My Friend Sous

My friend Sous.

Watch. Enjoy. Laugh.

"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. "

Free Mimosas With Breakfast

I hate taking my kids out for breakfast, because I want them to order what they want. Breakfast out is a treat. I don’t do it often. Really, I’d prefer to fry up some ‘taters and eggs and sausage, with toast and jam. Red raspberry jam. What the Smuckers folks call preserves. Their jam looks nothing like the jam I grew up on, when mom made homemade jam. From the raspberries we grew.

The reason why I had taking my kids out for breakfast is the cost. I love having a glass of cold milk with breakfast. But what do you pay for a twelve to sixteen ounce glass of milk? Two bucks? Three bucks? I pay two bucks for a gallon of milk at Holiday Drug. That’s ten 12-ounce glasses of milk. And an eight ounce glass. So, you buy a two dollars gallon of milk and sell it for thirty bucks. And that’s just the milk.

What about orange juice?

This one kills me.

How small a glass do glass makers manufacture? To find out, order orange juice with your breakfast. Three, four, five bucks for a couple of ounces of OJ? And then? The kid wants a refill.

Now…you wanna be cheap? Eating out, dining out, is an experience that you must teach your children. It should be a relaxed, special time. It is an indulgence. And should be appreciated as such. If you can’t afford to take your children out for breakfast, dinner or supper, you do have a choice. (The choice is not to send them to your in-laws, although there is a certain poetry to that choice.)

The choice is to provide for them in your own kitchen. Have a fetish for freshly squozed juice? Most times of the year, doing it yourself is pennies to the dollar different from restaurant juice.

So what happens to health care, when everyone has a daddy buying it for them?

There is no option to head for the kitchen. There are things one can do for oneself when it comes to avoiding injury and disease. But where is the restraint when the option—eating in the restaurant—is free? Why would you choose to cook breakfast for yourself when Uncle Sam is willing to pick up your tab at the neighborhood diner?

A friend of mine has provided his employees (and their families) with comprehensive health insurance. Found out something interesting; co-pays (out of pocket costs for covered members) were required for doctor’s office visits, emergency room coverage required no co-pay.

So what happened when Little Billy or Little Sally had a sniffle? Off to the emergency room to avoid a $15.00 co-pay expense. The employee avoided a fifteen dollar expense. The insurance plan paid five to six hundred dollars for an emergency room visit, rather than an eighty to $150.00 charge for a visit to the doctor during regular hours.

Are people rational? Sure. Given the choice between free or not, I’d take free. If liquor stores had an hour each week when liquor was free, you’d prolly see me there. Or in line. Or, jammed in the store with my arms full, milling about, waiting for the appointed hour.

Window shopping, as it were.

I would submit that it would be very hard to make money owning a liquor store if word got out that, for an hour each week, liquor would be free. I think that I, and others within this happy little community, could completely empty a liquor store within an hour under the conditions cited above.

What would be the motivation for spending money on liquor under this system? I’m sure there are a couple. If, on free hour day, you were unable to cadge a bottle of vermouth, a visit the next day to pick up a bottle would make certain sense.

But what price would that bottle command?

The liquor store owner wants to make a profit, and since all of his product has disappeared on liquor free day, he had to completely restock all his liquor. And attempt to make a profit on the remaining sales he is able to knock out. So, to cover the cost of his inventory, the cost of inventory that went through the door on liquor free day, what would be a reasonable price for that bottle of vermouth? Five thousand dollars? Fifteen thousand?

I’m all in favour of liquor free day. But after the first day of free liquor, how many liquor stores will be closing down?

So, good luck with your Health Care Reform efforts. Sure, it’s all going to be free. But only what you can get when it’s available. And only if you know how the system works so that you can be “there” at the right time.

I don’t have health insurance. I looked into buying it about twelve years ago, and was quoted a rate of around $600.00 a month.

Twelve years later, I’m up $86,400.00. Oh, and if you miss a payment? You lose your coverage. So, it’s not like you’re investing in a time share or something. All your purchasing with your health insurance dollars is current admission to the doctor’s office. What you’ve spent on health insurance, if unused, is simply gone. Poof!

Is reasonably priced health insurance possible? Yep. If you want to make health insurance a federal matter, then remove state boundaries from determining where and how much insurance you may buy. All I want is a catastrophic policy. Car wreck? Busted head? Please. If I need mental counseling, I’ll pay for that outa my pocket. Same thing for a bad cold, or the crud, or whatever. When blood comes out of me, I’ll see a doctor and I’ll pay the price. Will I need a five hundred dollar deductible to make the cost affordable? A thousand dollars? Twenty-thousand dollars? Just let me know. I’ll make the decision.

The unions, the AMA, politicians and the nurses’ groups oppose this kind of thinking. When you and I have control, they lose control. But when I have greater control, I know I also get to choose from a menu of services that is larger and more competitive. And competition drives the prices of goods and services down.

Think about it. The next time your wife orders one of those ridiculously priced Mimosas.

International Intrigue and Climate Change!™

There are basically two groups of people on the issue of Man Made Global Warming; the apostles and the heretics.

On the heretical side has been the steady work of Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit. Head over and read today's post on Great Britain's "Met" office and the reluctance of those in charge of the Met to provide data. Actually, the last several posts all relate to McIntyre's request for data from this agency, and the reluctance of this agency to meet these requests.

Reading through the comments section, it's apparent that most of us don't know that temperature data is secret. Like, we're not supposed to know.

Wars are fought on many fronts. Unfortunately for we heretics, access to the data sets that drive the accolytes claims is one of those fronts where they currently hold the advantage. They have the numbers, are unwilling to share these numbers.

In the world of science, whyfor this type of sandbagging?

Congressmen Working To Put At Ease Your Pretty Little Heads

Interviewed by Erin Burnett, Barney Frank indicated that he wants to see that people who own property and then sell it won't be able to receive the fruits of that sale until some time after the sale has been completed. That way, if a guy makes money on that sale, but loses money on a future sale, the money that was profit could be used to offset the losses on a losing sale. That way traders won't be so focused on short term profits.

