From the ground up

R.I.P. Whitney Houston

2012-02-12T10:23:00.002-05:00

A beautiful voice sings no more!

The Ultimate Whitney Houston Playlist

News: "Pa. groundhog 'predicts' 6 more weeks of winter"

2012-02-02T14:39:00.003-05:00

Pa. groundhog 'predicts' 6 more weeks of winter!

Well it's been a mild winter with lower than average snowfall so we cannot really complain.

Larks Tongues In Aspic (Part 2) The Dream Theatre rendition

2012-01-26T19:49:00.000-05:00

DREAM THEATER takes on King Crimson's illustrative Larks Tongues In Aspic (Part 2)

God bless David Bowie

2012-01-07T18:05:00.000-05:00

The Guardian on David Bowie

Bowie was an early adopter of the internet, but he didn't really fit with the notion of a star in the 21st century, an era when the manufacturing of pop music has been laid bare on the TV and where stars are perpetually available on Twitter and Tumblr. Rock music currently exists in a world of 360 degree connectivity that's supposed to bring the artist and the fan closer and reveal the real person behind the myth. But as the best of his umpteen biographers David Buckley pointed out, with Bowie, revealing the real person behind the myth is missing the point: "the myth has far greater resonance and is far more intriguing than stolid attempts to identify a 'true' essence … his appeal has lain in the generation of myths." Those myths look likely to remain intact forever, which seems perfectly fitting

R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens, crafter of essays

2011-12-16T17:13:00.000-05:00

Not one to be lied to. Among the best writers of his age, Christopher Hitchens held you with his prose, in part because he was wrong a quarter of the time and in part because the words were always in the right place. The battle cry is still.

My choice for best essay of 2011

2011-11-27T17:27:00.005-05:00

There are shades of disagreement with Andy Crouch's brilliant tribute to Steve Jobs, the Secular Prophet in the Wall Street Journal, but it is, in my humble opinion, the best essay I have read in 2011.

Getting Ubuntu to work on Amtrak's wireless connection

2011-11-26T17:30:00.005-05:00

Today was my first experience with using WiFi on Amtrak. Riding business class on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I expected some difficulty hooking up to Amtrak's serviceable wireless connection. That's because my laptop is a very-dependable Dell Inspiron 1150 with about 2 GB of memory running single-boot Ubuntu 10.04, the very agreeable Lucid Lynx version. For the record, I'm an occasional Ubuntu enthusiast who tries to keep on top of the latest developments in the Linux world. And I do pay attention. I'm a very faithful user of Ubuntu's wonderful update manager so my Dell is current with the latest OS and software patches. By the way, Ubuntu's Update Manager is far superior to Windows' automated utility.

It would be a safe bet to say that I probably was the only laptop user running Linux on the train to Boston. Apple notebooks were everywhere. My son's Windows 7 machine identified the "AmtrakConnectAcela" signal immediately. Logging on was a breeze. Not so with Ubuntu. My machine's adapter could see and then not see the wireless Amtrak signal but I couldn't make an immediate connection. I tried rebooting the machine several times before I stumbled upon a solution. The solution required a simple disabling and re-enabling (unchecking and re-checking) of the wireless network by right-clicking on the wireless icon on the top panel of the desktop. (My icon appears in the upper right hand side). That did the trick. Thereafter I found the network's performance was slow but acceptable and dropped only once which forced me to log on again.

My guess is that this glitch has something to do with the firewall web page that serves as a gateway to the connection. It popped up easily enough in Windows and ultimately did in Firefox on my Ubuntu machine. But the wireless connection appeared to need some kind of acknowledgment that Ubuntu could not provide on the initial bootup of my machine. At its WiFi FAQ, Amtrak says "You will be able to use AmtrakConnect through any laptop or other portable device that is Wi-Fi enabled." That proved to be true but not as seamlessly as I would like. Whether this is done for security reasons I don't know but it would be nice if Amtrak took Linux users into account.

We love Acela too!

It was 33 years ago... the Rolling Stones performing Beast of Burden in 1978

2011-11-13T20:34:00.002-05:00

A classic!

Wakefield's New World War II Memorial

2011-11-11T13:12:00.001-05:00

A masterpiece: King Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part IV

2011-10-15T18:39:00.001-04:00

Live from the Eyes Wide Open Tour of 2003

Not so smooth: Peanut butter prices rise

2011-10-14T07:37:00.001-04:00

It's going to cost more to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!

A peanut shortage in the south means prices for some brands like Jiff and Peter Pan will rise by nearly 40%, making it harder for grocery stores to keep prices low.

Aphorism of the day

2011-09-17T15:46:00.000-04:00

We may understand our knowing, but we can't know our understanding.

Tarek Fatah Talk at ideacity 2011 on ideacity

2011-08-27T13:44:00.001-04:00

A Canadian, one of many, speaks the truth.

ideacity on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Tarek Fatah Talk at ideacity 2011o

Worth a listen...

Yes there are atheists in foxholes!

2011-08-09T10:13:00.002-04:00

Apparently!

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A concert event organized by atheist, agnostic and other non-theist soldiers has been cleared by the Army to take place next spring at Fort Bragg, concert organizers and a spokesman for the post said Monday.

Organizers planned to hold the Rock Beyond Belief event this year, but they canceled after saying Bragg leadership was not providing the same support it gave to an evangelical Christian concert last fall.

Supporters hailed the Army's decision.

"You know those goosebumps you get when your favorite song hits that sweet spot? I got those," said Sgt. Justin Griffith, main organizer of the event and the military director of American Atheists, in an email. "I was overcome with joy and a sense of vindication."

