Our Leaders, Part II

Keith McAfee forwards me an email which he sent to the Republican National Committee:

To Whom It May Concern:


I am in receipt of your survey and contribution request. I’ve voted Republican in the last several elections and what have I received? A national debt that is approximately eight times the amount than when President Clinton was in office, a porous open southern border with pending amnesty legislation and a war in Iraq where thanks to our involvement, the country will explode in civil war if the U.S. leaves.

I now realize there is no organized political party that represents me or what I thought was America and I will no longer vote or waste my time on political discourse.

I'm in nearly total agreement with Keith.

What Our Leaders Want for Us

Martin Kelly today writes a powerful foursome of Foreign Criminals of the Day, here, here, etc. I can't add any commentary; I'll just let him do the talking. If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

Sadistic Seal Hunt

Very glad to see that Lawrence Auster has noted the "sadistic" Canadian seal hunt as we've done here. This is not a conservative or liberal issue, at least as those terms are used currently. It's about a mass slaughter of innocent animals undertaken solely for monetary gain, which ought to be opposed by anyone with a shred of humanity.

The IQ League

From the Times of London (via Logical Meme)

Overheard at Work

Girl One: "So, how was your date on Saturday?"

Girl Two: "Well, it ended early. He had a lisp."

The Earliest Known Date in History

Since the recent solar eclipse is in the news, now would be a good time to point out that the earliest known exact date in recorded history comes by way of an eclipse.

Herodotus reported that a battle between the Medes and the Lydians was interrupted by a total solar eclipse; the omen startled them and caused them to cease. Because the dates of solar eclipses can be calculated with great accuracy, we know that the Battle of Halys, as it is known, took place on May 28, 585 B.C. See the Wikipedia article here.

However, it seems that some modern scholars dispute the date, for example, Thomas Worthen. No doubt some of my learned friends in classics could fill in the current scholarship better than I am able.

The Japanese Stock Market

I was a bit disappointed in James Grant's latest Forbes column. Grant is very astute and always interesting, and here he tells us how Japan is rising again, economically and on the stock exchange. At the end of his column, though, he mentions two investments: the iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ) and iShares S&P/Topix 150 (ITF), both of which offer broad coverage of the Tokyo market.

It looks to me like ITF, over the past 8 months or so, is up around 50%, and EWJ around 40%. Furthermore, Grant informs us:

With the Nikkei 225 index quoted at 43 times trailing earnings, the Tokyo market is not precisely cheap on an earnings basis.

Personally, I doubt I'd buy anything at 43 times trailing earnings, unless those earnings were severely depressed for one reason or another.

So, my disappointment with Grant's column is this: couldn't you have told us a little bit sooner?

Ballet Mecanique

"George Antheil (1900-1959) was an American composer—born in Trenton, New Jersey—who began his professional career in Europe, where he was friends with, among many others, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, Eric Satie, and Igor Stravinsky. In the early '20s, he lived at the literal center of English-language culture in Europe: above Sylvia Beach's legendary Shakespeare & Co. bookstore on the Rue de l'Odéon, in Paris's Latin Quarter. (Beach was the original publisher of Joyce's controversial and groundbreaking Ulysses.)"

In the 1920s, Antheil wrote a piece called "Ballet Mecanique", which called for (in the version seen in the photo) 8 pianos, 6 xylophones, a player piano, assorted percussion, electric bells, and airplane propellers. There seem to be a number of versions, and at the above link you can see and read about the current version re-created by Paul Lehrman, music professor at Tufts University. Lehrman's version calls for 16 synchronized player pianos, among other things.

I attended a performance of Ballet Mecanique at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1995, and I recently listened to the piece again on CD. What's surprising is the freshness which still comes through. Dadaism clearly influenced Antheil, but the Ballet still holds up. It's full of sound and fury and seems to signify not a whole lot, but it manages to be enjoyable and exhilarating.

Mencken's Maryland Constitution and Eliot Spitzer

H. L. Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore, was a lifelong Marylander, and in 1937 wrote "A New Constitution for Maryland", which appeared in the Baltimore Evening Sun. Among many other sound propositions, there is Article VI, Sec. 32, which reads:

No person who has been a prosecuting officer in any court shall be eligible for any elective office under the State, or under any division or agency thereof, during the five years next following the termination of his service as a prosecuting officer.

Unfortunately, the Constitution was not adopted by Maryland or any other state, but New York ought to take a look at it, for it applies to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in spades. The man is running for governor, as a Democrat of course, and in the meantime making a career of prosecuting any individual or corporation he doesn't like. Many of these persons are likely guilty as charged, but it does seem as if Spitzer plays favorites, for example in his blanket assumption that fellow Democrat Warren Buffett did no wrong in last year's insurance scandals. Buffett is of course in a position to donate lots of money to Spitzer's campaign (I have no idea whther he's done so).

Spitzer is frankly abusing his power. If he were not running for governor, there would be no reason to assume that he just does not like corporations, or even putting the best face on it, that these corporations really are guilty.But the fact that he is vying for the governorship puts that into doubt. He looks like a corrupt politician who is abusing his office.

Update: It occurs to me that in the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I own shares in H&R Block, the tax preparers who are Mr. Spitzer's most recent target. The corporation's president has vowed to fight all charges and stoutly maintains his company's innocence. However, lawyers already smell blood, so whatever happens Spitzer has already damaged the corporation. It's stock remains very nearly unchanged, after a 5% or so drop on the announcement and quick recovery. The whole full disclosure issue is a joke in my case with my few hundred shares, as if anything I write could influence my investment return on the stock. But it's what prompted me to write about it. Spitzer makes me ill.

The Encyclopedia Britannica Begs to Differ

The Encyclopedia fights back against the recent report in Nature that Wikipedia was nearly as good as Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica, stung by a December finding in the science journal Nature that the venerable reference work was only slightly more accurate than the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, has released a paper denouncing the Nature study as shoddy, misleading, and wrong in details and conclusions. Britannica called on Nature to retract its article.

''Dozens of inaccuracies attributed to the Britannica were not inaccuracies at all," said the paper, which was posted on Britannica.com and e-mailed to 5,000 librarians and educators this week, ''and a number of the articles Nature examined were not even in the Encyclopedia. The study was so poorly carried out and its findings so error-laden that it was completely without merit."

It looks as if Nature has got egg on its face.

Does America Need Immigrants?

Martin points to this post at Cafe Hayek called "Does America Need Immigrants?". It is indeed, as Martin says, laugh-a-minute stuff. Several commenters at the blog do a good job of pointing out the fallacies in the piece, and I will merely add that it's a good example of "economism", that is, the extolling of economic factors above everything else, such as national cohesion. Not enough cheap labor around? Import workers from Mexico, no matter what they end up doing to the already deteriorating social fabric of our country. The tens of millions of illegal Mexicans are rapidly changing the social and ethnic characteristics of the U.S., undermining the high standard of living we've traditionally had, making it difficult for native-born low-skilled workers to get a job, and placing at increasing risk the ethnic solidarity with which virtually every nation maintains itself.

Sleep Deprivation: The Great American Myth

The truth about sleep deprivation, i.e. there's not a lot of it going on, is going mainstream. Daniel Kripke of the University of California confirms that people who sleep less are healthier:

People who get only 6 to 7 hours a night have a lower death rate than those who get 8 hours of sleep. —From a six-year study of more than a million adults

Many Americans are sleep-deprived zombies, and a quarter of us now use some form of sleeping pill or aid at night.

Wake up, says psychiatry professor Daniel Kripke of the University of California, San Diego. The pill-taking is real but the refrain that Americans are sleep deprived originates largely from people funded by the drug industry or with financial interests in sleep research clinics.

"They think that scaring people about sleep increases their income," Kripke told LiveScience.

Thanks to the marketing of less addictive drugs directly to consumers, sleeping pills have become a hot commodity, especially in the past five years. People worldwide spent $2 billion on the most popular sleeping pill, Ambien (zolpidem), in 2004, according to the BioMarket, a biotech research company.

I noted this last year here. But in that case, the case against "sleep-mongering" was made by Dr. John McDougall, a doctor who advocates a vegan diet and who has, on account of such radical common sense, isolated himself from the mainstream. Now the idea is getting some currency.

