Plane crash

People have been wondering how a flock of birds managed to take out a plane.

My theory is that the plane was brought down by a Flock of Seagulls and that after taking down the plane, they ran... they ran so far away...

Pending...

My response to Salty Girl is still forthcoming, sorry it's been a busy week and I want to wait until I have a proper amount of time free to focus on it.

For now, I direct you to Arnold Kling's post comparing the forthcoming stimulus bill to the battle of the Somme as examples of colossally stupid decision making. It is a wonderful post.

His point at the end that, all things considered, he's happier watching the government make stupid decisions that merely wreck untold economic havoc rather than watching them make stupid decisions that cost thousands of young lives is well taken.

It could always be worse...

(I'm going to leave off my innate suspicion that if you wait long enough, it usually is.)

Red Letter Day!

First off, I feel I should apologize for my flurry of comments last Wed. As I mentioned, I hurriedly finished off a bunch of half-formed ones and got them out before I left town for the weekend. As we all know, haste makes waste and as I re-read them I realized that they were somewhat poorly written even by the admittedly low standards of this blog. So apologies for that.

Yet I can't feel completely bad about them as they had the salutary effect of drawing 5 brand new comments over the weekend! I feel like the blog has come alive.

Speaking of coming alive, one of the comments was from Elvis; I am glad to know that he's still kickin' and v. flattered to learn that he's a reader.

But perhaps even better were a couple of genuine, dyed-in-the-wool substantive comments in reaction to my pointing out the paternalism inherent in foodstamps and the followup post on bad decision making.(fn1)

I can't say how glad I was to see comments taking issue with my posts. I do think that Salty Girl misunderstands my positions on a few things and might have run away a bit in her comment arguing against things that she thinks I said that I don't believe I did. Regardless, it's these kinds of exchanges that are the lifeblood of our political system(fn2) and I look forward to continuing the discussion.

To that end, I shall have an in-depth response to them soon, with hopes that I do not too adversely affect Salty Girl's studies.

And while we're on the topic of posting, while it is my definite intention to keep up a steady schedule in the new year, the fact that we're amidst the busy year-end season at work and other issues might preclude that to some extent. So apologies in advance for light posting over the next few weeks.

Hope everyone's New Year's celebration was fun.

fn1: I feel like I need to make special note of Tom's comment too, so he doesn't feel left out as I mention all the other posters and not him...

fn2: Not to mention of a blog...

Site Stats

Some fun statistics on my blog:

I have now made 108 posts.

I have received 7 comments, only one of which was me responding to another commenter.

One of the comments was spam from some motivational speaker no doubt trying to draw my enormous readership to his blog.

One comment was from a Brazilian(fn1) who I must assume was confused or otherwise mistaken in leaving a one-word comment of no particular relevance.

And the rest are from Salty Girl, usually haranguing me when I stop posting for too long. Most of these date to when she was my sole reader.

Nowadays my ad-hoc estimate of my readership is in the 10-12 range on a good day. All friends and family, of course.

Thanks to anyone who reads and Happy New Year!

fn1: The word "Brazilian" reminds me of the joke about Bush being told that two Brazilian soldiers had been killed in Iraq. Bush's face falls, he's silent a moment and then says "That's terrible. How many is a Brazilian again?"

Last bit of hilarity from Caroline...

Finally we get a glimpse of the powerful impact that Caroline has had and that will hope to have with in the Senate:

NC: So your precise role in the Gates grant was what? You came in at the end...
CK: It coincided with the time that I came into the department, and I think it was important to Bill Gates that I was there.
DH: What do you mean? I don’t get it. Just that you were there physically? Or just that you had arrived?
CK: Well I don’t know, you gotta ask him. But I think I, um —

Who knows what her role was? No one. Not her. Maybe Bill Gates. Because there's no way that it being "important" to him that she was there when the last stage of his gift went through was in any way just a throwaway line to some know-nothing scion of an important family at a cocktail party. No, she had an impact, she made a difference. She's not clear on how, exactly, but just ask her friends: they'll tell you she did just as they've told her the same.

Stimulating my curiosity

I've been ignoring as much as I can Obama's upcoming stimulus plan. I just know that the more I learn of it, the more my head will feel like it's going to explode. And I also know that it will be impossible for me to ignore all the unsavory details as the program gets implemented.

But there's a few things that have been puzzling me as I tangentially learn of his plan.

First, just as a general proposition, now that we're poor how is spending money on infrastructure projects that did not seem worthwhile when we thought we were rich a good idea? This seems a bit like losing your job and deciding to start work on the addition to your house that you felt you couldn't afford when you were employed. Sure, the plan is to put an office in there and start making real money but maybe that's just stupid?

Second, isn't construction one of those "jobs Americans won't do"? Wasn't that what we heard a couple of summers ago when we were told that the amnesty was imperative? That any effort to staunch the flow of millions of illegal immigrants would be disastrous for the construction industry? How is giving money to illegal immigrants to send home in remittances going to stimulate our economy?

Third, doesn't construction take massive amounts of steel and concrete and things of that nature? But don't we import most of that dirty stuff from China now? How is paying China to make steel for Mexicans to install in projects that aren't good investments going to help again?

Lastly, why is Obama calling for economic stimulus at all? Yes, I get that he wants the economy to be better, but wasn't he the one telling us that our consumerist ways were unsustainable and insulting to the rest of the world? Well, congratulations, we are no longer consuming nearly as much as were. But somehow that's now bad too? Kind of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't thing?

But prob. I'm just missing something fundamental.

Not with a bang but a whimper...

Humorous article in the WSJ about a Russian professor -- and former KGB analyst -- who's been predicting the collapse of the U.S. in a civil war for a decade now. He thinks it'll happen in 2010.

I think he's dead wrong. Western Civ. is def. in decline and not long of this Earth. And the U.S. is pretty much the last bastion of Western Civ. But I can't see it blowing up in a civil war. Far more likely to slowly fade away, so slowly that each step into the darkness will hardly be noticeable and it'll only be in hindsight that the few left who care enough to think it through will say, "Wow, where did it go?"


Particularly humorous is his idea that Alaska will be rejoined with Russia. I can see the appeal from the Russian standpoint but I can't imagine the Alaskans going without a fight. I'd picture something like Red Dawn fueled by whatever military advantage the part of the U.S. arsenal parked in Alaska would have over the entire Russian army. Which would likely be a considerable advantage: our military technology is light years ahead of just about everybody else's.