Tom Faranda's Folly

Archbishop Dolan given symbol of leadership by the Pope

Pope Benedict bestows sacred symbol of leadership on Archbishop Dolan at pallium ceremony

So what did the Pope say?

That's what the New York pilgrims asked Archbishop Timothy Dolan after Pope Benedict lingered a minute at Monday's sacred pallium ceremony.

"You know, I went up to the Holy Father, and I haven't told anybody what he said to me," Dolan told the faithful.

"I said, 'My name is Timothy Dolan and I'm from New York,' and he said, 'Ah . . . Yankees or Mets?' "

When the laughter died down at Cecilia Metella restaurant on the Appian Way, the now-official archbishop of 2.5 million New York Catholics noted the empty wine bottles, especially one he shared with Edward Cardinal Egan.

"We call the empty bottles 'dead soldiers,' " he said. "But you know the saying: 'They didn't die without a priest.' "

Good posting by Larry Kudlowe on Madoff

The big questions (1) Where's the money and (2) who else is involved?

Kudlow's Money Politic$: Madoff Sentenced, But He Didn’t Sing

Neither his wife nor his two sons have been deposed. Nor have these other characters who probable looted the funds.

The thing about a Ponzi scheme is others besides Ponzi can get rich. And there are names in circulation of people who may also have gotten rich. But where’s the money? When will these people be brought in to testify under oath? The thousands of other smaller investors and charities who were totally ripped off by Madoff could recover a lot more if these big shots are finally hammered.

Who knew this place existed?

Who knew? I been there metaphorically ...

In Honduras, who acted illegally - the president or the military?

I have been reading th "Americas" column in the Wall Street Journal for years. it's written weekly by:

Mary Anastasia O'Grady is a member of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board and editor of the "Americas," a weekly column that appears every Monday in the Journal and deals with politics, economics and business in Latin America and Canada.

and is very insightful. So while I don't know much about Honduras I would lean towards trusting her judgement.

O'Grady: Honduras Defends Its Democracy - WSJ.com

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

So, the army acted under a Supreme Court order.

Here is another spin.

Obama says coup in Honduras is illegal | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday the coup that ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and would set a "terrible precedent" of transition by military force unless it was reversed.

"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected president there," Obama told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

Zelaya, in office since 2006, was overthrown in a dawn coup on Sunday after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.

The Honduran Congress named an interim president, Roberto Micheletti, and the country's Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.

Nicholas Kristoff video on the reporter's craft - covering a humanitarian crisis

The NY Times op ed writer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVVdH8n5470

The Late Billy Mays pitches the Obama stimulus plan

If you watch cable TV, you've seen uber-pitchman Billy Mays many times. He died suddenly a couple of days ago at the age of 50, evidently of heart disease.

He was on the Neil Cavuto business show a few months ago - and this short video (hit the link; can't embed) is pretty funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DUuWm0U8TI

Supreme Court reverses Sotomayor's ruling regarding the firemen in New Haven

This is pretty big, since Sonia Sotomayor is very likely to be on the Supreme Court in the next session.

She made her original decision while on the Appeals Court without comment - in other words she did not explain her decision.

Court rules for white firefighters over promotions - washingtonpost.com

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

Prince Charles - giving his all for his country

The Man who would be King

Two prominent economists - Blinder & Laffer - on no inflation vs. inflation

A HUGE issue. Well worth watching - a 20 second commercial and then 7 minute video. 

It seems to me that for the Federal Reserve to keep serious inflation from occurring, say in the 18 month to three year time cycle, they will have to pitch a perfect game. And perfect games are very rare.

My (our) anniversary

As mentioned here, Tom Faranda's Folly: Anniversary tomorrow - here are a few Brigid pix from the past, Tom and Brigid's 30th anniversary was the past Tuesday.

I took most of the morning off, and we went for a walk on Croton Point - mostly around and across the now-capped Croton Dump! Then we went to dinner at the Malabar Hill (Indian restaurant in Elmsford) with the boys.

Herewith the walk

 

Brigid with two of her anniversary presents - waterproof hat from Tim and walking stick from her big-spending husband. It's a great-looking stick but at a pound and a half, and with no adjustability in length, probably best for looking at, and not carrying... That's a whistle attached to the leather lanyard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, fast forward nine of ten hours and here we are at the Malabar Hill. If you like Indian food, Malabar is good value.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brigid, showing off some gifts (shirt and bracelet) she got from her sisters

 

This was taken by the waiter. Below it is a picture taken by another waiter in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in April, 2005.