The key to getting better sleep is to get less of it. One is particularly struck here by the higher death rates associated with the use of sleeping pills:

A six-year study Kripke headed up of more than a million adults ages 30 to 102 showed that people who get only 6 to 7 hours a night have a lower death rate than those who get 8 hours of sleep. The risk from taking sleeping pills 30 times or more a month was not much less than the risk of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, he says.

Those who took sleeping pills nightly had a greater risk of death than those who took them occasionally, but the latter risk was still 10 to 15 percent higher than it was among people who never took sleeping pills. Sleeping pills appear unsafe in any amount, Kripke writes in his online book, "The Dark Side of Sleeping Pills."

"There is really no evidence that the average 8-hour sleeper functions better than the average 6- or 7-hour sleeper," Kripke says, on the basis of his ongoing psychiatric practice with patients along with research, including the large study of a million adults (called the Cancer Prevention Study II).

And he suspects that people who sleep less than average make more money and are more successful.

The Cancer Prevention Study II even showed that people with serious insomnia or who only get 3.5 hours of sleep per night, live longer than people who get more than 7.5 hours.

One caveat: the death rates from extended sleeping pill use could well be caused by accidents, whether vehicle accidents or in the home. Elderly people, who are heavy users of sleeping pills, may be more likely to fall and break a hip, an accident that often leads to debilitation and death.

Regarding the notion that people who sleep less earn more and are more successful, well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

Light Posting

If anyone has wondered why posting has been so light and where I've been the past day or two, the answer is that Mangan Capital Management, LLC, is in process. I've sent an application for registration as a Limited Liability Company to the great State of California, and I'm about to file forms with the NASD (that's National Association of Securities Dealers,which handles uniform registration for all fifty states) to register the firm as an Investment Advisor. (Or Adviser. The orthography of this word is in a confused state. I see both used indiscriminately.)

Such hubris vaults me to the front rank of the hubristic. I've never done anything like this before in my life, and now my advertising it on my blog either makes failure not an option or a grants me a very public venue for falling flat on my face. But it's exciting and sometimes aggravating, what with dealing with a fair amount of red tape. However I must admit that said red tape has so far surprised me with it's relative paucity. Though I haven't been approved for a thing yet, I'll go out on a limb and say that the bureaucracy seems to be fair and relatively accessible. It must be easier to start a business in the U.S. than anywhere else.

Naturally this all takes up a great deal of time, and blogging is the one thing that can be most easily cut. One of Brian Tracy's obiter dicta is, "Refuse to do anything that does not pay your desired hourly rate." You can supply the rest with regard to blogging and wages.

Where was I? What I hope to do is manage individual accounts, but getting clients will be the hard part, and I don't have a single one yet. (The SEC would probably want me to tell you that that does not constitute an offer to manage anyone's money. I can't legally do that yet.) Financial planning at the retail level interests me somewhat less, but I'm more than willing to do it to get a start.

What I would really like to do is be another Wilbur Ross or Lakshmi Mittal, and I'll be sure to let you know when that happens.

Bush Urges 'Civil Debate' on Immigration

President Bush urges 'civil debate' on immigration. Ok, you first, Mr. President. Aren't you the first one out of the gate to play the race card on this issue? Anyone who doesn't see it your way you deem a racist.

Anticipating turbulent debate over immigration,
President Bush urged Congress on Thursday to grapple with the emotional issue in a way that avoids pitting groups against each other.

I think I know which groups you have in mind, Mr. President. Would that be, like, Americans vs. non-Americans? That's how I see it.

Looked at in business terms, the U.S. has, or had anyway, one of the best brand names there is, one that guaranteed its shareholders - that's us, the citizenry - a high standard of living, relatively free from violence and internecine strife. All that is being ruined by the massive influx of ... well, shall I say it?... ignorant, low IQ immigrants. Anyone who thinks that's good for "competitiveness" ought to have his head examined.

The Senate is to take up immigration next week — and the president and the leader of his party are starting out with different ideas about the best way to address the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country.

Bush wants Congress to create a program to allow foreigners to gain legal status in the United States for a set amount of time to do specific jobs. When the time is up, they would be required to return home without an automatic path to citizenship.

Bush said Thursday that his message is: "If you are doing a job that Americans won't do, you're welcome here for a period of time to do that job."

Oh, for gosh sake, what a piece of economic ignorance heaped all into one with an insult to the American people. Personally, I'd be happy to pick grapes or clean hotel rooms for $50 an hour. Naturally no one wants to pay me or anyone else that amount, so they circumvent the law with the full approval of the President of the United States, by hiring illegal aliens.

Now, get this:

he public appears to be more on the side of tougher border control. Three-quarters of respondents to a Time magazine poll in January said the United States is not doing enough to keep illegal immigrants from entering the country. Roughly the same amount said they favor a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, but 46 percent said those workers should have to return first to their native countries and apply. About 50 percent favored deporting all illegal immigrants.

A position on immigration, viz. deportation,that as little as a year ago was deemed radical and impossible is now held by at least half the American people.

How about that, Mr. President?

A Classical Tour, Continued

Tim Mangan is blogging away at A Classical Tour, with entries on limousines (or the lack of them), an attempt to see Leibniz's grave, and the Pacific Symphony's electric guitar player.

Canada defends seal cull while world calls for a trade boycott

From The Independent comes news that protests against the seal "cull" (read "mass slaughter", or in my view, "mass murder") will be the largest in a long time. The fact that Paul McCartney and wife Heather and daughter Stella will all be involved will likely focus lots of attention on this. The "cull" is taking place this week. I reprint the article in full, as sent to me by my sister Su Lin Mangan, because The Independent has already got all but the first paragraph in an annoying archive that you must register for.

"Hunters are preparing to kill more than 300,000 baby seals this week despite growing international protests against the world's largest massacre of marine mammals and a new threat to the animals from global warming.

Canada's bloody annual slaughter - the most controversial for decades - takes place as calls mount for a boycott of the country's products. But the long-term future of the cull and the seals themselves looks increasingly likely to be dictated by climate change.

Hunters and protesters are heading for the Gulf of St Lawrence and the north-east coast of Newfoundland, waiting for the Canadian government to give the go-ahead for the cul. It could start as early as tomorrow.

Ministers have already authorised the slaughter of 325,000 baby harp seals, the second highest number ever. It will be the third successive year in which more than 300,000 of the cubs have been clubbed and shot; by the end of the cull, the death toll since 2004 will top a million.

But the cull faces the most determined opposition for decades. Attempts to launch a global boycott against Canadian exports start in Britain this week. Major supermarkets will tomorrow receive letters urging them to stop stocking Canadian produce, and vigils will start outside travel agencies in 20 cities, trying to persuade Britons not to holiday in the country.

The supermarket campaign is being led by Lady (Sally) Stratford, widow of the former Labour minister Tony Banks, who was an ardent opponent of the cull. The former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe has also written to retailers to urge a boycott, and 188 MPs have signed an early day motion to support it.

The campaign has been boosted by the decision of Sir Paul McCartney and his wife, Heather, to travel to the floes this month to call for the cull to be called off. His daughter, the designer Stella McCartney, will give some of the proceeds from sales of a special T-shirt to the campaign.

The boycott began last year in the United States, supported by more than 400 restaurants, supermarkets and seafood wholesalers. This year it is expected to spread to France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Mexico, Japan and the Netherlands.

The protesters are hoping to repeat a boycott of the early 1980s, which pushed Canada into banning the killing of the youngest pups, called whitecoats. But the hunters now evade the ban by waiting a few days until the seals begin to moult and their coats turn grey.

Canada is vulnerable to a boycott. It exports fish and seafood worth £1.6bn to the United States every year, while its fish exports to Britain are worth £56m, far outweighing the £9m value of seal skins and other hunt booty.

The Humane Society of the United States, the country's leading animal protection charity, claims that the value of Canadian snow crab exports have dropped by £85m since the boycott began last year.

Many scientists, though, claim the real danger to the seals comes from climate change. Water temperatures off Newfoundland are 4.5C warmer than this time last year and the ice is already beginning to melt. Dr Kit Kovacs, who is to take over as chair of the main international scientific group monitoring seals in June, said: "Harp seals are a numerous Arctic species. But there is concern because of climate change and things don't look good in the long term."