The plan is to hold the event on March 31 at the main parade field at Fort Bragg, where the Christian-themed Rock the Fort concert was held. Famed atheist Richard Dawkins is scheduled to appear, along with musicians, speakers and other entertainment.

"This just might be the turning point in our struggle for acceptance," Griffith said. "I mean it. I get letters daily from service members asking for advice on how to `do something like what's going on at Fort Bragg'."

Final approval for the event came last week, Bragg spokesman Ben Abel said. The festival will get the same treatment from Bragg that other groups receive, he said.

Almost better than the master himself

2011-08-07T10:40:00.001-04:00

One of the most powerful and impressive interpretations of ‪Keith Emerson's Tarkus. A stunning accomplishment!

Frezza on the money

2011-07-29T22:43:00.000-04:00

The always must-read Bill Frezza:

How come advocating the most extreme separation of church and state earns approving nods from the media while advocating even a minimal separation of economy and state draws accusations of extremism? Does it make you wonder who pays that piper? If it costs a billion dollars to run for president, where does all that money go? How come you rarely see stories about who profits from this slush Niagara as you are carpet bombed by campaign ads? Who stands to lose if the cost of running for office plunges?

As the primary purpose of power in a democracy becomes the redistribution of wealth is it so unnatural that the primary purpose of wealth in a democracy becomes the purchasing of power? If purchasers get their money’s worth what becomes of equality before the law? If purchasers don’t get their money’s worth how long before their money decamps for more hospitable climes?

Very good questions and many more. Read the whole column and weep.

Freedom Foundation Annual Meeting and Installation of Officers

2011-06-29T21:56:00.001-04:00

Freedom Foundation Annual Meeting and Installation

The officers and board members of the Bay State Chapter of Freedoms Foundation for the 2011-12 season are (seated, l-r) Lino Rullo, Francine D’Andrea, President Joseph Ferrino Jr., Marisa DiPietro and Past President Ed Coletta, and (standing, l-r) Richard Ferrino, Sal Bramante, Buddy Mangini, Ron Vecchia, Barbara Survillas, Philip Salois, and Riccardo Rullo.

More photographs at eastboston.com

A Saturday night delight: Soft Machine Live in Italy 1974

2011-06-25T21:33:00.000-04:00

One of the great fusion bands of all-time, in my humble opinion, Soft Machine introduced us to the marvel that is Allan Holdsworth.

YouTube - Soft Machine live on RAI 1974

Information sharing interferes with 'wisdom of crowds': study

2011-05-17T18:52:00.001-04:00

Information sharing interferes with 'wisdom of crowds': study

(PhysOrg.com) -- A statistical phenomenon, called the Wisdom of Crowds, happens when a group of individuals make guesses and the average of the guesses reveal accurate average answers. However, researchers have discovered that when the individuals are made aware of other participant’s guesses, there is a clear disruption to the accuracy of the guesses.

Fukuyama on Hayek

2011-05-08T08:56:00.000-04:00

A balanced review a tour-de-force

Unlike Beck, Hayek was a very serious thinker, and it would be too bad if the current association between the two led us to dismiss his thought. Hayek always had problems getting the respect he deserved; even when he was awarded the Nobel in economic science in 1974, the awards committee paired him with the left-leaning economist Gunnar Myrdal. With the passage of time, however, many of the ideas expressed in “The Constitution of Liberty” have become broadly accepted by economists — e.g., that labor unions create a privileged labor sector at the expense of the nonunionized; that rent control reduces the supply of housing; or that agricultural subsidies lower the general welfare and create a bonanza for politicians. His view that ambitious government-sponsored programs often produce unintended consequences served as an intellectual underpinning of the Reagan-Thatcher revolution of the 1980s and ’90s. Now that the aspirations of that revolution are being revived by Tea Partiers and other conservatives, it is useful to review some of the intellectual foundations on which it rested.

Current reading

2011-05-05T22:52:00.008-04:00

I am currently reading Aristotle by Jonathan Barnes, which is a very good primer on the "prince of philosophy."

From the summary at bookfinder:

The influence of Aristotle, the prince of philosophers, on the intellectual history of the West is second to none. In this book Jonathan Barnes examines Aristotle's scientific researches, his discoveries in logic and his metaphysical theories, his work in psychology and in ethics and politics, and his ideas about art and poetry, placing his teachings in their historical context.

MIT on MainStreets

2011-04-29T20:54:00.000-04:00

Eastboston.com

MIT planning students have done their homework. They were all ears on how best to scope out the future for MainStreets. Next week they'll be presenting at three stakeholder meetings in East Boston.

R.I.P. Richard Cornuelle, "prince of classical liberalism"

2011-04-28T23:27:00.002-04:00

Peter Boettke on the passing of a great thinker Richard Cournuelle.

In Healing America (1983) Cornuelle argued that what was required was a radical reconsideration of the scope of government responsibility. Public policy had come to a dead end. We had come to believe that we cannot make society habitable without making government bigger, and yet we cannot pay the cost of the bigger government without creating more problems that add to the cost of government. A vicious cycle ensued following the Great Depression --- "Government is growing as it fails, and, to a chilling degree, it is growing because it is failing."

By the late 1960s and 1970s, the failure of government programs was recognized even by those who were entrusted with their management. By the 1980s, the extent of the failures of the bureaucratic attempt to address the social ills of poverty had intensified. We don't have much of a choice, Cornuelle tells us, when our policy options are humanity or solvency. To solve the crisis we didn't need to starve the state of resources (this is not ultimately a tax and spend issue), we needed to starve the state of responsibility (it is a question of scope and fundamentally about political theory). In other words, if we can theoretically and empirically demonstrate that the voluntary sector can outperform the state sector in the delivery of basic social services, then we can avoid the crisis of the fiscal state (and the inhumanity of bureaucratic 'solutions') and unleash the power of people and the communities they live within, and actively participate in, to tackle the social ills of poverty, unemployment, health and education. The American Dream is of a society that is at once free, prosperous and caring. The "good society" Cornuelle argued did not result from grand designs, but from "millions upon millions of caring acts, repeated day after day, until direct mutual action becomes second nature."

