"A prominent Saudi Islamic cleric has issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against Mickey Mouse, whom he characterized as an agent of Satan sent to corrupt young minds.
Sheikh Mohammed Al-Munajid told Saudi Arabia's Al-Majd Television that his beef with Mickey is that he is a mouse, a creature that Islam sees as "repulsive and corrupting."
Al-Munajid explained that Islamic law refers to the mouse as "little corrupter" and a creature that is "steered by Satan," and grants permission to all Muslims to "kill [mice] in all cases."
Therefore, according to Islamic law, insisted the sheikh, "Mickey Mouse should be killed."
This is so hilariously stupid and twisted on its own that I'm at a loss for how to make it better. . .
. . . so I'll just say of Imam Al-Moron bin Fudd, as Bugs Bunny would, "What a Maroon!"
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=17181
Hat tip to Mark Krikorian of National Review and the Center for Immigration Studies who found and linked to this incredible item on the web.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Some Muslims don't want to convert us by the sword
Stephen Schwartz is always interesting even though I've disagreed with his articles as many times as I've agreed with them. In this short interview with John J. Miller of National Review he explains Sufism, a very old tradition which is a whole different thing from the sort of Islam most people are familiar with.
http://radio.nationalreview.com/betweenthecovers/post/?q=ZDNmZjNhYTkxMWE0MDEyMGQwMTYzNGEwZWM1NTBjMmM=
On the other hand, Michael Ledeen of National Review has pointed out that Iran's version of congress just voted 196 to 7 to pass a law that makes it an official death penalty offense for a Muslim to convert to another religion. Formerly in Iran the neighbors just stoned or stabbed the miscreant to death, informal like, if someone got that far out of line.
One hundred and ninety-six to seven! Sounds like it was a pretty popular law that aroused a lot of enthusiasm. The article doesn't say whether the Iranian congressmen - somehow I doubt there are any congresswomen in Iran - the article doesn't say whether the congressjihadis were jumping up and down, shooting guns in the air and waving big throat-cutting knives around after the vote. It also doesn't say whether the 196 who voted "Yea" immediately cut the throats of the 7 who voted "Nay;" or whether they did it later after the dudes got their day in Sharia Court. I guess a news story can't cover everything.
http://www.thememriblog.org/iran/blog_personal/en/9840.htm
http://radio.nationalreview.com/betweenthecovers/post/?q=ZDNmZjNhYTkxMWE0MDEyMGQwMTYzNGEwZWM1NTBjMmM=
On the other hand, Michael Ledeen of National Review has pointed out that Iran's version of congress just voted 196 to 7 to pass a law that makes it an official death penalty offense for a Muslim to convert to another religion. Formerly in Iran the neighbors just stoned or stabbed the miscreant to death, informal like, if someone got that far out of line.
One hundred and ninety-six to seven! Sounds like it was a pretty popular law that aroused a lot of enthusiasm. The article doesn't say whether the Iranian congressmen - somehow I doubt there are any congresswomen in Iran - the article doesn't say whether the congressjihadis were jumping up and down, shooting guns in the air and waving big throat-cutting knives around after the vote. It also doesn't say whether the 196 who voted "Yea" immediately cut the throats of the 7 who voted "Nay;" or whether they did it later after the dudes got their day in Sharia Court. I guess a news story can't cover everything.
http://www.thememriblog.org/iran/blog_personal/en/9840.htm
Ay Caramba! Not a Kodak Moment
Congresscritters working deals for private gain, cheating on taxes and generally acting like pigs at the trough is old news. But the picture of Charlie Rangel on the beach that accompanies this article aroused my sympathy for him.
Haven't we all experienced this? Haven't we all had someone take a less than flattering picture when we were innocently relaxing and then show it around for the amusement of the crowd?
Poor Charlie. I feel his pain. It's very wrong for insensitive people to pass around pictures like this. I, of course, only do it for educational purposes.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09152008/news/regionalnews/pelosi_asks_rangel_to_step_down_from_com_129228.htm
Haven't we all experienced this? Haven't we all had someone take a less than flattering picture when we were innocently relaxing and then show it around for the amusement of the crowd?
Poor Charlie. I feel his pain. It's very wrong for insensitive people to pass around pictures like this. I, of course, only do it for educational purposes.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09152008/news/regionalnews/pelosi_asks_rangel_to_step_down_from_com_129228.htm
Monday, September 15, 2008
For what it's worth
If you own stocks or mutual funds DO NOT SELL into a panic.
http://online.wsj.com/home/us
If you have cash to spare, BUY stocks or mutual funds gradually and steadily during panics. Actually, you should be doing that in good times and bad times. The difference it that it's really advantageous to buy during bad times. The problem is that neither you nor anyone else knows precisely how long the bad times will last.
Split your spare cash into 12 or 24 or 36 or 48 chunks depending on how conservative you want to be and buy some stocks each month in a disciplined fashion. Or increase the deduction that's going to your 401K plan if you work for a company that has such a plan. That's always a good idea if you can spare the money, but when the market is falling it is an especially good idea.
If you're under about 50 years old all of your investment dollars (except for your house) should be invested in stock mutual funds except for the amount of cash you need to live on for six months or so in the event you lose your job. If you're 60 years old you still should have almost all of your investment dollars invested in stock mutual funds.
We're almost surely not going into a new great depression. The government is stupid (nearly all governments are stupid nearly all the time), but the government is not that stupid, and the economy has changed a lot since the 1930's. Now, in 2008, almost half of the economy is supported by federal, state and local government spending of one sort or another. That's a bad thing for growth almost all the time, but it's a good thing if the world economy really falls apart because it means demand in the US cannot collapse completely as it did in the 1930's.
http://online.wsj.com/home/us
If you have cash to spare, BUY stocks or mutual funds gradually and steadily during panics. Actually, you should be doing that in good times and bad times. The difference it that it's really advantageous to buy during bad times. The problem is that neither you nor anyone else knows precisely how long the bad times will last.
Split your spare cash into 12 or 24 or 36 or 48 chunks depending on how conservative you want to be and buy some stocks each month in a disciplined fashion. Or increase the deduction that's going to your 401K plan if you work for a company that has such a plan. That's always a good idea if you can spare the money, but when the market is falling it is an especially good idea.
If you're under about 50 years old all of your investment dollars (except for your house) should be invested in stock mutual funds except for the amount of cash you need to live on for six months or so in the event you lose your job. If you're 60 years old you still should have almost all of your investment dollars invested in stock mutual funds.
We're almost surely not going into a new great depression. The government is stupid (nearly all governments are stupid nearly all the time), but the government is not that stupid, and the economy has changed a lot since the 1930's. Now, in 2008, almost half of the economy is supported by federal, state and local government spending of one sort or another. That's a bad thing for growth almost all the time, but it's a good thing if the world economy really falls apart because it means demand in the US cannot collapse completely as it did in the 1930's.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Alpha through the Muse to Omega
In an article about archaeology The Economist of September 6th quoted a Dr. Jason Ur. Fortunately Dr. Ur is an anthropologist at Harvard rather than a surgeon. His name is pretty darn neat; but if he's a Chaldean who's into body building and sailing it's perfect.
I have to wonder. Is his wife a novelist? Is her name Jane? Do they have a son? Did they name him Abram? How many times has he suffered these sorts of weak japes?
And. . . a comment to a post below moved me to quote William Blake. That, in turn, awakened the muse of my poetic side; which you now have to suffer:
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,
Please to come, and take a bite,
Of the deer, that deign to munch,
With scorn, my lily buds for lunch.
Rip their hides, with your sharp claws,
Crunch their bones, with your strong jaws,
Drag their corpses, home to your lair,
And feed them, to your kittens there.
Who can whine, about ravaged deer,
When they make, kitten chow sans peer?
Who can mourn, for a savaged fawn,
Whose haunches, nourish tiger spawn?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright,
I'd better stop, this making light,
Of mayhem, lest I rouse the ire,
Of neighbors, nieces and PETA choir.
Finally. . . On the way home from Villanova earlier today we saw a nicely shot up road sign along the expressway. It's true the shooter was probably using a mere pellet gun, because the sign wasn't shot through; but it warms my heart that there's still an outrageous scofflaw vandal out there keeping the world interesting.
I have to wonder. Is his wife a novelist? Is her name Jane? Do they have a son? Did they name him Abram? How many times has he suffered these sorts of weak japes?
And. . . a comment to a post below moved me to quote William Blake. That, in turn, awakened the muse of my poetic side; which you now have to suffer:
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright,
Please to come, and take a bite,
Of the deer, that deign to munch,
With scorn, my lily buds for lunch.
Rip their hides, with your sharp claws,
Crunch their bones, with your strong jaws,
Drag their corpses, home to your lair,
And feed them, to your kittens there.
Who can whine, about ravaged deer,
When they make, kitten chow sans peer?
Who can mourn, for a savaged fawn,
Whose haunches, nourish tiger spawn?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright,
I'd better stop, this making light,
Of mayhem, lest I rouse the ire,
Of neighbors, nieces and PETA choir.
Finally. . . On the way home from Villanova earlier today we saw a nicely shot up road sign along the expressway. It's true the shooter was probably using a mere pellet gun, because the sign wasn't shot through; but it warms my heart that there's still an outrageous scofflaw vandal out there keeping the world interesting.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
A very satisfying read
I just finished Faye Kellerman's newest novel The Burnt House. It's been a very satifying read over the past couple of days. I can report that Lieutenant Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus are well, and Lt. Decker as usual solved the case. Two cases, actually; because while searching for the body of victim one among plane crash wreckage they instead found the body of victim two who had been murdured and buried in the basement of the apartment house long before the plane crashed into it. Victim one had never been on the plane. Very improbable, just like real life; and thus very satisfying. Faye Kellerman has a gift for this sort of plot. And she has a gift for describing and portraying ethnic characters and religious traditions. In this case she incredibly manages to put a somewhat shamanistic Catholic Hispanic/Indian couple, grateful parents of victim two, together at a Shabbat dinner with Rina Decker's orthodox Jewish family.
Go figure where she gets the guts to do that. And go figure where she gets the skill to carry it off.
I know, I know; I'm supposed to be finishing Robert Lacey's book Little Man which Sam lent to me when I was avoiding finishing V.S. Naipaul's book The Enigma of Arrival. And I'm also supposed to be finishing the various magazines that I have half finished around here.
