Saturday, January 31, 2009

Ask Caroline to consider these candidates for profiles in courage awards

They may have a head start; they're Democrats.

Bravo for Obama for recognizing the democratic impulse

In Iraq.

Less government is better?

Richard Rahn over at Cato sizes up the the Optimum Government.

Good work if you can get it!

The federal work force is growing.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

R.I.P John Updike

John Updike, has died. Here's a Chris Lydon interview with Updike on the art of taking a walk though a museum.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Bravo Barack Obama!

One of my favorite lines from President Obama's inaugural speech: "We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

Monday, January 19, 2009

Barney Frank doing what he does best: running his mouth

Caught in a lie, the very glib and very over-rated Barney Frank
Warren did not, however, compare "same sex relationships to incest" or say they are similar. He only said they all fall outside his definition of marriage. That's an important distinction.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Friday, January 16, 2009

On Skank Patrol: Courtney Love is a self-hating Jew

Courtney Hole runs here mouth and removes all doubt that she's unfit for many things.
COURTNEY Love claims she's not taking drugs anymore, but you wouldn't know it from comments she made in the Jewish magazine Heeb. Love, whose mother is Jewish but who describes herself as Buddhist, says of ex-husband Kurt Cobain's legacy: "Every time you buy a Nirvana record, part of that money is not going to Kurt's child, or to me, it's going to a handful of Jew loan officers, Jew private banks, it's going to lawyers who are also bankers . . ." The former Hole singer also mused on why she's given up playing in an all-girl band: "Like, there are [bleep]ing riot grrls sitting there banging on pots and pans and talking about their vaginas, and that's all really lovely, but the music blows." On why she won't date actors: "They're [bleep]. They're women." And on being a parent: "I'm more like, 'You're not going to do that, so [bleep] off, or I'm taking your computer, and your [bleep]ing, you know, BlackBerry.' "
Nominally Jewish, CL says she's a Buddhist! Oh really? I don't think smearing stereotypes is very Buddhist. It's been some time since small-minded Courtney Love has coursened the culture. Apparently quite a few people pay attention.

Thought for a day

Football great Jim Brown in the January Esquire:
"A liberal is arrogant enough to think he can do you a half-assed favor. He is superior enough to think he can give you something that you don't deserve. A liberal will cut off your leg so he can hand you a crutch."

An American Hero, welcome to the world of Sully

Uplifting our spirits in a time of despair. A miracle on the Hudson finessed by Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot.
"You look at his training, you look at his experience. It was just the right pilot at the right time in charge of that plane that saved so many lives," Anderson said. "He is a man who is calm, cool, collected, just as he was today."

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

A real find at four in the morning

Impressive performance.


The new friendly fascism, express and local

College town mentality; economic nonsense.
Call this a case of liberalism via central planning gone wild.

In one of the most politically left-of-center cities east of Berkeley, Calif., ideas put forth at city hall in Madison, Wis. would dramatically limit free enterprise and personal liberty, all in the name of environmental sustainability.

According to the “Broad Strategies” section of a meeting agenda recently posted on the City of Madison Web site, an ordinance being considered would force city zoning to account for and mitigate climate change:

10. Zoning should adapt to meet the demands of climate change; use zoning to address or mitigate effects, or adapt to climate change; remove any barriers to mitigating the effects, adapting to climate change (trees, green space, mobility, renewable energy, land use).

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Bono on Old Blue Eyes

Bono's very rich and rewarding interpretation of the Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra.

Destroying what is not seen

A little lesson in economics.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Let us all praise a great human being: Tony Dungy


Tony Dungy is calling it quits. He will remain one of the most decent men in and out of football:
"While the city of Tampa reveres Dungy for turning a moribund franchise into a perennial playoff team, Indy's bond with Dungy was just as strong.

The city applauded Dungy's achievement when he finally won the Super Bowl and rallied around Dungy's family when he endured his greatest tragedy - his son's suicide in 2005.

'His biggest legacy will be all the people around the country who he's inspired to be better and to deal with some of life's tragedies in a manner that gives people a lot of strength,' Edwards said. 'What he went through with his son and how he handled it, was something that says a lot about Tony, his faith and what he stands for.'

What's next for Dungy is unclear. He has been involved for years in prison ministries, with Family First and as part of All-Pro Dads.

'Where my heart is, is really with our young men right now,' Dungy said. 'We have so many guys that didn't grow up like me, didn't have their dad there and that's something I'm very, very interested in.'"