See?

It's simple. Barney Frank wants to make sure that the effects of trade, negative and postive, are offset by rules established by the federal government. Same thing with compensation. Why pay guys today for their work, when that compensation can be delayed in case these guys do something that costs their companies profits?

We need to change the model. Thankfully, we have guys like Barney Frank thinking for us.

(UPDATE: I was able to find this video of Barney Frank explain how bad things have gotten us. Don't worry, Congressman Frank is on the job. We'll be stampin' out some risks, right soon.)

And then we get Jerrold Nadler talking about outlawing advertising for drugs. Because, you know, we don't want ordinary people taking charge of their own lives. As if.

Sure wish we could find some Republican congressmen who were this willing to take the risks of life out of our hands.

The Product of Our Public Schools

Have you ever had a conversation with your child? I don't mean, "Is your room clean?" I mean, "Have you ever thought about when life begins?" That kind of conversation. Don't be surprised when you find your child is entirely uncomfortable taking about life and death and taxes. They've been programmed since kindegarden to view taxes as important for their future. The more we pay in taxes, the better our country is going to be. We'll have better paid teachers. And you know how important teachers are.

Well, here's the product of that kind of thinking.

Now that I think about it, you're better off not talking to your children. Better not to know that all that time, money and energy has been wasted producing this type of thinking.

Congressman Says "No Need To Read Bills"

John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, (Democratic).

Representative democracy. You know, where somebody else does the heavy lifting.

Oops!

A man owned a small farm in South Carolina.

The South Carolina Wage & Hours Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to interview him.

"I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them," demanded the Agent.

"Well," replied the farmer, "there's my farm hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $400.00 a week plus free room and board.

"The cook has been here for 18 months, and I pay her $300.00 per week plus free room and board.

"Then there's the half-wit. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10.00 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of Bourbon every Saturday night. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally."

"That's the guy I want to talk to.....the half-wit", says the Agent..

"That would be me," replied the farmer.

I Can Save Tri-Met $500-Thousand A Month

From KGW.com.

Five hundred thousand dollars a month. It would be cheaper to shut down the line and give any riders $500 a month in car fare.

The Vision!™ is expensive.

Results be damned.

A Drinking Game

Courtesy of Protein Wisdom. Watching our current Commander in Chief is a whithering spiritual experience.

Protein Wisdom starts out with the following.

*Each time Barry loses his cool with a reporters question.
*Each time Barry says “status quo”
*Each time Helen Thomas makes no sense.
*Each time Barry says “It’s not about me!”

With 456 comments, there are some pretty good ideas for adders to this list...remember, the goal here is to consume, not rebuff:

*I've always said...
*...broken system...

Have fun.

If Government Is Your Daddy (NSFW?)

I guess if you are a part of the crowd that believes in the Change!™ taking place in a land once known as the last, best hope for freedom, you see yourself as being entitled to ask your Daddy for anything and everything.

That is, if government is now your Daddy and Daddy is doin' you, why not ask?

The Role of Imperatives

It’s a terrible thing to find out that one of one’s mentors has passed.

I was listening to the pundits speak, reviewing in my mind the state of both the State of Oregon and the United States, when a memory of what one of my cherished college professors once said about the former Soviet Union.

His name was Randell W. Magee. Here is the biographical information available from the UCSB website:

“Randell W. Magee 1937-1995
“After studying Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Randy received his B.A. in Russian from Louisiana State University in 1962, followed by an M.A. in Russian from The University of Chicago in 1971. He was a participant in the IREX Summer language program for Russian teachers at Moscow State University in 1972 and at Leningrad State University in 1985. Before coming to UCSB, Randy taught Russian at Grinnell College from 1969-1975 and at Portland State University from 1975-1984.

“While teaching at UCSB Randy served as the Resident Advisor to Russian House, Advisor to the Russian Club and introduced and developed the Foreign Language Olympiad, a foreign language competition for high school students held annually in the early 1990s. Randy was also active in the Southern California Russian language teaching group.

“A memorial service, conducted by daughter Kimberly, was held in Santa Barbara on April 11, 1995. Family, friends, colleagues and students gathered to share humorous stories and reminisce about Randy. The department established a scholarship fund in Randy's honor to be given to the outstanding student majoring in Slavic studies.”

I was one of the lucky guys to have studied with Professor Magee (Randy) during the ‘70’s at Portland State.

By the time I studied under Randy I’d studied Russian as a language for two years, Russian culture for two years, and Russian liturgical music for a year. I had assumed that I would end up as a Russophile, with a degree in music. I had already developed a Ph.D. track in Music, and was prepared to embark to Russia with a tour of a university opera company. Things change. (Pictures from Russia, including the story of Lenin’s Tomb will follow. Perhaps.)

Purifying ones understanding of a foreign language is an amazing transition. The rules of understanding and asserting are peculiar and powerful rules. One of my closely held beliefs is that people who speak well tend to tell the truth. As you grow more sophisticated with language, you become more transparent through the language you choose. That is, you tend to reveal more about yourself through your elegant use of language, and one can comprehend more through listening. It’s kind of a win/win thingy.

Randell’s teaching was exceptional. If you have ever had an inspiring teacher you know what I mean. Not only did we spend time with examining such things as imperatives, we also spent time talking about Russia as a country(pdf).

The maps and links I’ve provided in this post are here only to state the obvious, as revealed by Randell Magee; Russia would be the most powerful state on this planet if only they could find a way to exploit their resources.

The idea that we—the U.S.—would fail to exploit the richness of our resources was a foreign idea at the time. Those times have changed. Resource utilization is politically charged. Actually making things and doing stuff is bad. And those who do are rich guys. And rich guys deserve to pay our bills. It still feels like I’ve been hit in the nose on a cold winter morning. I know I’m bleeding. I just can’t feel it.