A Classical Tour

The Orange County Register has given (or maybe forced upon) my brother Tim Mangan a blog, A Classical Tour, with which Tim chronicles the European tour of Orange County's Pacific Symphony Orchestra. (Free registration required, but you won't regret it. One need only register once.) Tim even took the photos. An excerpt:

Munich streets are dotted with street musicians. One of the bands I heard, with clarinet, violin, double bass, a guitar strummed with a credit card and bongos, fairly cooked. At lunch, I found myself in a large beer hall, complete with oom-pah-pah band. It struck me that in America, in a similar situation, we'd be forced to listen to blaring pop music of some sort.

Sure, the marches the beer band played were quaint and trivial, but also rather pleasant and certainly not ear-shattering. People could talk.

Speaking of beer, I came across a group of young men getting on the subway on Saturday night. They appeared to be the worse (or better) for drink.

They were singing "Beer Barrell Polka." No kidding.

Religion of Peace Tries Man for Capital Crime

The crime? Converting to Christianity. The place: Afghanistan, America's showplace for Muslim democracy.

The man on trial was arrested two weeks ago when his family reported him to the police after his conversion, Agence France- Presse cited Afghan Supreme Court Judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada as saying March 19. Afghanistan's Sharia law provides for capital punishment for any Muslim who converts to another religion and refuses to revert to Islam, AFP cited the judge as saying.

The lesson to be drawn here, one of them anyway, is that democracy without a framework of basic rights means little. In this case, the majority in Afghanistan would be happy to see this man executed.

From the Chicago Tribune we learn more:

Abdul Rahman told his family he was a Christian. He told the neighbors, bringing shame upon his home. But then he told the police, and he could no longer be ignored.

Now, in a major test of Afghanistan's fledgling court system, Rahman, 42, faces the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity. Prosecutors say he should die. So do his family, his jailers, even the judge. Rahman has no lawyer. Jail officials refused to let anyone see Rahman on Monday, despite permission granted by the country's justice minister.

"We will cut him into little pieces," said Hosnia Wafayosofi, who works at the jail, as she made a cutting motion with her hands. "There's no need to see him."[...]

Many Islamic scholars believe that Muslims who convert from Islam should be killed, but liberal and moderate scholars disagree. One Afghan liberal scholar, Ali Mohaqeq Nasab, spent almost three months in jail last fall after publishing a magazine challenging many traditional views on Islamic law, including the belief that Muslims who convert to other religions deserve to die.

Proving also the the Religion of Peace is the Religion with the World's Biggest Chip on Its Shoulder. Analyzing the psychology of death to apostates from Islam leads one to wonder at the religion's insecurity and self-doubt. If Islam is the Truth, shouldn't it be obvious to everyone, with no need to resort to actions like this?

Housing Bubble Deflates

San Francisco Bay Area housing market cools. Yup, it's finally happening:

Bay Area home sales tumbled in February for the 11th month in a row and prices rose at their slowest clip in two years as the region's real estate market showed further signs of easing after several years of feverish activity.[...]

Against that backdrop, the median price for a single-family home hit $637,000 last month, 12 percent above the year-ago price but well below November's peak of $656,000. The price for a condo was $489,000, up nearly 15 percent from last year but just off the August record of $493,000. A total of 6,206 houses and condos changed hands, down nearly 17 percent compared with February 2005.

Last month's sales activity was the lowest in five years, and annual appreciation has not dipped that low since January 2004.

Marin County had the highest median sale price for a single-family home at $943,000. Solano, at $449,500, had the lowest.

Why anyone would pay those prices is beyond me, though I've been wrong before. California real estate has always been expensive, but it's gotten ridiculous, thanks to massive immigration, government regulation, and low interest rates.

Meanwhile, in Houston, Texas, $152,000 gets you "The Stratford", a brand new house with 3,007 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, and a two-car garage.

IQ and the African Economy

Steve Sailer, writing at VDare, tackles the dreaded (to some) topic of why Africa is so poor. The answers he comes up with make eminent sense, and one can hardly understand statements like that attributed to Tim Harford that "Cameroonians are no smarter or dumber than the rest of us".

Yes, it's a touchy topic, and those who can't face the fact that not all of God's children were created equal normally resort to denunciation of those who point it out.

As anecdotal evidence for Steve's thesis, I'll just point out that while living in Sierra Leone for nearly two years,I encountered lots of people who were playing with much less than a full deck. Leaving aside the genetics, it's readily discerned that the environment played a huge role. Just about everyone is ill in some form or another just about all the time, and the reader will know how being ill affects mental wattage. A partial list of diseases that I personally dealt with there (I ran a hospital laboratory) would include: schistosomiasis; hookworm disease, which is the leading cause of iron deficiency anemia there; various other helminthic intestinal parasites; onchocerciasis, which causes "river blindness", the leading form of loss of sight in Africa; amoebic dysentery; malaria; tuberculosis; lymphatic filariasis, which can lead to elephantiasis; not to mention the ubiquitous skin and wound infections, diarrhea, etc., that poeple deal with daily.

On health grounds alone, IQ must be drastically affected, and with it the African economy.

I had lots of friends in Sierra Leone, and naturally I don't go around thinking of them as dumb as rocks. There were Africans in competent positions, for example as the lead nurse at the hospital. But facing the facts, most of them weren't so bright, and it's not a lack of education that makes them appear so.

Strangely enough, the Fula people, a loose tribe which is spread all over West Africa, seemed to me way more intelligent than most of the locals. Traditionally a herding people, and all of them Muslim, they now often perform the role of shopkeepers, traders, businessmen. The head of hospital maintenance and physical plant there where I worked, a man who ran a crew of several dozen men, was a Fula who went by the name of Suleiman Bah.

A Visit to Munich

Tim Mangan, who happens to be my brother, is the classical music critic for the Orange County (California) Register. He's currently on assignment in Europe while covering the Pacific Symphony Orchestra's tour through Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. He wrote to me about his experiences so far (he's been there only a day or so). Here it is:

I'm safely in Munich, and when I'm not struggling with my laptop, I've been wandering around the city on my own.

Last night, Saturday, I walked around in my new Extreme Squall Lands' End coat and am glad to say it is just the thing for this weather. After I found an ATM and got some Euros, I discovered a little dive attached to the Gasteig am Philharmonie, a self serve place where the short order cooks make what you want right then. I ordered pasta e fagioli (that's what I said, that was what was on the menu) and the cook immediately started talking to me in English. Anyway, that big bowl of pasta and a nice draft beer was just right. I sat with some Germans at a communal table, and they
did the kind thing and completely ignored me. It was great, except my coat still smells of garlic.

After dinner, I went into the Philharmonie, which has several performing halls. Tons of performances going on all the time. Sunday featured, among other things, the Munchen Philharmoniker performing Carmina Burana at 11 a.m. and at 8 p.m. (still to come), a Belgian Orchestra from Liege with guest soloist Pinchas Zukerman playing the Beethoven concerto. I just hope he's not staying in this hotel, which is right next door. [Tim's interview with Zukerman nearly got the latter fired due to his outspoken comments.]

Out again today (Sunday, sunny) and I just set off and got kind of lost. With the help of some friendly natives I ended up at a beer garden for lunch, attached to a brewery I think. Several waitresses helped me with my order since their English was bad and my German worse. I ordered a beer mit lunch and it was huge, but that was the smallest they had. A oom-pah-pah band played while I ate. Food is fairly dear here, so I'll have to be careful.

Then I walked up to the center of the city, where museums and old buildings and churches are crammed together with the new city. Hardly knew what I was seeing most of the time, but I like it that way rather than a more formal tour. It's cold but clear, so lots of people were out. I saw the old city hall and went into the old royal residence, where kings from c. 1806 onward lived. I visited a wonderful old church, St. Nepomuk, built by the Brothers Asam in 1746, a dark, ornate, quiet place. Almost enough to make me a Catholic again.

The photo above shows St. Nepomuk.

He's Quitting

Angel Ruiz Pérez of the blog Compostela, is quitting. Not his blog, but a few other things.

I'm quitting politics. I'm even watching less news, so that I don't have to scream at Zapatero's image on television. [...]

I'm quitting soccer [...]