Here is his essay "New Work for Invisible Hands."

For Easter Sunday, Patti Smith

2011-04-24T12:40:00.001-04:00

Patti Smith - EASTER

Easter Sunday, we were walking.
Easter Sunday, we were talking.
Isabel, my little one, take my hand. Time has come.

Isabella, all is glowing.
Isabella, all is knowing.
And my heart, Isabella.
And my head, Isabella.

Frederick and Vitalie, savior dwells inside of thee.
Oh, the path leads to the sun. Brother, sister, time has come.

Isabella, all is glowing.
Isabella, all is knowing.
Isabella, we are dying.
Isabella, we are rising.

I am the spring, the holy ground,
the endless seed of mystery,
the thorn, the veil, the face of grace,
the brazen image, the thief of sleep,
the ambassador of dreams, the prince of peace.
I am the sword, the wound, the stain.
Scorned transfigured child of Cain.
I rend, I end, I return.
Again I am the salt, the bitter laugh.
I am the gas in a womb of light, the evening star,
the ball of sight that leads that sheds the tears of Christ
dying and drying as I rise tonight.

Isabella, we are rising.
Isabella, we are rising . . .

from http://www.absolutelyrics.com/lyrics/view/patti_smith/easter/

Linux turns 20

2011-04-11T14:23:00.000-04:00

One of the great stories of human civilization and the impulse to collaborate. The "alternative" operating system that is far more pervasive than you think turns 20. Bravo.

From 2002 Noel Gallagher performs "Wonderwall"

2011-04-02T23:16:00.002-04:00

Noel Gallagher, rare footage.

The amazing Steve Vai

2011-04-02T23:06:00.005-04:00

Steve Vai, "For The Love Of God" with an orchestra. Very nice.

Randy Barnett, libertarian lawyer, now arguing against Obamacare, profiled

2011-04-02T21:42:00.002-04:00

The man who is making the case against Obamacare.

Barnett, 59, argues that the law’s requirement that almost all Americans obtain health insurance by 2014 is a government intrusion.

Such a mandate is unconstitutional, Barnett says, because the Constitution’s Commerce Clause — the underpinning of much federal regulation — does not give Congress the power to compel Americans to buy a product. In this case, the product is health insurance.

To put his view another way, Congress cannot regulate inactivity as commerce.

“Giving the Congress the power to do these mandates is essentially giving the Congress the power to take over your life,’’ he declared in an interview.

The Notes, a BlogTalkRadio program, hosted by Stephanie Davis and D.R. Tucker featured an interview with Barnett last month.

Listen to internet radio with The Notes on Blog Talk Radio

When was he never around?

2011-03-30T06:11:00.000-04:00

Jeff Beck is back!

On Monday it was rare for Mr. Beck to take a guitar solo longer than 16 bars — and when he did, he often mimicked the recording.

I'm sure every lick was very tasteful!

Jordan Rudess has exceptional taste in progressive rock

2011-03-27T20:49:00.000-04:00

A very good list if I do so say myself. Wow!

The voice of a woman who took a bold first step in 1984 has been stilled.

2011-03-26T13:00:00.004-04:00

R.I.P. Geraldine Ferraro. A real trailblazer. From Politico:

Geraldine Ferraro, the Queens congresswoman who made history as the first woman to serve on a major party’s presidential ticket, died Saturday. She was 75.

Her family said she passed away at Massachusetts General Hospital of complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer she struggled with for 12 years.
Eager to shake up a race he was losing, Walter Mondale chose Ferraro as his running mate on the Democrats’ 1984 ticket. The pair lost the race badly, carrying only Minnesota and the District of Columbia against Ronald Reagan, but Ferraro became an inspiration for women in both parties to get into politics.

“Every time a woman runs, women win,” Ferraro famously said.

Carl Palmer, minimalist

2011-03-20T18:30:00.005-04:00

"Before and after" the devastation in Japan

2011-03-13T10:15:00.004-04:00

ABC News:

Hat tip: Keith Emerson.

Too old to rock and roll

2011-03-05T09:00:00.001-05:00

Love him or hate him, Phil Collins is a musical talent and far better than the young musicians you find dominating the scene today.

Bravo Adele

2011-02-27T21:15:00.001-05:00

YouTube - Adele - Rolling In The Deep

Yeah, like let's blame libertarians

2011-02-08T16:48:00.001-05:00

Reason Magazine:

A similar thing happened to me over the weekend. I twisted my ankle playing pick-up basketball. As I clenched my jaw in pain, I could only look up to the sky, shake my fist angrily, and curse the name Robert Nozick.

Read the whole entry. It's not like government didn't have anything to do with the 2008 meltdown.

Mass High Tech: Ken Olsen, co-founder of DEC, dies at the age of 84

2011-02-07T20:57:00.008-05:00

Ken Olsen, who founded Digital Equipment Corporation and helped establish Massachusetts as a technology hub, has died. He was a Massachusetts high-tech icon who left a rich local legacy. He will be missed.

More from CNet News.

Thought for a day from a Chinese fortune cookie

2011-01-23T23:17:00.000-05:00

"It takes more than good memory to have good memories."