 

Montego Bay, breakfast on April 25th 2005. Another of my favorite pictures.

More on healthcare - from the Obama ABC special on Thursday

This from the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

If we want ever-improving healthcare, than the price of care, as a perecntage of our gross national product (GNP) is going to rise. Period. There's no way around it.

But the President's health reforms - ostensibly to save money -   if enacted, are going to lead to rationing. no way around it.

Obama's Health Future - WSJ.com

At one point in the town hall, broadcast from the East Room by ABC news, a woman named Jane Sturm told the story of her 105-year-old mother, who, at 100, was told by an arrhythmia specialist that she was too old for a pacemaker. She ended up getting a second option, and the operation, for which Ms. Sturm credits her survival.

"Look, the first thing for all of us to understand that is we actually have some -- some choices to make about how we want to deal with our own end-of-life care," Mr. Obama replied. After discussing ways "we as a culture and as a society [can start] to make better decisions within our own families and for ourselves," he continued that in general "at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

Unless you are one of the forutnate few in charge of things ...

... a physician asked Mr. Obama if he would subject his own family to the restrictions of a national health plan, even if specialists recommended treatments that weren't covered. The President was noncommittal: "And you're absolutely right that, if it's my family member, if it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care."

Solidarity with Iran

That's the title of a thoughful editorial in the Wall Street Journal this weekend.

So where do we go from here, particularly now that demonstrations are abating in the face of increased repression?

* * *

One place to begin is by studying the example of U.S. policy toward Solidarity, the Polish trade union that challenged the Communist regime in the early 1980s.

A worthwhile read.

Solidarity With Iran - WSJ.com

... there are opportunities for the Obama Administration to exploit, provided it envisions a democratic and peaceful Iran as a strategic American aim. That doesn't mean military confrontation with the mullahs. But it does require taking every opportunity to apply consistent pressure on Iran while exploiting its internal tensions and contradictions.

"I often wondered why Ronald Reagan did this, taking the risks he did, in supporting us at Solidarity," Mr. Walesa wrote in these pages after Reagan died in 2004. "Let's remember that it was a time of recession in the U.S. and a time when the American public was more interested in their own domestic affairs. It took a leader with a vision to convince them that there are greater things worth fighting for."

The amazing USA soccer upset

I don't really follow soccer, but the 2-0 victory of the USA national team over Spain - the #1 rated team in the world right now - a few days ago is on a par with the USA victory over the Soviet Union for the gold medal in hockey at the 1980 Olympics.

 Sports of The Times - Remember the Miracle on Ice? U.S. Soccer Adds One on Grass - NYTimes.com

How California, New York, and New Jersey are leading the nation down the Progressive Path

Not.

Read it and weep. Of course the people who shoulld read, have scoffed at this reality in the past.

But reality bites.

The Albany-Trenton-Sacramento Disease - WSJ.com

These states have been models of "progressive" policies that are supposed to create wealth: high tax rates on the rich, lots of government "investments," heavy unionization and a large government role in health care.

>>>>>>

California's debt burden has multiplied so fast that it now has the worst bond rating of any state, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators are pleading with Washington to command the other 49 states to pay off its IOUs.

>>>>>>

Workers in these paradises are indeed uniting -- by leaving. New York ranks first, California second and New Jersey third in moving vans leaving the state.

The editorial ends "The debate in Washington now is whether to spread this antigrowth model across the entire country." And the emphatic answer is YES! if this House passes climate-change bill - Lisa Lerer and Patrick O'Connor - POLITICO.com is any indication.

Science and Religion

A Wall Street Journal op ed from yesterday. I disagree with much of the reasoning, but hey, fair and balanced.

God and Science Don't Mix - WSJ.com

J.B.S. Haldane, an evolutionary biologist and a founder of population genetics, understood that science is by necessity an atheistic discipline. As Haldane so aptly described it, one cannot proceed with the process of scientific discovery if one assumes a "god, angel, or devil" will interfere with one's experiments. God is, of necessity, irrelevant in science.

A misleading statement, and in fact a meaningless point. Read the whole essay for more.