I'm quitting contemporary music. With Billie Holiday and the Bossa Nova, what good does British pop do me? (To say nothing about Spanish.)

I quit contemporary art [...]

And then my mother says, "And tobacco, you're not quitting tobacco?"
Well, yes, you will see, Mama , I'm quitting.[...]

Professor Rúiz Pérez displays great wisdom here. Politics, soccer, pop music, contemporary art: all are well worth giving up. But tobacco, one of the balms of existence, is only worth giving up when you're around your mother.

Immigrants and Jobs

Bryan Caplan elicited quite a few comments when he said:

As a professor, I work in one of the few labor markets that is almost totally open to foreign competition. How often do you think I've heard an American professor grumble that foreign Ph.D.s "Are taking our jobs!"? Try never.

As was pointed out to him, people with tenured positions are unlikely to complain about competition.

Hell is Other People... with Noise

Dr. Michael Gilleland writes yet another polished gem of erudition, "Hellish Noise".

I can easily tell whether someone is my type of person by his (or her or transgendered) attitude towards noise. Schopenhauer's essay On Noise begins thus:

Kant wrote a treatise on The Vital Powers. I should prefer to write a dirge for them. The superabundant display of vitality, which takes the form of knocking, hammering, and tumbling things about, has proved a daily torment to me all my life long. There are people, it is true -- nay, a great many people -- who smile at such things, because they are not sensitive to noise; but they are just the very people who are not sensitive to argument, or thought, or poetry, or art, in a word, to any kind of intellectual influence. The reason of it is that the tissue of their brains is of a very rough and coarse quality. On the other hand, noise is a torture to intellectual people.

In his day, Schopenhauer could not imagine how much worse it has become. William Shockley, the inventor of the transistor, is largely to blame for this, so that we now have, as the title of a book once put it, "Music in Every Room". And in every antechamber of Hell.

Cadillac Eldorado Brougham

This one's from '58. Found here. (Hat tip: Tim Mangan.)

I'll be off...

...for a day or two. TTFN!

Redwood Gospel Mission

Last week I called the Redwood Gospel Mission to donate a piece of furniture, the second time I've given them something, and yesterday two guys showed up on my doorstep to collect it. They looked a bit like they needed the Mission's help, the older man perhaps in his mid 40's, arms covered with tattoos, short hair combed back, well-built and compact, eyeglasses. I've seen the type before, and they often have a propensity for drugs and violence as well as being convicted felons. (Not making any judgements here, just describing what I saw.) When I opened the door and asked if they were from the Mission, he replied, "Yes, sir." They collected the piece of furniture and were soon on their way, with a final salutation of "God bless you."

I love that. My propensity for charitable giving, at least when it comes to people (as opposed to animals) runs along the lines of groups like this. Religious charities are, to my knowledge, the only groups which have decent track records of turning people's lives around. And these days they have the double virtue, at any rate it's a virtue to me, of being politically incorrect, founded as they are on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his command to love one's neighbor. My mother's choral group gives an annual Christmas concert at a large Salvation Army residential group home around here, populated by some fairly desparate men sent there by courts for drug and alcohol rehab; the residents are wildly appreciative of the chorus. The men and women who have had to resort to charities like that have my total sympathy, because I truly think that but for the grace of God there go I.

The New Norway

Via The Devil's Kitchen, comes this story from Aftenposten. An immigrant from Iraq jailed for beating his daughter:

A court in Kristiansand, southern Norway, has sentenced a man to 120 days in jail for beating his teenage daughter with straps and a metal rod. The beatings were sparked by her admission that she no longer was a virgin.

The 49-year-old man, who emigrated to Norway from Iraq, claimed he'd done nothing wrong. He told the court that he was "much kinder" than many other fathers from his culture would have been.

He claimed most other men would have killed the girl, instead of "just beating her."

He also complained that his daughter had put his family in a difficult situation by reporting the beatings to police. Kristiansand newspaper Fædrelandsvennen reported that he now fears he'll be deported.

Second conviction
The court decision marks the second time he's been convicted of assaulting his daughter. He was sentenced to 45 days in prison last June after he beat his daughter for coming home late and having a boyfriend.

The beatings continued after the daughter admitted she'd had sexual relations with two boyfriends. The father also allegedly threatened to decapitate her.

He told the court that he regrets bringing his family to Norway, because he believes the country is much less conservative than he had thought it was.

Oh my God, this hardly needs commentary. But we will remark that 120 days in jail for a man who's beaten his daughter with a metal rod and threatened her with decapitation is a bit light. Now, 120 days in Abu Ghraib might do the trick. In the old days, he would have been sent to the galleys for life.

Shai Dardashti...

...is signing off in order to embark on what I imagine will be an exceedingly value-enhancing project.

Are Conservatives Idiots?

Well, there's at least one.

Taliban Official a Yale Student

See here. Particularly interesting are Yale's responses to protesting alumni, which is to accuse them of "terrorist tactics" for daring to persuade other alumni to wothhold donations.

In this case you have the decline of the West in a nutshell: a leading cultural institution cannot even stand up for the society it represents, but does the opposite by giving aid and comfort to its enemies. What is needed is a cultural revolution.

From the Mailbag: Weekend Notes, etc.

A reader writes:

I guess one advantageous thing about suppressed
outrage is that it makes for good blogging. You've hit
several home runs lately, including your "Random
Weekend Notes."

Thanks. Would that more people felt that way. Then my traffic would be up.

I think I gathered from one of your blog posts that
you spend some time looking into cheap real estate. I
spend a lot of time doing the same thing. I was
looking at northern Arkansas and southern Missouri
until the tornadoes hit. My ideal spot would be
someplace with low population density and few
neighbors, at least 10 acres with some kind of
dwelling and soil good for a vegetable garden.

I do occasionally look at cheap real estate. Realtor.com is a fantastic site to have a look around.
I used to have similar fantasies of rural solitude; in fact I lived it for a number of years. These days my fantasies run along different lines. For example, meeting attractive young female opera stars, and sleeping with them. I doubt I could do that from rural Arkansas, but you never know. But I do keep looking at cheap real estate. With the average house in Northern California costing more than the GDP of Botswana, I don't feel in a position to buy around here just now.

Thought you might enjoy this bit of doggerel from Ralph the Sacred River:

The whiskey glass
and the female ass
have brought many men
to a sorry pass.

To which I might reply:

The bottle of wine
And a lusty wife
Get many men
Through perilous life.

(Copyright 2006 Dennis Mangan)

Credible Incentives for Your Teenage Bum

Bryan Caplan discusses what to do with that layabout in your house. Quotable:

(1) Tell your slacker he's got a year to show progress in school or get serious about a job, or he'll be booted out. Add that if you do kick him out, he can't return until he's got results - not good intentions - at school or a job.

(2) Stop nagging him. Save yourself the grief. At most, visibly cross off days on the calendar.

(3) When the year's up, follow through with your threat. After a year of watching him eat your food and watch MTV, you will be ready to harden your heart and carry out your threat.

By the way, that "bum" is American English.

Has Buffett Lost the Midas Touch?

Bloomberg columnist Matthew Lynn thinks so.

Maybe it is his age, his probable retirement or the mediocre performance of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s shares the past two years. Whatever the cause, Warren Buffett's ruminations on the financial markets have taken on a grouchy, quarrelsome tone recently.

For years, investors have pored over the annual statements of the world's second-richest man. Buffett, 75, has been called the Oracle of Omaha, with every folksy, homespun piece of wisdom elevated to the status of unimpeachable truth.

Stop and look more closely, however, and it turns out you would have more chance of success by checking some tea leaves, or a pack of tarot cards, for financial predictions.

Personally, I have my doubts. Value investing of the sort that Buffett does can have long periods of underperformance. Berkshire Hathaway itself would appear to be undervalued, suggesting the possibility of a gigantic special dividend or even a breakup. And while Buffett's prediction of the fall of the dollar has not yet happened, there's still time and I think that he'll be proved right. Currency speculation isn't exactly value investing though, and it was probably a mistake for Buffett to place a bet on the dollars devaluation. Unless he makes a lot of money at it.

Is Self-Help a Scam?