Russia, today, is struggling to fill the void being created by American “smartness.” (Remember the old magazine?) The Russians have an expectation of new greatness that has never before had such robustness. If you have no newspaper that keeps you abreast of foreign events—as an example, I can’t remain abreast of foreign events, I have the Oregonian and the Daily Astorian—you are a victim of planned intellectual poverty. The people who own, edit and run these papers are people driven by a different agenda.) What they are not is a conduit for what is occurring around the world.

There are reports about Russia’s new intentions. For a brief description, you can follow this link.

Why would “we” allow this? The “we” as in “Americans”? What has happened where it’s okay for the French to have French goals, the Germans, German goals, the Venezuelans, Venezuelan goals and the Hondurans, Honduran goals? (Oops, forgot. Hondurans can’t have goals. They must agree to the whims of their socialist neighbors.) Where are our friends, the Poles? Are we currently giving the Poles the same kind of support that we’re giving our friends, the Israelis?

Yeppers.

We’re screwing all of our buds in the New Europe. We hate democracy in South America. Don’t expect the guys who run either of the above mentioned newspapers (the Oregonian and the Daily Astorian) to inform you of our new international policy weaknesses. They’re too busy rooting for a new type of socialism in this country. Sure. It’s going to be a new socialism with an American Face.

But it’s still Socialism. With a capital “S”.

Gas prices are going up. If you think this is an anomaly, you’re seriously mistaken. This is a policy. Unemployment is going up. Anomaly? Policy.

Democrats—also correctly referred to as Progressives, Socialists or Leftists—believe that the pricing mechanism works. It simply works too well.

The key to the new socialist is combining the realities of market principles with the outcomes they desire. What was it that Rahm Immanuel said?

All of this comes at a moment when we’re discussing increasing debt loads through borrowing at the state and national level, as well as closing down rational approaches to lowering the costs we face to sustain our current economic production levels. I heard an amazing statistic last night: we’re borrowing 33 billion dollars a week in our nation’s bond auctions.

Thirty-three billion dollars a week. In new U.S. bonds. Two-, three-, five- and the newly re-implemented 9-year bond. Nine years. The market is shorting bonds to the point that the additional year, on a ten year bond, isn’t marketable.

The old joke used to be, “first, we kill all the lawyers.”

“Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society.”

What new joke can you imagine to supplant the past?

What kind of thinking is necessary to ask us to suppress our natural drive toward excellence? Or, even accident?

For those of you with little knowledge of history, especially English history, the story of Dick Whittington, is a peculiarity, other than being unknown. The point of the story, of course, is that innovation—perhaps due to accident—led to great wealth and recognition. Not particularly gifted was our poor Dick. Not particularly well-connected, either. And there was no school of great name responsible for his uprising. What we do have, however, is a typical story of Horace Greeley.

There has been some talk recently about the role of the Right versus the Left in the occurrences that have been recently reported. Most notably, the assassination of an abortion doctor, the death of a young soldier, and the attack on the Holocaust Museum. The question has been raised, which attacks are attributive to the Left, or to the Right? Under previous journalistic rules, all of these attacks must be attributed to the Right. And that begs the question, “Why?”

What was it that Rahm Immanuel said?

When you have access to most of the major media outlets, would you let up?

Hell no. And getting this point across to young Republicans seems to be a questionable practise. I remember Don Segretti. We got so burned by the D’s at Watergate. We’re still smarting. That was a good one.

When we try to play by D rules, we get burned.

So, we should never attempt to play at D rules. They get a pass. We don’t. I can live with that. Learn to live with the fact that most of the media you deal with on a day-to-day basis will never allow you to disagree with them. They create the narrative. And they have no switch in their brains that would limit their ability to mislead.

How do you deal with this?

This particular essay was begun with a memory of the role of imperatives in modern language. It’s a wonderfully fulsome study of language, most notably informed—in the English/American version—by a man named Chomsky. Humorously it should be noted that this man, Chomsky, made statements eleven years ago that he would probably retract, if he could:

“It's disastrous. It's a major attack on democracy, even on markets and trade. It would transfer decision-making, to an extraordinary extent, into the hands of unaccountable, private imperatives. And that's why the negotiations for it were conducted in secret. ...”

The humour is, of course, that Chomsky is proud of his outcomes, even if his prescriptions were ignored. That Chomsky himself, and his ideas, are moribund is inconsequential. On the Left, constancy is not a feature, it’s a bug.

What Randell Magee taught me back in the 1970’s was that Russia will become the new leader in the world, if their leadership is based upon resource utilization and capitalism. Central planning has been—and always will be—the worst sort of “planning”. It’s simple. No autocrat can know what his people are thinking. “If any ask me what a free government is, I answer that, for any particular purpose, it is what the people think so.” And seventy years of socialist rule in Russia has given lie to every principle upon which socialism and Marxism were based. Professor Magee also brought to me through his teaching an understanding of how important the organizing principles of a society are in converting those resources into desirable inputs of a country’s domestic output. And most curiously, that the system best suited for determining the input/output matrix was capitalism.

Our current deviation away from capitalism is puzzling--as an intellectual--at best. What benefits are derived from centralization? What benefits accrue to us, as Americans, for us to swerve away from the fundamentals of capitalism as a form of economic organization, to socialism? What role model are we trying to emulate? What past path are we trying to follow?

We are, yet, the greatest power on earth. We are, yet, the greatest economy in the history of the world. What is it that pre-empts that? What fears of our leadership is it that you wish we would avoid? This stark shift away from individual responsibility is amazing. Within the last six months we’ve experienced the greatest collectivization of resources and investments than that which has ever before been seen history. What the totalitarians of 1917 Russia attempted has been dwarfed by the first 180 days of an Obama Presidency. What we are doing now dwarfs the experiments of the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution. What, exactly, is it that we seek to achieve by overturning 230 years, or more, of conservative capitalism?

Asking the question asked me by Coach McGee back at old Beaverton High School, what is it that we are replacing our current system with?

So far, we’ve had few answers. Mebbe it’s just a quote from the waterfront in Hoboken, “I coulda been a contender." There were subtle undertones in On the Waterfront, but our mission here is not film criticism. You can still choose to be a contender. But you have to stand up for yourself, before it’s too late.