A Rabbi who knew Michael Jackson writes in the Jerusalem Post

I wasn't going to post anything about Michael Jackson's death, but this article (posted on Drudge), and written by a Rabbi who knew him fairly well, is poignant. Funny that I would have two posts in one day featuring a Rabbi. A ninety year old Rabbi reflects on the benefits of being old

The end of the King of Pop | Op-Ed Contributors | Jerusalem Post

In the two years that I had attempted, ultimately unsuccessfully, to help Michael repair his life, what most frightened me was not that he would be arrested again for child molestation, although he later was. Rather it was that he would die. As I told CNN on April 22, 2004, "My great fear, and why I felt I had to be distanced from Michael ... was that he would not live long. My fear was that Michael's life would be cut short. When you have no ingredients of a healthy life, when you are totally detached from that which is normal, and when you are a super-celebrity you, God forbid, end up like Janis Joplin like Elvis... Michael is headed in that direction."

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Because Michael substituted attention for love he got fans who loved what he did but he never had true compatriots who loved him for who he was. Perhaps this is why, when so many of his inner circle saw him destroying his life with prescription medication - something he used to treat phantom physical illnesses which were really afflictions of the soul - they allowed him to deteriorate and disintegrate rather than throwing the poison in the garbage.

Tragic.

Global Warming update: Cap and Trade + global skepticism

The Wall Street Journal has a number of good editorials and columns today. Here's one of them and I'm going to post the others tonight and over the weekend.

Reality setting in worldwide (but not in the U.S. House of Representatives, where a a vote on the economically devastating Cap and Trade bill is possibly today) on Global Warming.

Strassel: The Climate Change Climate Change - WSJ.com

Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.

If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

>>>>>>

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

A ninety year old Rabbi reflects on the benefits of being old

This is good.

6 Reasons to Grow Old - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com

Not every 90-year-old enjoys the good health and vigor of the rabbi, who still teaches and writes and agreed to fit in a phone interview after his half-hour of daily morning calisthenics. (“I jump around, but I’m not a fanatic.”) But it’s good to remember, with more than 1.5 million Americans having passed this once rare milestone, that extreme longevity has its compensations. Rabbi Haberman cites six.

The Blonde Handywoman

From humor consultant Ellen -

A blonde, wanting to earn some extra money, decided to hire herself
out as a "handywoman" and started canvassing the neighbourhoods.

She went to the front door of the first house and asked the owner if
he had any odd jobs for her to do.

"Well, I guess I could use somebody to paint my porch," he said. "How
much will you charge me?"

The blond quickly responded, "How about $50?"

The man agreed and told her that the paint and everything she would
need was in the garage. The man's wife, hearing the conversation,
said to her husband, "Does she realize that our porch goes all the
way around the house?"

He responded, "That's a bit cynical, isn't it?"

The wife replied, "You're right. I guess I'm starting to believe all
those dumb blond jokes we've been getting by e-mail lately."

A short time later, the blond handywoman came to the door to collect her
money.

"You finished already?" the husband asked.

"Yes," the blond replied, "and I had paint left over, so I gave it
two coats - no extra charge."

Impressed, the man reached into his pocket for the $50 and handed it to her.

"And by the way," the blond added, "it's not a Porch -- it's a Lexus."

Two fitness articles that say less is more

The first one says you can do a better marathon if you walk part of it (FULL DISCLOSURE - I have friends who've run marathons - Mike Sprag who we knew from Cayman did a 2:48 - and I've been to the NY Marathon - when Spragg ran. I ahve never had any desire - nor will I ever have eny desire - to run a marathon.)

Well - Better Running Through Walking - NYTimes.com

Then there's this article - which I really doubt - about interval training. It's only one study, but probably worth reading.

Can You Get Fit in Six Minutes a Week? - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

Exclusive Onion News Network report - Creator of twitter on it's use in Iran:

Only from the ONN -

"Twitter was intended to be a way for vacant, self-absorbed egotists to share their most banal and idiotic thoughts with anyone pathetic enough to read them, ..."

Go here for full story -

Twitter Creator On Iran: 'I Never Intended For Twitter To Be Useful' | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

... Twitter is at its most powerful when it makes an already attention-starved populace even more needy for constant affirmation.

Will the President opt for an economic growth policy?

Here's a good column by Holman Jenkins in the Journal yesterday.

Jenkins: Who Owns the Banks, Round Two? - WSJ.com

...Call it fudge: This is a bet on growth, the only decent solution out there, because neither nationalization nor capital raising by banks can get the Federal Reserve off the hook of inflating away the banking system's massive additional losses on consumer, business and housing loans if growth doesn't come back.

