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Here is a good round-up of links on reading for understanding. Lots of tips and advice. Good stuff.
(via lifehacker)
The post by Jim Miller at SoundPolitics called "Don't Divide, Conquer" misses the primary benefit of the 51st state drive.
Miller believes we can do more good by hanging together and putting Rossi in the Governor's Mansion but that is too little too late.
Just look at this article in the Seattle Times. Everybody who visits the Temporary Governor has their hands out and is willing to raise taxes if it benefits their cause. On this one day, Gregiore turns them all away but not because she isn't interested in raising taxes but because she is afraid to.
The best remedy for the out-of-control ligature legislature is competition. Turning Eastern Washington into an American Hong Kong is the big stick that will pound the Dims into reality. Make it a free enterprise zone, a business haven with minimal taxes and very limited regulation that will suck the high-tech jobs out of King County and you'll start to hear a different tune in Olympia.
Every day you you either get stronger or you get weaker.
The Wall Street Journal today ($$) contains an article entitled "Dodge Ball Doesn't Fly in Schools" describing all the reasons why the game is discouraged by crybabies in school districts around the country.
The article refers to a paper by the National Association for Sports and Physical Education:
NASPE believes that dodgeball is not an appropriate activity for K-12 school physical education programs. The purpose of physical education is to provide students with: · The knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to be physically active for a lifetime · A daily dose of physical activity for health benefits · Positive experiences so that kids want to be physically active outside of physical education class and throughout their lifetime
Uh, no. Sorry, but the purpose of sport goes back eons before Politically Constrictive language. Sports originated as life-skills training for boys and men where they learned hunting and fighting so they could survive. The games invented competition to push the males to perform at higher levels to increase survivability.
They specifically did not want to foster a false sense of "worth" in poorly performing individuals. It was important for tribal hunters and warriors to know who they could depend on in a scrape. Equally important, the less-physically-adept males would not have any false expectations and could be put to good use in less dangerous roles, thus increasing the survival rate for everybody.
Why do we think we are so much better today? Presenting a false environment where competition is bad, where nobody wins or loses, where nobody gets their precious feelings hurt is not only undermining the future of our nation it is all so....French. 1930's France, to be exact.
Hey, the Oscars are coming up! I knew they were around here someplace.
I had planned on watching (if I happened to catch the show) until I heard the foul-mouthed Chris Rock was the host. Now, no way. None of the shows up for awards are all that interesting, as Roger L. Simon notes.
Why the decline in show quality? Several reasons.
There you go. The Top Nine reasons why Hollywood movies bore me to reading books (how awful!) and blogs (that's better).
There is an alternative on the horizon that could change the way Hollywood does business but I don't want to give it away just yet. Pay attention because a new model will emerge within two years that will help bring the real talent out of obscurity in the way blogs have exposed talented writers.
The Deacon at PowerLine writes about Bill Keller’s comments to Jeff Jarvis concerning Keller’s worries about bloggers. Along the way he promotes the common myth of polarization familiar to MSM denizens:
His chief complaint about us is that we're "erod[ing] the middle ground and accelerat[ing] a general polarization of the nation into people, right and left, who are ardently convinced and not very interested in exposing themselves to facts or ideas that contradict their prejudices."
What Keller and the rest of the MSM fail to grasp is that the country has always been polarized. They have lived such insular lives with a stranglehold on the information flow to reinforce their limited, protected worldviews. Now that millions of cyber-Gutenbergs have the ability to demonstrate their distaste for their slant this somehow constitutes a “polarization” when, in fact, all it represents is a forced awakening among the gatekeepers and their drones.
The differences were always there but now the rest of the people can publish, too.
Yesterday I stood a stone's throw from the bow of an aircraft carrier in the Naval Shipyard at Bremerton. This monster of engineering and technology and two other sisters are being stripped down for scrap.
I walked the length of the gray corpse, marvelling at the audacity and capacity to create such machines. The ships are awe-inspiring but not for long. It seems foolish and short-sighted to cut up these aging ships without replacing them.
Only a few countries have made these mobile power projectors. Japan did, but not Germany. UK has since WWII. Sweden has submarines but not these. Russia put men in space but never build one. The Chinese don't have one. The French have some but only built one themselves and it can't leave the dock.
We need more of these plus the men and planes they hunger for. How else will we respond when the GWOT drags our fighting forces across the globe?
UPDATE: According to this site two of the carriers are being mothballed, not destroyed. Plus there are two new hulls in the works. Looks like we have twelve active carriers.