A final thought: in America, any individual’s rights are as important as any other person’s wants. In fact, they’re more important. Rights, as defined by the United States Constitution, are set up so that no single individual should ever have to fear for his own continuance of those rights.

What was Justice Ginsburg thinking when she failed cert?

I guess it is a living document, after all. It just lacks the imperative case.

The Resoluteness of Failure

What is the last thing that goes through a bug's mind when it hit a windshield?

Fear of failure is a terribly motivating force. In your life, there are things at which you would never fail; your family or yourself.

Imagine your child sick; at what point would you break the law to make sure that your child is taken care of? It seems simple to me. There is no limit on action when it comes to one's child. Which, of course, was the message spoken of in the story of Jean Valjean.

Victor Hugo was an eminence in France.

But the lessons of Hugo need to be parsed. Simply identifying an enemy doesn't make the identification valid. (And one of the huge impediments of a general acceptance of French literature is that it relies too much upon a thinking that the protagonist must simply be a victim. This doesn't translate well to either the Grecian or British/American role of the protagonist. All I'm attempting to show with the example of Valjean is, at a certain point, a man will commit crimes to take care of his loved one's.)

Before we devolve into a discussion of heroes, especially heroes of American literature, we need to remember the reason for Valjean's criminality. And where does this criminality--Valjean's willingness to break the law to bring bread to his family--begin under a new system in America of the federal government being the source of all things that one wishes to consume?

It's obvious that breaking the law under the Obama regime will mean breaking federal law.

Up until our current, modern moment, crimes were either identified as a federal crime, or as a state crime. Communities could have infractions of the law, but weren't able to establish a level of crime that would create felony.

Under federal crimes, all crimes are felonious. (There is a list of federal misdemeanors, but it is short.) When the feds move against a thing, they throw the full faith and credit of the federal government against a thing. That the list of federal misdemeanors is so short should, in itself, tend to make you wonder about the wisdom of giving greater power to the federal government. The current proposed legislation regarding "health care reform" is over 13-hundred pages long. If you don't think there are enabling statutes included in this reform, you're crazy.

In the face of all this governmentalisation of everything that we do, what is sad is that no one is willing to argue against this general appropriation by the government of choices that most of us must make on a daily basis.

Reason? It's easier to blame someone else for one's bad state than to take credit for that same state.

Find someone else to blame. But never, never ever, take responsibility for your own actions.

And this is good advice. It wasn't so many years ago that I left a company that I had run, which company was then accused of slander. It was within days that I had left. And yet, those days later, the company that I had run was accused of slander. For the next few weeks, former employees were calling me asking me "what to do?"

The old guy that I had worked for made the first, simple mistake in litigation. Normally, I would have taken the phone call. Since I had left, he had assumed control of his company. Which was his right. But, what did he do?

He apologized. (Understand, the "slander" that occurred happened after I left the company, and my not being there wasn't a cause of this supposed slander. It was an external event to the people who had worked for me that had been ascribed as originating within that company. It neither was, nor were any of my former employees responsible for the alleged slander. The reason for my willingness to simply deny the slander was that those I had left behind had no culpability for the expression of slander that would be taken as cause. But, at the moment that my former old guy apologized...he assumed responsibility. Law is an ass. Know the law.)

Finding someone else to blame is, and has been for awhile, the provenance of trial attorneys. Wanna find out why the woods are closed? Blame the trial attorneys. Wanna know why we can't log? It's the attorneys. Wanna find out why we cant' build on buildable land? Blame the attorneys. Because their only usefulness has been found in finding others--rather than their plaintiffs--for the wrong they seek to right. The essence of trial lawyers. Righting wrongs. Just like Petrocelli.

In 1974, a hero like Petrocelli made sense. That the series only lasted two years was a testament that legal argumentation didn't have much of an audience. The ACLU, at the time, was an independent organization that lived simply to defend the civil rights of mokes like you and me. Just as another organisation--with which I've lost faith--Amnesty International has simply lost it's way toward fighting the civil rights of mokes, just like you and me.

Back in the '80's, my "Amnesty" sticker was stuck on my typewriter. It wasn't many years after that I had retired my IBM Selectric II for a word processor. Within a short period of time, the thrust of Amnesty had shifted. We had become the enemy. (Which, to this day, I can't comprehend.)

We, as in you and I. Americans had become the enemy of Amnesty International. Just as we have become--we, as in you and I--the enemies of the ACLU.

And most recently, we--as in you and I--have become the enemies of the Democrat Party of the United States.

Us.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Because the real culprit behind our closing down economic activity isn't the lawyers or the plaintiffs. It's the legislature.

What would cause a legislator from allowing the creation of jobs? Seemingly, improbable, no? And yet, in the last session you saw Democrat legislators actively taunting economic theory in order to support their own ideas of social justice. And, in the session before that. And, in the session before that.

How does a legislature become wedded to the idea that we can't live our own lives? Yannow, think about it. How does a government, as exercised by our state's legislature, come up with the idea that without micromanaging our daily activities, that we would all end up electrocuting ourselves...or something worse?

Ridiculous special interests.

Fifty mothers with a hard-on for tobacco, and we have a constituency. Fifty mothers with a hard-on for drinking, and we have a constituency. Fifty mothers with a hard-on for just about anything...and we have a constituency.

Because those fifty mothers have cash. And cash rules our legislature.

How do you avoid failure? You gain the support of interest groups. Especially, the "one-issue" groups.

There is nothing worse than a singly devoted man--or woman--of which it can be said that something has come between. And most single-issue groups, like MADD, Greenpeace, or others, have no other diversion upon which to rest their minds. Just like Jean Valjean, there is no price to pay to steal bread. But, unlike JV, most of these modern martyrs are simply creating their own pyres upon which to throw themselves.

I know that I am not a favourite of those who call themselves "pro-life." This is simply a reflection of my experience, of having three sisters in the 1960's, who faced the issue of reproduction on a different level than I had to face as my family's only son. It wasn't an issue of reproduction per se that led me to the realisation that laws that forbade abortion were wrong; it was the realisation that people made bad decisions, and that simply making a bad decision wasn't great enough cause to imprison someone.