Current listening

2011-01-23T13:42:00.003-05:00

Ashokan Farewell : Here played by Mark O'Connor.

Background on the composition from Wikipedia.

Why do I like this band?

2011-01-22T17:59:00.001-05:00

Lacuna Coil!

Bobby Orr on what really matters

2011-01-22T07:21:00.001-05:00

Joe Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald on Bobby Orr's great perspective on life. The losses matter very little in the grand scheme.

Currently reading

2011-01-16T22:57:00.001-05:00

A programmer never sleeps

2011-01-07T21:47:00.001-05:00

An excellent observation about about software programming.

Programming is hard work. It’s an intense mental activity. Good programmers think about their work 24/7. They write their most important code in the shower and in their dreams. Because the most important work is done away from a keyboard, software projects cannot be accelerated by spending more time in the office or adding more people to a project.

Read the whole article.

New Sounds: Robert Fripp’s Soundscapes, Live 2010 - WNYC

2011-01-07T21:40:00.002-05:00

The king of ambient music! Robert Fripp’s Soundscapes, Live 2010 - WNYC:

When John Cage was accessible!

2011-01-07T21:37:00.001-05:00

AMAZING!: The avant-garde on prime time back in day!

Hat tip: Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

A set of accidental photographs of First Night 2011 Boston

2011-01-01T19:28:00.002-05:00

From the First Night Parade on Boylston Street in Boston, a broken camera captures reality.

The triumph of the inept photographer!

ShareThis button causes my Ubuntu laptop to crash!

2010-12-28T15:26:00.000-05:00

I tried to install the very likable and useful ShareThis button as an add-on for Firefox on my Ubuntu 10.04 laptop. It crashed the machine. Anyone have similar experiences?

A delightful version of From the Beginning

2010-12-18T21:46:00.000-05:00

A pop hit from ELP: "From the Beginning."

R.I.P. Captain Beefheart

2010-12-18T08:31:00.006-05:00

Endlessly weird, provocative (enough to catch Frank Zappa's eye) but an original talent, Don Van Vliet, Captain Beefheart, extended the boundaries of music. May he rest in peace.

An interview with the great Deirdre McCloskey

2010-12-10T20:41:00.000-05:00

She is one of the most innovative scholars to be found. A veritable public intellectual, if only people in charge would listen.

My alarm comes from the economist’s tendency to reduce humans to Maximum Utility machines. We need a humanomics, of the sort that Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill and John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek and Gunnar Myrdal and Kenneth Boulding and Albert Hirschman practiced. Some current practitioners are Nancy Folbre, Arjo Klamer, and Richard Bronk. It’s an economics for grownups.

A must-read interview.

Quote of the Day

2010-11-22T07:25:00.003-05:00

"In life, people who mistake dreams for reality are called crazy. In politics, they’re called leftists." - Dan Flynn writing in Mutiny on the Goodship Obama? in Human Events.

Hedlund emerges as candidate for Senate Minority Leader

2010-11-07T09:55:00.003-05:00

Make no mistake:
Robert Hedlund, the GOP state senator from Weymouth, will be a different kind of leader. A favorite among the Republican Liberty caucus, Hedlund will mostly likely benefit from support outside the State House for his bid to head the paltry cadre of GOP state senators. A follower of Ron Paul, Hedlund opposed the Bush administration's decision to launch wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And like like his predecessor Richard Tisei, Hedlund has the uncanny ability to win elections in districts dominated by Democratic voters.

Keith don't go

2010-10-15T20:48:00.001-04:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"I loved a good high. And if you stay up, you get the songs that everyone else misses because they're asleep," Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones who will publish his autobiography Life on October 26.

Something to ponder

2010-09-26T10:52:00.000-04:00

Via Donald Luskin:

[The GOP's recently released Pledge to America calls for the] repeal the mandate hidden in Obama's health care legislation that requires small business to report to the IRS all purchases above $600. Bravo. It boggles my mind that Democrats, who so loathe the privacy invasions implicit in the Patriot Act, would have ever approve this kind of Big Brother regulation in the first place. In and of itself, this will have no effect on earnings. But it would send a signal that would be very positive for stocks -- that not only will this kind of burden not be imposed on business, but that old burdens will be removed.

Well Don, the answer is simple. It's all about the money; Democrats believe it's all the government's money and its susceptible to being called back in the form of taxes because of some ambiguous public purpose (subsidies for rich farmers and socialized medicine to name a couple of examples.)

By the way dear liberal Democrats: How's the Patriot Act working out for you under Obama?

The great sage Taleb speaks

2010-09-26T08:02:00.002-04:00

NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB:

U.S. President Barack Obama and his administration weakened the country’s economy by seeking to foster growth instead of paying down the federal debt, said Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of “The Black Swan.”

“Obama did exactly the opposite of what should have been done,” Taleb said yesterday in Montreal in a speech as part of Canada’s Salon Speakers series. “He surrounded himself with people who exacerbated the problem. You have a person who has cancer and instead of removing the cancer, you give him tranquilizers. When you give tranquilizers to a cancer patient, they feel better but the cancer gets worse.”

Today, Taleb said, “total debt is higher than it was in 2008 and unemployment is worse.”

Taleb's two masterpieces, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets and The Black Swan are newly-minted classics that should be read by the hyper-rationalists who occupy the White House, the crowd that believes it can master uncertainty and impose its will on economic actors.

Stephen Johnson, the man who appreciates the slow hunch

2010-09-25T15:55:00.006-04:00

An impressive explanation of creativity by way of Bong Boing: Where Good Ideas Come From.

This is in many ways a response to Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

Earlier this year Christopher Lydon interviewed the scourge of the multi-tasker over at Radio Open Source.