But there you have it. The evidence of my disorderly life. I found the Faye Kellerman book on the rack at the supermarket and picked it up. Then I picked it up off the coffee table where it was supposed to wait quietly until I finished at least one of the other books in process. I have no excuse except that it called to me at a weak moment; and it was a great excuse to avoid the other two books.
I should also confess at this point that when I picked up the book by Faye, I also picked up Jonathan Kellerman's new book and Patricia Cornwell's latest book. But I'm determined to return to Little Man before I open either of those two.
However, as I mentioned above, life is an improbable twist of random happenings. And I am an abject slave to my whims rather than a faithful servant of my rational desires and plans. I'm also old enough to realize that resistance really is futile. So, if I should succumb to the very strong desire to see what Milo Sturgis and Alex Delaware are up to, or if I should be unable to resist the siren call of a look into the lives of Kay Scarpetta and Pete Marino, it should surprise no one.
Little Man is a biography of Meyer Lansky. It's a true story, insofar as any book can be a true story of such a deeply private and devious subject who spent his life in such a dangerous business. It's full of interesting twists and turns, and it bears on a lot of subjects that I find deeply interesting. But it is a true story, after all, so it's not nearly as realistic as fiction.
The Enigma of Arrival, well, what can I say? It's by a great author, an author some of whose other books I have enjoyed a great deal; but it's, it's, so self absorbed. V.S. Naipaul was burrowed so far into contemplation of his own navel when he wrote it that it's almost beyond belief.
How can anyone be so self absorbed? I wonder about that from time to time.
Go figure where she gets the guts to do that. And go figure where she gets the skill to carry it off.
I know, I know; I'm supposed to be finishing Robert Lacey's book Little Man which Sam lent to me when I was avoiding finishing V.S. Naipaul's book The Enigma of Arrival. And I'm also supposed to be finishing the various magazines that I have half finished around here.
But there you have it. The evidence of my disorderly life. I found the Faye Kellerman book on the rack at the supermarket and picked it up. Then I picked it up off the coffee table where it was supposed to wait quietly until I finished at least one of the other books in process. I have no excuse except that it called to me at a weak moment; and it was a great excuse to avoid the other two books.
I should also confess at this point that when I picked up the book by Faye, I also picked up Jonathan Kellerman's new book and Patricia Cornwell's latest book. But I'm determined to return to Little Man before I open either of those two.
However, as I mentioned above, life is an improbable twist of random happenings. And I am an abject slave to my whims rather than a faithful servant of my rational desires and plans. I'm also old enough to realize that resistance really is futile. So, if I should succumb to the very strong desire to see what Milo Sturgis and Alex Delaware are up to, or if I should be unable to resist the siren call of a look into the lives of Kay Scarpetta and Pete Marino, it should surprise no one.
Little Man is a biography of Meyer Lansky. It's a true story, insofar as any book can be a true story of such a deeply private and devious subject who spent his life in such a dangerous business. It's full of interesting twists and turns, and it bears on a lot of subjects that I find deeply interesting. But it is a true story, after all, so it's not nearly as realistic as fiction.
The Enigma of Arrival, well, what can I say? It's by a great author, an author some of whose other books I have enjoyed a great deal; but it's, it's, so self absorbed. V.S. Naipaul was burrowed so far into contemplation of his own navel when he wrote it that it's almost beyond belief.
How can anyone be so self absorbed? I wonder about that from time to time.
If true, what a wuss
A sympathetic blogger at getreligion.org feels sorry for Charles Gibson. She thinks he was in a tough position and had to be tough on Sarah Palin because of all the peer pressure of his colleagues in the media. Here's what she said.
"I have been reflecting on the Charles Gibson’s performance during his ABCinterview of Gov. Sarah Palin and I actually feel bad for him. Because Palin has not been as available to the press as they would have liked, he had the burden of representing the entire mainstream media establishment. And with the mainstream media admitting they are “angry” and passionate these last few weeks, that put Gibson in a very difficult position. I mean, he has to work with and socialize with these people for the rest of his life. That is an incredible amount of peer pressure and it had to have been an unbelievably difficult situation for him. I don’t think it excuses getting basic facts wrong but it’s just worth considering all the pressures he was under.
And while Gibson’s performance is getting eviscerated as unfair by many observers — and that includes the New York Times media critic and the Los Angeles Times — he’s also getting lots of support from some media friends. So I think that he probably did what he needed to do to stay in the good graces of his colleagues."
Here's my reaction to this idea. First, Charles Gibson had every right to be as tough or as easy on Sarah Palin as he felt he should be in his own professional opinion. But note that I said "in his own professional opinion."
If Charles Gibson was so much as one jot or tittle tougher or easier on Sarah Palin because of public opinion, or out of a desire to preserve his own reputation, or especially out of a desire to keep the good opinion of his "in" crowd he's not a "professional" except in the sense that he's a professional whore. If he did that he's no more professional than any contemptible little sissy on a kindergarten playground who joins in taunting a former friend because "everybody is doing it."
Not that there's anything wrong with that, at least in the thinking of much of our modern culture, especially including the glib gaggle of sniggering gigolos who make up the media.
A word about my use of "whore" and "gigolo" in the above. I used the words in their meaning as insults connoting those who sell their honor for money. I certainly intended no insult to honorable whores and gigolos who merely rent the use of their bodies. Such honorable whores are not to be confused with the thoroughly dishonorable whores who infest the media.
"I have been reflecting on the Charles Gibson’s performance during his ABCinterview of Gov. Sarah Palin and I actually feel bad for him. Because Palin has not been as available to the press as they would have liked, he had the burden of representing the entire mainstream media establishment. And with the mainstream media admitting they are “angry” and passionate these last few weeks, that put Gibson in a very difficult position. I mean, he has to work with and socialize with these people for the rest of his life. That is an incredible amount of peer pressure and it had to have been an unbelievably difficult situation for him. I don’t think it excuses getting basic facts wrong but it’s just worth considering all the pressures he was under.
And while Gibson’s performance is getting eviscerated as unfair by many observers — and that includes the New York Times media critic and the Los Angeles Times — he’s also getting lots of support from some media friends. So I think that he probably did what he needed to do to stay in the good graces of his colleagues."
Here's my reaction to this idea. First, Charles Gibson had every right to be as tough or as easy on Sarah Palin as he felt he should be in his own professional opinion. But note that I said "in his own professional opinion."
If Charles Gibson was so much as one jot or tittle tougher or easier on Sarah Palin because of public opinion, or out of a desire to preserve his own reputation, or especially out of a desire to keep the good opinion of his "in" crowd he's not a "professional" except in the sense that he's a professional whore. If he did that he's no more professional than any contemptible little sissy on a kindergarten playground who joins in taunting a former friend because "everybody is doing it."
Not that there's anything wrong with that, at least in the thinking of much of our modern culture, especially including the glib gaggle of sniggering gigolos who make up the media.
A word about my use of "whore" and "gigolo" in the above. I used the words in their meaning as insults connoting those who sell their honor for money. I certainly intended no insult to honorable whores and gigolos who merely rent the use of their bodies. Such honorable whores are not to be confused with the thoroughly dishonorable whores who infest the media.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Ouch! That has to smart
It turns out Barack Obama is only in favor of women getting equal pay for equal work when it comes to women who work for somebody else; or maybe it's just that Obama has problems with the idea of hiring women for positions of responsibility.
Obama pays the women on his staff 83% of what he pays the men on his staff.
McCain, on the other hand, pays the women on his staff better than he pays the men by a few percentage points, mostly because he has female staffers who are allowed to do more than serve the men coffee and attend to the typing and filing.
But I'm a partisan, so you shouldn't just trust me. You can look it up yourself. Deroy Murdock at National Review lays out the facts in nice order. And, just in case you don't trust him either, he gives his sources so you can check them yourself.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmEzMTZmNTk5MDI0NTZmNjUwMjllN2ZlZTc0MWFmYzY=
Obama pays the women on his staff 83% of what he pays the men on his staff.
McCain, on the other hand, pays the women on his staff better than he pays the men by a few percentage points, mostly because he has female staffers who are allowed to do more than serve the men coffee and attend to the typing and filing.
But I'm a partisan, so you shouldn't just trust me. You can look it up yourself. Deroy Murdock at National Review lays out the facts in nice order. And, just in case you don't trust him either, he gives his sources so you can check them yourself.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmEzMTZmNTk5MDI0NTZmNjUwMjllN2ZlZTc0MWFmYzY=
I wonder what the law is on these in Pennsylvania
Debra has an issue with ATV's crossing their property; and, sorry to say, but Hobbs is getting a little old to handle the groundhog problem. I bet if she buys one of these and fences it back there all that with the trespassers will stop; and Hobbs can enjoy a well deserved retirement from groundhog control.
We're talking a bargain price also - five hundred bucks.
I'm thinking one of them would nicely solve the problem of deer eating my lily buds. I have to talk to Linda about this. We've been thinking of getting a pet. May as well get one that can pull his weight.
http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2835
We're talking a bargain price also - five hundred bucks.
I'm thinking one of them would nicely solve the problem of deer eating my lily buds. I have to talk to Linda about this. We've been thinking of getting a pet. May as well get one that can pull his weight.
http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2835
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wow! That's a turnaround jump shot
Barack Obama is the basketball player in this race, but he seems to have had his guard down when John McCain pulled off an impressive turnaround jump shot from outside the three point line a couple of weeks ago by picking Sarah Palin to be his VP running mate.
The odds on McCain as the next president are now up to 51% on Intrade, while the odds on Obama are down to 48%. The odds on McCain were well below 40% seven days ago.
Intrade is a website for legal gambling, in case you didn't know, just like Hialeah Park, the New York Stock Exchange and the PA State Lottery. If you buy a share of McCain for $51 today they will pay you $100 on November 4th, if he wins. So he's like a horse running in the fifth race at Hialeah who goes off at a little under two to one. Last week his payoff was somewhat over five to two; and a month ago his payoff was over three to one.
Uh, Oh! Joe Biden can't like this trend. The odds of him being replaced on the Democratic ticket are up to twelve to one today. The odds of him being replaced were over thirty to one a week ago. I wonder if some members of Obama's staff are placing a few bets on the side, selling old Joe short, so to speak.
I think I have all that odds stuff right. If Pop were still with us I would ask him. He could explain it with great certainty. Mom also. They both knew a lot about the odds on lots of things.
http://www.intrade.com/
This all brings back fond memories of a long running conversation I had with Pop about the possibility of developing a system for beating the horses based on Pop's knowledgeably held belief that most punters tend to be biased toward longs shots and thus increase the payoff odds of favorites above the actual probability that they will win the race.
