Society Doesn’t Need Newspapers

What we need is journalism.

That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.

Read the whole thing. Well worth your time. I, for one, wonder if my daughter will even remember newspapers by the time she’s a grandma.

Update:

Count me in with those who won’t miss them much.

Further Updates:

I’ll start collecting a few reasons why newspapers are dying in addition to the great ones detailed in the above link. Like this.

Oh, Wow

Like, duuuuude. Totally.

Because it’s Friday

Just keep scrolling and clicking.

A Life Well-Lived

Charles Murray’s 2009 Irving Kristol Lecture explains exactly why we should not let America follow the European model.

First, the problem with the European model, namely: It drains too much of the life from life. And that statement applies as much to the lives of janitors–even more to the lives of janitors–as it does to the lives of CEOs.

I start from this premise: A human life can have transcendent meaning, with transcendence defined either by one of the world’s great religions or one of the world’s great secular philosophies. If transcendence is too big a word, let me put it another way: I suspect that almost all of you agree that the phrase “a life well-lived” has meaning. That’s the phrase I’ll use from now on.

And since happiness is a word that gets thrown around too casually, the phrase I’ll use from now on is “deep satisfactions.” I’m talking about the kinds of things that we look back upon when we reach old age and let us decide that we can be proud of who we have been and what we have done. Or not.

To become a source of deep satisfaction, a human activity has to meet some stringent requirements. It has to have been important (we don’t get deep satisfaction from trivial things). You have to have put a lot of effort into it (hence the cliché “nothing worth having comes easily”). And you have to have been responsible for the consequences.

There aren’t many activities in life that can satisfy those three requirements. Having been a good parent. That qualifies. A good marriage. That qualifies. Having been a good neighbor and good friend to those whose lives intersected with yours. That qualifies. And having been really good at something–good at something that drew the most from your abilities. That qualifies. Let me put it formally: If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life, the answer is that there are just four: family, community, vocation, and faith. Two clarifications: “Community” can embrace people who are scattered geographically. “Vocation” can include avocations or causes.

It is not necessary for any individual to make use of all four institutions, nor do I array them in a hierarchy. I merely assert that these four are all there are. The stuff of life–the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one’s personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships–coping with life as it exists around us in all its richness–occurs within those four institutions.

Seen in this light, the goal of social policy is to ensure that those institutions are robust and vital. And that’s what’s wrong with the European model. It doesn’t do that. It enfeebles every single one of them.

It’s not all bad news.

And yet there is reason for strategic optimism, and that leads to the second point I want to make tonight: Critics of the European model are about to get a lot of new firepower. Not only is the European model inimical to human flourishing, twenty-first-century science is going to explain why. We who think that the Founders were right about the relationship of government to human happiness will have an opening over the course of the next few decades to make our case.

The reason is a tidal change in our scientific understanding of what makes human beings tick. It will spill over into every crevice of political and cultural life. Harvard’s Edward O. Wilson anticipated what is to come in a book entitled Consilience. As the twenty-first century progresses, he argued, the social sciences are increasingly going to be shaped by the findings of biology; specifically, the findings of the neuroscientists and the geneticists.

Read the whole thing.

You Don’t Have to Go to Med School

to know that Bill Clinton flunked High School Biology.

Maybe Gupta slept through a class or two himself.

How to Own a Gun and Stay Out of Jail

Sadly, in California we have years ago reached the point where such a book is needed. John Machtinger recognized the need and published his first edition in 1995. Things haven’t gotten better since.

I promised Machtinger a review quite a while back, and apologize it’s taken this long. I read the book and then pondered (while being rather occupied filming robots in space) how to approach the review. In a way the delay answered my question.

If you just sat down and read the book you’d have a good overview of how to avoid, uh, “Imperial entanglements” and a shocking glimpse at how few basic liberties are still available in California. But that may not be the book’s strongest suit. Absorbing it that way makes for a fairly dry read, and you’re likely to be distracted by the “mission adequate” art work. (There was clearly no budget for an illustrator. Fair enough: you aren’t buying this for the pictures.)

During this long delay I’ve had questions from several people about California gun law. One wanted to know about bringing in a handgun from out of state, for example. It took me just minutes to find the answers in Machtinger’s book.

That’s where the book really shines: You have a question, you look up the answer, and in no time at all you have a helpful, if not comforting, dose of advice.

I’m not a lawyer, but Machtinger is. So if you live in California and own a gun, you have my pity. And you should probably have a copy of this on the shelf to keep you, as the title says, out of jail. Especially if you ever, say, want to actually transport your gun in a car. You wouldn’t believe the stupid hoops you’ll have to jump through.