RIP Mike Edwards, formerly of ELO

2010-09-22T11:14:00.000-04:00

This is terrible news,
A strange dark magic has taken a wonderful life.

An interview with Michel Houllebecq, French iconoclast

2010-09-19T08:25:00.001-04:00

I have never read any of Michel Houllebecq's work but this interview in the Paris Review is remarkable.

Quote for the day

2010-08-10T07:37:00.001-04:00

Thomas Sowell:

One of the many disservices done to young people by our schools and colleges is giving them the puffed up notion that they are in a position to pass sweeping judgments on a world that they have barely begun to experience.

Sunday afternoon music that cooks

2010-08-08T15:10:00.003-04:00

They certainly don' t make music like Be Bop Deluxe any more. Bill Nelson where are you?

The seductive power of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Take A Pebble"

2010-07-27T21:38:00.000-04:00

Emerson, Lake and Palmer's Take a Pebble serenity punctuated by tight jazz. Great stuff still!

And let's not forget Part 2:

One of my major influences, the late Karl Hess

2010-07-25T14:05:00.002-04:00

The Death of Politics by Karl Hess

"Libertarianism is the view that each man is the absolute owner of his life, to use and dispose of as he sees fit: that all man's social actions should be voluntary: and that respect for every other man's similar and equal ownership of life and, by extension, the property and fruits of that life is the ethical basis of a humane and open society. In this view, the only – repeat, only – function of law or government is to provide the sort of self-defense against violence that an individual, if he were powerful enough, would provide for himself."

Quote for the day

2010-07-25T10:50:00.002-04:00

"Freedom regularly makes ridiculous anyone who thinks he has figured out the limits of what is possible." - Charles Murray, What It Means To Be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation.

Moral licensing!

2010-07-20T21:44:00.000-04:00

In the deep recesses of the inner mind is the Great Offset!

We drink Diet Coke -- with Quarter Pounders and fries at McDonald's. We go to the gym -- and ride the elevator to the second floor. We install tankless water heaters -- then take longer showers. We drive SUVs to see Al Gore's speeches on global warming.
These behavioral riddles beg explanation, and social psychologists are offering one in new studies. The academic name for such quizzical behavior is moral licensing. It seems that we have a good/bad balance sheet in our heads that we're probably not even aware of. For many people, doing good makes it easier -- and often more likely -- to do bad. It works in reverse, too: Do bad, then do good.

"We have these internal negotiations going in our heads all day, even if we don't know it," said Benoît Monin, a social psychologist who studies moral licensing at Stanford University. "People's past behavior literally gives them license to do that next thing, which might not be good."

The implications of moral licensing are vast, stretching beyond consumer decisions and into politics and environmental policy. Monin published a study showing that voters given an opportunity to endorse Barack Obama for president were more likely to later favor white people for job openings. Social psychologists point to government standards for fuel efficiency as another example of moral licensing at work: Automakers can sell a certain number of gas guzzlers as long as their overall fleet achieves a specified miles-per-gallon rating.

Always look on the bright side of life

2010-07-14T07:25:00.001-04:00

It's OK to kick problems down the road. We've got some time!

Life on Earth is wiped out every 27 million years – and we have about 16 million years left until the next extinction, according to scientists.

Research into so-called ‘extinction events’ for our planet over the past 500 million years - twice as long as any previous studies - has proved that they crop up with metronomic regularity.

Scientists from the University of Kansas and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC are 99 per cent confident that there are extinctions every 27 million years.

In the 1980s scientists believed that Earth’s regular extinctions could be the result of a distant dark twin of the Sun, called Nemesis.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1294372/Life-Earth-wiped-27-million-years.html#ixzz0tegIeBx1

Code on the run

2010-07-12T22:14:00.001-04:00

Google always appears to be one step ahead.

The free software, called Google App Inventor for Android (http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/), has been under development for a year. User testing has been done mainly in schools with groups that included sixth graders, high school girls, nursing students and university undergraduates who are not computer science majors.

The thinking behind the initiative, Google said, is that as cellphones increasingly become the computers that people rely on most, users should be able to make applications themselves.

“The goal is to enable people to become creators, not just consumers, in this mobile world,” said Harold Abelson, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is on sabbatical at Google and led the project.

The project is a further sign that Google is betting that its strategy of opening up its technology to all kinds of developers will eventually give it the upper hand in the smartphone software market. Its leading rival, Apple, takes a more tightly managed approach to application development for the iPhone, controlling the software and vetting the programs available.

“We could only have done this because Android’s architecture is so open,” Mr. Abelson said.

Reason asks: "Where Do Libertarians Belong?"

2010-07-12T21:51:00.002-04:00

All three writers -- Brink Lindsey, Jonah Goldberg and Matt Kibbe -- in this symposium are cogent, refreshing and passionate about the relationship between libertarians and conservatives.All three make observations that can't be overlooked. However, I say Goldberg and Kibbe get the best of the debate.

Johnny Cash on that tattered flag

2010-07-04T19:57:00.000-04:00

Overcoming adversity, without a limb

2010-07-04T13:39:00.001-04:00

“I never catch him feeling sorry for himself. I’ve never heard him say, ‘I wish this had never happened.’ ”

God bless Brendan Marrocco, he has the courage most of us lack.

The ZaZa Pizza King, Don Michele Caruso has died

2010-06-25T17:28:00.002-04:00

I was saddened to learn this morning driving on Main Street in Melrose that the ZaZa King Don Michele Caruso, died at the age of 80. A memorial photograph was posted on the front door and an announcement of the closing posted on the store window. Don Michele was a character and his restaurant was a throwback to the old days -- a little eccentric in design but very comfortable and a nice place to eat Old World cooking. The decor of his restaurant demonstrated that he certainly was a proud Italian. And he was a follower of Padre Pio. He will be missed in Melrose and beyond. Up above Padre Pio is guiding his soul.

