My Excuse for Today

I slept in. I slept in because I was worn out after my son and I spent the weekend getting the engine and transmission out of my MGB. While I was ultimately successful, it was a lot harder than it had to be because my auto mechanic skills were so rusty.


The effort was everything I hoped it would be. My son stuck with the project cheerfully and learned that real life isn't as neat and easy as a video game, a book's ending or a homework problem in math where the answers all magically come out to something as simple as x=4.

An Early Christmas Present from the Redhead

Momma Daisy's redheaded daughter has given us an early Christmas present. In fact, the whole family has been showering us with similar gifts. I just find the redhead's flowers to be particularly unusual and beautiful. Enjoy!

RedState is Suggesting a Do-Over Debate

...and I love the idea. The full story is here. Here's an excerpt:

Dear Duncan, Fred, John, Mike, Mitt, Ron, Rudy, and Tom:

The CNN-YouTube Debate was a disgrace. The blame lies largely with CNN, which wanted Republican voters to meet their Republican candidates but only on Democrats’ terms. They did so by portraying the GOP as women-arresting, gun toting, confederate flag-waving simpletons.

You – and we - need a do over as soon as possible.

Personally, I'm going to email the Fred08 team and suggest they do this.

A Few Notes About the Iroquois

Following up on my previous post about shocking economic facts here are a few tidbits I've found as I've researched the Iroquois Nation.

• In the 17th Century, the Iroquois nation numbered about 12,000 people. That's equivalent to 3 brigades of Napoleon's army which numbered around 250,000 in the 1780s before peaking at 1,100,000 at its height.


• The Iroquois Nation fought with the Huron (another Iroquois tribe).


• The Iroquois practiced what would be considered slave raids if done by the Europeans.

  League traditions allowed for the dead to be symbolically replaced through the "Mourning War", raids intended to seize captives to replace lost compatriots and take vengeance on non-members. This tradition was common to native people of the northeast and was quite different from European settlers' notions of combat.

• The Iroquois had no written language. Good luck with scientific discovery under those conditions. Imagine trying to practice the scientific method without writing.


• The Iroquois' government was based on a fairly sophisticated democratic system. There is some debate about whether or not this influenced the American Constitution and other writings, but there is no debate that the Iroquois were a democracy.


• They had limited metalworking technology.

  In North America, in the upper Midwest, copper had been beaten into knives, awls, and other tools in the Late Archaic period (around 2000 BC), and since that time it had been used for small tools and ornaments. The use of copper in this region, however, was not true metallurgy, because the metal was hammered from pure deposits rather than smelted from ore.

That's enough for now. I'm not sure where the rest of this will lead, but it's interesting to do a quick and shallow comparison between the Iroquois and the Europeans. Already this is far more comparative information than either of my kids received. The population bit alone is telling.

The Aztecs would be an equally interesting comparative study, although in terms of modern moral sensibilities, they would probably come out as tyrannical beasts. Of course, since my kids' social studies books judge the Europeans of the era using those sensibilities, it only seems fair to sit there with slack-jawed, judgmental horror at the Aztecs.

Update: What I'm thinking I'll look at here is the question, "Could Gregor Mendel have discovered genetics in Iroquois society?" I know it's a strange mix, but it combines several things my daughter is learning and as I research it, I think it provides a revealing thought exercise.

Update 2: Here's the post about Gregor Mendel as an Iroquis.

Shocking Economics

Redstate posted this video and I can't wait to share it with my kids.

This will go a long way towards balancing their social studies education with its endless stream of stories about how Europeans and Americans oppressed everyone.

As I think about it, I'm considering a post or three examining the correlation between oppression and economic success. After all, the Aztecs oppressed the living tar out of everyone around them and then got their butts kicked by a handful of diseased Spaniards. If exploiting others was the reason for the Europeans' success, why didn't it work for the Aztecs, the Azhanti or the Iroquois?

A Pavlovian Response to Comments

Amidst the general nonsense posted on this blog about things like politics, cooking, cats, hamsters, football, etc., I'm doing a much less accessible series on bringing blogs and wikis into your workplace. As those are aimed at a very narrow readership, those receive very few comments. Contrast that with the other posts where the usual crew of beloved commenters pile in and leave their 2, 4 or even 6 cents with the occasional extra visitor adding their views. The difference is quite striking.

Without comments, blogging can be a pretty lonely sport. I would bet that once a blogger finds a theme which causes their readers to leave comments, there's a significant motivation to continue that topic almost to the exclusion of others. I know that happens with me.

