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.

Shake Your Tail Feather

Especially if you have one.

The Virtual President

The Mocap POTUS.

One of the Bravest Men I Know

He lives, and works, near Berkeley.

This is his car.

And yes, he says his insurance is paid up.

Visual Metaphor for the Obama Voter

AKA “The Rude Awakening”.

The Periodic Table

of Awesomeness.

Arrogant and Callow

It takes quite a mixture of personality traits to think that the proper way to recognize that the White House belongs “to the people” is to throw parties while your policies send the stock market into the crapper.

Right now all I can hope for is that He leaves me with pocket change.

Brothers At War

Two observations:

1. It’s about time.
2. Thank you, Gary Senise.

We Are John Galt

I had a lot going on last week and wasn’t part of any Tea Parties. But I’d love to see one happen here in Pelosi’s back yard.

Update:

“Heck of a job, Barack!”

The Secret of Great Comedy

is timing.

Barack Has Met the Enemy

and they is us.

Attacking lobbyists is not the point of Obama’s latest ploy. Rather, painting anyone who opposes him as a “lobbyist” is the point. In attacking the “lobbyists” Obama is doing what he did on the issue of race during the campaign: Anyone who opposes me doesn’t just have a different opinion, they are evil and dangerous to the rest of you. This tactic simultaneously generates support among the majority and silences the minority.

Hey! That sounds a lot like blasphemy, doesn’t it? Just call me Evil and Dangerous!

I’m proud to be an “enemy” of Islam, and to be an “enemy” of His Exaltedness. I just wish I were one of those “top 5%” enemies.

Cornish to UN: I’m not dead yet

“In fact, I think I’d like to take a walk.”

I guess one nice thing about being 79

is that you get to state the blindingly obvious.