According to this Seattle Times Editorial Senate Joint Resolution 8009 will ask that Washington State be split East-West. Co-sponsored by Joyce Mulliken, R-Ephrata, the bill would ask for authorization to create a new 51st state of Eastern Washington.
However much I prefer the climate of Western Washington I can certainly simpathize with the frustrations the desert-side of the state. King County in particular is viewed as the tail that wags the rest of the dog, imposing its will throughout the state. Citizens from Vantage to Republic are tired, for example, of paying taxes for the largest ferry service in the world that they rarely (if ever) use as well as professional sports stadiums and boondoggles. I don't blame them a bit.
The only problem with this scenario is that it leaves too many counties in the fevered grip of the high-density counties. I say let each county vote on which state they would rather belong to, as long as the results are a contiguous block of counties. The Democrats will find themselves controlling an ever-shrinking empire.
If the State of Eastern Washington becomes a reality and they have the type of business environment that is condusive to, you know, conducting business there will likely be a huge population migration to the barren beauty of the desert.
This is the type of government-as-service-provider described in The Sovereign Individual. The more mobile citizens and businesses becomes due to technology, the more governments will need to treat citizens as customers. These citizen/customers will go where they (and their money) are welcomed and treated well.
The time has come.
Hugh Hewitt sets the MSM bar low enough for a toddler to crawl over:
Here are the rules: Don't serially slander the military as assassins and torturers, and you can say whatever you want at Davos. Don't pass off obviously forged documents as super-"Scoops!" in the middle of a presidential election, and you can intone all the absurd "anchor" sayings you want. Don't cover for plagiarists, and you can be the off-the-cliff lefty editor for as long as you want. Don't say the memory of Christmas-Eve-in-Cambodia is "seared, seared" in your memory and then say "oops," you were mistaken, and folks won't question your credibility on other war-stories. Don't appear to endorse segregation, and you can be the Leader. These aren't high bars. Cross them.
Unfortunately, all most many some "professional" reporters and editors would need a ladder to reach these lofty heights.
The post below mentions the Oregon experiment with GPS-based mileage taxes to replace (ed: when does the government stop a tax?) gas tax revenues which are expected to decline dramatically over the next decade or so.
Maybe they should drag their little GPS unit away from the classroom for a while. I got a nice Garmin unit for Christmas and have had some fun with it. One day I hooked it up to my laptop via the serial port (how long before they figure out USB?) and drove around Bellevue, WA.
The map software from National Geographic showed the routes I took just fine -- as long as the unit could keep in touch with the satellite. See, here in the topographically challenging Northwest we are surrounded by things that get between a GPS and its signals. Hundred-foot-tall trees, hills, mountains, plus the normal buildings that any city has made for weak signal coverage in many areas and none at all in others.
The folks in Oregon will probably solve this problem like what the map software does: draw a straight line between the last two known positions and call it a night. It will drive some beaurocrat crazy to think that some miles are going untaxed. Well, now...
Don't forget the growth industry just waiting to explode around GPS-fake-out units. Of course they will be illegal from the start but so were cable boxes for many years yet it didn't slow down sales much.
And what will the State do if the military decides to suspend the civilian GPS band for a period of time? Probably sue the Feds for loss of revenue.
Oregon is experimenting with GPS-based mileage tax, according to the Seattle Times. Brilliant, of course. The arguments against are solid:
The state would need a record of a car's movements to document theAnd the oil companies aren't thrilled, either:
mileage-tax assessment if someone contested it, Sobel says: "Just from a
due-process perspective, there will be pressure to retain
data."
"They want to go into our proprietary systems," says Brian Doherty, a lobbyist for the Western States Petroleum Association. "Would you open up your million-dollar computer and let them have access to it?"Is that a trick question? I'm sure the State hires only the best programmers available and pays them top dollar. No, stop laughing!
What would be funny is if all the oil companies decided to leave the state rather than comply with the proposed law. Unintended consequences, such as the decline in gas tax revenues due to better mileage cars, tend to also be unforeseeable by those who create the circumstances.
Green Spin has a nice take on the anti-climatic (sorry, couldn't help it) inauguration of the embarrassing Kyoto Protocols, which are destined for the World Class Hall of Shame.
(via www.junkscience.com)
When I went back to college in the early 90's, one of the young women on the school paper wrote an article about teenage drama queens, calling them "pre-madonnas".
I was incapciatated for several minutes while I gathered the strength to pick myself off the floor.
BODY:
With apologies to Andrew Lloyd Webber, I present the The Phantom of Olympia:
RON SIMS
Your public needs you!
