July 05, 2010
— Gabriel Malor Let's face it, you hear about NASA in the news these days and you don't think about moon landings. You're as likely to hear about NASA's global warming studies as you are a shuttle launch, salt evaporation projects as interplanetary probes.
This isn't your father's NASA. This is NASA: The Next Generation, where every bold step is tempered by a nagging shrew with fuzzy feelings and faint fears. No longer do we aim for the stars; the new mission is to aim at petty squabbles right here at home.
In the video below, Charles Bolden, head of NASA, tells Al Jazeera that the "foremost" task President Obama has given him is "to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering." Thus, NASA's primary mission is no longer to enhance American science and engineering or to explore space, but to boost the self-esteem of "predominantly Muslim nations."Exploring space didn't even make the top three things Obama wants Bolden to accomplish. The other two are "re-inspire children to want to get into science and math" and "expand our international relationships,"
Longtime readers know that I am only cool at best toward modern government-funded, government-run space exploration. But this is ridiculous. Let the State Department fret about Muslim self-esteem. State has much greater experience stroking barbarians with inadequacy complexes. If we're going to have a space program, it better be directed at space.
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07:36 AM
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— Monty I hope everyone had a nice, restful Independence Day weekend. American markets are closed on July 5 for Independence Day (observed). The good economic news? In America, even a no-talent hack can be given millions of dollars every couple of years to make a lousy movie.1 That bespeaks a nation that has so much money it can afford to burn money to keep its other money warm. Via Insty, a tasty little morsel of schadenfreude to whet your appetite for November's elections. It's seasoned with the salty tears of Democrats! more...
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03:50 AM
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— Purple Avenger Quiet hybrids are apparently a problem at intersections, particularly for the blind which is perfectly understandable, but they're also a big risk to "unsuspecting pedestrians" (i.e. clueless oblivions who have less situational awareness than a potted palm)
...Advocates for the blind have sought the addition of artificial noises in hybrids for several years, concerned that the expected sales growth of hybrids could lead to more pedestrian fatalities and injuries...Now that its been established that silent hybrids are a real safety threat, where might we get a ready supply of "unsuspecting pedestrians" for them to mow down?
...pedestrians are also suffering the consequences of mobile distraction — tripping on curbs, walking into traffic, even stepping into manholes as they chat or type while walking...The plight of the blind is a genuinely tragic case of unintended technological consequences, and the slow response of the hybrid makers to it is shameful. Apparently, its literally going to take an act of congress to compel them to address this issue when its one they should have been all over themselves when it was brought to light...."I don't think we're going to eliminate people from walking into things outright and of course we want people to be responsible, but what we're trying to do is eliminate the friction point ... and give the user back a little mental bandwith," said Travis Bogard, the executive director for product management and strategy at San Francisco-based Aliph, which makes bluetooth earpieces...
However, the plight of the poor gadgeting oblivions who are walking in front of cars and falling into manholes concerns me somewhat less. To begin with, when walking around on the street, people should be at a heightened alertness level. This is a process of natural selection. I'd bet a donut, that the incidences of robbery among the gadgeting clueless has spiked in relation to the general population. Unaware/unprepared victims are prime pickings for a robber.
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03:32 AM
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July 04, 2010
— Gabriel Malor Another company announces that the healthcare bill the President and the Democrats had to write in secret and pass under cover of darkness will sink it when the bill goes active in 2014.
My friends, reason number 3,401 that ObamaCare needs to be repealed:
The Columbus-based family owned restaurant chain - known for serving small square hamburgers called "sliders" – says a single provision in the bill will eat up roughly 55 percent of its yearly net income after 2014.Starting that year, the bill levies a $3,000-per-employee penalty on companies whose workers pay more than 9.5 percent of household income in premiums for company-provided insurance.