As usual, however, there is no coherence in the administration's approach. Even while it counts on surging bank profits, it attacks the banking system's credit card profits, its mortgage profits, its senior-secured lending profits, etc. This is no way to avoid the rightly frightful prospect of having to add Citigroup and Bank of America to the portfolio of companies Washington is running badly.

>>>>>>

Mr. Obama's own initiatives on climate, labor, taxes and health care are the biggest threat to growth -- thus to the success or disaster of the Fed's giant liquidity bet, failure of which could still send us Argentina's way (as the Fed itself no doubt is discussing in its closed meetings today and yesterday).

Jenkins finishes his column making a great point - Obama can get away with a total flip-flop! (And here's hoping he does.)

Here, a happy happenstance for the nation is that our president is an object of craving utterly independent of the policies he pursues. Mr. Obama, therefore, has an unlikely degree of freedom to throw overboard his agenda and go for growth without fear of his public abandoning him.

From the start, he has seemed uniquely detached and noncommittal about his own policy positions, as if he was entertaining them only to see if they might be useful to him. Let's not underestimate this advantage over lesser politicians, who get trapped by their rhetoric. Let's also hope Mr. Obama takes advantage, becoming the "growth" president ...

Warren Buffet on the economy: "shambles"

Fom his interview on CNBC yesterday -

"We've had no bounce."

More worried about inflation then deflation

Still thinks that the stock market is attractive "over the next ten years" when compared to alternates.

He thinks Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke should be reappointed.

Warren Buffett to CNBC: U.S. Economy In "Shambles" .. No Signs of Recovery Yet - Warren Buffett Watch - CNBC.com

Does the Appalachian Trail go all the way to Buenos Aires?

No. I've been on the Appalachian Trail many times, and not only do I know the south end is in Georgia, but I've never even heard anyone, while hiking it, speaking Spanish.

Sanford: Appalachians, Argentina, What's The Difference? | TPMMuckraker

Of course the reality is South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admits affair - Andy Barr - POLITICO.com

 "Don't Cry for Me Argentina"

Photography: End of an era as Kodak retires Kodachrome

After 74 years. It has dwindled to under 1% of their sales as Kodak is now over 70% digital. Totally phased out in 2010.

I have hundreds and hundreds of kodachrome slides, going way back to the 70's and my years living in the Caribbean. But we have been all digital since early 2005.

Kodak to Retire Kodachrome, Its Oldest Color Film Stock - NYTimes.com

Here's Kodak's announcement and their tribute to kodachrome. The slideshow is beautiful.

Kodak: A Thousand Words - A Tribute to KODACHROME: A Photography Icon

Argentina's best beer commercial

Sent by my humor consultant, Ellen.

the Washington train wreck

Possible equipment failure, an inexperienced train operator, and a type of car that was recommended to be replaced. My grandmother always told me "Never sit in the first or last car of a train."

The resulting disaster is well-covered here, with numerous stories -

Train Car in Rear-End Accident Was Overdue for Brake Work - washingtonpost.com

According to a Metro source knowledgeable about railcar maintenance, the first car of the striking train was two months behind on a scheduled maintenance for changing out brakes and brake components.

"These components are supposed to be changed out to prevent failures," the source said.

This morning, a spokeswoman for the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, said that the train that slammed into the back of the other did not have data recorders that would have detailed its movements before the crash.

Also, a federal official said that the car was an older model, of a kind that Metro had been advised to replace because of concerns about how it would stand up in a collision. Metro did not do so, its leaders said, because they believed it would be too costly and complicated. Instead, they made some improvements to the trains' braking systems and emergency exits.

How did Steve Jobs get a liver transplant so quickly -

UPDATE: Hospital in Memphis Says it Did Jobs’s Surgery - NYTimes.com

Jobs is the CEO of Apple. He is a business rock star. Did he jump the line?

Liver Transplant for Steven Jobs of Apple Raises Questions - NYTimes.com

Reports that Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, traveled to Tennessee for a liver transplant about two months ago raise many questions — not just about his prognosis, but also about the system for allocating scarce organs to the many people who need them.

Whenever someone rich and famous receives a transplant, suspicions inevitably arise about whether that person managed to jump to the head of the waiting list and take an organ that might have saved the life of somebody just as desperate but less glamorous. The dark theories are a holdover from the case of Mickey Mantle, who waited all of one day for a liver in 1995, and then died from liver cancer anyway, just two months later.