Steve Pavlina, from whose writings I've received a good deal of benefit, attempts to separate the good from the bad in self-help. He names some names, too, which is altogether refreshing and honest. Anyone who has seen Tony Robbins, for example, could be forgiven for thinking that most self-help is a load of crap.

Pavlina himself, however, never attempts to hide the fact that self-help, or as he calls it, personal development, is a long and difficult process. He also cites Brian Tracy as an example of a self-help guru who has much to offer, and I concur with that. I've just started to read my third book by Tracy (Time Power) and expect that it will deliver as a big a jolt as the first two. (His Maximum Achievement hits like a drug. Though of course I have no direct experience of that metaphor.)

Pavlina's notion that self-help is difficult can be applied to Tracy's writings too. Tracy never says anything but that self-improvement is entirely up to the reader, and to the amount of work one is willing to apply. He offers no magic cures, but sends the reader off on his own journey after providing him with the necessary tools. It is helpful, though, to read Tracy with one's cynicism and/or skepticism (not that I have a lot of it) in the "off" mode. Same goes for viewing his website. Naturally, Tracy wants to present himself as a smart and successgul man, which he undoubtedly is, but the reader/viewer with even a little sophistication could be turned off by the perceprion of hype.

Google Censorship

Google has apparently censored The People's Cube, and maybe even at the behest of the Chinese government.

On Blogging

Without getting too blogcestuous (there's a link back here in the post), Glaivester makes some perspicacious remarks on the art and science of blogging. In particular, I liked his notion of drawing out the hidden and normally unspoken premises of an argument.

Turks Destroy Churches on Cyprus

Sandro Magister has the details:

Almost the entire artistic patrimony of the Orthodox Church in the territory occupied by the Turks – 520 buildings between churches, chapels, and monasteries – has been sacked, demolished, or disfigured. Only three churches and one monastery, the monastery of Saint Barnabas, which has been turned into a museum, are in a more or less dignified state.

“The ruin is before our eyes, but the European Union prefers to look the other way,” the Cypriot foreign minister, George Iacovou, bitterly tells us. “The only hope is that, in the course of negotiations for Turkey’s adhesion to the EU, someone might pull out the dossier of shame.”

The Byzantine Academy of Nicosia has gathered detailed and meticulous documentation on the occupied churches in Cyprus. And for two years an attempt has been made at religious dialogue, with the support of the Orthodox bishop Nikiforos of the historic monastery of Kykko: “We have met with the Muslim leaders headed by Lefka, and I told them that respect for our places of worship is the basis for cooperation.” Nikiforos is moderately optimistic: “I encountered a lot of understanding. Errors have been made on both sides; we must overcome the divisions of the past and walk together.”

But the last word belongs to the politicians. Huseyn Ozel, a government spokesman for the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, displays great cordiality with the foreign journalist. The destroyed and sacked churches? “There was a war, and bad things happened on both sides,” he explains.

Spanish Immigration

"In Spain, you never had to worry about armed people coming into your homes," Fernando, a Madrid office worker, told The Age. "Now things are different and it's because of the immigrants." (Link.)

"n 2000, there were 900,000 foreigners living in Spain. That figure has now risen to 3.7 million (8.5 per cent of the population), an increase of more than 400 per cent. By one estimate, Spain has received more immigrants in the past five years than France received in the previous four decades. Last year, Spain received 560,000 immigrants, one-third of Europe's total."

In other words, Spain has foisted a disaster upon itself.

I used to listen to a program on Spain's Radio Exterior de España called Mundo Solidario, in which the announcer would express his sympathy for every Third World problem and lament that not enough was being done about them. I wonder whether they will be changing their tune now that a great deal of those problems have arrived on their doorstep.

Dust Bowl

The housing bubble pops with the simultaneous arrival of a dust bowl, in Phoenix. There are allegedly 33,000 houses on the market in the Phoenix area, and half of them are vacant. Take it with a grain of salt: Mish's specialty is doom and gloom. Which doesn't mean he's wrong, of course.

For lots more bad news, go to The Housing Bubble Blog. It's chock-a-block with it.

Oppressive Polygamy

Lawrence Auster writes some of his usual incisive comments on Jonathan Turley's advocacy of polygamy. He notes that "liberalism recognizes the equality of individual rights and therefore would ban polygamy because it oppresses women."

I'm going to be a bit pedantic here, because this doesn't affect Auster's argument: polygamy oppresses men, not women. In a polygamous society, virtually every woman has the opportunity to get married, while lots of men are going to be shut out of marriage. If 25% of the men have four wives, the other 75% of men will be forced to remain bachelors. On the other hand, one rather doubts that most women, given the choice and the alternative of remaining unmarried for a lifetime, would dismiss the chance of being Bill Gates's tenth wife.

And as it's been noted, the huge supply of young, single men which polygamy creates do not bode well for a healthy society. For proof, just look at the Muslim world.

The Koran vs. German Constitution

"Bundesverband der Bürgerbewegungen, Federation of Citizens Movement, working for integration of immigrants, protection of the constitutional rights and a stop for the building of “parallel societies” in Germany, claims that the Koran is irreconcilable with the German constitution, and that the circulation of the book must be stopped."

That's from Poul Hojlund, Danish writer of the blog Pia Causa.

Schnitzer rise on bullish analyst report

Important stock news, for those of us who invest in America's Rust Belt, here.

MAR. 10 4:17 P.M. ET Shares of scrap metal processor Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. jumped Friday after an analyst initiated coverage of company and gave it his firm's highest rating.

In afternoon trading, shares rose $2.26, or 7.4 percent, to close at $32.64 on the Nasdaq. Over the past year, the stock has traded from $21 to $38.84 per share.

Wayne Atwell of Morgan Stanley rated the company "Overweight" and set a $53 price target, saying its shares appear undervalued.

Bastards, Part II

U.S. Hostage Tom Fox Killed in Iraq. Tom Fox was a Christian, however misguided, and an American. One of us. One wonders how long the West has to go before we understand the threat which the jihadists represent to us.

America's Largest Oak

It's in Mendocino County, just to the north of here. Story here.

Bastards

Excuse the language, but there's no other description for the people who did this:
"Pet raccoon seized, killed":

Sissy the raccoon lived a charmed life at Debra Greco-Machen's Healdsburg home, sleeping by day on a favorite chair and feasting by night on watermelon and granola bars.Three years of domestic bliss came to an end when animal control officers, acting on a tip from a neighbor, seized the 35-pound pet, saying it is against the law for people to keep wild animals.

Nine days later, despite assurances she would either be returned to the woods or kept as an educational exhibit, Greco-Machen said, Sissy was killed.

It was a crushing blow for the 50-year-old disabled woman, who said she bottle-fed the masked mammal when its mother died shortly after birth.

"They stood here in my own house and promised Sissy would not be put down," Greco-Machen said Thursday. "Then they murdered her."

Like I said, bastards. A poor disabled woman who has raised an animal from infancy has it siezed and, as she says, murdered. By whom? By the government. I'm afraid that if I were in her position I'd be quite tempted to... well never mind that.

She had been living in a cage in the backyard of Greco-Machen's home in "deplorable conditions," said Nancy Peterson, the animal control officer who investigated the case.

Sissy's cage was strewn with corn chips bags and her water was green with algae, Peterson said.

The animal was seriously obese, she said.

"If I had seen a dog in that condition, I would have impounded it," Peterson said.

Peterson and state Fish and Game wardens carted the raccoon off to Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue on Jan. 18, where volunteers checked her health and observed her to see if she was safe around people, Kramlich said.

Sissy far surpassed the average weight for a female raccoon, which is 12-18 pounds, Kramlich said.

She lunged and hissed at volunteers, ruling out the possibility she could be used in an educational role, Kramlich said.

Sissy was euthanized Jan.27, she said.

Imagine that, a raccoon gets the death sentence for obesity. If that rule were applied to the American people, poof!, there goes 65% of the population. Or did she get put to death for living in "deplorable conditions?

Nancy Peterson, as well as the rest of Sonoma County Animal Control, you make me sick. Something seriously needs to be done here. How about firing a few people and a lawsuit?

Honor and Age

When I was younger, I used to wonder why older people are to be respected, why we are supposed to automatically honor someone because of his age. It seemed to me, in my callow youth, that respect was something that was to be earned, so that this business of respecting someone just because he was old had something suspect about it. Now that I'm older myself, I've come to expect this respect as a matter of course. Is my current view merely a matter of justifying my own self-interest?