There was a story (it may have been an urban legend) about a university professor whose students played a trick on him over the course of a semester. Every time he moved to his right during his lectures, the students sat up straight and paid attention. Every time he moved to his left, the students slumped down, looked bored and let their eyes wander. By the end of the semester, the professor was giving his lectures leaning against the right hand wall.

I wonder if you could do that with a blog and conspiring as a group to leave comments on one kind of post or another.

Can You Stay Home Today?

It's a rainy day today and our Maximum Leader can't go outside and have her usual fun. As I got ready to leave today, I got this forlorn look from her.

Would you stay home and play with me?
For more plaintive pussy cats, visit this week's Friday Ark and Carnival of the Cats.

Just Call Me Coach

So I've just been named my daughter's school soccer team's coach. Yay!

I've managed three Little League baseball teams and they all ended up in first place. Yay!

I know very little about soccer. Yay?

After a season of my expert coaching, I fully expect the girls to look like this.

Part of the Logistics of Illegal Immigration

Millions of Mexicans and other foreign nationals enter this country every year across our southern border. When you read the numbers, they don't tell the whole story. For one thing, the immigration is not evenly distributed across the entire border. For another, what do all those millions of people do with their trash and other waste?

Wollf has the story and the pictures.

Where's the Sierra Club when you need them?

The YouTube Republican Debate Circus

So last night as I drove around I heard a bit of the beginning of the debate while listening to our Patriarch of the Airwaves, Hugh Hewitt. When I got home, I cruised over to Ann Althouse's blog, pointed there by the Puppy Blender, and participated in her brilliantly conceived liveblogging of the debate.

Ann put up an introductory post and then liveblogged it along with her readers in the comments. I thought that was ingenious. Once I decided to play along, I tuned in to the silly thing on CNN. I think I lasted through about four questions before I wandered off to watch some of my favorite scenes from The Road to Bali for the umpteenth time. Bob and Bing were infinitely better than that creepy metrosexual, Anderson Cooper. (Incidentally, is he a woman?)

Here's my take on the debate.

1. CNN, completely mystified by anything to the right of Noam Chomsky, picked questions that played to a caricature of conservatives. "Why do you hate Mexicans? Why do you hate Muslims? Do you believe every word of the Bible?"

Here are some analogous questions for the Democrats.

Hillary: What's better, a sale at Nordstroms or an outlet store?

John Edwards: Can you draft behind an ambulance like they do in NASCAR?
If the goal was really to help voters make a decision, then the Republicans got awful questions. Of course, the whole format isn't designed to do anything other than create brief, content-free conflict on a stage because...

2. No one works like this in real life. Can you imagine a CEO walking into a meeting and finding out the topic only after he has sat down? I can just see President Fred Thompson's agenda put together by CNN.

0800-0830: Review why you hate Mexicans.
0830-0930: Exchange 30-second insults with others over randomly chosen subjects.
0930-1030: Read the Bible and plan your theocratic takeover of the world.

There's no way a voter can get a sense of the philosophical foundations of the candidates when they have at most 90 seconds to answer and the question comes out of left field. For me, there are really only five topics worth hearing about from the candidates.

• The Islamofascists both in terror cells and host nations want to kill us all and are trying to obtain nuclear weapons. What should we do?


• The nation will be bankrupted by transfer payment obligations in about 20 years. What should we do?


• As Senator Edwards says, there really are two Americas, the rich and the poor. What's the cause and what should we do?


• Describe the cost-benefits trade offs for illegal immigration. What should we do about it?


• Developing nations like China are poisoning the globe with pollution. It's affecting us in a variety of ways. What should we do?

Can any of these be answered in 90 seconds and then countered in 30? Seriously, can they?

Mac vs. PC

The Wall Street Journal is currently auto-running one of those incredibly irritating Mac vs. PC ads on it's front page. I have to turn the sound down every time I go there to get away from the thing. In honor of that event, here's another of Laurie McGuinness' great Mac vs. PC ad spoofs.

Call Godzilla! Giant, Prehistoric Jellyfish are Attacking Japan

No kidding. Dig this (but excuse the preliminary ad from the WSJ site).

Jellyfish that are 6' in diameter?!? Don't be surprised if you see this photo from Tokyo very soon.

Godzilla stops for a snack on his way to Tokyo Bay to fight off the jellyfish.
Here's the original story from the WSJ.

Can a Dolphin be Snakebit?

I suffered through a good deal of last night's dreadful Steelers-Dolphins game, hoping to see the Dolphins finally win. I'm not a Dolphins fan, I just don't want to see them go 0-16. Of course, they lost, 3-0 on a last-second field goal. In the course of the game, the Dolphins, already wracked by injuries, lost two of their three running backs to more injuries. In a mud-clogged game where running was just about their only option, they lost almost all of their running backs. Unreal.