As predicted, Actor Jon Voight (grad of my high school) is being attacked for his verbal blistering of the President and his policies

Predicting that Hollywood types would go after the Academy Award winning Voight for this Stepinac Alumnus Jon Voight speaks out, was (I thought) a no-brainer - but I was wrong!   Instead it's the punditocracy.

I also got (no surprise) a couple of emails from lefty friends telling me how horrible Voight was, full of hatred, and how horrible I was for posting it, don't ever speak to me again about politics, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. The typical open-minded response.

Here's the article -

Voight meets harsh political criticism - Washington Times

The Academy Award-winning actor was cited Monday by People's Weekly World, a magazine once known as the "Daily Worker" and sympathetic to the Communist Party.

In a wide-ranging editorial denouncing "home-grown terrorism," the publication pounced on Mr. Voight's mention of an effort "to bring an end to this false prophet, Obama" as he addressed the National Republican Congressional Committee last week.

And there's more, hit the link.

The Catholic Bishops Conference expresses support for Bishop D'Arcy in the controversy over Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama

They express their "solidarity" without mentioning what, exactly, the controversy was about. Very politic of them.

USCCB - (Office of Media Relations) U.S. Bishops Express Support for Bishop D’arcy and His Pastoral Concern for the University of Notre Dame

The bishops of the United States express our appreciation and support for our brother bishop, the Most Reverend John D'Arcy. We affirm his pastoral concern for Notre Dame University, his solicitude for its Catholic identity, and his loving care for all those the Lord has given him to sanctify, to teach and to shepherd.

An interesting backgrounder about the thinking on U.S. laws banning abortion in the past.

This is short, and quite interesting. From here -

LifeNet: Are laws outlawing abortion a recent development?

This is frequently claimed by the pro-abortion forces. And they are wrong. This is a great short article.

Abortion Laws: A Recent Development?

Myth: Abortion laws were of rather recent origin, and were adopted to protect women from dangerous surgery, not to protect unborn children.

Reality: Throughout almost all stages of history in nations influenced by Christianity, and in other nations as well, abortion has been strongly condemned by the religious and political leadership of these nations.

********

During the 1800s, advanced medical knowledge enabled the doctors to determine the child was alive prior to quickening. In 1859 the American Medical Association unanimously adopted the AMA Report on Criminal Abortion. The report condemned abortion and stated one reason abortions took place was “wide-spread popular ignorance of the true character of the crime—a belief, even among mothers themselves, that the foetus is not alive till after the period of quickening.” Another reason, the Report stated, was the “grave defects of our laws, both common and statute, as regards the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living being.” The Report continued, “With strange inconsistency, the law fully acknowledges the foetus in utero and its inherent rights, for civil purposes; while personally and as criminally affected, it fails to recognize it, and to its life as yet denies all protection.” Abortion, it stated, was “no simple offence against public morality and decency, no mere misdemeanor, no attempt upon the life of the mother, but the wanton and murderous destruction of her child.” Declaring that “physicians have long been united in condemning the act of producing abortion, at every period of gestation, except as necessary for preserving the life of either mother or child,” the AMA Report called upon state legislatures to make abortion at all stages of gestation a criminal offense.

Anniversary tomorrow - here are a few Brigid pix from the past

A big one - the 3-0!

Plan is: go for walk early in the AM - probably Croton Point. Then go to dinner with the boys - the Malabar in Elmsford.

A few pix of the DW -

The first three are in Jamaica in 1979, before we got married.

At Dunn's River Falls, woman of mystery

 

Here at Lover's Leap on the south coast of Jamaica

Here we are on our Honeymoon on the south coast of Jamaica, on June 25th or 26th. We took my parents and brother Phil along - couldn't leave them behind in Mandeville, could we? Phil was the altar server at our wedding in Mandeville.

  

Now here's Brigid, September 1997 at the Bronx Zoo, with her two boys ...

 

And my all-time favorite family picture, taken at Dunn's River Falls, when we took the boys down to Jamaica in April, 2005 -

I love that picture!

Will put up some pix tomorrow.

Good feature on your core, your abs, and back pain

You just never know what research to believe ... If you have a back, you'll want to read this -

Is Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back? - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

“There’s so much mythology out there about the core,” maintains Stuart McGill, a highly regarded professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada and a back-pain clinician who has been crusading against ab exercises that require hollowing your belly. “The idea has reached trainers and through them the public that the core means only the abs. There’s no science behind that idea.” (McGill’s website is backfitpro.com.)