This bettor bias belief of Pop's was deeply ironic and interesting in that the only person he knew with certainty to be a long term winner at the track was Doc. Doc's investment methodology was to watch all the various factors closely and patiently until he identified a particular long shot horse who was ready to win a particular race based on his history, the running conditions and the histories of the other horses in the field of competition, about all of which he maintained encyclopedic knowledge.
And Doc was also disciplined. If doc happened to go to the track with the boys and no such special pick was running that day, or if the conditions were not exactly right for a horse he had picked, say because it was raining, or because another horse had been scratched from the field, Doc would content himself with $2 bets all day. "Discipline and patience," Pop used to say, "Doc has the patience to wait and the discipline to withhold his bet unless everything is perfect." Not that Doc's horse would win every time; but enough of his twenty and thirty and fifty to one longshots won to return his overall investments and more. Pop knew this because Doc, as his best buddy, shared his picks, and Pop would send a few bucks to the track with Doc when he went, as he did a few times a year, to take advantage of a special situation.
After saying that over the long run he had won some money on Doc's picks, Pop would always mention that Doc would chide him at the track when they went together and Pop wagered a five or ten dollar bill on some horse because he liked the name or whatever. "Why do you do that, Johnny," Doc would say, "You, of all people, know that you can't win at gambling."
Pop and Doc, those were a prize pair to listen to, and if Norfi was with them. . . heavens, the conversations you could hear.
But back to my long running conversation with Pop about betting systems. Pop knew a lot about betting systems because a lot of people he knew were firm believers in a wide variety of betting systems. Pop believed that the betting bias in favor of longshots was real, but that it was was not sufficient to make it possible to beat the track's fifteen percent vigorish by betting regularly on favorites. And, he would always say, "What the hell's the fun of betting on a five to four favorite and then going up to the window to collect twelve fifty on a ten dollar bet. "
Near the end of his life Pop was tickled pink when I brought him a long and pretty careful news article about a scholarly paper by a group of college professors who not only proved the theory that the track odds could be beaten by betting on favorites, but who actually presented the reasoning and the sequence of bets they had made to prove the theory. As I recall it their system depended on identifying and taking advantage of certain kinds of odds spreads over the field of horses in a race combined with the running times of those horses in prior races.
I haven't looked it up online, but you can if you want to, I expect. It would be a scholarly paper written in the mid to late 1980's. And if you look it up you can apply the system yourself, although I'll warn you that it required a lot of study over some weeks before Pop agreed that it might work, resulting in a couple of percentage point edge beyond the track take for the bettor in those specific races where the stars aligned perfectly.
Also, unfortunately, the system itself appeared to me to be massively time consuming to work, although today I imagine you could set it up on a personal computer, if you know a lot about Excel or any of the Mathlab type packages, and if you're ready to do a lot of work learning about downloading betting and odds history, and the time performance histories of a lot of horses.
Then too - The fact that it can work means that many people have probably already perfected automated versions of that system, which in turn means the odds edge it can provide will have dropped since the professors published it.
The odds on McCain as the next president are now up to 51% on Intrade, while the odds on Obama are down to 48%. The odds on McCain were well below 40% seven days ago.
Intrade is a website for legal gambling, in case you didn't know, just like Hialeah Park, the New York Stock Exchange and the PA State Lottery. If you buy a share of McCain for $51 today they will pay you $100 on November 4th, if he wins. So he's like a horse running in the fifth race at Hialeah who goes off at a little under two to one. Last week his payoff was somewhat over five to two; and a month ago his payoff was over three to one.
Uh, Oh! Joe Biden can't like this trend. The odds of him being replaced on the Democratic ticket are up to twelve to one today. The odds of him being replaced were over thirty to one a week ago. I wonder if some members of Obama's staff are placing a few bets on the side, selling old Joe short, so to speak.
I think I have all that odds stuff right. If Pop were still with us I would ask him. He could explain it with great certainty. Mom also. They both knew a lot about the odds on lots of things.
http://www.intrade.com/
This all brings back fond memories of a long running conversation I had with Pop about the possibility of developing a system for beating the horses based on Pop's knowledgeably held belief that most punters tend to be biased toward longs shots and thus increase the payoff odds of favorites above the actual probability that they will win the race.
This bettor bias belief of Pop's was deeply ironic and interesting in that the only person he knew with certainty to be a long term winner at the track was Doc. Doc's investment methodology was to watch all the various factors closely and patiently until he identified a particular long shot horse who was ready to win a particular race based on his history, the running conditions and the histories of the other horses in the field of competition, about all of which he maintained encyclopedic knowledge.
And Doc was also disciplined. If doc happened to go to the track with the boys and no such special pick was running that day, or if the conditions were not exactly right for a horse he had picked, say because it was raining, or because another horse had been scratched from the field, Doc would content himself with $2 bets all day. "Discipline and patience," Pop used to say, "Doc has the patience to wait and the discipline to withhold his bet unless everything is perfect." Not that Doc's horse would win every time; but enough of his twenty and thirty and fifty to one longshots won to return his overall investments and more. Pop knew this because Doc, as his best buddy, shared his picks, and Pop would send a few bucks to the track with Doc when he went, as he did a few times a year, to take advantage of a special situation.
After saying that over the long run he had won some money on Doc's picks, Pop would always mention that Doc would chide him at the track when they went together and Pop wagered a five or ten dollar bill on some horse because he liked the name or whatever. "Why do you do that, Johnny," Doc would say, "You, of all people, know that you can't win at gambling."
Pop and Doc, those were a prize pair to listen to, and if Norfi was with them. . . heavens, the conversations you could hear.
But back to my long running conversation with Pop about betting systems. Pop knew a lot about betting systems because a lot of people he knew were firm believers in a wide variety of betting systems. Pop believed that the betting bias in favor of longshots was real, but that it was was not sufficient to make it possible to beat the track's fifteen percent vigorish by betting regularly on favorites. And, he would always say, "What the hell's the fun of betting on a five to four favorite and then going up to the window to collect twelve fifty on a ten dollar bet. "
Near the end of his life Pop was tickled pink when I brought him a long and pretty careful news article about a scholarly paper by a group of college professors who not only proved the theory that the track odds could be beaten by betting on favorites, but who actually presented the reasoning and the sequence of bets they had made to prove the theory. As I recall it their system depended on identifying and taking advantage of certain kinds of odds spreads over the field of horses in a race combined with the running times of those horses in prior races.
I haven't looked it up online, but you can if you want to, I expect. It would be a scholarly paper written in the mid to late 1980's. And if you look it up you can apply the system yourself, although I'll warn you that it required a lot of study over some weeks before Pop agreed that it might work, resulting in a couple of percentage point edge beyond the track take for the bettor in those specific races where the stars aligned perfectly.
Also, unfortunately, the system itself appeared to me to be massively time consuming to work, although today I imagine you could set it up on a personal computer, if you know a lot about Excel or any of the Mathlab type packages, and if you're ready to do a lot of work learning about downloading betting and odds history, and the time performance histories of a lot of horses.
Then too - The fact that it can work means that many people have probably already perfected automated versions of that system, which in turn means the odds edge it can provide will have dropped since the professors published it.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Surprise, Surprise
Back on August 12th I posted about people supporting illegal immigration by making the ridiculous argument that there are "jobs Americans won't do." After destroying that argument I mockingly asked why the open borders extremists don't also argue for the use of child labor to do jobs that fully grown Americans can't do because they're too big to fit into tight spaces and such.
http://sullysside.blogspot.com/2008/08/what-about-jobs-legal-american-workers.html
The people I mocked in that post were complaining about an Immigration Department enforcement raid which found 600 illegal alien workers at an Iowa meat processing plant.
Well, imagine my surprise when I saw an article today about that same Iowa meat processing plant. It turns out that the owners there were also using underage child labor. I was relieved to see that they were doing that long before I posted my thing; because I would have hated to learn that I gave them the idea.
But seriously, why should it surprise anyone that an employer who will break the law to employ and exploit illegal aliens will also break the law to employ and exploit children? Such employers want easily manipulated workers who can't complain about unjust treatment. Illegal aliens fit the bill because if they complain the employer can easily replace them with a new illegal alien willing to work for any wage and under any conditions. Children also fit the bill, because they're too ill-informed to know they can complain.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008809100366
We need to get control of our borders and we need to set reasonable limits on legal immigration. There is a logical argument to be made for controlled levels of immigration of people with specialized education and complex job skills and such. There is no logical argument to be made for wide open borders and wide open visa systems which allow a literally unlimited number of illegal aliens to enter the country.
http://sullysside.blogspot.com/2008/08/what-about-jobs-legal-american-workers.html
The people I mocked in that post were complaining about an Immigration Department enforcement raid which found 600 illegal alien workers at an Iowa meat processing plant.
Well, imagine my surprise when I saw an article today about that same Iowa meat processing plant. It turns out that the owners there were also using underage child labor. I was relieved to see that they were doing that long before I posted my thing; because I would have hated to learn that I gave them the idea.
But seriously, why should it surprise anyone that an employer who will break the law to employ and exploit illegal aliens will also break the law to employ and exploit children? Such employers want easily manipulated workers who can't complain about unjust treatment. Illegal aliens fit the bill because if they complain the employer can easily replace them with a new illegal alien willing to work for any wage and under any conditions. Children also fit the bill, because they're too ill-informed to know they can complain.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008809100366
We need to get control of our borders and we need to set reasonable limits on legal immigration. There is a logical argument to be made for controlled levels of immigration of people with specialized education and complex job skills and such. There is no logical argument to be made for wide open borders and wide open visa systems which allow a literally unlimited number of illegal aliens to enter the country.
There's no need for me to joke about this
The green goofballs in Boston just installed a windmill on the roof of city hall. Even though they were given the windmill for free, it cost $13,000 to install. It provides enough electricity for 19 light bulbs - when the wind is blowing. I guess Boston city workers sit in the dark when the wind isn't blowing.
Perhaps they plan to use the windmill to power the light bulbs in the offices where the mayor's relatives and old buddies are supposed to be working. Since those "workers" hardly ever show up anyway it doesn't matter whether he wind blows or not.
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1118058&format=text
Perhaps they plan to use the windmill to power the light bulbs in the offices where the mayor's relatives and old buddies are supposed to be working. Since those "workers" hardly ever show up anyway it doesn't matter whether he wind blows or not.
http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1118058&format=text
Always delightful, always maddening
Camille Paglia is one of the best writers out there. No matter what your politics are she's almost certain to outrage you at least a few times every column.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index.html
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index.html
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Read this before tomorrow!