"Loss is nothing but change."

2010-06-17T07:12:00.004-04:00

On with the routine: starting the day with Marcus Aurelius:

Loss is nothing but change. In this Universal Nature rejoices and by her all things come to pass well. From eternity they came to pass in like fashion and will be to everlasting in other similar shapes. When then do they say 'all things ever came to pass badly and that all will ever be bad'? So no power it seems was ever found in so many gods to remedy this, but the world is condemned to be straitened in uninterrupted evils? - Book IX, Number 36. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius.

Incompetence BP style

2010-06-15T14:36:00.002-04:00

Is is any wonder that BP can't get its act together?

Glaeser: The Economics of Libertarianism

2010-06-15T06:54:00.001-04:00

Ed Glaeser confronts the paradox of libertarianism

I always find it refreshing to take a quick, clean intellectual shower in the cold, pure waters of libertarian thought, but I find myself most interested in the murky areas on the edge of libertarianism, which Professor Miron explores with aplomb. Libertarians are rarely anarchists. Almost all of them believe in some form of state power, at the very least the protection of private property and the enforcement of contracts. Many of them, including Milton Friedman, are quite comfortable with larger exercises of state power, including the redistribution of resources to those who have less. Professor Miron writes that “anti-poverty spending is the most defensible kind of redistribution,” because “the goal of this redistribution – helping the poor – is reasonable and the costs of a well-designed limited anti-poverty program (e.g., a negative income tax set on a state-by-state basis) are modest.”
But once the need for public action is accepted, things start getting very muddy and we can’t rely on either a love of liberty or fear of the state for guidance. Consider the purely hypothetical case of a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The traditional libertarian would argue that regulation is unnecessary because the tort system will hold the driller liable for any damage. But what if the leak is so vast that the driller doesn’t have the resources to pay? The libertarian would respond that the driller should have been forced to post a bond or pay for sufficient insurance to cover any conceivable spill. Perhaps, but then the government needs to regulate the insurance contract and the resources of the insurer.

Even more problematically, the libertarian’s solution requires us to place great trust in part of the public sector: the court system. At times, judges have been bribed; any courtroom can be influenced by the best attorneys that money can buy.

Looking for a clip from today's World Cup game between Italy vs Paraguay game, I found this ditty!

2010-06-14T22:34:00.003-04:00

The Korean Conspiracy of 2002 to operatic music:

Melodramatic isn't enough to describe this video.

Embed has been disabled by request. The conspiracy continues...

UPDATE: The video has been removed from YouTube.

Senator Tisei's remarks at Wakefield's Memorial Day Observance

2010-05-31T22:43:00.001-04:00

The following is the text of Senator Richard Tisei's remarks at Wakefield's Commemoration of Memorial Day on the Upper Commons.

I bring you the greetings of the Commonwealth this morning as we pay tribute to the many brave men and women who have given their lives over the years so that we could continue to live in peace and enjoy freedom.

Memorial Day is a day for Americans to reconnect with their history and core values by honoring those who gave their lives for the ideals we all cherish.

Freedom in this country means that it doesn't matter where you come from, or what the circumstances of your birth are. It doesn't matter who you know, or how well connected you are. It doesn't matter what your religious or spiritual beliefs are, or what language you speak at home.

It is the freedom to pursue any goal in life that does not harm others. It is the freedom to speak your mind without worrying about a violent backlash. Its the freedom to come and go as you please and most importantly the freedom to think and act as individuals.. that sets us apart from all of the other nations on this earth.

Our county is unique. There has never been another like it in the history of the world. Our greatness stems from the fact that we are a tolerant nation that welcomes creativity and diversity. As a result every day tens of thousands of Asians, Africans and Europeans of every color, class and background are fighting to come to these shores to experience the American Dream.

Today is a day to remember that   these freedoms which we all treasure ....were not free....and the precious liberties that we now take for granted did not come without our nation paying a terrible price.

Over the years, more than 1 million men and women have died in wars fought on our own soil and in remote battlefields in every corner of this world.

Where did we find such brave men and women....who were willing to put on uniforms....take up arms....leave their friends and family behind.... and travel to such far away places to defend freedom and liberty?

We found them right here in our community. The names carved into granite and memorials all around us this morning indicate the tremendous price that this community has paid over the years to defend our country.

These men and women will be forever in our memory, forever in our hearts and we will be forever thankful to them.

As we mark memorial day this year, we do so with heavy hearts remembering all of the service members who have lost their lives fighting terrorism in places like Afganistan and Iraq.

Their sacrifice serves as a reminder to all Americans that we are living in a very dangerous and violent world. At this critical time, we need to be stong and remain prepared as there are plenty of tyrants and terrorists actively working to destroy our freedoms and all that we stand for.

As we face this present danger and confront the struggles which lie ahead, we would do well to always remember the example set by those we honor here today.

Their sacrifice, loyalty and personal courage perserved our freedoms.

Their strength and determination created the America of today, and the heroic actions they took to defend our nation will forever serve as an inspiration to every American.

