Cranky-D

Milton Friedman in a teevee interview some 45 years ago (at least) which is unfortunately still completely relevant today. Video here.

More Mark Stein.

But, even without launching a single missile, Iran [by acquiring nuclear weapons] will at a stroke have transformed much of the map – and not just in the Middle East, where the Sunni dictatorships face a choice between an unsought nuclear arms race or a future as Iranian client states. In Eastern Europe, a nuclear Iran will vastly advance Russia’s plans for a de facto reconstitution of its old empire: In an unstable world, Putin will offer himself as the protection racket you can rely on. And you’d be surprised how far west “Eastern” Europe extends: Moscow’s strategic view is of a continent not only energy-dependent on Russia but also security-dependent. And, when every European city is within range of Tehran and other psycho states, there’ll be plenty of takers for that when the alternative is an effete and feckless Washington.

More later, maybe. I’m currently annoyed with the performance of the US men’s curling team. Also, my head hurts from last night.

I don’t watch television as it is delivered because commercials drive me insane. Instead, I tend to avail myself of alternate delivery systems for teevee which allow me to watch the shows on my fantabulous 30in widescreen computer monitor (which, by the way, I ended up buying from my former employer because I really couldn’t give it up). So I am right now watching the CSI NY from last week(I guess) and they have car racing in the show, which is great because I like cars and machinery in general. However, they came up with this insanely ridiculous idea of a “Velocity Injection Chamber” which somehow stores the kinetic energy from braking and allows you to re-apply it to the wheels at some later time.

As I said on teh twitter, what a load of horseshit. First of all, braking converts the kinetic energy of the vehicle into heat, which is then dissipated to the surrounding air. Storing heat is really quite difficult. If you wanted a direct conversion, you would need a good way to store the heat energy in some other form and then re-apply it later. Good luck with that. Now, it’s possible to use the kinetic energy to power a generator and then store the energy electrically, and indeed hybrid cars do that to a greater or lesser extent to re-charge the batteries. That would not work on a race car.

Whatever. It did give me a huge laugh, which is always welcome. However, it should also serve as a reminder that they crap you see on teevee is often completely insane and unworkable. Most writers don’t know a whole lot about anything. Keep a skeptical mind.

Why does anyone think that government work is good? The fact is, if you work for the government, the money that pays for your wages has to come from people who do not work for the government. This is not hard to figure out out. The government earns no revenue that doesn’t come from taxes. The private sector earns revenue that comes from people.

All of the stimulus jobs, such as they are, are in the public sector. That means that they are not sustainable without more tax revenue. What I want is real susainable jobs, which means jobs that will survive a government influx of cashl, or a lack thereof.

Eh, well. It’s late (or early) and we are all doomed. It’s all over, kids. I hope you have lots of ammo and firesticks.

I’ve been getting back to my roots, as it were, since I’ve been unemployed. I have been a long-time fan of the Perry Mason teevee series, and have seen them all many times. However, I have probably never seen them as originally broadcast as they were about 52 minutes long and most of the time you are lucky to get 45 minutes of them on the telly. However, if you know where to look, you can get them for “free.” Yes, I’m a bad boy. If streaming video actually worked as promised I would just watch them on the CBS website, where they are all available for free, but streaming video still bites the big one as far as quality goes. I cannot abide hiccups in the delivery.

Anyway, I just queued up an episode, and I knew who the killer was within about 20 seconds. I paused it to write this. It’s really more about the process to me, since I usually recall the killer soon enough. I am hardly ever surprised any more. Still, it’s a lot of fun.

I’m that way with Star Trek: The Original Series as well. I can name the episode from watching the teaser. Yet somehow, I forget if I’ve taken my asthma medicine for any given morning. Early onset alzheimer’s, or just normal forgetfulness? Your call.

If you’re at least familiar with Metallica click here for an interesting cover of one of their songs. Worth it.

found on teh twitter

On twitter, someone pointed to this speech (youtube) by Ronald Reagan, made in 1964 during the Goldwater campaign. If you have the half-hour to spend, I strongly suggest that you watch it. It’s amazing how similar the problems back then are to the problems we still have today.

BTW, I don’t know if any of you watched Obama’s state of the union speech, but the Reagan speech reminds one how well a good public speaker can do. I hope we can find someone half as good soon, because we need that person to lead the small government fiscal conservatives to victory.

Go here to read about the Religion of Humanity and Obama’s place in it. Also, another good read here on the aims of progressives.

When I read the first article, I was reminded of the Star Trek - The Original Series episode “Return to Tomorrow.” In it, Sargon said something like, “Our minds had become so powerful, we dared think of ourselves as gods.” The minds of humans are not even close to being powerful, but so many think they know what’s best for so many others. It is quite frightening at times, but since they are apparently incredibly inept, their threat has been diminished for a time. Once one of them realizes that a gradual transformation is the only way to make it work, their successes will be more frequent, and they will eventually get their dystopia, all the while pretending it is actually utopia.

Links are from here

Another good read from Charles Krauthammer, another favorite political writer of mine. He is also a regular on the FauxNewz panel discussion on weekday afternoons. The only thing I have ever disagreed with him on is that he thinks private ownership of guns should be illegal. Even the best of us have blind spots.

I just saw the movie “New Moon” at the local cheapo theater down the street. I was curious about what the teenage kids like these days.

Wow. Just wow. That movie dragged like you wouldn’t believe. They could have cut 30 minutes out and not done it any damage. The only reason I can think to give it so much space is to give the little girls time to get done crying before the next plot point scene takes place. And the protagonist wallowed so much in her misery it was damn annoying at times. Sure, she had a reason to be upset, but she seemed to relish it.

Every young male in her life seemed tough but still sensitive. Her father was a doddering idiot at times. And we have 100 year old vampires going to high school for frel’s sake. Jeebus. I wouldn’t be going to high school. I’d be dressing up in period clothing from 200 years ago and wallowing in decadence and killing humans and stuff like that. I mean, if you’re going to hell already, why worry?

It could have been a lot better with some editing. The story was quite predictable, but it had some good action scenes. More of that would have been welcome. It really wasn’t as bad as it could have been, I guess, and it was pretty much what I expected, except too gosh darn long. Rent it if you’re curious.

That was such a chick flick, I think I just ovulated.

Mark Steyn is a favorite political writer of mine. Go here to read one of his latest pieces.