White Castle, which currently provides insurance to all of its full-time workers and picks up 70 to 89 percent of their premium costs, believes it will likely end up paying those penalties. The financial hit will make it hard for the company to maintain its 421 restaurants, let alone create new jobs, says company spokesman Jamie Richardson. White Castle employs more than 10,000 people nationwide, and more than 1,200 in Ohio.
Props to House Minority Leader Boehner and House Minority Whip Cantor for continuing to push repeal. A majority of voters still favor repeal, but that majority was slipping last week as the memory of Obama's false promises, the Democrats' anti-democratic tactics in Congress, and the inquisition directed at companies who spoke out fades.
Keep reminding voters that Obama's healthcare reform is an economy-killer and it has to be stopped before it sinks us in yet another recession.
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06:10 PM
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— Maetenloch
Happy Birthday America!!
Lock up the horses and bring out your finest grog and ale for tonight we party like it's 1776!
How About Some Independence Day Rap Staring Ace and the Founding Fathers
From the guys at JibJab.
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04:39 PM
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— Dave in Texas A "retired blogger" (which means weekly meetings with probie) sends this along, something from the James Madison museum in Virginia. I have stolen his email verbatim since he's making me type out Madison's work:
I went by the James Madison museum the other day in Orange, VA and I saw where they had posted a copy of a poem Madison wrote.A naughty, vulgar, sarcastic poem. About Muses throwing chamber pots at people and castrating them.
Apparently in at Princeton in the 1770's, these goobers would get into what we would call a "flame war", in which they wrote nasty doggerel poems about each other and read them in the prayer hall--sometimes these flame wars, called "paper wars", would run for two weeks. And Madison played dirty. He worked blue.
The poems of James Madison, Founding Father, Federalist Papers author, Fourth President of the United States, ghost writer of the no-foolin' Constitution of the United States, were especially distinguished: " ...the last three, the poorest poetry and the most scurrilous in content, are by Madison". Also they were "weak, but not at all deficient in vulgarity", and "undistinguished couplets which must nevertheless have made him a champion among his colleagues in abuse".
The poem, along with the commentary, is at the second link. I can't get it to cut-and-paste and I'm a lazy SOB and hey, I don't blog anymore. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't do this for a living; this is f'n new to me.
Anyway, I hereby move that on this Independence Day, President and All Around Swell Dude James Madison be posthumously inducted into the Moron Hall of Fame, with acclamations of "ONE OF US!! ONE OF US!!!" and celebratory hogsheads of Valu-Rite Vodka.
Here's the poem:
Which from beneath her bed she brought
And struck my eyes and ears and nose
Repeating it with lusty blows.
In such a pickle then I stood
Trickling on every side with blood
When Clio, ever grateful muse
Sprinkled my head with healing dews
Then took me to her private room
And straight an Eunuch out I come
My voice to render more melodious
A recompense for sufferings odious...
This is pure crap, but it seems inspired. Anyway I agree with the recommendation, he's one of us.
Let freedom ring.
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12:10 PM
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— LauraW
We continue to live in the greatest nation mankind has ever known. Yes, despite the eternal political change and churning that occurs within all institutions created by human beings.
As long as our foundational documents continue to be known and understood by our citizens, we need not fear oppression.
Please raise your cup in honor of the United States of America, our country.
May she house only free men and women, symbolize liberty to all the Earth's victims of tyranny, and be a threat to tyrants forever.
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08:56 AM
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— Gabriel Malor Sweet. And here I was about ready to give up on the whole American experiment, but it seems there's reason for hope. Americans learn:
The new survey found that just 29% believe last yearÂ’s economic stimulus plan has helped the economy while 43% believe it hurt. Not surprisingly, there is little appetite for another round. By a 69% to 15% margin, voters believe tax cuts is a better way to create jobs rather than more government spending.
Last week, President Obama was telling the G20 that more spending would bring around their national debt-saddled economies. They ignored him and pledged to cut deficit spending by half instead. It looks like they can learn too.
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08:47 AM
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— Monty I'm not a big fan of biography as a rule. Autobiographies tend to be little more than excuse-making and myth-building, while straight bios always seem to have some ideological axe to grind -- this is most true, inevitably, of biographies of political figures.