DEAN LOGAN
We need you, too!
GREGIORE (unassuaged)
Would you not rather have your precious little ingénue?
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Signora, no! the world wants you!
(The DEMOCRATS adopt their most persuasive attitudes)
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Prima donna first lady of the State!Your absentees come from their graves to implore you!
RON SIMS
Can you bow out when they're blogging your name?
DEAN LOGAN
Think of how we both adore you!
BOTH
Prima donna, endorse us once again!
RON SIMS
Think of your new shoes . . .
DEAN LOGAN
And of the News in the evening!
BOTH
Can you deny us the cover we need? Please, prima donna, hold fast!
(GREGIORE registers her acceptance as the DEMOCRATS continue to cajole and the OTHERS reflect variously on the situation)
ROSSI
Christine spoke of an angle . . .
GREGIORE (to herself, in triumph)
Prima donna your voters live again!
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN (to GREGIORE)
Think of your public!
GREGIORE
You took a snub but there's a public who needs you!
SAM REED (referring to CHRISTINE)
She has heard the voice of Carville and Gore . . .
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN (to GREGIORE)
Those who hear your voice liken you to a harpy!
GREGIORE
Think of how we’ll buy their undying support!
ROSSI
Is this her angle on voters. . .?
RON SIMS (to DEAN LOGAN)
We get our State . . .
DEAN LOGAN (to RON SIMS)
She gets her felons!
GREGIORE
Follow where the provisionals lead you!
JOHN CARLSON
Are theses ghosts an angle for ballots. . .?
ROSSI
Angle for ballots. . .?
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN (aside)
Misleading audits are on trial!
SAM REED
Heaven help you, those who doubt . . .
GREGIORE
I'll win again, and to unending ovation!
ROSSI
Orders! Warnings! Lunatic demands!
SAM REED
This miscounting will invite damnation . . .
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Briefs . . . oaths . . .lunatic demands are regular occurrences!
JOHN CARLSON
Bliss or damnation? Which has claimed her . . .?
GREGIORE
Think how I'll shine in that courtroom! Sing, prima donna, once more!
SAM REED
Oh fools, to have flouted Shark’s warnings!
ROSSI
Surely, for truth's sake . . .
JOHN CARLSON
Surely he'll strike back . . .
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Surely there'll be further hearings -worse than this!
SAM REED
Think, before these ballots are rejected!
ROSSI
. . .I must see these ballots are rejected!
JOHN CARLSON
. . . if his threats and demands are rejected!
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Who'd believe a diva happy to relive a bogus threat, who's gone and won with felons?
Rossi and the blogs, entwined in love's duet!Although he may demur, he must have been reading them!
JOHN CARLSON/ROSSI
Christine must be ousted!
GREGIORE
Blah blah blah blah
Blah blah blah blah
Blah
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
You'd never get away with all this in Texas, but if it's loudly sung and in a liberal tongue it's just the sort of story the Times and P-I adore, in fact a perfect outcome!
ROSSI
Her game is over!
SAM REED
This is a game you cannot hope to win!
ROSSI
And on the blogs a new game will begin . . .
SAM REED
For, if Shark’s cursor is on this data . . .
JOHN CARLSON
But if his cursor is on this data . . .
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Prima donna the press is at your feet! A mansion waits, and how it hates Republicans!GREGIORE
The stress that falls upon a famous prima donna! Terrible death threats, audits and protests and judges! Still, the stalest threat will reach the evening news, in search of the perfect outcome!
RON SIMS/SAM REED
. . . then I fear the outcome . . .
ROSSI
Christine plays the victim, blaming phantom talk shows. . .
SAM REED
. . . should you dare to . .
JOHN CARLSON
. . . when you once again . . .
ALL
Light up the News with that faulty report! Sing, prima donna, once more!
SHARK'S VOICE
So, it is to be war between us! If these demands are not met, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur!
ALL
Once more
"In their words, I can sense them looking coolly at the pretenses and attempted restrictions placed upon them by yet another branch of an Anglican establishment that they imagined they had left behind in Ulster, a pervasive aristocracy that in America controlled most of the "flatlands" along the colonial coast. They were told that they could practice their religion in the mountains even if it was not "lawful," so long as they did not seek to infect the more ordered societies along the coast. And they were expected to reciprocate by both staying in the mountains and keeping the Indians at bay. These memories burned like fire among the people who knew, even nearly three centuries ago, that the Eastern Establishment looked down on them, openly demeaning their religion and their cultural ways, and at bottom sought to use them towards its own ends."
