R.I.P. Levon Helm

RIP, Etta

One of the greats... godspeed, Etta.

When Rehearsal is More Fun than the Show

A great rendition of one of my favorites...

I bet you won't see a clip like this with Pitbull in it...

(Hat Tip: http://blog.kir.com/)

Spherical Flying Machine... or Helicopter in a Roll Cage?

Merry Christmas from the Family

This is a favorite of mine.  Robert Earl Keen just nails it.  Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

Some Christmas cheer from the New York Sun, ca. 1897:

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Stewardship... It was nice to know ya...

stewardship: (1) the office, duties, and obligations of one who actively directs affairs; (2) the individual's responsibility to manage his life and property with proper regard to the rights of others.

I realize that a concept such as stewardship must seem a quaint relic from a bygone era.  But did MF Global need some more of it?  Does the CME need some more of it?

Why don't we go and ask their customers?

Who needs stewardship?

R.I.P., Smokin' Joe

"The relentless, undersized heavyweight..."

This is Curious

Just Because They're Broke Doesn't Mean They're Stupid

When I read the first sentence in the lead story of this morning's Wall Street Journal, I couldn't help but smile a little bit.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou stunned Europe by announcing a referendum on his country's latest bailout—a high-stakes gamble that could undermine the international effort to preserve the euro.

Only the European mentality could be stunned by a country actually wanting to exercise its sovereignty and national choice.  The finances of Greece may be in complete disarray, but I'm glad to see that the country still has a prime minister that is looking out for the self interest of his nation.  He negotiated hard for a bailout deal for his country, and now he's taking it to his people for a vote.

How dare he do such a thing? Truly that is a question that could only be asked by a mindless European socialist.

The Greeks may be broke, but they are not stupid.  Good for you Mr. Papandreou.

It's ironic that Greece, the birthplace of democracy, is stunning Europe by calling for a vote to decide an important matter.  These days it's not supposed to work that way.  All Europeans are supposed to take their directives from the uberlords in Brussels... or so the uberlords in Brussels thought.

Words to Heed in a Web-based World

If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer.  You're the product being sold.

Hat tip: Ace

Trick Shots

Hat tip: Houston's Clear Thinkers

"He said he would be off the mic for a few to handle his gunshot wounds."

This is from Business Insider, but I thought I'd just copy the whole article.  Go to this link for the source:

When U.S. Army Special Forces entered a Taliban village in western Afghanistan back in 2009, they had one man with them to coordinate the vital air support that would keep them alive.
His name is Robert Gutierrez and shortly into the fight he was hit with an armor piercing round that tore through his chest and shoulder.

"I've seen those types of injuries before, and time isn't your friend," Gutierrez said later. "I thought, ‘I have three minutes before I'm going to die. I've got to do something big. Based on that time frame, I'm going to change the world in three minutes.’"

With Taliban fighters shooting down on his platoon from rooftops just 10 feet from their position, Gutierrez maintained radio contact with airmen overhead to keep the enemy from killing them all. His efforts earned him the Air Force Cross for extraordinary heroism late last month.

The four-hour firefight included sniper and small-arms fire, as well as rocket propelled grenades attacks. Though Gutierrez lost five pints of blood and walked over a mile, he maintained constant radio contact.

Soldiers on the ground attempting to treat Gutierrez said he refused to remove his body armor because it held his radio, relenting only for a moment so the medic could insert a tube below his collarbone. The move kept his lung from collapsing, allowing him to continue breathing and speaking into the radio.

The A-10 pilot talking to him on the ground said he had no idea Gutierrez was wounded, that his voice was calm the whole time, and only realized the man was injured when his team moved to the medical landing zone.

"He said he would be off of the mic for a few to handle his gunshot wounds," Air Force Capt. Ethan Sabin said. "Until that point he was calm, cool and collected."

When it was all over Gutierrez had taken a bullet to the upper shoulder, triceps, left chest and lateral muscle causing two broken ribs, a broken scapula, and a softball-sized hole in his back.


He suffered a collapsed lung and multiple blood infections, which required three chest tubes, three blood transfusions and seven surgeries.


To top it off the 30 mm strafing runs from the A-10 he was calling in ruptured both of his eardrums.


Gutierrez is only the second living recipient of the Air Force Cross since 9/11 and he is now assigned a training role at the Special Operations Training Center at Pope AFB, N.C.

Character Flaw was Always an Important Theme in Greek Tragedy

"There are many lessons for America in the current agonies of the Greeks. Perhaps the most important is that there is such a thing as “national character”. The Greeks collectively are mercurial, spendthrift, comparatively unproductive, and have an unearned sense of entitlement. They feed on past glories while doing nothing to ensure future prosperity. The dodge taxes as though it were a national sport. They take alms as if they are earned wages, and then complain that the money isn’t enough. They lied their way into the Eurozone and now resent the consequences of that lie.

"The “prosperity” they achieved with the Euro was nothing of the sort: it was simply a mad borrowing binge, and all that borrowed money must now be repaid...in one way or another. Debt, by itself, is morally neutral -- but debt incurred in service to weakness, vanity, and vice is most assuredly not moral. Immorality that goes unpunished or ignored leads to decadence; decadence leads to societal rot. Fiscal improvidence is a symptom. The disease is a deficit of national character.

"I have pity for individual Greeks who, through no fault of their own, are held hostage by the wastrels among them. But so many of these stories you read show the defects of the Greek character: a sense of entitlement, of grievance, of inchoate anger at their creditors, a lack of appreciation for cause and effect. Read the comments from the Greeks -- they have no plan to recover the situation, no actual belief in change. Their only hope seems to be that the world will somehow keep giving them money even though they produce nothing that the world wants.

Hat tip - Ace

Move Over Joe Cocker

Simon Cowell's talent is to create entertaining machines that funnel talent.

Putting Simon's talent aside, check out the talent on Josh Krajcik (watch the whole thing):



Brilliant!

Money quote right at the end: "Where's the bar...?"

The Exit Ramp to a Society's Death Rattle

When a society voluntarily closes its door on 700 years of tradition and custom, one has to wonder if such an act is not the harbinger of a bigger sweep into the dustbin of history?

    Jose Tomas: a snapshot of grace under pressure

Go here for the article: Last Bullfight in Catalonia

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Going to the bullfights has always been high on my bucket list.  Going back to Catalonia, after reading this story, not so much...



F.A. Hayek... Thought for the Day...

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."

- F.A. Hayek

Move Over Thomas Edison

I can't wait for this technology start-up's IPO...



Money quote: "My electric bill really went down."

Great Ad

Who is the ad agency that developed this concept?

Good stuff.

9-11

My words for this great tragedy are few, for it already speaks deeply to true Americans.

REMEMBER.
AVENGE.