The bad news is that when the Large Hadron Collider is turned on tomorrow it may create a black hole which will swallow the earth, or it may make this whole universe not be.
The good news is that if it destroys this universe your infinite number of other selves will go on living in all the other universes where they live.
The really bad news is that if it makes the universe not be there won't be a sound and light show.
The sort of good news is that if it creates a black hole which swallows the earth you'll be around forever to hear and see the sound and light show, but you'll be getting kind of stretchy. Everyone else will also get stretchy, but you won't notice because they'll be sucked in so fast. On the other hand they will also be around forever, except they won't see you get stretchy because you'll be sucked in so fast.
I'd go on, but understanding the relativity bit and the time thing and stretchy thing at the event horizon of a black hole is way above my pay grade. So you ought to take the above with a grain or two of salt. But take the grain of salt today, because tomorrow it could get sucked down into the black hole so fast you won't be able to taste it, even with your gynormously stretchy chameleon tongue.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23552722-details/Countdown+to+man
Update - September 11
If you're reading this and your computer screen isn't very long and stretchy, the Large Hadron Collider has not destroyed the universe, nor has it created a black hole which swallowed the earth - yet. And you shouldn't be too paranoid even if you hear that the very big brained scientists who will be playing with it like it was a very big super soaker water gun believe with all their hearts that my frog can be in two places at the same time, and, that while he is occupying two separate lilypads in the space time continuuuuum, so to speak, his two little web footed doppelgangers can croak insults to one another instantaneously by, like, cosmic mental telepathy, no matter how far apart the lily pads are.
Another reason you shouldn't worry is that very famous celebrities believe you shouldn't worry. http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i40245
The good news is that if it destroys this universe your infinite number of other selves will go on living in all the other universes where they live.
The really bad news is that if it makes the universe not be there won't be a sound and light show.
The sort of good news is that if it creates a black hole which swallows the earth you'll be around forever to hear and see the sound and light show, but you'll be getting kind of stretchy. Everyone else will also get stretchy, but you won't notice because they'll be sucked in so fast. On the other hand they will also be around forever, except they won't see you get stretchy because you'll be sucked in so fast.
I'd go on, but understanding the relativity bit and the time thing and stretchy thing at the event horizon of a black hole is way above my pay grade. So you ought to take the above with a grain or two of salt. But take the grain of salt today, because tomorrow it could get sucked down into the black hole so fast you won't be able to taste it, even with your gynormously stretchy chameleon tongue.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23552722-details/Countdown+to+man
Update - September 11
If you're reading this and your computer screen isn't very long and stretchy, the Large Hadron Collider has not destroyed the universe, nor has it created a black hole which swallowed the earth - yet. And you shouldn't be too paranoid even if you hear that the very big brained scientists who will be playing with it like it was a very big super soaker water gun believe with all their hearts that my frog can be in two places at the same time, and, that while he is occupying two separate lilypads in the space time continuuuuum, so to speak, his two little web footed doppelgangers can croak insults to one another instantaneously by, like, cosmic mental telepathy, no matter how far apart the lily pads are.
Another reason you shouldn't worry is that very famous celebrities believe you shouldn't worry. http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5i40245
Do you have plenty of warm clothes?
In response to a previous post here Nephew David wrote a question on my wall at Facebook about the probability of serious global cooling. Fortunately Facebook sent me an email about it because I don't know how to get to the damn wall to read what's on it. And I wanted to read what's on it a couple of weeks ago because I got an email that made me think a young gal who should have her mouth washed out with soap also wrote stuff there after seeing my cowboy hat picture, although David told me he didn't see what she wrote when he went to this supposed wall.
Have I mentioned that my cowboy hat picture is the very best child's picture in the known universe. I would post it here, but I don't know how to post pictures here. Facebook is very easy to post pictures on. Maybe too easy, because like, Dude, some of the young folks who have posted pictures there are seriously going to be like embarrassed in ten or twenty or forty years when their like kids and grandkids find those pictures.
Anyway, here's a post by Edward John Craig on National Review's Planet Gore blog that talks about sunspots and the little ice age and why the way out there in the heliosphere scientists think we should be thinking about it. As a surprise bonus it also explains why you have straight black hair if you are one of the so-called "black Irish;" but you have to read kind of between the lines to get the joke about that, and you have to know where Spain is, and what kind of people live in Spain and what kind of people mostly live in Ireland and so forth, headsplittingly boring stuff they don't teach in schools nowadays. Anyway, even if you don't know where Ireland or why Spanish rice is kind of pink the post is very interesting because it explains why you might like freeze your ass off this winter or next winter.
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTk4YjBkMDk5NDM4Zjk5YmIzN2UxNGVjNTVmMTQ1Mjk=
Have I mentioned that my cowboy hat picture is the very best child's picture in the known universe. I would post it here, but I don't know how to post pictures here. Facebook is very easy to post pictures on. Maybe too easy, because like, Dude, some of the young folks who have posted pictures there are seriously going to be like embarrassed in ten or twenty or forty years when their like kids and grandkids find those pictures.
Anyway, here's a post by Edward John Craig on National Review's Planet Gore blog that talks about sunspots and the little ice age and why the way out there in the heliosphere scientists think we should be thinking about it. As a surprise bonus it also explains why you have straight black hair if you are one of the so-called "black Irish;" but you have to read kind of between the lines to get the joke about that, and you have to know where Spain is, and what kind of people live in Spain and what kind of people mostly live in Ireland and so forth, headsplittingly boring stuff they don't teach in schools nowadays. Anyway, even if you don't know where Ireland or why Spanish rice is kind of pink the post is very interesting because it explains why you might like freeze your ass off this winter or next winter.
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTk4YjBkMDk5NDM4Zjk5YmIzN2UxNGVjNTVmMTQ1Mjk=
We deserve better!
The Demos are trying to sell Joe Biden as a po' boy from Scranton. If Barack Obama bought Joe Biden as a coal miner's daughter type Pennsylvania native scion he's a lot less smart than he appeared when he rolled over Bill O'Reilly on taxes last night.
Here's a random thought that struck me while watching Obama swish O'Reilly around on the floor like a dust mop and then unscrew his head and slam dunk it.
After this election we're going to have to look at either Obama's big wart or McCain's turkey wattle neck for the next four years. Not pleasant. And then there's that thing with the tongue Palin does behind her lower lip when she's thinking.
And if that's not enough; all three of the above pale next to the thought of listening to Biden talk out of both sides of his mouth for four years. What a supercilious asshole. Caligula's horse is a lot more believable as a popular favorite for a Senator's stall and trough, and he didn't get re-elected 6 times. At least half of the three or four dozen voters down in Delaware must be brain damaged from smelling all that chicken shit.
Anyway, after eight years of putting up with George W's earnest Alfred E. Neuman imitation we deserve better.
Here's a random thought that struck me while watching Obama swish O'Reilly around on the floor like a dust mop and then unscrew his head and slam dunk it.
After this election we're going to have to look at either Obama's big wart or McCain's turkey wattle neck for the next four years. Not pleasant. And then there's that thing with the tongue Palin does behind her lower lip when she's thinking.
And if that's not enough; all three of the above pale next to the thought of listening to Biden talk out of both sides of his mouth for four years. What a supercilious asshole. Caligula's horse is a lot more believable as a popular favorite for a Senator's stall and trough, and he didn't get re-elected 6 times. At least half of the three or four dozen voters down in Delaware must be brain damaged from smelling all that chicken shit.
Anyway, after eight years of putting up with George W's earnest Alfred E. Neuman imitation we deserve better.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Here's a wrinkle about Iran I hadn't thought about
This article about how we're about to sell a $7 Billion anti-missile system to The United Arab Emirates caught my eye. I've been so blinded by all the talk about Iran threatening Israel that I've tended to forget that an Iranian bomb also threatens a whole bunch of other people. Iranian Shiites may not hate Sunni Muslims quite as much as they hate Jews and Americans; but they hate them plenty much. There's going to be a lot of money in selling anti-missile systems to all the oil rich countries that are going to want to have a chance of stopping an Iranian missile. Figure on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia being next up to bat to pay several billion for such systems, and there is only one country that can supply them.
http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080909/tbs-usa-uae-missile-7318940.html
It's nice that there's money to be made by our aerospace industry. But don't get me wrong. I think it will be a very, very bad day for the world if Iran manages to develop a nuclear weapon. And it will be an even worse day if Iran manages to develop compact nuclear weapons that can be delivered with ballistic missiles. Iran already has missiles which can reach the other oil producing states in the Middle East, and also Israel, which is "the little Satan" in the eyes of the Muslim fanatics who run Iran. And Iran is working on missiles able to reach most of Europe.
Note that this is not a panic thing. This is a long run risk thing. I'm no expert on these weapons; but I do know there is a big difference in difficulty between developing unwieldy two ton nuclear devices like the bombs dropped on Japan, and developing a few hundred pound device which is shaped to fit into a missile reentry nose cone. It took the U.S. and the Soviet Union several years and dozens of nuclear tests to develop reliable warheads for missiles. With more modern computers to do modelling and all the information that is out there in the public domain it will probably take Iran less time; but it will still take a couple of years minimum from the time of the first test explosion to the time they can have a short range missile ready to launch with a reliable warhead.
Figure at least a couple of years before Iran tests a bomb, then at least a couple more years before they can put a bomb on a short range missile, then at least a couple more years before they can put it on a medium range missile, say one that can reach Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, India, and a lot of other nearby countries. That means it's at least five or six years before things will get really dicey.
But five or six years isn't very long if you're thinking about how to defend against such missiles. Just installing and testing one of these anti-missile systems is probably a several year affair.
http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080909/tbs-usa-uae-missile-7318940.html
It's nice that there's money to be made by our aerospace industry. But don't get me wrong. I think it will be a very, very bad day for the world if Iran manages to develop a nuclear weapon. And it will be an even worse day if Iran manages to develop compact nuclear weapons that can be delivered with ballistic missiles. Iran already has missiles which can reach the other oil producing states in the Middle East, and also Israel, which is "the little Satan" in the eyes of the Muslim fanatics who run Iran. And Iran is working on missiles able to reach most of Europe.
