Sports managed its English Premier League rights. My biggest complaint was that unlike Fox Sports, which owned the rights last year, NBC didn't offer games on demand. This meant that for those of us on the West Coast too tired to get up at 4:30 AM to watch Manchester City vs. Arsenal, we'd never have a chance to see the game.

Things have changed. Dig this.

All of this weekend's games, on demand, held for a full week for our viewing pleasure. NBC's video quality has always been stellar, so the replays are excellent. Also, there's a new feature on the site where you can turn off the scoreboard ticker tape at the top of the screen so none of the games are spoiled for you.

NBC Sports, I love you again!

Leni Reifenstahl Refutes Dean

Our normally coherent buddy Dean over at the Monastery of Miscellaneous Musings has managed to blow a gasket and has come down hard on the inimitable David Brooks. David, who writes for the race-obsessed New York Times* and is famously known for enjoying snappy dressers, has come out in favor of more power for the Administration. Together, race obsessions, snappy uniforms and total power handed over to the State add up to a classic tale of success and effectiveness, documented by dear old Leni Reifenstahl.

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer, Deano. Get with the pogrom. Err, program.

* - Under the definitions laid out in the Nuremberg Race Laws, Zimmerman is most certainly a white-Hispanic.

Let's Pretend

So here we are, it's December 13, and there's been nothing even remotely like the number of complete transactions required to make ObamaCare work properly for the insurers in terms of creating balanced risk pools or even enough completed transactions to recover from the millions who have lost their health insurance. The latest banana republic decree from La Casa Blanca by el presidente and his henchcreatures is that insurers should deem that people who have completed some minimum amount of registration on the website to have actually paid their premiums.

Sort of the way the law was deemed passed instead of actually, you know, voting on the thing.

In a nutshell, if you are, say, Aetna, you have to pretend that Jim Schwartz in Topeka has paid his first premiums not because he actually did, but because somewhere in the system someone created the vestiges of an account for Jim Schwartz. Reality has been swept away at one more layer, this time at the private sector. As I see it, the stratification is something like this.

1. Government borrowing. In reality, we don't have enough tax receipts to cover all of our "compassion." Let's pretend that handing out cash to people with no requirements on their part save need is an investment and we'll get that money back in the future somehow.
2. Government printing. In reality, there's not enough idiots in the world with dollar bills falling out of their pockets to lend us the money we need for our "compassion," so we'll just print what we need. Some day in the future, we'll sell this debt on the open market because at that point, the number of idiots with cash will be much, much larger.
3. Fake payments to private companies. In reality, we can't tell who has signed up for insurance and who hasn't, who can afford their premiums and who can't, but we have an obsessive need to show our "compassion," so we're going to pretend that the payments have been made and everyone can get the healthcare we think they should.

#3 has just been reached with the latest set of fixes to ObamaCare. The next logical step will be for the government to force banks to accept pretend deposits from the insurers so they can make payroll.

Playing "Let's Pretend" is fun.

It's real if we say it is.

The Biggest News Story Of The Year, Bigger Even Than ObamaCare

... is this one, where California's high speed rail project has been blocked by government regulations.

Government has become so huge, so intrusive, so permeating that it has created a set of regulations that even it can't follow. While ObamaCare is Chernobyl, something spectacular and stunning, the growth of government regulations is more like the Dust Bowl - all-encompassing and stifling.

Forward!

Winner, Winner, Lenten Fish Dinner

I'm guessing that il papa's end zone dance is rather subdued and humble.

If It's Tuesday, This Blog Post Must Be About Japan's Debt Crisis

This can't be good.

TOKYO—Japan's $1.2 trillion public pension fund should start selling domestic bonds, and could unload more than two-thirds of its holdings of such debt, the head of a pension-reform panel said Monday.

To review, here's the Japanese plan for success:

1. Run up a monstrous debt
2. Raise taxes and spend all that money and more on "infrastructure"
3. Print money at warp speed and buy government bonds, trying to increase inflation 
4. Hold interest rates on government bonds at ridiculously low levels so that any inflation at all makes them total losers as investments
5. Watch your major bond holders sell them and take their money out of the country
6. Print more money to buy that government debt as well
7. mumble mumble mumble
8. Win!

PS - I'm not sure why Tuesdays have become Japan debt crisis blog post days. It just happened that way.

Open Thread - What Does It Mean To Be A Man?

Driving home from my folks' house after Thanksgiving, my 21-year-old son and I were alone in the car when he brought up the topic of what it means to be a man. I'll leave my own definition out of it right now because I'd like to hear yours without my input. So here's the question for you to answer in the comments:

What does it mean to be a man?

Thanks in advance for your comments!

PS - OK girls, if you think there aren't any good guys out there, the lad is about to finish an engineering degree, he surfs and plays sports, plays guitar and bass in a garage band and he goes to church.

You're On Your Own, Herschel

The leader of the world's only remaining superpower said this recently:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: There are times where I, as President of the United States, am going to have different tactical perspectives than the Prime Minister of Israel -- and that is understandable, because Israel cannot contract out its security. In light of the history that the people of Israel understand all too well, they have to make sure that they are making their own assessments about what they need to do to protect themselves. And we respect that. And I have said that consistently to the Prime Minister.

It's probably not a good idea to tell a nuclear power who has credible reasons to feel existentially threatened that America isn't totally on board with its basic fears. (T)hey have to make sure that they are making their own assessments about what they need to do to protect themselves translates into don't expect us to help.