The grabbing hand of government goes virtual

The IRS enters another dimension -- all in the name of revenue enhancement.
The Internal Revenue Service should start taxing the fledgling virtual economy in Second Life, World of Warcraft, and other virtual worlds according to Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson. In her annual report published on the IRS website, Olsen said that there are still a number of issues that the IRS should "proactively address" before they get out of control. And now that it's on the IRS' radar, it's likely only a matter of time before Uncle Sam tries to figure out some way to get a cut of your gold.

As most of our readers know, a number of virtual worlds involve the trade of real money for various virtual products and services inside of the game(s). And wherever people are spending money, someone is making it. Entrepreneurs are making fat cash off the sale of virtual land, clothing, sex toys, and everything in between in Second Life and other games, and now Olson wants the IRS to go after them.
Next stop for the IRS is the afterlife.

It's about time! Rice enters Baseball's HOF

Better late than never. Jim Rice enters the Hall of Fame. He was one of the greatest hitters to put on a Red Sox uniform.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Distrust those who say "Do no evil"

How can this be?
Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. “Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power,” said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. “A Google search has a definite environmental impact.”

Google is secretive about its energy consumption and carbon footprint. It also refuses to divulge the locations of its data centres. However, with more than 200m internet searches estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern. A recent report by Gartner, the industry analysts, said the global IT industry generated as much greenhouse gas as the world’s airlines - about 2% of global CO2 emissions. “Data centres are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable,” said Evan Mills, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Banks of servers storing billions of web pages require power.
Update here from ArsTechnica.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Song for a Day

The always wonderful Annie Haslem performs Michael Oldfield's "Moonlight Shadow."


Gil Santos to retire. He'll be missed.

A class act opts to retire at WBZ. With Gil Santos gone many are asking what's becoming of WBZ radio given the latest personnel changes? It's unclear whether Santos will remain as the voice of the New England Patriots. That would be an even greater loss.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

The new media coordinated; rivals no more

The news business evolves. The death of competition among daily newspapers. Can you ever imagine the Boston Herald joined at the spine with the Boston Globe?

Saturday, January 03, 2009

The wisdom of Instapundit:

Instapundit:
"It’s interesting to me that we see far more anger from Old Media folks aimed at bloggers, etc., than at Craigslist, even though Craigslist has done far more economic harm to the newspaper industry than bloggers, who probably add eyeballs rather than (as Craigslist does) subtracting them. My suspicion is that the Old Media folks care more about prestige and position than money, and bloggers have hurt them in the prestige and position department. Of course, caring more about prestige and position than money isn’t a formula for a flourishing business . . ."
Electricity ruined the livelihood of thousands of candlemakers. Craigslist ruined the big city newspaper's business model. Call it creative destruction.

Friday, January 02, 2009

Blago, poster child for rent-seeking politicians

Donald J. Boudreaux of George Mason University and Cafe Hayek:
Fairfax, Va. - Gordon Tullock is not a household name. It's a shame that he's not. In contrast, disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is a household name. It's a shame that he is.

These two men have little in common except that Mr. Tullock, an eminent economist, is the first scholar who systematically grasped and explained why the actions of politicians such as Mr. Blagojevich are so harmful to the rest of us.

It takes no genius to understand why Blagojevich sought to enrich his purse and enlarge his power by allegedly trying to sell a US Senate seat. Four-year-old children understand self-interest and aren't shocked by it. And all sensible adults understand that politicians are no less self-interested than are bankers or beauty queens. As H.L. Mencken observed long ago about homo politicus: "...it is to his interest to augment his powers at all hazards, and to make his compensation all the traffic will bear."

Understanding just how actions such as Blagojevich's create widespread harm, however, is more involved than it appears.

Obviously, a governor who uses his appointment powers to feather his own nest is a scoundrel. And such ill-begotten appointees are likely to be inferior, so the public suffers.

But this is only the tip of the antisocial iceberg. As Tullock first recognized (in a paper published in 1967), enormous amounts of resources – including human talent – are wasted in the pursuit of government privileges.
Yes, more people should be reading Gordon Tullock and the Public Choice school of economics.

Competition wittles away at Internet Explorer

Slashdot: IE Market Share Drops Below 70%
"...Microsoft's Internet Explorer will end 2008 with a historic market share loss in a software segment Microsoft believes is key to its business
More from tgdaily:
If you look closely, Firefox and Safari have steadily gained market share over time, while all IE versions lost share – IE6 faster than IE7, which suggests that more businesses are upgrading their browsers and not all stay with Microsoft.