Perhaps. I do notice that younger people in general don't seem to have a lot of respect for the old, if by old we use, say, me, for an example. (I'm fifty.) Younger people's behavior, in my experience, carries not so much active disrespect as the deliberate ignoring of one's presence and a lack of deference to one's views. However, maybe my views are not worth deferring too and my presence is easily ignored, so I could be prejudiced here.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) had much to say on the topic of honor. In particular, he addressed the issue of the relation between age and honor. First of all, he said that honor was something essentially negative:

In a certain sense, honour has a negative character in contrast to fame which has a positive. For honour is not the opinion of particular qualities that belong to this subject alone, but only of those which, as a rule, are to be assumed as qualities in which he should not be wanting. Therefore honour asserts merely that this subject is not an exception, whereas fame asserts that he is. Thus fame must first be acquired; honour, on the other hand, has simply not to be lost.

Schopenhauer's division of concepts into positive and negative extended through his entire philosophy. For example, pain is positive, indicating the presence of a hurtful sensation whether mental or physical, while boredom is negative, indicating the absence of pleasurable stimuli. According to him, all of life veers between pain and boredom, and if life were something good in and of itself, boredom could not exist. Boredom is the sensation of the emptiness of life. But I digress.

Honor, as Schopenhauer says, has merely to be lost. That is, everyone has honor until they do something that makes them lose it. (Here Schopenhauer distinguishes between real honor and the honor of chivalry, the latter capable of being lost by the actions of others, and retribution being required for its restoration. I've written about that here.)
So, the fact that honor has only to be lost is the secret to the respect that is due the elderly.

The respect shown to old age appears to be due to the fact that the honour of young people is, of course, assumed but has not yet been put to the test; it therefore really exists on credit. But with older people it had to be shown in the course of their lives whether through their conduct they could maintain their honour. For neither in years themselves, which are also attained by animals and even greatly exceeded by some, nor even experience, as being merely a more detailed knowledge of the ways of the world, are a sufficient ground for the respect that the young are everywhere required to show to their elders. [No longer, Arthur.] Mere feebleness of old age would entitle a man to indulgence and considerastion rather than respect.

I can't think of any objections to this view. Certainly, older people can lose all entitlement to respect: think of an elderly convicted felon, for example. But older people who have managed to navigate the course of life without falling into dishonor would seem to have earned respect. Perhaps there is the solution: respect must be earned, but it is earned by a negative, the failure to lose one's honor.

The Common Merganser

In addition to the California Buckeye, the common merganser is another denizen of my neighborhood.

Play Promotes Sex Myths

A headline of Play dispels teen sex myths precedes a story about a play "seen by 2 million California students since 1989" which allegedly helps teens learn about "sex myths".

Oral sex. HIV. Intravenous drugs. An abstinence-minded teen facing peer pressure to have sex. As part of their health curriculum, 300 Windsor High School students watched a play this week blending these topics in a drama titled "Secrets" performed by peer educators from Kaiser Permanente's theater program.

What we have here, I'm afraid, is more propagandizing to kids.

And the propaganda doesn't even possess the virtue of being true.

Months after a drunken sorority party during a college recruitment trip, Eddie learns that the night of unprotected sex has infected him with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The vast majority of AIDS cases are the result of unprotected homosexual intercourse and/or intravenous drug use. The number of purely heterosexual cases, where no other risk factor has been found, is vanishingly small, so small to be nearly non-existent.

Today's Random Blog

Well, not entirely random, it's Animal Interests.

St. John of God

I missed this one, but yesterday was the feast day of St. John of God, (1495-1550), Portuguese-Spanish founder of The Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God, and patron saint of hospitals and booksellers. I worked with the Brothers at their hospital in Lunsar, Sierra Leone, which I wrote about last year at this time. And it was 19 years ago today that I left for my 18 months of work in West Africa.

Celebrating Diversity: Human Sacrifice in India

From The Guardian (via Logical Meme):

According to Sanal Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, human sacrifice affects most of northern India. 'Modern India is home to hundreds of millions who can't read or write, but who often seek refuge from life's realities through astrology or the magical arts of shamans. Unfortunately these people focus their horrific attention on society's weaker members, mainly women and children who are easier to handle and kidnap.'

Baseball to 'review' Bonds allegations

Here. The news that Barry Bonds, baseball star for the SF Giants (?), has used injectable steroids for years was splashed across the front page of my local paper yesterday.

Do people really care about this sort of thing?

Catholic "leaders" are outraged

"North Coast Catholic leaders are adding their voices to a growing chorus of opposition to a proposed immigration bill that they say would make it a crime for them to feed, house and assist illegal immigrants."

"Adding their voices" are they? "To a growing chorus of opposition"? Well, wake up and smell the coffee, "North Coast Catholic leaders": the time when you could freely get away with activity that would land others in jail, viz. aiding and abetting criminals, is over.

Monsignor John Brenkle of St. Helena Catholic Church blasted sweeping border enforcement legislation now before the Senate, calling it "outrageous" and a violation of Christian beliefs.

He said efforts in Napa County to provide camp housing for undocumented vineyard workers would be prohibited under the proposal.

"What kind of jeopardy does that put me in when someone comes to my front door and asks for assistance?" he asked. "Didn't we just have a national celebration for Rosa Parks. She broke the law by sitting in the front of the bus. There are some laws you need to resist. I believe this is one."

Right off the bat he's comparing himself to Rosa Parks.

The Rev. Angelito Peries of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Windsor said he applauds Mahony's statements.

Peries, whose parish serves a large immigrant population, said governments should have a right to control their borders, but they should do so humanely.

"I have read that entire bill. and I am not happy with it," he said. "If it passes, I would say that an inhumane law is not a law that should be respected."

Peries said the bill "criminalizes" people who are simply struggling for a better life.

Making armed robbery or aggravated assault a felony also only criminalizes people who are simply struggling for a better life.

In the 19th century, and even into the 20th, a constant theme in politics regarding the mass immigration of Irish, Italians, and Poles was that their Catholicism made them more loyal to Rome than to Washington. That theme was finally put to rest with JFK's election. The Catholic "leaders" of the U.S. seem intent to revive it. Whom are they loyal to? They openly declare their indifference to the transformation of the U.S. into an outpost of Mexico.

Matteo Thun

Matteo Thun is a Milanese designer who has lately appeared as a model for Canali, the Italian menswear group. (I can't find an image of Thun in Canali, but they've appeared in major print media, such as the WSJ.) Go check out his site (first link) to see some amazingly beautiful design in architecture, furnishings, graphics, and more.

The Robot Portfolio

John Dorfman, the Bloomberg stock market columnist and money manager, has for the past seven years composed a "Robot Portfolio" of which the most recent is here.

That darn Robot has done it again.

For the seventh-consecutive year, the Robot Portfolio has vanquished the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, outperforming me and most other money managers I know.

The Robot's return for 2005 was 29.2 percent, as against 4.9 percent for the index. Figures are total returns, including dividends.

What is this Robot Portfolio? It is a simple computer- driven model that selects deeply out-of-favor stocks.

The Robot starts with all U.S. stocks of more than $500 million in market value. That's about 2,100 stocks. Then it eliminates unprofitable companies and those with debt that exceeds equity. That leaves about 1,400 stocks.

From these, the Robot selects the 10 with the lowest price- to-earnings (or P/E) ratios (stock price divided by the past per-share earnings during the past four quarters).

By definition, low P/E stocks are unpopular stocks. Often, they turn out to be good investments. Stocks advance by exceeding expectations, and low expectations are easier to beat.

The Robot has racked up a 727 percent return in the past seven years, assuming replacement of the stocks at the beginning of each year. Over that span, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index has returned 13 percent.

Let's see: a 727% return over seven years makes a compound annual return of... what? The formula for compound annual return is: Total Return=(1+r)^t, where r is the annual rate of return and t is the number of years. We know that the total return is 727%, which is the same as a return of 8.27 times the original investment. (A return of 100% is the same as a doubling of the original amount, 200% is triple, so 727% is 8.27 times.) T is seven. If we solve for r, we find that it equals the seventh root of the total return minus one, which is .352297408, or a compound annual return of greater than 35%. (Did you know that Google doubles as a calculator? To see the results of (7th root of 8.27)-1, see here.)