My frustration towards those who wished to condemn that which is simply a private decision seemed an over-reaching. That abortions occurred was inarguable. That they were to be avoided, likewise.

So, in the 1960's, years before Rowe vs. Wade, abortion was de-criminalised in Oregon.

For those of us who knew the Governor, the decision was a recognition that we'd rather have our daughters safe. Who would determine the commission of an abortion? One's priest, one's family, one's physician. Abortion would be rare, and wrong. But the humanness of one's failures and successes would remain much the same, as it should be today. Given the discovery of one's failures and weaknesses, the state of one's life would remain much the same: the responsibility of the individual.

And it was easy for me to maintain this ideation: coming between a woman and her womb was an inappropriate place for an outsider to place himself. Until I became aware of the raw number of children being killed each day: 3,700. Per day. One million, three hundred fifty thousand per year.

In ten years, this would outrun the number of illegal aliens that we have living on our soil. Unwanted people, versus unwanted foetuses. And you want government to handle health care. People we need to admit to our country, to do jobs we are unwilling to do. And yet, in the past ten years, we've allowed for the murder of twelve-million foetuses because these were "unwanted" births.

I am glad that we, as a nation, are so resolute in our ability to fail. And, as we adopt new models for our future, I wish only that you review your own reasons for believing as you do; whether it's individual responsiblity, the life or you children, or your simple existence. To what do we owe the pleasure? In to many cases, it's simply a failure to make you responsible for your choices. Which we do so, resolutely.

As Plain As The Nose On Your Face

(Ripped from Classical Values.)

Simon, who also posts at Power and Control posts this without comment. In Oregon, comments must be added so that appropriate questions may be conjugate.

Oregon has a class of people within it that views "development" as an evil. El Paso wants to build a natural gas pipeline. Environmentalists oppose it. Because "pristine" is more important than energy. According to the Environmentalists, you simply cannot have too much pristine.

Tugs haul barges up and down the Columbia River, delivering gas and other products upriver, hauling chemicals and wheat downriver. But, since we can't have too much "pristine," the Governor is in Portland today to talk about diesel emissions on the Columbia River.

The truly frightening thing in Oregon is our Department of Environmental Quality. This group of aggressive enviros get off on condemning economic practices that affect "pristine." Like harvesting wheat. When you harvest wheat, dust and chaff gets into the air. This chaff creates haze. Haze is not pristine. And don't even get me started on slash burning. That has been outlawed for years, even those who subscribe to Imminent Climate Threat will point out to you that particulants--especially the types of particulants that are put into the air from such things as ag and forestry--are responsible for current mediation of Imminent Climate Threat warming.

Like most do-gooders, environmentalists want to create world without sin. If you're a Leftist, you refer to this process as "social justice." And ensconced within this cloak of moral certainty, the Left is able to attempt to achieve a world without sin, a world of social justice. And so, don't be surprised when, once again, the Left proposes solutions that provide for their own inherent contradictions. We want to improve human life while destroying the mechanisms for improving human life. Rather than saluting the work that creates a better world, it is easier to condemn it.

And rather than think about the apparent contradictions of their words and deeds, it is simply easier to cast blame on others for their own selfishness, greed and lack of social justice. They can do this because they are smarter than we. (Oh, and that thing in the middle of your face? Between your eyes and your mouth? That lumpy thing? That's your nose.)

Candide, Voltaire and Youtube

I was talking to my mom over the telephone the other day when I mentioned Dr. Pangloss and his admonitions to a young Candide.

Growing up in a family of musicians and performers, music has and always will be an important part of my life. That is to say, when you watch a performance, you know when a thing is "right" and when it isn't.

Take the following performance of Candide Overture:


Now, compare that performance with the following:

Which is an interesting dilemma for an adherent of Panglossian analysis.

"Pangloss gave instruction in metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology. He proved admirably that there cannot possibly be an effect without a cause and that in this best of all possible worlds the baron's castle was the most beautiful of all castles and his wife the best of all possible baronesses. —It is clear, said he, that things cannot be otherwise than they are, for since everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves the best end. Observe: noses were made to support spectacles, hence we have spectacles. Legs, as anyone can plainly see, were made to be breeched, and so we have breeches. . . . Consequently, those who say everything is well are uttering mere stupidities; they should say everything is for the best."

If you see a similarity in the method of argument of Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss and our current President, you get a star. Some things are simply apparently right. Watching the first video is excruciating, since I know what it is all those little finger movements are doing...and yet all that motion isn't matched to the music. In the second video, the difference is clear. The bowing makes sense. Maestro Bernstein's motions makes sense. His silent criticism of his bassoonist is clear. (I suggest it was the bassoonist who posted the first version.)

Similarly, we are being beset by legions of publicists and rhetoricians whose cant, likewise, simply doesn't make sense. With music, the lack of syncopation is clear--when brought to notice of the eye and ear. Not so with many of the important debates that are being forced upon us; from Man Made Global Warming and Cap and Trade, to Nationalised Health Care That Still Allows Us To Choose, even if we really won't be able to choose.

It's not surprising to me that none of our national legislators read the bills they vote on. It would require way to much thinking, knowledge and understanding. Much easier to not that "Legs, as anyone can plainly see, were made to be breeched, and so we have breeches."

There cannot be an effect without a cause. The fact that we are passing legislation that creates a Cap and Trade system is proof that such a system was needed. The fact that we are creating a nationalised health care system is proof that such a system was needed.

We live in the best of all possible worlds. And this is the best time of all possible times.

"That is very well put, said Candide, but we must go and work our garden."

Health Rations And You!

Is There Still A Question About Islam?

Tonight, or tomorrow if you're living over the dateline, two hotels were blown up in Indonesia.

Reports that these attacks were carried out by Catholics, Protestants, Hindis and Buddhists were immediately on the wire.

Catholic, Protestant, Hindu and Buddhist extremists had been targeting Western influences in Indonesia for weeks, years, decades. Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists have recently come under suspicion. It has become obvious that the values of "America" are to blame for these most recent attacks.