Errol Flynn, still the model for swashbuckling, would have been 100 on Saturday

Here's a fun feature from the past weekend. I didn't know Flynn was (like current movie idol Russell Crowe) an Australian. He was only 50 when he died.

A Century After His Birth, Errol Flynn Is In Again - washingtonpost.com

"Some actors don't look good in period costumes," said Rudy Behlmer, a noted author and film historian, "but Flynn belonged in them. When he strode into Nottingham Castle, it was believable."

Humor in the face of adversity is commonly used in today's action-adventures and was abundant in many Flynn epics. "You speak treason!" gasps de Havilland in a scene from "Robin Hood." "Fluently," Flynn quips.

George Will applies logic to healthcare reform

Another must-read if you're interested in your health and the health of your family members. Brief excerpt below the link, but read the whole thing.

I always liked "Occam's Razor" -

George F. Will - Health Care's Stalking-Horse: The 'Public Option' - washingtonpost.com

To dissect today's health-care debate, the crux of which concerns a "public option," use the mind's equivalent of a surgeon's scalpel, Occam's razor, a principle of intellectual parsimony: In solving a puzzle, start with the simplest explanatory theory.

The puzzle is: Why does the president, who says that were America "starting from scratch" he would favor a "single-payer" -- government-run -- system, insist that health-care reform include a government insurance plan that competes with private insurers? The simplest answer is that such a plan will lead to a single-payer system.

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The president characteristically denies that he is doing what he is doing -- putting the nation on a path to an outcome he considers desirable -- just as he denies any intention of running General Motors. Nevertheless, the unifying constant of his domestic policies -- their connecting thread -- is that they advance the Democrats' dependency agenda. The party of government aims to make Americans more equal by making them equally dependent on government for more and more things.

Here's the killing/murder of the young woman on the street in Iran

Neda.

The text on youtube says:

At 19:05 June 20th
Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st.

A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.
The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

Graphic.

House unveils it's healthcare reform plan: spelled G-O-V-E-R-M-E-N-T C-O-N-T-R-O-L

From Saturday's NY Times. The Washington Times also covered it, but very oddly, the Washington Post didn't have much to say about it.

I posted about the Senate Democrat plan here Tom Faranda's Folly: The Senate draft of health insurance reform looks interesting

The house plan is brash and aggressive to the ponit of being amazing. Government control with no estimate of the cost. Hard to excerpt this article; you have to read the whole thing.

House Unveils Health Bill, Minus Key Details - NYTimes.com

Under the House bill, health insurance would be regulated by a powerful new federal agency, headed by a presidential appointee known as the health choices commissioner.

The draft bill was unveiled by three committee chairmen — Mr. Miller; Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee; and Charles B. Rangel of New York, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The chairmen, all first elected in the 1970s, have worked together in secret for months to develop a single bill.

And no effort to estimate the cost. But I suppose from their perspective, who cares about the cost? The issue is control.

Gesto de Amor - the Public Service Announcement

Very nice.

Senator Boxer, dripping with condescension

What a no class woman. I guess here comment's been turned int a commercial by her potential opponent.

Middle age wilding with Farandas and friends

Actually, upper middle age wilding.

This is one of our periodic dinner get-togethers; the Cannon - Faranda - Novotny - Riner clique. Held last Saturday at Chez Novotny, and I am posting this Saturday night, a week later (Mucho pictures; probably only of interest to eight people in the world).

We did our usual thing; too much drinking, eating, talking (esp. me), as we solved the problems of the world.

 

 

 

Our hostess Doreen makes a point

 

 

 

 

Great News! Chubby people live longer -

According to this -

Chubby people live longest: Japan study

People who are a little overweight at age 40 live six to seven years longer than very thin people, whose average life expectancy was shorter by some five years than that of obese people, the study found.

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The study divided people into four weight classes at age 40 according to their body mass index, or BMI, calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by their squared height in metres.

The normal range is 18.5 to 25, with thinness defined as under 18.5. A BMI of 25 to 30 was classed as slightly overweight and an index above 30 as obese.

To calculate your own BMI, go here - Calculate your BMI - Standard BMI Calculator

President Obama's own doctor doesn't like Obamacare

But what does he know?

Obama's Doctor Knocks ObamaCare - Forbes.com

David Scheiner, an internist based in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park, has a diverse practice of lower-income adults from the nearby housing projects mixed with famous patients like U.S. Sen. Carol Mosely Braun, the late writer Studs Terkel and, most notably, President Barack Obama.