Note that this is not a panic thing. This is a long run risk thing. I'm no expert on these weapons; but I do know there is a big difference in difficulty between developing unwieldy two ton nuclear devices like the bombs dropped on Japan, and developing a few hundred pound device which is shaped to fit into a missile reentry nose cone. It took the U.S. and the Soviet Union several years and dozens of nuclear tests to develop reliable warheads for missiles. With more modern computers to do modelling and all the information that is out there in the public domain it will probably take Iran less time; but it will still take a couple of years minimum from the time of the first test explosion to the time they can have a short range missile ready to launch with a reliable warhead.
Figure at least a couple of years before Iran tests a bomb, then at least a couple more years before they can put a bomb on a short range missile, then at least a couple more years before they can put it on a medium range missile, say one that can reach Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, India, and a lot of other nearby countries. That means it's at least five or six years before things will get really dicey.
But five or six years isn't very long if you're thinking about how to defend against such missiles. Just installing and testing one of these anti-missile systems is probably a several year affair.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Stupid is as stupid does
Meanwhile in breaking news from Norristown:
Gordon Glantz, managing editor of The Times Herald, published a perfectly predictable column slamming the GOP for a lot of things, one of which was stupidity.
Which was interesting, because Mr. Smarty Pants Managing Editor Glantz wrote in the next to last paragraph - "A choice of Jindal - a Native American no less - would have shown that the Republican Party still has some residual mojo. . ."
He meant Bobby Jindal, the Republican fellow those Good Old Boys down in Louisiana elected to be their Governor a couple of years ago.
To me Bobby Jindal being a Native American didn't sound exactly right, even though a politically correct fellow like Gordon Glantz said he was. First off, as a good Republican I have a mental picture of Bobby Jindal to go along with my mental appreciation of his policy positions, and in my mental picture Bobby Jindal is a good couple of shades darker than I remember Tonto and Cochise being. I was pretty sure he wasn't the kind of Native American who used to hold up his hand and say "How" when he wasn't shooting arrows at John Wayne.
Those gun toting racist Republican hicks out in Alaska elected the wife of a Native American as Governor a couple of years ago; but he's descended from kayaking Native Americans, the sort who used to hunt seals and walruses. The Republicans in Colorado elected a fellow descended from the sort of pinto pony riding, buffalo steak eating Native Americans Glantz was thinking of, but not Louisiana. I was pretty sure Louisiana Republicans elected a fellow who was born in this country but who's ancestors were Shrimp Vindaloo eating Indians, you know, folks who were from the Indian Subcontinent rather than from the Indian Territories.
But I like to be careful about such things; so I did a couple of clicks on this newfangled internet thingy that Mr. Glantz must not have heard about, to check my memory and my thinking. And then I wrote Mr. Glantz a respectful email:
"Only the Times Herald could have a managing editor who thinks Bobby Jindal is a "Native American" and is dumb enough to put it in a column.
Do you do your research before or after you neglect to check the headlines for spelling?
Another, less reliably leftist managing editor might have meant he was born in America. But you, of course, meant that his ancestors counted coup on white devils like Custer out on the great plains.
Turns out his ancestors, given his parentage, are a lot more likely to have counted coup on Mohammedans or British accented white devils over in old India.
Regards,
Sully
P.S. Love your 'stache, but I recommend you ditch the white jacket for a rainbow tie-dye. "
Me again - In the interests of fairness I shall certainly post Mr. Glantz's reply if he makes one. Incidently, since sending him the email I have reconsidered my opinion of Mr. Glantz's droopy at the sides moustache. On reflection it makes him look like an underdeveloped walrus, or else a walrus after the attentions of a pinniped version of Lorena Bobbitt. He should ditch the picture.
Update: My remarks above relate to the picture of Mr. Glantz in the print edition of The Times Herald. His column of Sunday, September 7th wasn't up on the website (as of September 7th). There is a different picture of him on the web. In that picture he doesn't have a Fu Manchu moustache.
Update - September 9th - In today's paper The Times Herald published a tiny little correction of this pretty big error on Mr. Glantz's part, given that he regularly writes about national politics. The correction reads. "In Gordon Glantz's column on Page A4 of Sunday's edition, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was incorrectly identified as a Native American."
Gordon Glantz, managing editor of The Times Herald, published a perfectly predictable column slamming the GOP for a lot of things, one of which was stupidity.
Which was interesting, because Mr. Smarty Pants Managing Editor Glantz wrote in the next to last paragraph - "A choice of Jindal - a Native American no less - would have shown that the Republican Party still has some residual mojo. . ."
He meant Bobby Jindal, the Republican fellow those Good Old Boys down in Louisiana elected to be their Governor a couple of years ago.
To me Bobby Jindal being a Native American didn't sound exactly right, even though a politically correct fellow like Gordon Glantz said he was. First off, as a good Republican I have a mental picture of Bobby Jindal to go along with my mental appreciation of his policy positions, and in my mental picture Bobby Jindal is a good couple of shades darker than I remember Tonto and Cochise being. I was pretty sure he wasn't the kind of Native American who used to hold up his hand and say "How" when he wasn't shooting arrows at John Wayne.
Those gun toting racist Republican hicks out in Alaska elected the wife of a Native American as Governor a couple of years ago; but he's descended from kayaking Native Americans, the sort who used to hunt seals and walruses. The Republicans in Colorado elected a fellow descended from the sort of pinto pony riding, buffalo steak eating Native Americans Glantz was thinking of, but not Louisiana. I was pretty sure Louisiana Republicans elected a fellow who was born in this country but who's ancestors were Shrimp Vindaloo eating Indians, you know, folks who were from the Indian Subcontinent rather than from the Indian Territories.
But I like to be careful about such things; so I did a couple of clicks on this newfangled internet thingy that Mr. Glantz must not have heard about, to check my memory and my thinking. And then I wrote Mr. Glantz a respectful email:
"Only the Times Herald could have a managing editor who thinks Bobby Jindal is a "Native American" and is dumb enough to put it in a column.
Do you do your research before or after you neglect to check the headlines for spelling?
Another, less reliably leftist managing editor might have meant he was born in America. But you, of course, meant that his ancestors counted coup on white devils like Custer out on the great plains.
Turns out his ancestors, given his parentage, are a lot more likely to have counted coup on Mohammedans or British accented white devils over in old India.
Regards,
Sully
P.S. Love your 'stache, but I recommend you ditch the white jacket for a rainbow tie-dye. "
Me again - In the interests of fairness I shall certainly post Mr. Glantz's reply if he makes one. Incidently, since sending him the email I have reconsidered my opinion of Mr. Glantz's droopy at the sides moustache. On reflection it makes him look like an underdeveloped walrus, or else a walrus after the attentions of a pinniped version of Lorena Bobbitt. He should ditch the picture.
Update: My remarks above relate to the picture of Mr. Glantz in the print edition of The Times Herald. His column of Sunday, September 7th wasn't up on the website (as of September 7th). There is a different picture of him on the web. In that picture he doesn't have a Fu Manchu moustache.
Update - September 9th - In today's paper The Times Herald published a tiny little correction of this pretty big error on Mr. Glantz's part, given that he regularly writes about national politics. The correction reads. "In Gordon Glantz's column on Page A4 of Sunday's edition, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was incorrectly identified as a Native American."
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Obama will say Ouch! when he reads this
Over at Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog a poster took on the issue of why Barack Obama continues to trade punches with Sarah Palin even though his real opponent is John McCain.
I'm betting the writer is a graduate of a top notch college which has a Womyn's Studies Department. Alternatively, this is such a pitch perfect example of it's genre that the writer may even be Camille Paglia posting under a pseudonym.
"Joe NS Says: September 6th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
The Democratic campaign is not in a meltdown. The proper image, I believe, is that of a long metal chain the links of which are one by one sliding off the edge of a bench. One can see what is happening, very slowly at first and then accelerating, with horror or glee depending on party affiliation; but it’s very definitely underway.
It is nearly impossible to credit it, but the Palin pick has caught the Democrats so flat-footed that they have clearly decided the only counterpunch they have is to argue that Sarah Palin cannot be a mother and a vice-president at the same time. That is a flat-out incredible position for a Democrat to take. It is unvarnished surrealism. And I fear it might even work. The truth, however, is that they really have no other option at this point. Largely because of the psychology of BO himself, I believe.
In any sensible assessment of his current predicament, Obama MUST IGNORE Sarah Palin. To have the Democratic presidential nominee fencing on almost a daily basis with the Republicans nominee for vice-president is only a little short of insane. Palin was wrong on one matter: the longer the jousting between them continues, the more voters will notice that the proper level of comparison of Obama and Palin is not between Obama as community organizer and Palin as mayor, but between Obama as community organizer and Palin as a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, PTA. Obama should put Sarah Palin out of his head. So why can’t he?
It’s simple: She’s sexier than he is.
One of the things that has always seemed to me creepiest about the 2008 presidential campaign has been its erotic - I would even say homoerotic - atmospherics. Sheer celebrity, of course, tends to push things that way, to be sure; but with Obama something else has been going on, something that is often referred to as “narcissism” or “self-absorption” or, more honestly, as “seductiveness.” Though others may take offense, I think it was always more the self-fascination one sees in a young girl posing in front of a mirror. Edwards displayed the syndrome as well, but once he left the race, Obama had the enchantress slot all to himself. McCain? Hillary?? I don’t think so.
Now here is Sarah Palin, who directly threatens the male narcissist’s amour propre because she seems to be reorienting the eroticism in the campaign toward its “traditional” locus in ordinay life: toward the female. Sarah Palin is amazingly erotic. But even more amazing: It’s perhaps the least important thing about her? Like a belle who meets an unforeseen competitor for the title of most alluring, Obama has reacted badly and, let’s be honest, a little bit cattily.
In sum, hell hath no fury . . . ."
I'm betting the writer is a graduate of a top notch college which has a Womyn's Studies Department. Alternatively, this is such a pitch perfect example of it's genre that the writer may even be Camille Paglia posting under a pseudonym.
"Joe NS Says: September 6th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
The Democratic campaign is not in a meltdown. The proper image, I believe, is that of a long metal chain the links of which are one by one sliding off the edge of a bench. One can see what is happening, very slowly at first and then accelerating, with horror or glee depending on party affiliation; but it’s very definitely underway.
It is nearly impossible to credit it, but the Palin pick has caught the Democrats so flat-footed that they have clearly decided the only counterpunch they have is to argue that Sarah Palin cannot be a mother and a vice-president at the same time. That is a flat-out incredible position for a Democrat to take. It is unvarnished surrealism. And I fear it might even work. The truth, however, is that they really have no other option at this point. Largely because of the psychology of BO himself, I believe.