I also find biographies of actors or artists or musicians to be amazingly boring and trite. Few of them have lived lives of any distinction; most, in fact, seem to be angling for notoriousness rather than virtue. The whole point of these sorts of books seems to be the juicy relevatory bits: who they've slept with, what drugs they've done, whom they've cheated and been cheated by...I don't find much that is uplifting or even interesting in such things.
Still, over the years I've come across several biographies that I think are very worthwhile.
Thomas Wolfe, author of Look Homeward, Angel, led a chaotic and quite fractured life. David Herbert Donald (who also did a superb biography of Abraham Lincoln) write a biography of him called Look Homeward. The book surprised me by being fascinating: Donald is able to make a pretty bizarre and rather unlikeable guy into a fascinating character-study.
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow is another example of a book that makes a rather unpleasant man into an interesting story. Rockefeller's reputation has a hard-assed businessman is only true up to a point -- he was a real character, and was quite a kind man in many ways, and a philanthropist.
I also recently picked up a biography of the blind guitarist Doc Watson called Blind But Now I See by Kent Gustavson. Doc was my first "guitar hero", and it was because of him that I was motivated to take up the guitar to begin with. I've been a fan for nearly my entire life, and this book fills in the background of the man I admire so much. I was gratified to see that Doc is as humble and sweet in his private life as he is up on stage. It's rare that a person gets more impressive to me when I read their background: they usually end up being womanizers, drug-abusers, liars, thieves, whatever. But not Doc. He is that wonderful rarity in modern life -- a man who is just as kind and religious and generous and talented in his private life as he is on stage. The book isn't a hagiography (or at least I didn't find it to be one); rather, the man himself doesn't require a hagiography. He has lived an exemplary and interesting life.
I'd also recommend Bird & Sherwin's biography of Robert Oppenheimer, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer's involvement with the US atomic-bomb project during World War II is always the centerpiece of books about him, but this book explores both his earlier and later career, especially his later pacifism. There is a bit of conspiracy-theorizing about a group of men (including Lewis Strauss) who worked to marginalize and demonize Oppenheimer in later years, but the fact is that Oppenheimer himself was quite self-destructive in his behavior and relationships. This book is a good insight into a very complex man, and the time in which he lived.
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04:32 AM
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July 03, 2010
— Purple Avenger Of course there's plenty of the usual indicators starting to show "the recovery" is about as genuine as the Easter Bunny.
But, there are other more visceral, individually observable indicators I've been seeing out in the street indicating not just a "slowdown" of business associated with typical recessions where only the really weak go under, rather wholesale devastation of long standing medium sized businesses to the point where they're closing up shop. Obviously, its much easier to ramp an existing business than to start a new one from scratch.
We are now to the point where the "easy path" to future jobs growth has been, and is being, destroyed wholesale. The small/medium sized companies with say a core of 50-100 employees that might have been able to double that during good times are simply vanishing.
Owners who might have been able to struggle hard, stay afloat, and keep going have decided that in the business hostile environment we have currently, its easier to just pack it in if they're personally comfortable enough to be able to retire. Maybe it wasn't the caliber of retirement they'd hoped for, but they're rationally realizing the intangibles of peace of mind and having some free time are worth something. Thousands have decided to stop trying to shovel sand against the tide and just go with the flow.
Absent a significant political realignment in Washington, I find it unlikely we'll see those former business owners reenter the business of creating businesses and jobs.
Other local observations of a micro nature:
Some busy intersections where there had previously been one guy with a sign panhandling, now have three competing.
There has been a big local uptick in the percentage of women panhandling. This suggests to me that the job losses are extending into areas they hadn't previously. Women had been hurt some by the dempression, but nowhere near the extent that men were.
But...as all those small/medium sized businesses close up shop, their office staff gets streeted along with the rest of the guys out in the field.
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07:33 PM
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