Known as the Great Satan to Iranians, Palestinians and Syrians, the United States must be held accountable for these attacks. If not the Great Satan, then the Little Satan, Israel. If these attacks turn out to be not the object of Catholics, Protestants, Hindis and/or Buddhists, then it is obvious that it was the Jews. (Israel is a Jewish state.)

There is no question that our President, President Barrack Nasser Obama will be correct in condemning our actions in this latest affair. Reminiscent of an old Peter Sellers's movie, our contrition can only be sold to the poor, downtrodden Muslims if we surrender. They have no money, no wealth, only poverty.

We, on the other hand, are the richest nation on the face of God's planet, and are obviously the culprit. We have education, culture and liberty. And we all know that liberty is just one step away from embracing the Devil.

We need to quickly repudiate this outdated Western notion of liberty. We need to be contained in an effort to more correctly reflect the cultural views of the Muslim world.

Thank God that we have a President like Barrack Nasser Obama. (PBUH.)
.

Change! (Christmas The Whole Year!)

Everyone loves Christmas. Especially the kids. So, why not have Christmas the whole year?

Imagine, an economy that runs on nothing. No pollution, no mining, no power plants. How do we get there? Ask Santa Claus.

Imagine, a health care system that is free for everyone. No bills, no limits. Gotta hangnail? Why trim it yourself? You may get infected. It's reasonable to see a doctor first, to avoid that infection. That's called "preventative care." Got a cold? Instead of suffering through the two weeks needed to clear it up, why not see a doctor, so he can tell you it's going to take two weeks to clear it up? After all, bad colds can become worse, right? So seeing a doctor is "preventative care." And that's good. Isn't it? Isn't that where--we are told--we are going to be able to see the greatest advantage in controlling costs? By increasing the amount of preventative care, rather than relying upon therapeutic care? Why, the cost savings are going to be enormous.

Critics of Democrats tend to focus on the apparent disregard they have for market forces. That the prices of things tend to determine what is consumed, and how much of those things are consumed. Under the Santa Claus Plan of the Democrats it's apparent that this criticism is short-sighted. Uncle Sam? No. Santa Claus. We need to create an America that doesn't rely upon the short-sighted interests of the "special" interests. The corporate greedy guys that want to continue to pollute and exploit. The bad guys who want people to be responsible for their own choices; do I see a doctor for a cold, or do I attempt to wait it out? Well, if it's free, why not see the doctor, just to be on the safe side?

And if we're really, really, really good (and vote for Change!) we're going to get what we want. Free, preventative care and of course free therapeutic care, too. And free mental health care. And free dental care. And free liposuction. Because "lipo" is medicine, innit?

So, we're going to live, happily ever after, in a land of candy canes and unicorns. A Green Economy and Free Health Care. And nobody ever has to pay, since nobody ever pays when Santa Claus comes for his annual visit to our homes. Only bad people will receive their lump of coal. (Perhaps, only bad people will have the fuel to heat their homes. But under Cap and Trade, mebbe that lump will come with a too high price tag. Better be good.)

Good Unemployment News

Click on the pic, or click here for our nation's unemployment outlook. The good news is that Oregon is borrowing more money to pay for holding on to government employees. While jobs are being shed in the private sector, government workers need not fear for their futures. Government will survive this downturn, intact.

And that's good news. By holding on to these government workers, our state is able to retain these jobs rather than adding to the numbers of our state's unemployed. Which is currently about a quarter-million jobless.

That, my friends, is leadership. Leadership from our Governor and our Democrat friends in the Legislature. All attempts to reduce government spending were successfully rebuffed by our Democrat friends. Assuring increased debt and spending by our government. And these are the people who will be running our health care system, soon.

Good news. Have a nice day.

Why I Don't Talk To Teachers

This is, in a way, an apology for Sous.

We are living in a more, greatly increased, competitive environment, due to the realities that are being imposed externally by politicians who have absolutely no idea of what they are doing.

I do believe that there was a time in the recent past where men and women of training, education and grace were leading this nation. This is obviously no longer the case. We have hard-line socialists running both our country and our state. Do they recognize that this is what they are? Could be they don't. There is such a paucity of fundamentals, that they are just creatures of themselves. They are what William Golding warned us about. They are the The Lord of the Flies.

Sous asked the question, "The document is the Declaration of Independence, and one of the self-evident truths listed therein is that all men are crated equal. But somehow I led myself to believe that you were trying to lead us into a discussion of the nature of 'Self-evident truth'. Again, my apologies for putting the cart before the horse?"(sic, but no hard-core. We're a'bloggin here. Not all spellin and writin rules are in place.)

The answer, Sous, is either yes, "all men are created equal" or no, no man is equal to another.

Since we end up in a synthetic reality, we can create a synthetic reality. And mebbe this is where the Left is taking advantage of us.

We've really never had an argument over Natural Law versus Synthetic Law. Maybe it's time we do. Synthetic Law would never gain an advantage over Natural Law because to do so would require us to accede to the logical demands of a post experience reality. Post experience realities are known in different ways; both as ad hoc and as ex post. If you have read any of the brilliant writers of humanity, and ZZMike (and I hope you critique this) there is a significant difference between a priori and ex post. (And I think it is in one of your fairly recent posts that we have become as attempting a moderation between these two systems of thought.)

Natural law isn't as clearly defined as one would wish it was. For those of us who follow philosophical threads from the earliest available commentors, to the latest commentors, Natural Law was at its apogee around the time of President Hoover. After President Hoover, there has been a relentless urge toward having us, as a society, accept a different bent than that of the adherence to Natural Law.

You may have already come to the conclusion that there is a significant difference between what is known as the "hard" sciences and the "soft" sciences. (If you still believe there is such a difference, I would refer to you the current debate over 'Climate Change".)

The hard sciences create such things as hydro-electric power. The soft sciences create such things as rehabilitation.

For those of you engaged in hydro-electric power I suggest that you have had greater success in your field than those of you engaged in rehabilitation.