In any sensible assessment of his current predicament, Obama MUST IGNORE Sarah Palin. To have the Democratic presidential nominee fencing on almost a daily basis with the Republicans nominee for vice-president is only a little short of insane. Palin was wrong on one matter: the longer the jousting between them continues, the more voters will notice that the proper level of comparison of Obama and Palin is not between Obama as community organizer and Palin as mayor, but between Obama as community organizer and Palin as a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, PTA. Obama should put Sarah Palin out of his head. So why can’t he?
It’s simple: She’s sexier than he is.
One of the things that has always seemed to me creepiest about the 2008 presidential campaign has been its erotic - I would even say homoerotic - atmospherics. Sheer celebrity, of course, tends to push things that way, to be sure; but with Obama something else has been going on, something that is often referred to as “narcissism” or “self-absorption” or, more honestly, as “seductiveness.” Though others may take offense, I think it was always more the self-fascination one sees in a young girl posing in front of a mirror. Edwards displayed the syndrome as well, but once he left the race, Obama had the enchantress slot all to himself. McCain? Hillary?? I don’t think so.
Now here is Sarah Palin, who directly threatens the male narcissist’s amour propre because she seems to be reorienting the eroticism in the campaign toward its “traditional” locus in ordinay life: toward the female. Sarah Palin is amazingly erotic. But even more amazing: It’s perhaps the least important thing about her? Like a belle who meets an unforeseen competitor for the title of most alluring, Obama has reacted badly and, let’s be honest, a little bit cattily.
In sum, hell hath no fury . . . ."
Take time for one minute of incisive political news
If you can only afford the time for one minute of political news today this short video is your best bet.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/portrayal_of_obama_as_elitist?utm_source=videomrss_83996
Or, if you really don't care about politics you can spend your minute learning about the completion of more than one hundred years of scientific study of a crucial topic.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/cosmopolitan_institute_completes
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/portrayal_of_obama_as_elitist?utm_source=videomrss_83996
Or, if you really don't care about politics you can spend your minute learning about the completion of more than one hundred years of scientific study of a crucial topic.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/cosmopolitan_institute_completes
Friday, September 5, 2008
A word on recent slurs aimed at my frog
Two guest have recently alleged that my frog has been gaining weight. I'm pleased to report that I've reviewed his pictures of three years or so ago and can report that he is as svelte as ever, or at least as svelte as he was three years ago.
Such comments are tempting me to give him the hop of the house as a test of his athleticism, but I'm resisting. The last time he was decidedly uncooperative about returning to his bowl. And I've slowed down a bit in the ten years of so since the last time.
If he should somehow become released to hop free and I can't catch him before Linda gets home it will not be good. Must resist!
Such comments are tempting me to give him the hop of the house as a test of his athleticism, but I'm resisting. The last time he was decidedly uncooperative about returning to his bowl. And I've slowed down a bit in the ten years of so since the last time.
If he should somehow become released to hop free and I can't catch him before Linda gets home it will not be good. Must resist!
The boring nitty gritty of engineering
This video by a retired General Electric executive patiently takes you through the facts about wind energy. The most interesting thing about it is the insight it gives into the sheer scale of the national economy.
If you know me you know someone who personally knew someone (Grandpop L) who started his life in a world and time when less mechanical power was generated in the entire world than can today be generated by ten, or maybe twenty, of the wind generators this fellow talks about. Grandpop L was born at a time when for 99.9% of the world's population one horsepower was generated by one horse, or else it was generated by four humans busting their asses.
Jules Verne, who died in 1905, was probably the most outrageously visionary thinker alive when Grandpop L was born in the 1890's. Told on his deathbed that within a hundred and three years a rational person would envision the world producing and erecting a thousand, let alone nearly three hundred thousand, windmills of the size this fellow talks about, Jules Verne would have dismissed the idea as a fever dream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_W4_bv4c9w
Hat tip to Mario Lewis who linked to this video on National Review's Planet Gore blog.
If you know me you know someone who personally knew someone (Grandpop L) who started his life in a world and time when less mechanical power was generated in the entire world than can today be generated by ten, or maybe twenty, of the wind generators this fellow talks about. Grandpop L was born at a time when for 99.9% of the world's population one horsepower was generated by one horse, or else it was generated by four humans busting their asses.
Jules Verne, who died in 1905, was probably the most outrageously visionary thinker alive when Grandpop L was born in the 1890's. Told on his deathbed that within a hundred and three years a rational person would envision the world producing and erecting a thousand, let alone nearly three hundred thousand, windmills of the size this fellow talks about, Jules Verne would have dismissed the idea as a fever dream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_W4_bv4c9w
Hat tip to Mario Lewis who linked to this video on National Review's Planet Gore blog.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Dusty work and translation services
Whew! I just came in from mowing the prairie areas that I've been leaving alone all summer. Dusty work - there was a lot of ground up dried grass and weeds flying around. Even my tractor won't mow twenty-four inch tall growth neatly the first time or the second time through, at least not now, late in the season, when the blades are dull and all dinged up from me using the mower deck like it was a brush hog out in the woods. So I mowed the prairie about ten inches high last week, and then took it down to about six inches high the other day. Today I finally took it down to match the four inch or so height of the grass around the house.
While I was mowing I had my best guess at Mom's old recipe for string bean and little meat ball stew simmering on the stove. I'll give you the recipe for that tomorrow after I see what what it tastes like.
While I was mowing I was also thinking about why I started to mow the grass the way I do. And it came to me that the original reason was the rug Dory and John Hamano had in their living room back in the 1970's. The rug was all they had in the living room that first time when we went over to their house, but what a rug it was. It was a Chinese made oval carpet about ten or twelve feet long, very colorful and very neatly textured. The pattern of the colors and the varying depths of the pile made it fantastic, like a picture in three dimensions.
We lost touch with John and Dory decades ago but I still remember their rug, and I still texture the lawn to be like that rug. Or rather every spring I have a vision of texturing it, cutting it to various depths in patterns, to be like that rug. And then I hate so much to mess up the luxuriant growth of the areas where the grass and the wildflowers are getting tall, that I never cut the high growing areas until I absolutely have to in late summer. Linda, of course, has an opinion or two about all this, so I cut the area within about a hundred feet of the house like a regular lawn. But I let the farther away areas grow tall so the grass can sway in the wind, except for mown paths that lead here and there.
John and Dory were interesting folks. I met Dory at work where she was a salesperson briefly. He was a salesman with IBM. Their living room was bare of furniture because their idea was to fill the house piece by piece with really fine furniture. If that rug was an indicator they must have a house full of some really great furniture by now. Thinking of them I'm reminded that they were somewhat unusual. She was Jewish American, but she spoke Japanese fluently from college and then some time in Japan, teaching English I think on a sort of work study basis. He was Japanese American, but he spoke almost no Japanese. She interpreted when he talked to his grandmother. She could interpret in real time, as though she was a machine and not even involved in the conversation if she wanted to.
Mom used to interpret when I talked to Grandmom L, but she was a terrible translator because she was never not involved in the conversation. It used to make me crazy. I would ask Grandmom a question. And Mom would answer for Grandmom without even interpreting what I asked. Or Grandmom would say something long and obviously interesting and Mom would have a little conversation with her in Italian and then tell me something very short in English. Or I would ask a question and they would have a conversation with lots of grinning, and then Mom would tell me Grandmom said something not funny at all.
It was obvious my access to important information was being restricted. So I would try to talk to Grandmom on the sly, but we could never really communicate across the language barrier. Trying to talk to her as she was cooking or whatever would get you some great treats because she and Aunt Mary R always, always!, had something good either baking or else in the refrigerator, but talking to Grandmom seldom yielded information. And Aunt Mary was as bad as Mom as a translator, although Aunt Mary could tell you some pretty good stories on her own if Mom wasn't there to inhibit her.
With Aunt Mary you could always get a great piece of cake and hear something very interesting about who did what to whom and when. Sometimes even why and where. And with names too. One time a person Aunt Mary had just said was a horse's ass happened to visit, and she offered him a piece of cake, and had a nice smiling little conversation with him. Then, after he left, she said, "See, like I said, a real shtunad; but whataya gonna do, you can't pick your relatives."
But it was Grandmom who I wanted to communicate with. So I would try to get Pop to translate, but he would claim not to be able to speak Italian well enough, even though I knew from observation that he could understand it perfectly well. He very rarely said anything in Italian, but he would get the jokes just as fast as everybody else did when he listened in to Grandmom L and Aunt Mary R and Julia, Mom's Goomah, and Sia Gigette, Pop's aunt from the other side of the family, when they were sitting around the kitchen table talking.
The really old ladies, Mom's Goomah and Sia Gigette, were already like a hundred years old then, at least, and they knew a lot. Mom's Goomah, Julia, was usually pretty quiet, but when Sia Gigette was around she would get rocking and rolling just as well as the others.
Sia Gigette was a special and interesting case. One time when they didn't know I was listening I heard Mom tell Aunt Carmella and Aunt Tavia that Sia Gigette would never die. "She's too nasty to die," Mom said. And Aunt Carmella and Aunt Tavia laughed and agreed, even though Sia Gigette was their aunt, just like she was Pop's aunt. "She's a bitch on wheels all right," Aunt Carmella said. And Aunt Tavia said, "You can say that again." And then they laughed about the time Mom asked Sia Gigette, "How's she different from your daughter?" or something like that right in front of Grandmom A after Sia Gigette made some remark about, uh, one of my relatives on Mom's side.
Anyway, when Mom and Aunt Mary and Julia and Sia Gigette were together in the kitchen down on Walnut Street they said the best stuff, stuff that made Mom look around to see who was listening; but they said it all in Italian. They said stuff that sometimes made her and Aunt Mary laugh so hard they would be like they were crying. Sometimes one of them would say something that would even make Mom break briefly from Italian into English.
"No!" She would say, and then "Goomah! Be good," or "Sia Gigette! He did not!" Or she would make that shh gesture and say "Mom! Little pitchers have big ears." Then they all would turn to where me and Matty were looking in the door and they would laugh and laugh. And if they were really loud in there Grandpop would mumble that phrase that Pop later told me meant "chickens in the barnyard," or something like that. Me and Matty would see that Grandpop was shaking his head with a little smile on his face in the living room, and Pop would have a big broad smile.