>>>>>>

"I'm not sure he really understands what we face in primary care," Scheiner says.

Scheiner takes a few other shots too. Looking at Obama's team of health advisors, Scheiner doesn't see anyone who's actually in the trenches. "I have a suspicion they pick people from the top echelon of medicine, people who write about it but haven't been struggling in it," he says.

Scheiner is critical of Obama's pick for Health and Human Services secretary--Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who used to work as the chief lobbyist for her state's trial lawyers association.

"He doesn't see all the pain, it's so tragic out here," he says. "Obama's wonderful, but on this one I'm not sure if he's getting the right input."

BUT, Scheiner's answer is a single payer plan, "medicare for all." He thinks specialists get paid too much money.

Iran's election in pictures - The Boston Globe

Wow. Go here.

Iran's Disputed Election - The Big Picture - Boston.com#photo34

The Senate draft of health insurance reform looks interesting

I excerpted how the Senate bill suggests funding additional coverage through Medicaid. The House financing plan for healthcare reform won't be "unveiled" until after july 4th.

Senate's Health-Care Draft Calls for Most to Buy Insurance, Nixes Obama's 'Public Option' - washingtonpost.com

One area of contention is the extent to which private employers must subsidize public coverage for their workers if the companies don't offer their own plan or if the premiums are unaffordable. The Congressional Budget Office has warned that if lawmakers don't find the right formula, employees may flee their company plans for federal coverage, sending government costs soaring.

The draft in the Senate committee spells out one possible solution: It would require employers to pay 50 percent of Medicaid costs for workers enrolled in the low-income program and 100 percent of the cost of health-insurance tax credits for eligible employees. Workers could forfeit employer coverage only if the cost exceeds 12.5 percent of their income.

Here'sthe NY Times reporting on the proposals -

Democrats Scramble to Cut Costs From Health Plan - NYTimes.com

 

 

An ancient lake and shorelines found on Mars

This is very cool. Hit the link to see a "reconstructed landscape" - what the lake may have looked like.

But were the Martians amphibious?

University of Colorado team finds definitive evidence for ancient lake on Mars

A University of Colorado at Boulder research team has discovered the first definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars, an indication of a deep, ancient lake there and a finding with implications for the discovery of past life on the Red Planet.

Estimated to be more than 3 billion years old, the lake appears to have covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada, said CU-Boulder Research Associate Gaetano Di Achille, who led the study. The shoreline evidence, found along a broad delta, included a series of alternating ridges and troughs thought to be surviving remnants of beach deposits.

"This is the first unambiguous evidence of shorelines on the surface of Mars," said Di Achille. "The identification of the shorelines and accompanying geological evidence allows us to calculate the size and volume of the lake, which appears to have formed about 3.4 billion years ago."

>>>>>>

"Finding shorelines is a Holy Grail of sorts to us," said Hynek.

Pro-life events in Wichita this weekend over George Tiller

While I haven't seen him in years, I do know one of the participants, Pat Mahoney, who is an Evangelical minister. This is off the Lifenews website.

Pro-Life Advocates to Hold Weekend Memorial Events in Wichita Over George Tiller
Wichita, KS (LifeNew.com) -- Several pro-life advocates are putting together a series of prayer and memorial events for slain late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller and his family over the weekend. The events will be held in Wichita, Kansas on Friday and Saturday, June 19-20, to pray for healing and an end to abortion-related violence. Operation Rescue and the Christian Defense Coalition, along with Living Word Outreach in Wichita, will co-sponsor the event, called “A Time for Healing… A Time for Life.” Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition will lead a Friday evening prayer vigil, a Saturday walk across Wichita down Kellogg Avenue to pray for peace and healing, and a memorial service at Tiller's former abortion center where hundreds of flowers will be placed to honor the unborn children who die there. Prayers for the Tiller family will be offered by members of the clergy. "We encourage the pro-life community, including the community's pastors, to join us in earnest prayers to the cessation of violence, both inside and outside the womb, and to memorialize those who have tragically lost their lives," said Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue. "This is a time to come together in unity to pray and reflect on the precious gift of life, and to thank God that pre-born babies are currently safe in this community. It's time for the healing process to begin."

Here's the Chinese version of a protest "tea party"

Check this out - furniture makers are mad -

China News: New Tax Plan Sparks China Protest | China Digital Times (CDT)

I love this: If you believe in fairness, then short people should get tax credits, and tall people pay higher taxes. It's only fair.