There is a probable abuse of the concept of synthesis. With synthesis, derives synthetic. For a fan of the movies, it's "plastics."

What would an adherent to synthetic reality propose?

Doesn't it come down to the question of "thesis, antithesis and synthesis"? (In one of his notes, Sous asks about Kierkegaard. We are close to the question, but while I admire many of the notions of Kierkegaard, isn't it true that "knowing" has a greater value than "belief"?)

What questions of knowledge can survive the a priori restrictions of knowledge, as well as those imposed a posteriori, as conditions of truth? I cannot think of any answer to the question, "Can you state an unarguable truth?" that is more simply elegant than "I think, therefore, I am."

Imagine being able to deny ones own existence in the face of this inarguable truth.

Those of us who believe in the individual have an ally in this irreductibility. I will admit the weakness in my argument. This argument connotes that any individual is just as responsible for his thinking, and the outcome of that thinking, than anyone else.

The weakness of this argument is manifold. If we base a political system upon the basis that we are equal, it creates a certain inequality. Good people are good. Bad people are bad. If bad people make bad decisions, then they are responsible for their decisions. It's hard to win an acquittal based upon someones bad decisions. If someone makes a bad decision, and that decision finds them self at odds with the law, they're simply going to be convicted. Lawyers have found ways to make bad decision makers no longer the victim of their own faulty thinking. Bad lawyering has created a whole new industry of folks, from sociologists to therapists to lawyers to politicians whose mere existence is based upon finding ways of making the guilty not responsible for their actions.

"I think, therefore, I am" is one hellava tough task master.

I cannot think of an instance where this truth is falsifiable.

There are some important consequences to this unfalsifiable truth.

Whether or not I believe in God, I still think. This is not a denial of God's existence. I'd rather think a feature, rather than a bug. That is, if we are made in God's image, we have the ability to end up at the right place, logically, that at which God would arrive if asked the same question.

You may attempt to conjugate a question that falls outside these logical perimeters. That is, you may choose to attempt to classify certain thetas as falling outside of certain clearly defined set of thetas. This attempt to create ambiguity or uncertainty is simply a waste of time. A deliberate attempt to create ambiguity, attempts at amibiguation, are a fool's errand. Unfortunately, these fools errands are what is commonly known as popularly held beliefs. Most common at hand are those who are currently attempting to invalidate the role of "speculators" in the market.

What would a "speculator" be? How would you construct a speculator? How could, or would, you become a speculator?

You may ask, why are you such a fierce adherent to capitalism?

What other system recognizes the role of the individual?

What other system recognizes the invaluability of the individual to contribute to the welfare of the collective good other than that of the capitalist?

I can think of none.

Micheal Weston

It is unbelievable to me that a current, modern hero has the guts to tell the truth as I see it.

Michael Weston, a character on Burn Notice just stated a truth that I believe in. "You know what? I am like Spencer. We both see the world a certain way, and we both have skills to make it a better place. That's not a bad thing."

Thanks to USA Network for having programming that doesn't cheapen the efforts of those among us who work to make sure that we remain free.

No Clue

I wrote a response in the comments section of this blog to my post "A Fourth of July Quiz For The Kids". Unfortunately, and I don't get all the things going on either in "blogspot" or with computers in general (yes, I deleted cookies) and it's not my prollem. Blogspot has provided me with a soapbox, and I'm not going to piss on them.

Here, now, is my response:

(Why does Blogspot give us such small comment boxes? Well, it is a gift. "Teeth are too small.")

ZZ has made a wonderful comment to my post.

It is one of the best comments I've read. Why? He took the time to gather his thoughts before he wrote his comment.

His dissection of my post was brilliant. He is well read. His satiricism is well-past due.

"I'm beginning to wonder if the only truths that are self-evident are tautologies: it's evident that the Sun will rise tomorrow morning, generally in the East."

(For a discussion of "tautology", see Stanford .)

The non-parallelity of lines is still consistent with mathematics. If the surface is curved, parallelity remains the same.

And, yes, I am deliberately obscure; "Eureka" is one of my favourite moments.

The point is, is T is truth, T remains truth until the moment of Eureka. Imagine the moment when Fermi, Galileo, Newton, Shockley came to grips with their moment; stunning.

As to hiding an example in the background, hopefully, by now, all is revealed: apodictic truth is essentially simply truth. Fair is fair. The eighth Commandment is, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour."

If you forebear false witness, you are actually committing a sin. Omission is, to me, as great a sin as commission. Both serve to obscure the truth.

As to the Plato v. Aristotelian argument...I will aver to Plato. There are perfect forms, even if undiscovered. Now, don't get uppity with me!

Fixing Health Care

In an attempt to advance the discussion about health care, here's an article by Max Borders.

It is a brief article that outlines five steps that could, and from my initial reading would, reduce the costs of getting health care insurance into the hands of those currently without such insurance.

The Prez talks about managing costs. But the issue of managing costs springs from the hundreds of billions of Americans without health insurance.

Why the concern about managing costs, when access to affordable health care insurance would fix the health care insurance prollem?

Just sayin'. What if we focus on the actual problem, instead of finding solutions to problems that will be created by a single-payer (socialised medicine) system?

Two Democrats On An Escalator

Stolen from AreWeLumberjacks.

I laughed. I cried.

Equivocation and Ambiguity

How is it that this comment passes muster?

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "A Fourth of July Quiz For The Kids":

Sarah Palin is a drug addled mentally ill bimbo? Is that a self evident truth?
Posted by Anonymous to OregonGuy at July 4, 2009 2:15 PM

From the fractured lens of the Left, there's nothing wrong with such a comment.

The weakness of the Left lies in its inability to form sentient thoughts. The question, as asked in the original post was, " What is the name of this essential document, and give an example of a self-evident truth."

I was stuck. Obviously, we don't mention the turd in teh swimming pool. And yet, there it was.

How do I respond?

Is it reasonable to refer to the original post and ask for a more linearly directed answer? Is it reasonable to simply suggest that the post is "off topic" and move on?