That's a phenomenal rate of return by any standard: 35% for seven years, which is better than virtually any money manager on the planet. And it's simple and computer-driven, a "robot".

So, the question is, why is it so successful? Dorfman himself provides part of the answer when he says that the Robot Portfolio beat his own record. The Robot holds deeply out-of-favor stocks, so out of it that most people can't stomach holding them. They trade at P/Es that are so low that they look like trash. Yet, as Dorfman says, stocks advance by beating expectations, and the expectations for these stocks are already so low that any bit of good news, including the news that things are just not so bad as they seem, drives the price higher. Moreover, with the prices so low already, it's difficult for them to drop much further.

To give an example of just how out-of-favor some of these stocks are, the current list contains a number of residential homebuilders. Can you handle owning them? Their prices have dropped dramatically over the past 6 months or so and are now dirt cheap.

Gay Cowboy News

Over at Logical Meme ("featuring Dave"), the aforementioned Dave posts this link to a New York Times article about gays in Australia. Dave comments:

The accompanying picture says it all. Now, where in the world does the stereotype of the unusually hedonistic, narcissistic, sado-masochistic, risk-embracing, gay subculture come from?…

Which is right on target. What's even funnier is the way the Times has captioned the photo:

Australia's gays seem increasingly mainstream, even as the prime minister just looks the other way. Mardi Gras in Sydney was a big party.

Hilarious. Take a look at the photo: do people in the mainstream wear white cowboy hats, chaps, and go shirtless while dancing in a conga line? Only in the reality-based views of the Times.

Wal-Mart, Bloggers, and Me

Today's New York Times carries an article by Michael Barbaro entitled "Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign". I am one of those bloggers, though sadly and inexplicably, the New York Times chose not to interview me for the story. First, a highlight or two, along with comments:

Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters.

But the strategy raises questions about what bloggers, who pride themselves on independence, should disclose to readers. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say they do not compensate the bloggers.

But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for word, without revealing where it came from.

Of course, not like the New York Times, which posts Democratic Party talking points word-for-word. More seriously, I've never done that, nor would I, but personally I think the accusation is yet another navel-gazer from the high priests of journalism, who take themselves way too seriously and think that everyone else is supposed to care.

Wal-Mart, long criticized for low wages and its health benefits, began working with bloggers in late 2005 "as part of our overall effort to tell our story," said Mona Williams, a company spokeswoman.

"Long criticized" by liberals who use the NY Times as their mouthpiece. It's no wonder that Wal-Mart wants to use bloggers to "tell our story", because they can barely get a fair shake elsewhere, at least outside the business press.

The piece goes on to report more on the journalistic ins and outs, purported ethics violations, and the shocking news that some people actually like Wal-Mart.

So, I've received some of those missives from Mr. Manson (mentioned in the article), and have been happy to use some of the links he's sent to stories which cast Wal-Mart in a favorable light. I should note, also, that he's sent links to unfavorable stories too. It's all a perfectly reasonable and legitimate attempt on the part of Wal-Mart to counter the bias in the press and the anti-business climate in government.

So, why do I support Wal-Mart? Not mainly out of affection for the company itself. However, as the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart has become the target for every grandstanding politician and countless sandal-wearing leftists, and as an opponent of the latter, I favor the former.

Besides, Wal-Mart's success is due to the millions of people who shop and work there. If the company were really so bad, why do people flock there? Efforts by unions, politicians, and leftist activists to put a damper on Wal-Mart are profoundly anti-democratic and anti-choice.

Recently my local paper spalshed Exxon-Mobil's name across the front page, all but accusing them of price gouging. I would say the same about Exxon as about Wal-Mart: if they are so bad, why are so many people buying their products? My defense of Wal-Mart, Exxon, and other beleaguered corporations arises out of the desire to defend free market capitalism and to see demagogic politicians and leftists thwarted.

The Wisdom of Schubert

This is as fine a description of the music of Franz Schubert as I've seen:

It takes wisdom to perform Schubert, especially late Schubert. I mean the kind of wisdom that includes patience as part of its makeup, and a lack of ego and a stillness of being that trusts the music to do its thing. It's best, as a performer, just to get out of the way of Schubert, and to allow it to unwind grandly, a wide river of melody and harmony. It'll find its way to the coastline.

Schubert's music indeed can try the patience of our modern sensibility, but if we give in to our impatience, that is our loss. That "wide river of melody and harmony" can carry us to the coastline of our souls, if we let it.

Pierre-Joseph Redouté

A painting of a lily by Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840), stolen from BibliOdyssey. The complete collection of eight volumes can be found here.

We Are Not Worthy

We're feeling pretty speechless this morning before all of the excellent writimg which we're coming across, so we'll set out a few links for you.

Defeating Defeatism, a longish post by one Wolfgang Bruno on how to revive the West.

Martin Kelly on recanting neoconservatism. Since we know that the world is aching to hear our views on the Iraq War, we'll have to write about it, especially as we're not in complete agreement with Martin's view. Close, though.

Soused Africa (via Steve Sailer) is a ripping good account of the author's adventures in drinking in Malawi. We've have had some grand African drinking experiences ourselves (hinted at here) which we'll also have to write about. (We're starting to sound like Glaivester, writing about what we're going to write about.)

Double Standards at a Canadian University tells the story of a cartoon, reprinted there, in a student newspaper which depicts Jesus Christ performing an unspeakable act; the same paper refused to print the innocuous Muhammad cartoons. By the way, what else does one expect from an institution which is both a university and Canadian but double standards?

Links!

Mish's Global Economic Analysis says that the housing bubble has definitively popped. He gives lots of examples, including many from California.

Tibor Machan explains why it the rich are good for society. Quotable:

Who but the rich sustain good restaurants? Who but the rich make fine porcelain or jazz clubs or beautiful rugs or fancy furniture, not to mention stunning architecture and enthralling theater possible? I cannot afford to support artists, musicians, actors, great chefs, and the other people who create and produce some of the marvelous features of our culture, nor can my equally middle level and poor income earning friends.

Can secularists and Christians work together to defend the West? A fascinating exchange at VFR. While one can disbelieve in religion, as this writer assuredly does, hostility toward it is not in his makeup and he finds that hostility misplaced, at best.

Freedom and Hypocrisy

Dave Haxton is in high dudgeon over this story which relates the attempt by the founder of Domino's Pizza, Tom Monaghan, to build a town in Florida based on strictly Catholic principles. (Via Mike Gilleland.) The town, to be called Ave Maria, would ban abortion and prohibit businesses from anything against Catholicism, such as abortion and pornography.

Haxton asks what the reaction of "the Christian Right" would be if he won the lottery and built a sort of "Heathenville". Not being a member of "the Christian Right" myself, but quite aware that most people who use that expression to describe Christians are not exactly freedom lovers, I'll try to answer. There would be nothing at all wrong with it.

Monaghan's scheme is entirely based on private property: he will own the main commercial real estate, residents would own their own homes.

A much better way to look at this is not as a neo-fascist community, as Haxton would have it, but as radical libertarianism. If freedom truly prevailed in this great land of ours, there would be nothing stopping groups of people banding together to form communities in which, so long as anyone was free to come and go, and did not use force or fraud, virtually anything would be allowed or forbidden. If freedom means anything, it means the freedom to do what isn't popular, such as discriminate racially or religiously, hire those whom you wish to, or even, God forbid, smoke in public.

Finally, Haxton hopes that "there's a special place in the Christian Hell for hypocrites". Personally, I wasn't aware that hypocrisy was a sin. In most cases, I assert, it's a positive virtue.

Meanwhile, in Scotland...

Scotland seizes up as blizzards move south.:

RECORD-BREAKING snowfalls brought parts of Scotland to a standstill yesterday as the Arctic weather spread south across the country.