NB: He provides updates on his web site so if you get the 2008 edition you can go here for what Machtinger calls the “mercifully short” 2009 update.

The Power of Editing

I know of movies (I won’t say exactly which) where performances have been created in editing. This, however, takes that idea to an extreme.

Update:

The power of cut and paste can lead to errors like the one I made, accidentally putting the WALL-E clip here again. Fixed.

Another Update:

This wasn’t the first time he did this.

WALL-E Meets the Watchmen

Welcome Back!

Heh.

Also, go here and keep hitting refresh.

The Ruins of Detroit

Some stunning photography of Detroit in shambles.

Someone just has to use these as movie locations.

How Long Does It Take

to prove that red light cameras are a revenue-producing scam?

One second.

On January 1, a new Georgia law kicked in forcing a one-second increase in the duration of the yellow warning light at intersections with red light cameras. The result has been devastating for red light camera makers as violations — and revenue — immediately plunged for the months of January, February and March. Last week, the city of Norcross dumped photo enforcement.

And no, people don’t seem to start shaving the red more once they adjust to the new yellow.

Six weeks later, on March 26, 2001, VDOT decided to increase the yellow timing from 4.0 back to 5.5 seconds. The impact was immediate and dramatic. Average monthly violations dropped from 250 to between 20 and 30 per month — a 90 percent decrease. The violation rate remained low until the Virginia legislature shut down red light camera programs statewide in 2005. The number of accidents dropped to a rate of 290, reflecting a 20 percent decrease. Although VDOT’s 2007 report did find that Fairfax County red light camera intersections experienced a 23 percent increase in accidents overall, this figure would have appeared far worse had the Fair Ridge yellow signal not been increased.

I may have to stopwatch the local red lights. Our fair little city is in love with those cameras.

This Is How America Will Die

Besides the possibly mortal wounds being inflicted by The One and his minions, these self-inflicted cuts are the same kind that killed England.

People in America are free to believe whatever they wish. And a lot of them believe some pretty wild stuff. Religion is a matter of personal conscience, individual behavior, and family tradition. But no religious law can be allowed to take root in America, something the mostly quite religious Founding Fathers understood all too well.

Sharia Law has no place in America nor in any modern, free society. It is a small-minded, violent relic of barbarity. When your tax dollars go to support it, or even when you let your neighbors practice it, your country is dying.

Dear Barry

Barry on selecting just the right gift.

With my busy schedule of entertaining foreign dignitaries and celebrities at the White House, I know how important a well chosen gift can be. Two weeks ago, for example, we received a visit from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The Prime Minister brought a few housewarming gag gifts including a pen set made from a boat, a framed paper thing from another boat, and some old books by Churchill (not Ward, but that English guy). Obviously we wanted to return the nice gesture so I sent my interns out on a scavenger hunt for an appropriate present. They couldn’t find anything in the West Wing, but luckily Costco was open and was running a 25-for-the-price-of-10 clearance sale in the DVD department. You should have seen Mr. Brown light up when he opened that sack of classic titles like “Wizard of Oz” and “Baby Geniuses 2.” I like to think those DVDs helped cement our Anglo-American “special relationship” even if, as he mentioned to me, they probably wouldn’t work in his European player. Thinking quickly, I told the PM I would send him an American DVD player as soon as I earned enough cash-back points on my Costco card. Crisis averted, but that episode taught me a valuable lesson: always keep a stock of gifts handy in case some foreign poobah or supreme religious figure or failing industry leader pops by for coffee. As a result, I make sure the Oval Office closet is filled with pre-wrapped Sham-Wows and Snuggle blankets and trillion dollar bailout packages for whatever gift emergency might arise.

Behind Closed Doors

In Washington, D.C.

MSM Quiz

Q: Whe is it OK to ignore Warren Buffett?

A: When he criticizes the Messiah.

I wish I had $10K or so to blow…

…on an old book.

Is This Hope, or Change?

I can never keep those two straight. Must be Hope, because there’s nothing new about the press ignoring a scandal as long as the scandal is on the Left.

This is the John Edwards story on steroids — a virtual conspiracy of silence with little if any journalistic justification. And here the issue is really important — the appointment of a key intelligence official who is alleged to harbor serious conflicts of interest and extreme views.

Update:

Freeman pulls his appointment. Maybe it was Hope after all.

At least one Marine likes it

I blogged previously about Brothers at War. Here’s a review which should carry some weight.

Want to Lose Weight?

A well-designed medical study to determine which kind of diet works best – high protien, low- fat, or whatever, has found that all that matters is (drum roll, please) reducing calories.

Down with DST

I’ve hated Daylight Savings Time since I was a kid. My argument then, still a solid one I think, is that just because you want to go places an hour earlier doesn’t mean you should lie about what time it is.