The answer is probably diffuse. My reaction was more of, "If I knew this guy, I'd kick his ass." There is not a gate that I wish to impose for different opinions than my opinions,here. But the commenter knew that he was rude, was going to be rude, and would mar a discussion about apodictic truth.

That's what the Left does.

There are a great number of truths that are available to you. Truth as distinct from belief. And that doesn't mean that truth is either the hostage or victim of the Left or Right. There are plenty of conservatives who still succumb to the intellectual tribulation of equivocation and ambiguity. Take, for instance, the comments of innoimatus:

"The Founders must have also struggled with this, for they prefaced their claims with "We hold..." The Declaration was a revolutionary document in several ways. Just to assert that all men are created equal was contrary to all the "Royals/ Nobles/ Gentry/ Peons" class systems that predated that assertion. It was self-evident to the founders but utterly unimaginable to many on the Continent. In other words, it's all relative."

Which brings me to a moment that I wish you would experience. It's a movie, called, "WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?"

This movie is an experience that we should all have. It is a lesson in what is true and what is believable. The difference is stark. But you must have a sharp knife.

I played this movie for my mom. And then we had a discussion. There is a lot of language you hear that evokes an emotional response, and the authors of the above-mentioned movie are well secured in their efforts to approach an issue emotionally, rather that intellectually. And they do it in a way that would be prized by former elite practitioners of what was then dubbed "propaganda". It is a movie of wonderful example and dialogue, and yet, unlike "Hylas and Philonous", the argument isn't fair.

What Bishop Berkeley attempted was an unequivocal argument between two men who had differing opinions about the nature of reality. What the authors of the above film attempted was to take the shading of any clear question out of play. To lead the viewer into an experience bereft of the true intellectual challenge that was attempted by the play. To further increase the areas of equivocation by introducing ambiguity. And at that point, the authors had gained their objective.

My question, however, had to do with the unequivocal nature of truth.

I had held my own opinion, wanting to hear your opinions. It is my belief that the strength of our republic lies within the people who live in that republic. And critical to my optimism is the simple truth that sustains me from day to day: I am.

There is no possible equivocation or ambiguity to that simple statement. innominatus suggests that "Even today we find that less and less is "self-evident." And that isn't the point. What is the point is that there are still those self-evident truths that are as much alive today as these same truths were a hundred, two hundred, a thousand or two thousand years ago. Increasing complexity isn't a barrier to understanding. It's simply a door we haven't opened yet.

Irreductability. Friend innominatus makes a simple error. Not everything is relative. Some things are irreducible.

I think. innominatus thinks. And another friend, ZZMike, thinks.

And it is for his thoughts that I post this.

There are a lot of you who read this that hesitate to comment. (Unlike Anonymous, who can't wait to weigh in with his thoughtful rapprochement.) But unlike Anonymous, innominatus spends some time explaining his erroneous position. And while innominatus is wrong, my point here is not to repeatedly hold up innominatus for his error...it is to highlight the light tone I take with a scurrilous lout who comments as Anonymous.

My Fourth of July post was based upon the kind of thinking that occurred when our Forefathers worked to come up with our country. What are the irreducible truths about the human condition that will serve us now, and for our progeny? They weren't any smarter than us. They weren't any better on an X-Box than us. What was it that motivated the Founding Fathers in their search for a form of government that guaranteed us--their progeny--with the greatest likelihood of success?

My answer still holds: I think.

I think, and you think. And you wanna know what? You are responsible for your thoughts, just as I am, mine. And here's the catch: what do you do about property?

What is property?

A thought that the thoughtful man would have would relate to the ability to determine what is worth investing in, and what is not.

That is the essence of Capitalism.

Capitalism is based upon the belief that a man's thoughts are his own.

Incumbent upon this belief is the truth that when a man's thoughts lead to behaviour that makes him an enemy of his society, that man becomes apart from his society. So here's the "chicken and the egg" question, that comes from the previous question, "What is the name of this essential document, and give an example of a self-evident truth."

Dead guys, like John Locke and Edmund Burke and lotsa others, wrote about the relationship between the government and the governed. What they pretty much agreed upon was this, that when a man's conscience became conflicted with his government, what would occur would be generally known as resistance, or generally, as opposition to his government. There is a line between which oppressive governments must tack against to avoid a popular uprising.

After decades of successfully engineering our educational system, the Left is now attempting to impose upon the rest of us the fruit of their dominance. What they have forgotten is the lesson that was faced by all of our previous experiences with attempts at total world domination: you can't fight a war on two fronts.

The attempts by the Left to occupy the seat of total world domination is being upset by the very forces that seek to upend our national government. That man has his own thoughts. And when an idea is wrong, it is wrong universally. For some, this distinction takes place on a group level, as in the Chinese view of the world versus the Russian--or American--view of the world.

These are macro concepts. But they arise individually in areas or states. It is possible that we (the human race) has arrived at a point where "world wars" are no longer necessary. But the conflicts that we impose upon ourselves aren't, or won't, be lessened by our willingness to give up our individual rights.

And this is the war of two fronts. You cannot have a right of individuality with an external imposition of commonality. Commonality is a gradual acceptance of social structure. Enforcing commanlity is a feature of fascism, or worse.

We were having a discussion about truth, and the comment that disturbed us was "Sarah Palin is a drug addled mentally ill bimbo? Is that a self evident truth?"

Where is the degree of commonality that we seek to achieve within this comment? To me, this comment is pure rubbish. It doesn't seek to advance an argument. It is simply dross. And you can't fight a war on two fronts. Yet, increasingly, we find ourselves facing greater levels of vituperitive commentary while asking questions that should, in themselves, demand answers.

The two fronts are becoming increasingly clear; direct answers to questions, and increasing misdirection from those who seek to obscure the intent of their actions. The result?

Equivocation and ambiguity.

A Fourth of July Quiz For The Kids

In one of those "essential" documents that led to the creation of the country known now as the United States of America, there was reference made to "self-evident truth."

What is the name of this essential document, and give an example of a self-evident truth.