Memorial Day in Wakefield, Massachusetts 2010

2010-05-31T21:11:00.002-04:00

The master partisan

2010-05-31T20:36:00.002-04:00

Why we loved Johnny Most

It's very costly to go green

2010-05-28T07:36:00.000-04:00

Going "Green" - Reason Magazine

...what if much of going green is just bunk? Al Gore's group, Repower America, claims we can replace all our dirty energy with clean, carbon-free renewables. Gore says we can do it within 10 years.
"It's simply not possible," says Robert Bryce, author of Power Hungry: The Myths of "Green" Energy. "Nine out of 10 units of power that we consume are produced by hydrocarbons—coal, oil and natural gas. Any transition away from those sources is going to be a decades-long, maybe even a century-long process. ... The world consumes 200 million barrels of oil equivalent in hydrocarbons per day. We would have to find the energy equivalent of 23 Saudi Arabias."

You don't say?

2010-05-23T19:44:00.002-04:00

Payback Time - Deficit Crisis Threatens Ample Benefits of European Life - NYTimes.com

And just a few years ago, they thought they were better off than the U.S.

Europe. Old and allergic to rejuvenation of any sort.

Drink up boys and girls!

The reaction so far to government efforts to cut spending has been pessimism and anger, with an understanding that the current system is unsustainable.

In Athens, Aris Iordanidis, 25, an economics graduate working in a bookstore, resents paying high taxes to finance Greece’s bloated state sector and its employees. “They sit there for years drinking coffee and chatting on the telephone and then retire at 50 with nice fat pensions,” he said. “As for us, the way things are going we’ll have to work until we’re 70.”

In Rome, Aldo Cimaglia is 52 and teaches photography, and he is deeply pessimistic about his pension. “It’s going to go belly-up because no one will be around to fill the pension coffers,” he said. “It’s not just me; this country has no future.

My son the pianist

2010-05-23T19:06:00.000-04:00

Bravo, I say!

Thought for the day

2010-05-18T07:09:00.002-04:00

An arrow's path and the mind's path are different. Nevertheless, both when it is on its guard and when it revolves round a subject of inquiry, the path of mind is none the less direct and upon its object.

Book VIII, Number 60. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius.

This Sunday morning listening

2010-05-16T10:17:00.003-04:00

Simple Gifts: Shaker Chants and Spirituals

Bravo John Stewart

2010-04-24T15:07:00.000-04:00

It's time to stand up to intimidation. A big cheer for Jon Stewart.

Beware Liberals speaking with VAT tongue

2010-04-18T21:25:00.001-04:00

GEORGE WILL:

When liberals advocate a value-added tax, conservatives should respond: Taxing consumption has merits, so we will consider it -- after the 16th Amendment is repealed.

A VAT will be rationalized as necessary to restore fiscal equilibrium. But without ending the income tax, a VAT would be just a gargantuan instrument for further subjugating Americans to government.

The mastermind of punk has died

2010-04-08T23:50:00.000-04:00

He certainly shook things up when he unleashed the Sex Pistols upon the world of rock music!

Malcolm McLaren dies at the age of 64

A traditional Italian Easter! Buona Pasqua from East Boston!

2010-04-04T22:13:00.000-04:00

Here's my mother's pizza chena, a regular at our Easter table.

Sorry you couldn't make it. The rice pie was just as good.

Easter Sunday, by Patti Smith

2010-04-04T12:19:00.002-04:00

Always worth a listen on Easter Sunday from my favorite odd-ball, Patti Smith.

Easter Sunday, we were walking.
Easter Sunday, we were talking.
Isabel, my little one, take my hand. Time has come.
Isabella, all is glowing.
Isabella, all is knowing.
And my heart, Isabella.
And my head, Isabella.
Frederick and Vitalie, savior dwells inside of thee.
Oh, the path leads to the sun. Brother, sister, time has come.
Isabella, all is glowing.
Isabella, all is knowing.
Isabella, we are dying.
Isabella, we are rising.
I am the spring, the holy ground,
the endless seed of mystery,
the thorn, the veil, the face of grace,
the brazen image, the thief of sleep,
the ambassador of dreams, the prince of peace.
I am the sword, the wound, the stain.
Scorned transfigured child of Cain.
I rend, I end, I return.
Again I am the salt, the bitter laugh.
I am the gas in a womb of light, the evening star,
the ball of sight that leads that sheds the tears of Christ
dying and drying as I rise tonight.
Isabella, we are rising.
Isabella, we are rising . .

A little Hayekian lesson

2010-04-04T12:13:00.000-04:00

Glenn Harlan Reynolds:

The United States Code -- containing federal statutory law -- is more than 50,000 pages long and comprises 40 volumes. The Code of Federal Regulations, which indexes administrative rules, is 161,117pages long and composes226volumes.
No one on Earth understands them all, and the potential interaction among all the different rules would choke a supercomputer. This means, of course, that when Congress changes the law, it not only can't be aware of all the real-world complications it's producing, it can't even understand the legal and regulatory implications of what it's doing.

There's good news and bad news in that. The bad news is obvious: We're governed not just by people who do screw up constantly, but by people who can't help but screw up constantly. So long as the government is this large and overweening, no amount of effort at securing smarter people or "better" rules will do any good: Incompetence is built into the system.

The good news is less obvious, but just as important: While we rightly fear a too-powerful government, this regulatory knowledge problem will ensure plenty of public stumbles and embarrassments, helping to remind people that those who seek to rule us really don't know what they're doing.

Bravo Peggy Noonan

2010-04-03T16:57:00.000-04:00

Peggy Noonan spells it out wonderfully

John Paul the Great, about whom I wrote an admiring book which recounts some of the scandals—I spent a grim 2003 going through the depositions of Massachusetts clergy—one fact seems to me pre-eminent. For Pope John Paul II, the scandals would have been unimaginable—literally not imaginable. He had come of age in an era and place (Poland in the 1930s, '40s and '50s) of heroic priests. They were great men; they suffered. He had seen how the Nazis and later the communists had attempted to undermine the church and tear people away from it, sometimes through slander. They did this because the great force arrayed against them was the Catholic Church. John Paul, his mind, psyche and soul having been forged in that world, might well have seen the church's recent accusers as spreaders of slander. Because priests don't act like that, it's not imaginable. And he'd seen it before, only now it wasn't Nazism or communism attempting to kill the church with lies, but modernity and its soulless media.
Only they weren't lies.