Sat with the Writer and Director-Daughter to watch the painful attempt to force Dead Poets Society into Wellesley College. The movie seemed like nothing so much as a desperate attempt by feminists to stem the flood of professional women who are abandoning their jobs in favor of raising families. The theme presented is that women are all smart and nearly perfect and men are dogs.
First of all, Julia Stiles? Please, no. Just stop hiring her, OK? She has the personality of a flounder. There must be other young, blonde actresses (oops, female actors) with some shred of talent to take these roles.
Julie Fiona Roberts plays Katherine Ann Watson, a pathetic quitter who is supposed to be the inspirational teacher leading the young women in her charge out of the girdles of 1950's oppression into the liberation of modern opportunity. First of all, Katherine is overwhelmed on the first day of class when the students have read the entire text for the term. Oh, what a crisis this presents!
The primary deficit of this story is that the antagonist seems to be Madison Avenue. The great culminating scene shows Katherine running through a series of slides of advertisements aimed at women while yapping about the injustice of it all. The horror! How did anyone survive?
In the end, instead of being fired a la Robin Williams, the writers took the daring risk of having her hired back. But Katherine has made her mark, you see, so her work is done and she is free to run off to "find herself". Apparently one graduating class is enough to satisfy her teaching jones.
The didactic messages of this film are:
Ever the trend-setter, Writer was an ardent feminist in the seventies and she led the charge from the workplace to the fireplace when she quit her job of thirteen years to raise the kids. She discovered the great secret: men don't work because they love their jobs (most of the time) but because there are no more wooly mamoths to kill.
There is no secret satisfaction to working, it is a means to the end of survival and (hopefully) prosperity. Men work to better their rivals and to make the Spousal Unit happy. If those things could be solved without a job, every man would take it (see Athlete, Professional).
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody wants to hear it does it make any sound?
That is the metaphor for MSM coverage of Eason Jordan. Now that he has resigned, expect perfunctory news coverage and flaming columns denouncing the rumor-mongers of the blogosphere.
Here's a suggestion to all you nervous newsies wondering if you are the next in the crosshairs. There is a book about this strange internet phenomenon that might be informative, infuriating and terrifying. Gee, what is the title? I remember it was something clever. Oh, right.
This would be a great place for a book quote but I lent my copy to the CEO. Hope he reads it. I will have more on the book once I get it back.
I emailed the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about their lack of coverage of the Eason Jordan scandal. Here is the response in full:
Thanks for your message. I discussed the topic with several editors. None of our wire services offered a story when Jordan made his remarks and subsequent stories I have read say he immediately sought to clarify what he said as being mainly concern for his reporters in a dangerous situation.
Had CNN done a story supporting the position that the military targets journalists, or even if Jordan had made that claim and stuck to it himself, that would be a story worth reporting. As is, it seems considerably less. Any editor who sends reporters into harm's way has concerns about their safety.
Our editors are willing to consider running something if the controversy itself becomes a story.
We appreciate your interest and that you took the time to write.
Glenn Drosendahl Reader Representative Seattle Post-Intelligencer (206) 448-8007 readerrep@seattlepi.com
So it would seem that unless the AP or CNN puts out a story, there is nothing the poor P-I can do! They are at the mercy of forces greater than themselves! Can't expect a paper as small as the P-I to, you know, write something on their own. Or read (dangerous, mind-bending) blogs.
Our editors are willing to consider running something if the controversy itself becomes a story.
If the stonewall crumbles then they will be forced to come up with their typical weak attempt to turn the tip of the controversy towards the accusers and the evil blogs. Maybe Eason will notice and give them a job!
UPDATE: Then again, maybe not. Eason Jordan resigns. Is it a story yet, Mr. Drosendahl?
From the Wall Street Journal, Wednesday February 2, 2005, page C1 in an article entitled "GM Bond Worries Fade With Some Magic From Lehman":
"Did it become more profitable? Did its debt melt away? No, not that. Instead, Lehman Brothers soothed the bond market's savage breast."
Sorry, no, that isn't a typo. If you are like many people (myself included) you always heard it phrased something like this:
"Music can soothe the savage beast."
Kudos to WSJ for getting it right. Here is the full quote from William Congreve:
"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."
Add that to my collection of mental corrections (I'm still getting used to "taking" decisions instead of "making" them).
I suspect that the conversion from "breast" to "beast" was a product of the FCC in the fifties and sixties. The first time I heard it was in a Looney Toons cartoon.