Bookworm Room

the government will screw up through indifference and people will die. Not because government is “bad” or that the people in government are “bad”, but because people are people and government can never be better than our collective human nature.

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Tweet Sadie sends along this message (Thank you, Sadie!): Milton Friedman was born July 31, 1912 – 100 years ago today. Do you have a favorite quote of his? Here’s mine: If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.

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Tweet And keep it from happening here in America. Half of India experienced a power failure. Since we’ve turned our back on serious power development of any kind, are we next?

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Tweet The world is changing rapidly, but our educational system has not kept pace.  Oh, it’s become politically correct.  And it now teaches kids how to use condoms and such.  But I don’t get the feeling that there has been a lot of overarching analysis as to how kids should be educated in the modern world.  Let [...]

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Tweet From Sadie: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has launched a blistering verbal assault against William Magwood, a Democratic member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission nominated by President Obama, calling him a “liar,” a “first-class rat,” and a “s**t-stirrer.” a “tool of the nuclear industry” and says he’s “unethical” and “incompetent.” The rest of [...]

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Tweet I received the following e-mail yesterday: ******************************************************************************************* THIS IS AN AUTOMATED EMAIL – PLEASE DO NOT REPLY. ******************************************************************************************* We received a request from 76.121.131.2 to reset your password for your Bank Account at Chase. Your account has been suspended after too many failed login attempts have been made. You may click on the link [...]

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Tweet So, Dick Cheney thinks Palin was a bad choice because she wasn’t qualified to be President.  Well, she was more qualified than Obama, having at least served as head of an executive branch before.  In any case, the time is almost upon us for Romney to pick his VP candidate. Who should he pick?  Who will [...]

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Tweet According to Gallup, Democrats are less enthusiastic about the upcoming election than they were in 2004 or 2008 and Republicans are more enthusiastic than in 2008 and equal to 2004. Not surprising, I guess, but a cause for hope, not just in presidential race but in the Congressional races as well.  Sure doesn’t sound like Obama [...]

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Tweet Leaving aside the politics, how interested are you in the Olympics as a sporting event?  How much of it are you going to watch? I’m completely hooked.  One of the great joys of being retired is having the time to watch as much as I want.  But, then, I love sports generally.  It’s one [...]

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Tweet Mark Steyn takes on the Democrat political machine’s outrage over Chick-fil-A, starting with certain mayors trying to run the company out of their cities because the company’s owner believes in traditional marriage (including no divorces), and then moves on from there: Mayor Menino [Boston's mayor] subsequently backed down and claimed the severed rooster’s head [...]

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Tweet We’ve all said it at one time or another — “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” In Kyoto, though, it’s very much both the heat and the humidity. When temperatures are around 100 and humidity is around 85 or 90%, it feels as if one is moving through a giant, heated sponge. One [...]

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Tweet My Dad sends this link along: http://web.mail.comcast.net/service/home/~/DCPictures.pps?auth=co&loc=en_US&id=187465&part=2.2 Enjoy. P.S.  I’m not computer savvy enough to figure out how to make this slide show play the way it did when Dad sent it, but after it loads (and it takes a while to load) you can see all the slides, anyway. P.P.S.  I’m told the [...]

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Tweet Sadie suggested a number of related topics, all in one post. They are all worth discussing, but I’m most interested in how credit cards affect your buying habits.  Personally, I use cards when they are convenient and pay them off every month so never incur an interest charge.  I’ve had a GM credit card [...]

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Tweet 100 Days 100 Nights… http://youtu.be/8ouI5KcyHfE Seems like the perfect song perfectly sung.

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Tweet When I asked for discussion topics, Marica had an interesting idea (Thanks, Marica):   One more specific thought along those lines would be quotes– written or spoken– from first generation businessman, of any era, although that may be a bit too specific. Another thought would be discussing what we think defines the American spirit. [...]

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Tweet Sadie provides us with this account: Olympic opening ceremony grapples with weighty issues (AFP)–3 hours ago LONDON — A celebration of free healthcare, the trade union struggle, the battle for women’s rights and a fleeting lesbian kiss: the Olympics opening ceremony Friday did not shy away from weighty social issues. Unsurprisingly, the show devised [...]

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Tweet I was living in England back in 1981 when Chariots of Fire was first released.  It’s been a while since it came out, but you probably remember that it was a movie based upon the true story of two actual British runners (and their fictional friends) preparing for the 1924 Olympics.  I loved that [...]

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Tweet Romney finds himself in a bit of hot water after going to London and criticizing the Olympic security he found there.  The British Prime Minister, and other Brits, took exception to the remarks.  Romney thus found out the hard way what he should have already known — even when something is absolutely true, the [...]

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Tweet Liberals always get terribly bent out of shape when anyone dares to offer an opinion not completely consistent with liberal orthodoxy. If that person happens to be in business, liberals reflexively do everything possible to take their revenge against the business.  The reaction to comments by Chick-fil-A’s president illustrates the point.  How dare he [...]

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Tweet Caped Crusader suggests that we each ”comment on the most memorable quotes and/or advice we have personally heard or received during our lives; not something we have read.” I think this is a terrific idea, so I’m asking you four you help, instead of providings thoughts for the day today.  Unfortunately, I’ve drawn a complete blank [...]

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Tweet Bookworm posted a discussion of the Episcopal Church’s tacit admission that God isn’t perfect.  That raises the question:  Why should we believe He is? Assume there is a God.  Personally, I’m skeptical, but assume it.  Assume God created the universe.  This replaces a great mystery (where the universe came from) with an even greater [...]

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Tweet Sadie suggested to me that we talk about Ron Paul’s effort to audit the Fed.  I’m not clear on what such an audit would involve.  What do you folks think? As always when Bookworm is away it is your intelligent, insightful, informative comments that make this blog worth reading.  So, as always, and as I [...]

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Tweet My (perhaps simplistic) sense of post-Pagan monotheism, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, is that God is all-powerful and all-knowing.  He is bigger than mere humans can comprehend and He works in ways too mysterious for human comprehension.  To the extent things are incomprehensible — whether evil, or deviations from the norm, or anything else [...]

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Tweet Since Danny and Bookworm already posted great posts today I’m going to restrict myself to quotes for the day: “Never mistake motion for action.” Ernest Hemingway “There are three rules for writing a novel.  Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”  W. Somerset Maugham “Very few things happen at the right time and the [...]

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Tweet Is the media to blame for the Aurora shootings? I would like to make the case that it is, not for any specific action that any specific media outlet has taken, but by its very nature. In 1970, Alvin Toffler published his seminal work, Future Shock, in which he predicted that one of the [...]

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