Berkshire earnings zoom

I earlier reported that Buffett lost money for his shareholders. Stop press! Berkshire earnings zoom 54% in quarter:

- Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said Saturday its fourth-quarter profit surged 54% despite heavy payouts to hurricane-related claims.
"We estimate our loss from Katrina at $2.5 billion - and her ugly sisters, Rita and Wilma, cost us an additional $.9 billion," said Berkshire Hathaway's Chief Executive Officer Warren Buffett in his annual letter to shareholders.
The Omaha, Neb.-based holding company reported net income for the fourth quarter of $5.1 billion, or $3,330 a share. Revenue shot up 27% to $25.37 billion.
For 2005, Berkshire Hathaway posted a 16.6% rise in net profit of $8.5 billion, or $5,538, a share, up from $7.31 billion, or $4,753 a share, last year. Revenue rose 9.6% to $81.6 billion from $74.75 billion in 2004.
Summing Berkshire Hathaway's performance in 2005, Buffett said it had "a decent year."
The company has also chosen a candidate to succeed him, said the 75-year old CEO.
Buffett did not disclose the name of his successor, but said Berkshire's board "unaminously agreed" on the the person to take over at the helm.

On earnings per share of $5,538 a share, at the current price Berkshire Hathaway sports a P/E of about 16, which is a bargain. Berkshire A shares were up $400 yesterday, with more to come on the way, I'll bet.

California

Two responses from readers about recent posts on California help me realize how great it is to live here. As a native of the Golden State, I am sometimes a bit jaded.

A reader from Michigan writes:

It is rude, inconsiderate, and dare I say, MEAN, to tell me about the California Buckeye and its new leaves, as I sit here in the upper midwest wondering if it will snow today.

Actually, I'm just kidding. OK!. I liked the piece because it reminds me we are one day closer to spring.

And my co-blogger Martin Kelly has this to say about the Wine Road:

The event sounds like heaven on earth. It is rather frustrating to be separated from it by an ocean - but tossing in a continent for good measure was divine overkill.

Scotland may have a large market share when it comes to bravery and whisky (come to think of it, those two kind of go together), but California's got the wine!

Buffett Loses Money, Gives Shareholders Below-Average Returns

That's what a Bloomberg article says.

Say it ain't so, Warren!

Procrastination

"Doing little stuff first is one of the most insidious forms of procrastination because it seems like you’re being productive. You rationalize that you have plenty of time to handle the big stuff. And eventually you’ll get to the big stuff when the time pressure becomes great enough. But if that never happens, you may simply never get it done at all. And there’s a lot of big stuff that never becomes urgent until it’s too late. Opportunities won’t wait for you forever." More from Steve Pavlina.

First example of "little stuff" that comes to mind: blogging.

Freelance Terrorism

Michelle Malkin reports on yet another incident of freelance terrorism, in which an Iranian native ran into a crowd of students with his vehicle, an SUV.

Sources say Taheriazar told police he was seeking retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world, according to ABC News justice correspondent Pierre Thomas. Taheriazar apparently told police he tried to rent the biggest SUV he could find to use in the attack.

Yet another reason why Muslims should be prohibited from immigrating and those already here strongly encouraged to leave.

First Marblehead

A stock which I own and have previously written about, First Marblehead, is up more than $5 a share in the past two days. Naturally I'm pleased, though I think it luck that a stock I bought only about 4 months ago is up about 75%. I was prepared to wait much longer!

It appears that the stock of First Marblehead was caught in a short squeeze, which is:

A situation in which a lack of supply and an excess demand for a traded stock forces the price upward.

Short squeezes occur more often in smaller cap stocks with small floats.

If a stock starts to rise rapidly, the trend may continue to escalate because the short sellers will likely want out. For example, say a stock rises 15% in one day, those with short positions may be forced to liquidate and cover their position by purchasing the stock. If enough short sellers buy back the stock, the price is pushed even higher.

First Marblehead has been a target for short sellers, those who sell a stock which they do not own and attempt to profit by buying the stock at a lower price. When a bit of good news on FMD came out Thursday and the share price rose, the shorts wanted out, buying more shares and pushing the price even higher.

The California Buckeye

The California Buckeye is a strikingly beautiful tree native to California. Besides its unusual spiky look, brilliant green leaves, white flowers, and huge nut-like fruit, the thing that really attracts attention is that it's the tree which sprouts its leaves earlier in the spring than any other tree around here. They're coming out like gangbusters in my neighborhood right now.

Camp of the Saints, cont'd.

The "Camp of the Saints" scenario seen in Ceuta and Melilla last year continues; it's just on the backburner now. Four more immigrant boats reach Canaries:

Four open boats containing 174 black African illegal immigrants were intercepted yesterday off the Canary Islands, three near Grand Canary and one near Tenerife. In recent weeks, a large number of open boats have left the Mauritanian coast for the Canaries with illegal immigrants on board. One of the boats was found adrift 200 kilometers southwest of Grand Canary heading for the wide-open Atlantic. Those aboard the boats were generally in good condition, though some needed medical care for hypothermia and sunburn. They will be sent to a detention center and then deported. Illegal immigration has become a hot-button issue not only in Spain but in all of Western Europe.

Wine Road

I just want to plug a local event for this weekend, as it's exactly the sort of thing lots of people love about living in Northern California. It's the Russian River Wine Road, a 3-day event in which over 100 wineries in the area open up for tasting. One buys a glass at the first winery for $5, and then it's free refills at every winery one stops. Party on!

How a Symphony Orchestra Tours Europe

With great difficulty, seems to be the answer. My brother, Tim Mangan, writes on the logistics of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra's upcoming tour of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. A sample:

"Ask her about 'pallet-izing,'" Jeanette advises before Anderson is summoned. "It's a verb," Anderson deadpans when asked.

Most of the instruments, especially large ones, will make the trip not as carry-on luggage, but on a separate cargo plane. But first they are loaded into custom-made, heavily padded aluminum trunks, Anderson explains. These are trucked to the airport, where "pallet-izing" begins.

"We'll take the contents of a full-size moving van and have to build it so that it efficiently goes into an airplane," she says. The instruments are stacked onto pallets, which are then wrapped in plastic, tied with ropes, and forklifted into the climate-controlled cargo hold of the plane.

Anderson will be there at LAX when this happens. "We're the guys who can say, 'No, stop, you've got the violins on the bottom of the pile!'"

The instruments then fly to Brussels, Belgium, where Anderson will meet them. "And then we watch them being unloaded (by) cowboys on forklifts. We just have to be there saying, 'Slow, please.'" The trucking company that will schlep the instruments from concert to concert, Beissner of Hannover, has vast experience in this enterprise, says Anderson, so she expects a smooth ride.

Tim gets to go along on the tour, the lucky devil. Although he's only going to have 24 hours in Vienna.

Islamophobia?

Lawrence Kudlow thinks that anyone who opposes the deal to turn over port management to Dubai Ports World is guilty of "Islamophobia". While one can be less than certain whether this deal is on the whole good or bad (and I lean towards bad), Kudlow is guilty of the classic leftist tactic of branding one's opponents as bigots. It's been said that "a racist is someone who's winning an argument with a liberal", and that's true in this case, as Kudlow is acting the part of the liberal here.

What Kudlow is also guilty of is "economism": the idea that money dominates every important question, overriding concerns of nationalism, ethnic self-interest, culture, and so on. Just as the Wall Street Journal periodically and absurdly calls for "open borders", Kudlow wants us to travel further into globalization solely for the purpose of enhanced economic efficiency, all other considerations be damned.

What I Have Learned in 15 Years

Tom Mcmahon writes on the topic of what he's learned in the fifteen years since his son became permanently disabled. Full of hard insight and gentle wisdom: go read it.

MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism

Here, in the Jyllands-Posten,is the manifesto against "Islamism" signed by soem prominent people:

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

All very well and good, but the mistake here is naming something called "Islamism" as the enemy, when Islam ought to be a perfectly good description. It is Islam's holy book which commands its followers to "smite the unbeliever wherever you find him". It is Islam which foments rabid antisemitism. It is Islam which is at the Western gates, trying to conquer. And it is Islam that we are blind to.

Using a term like "Islamism" only obfuscates what the West faces. The term suggests that Muslims in themselves and Islam in itself are not the problem, but only the radical versions are. "Moderate" Muslims are moderate to the extent that they ignore the teachings of their religion.

BibliOdyssey

BibliOdyssey: a nice blog chock-a-block with many fascinating book illustrations, which ought of be of interest to any bibliophile.