Ya gotta love it. Here's some serious research by two Harvard professors (so we know it's right) proving what I always knew - life is unfair if you're short and the tax code should equalize the unfairness.

Permission is given by the authors to re-print the entire article, but cutting and pasting it won't work neatly into my weblog, so here's the link and some excerpts. Short People Unite and spread the good news!

Do you really want to tax ability? | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

Should the income tax system include a tax credit for short taxpayers and a tax surcharge for tall ones? This column explains how the standard utilitarian framework for tax policy analysis says that individual attributes correlated with wages, such as height, should determine tax liabilities. Taller individuals should pay higher taxes. If this is objectionable, then something is wrong with the standard framework.

In a famous interchange between candidate Barack Obama and voter “Joe the Plumber,” the soon-to-be President said he wanted to raise taxes on the wealthy to “spread the wealth around.” Obama’s position may not have persuaded Joe, but it did hearken back to a long tradition in political philosophy and economics.

More than a century ago, Francis Y. Edgeworth (1897) pointed out that a utilitarian social planner with full information will be completely egalitarian. More specifically, the planner will equalise the marginal utility of all members of society; if everyone has the same separable preferences, equalising marginal utility requires equalising after-tax incomes as well. Those endowed with greater than average productivity are fully taxed on the excess, and those endowed with lower than average productivity are subsidised to bring them up to the average.

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Our research shows that, according to a conventional utilitarian calculus, the optimal height levy is sizeable. We calculate optimal taxes for adult white males in the US, whom we divide into three height groups – tall (above 72 inches), medium (between 70 and 72 inches), and short (below 70 inches). The optimal average tax on the tall is about 7.1% of the average tall income, while the average tax on the medium is about 3.8% of average medium income. These taxes pay for an average transfer to the short of more than 13% of average short income. Expressed in a more tangible way, the following table shows the optimal tax schedule by height group. A tall person making $50,000 should pay about $4,500 more in taxes than a short person making the same income.

Here's the table:

There you go. Harvard proves it. If you believe in fairness then I deserve a rebate. And Brigid, since she doesn't work, is entitled to one of those "refundable" tax credits the President likes to talk about - to the tune of at least $22,674.

It's only fair. Thanks to Donald Luskin for pointing me toward this research.

Is alcohol good for your health, or not?

The always excellent NY Times health and fitness section had a good piece a couple of days ago on recent research into the value of moderate drinking. Or rather, perhaps the problem is that it's not possible to do the kind of study that could lead to a final conclusion.

Alcohol’s Good for You? Some Scientists Doubt It - NYTimes.com

... Study after study suggests that alcohol in moderation may promote heart health and even ward off diabetes and dementia. The evidence is so plentiful that some experts consider moderate drinking — about one drink a day for women, about two for men — a central component of a healthy lifestyle.

But what if it’s all a big mistake?

For some scientists, the question will not go away. No study, these critics say, has ever proved a causal relationship between moderate drinking and lower risk of death — only that the two often go together. It may be that moderate drinking is just something healthy people tend to do, not something that makes people healthy.

“The moderate drinkers tend to do everything right — they exercise, they don’t smoke, they eat right and they drink moderately,” said Kaye Middleton Fillmore, a retired sociologist from the University of California, San Francisco, who has criticized the research. “It’s very hard to disentangle all of that, and that’s a real problem.”

Some researchers say they are haunted by the mistakes made in studies about hormone replacement therapy, which was widely prescribed for years on the basis of observational studies similar to the kind done on alcohol. Questions have also been raised about the financial relationships that have sprung up between the alcoholic beverage industry and many academic centers, which have accepted industry money to pay for research, train students and promote their findings.

“The bottom line is there has not been a single study done on moderate alcohol consumption and mortality outcomes that is a ‘gold standard’ kind of study — the kind of randomized controlled clinical trial that we would be required to have in order to approve a new pharmaceutical agent in this country,” said Dr. Tim Naimi, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Quick trip up Turkey Mountain this morning

 My friend Maria and I had a quick walk up Turkey Mountain, which I've posted about before a few times, including here Up Turkey Mountain yesterday, and which is the highest point in the county.

The round trip took us 54 minutes, including five minutes at the top, where we each snapped one picture of each other.

 

My plan is to try and do one fast morning walk like this every week during the summer, as a substitute for a gym session. Definitely beats the ellyptical machine or stationary bike. I did Turkey Mountain two weeks ago, but then got rained out last week.