Is this the snake that bit the Dolphins?
If it wasn't for bad luck, they wouldn't have any luck at all.

Photo hosted and owned by naturephoto-cz.

Floundering With a Post About Foreclosures

In today's Wall Street Journal is a page one article about political activists pressuring lenders to stop foreclosures on borrowers who are part of the subprime loans mess. One activist group is ACORN whose 10-point plan for dealing with the foreclosures includes no consequences for the borrowers. I've struggled for over an hour trying to write this post, but I just had to give you this tiny tidbit from the WSJ article.

In Granada Hills, Calif., Natalie Brandon is fighting to keep the three-bedroom ranch house she bought in 1985 for $105,000. Mrs. Brandon, 51, does medical billing for doctors; her husband is a dispatcher for a local gas utility. Last year, she got a $625,500 mortgage from Argent, now owned by Citigroup. Her 7.99% interest rate isn't set to rise until next June, but she already is behind on payments.

The house was bought for $105K about 22 years ago and they now owe $625K?!? Where did that money go? That means they took out over $500,000 in cash on the property. They didn't buy a house back in 1985, they bought a bank they thought they could withdraw from endlessly. Had they just paid their first mortgage, they'd be 8 years away from owning the house outright and their payment, assuming a 30-year, 7% mortgage, would be $764 per month.

What's wrong with this picture?

A New Photo Spread!

The other night, our human blogger and I had another photo session and let me tell you, I was on fire. We got some great shots of me helping in the kitchen which will go into an upcoming post with our household spaghetti recipe. In the meantime, here's a tease.

One of the keys to good cooking is making sure you have good ingredients. Here, I'm checking out one of our home-grown red bell peppers.

My Parking at Work Song

When my MG B is finally on the road again, I'll need a sound system with a phono jack so I can play this song every time I pull into the parking lot at work.

Texans Win!

Note: As a result of a lost bet, this post must stay at the top for a week. We are still blogging, so you'll have to scroll down a bit to see the newest posts. Justin's Houston Texans beat my New Orleans Saints on Sunday, so it's time for me to pay up.

No question about it, they were the better team as they beat the Saints, 23-10. Go Texans!

A Manly Paradise

For the next three hours I shall experience Manly Nirvana as I work on my MG B, listen to the New Orleans Saints game over the Internet through my mammoth sound system in the garage and keep the garage TV tuned to the Tampa Bay - Washington game with the sound down.

Is there anything better than working on a British sports car?Glorious!

Early Episodes of Sesame Street are Unsafe for Kids

Remove all hard edges from your house and encase yourself in pillows! That's the only way you can stay safe and safety, after all, is the most important thing in the world.

As reported the the NY Times today, two volumes of old “Sesame Street” episodes recently released on DVD come with the following helpful warning label: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Fiat Lux has the whole story. Stop by and check it out.

Update: If you've got a comment to leave, would you mind leaving it at Fiat Lux? Comments are manna from heaven for bloggers and she found the story and deserves a little manna.

Movie Review: Dan in Real Life

Short version: Dan in Real Life is a funny, touching movie with strong pro-family messages. It's so clean you could bring the Pope to it and not be embarassed. Some of the movie is contrived and corny, but so what? So was It's a Wonderful Life and that's a classic. Dan in Real Life gets a big thumbs up from the 'Post.

Longer version: Whoa! Dan hit me right between the eyes. The lead character is almost taken from my life. As I watched it unfold, I heard dialog from my family and watched scenes from my past. It was a very loving and accurate portrayal of being a single dad, trying to make things work. The film is very strong morally and shows a side of Hollywood I hadn't seen in years.

Incidentally, in the trailers prior to the movie, there was an ad for a movie where a high school girl gets pregnant and goes through the process of deciding whether or not to give her child up for adoption. The trailer alone had a strong pro-life message, showing the girl watching sonograms and so forth. Hooray for Hollywood!

Dan lacks a villain, but does not lack a plot or a brisk pace. You can see most of the plot turns coming a mile away, but that doesn't make the movie any less enjoyable. I suppose that's a great credit to the cast, who play their parts with such energy that the whole movie is suffused with a sense of joy.

I had some nits to pick and one issue with the main character, but in retrospect, they're not worth writing. The cast and the crew gave me a fun two hours. How perfect do you have to be, anyway? The movie is worth seeing. If you go see it, stop by and let me know what you thought.