But Pop would never translate, or he would tell us something that was a little funny, but not something funny enough to have made Aunt Mary scream, "Stop! You're makin' me wet my pants."
While I was mowing I had my best guess at Mom's old recipe for string bean and little meat ball stew simmering on the stove. I'll give you the recipe for that tomorrow after I see what what it tastes like.
While I was mowing I was also thinking about why I started to mow the grass the way I do. And it came to me that the original reason was the rug Dory and John Hamano had in their living room back in the 1970's. The rug was all they had in the living room that first time when we went over to their house, but what a rug it was. It was a Chinese made oval carpet about ten or twelve feet long, very colorful and very neatly textured. The pattern of the colors and the varying depths of the pile made it fantastic, like a picture in three dimensions.
We lost touch with John and Dory decades ago but I still remember their rug, and I still texture the lawn to be like that rug. Or rather every spring I have a vision of texturing it, cutting it to various depths in patterns, to be like that rug. And then I hate so much to mess up the luxuriant growth of the areas where the grass and the wildflowers are getting tall, that I never cut the high growing areas until I absolutely have to in late summer. Linda, of course, has an opinion or two about all this, so I cut the area within about a hundred feet of the house like a regular lawn. But I let the farther away areas grow tall so the grass can sway in the wind, except for mown paths that lead here and there.
John and Dory were interesting folks. I met Dory at work where she was a salesperson briefly. He was a salesman with IBM. Their living room was bare of furniture because their idea was to fill the house piece by piece with really fine furniture. If that rug was an indicator they must have a house full of some really great furniture by now. Thinking of them I'm reminded that they were somewhat unusual. She was Jewish American, but she spoke Japanese fluently from college and then some time in Japan, teaching English I think on a sort of work study basis. He was Japanese American, but he spoke almost no Japanese. She interpreted when he talked to his grandmother. She could interpret in real time, as though she was a machine and not even involved in the conversation if she wanted to.
Mom used to interpret when I talked to Grandmom L, but she was a terrible translator because she was never not involved in the conversation. It used to make me crazy. I would ask Grandmom a question. And Mom would answer for Grandmom without even interpreting what I asked. Or Grandmom would say something long and obviously interesting and Mom would have a little conversation with her in Italian and then tell me something very short in English. Or I would ask a question and they would have a conversation with lots of grinning, and then Mom would tell me Grandmom said something not funny at all.
It was obvious my access to important information was being restricted. So I would try to talk to Grandmom on the sly, but we could never really communicate across the language barrier. Trying to talk to her as she was cooking or whatever would get you some great treats because she and Aunt Mary R always, always!, had something good either baking or else in the refrigerator, but talking to Grandmom seldom yielded information. And Aunt Mary was as bad as Mom as a translator, although Aunt Mary could tell you some pretty good stories on her own if Mom wasn't there to inhibit her.
With Aunt Mary you could always get a great piece of cake and hear something very interesting about who did what to whom and when. Sometimes even why and where. And with names too. One time a person Aunt Mary had just said was a horse's ass happened to visit, and she offered him a piece of cake, and had a nice smiling little conversation with him. Then, after he left, she said, "See, like I said, a real shtunad; but whataya gonna do, you can't pick your relatives."
But it was Grandmom who I wanted to communicate with. So I would try to get Pop to translate, but he would claim not to be able to speak Italian well enough, even though I knew from observation that he could understand it perfectly well. He very rarely said anything in Italian, but he would get the jokes just as fast as everybody else did when he listened in to Grandmom L and Aunt Mary R and Julia, Mom's Goomah, and Sia Gigette, Pop's aunt from the other side of the family, when they were sitting around the kitchen table talking.
The really old ladies, Mom's Goomah and Sia Gigette, were already like a hundred years old then, at least, and they knew a lot. Mom's Goomah, Julia, was usually pretty quiet, but when Sia Gigette was around she would get rocking and rolling just as well as the others.
Sia Gigette was a special and interesting case. One time when they didn't know I was listening I heard Mom tell Aunt Carmella and Aunt Tavia that Sia Gigette would never die. "She's too nasty to die," Mom said. And Aunt Carmella and Aunt Tavia laughed and agreed, even though Sia Gigette was their aunt, just like she was Pop's aunt. "She's a bitch on wheels all right," Aunt Carmella said. And Aunt Tavia said, "You can say that again." And then they laughed about the time Mom asked Sia Gigette, "How's she different from your daughter?" or something like that right in front of Grandmom A after Sia Gigette made some remark about, uh, one of my relatives on Mom's side.
Anyway, when Mom and Aunt Mary and Julia and Sia Gigette were together in the kitchen down on Walnut Street they said the best stuff, stuff that made Mom look around to see who was listening; but they said it all in Italian. They said stuff that sometimes made her and Aunt Mary laugh so hard they would be like they were crying. Sometimes one of them would say something that would even make Mom break briefly from Italian into English.
"No!" She would say, and then "Goomah! Be good," or "Sia Gigette! He did not!" Or she would make that shh gesture and say "Mom! Little pitchers have big ears." Then they all would turn to where me and Matty were looking in the door and they would laugh and laugh. And if they were really loud in there Grandpop would mumble that phrase that Pop later told me meant "chickens in the barnyard," or something like that. Me and Matty would see that Grandpop was shaking his head with a little smile on his face in the living room, and Pop would have a big broad smile.
But Pop would never translate, or he would tell us something that was a little funny, but not something funny enough to have made Aunt Mary scream, "Stop! You're makin' me wet my pants."
My last word on Sarah Palin
Before last night Hillary Clinton was the most likely woman to become President of the U.S.
Last night, with that speech, Sarah Palin became the most likely woman to become President of the U.S.
She's not a lock, mind you, there is a lot of campaign ahead before she can even become vice-president; but you can be sure nobody in the media or among the political types will be taking her for granted or petting her on the head and saying she's just a token woman after her speech last night.
Which puts Hillary in a tough situation. In order to become the Democratic Party nominee in 2012 she needs to make sure Barack Obama loses to John McCain this November. But if Barack Obama loses her toughest rival becomes vice president.
Last night, with that speech, Sarah Palin became the most likely woman to become President of the U.S.
She's not a lock, mind you, there is a lot of campaign ahead before she can even become vice-president; but you can be sure nobody in the media or among the political types will be taking her for granted or petting her on the head and saying she's just a token woman after her speech last night.
Which puts Hillary in a tough situation. In order to become the Democratic Party nominee in 2012 she needs to make sure Barack Obama loses to John McCain this November. But if Barack Obama loses her toughest rival becomes vice president.
An interesting take on Sarah Palin's speech
At National Review's blog The Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez compared Sarah Palin to Mary Tyler Moore, of all people. And the comparison is perfect. She quoted the theme song to Mary Tyler Moore's show, which was set in Minneapolis.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzFiNGY3YTUzYWM2NGVmOTA1YmVmZWU4Zjc1YTM5MTE=
"Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it
Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don't you take it
You're gonna make it after all
You're gonna make it after all"
I'd take a bet on very long odds that Joe Biden is a lot less confident today about facing her in their debate. This woman will go into that debate very confident of coming out with his head to display in her office with her dad's bear skin rug and the rack of the last caribou she shot; and she'll be smiling all the while.
There's a new sheriff in town.
Best quote, "Before I became governor, I ran for and became mayor of my home town. A mayor's like a community organizer, only with real responsibility."
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzFiNGY3YTUzYWM2NGVmOTA1YmVmZWU4Zjc1YTM5MTE=
"Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it
Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don't you take it
You're gonna make it after all
You're gonna make it after all"
I'd take a bet on very long odds that Joe Biden is a lot less confident today about facing her in their debate. This woman will go into that debate very confident of coming out with his head to display in her office with her dad's bear skin rug and the rack of the last caribou she shot; and she'll be smiling all the while.
There's a new sheriff in town.
Best quote, "Before I became governor, I ran for and became mayor of my home town. A mayor's like a community organizer, only with real responsibility."
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Now they can come for us quickly
Technology proceeds by slow stages but then it all adds up to a stunning change.
The bad news is the robots will be able to get to us quickly with the nets if they ever decide to come and take us away.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080902171117.htm
The good news is it can't be long before we can sit back and enjoy a movie while we're being driven somewhere by our car.
The bad news is the robots will be able to get to us quickly with the nets if they ever decide to come and take us away.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080902171117.htm
The good news is it can't be long before we can sit back and enjoy a movie while we're being driven somewhere by our car.
A great motto
In the season of politics I'm always reminded of one of history's great quotes. It's more melodious in French than in English:
"Il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!"
"We must be audacious, and again audacious, always audacious."
Georges Danton, who said it, never lost his way with words - or his attitude. Just before they cut off his head he said, "Show my head to the people, it is worth seeing."
Impossible not to like a wiseguy like that. He went out with style.
"Il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!"
"We must be audacious, and again audacious, always audacious."
Georges Danton, who said it, never lost his way with words - or his attitude. Just before they cut off his head he said, "Show my head to the people, it is worth seeing."
Impossible not to like a wiseguy like that. He went out with style.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Stock up on warm clothes!
In case you didn't notice August was the first month since 1913 without a single sunspot. In general sunspot activity has been significantly low this year. Some scientist types have been talking about the low sunspot activity for a while, but they've been pretty muted about it because real scientists wait for the data rather than promote paranoid fears (like a certain ex Vice-President I could name if this weren't a strictly non-political post).
The link to the article that I've pasted below will give you a hint about why you may need warm clothes soon. If you want to be really terrified about climate change google Maunder Minimum and read all about it. Or, if the Little Ice Age of the Middle Ages is too long timey ago for you young whippersnappers google, "year without a summer." That happened a few years before Grandpop L and Grandpop A were born.
http://www.dailytech.com/Sun+Makes+History+First+Spotless+Month+in+a+Century/article12823.htm
The link to the article that I've pasted below will give you a hint about why you may need warm clothes soon. If you want to be really terrified about climate change google Maunder Minimum and read all about it. Or, if the Little Ice Age of the Middle Ages is too long timey ago for you young whippersnappers google, "year without a summer." That happened a few years before Grandpop L and Grandpop A were born.
http://www.dailytech.com/Sun+Makes+History+First+Spotless+Month+in+a+Century/article12823.htm
A great letter about wrestling and the media
Jonah Goldberg at National Review's blog The Corner posted this letter from a reader which took me back even farther than the writer can remember. He talks about the World Wrestling Federation in the 1980's. I remember when me, Sam and Jas were watching Bobo Brazil wrestle the bad guys in the late 1950's. I don't know whether Sam and Jas realized that wrestling was phony back then, but I did. Just as I know the claims of fairness by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the New York Times are utterly phony.