A new study indicates that the main argument government busybodies have given for DST, that it saves energy, gets it backwards.

I like this comment, too:

Imagine commencing a thousand-mile journey and at mile 700, the odometer suddenly reads “800”. Is that somehow supposed to psychologically make me feel like I’m closer to my destination? Am I a moron or just that bad at math and/or geography?

Like Miller, I want my hour back.

I recently wondered exactly why we observe Daylight Saving Time (DST). For some reason, I had harbored a vague notion that it had to do with farmers.

Well, it turns out that DST had nothing to do with farmers, who traditionally haven’t cared much for it. They care a lot less nowadays, but when the first DST law was making its way through Congress, farmers actually lobbied against it. Dairy farmers were especially upset because their cows refused to accept humanity’s tinkering with the hands of time. The obstinate cud-chewers wanted to be milked every twelve hours, and had absolutely no interest in resetting their biological clocks—even if the local creameries suddenly wanted their milk an hour earlier.

As Michael Downing points out in his new book, Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, urban businessmen were a major force behind the adoption of DST in the United States. They thought daylight would encourage workers to go shopping on their way home. They also tried to make a case for agriculture, though they didn’t bother to consult any actual farmers.

Is Health Care a Right or a Privilege?

Wrong question.

Think Progress is blasting Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN) for saying that health care is a privilege rather than a right. The privilege/right dichotomy is certainly inept politics, but its also inapt legally and constitutionally. The real distinction is between negative and positive rights.

…

As societal decision making norms, private property and freedom of contract do more than just promote economic growth. These economic liberties have almost always gone hand in hand with other personal liberties. Private property and freedom of contract, moreover, have been a major factor in destroying arbitrary class distinctions by enhancing personal and social mobility. When we infringe on private property and freedom of contract in the name of creating positive rights, we thus infringe on the very engine of democracy. As Russell Kirk observed, “freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all.”

Friday Film Festival

A very short one. Just one film: World Builder, byt the same guy who made 405.

It’s actually a pretty good tutorial into how computer graphics work, except that it’s not that quick or easy.

Design Your Own Album Cover

Here’s the game:

The title of this article, no matter what it is, is the name of your band.

Find the last quote on this page. Use either the last four or five words of that quote.

No matter what it is, the third image on this page is your cover photo.

Use your favorite photo editing software (Photoshop, Pixelmator, etc.) to combine them.

On my very first try I got this:

One of my coworkers says I’ve invented a new genre: Industrial Folk.

Update:

There may even be a free way to use Photoshop if you don’t have any such software installed.

How to Inflate a Tire

You never know when this might come in handy.

What a Trillion Dollars Looks Like

You could look at it this way or  this way.

Slander

The Messiah’s idea of cementing the “special relationship” is to give away movies. Talk about Amateur Hour. Then the idiot reporter (but I repeat myself) adds insult to injury:

It is not known which DVDs were included, but one is thought to be the Dreamworks film Toy Story.

Good for Italy

Italy has pulled out of Durban II, the U.N.’s Muslim-dominated, antisemitic, racist conference.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Thursday that Italy had withdrawn its delegation from the negotiations ahead of the so-called Durban II conference due to “aggressive and anti-Semitic statements” in the draft of the event’s final document.

Well, it was fun while it lasted

Seems that my coworkers and I have been replaced.

I’m thinking I need to write a real screenplay for this format…

This could only make schools better

Charles West has a plan.

“Our schools are orderly, sanitary places where students dwell in blissful ignorance of the chaos that awaits,” West said. “Should our facilities be repaired? No, they must be razed to the ground and rebuilt in the image of the Cyclopean dwellings of the Elder Gods, the very geometry of which will drive them to be possessed by visions of the realms beyond.“

Thinking Outside the Box

Some thinking from the Cato Institute on a market-based solution to healthcare costs.

So how does health-status insurance work? As Cochrane explains, “Market-based lifetime health insurance has two components: medical insurance and health-status insurance. Medical insurance covers your medical expenses in the current year, minus deductibles and copayments. Health-status insurance covers the risk that your medical premiums will rise.” Cochrane offers the example of a 25-year-old who will likely incur $2,000 in medical expenses in a year. His medical policy component would thus cost about $2,000 per year, plus administrative fees and profit. For purposes of illustration, Cochrane then assumes the 25-year-old has a 1 percent risk of developing a chronic medical condition that would increase his average medical expenses to $10,000 per year. In that case, he would be able to buy medical insurance for $10,000 per year—which is a big financial hit. That’s where health-status insurance comes in: It insures that you can be insured in the future.

Frankly, this is thinking inside the box, just inside the right box for once, not the box full of crap that doesn’t work.