Message received, Mr. President. You can go back to your golf game, we've got this one covered.

You've Got To Have Passions

This morning, I got up at 4:30 AM to catch the Newcastle United - Manchester United game. I made my coffee, poured it in my Newcastle mug, put on my Jonas Gutierrez jersey and hung out with our Toon Army-colored Maximum Leader and watched the game on my laptop.

We won, 1-0. It was the first time Newcastle had won at Old Trafford, ManU's home field, since 1972. When Cabaye's shot went in, midway through the second half, I was screaming soundlessly, bouncing around the room. I sat there biting my nails for the last 15 minutes of the game, praying they'd hold on. It was electric.

I've never been to Newcastle. Up until the 2010 World Cup, I wasn't even a soccer fan. My daughter's soccer coach in 2010 gave them homework to watch two complete World Cup games every week and I got hooked. When the World Cup was over, I latched on to the English Premier League because it's simply the best sports league in the world. When picking a team, I went for someone who wore black and white - with our Maximum Leader being a tuxedo cat, what else could I do? Newcastle it was and so it began.

Now I read the Newcastle United blog, know all the players, have Newcastle shirts, a sweatshirt, the mug and the jersey. When they lost this week to Swansea, it was awful. Right now, life is rainbows and sunshine. Tonight, our Maximum Leader will get celebratory tuna and I'll still be walking on air.

Yohan Cabaye after scoring the winning goal today. Note: the yellow jersey is not their normal colors.

In some ways, this craziness is a waste of time and money. I could be doing more productive things with all of this energy.

But it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.

Pelican Sunset

I'm up early to watch the Newcastle - Manchester United game, so I thought I might as well blog early. This week the sunsets have been fantastic and yesterday I was finally in a spot where I could capture one. I love the way the pelicans are skimming across the water right in front of a glorious sunset. I left it large, so I think it's worth a click to see the full image.

Enjoy.

I Loved The Song, But The Video Blew Me Away

Wow.

Never Mind, Japan Is Saved!

They've gone and done it! They've cracked the code over in Tokyo. Those crafty Japanese have figured out how to get their economy going full speed. They're going to raise taxes and have the government spend the money.

TOKYO—The Japanese government on Thursday unveiled details of a ¥5.5 trillion spending package to mitigate the expected drag on the economy from an upcoming sales tax increase in April, bundling steps to encourage corporate investment and employment, as well as handouts for low-income households.

#winning

Drawing Strength From Unexpected Places

Last week, Catholic Charities was closed the day after Thanksgiving so I didn't get to hang with my homies downtown. Adoration was closed for the weekend as well at the local church that usually has it 24/7. I was surprised how much these two little things affected me. My family was all around and we all had a good time with positively no drama. Still, there was something missing.

Listening to Pandora, I found this song that hit that spot of melancholy just right.

Update: Catholic Mom has something similar about how her faith has changed her life. Good stuff, that.

Your Tuesday Japan Update

Japan continues to print mountains of money, monetizing their out-of-control government's debt. The goal is to finally see some inflation as they've had recessionary deflation for years and years.

Success!

TOKYO—Prices in Japan posted strong gains in October while the labor market also improved, indications that the country is on its way to shaking off 15 years of deflation.

The government said that the core consumer price index, which excludes fresh food prices, rose 0.9% in October from a year earlier. That was the highest since November 2008, matching the rise forecast by economists. It marked the fifth straight month of increases.

Err, don't get excited just yet.

Many economists say recent rises in core CPI are largely due to increased costs of energy and other imported goods on the back of the yen's depreciation rather than growing demand for products

All that inflation must mean a growing economy, right? Not really.

TOKYO—Japan's economic expansion appears to be back in slow motion, with new figures showing corporate investment, a key driver of broader growth, yet to take off as the government hoped...

According to the survey, capital spending declined 0.5% from the April-June period on a seasonally adjusted basis, instead of growing modestly as estimated in the preliminary GDP data released on Nov. 14. That suggests the GDP figures for the quarter will likely be revised down.

This seems to indicate that there might be something more complicated at work and that piles of printed money may not make an economy flourish after all. Crazy, I know, but it could be true.

Meanwhile, our genius vice president, visiting a nation in a total demographic death spiral where they're selling more adult diapers than baby diapers, is praising Japan for putting more women in the workforce.

He's brilliant. Just brilliant.

Public Schools As Rube Goldberg Machines

Laurel Sturt, a brave and caring 10-year veteran of teaching in some pretty gnarly public schools, gave an interview published in the Atlantic. Here's part of what she had to say:

How did your attitude towards teaching evolve over your ten years in the Bronx?

I went in as an idealist. I’d seen all the movies, seen all the poor kids and heroic teachers. But those movies were fake. They started out with a real story but turned it into a happy ending when there wasn’t one. It was grueling. You had to save these kids, but if one was running around the room or dancing on the tables or beating another kid up, you had to deal with it yourself. They’re unhappy kids and they’re going to look for fights to express their frustration. We need legions of psychologists in the school to get the kids the therapy they need. We need wraparound services, community services that give mothers prenatal care, home-visits, teaching parents to read to kids, health services, food. It has reached an emergency level.

Emphasis mine.

Err, you know those legions of psychologists and social workers and community organizers you say we need? We might be able to replace them with married parents.

Married parents? That's just crazy! You might as well say we just need to drop an apple out of our hands to witness gravity at work!

Judge Judy's Agony

Signs wrong line on legal form, sends self to gas chamber. Under her TV show rules, no appeals are possible.