Here's the letter for you wrestling fans:
"I’m 31, and when I was a kid the World Wrestling Federation would not admit that what it was doing was fake. We all knew Hulk Hogan and Jake the Snake were really just doing a big sweaty man-ballet, but they would never admit that fact. The media today is just like the WWF back then. They won’t admit that what they’re doing is phony, and that almost every supposedly non-partisan, registered independent host on the networks, CNN, and MSNBC is a liberal democrat. They, like the WWF in 80’s, will not admit that their obvious charade is phony."
Me again - I'm just re-reading that letter and realizing the writer was just being born when I was 31 years old. It's good to see a member of the younger generation is growing up smart. Or maybe this member of the younger generation is getting old enough to be smart.
There's an old political saying. I think it was Winston Churchill who used to say:
'A man who's a conservative at age 18 has no heart.
A man who's a liberal at age 30 has no head.'
Here's the letter for you wrestling fans:
"I’m 31, and when I was a kid the World Wrestling Federation would not admit that what it was doing was fake. We all knew Hulk Hogan and Jake the Snake were really just doing a big sweaty man-ballet, but they would never admit that fact. The media today is just like the WWF back then. They won’t admit that what they’re doing is phony, and that almost every supposedly non-partisan, registered independent host on the networks, CNN, and MSNBC is a liberal democrat. They, like the WWF in 80’s, will not admit that their obvious charade is phony."
Me again - I'm just re-reading that letter and realizing the writer was just being born when I was 31 years old. It's good to see a member of the younger generation is growing up smart. Or maybe this member of the younger generation is getting old enough to be smart.
There's an old political saying. I think it was Winston Churchill who used to say:
'A man who's a conservative at age 18 has no heart.
A man who's a liberal at age 30 has no head.'
Good times!
We've had quite a week here in Collegeville.
First Ken and Gail M visited last Wednesday after dropping Scott off at University of Pennsylvania for his Sophomore year. We had a great dinner at Francescos down in Phoenixville just across from the Colonial Theater. Good Italian food and great conversation. Ken and Gail stayed over and left for Cleveland on Thursday morning.
Then Alex and Christina arrived from Boston late Friday night (3:00 AM Saturday morning actually). How hard it is to remember when I had such energy. Work a long week including Friday, move furniture from one apartment to another over the course of a couple of hours, and then decide to drive six hours through the night. Oh to be 25 years old again.
Then a raucous Saturday morning coffee clatch with Sam and Jas, and a relatively rare appearance by Dave C. Great stories. Joey C, doing well in California now, a man now. An old man now, but not as old as me and Dave. Remembering and laughing about how he used to go to sleep crouched up on his forearms and chest and knees with his butt up in the air, making a little tent under the covers. Wondering now why none of us ever took a rubber band and shot a bobby pin hard at the spot on the covers where his butt was. I'd be willing to bet Dave C did that, at least once. Remembering now that Alex and Dave A, I'm sure it was them, broke the little crystal penguin, probably by shooting things at it with rubber bands. And then they propped the pieces together so it appeared whole.
Remembering how we used to play ball tag, ball tag with a hard rubber ball!, in their parents' basement, which was panelled and furnished, unlike our basement. And remembering how we used to shoot bent bobby pins and tightly folded paper projectiles at one another with rubber bands til somebody was crying. It's amazing we all still have use of both our eyes.
Remembering how quiet we used to be for a little while after an eruption from our parents upstairs when the general noise level, or a particularly sharp crash or scream or something, would remind them that we were down there. "What the hell are you little indians doing down there?" Sometimes, many times, the phrase contained a more outrageous characterization than "indians." What can one say about an era when a too tightly wound Mom or Dad might be pushed to the point of screaming at their kids, referring to them as "little bastards" or "little sons of bitches". What can one say about an era where it wasn't at all unusual to hear "Don't make me come down there. If I come down there I'm gonna beat the shit out of you." It shouldn't surprise that we would often be quiet and "good" for at least a few minutes after that. And then me or Dave would grab Joey or Jas or Sam and give them a good noogie and we would be off again.
Anyway, Jas and Kathy had the whole family, plus Mark and Linda L and Chris and Kit from the dances at the Ballroom on High Street, over to their house for a picnic yesterday, Labor Day, not that we have ever especially honored Labor Day except as an excuse for a picnic. A beautiful day, a great feed, great company. A little bittersweet because that may be the last picnic up on Canci Court since John and Kathy are retiring next July and may sell the house and move to a smaller one. We'll miss Fort Trappe if that happens.
Remembering that Pop always said "Well, that's another summer shot to hell" at the end of each Labor Day picnic in the old days. And that he always said "It's downhill from here," about the winter each New Years day.
Marianne complained about me calling her little stuffed lion "Lion-Lion" in my post the other day. She said his name was "Line-Line," but I still think "Lion-Lion" is the more correct. Why should I be limited in my writing by the echoes down the years of her childish inability to properly pronounce his name at the time? Marianne doesn't know where Lion-Lion is either. She says he disappeared when Mom and Pop moved out of the Trooper house. Maybe Sam or Jas buried Lion-Lion with Jippon. Or maybe Sam or Jas got too careless and let Jippon actually get his jaws on Lion-Lion one time after all the sleight of hand incidents. If so they aren't talking.
A funny story about language. In 1991 or so, when I was reporting on township meetings for The Collegeville Independent, a politician complained about the way I quoted him when I translated his casual spoken words to normal english. So the next week I took special pains to quote him exactly and at great length. I quoted every word he said at the meeting, starting with his complaint. I know I quoted him very exactly after his complaint because I checked the borough secretary's recording of the meeting after transcribing his remarks - as in "Wha yall think was gonna happn? Yall cut the grage money! Ain't no surprise, truck diden get no repairs, diden get fixt, so it broke down, at's what happen you cut the grage money. An idjit coulda tol ya at was gonna happn, any idjit. I tol ya, tol ya at the time, any idjit coulda tol ya."
And what did I get for my trouble? Why that ungrateful fellow had the nerve to complain again, maybe even a bit more vociferously. But he didn't complain the next week when I went back to translating him into English.
First Ken and Gail M visited last Wednesday after dropping Scott off at University of Pennsylvania for his Sophomore year. We had a great dinner at Francescos down in Phoenixville just across from the Colonial Theater. Good Italian food and great conversation. Ken and Gail stayed over and left for Cleveland on Thursday morning.
Then Alex and Christina arrived from Boston late Friday night (3:00 AM Saturday morning actually). How hard it is to remember when I had such energy. Work a long week including Friday, move furniture from one apartment to another over the course of a couple of hours, and then decide to drive six hours through the night. Oh to be 25 years old again.
Then a raucous Saturday morning coffee clatch with Sam and Jas, and a relatively rare appearance by Dave C. Great stories. Joey C, doing well in California now, a man now. An old man now, but not as old as me and Dave. Remembering and laughing about how he used to go to sleep crouched up on his forearms and chest and knees with his butt up in the air, making a little tent under the covers. Wondering now why none of us ever took a rubber band and shot a bobby pin hard at the spot on the covers where his butt was. I'd be willing to bet Dave C did that, at least once. Remembering now that Alex and Dave A, I'm sure it was them, broke the little crystal penguin, probably by shooting things at it with rubber bands. And then they propped the pieces together so it appeared whole.
Remembering how we used to play ball tag, ball tag with a hard rubber ball!, in their parents' basement, which was panelled and furnished, unlike our basement. And remembering how we used to shoot bent bobby pins and tightly folded paper projectiles at one another with rubber bands til somebody was crying. It's amazing we all still have use of both our eyes.
Remembering how quiet we used to be for a little while after an eruption from our parents upstairs when the general noise level, or a particularly sharp crash or scream or something, would remind them that we were down there. "What the hell are you little indians doing down there?" Sometimes, many times, the phrase contained a more outrageous characterization than "indians." What can one say about an era when a too tightly wound Mom or Dad might be pushed to the point of screaming at their kids, referring to them as "little bastards" or "little sons of bitches". What can one say about an era where it wasn't at all unusual to hear "Don't make me come down there. If I come down there I'm gonna beat the shit out of you." It shouldn't surprise that we would often be quiet and "good" for at least a few minutes after that. And then me or Dave would grab Joey or Jas or Sam and give them a good noogie and we would be off again.
Anyway, Jas and Kathy had the whole family, plus Mark and Linda L and Chris and Kit from the dances at the Ballroom on High Street, over to their house for a picnic yesterday, Labor Day, not that we have ever especially honored Labor Day except as an excuse for a picnic. A beautiful day, a great feed, great company. A little bittersweet because that may be the last picnic up on Canci Court since John and Kathy are retiring next July and may sell the house and move to a smaller one. We'll miss Fort Trappe if that happens.
Remembering that Pop always said "Well, that's another summer shot to hell" at the end of each Labor Day picnic in the old days. And that he always said "It's downhill from here," about the winter each New Years day.
Marianne complained about me calling her little stuffed lion "Lion-Lion" in my post the other day. She said his name was "Line-Line," but I still think "Lion-Lion" is the more correct. Why should I be limited in my writing by the echoes down the years of her childish inability to properly pronounce his name at the time? Marianne doesn't know where Lion-Lion is either. She says he disappeared when Mom and Pop moved out of the Trooper house. Maybe Sam or Jas buried Lion-Lion with Jippon. Or maybe Sam or Jas got too careless and let Jippon actually get his jaws on Lion-Lion one time after all the sleight of hand incidents. If so they aren't talking.
A funny story about language. In 1991 or so, when I was reporting on township meetings for The Collegeville Independent, a politician complained about the way I quoted him when I translated his casual spoken words to normal english. So the next week I took special pains to quote him exactly and at great length. I quoted every word he said at the meeting, starting with his complaint. I know I quoted him very exactly after his complaint because I checked the borough secretary's recording of the meeting after transcribing his remarks - as in "Wha yall think was gonna happn? Yall cut the grage money! Ain't no surprise, truck diden get no repairs, diden get fixt, so it broke down, at's what happen you cut the grage money. An idjit coulda tol ya at was gonna happn, any idjit. I tol ya, tol ya at the time, any idjit coulda tol ya."
And what did I get for my trouble? Why that ungrateful fellow had the nerve to complain again, maybe even a bit more vociferously. But he didn't complain the next week when I went back to translating him into English.
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