There are three great groups of victims in this story. The first and most obvious, the children who were abused, who trusted, were preyed upon and bear the burden through life. The second group is the good priests and good nuns, the great leaders of the church in the day to day, who save the poor, teach the immigrant, and, literally, save lives. They have been stigmatized when they deserve to be lionized. And the third group is the Catholics in the pews—the heroic Catholics of America and now Europe, the hardy souls who in spite of what has been done to their church are still there, still making parish life possible, who hold high the flag, their faith unshaken. No one thanks those Catholics, sees their heroism, respects their patience and fidelity. The world thinks they're stupid. They are not stupid, and with their prayers they keep the world going, and the old church too.

Read the entire article.

Just finished reading: Harold Demsetz

2010-03-19T12:43:00.002-04:00

Economist Harold Demsetz is a brilliant essayist.

Reviewed here.

The ultimate virtucrats: environmentalists

2010-03-16T10:05:00.000-04:00

Can't say I'm surprised!

Obama's false promise: Cost control for health care

2010-03-15T21:56:00.002-04:00

ROBERT SAMUELSON:

One job of presidents is to educate Americans about crucial national problems. On health care, Barack Obama has failed. Almost everything you think you know about health care is probably wrong or, at least, half wrong. Great simplicities and distortions have been peddled in the name of achieving "universal health coverage." The miseducation has worsened as the debate approaches its climax.

The feminization of jihad!

2010-03-09T20:37:00.001-05:00

Some people don't have a grasp of reality. Life under Islam for a particular American woman must be very attractive.

FOXNews.com: Pennsylvania Woman Charged With Recruiting Violent Jihadist Fighters

A Pennsylvania woman known to authorities as "JihadJane" has been charged in federal court with using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters to carry out murders and violent attacks overseas.

The woman, Colleen R. LaRose, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft, according to the indictment, unsealed Monday.

Sources tell Fox News the "Swedish citizen" who "JihadJane" was allegedly looking to kill is Lars Vilks, who drew one of the controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons. There was a series of arrests in Ireland earlier Tuesday that are reportedly connected to LaRose's case.

A traitor tells the truth

2010-03-07T07:44:00.003-05:00

Amazing story. Why Mosab Hassan Yousef turned against Hamas.

A little Saturday afternoon smoothness with Tom Verlaine

2010-02-27T13:45:00.000-05:00

Tom Verlaine under his Marquee Moon! Bravo.

Trouble in Socialist Paradise

2010-02-26T07:10:00.000-05:00

Where's the outcry from Cambridge and Amherst, Berkeley and Ann Arbor? Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo has died and what does the fascist tyranny in Havana do? Round up the freedom fighters!

Cuban security forces rounded up political activists across the island yesterday to prevent protestst the funeral of a leading dissident who died after an 82-day hunger strike.

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, 42, a plumber and bricklayer declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, stopped eating solid food on December 3 to protest what he said were repeated beatings by guards at the Kilo 7 prison in the eastern province of Camagüey.

As his condition worsened last week, he was put on board an ambulance and driven to a clinic at the Combinado del Este prison in Havana where authorities administered fluids intravenously to try to keep him alive. He died on Tuesday after being moved again to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital, one of the best in Cuba.

“They have assassinated Orlando Zapata Tamayo. My son’s death has been a premeditated murder,” his mother, Reina Luisa Tamayo, told El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language edition of the Miami Herald.

Again where's the American left on this one? It answers itself. In the enclaves where they worry about Halliburton and Mossad and other neat conspiracies they assure themselves "No enemies on the Left. "

The attempt to criminalize policy differences; Probe clears Bush lawyers

2010-02-23T11:23:00.004-05:00

The great Richard Epstein, no friend of the late Bush Administration, takes a principled stand:

Let's thank David Margolis for putting a stop to a legal crusade before it turned into a legal vendetta. Yet, with hindsight, a prudent DOJ should not have started on this inquiry at all. To steal a line from William Tecumseh Sherman, "Investigations are hell."

The Holder Department of Justice should be ashamed of itself. The far-left is wailing and whining at its failure to obtain a fresh scalp. Let them. Giving advice may show bad judgement; it is not a crime or a weapon to punish political enemies.

Keyboardist Jon Lord To Release New Album In March

2010-02-21T23:28:00.005-05:00

An interesting conceptual enterprise from Jon Lord, who once attacked keyboards with great ferocity for Deep Purple.

According to JonLord.org, Jon Lord will release his next album, To Notice Such Things, on March 22 through Avie Records.

Titled after the main work -- a six movement suite for solo flute, piano and string orchestra -- the album was inspired by, and is dedicated to, the memory of Jon's dear friend Sir John Mortimer, the English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter, author and creator of British television series Rumpole Of The Bailey, who died in January 2009.

"He was a great friend and a great inspiration to me and I hope my love and respect for him comes out in the music," says Jon.

I can't wait!

Soft Machine in Italy

2010-02-21T00:15:00.000-05:00

One of the great progressive music bands in my lifetime: Soft Machine.

TSA brilliance

2010-02-16T07:13:00.001-05:00

Let's put a 4-year-old with leg braces through a little airport screening hell. But let's not call it a war on terror.