……..wanna see what the two little ones are up to? OK.

Reading my mail!

Took this one today of Lara in low light hence the slight movement [slow shutter speed] and the grain [high ISO] but things like that don’t necessarily matter, I kinda like it. It was mostly the light from the computer monitor actually. And that’s the full frame by the way, it hasn’t been cropped. Cropping is a useful tool but should be used with care. Henri Cartier Bresson, the dean of photojournalism, said he never cropped a photo. It does make you more aware of your framing while taking the pics.

The grandkids dancing, and yes the mess on the floor is just their natural habitat, part of life.

A few quick things.

Robert P Murphy at Ludwig von Mises Institute writes, “Do You Austrians Have a Better Idea?” It’s the question asked by supporters of the giant bailout in reply to their criticism of same. He has a marvelous analogy for the bailout:

Now, in truth, someone doesn’t have to have a better suggestion in order to point out that a recommended strategy will exacerbate the situation. If an allergic man has been stung by a bee, I don’t know what to do except rush him to the hospital and maybe scour the cupboards looking for Benadryl. But I’m pretty sure drawing blood from his leg, in order to inject it into his arm and thus “stimulate his immune system,” is a bad idea on numerous accounts — not least of which, is that I’m pretty sure an allergic reaction means your immune system needs to calm down. But the point is, if a bunch of guys hold the man down — he has to be forced to endure the procedure for his own good, don’t you know — I feel perfectly qualified in yelling, “Stop!”

If you grasped that analogy, you can understand my feelings about anything Paul Krugman writes.

(All joking aside, I am pretty proud of the above analogy. But to make it even more accurate, let’s stipulate that a blind heroin addict, who has been convicted of manslaughter on three separate occasions, is the one entrusted with making the transfusion. Naturally he will use one of his own needles for the procedure.)

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We who were not blinded by the glare emanating from His Holiness O knew it wouldn’t take long for his Fall from O-mnipotence. It’s been two and a half weeks and our hopes that he would be exposed as the charlatan he is have already been realized. Charles Krauthammer lays it out succinctly here.

After Obama’s miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell — and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

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Something pleasant for you, Katherine Jenkins, a mezzo singing a Bryan Adams song in Italian. It’s from a demo DVD made by Panasonic for their HDTV’s. Somehow it works! She is from Wales, something about Welsh singers, has a beautiful voice and is herself beautiful, what more could you want? Can’t embed but here is the link.

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An update on my grand daughters, Cerys and Lara.

Using the computer will be as natural as talking for them. Fascinating.

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And check out this cool watch. [I have a thing about mechanical clocks and watches.]

….. since I posted, among the reasons of course is my non stop life, which I do enjoy, I’m not complaining except too many things I would like to do get left by the wayside. Another reason can be found in this postover at Schmaltz und Grieben.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: In what PC-addled public school did Americans begin to be taught that when bad things happen, no one is ever to blame?

D’jever notice that we’re not supposed to blame anyone for the current Great Depression?

Or how about, “IT’S THE FAULT OF ALL OF US.”

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We’re never going to fix the problem until those that created it are held to account.

I am so disgusted with all the crap going on, corrupt governors and senators, idiotic, ideological schemes such as Fannie and Freddie to get homes to people who can’t afford to pay for them while those who run it like Dodds, Raines and many others skim off millions for themselves, then when it threatens the economic system itself, use the taxes of the hardworking American people to pay for it all, without a by your leave or a pretty please with a cherry on top with the inferred choice to say no you may not, you got into it, you get out of it.

From a column by Colby Cosh in the National Post reporting on a speech by Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney:

In the published version of his speech, he notes that “only a handful” of analysts and policymakers saw the disaster of 2008 coming. In a footnote to that sentence, he mentions a short list of honoured names: At its top is that of Bill White. You have probably never heard of William R. White, and almost certainly you don’t know that he is one of the most accomplished Canadians alive. A Kenora, Ont.-born, University of Windsor-educated economist, he worked for the Bank of Canada from 1972 to 1994, eventually serving as its deputy governor; he then switched to the Bank of International Settlements, the “central bank for central banks,” where he served as top in-house economist until his retirement in June.

As the brains of the BIS, White tried to warn central bankers of the mess we are in now, describing in frightening detail exactly how it would arrive. In the bank’s 2007 annual report, he noted that the world was living in a period in which the dragon of inflation appeared to have been slain — but underneath its corpse was a rapid underlying monetary expansion, an array of confusing and novel credit instruments, unprecedented household debt and dizzyingly high asset prices.

So you have this extremely smart guy who must be known to the ‘leaders’ and if not, why not, warning of the danger to the economy and no one listens? Incompetence doesn’t even begin to cover it. [To be fair, the Canadian government under Stephen Harper, who is himself an economist, what a change from the endless succession of lawyers we get, have been prudent.] As Alois at Schmaltz und Grieben says, it’s the same PC addled teaching in schools, where everyone must have a prize, no one must be a loser, hence these high flying politicians and over rewarded CEO’s of huge corporations like GM, who screw up totally and there are no consequences for them!!

We need change all right, a change back to the days before PC undermined the ethics and the backbones of the people.

Which brings us to Obama who seems to be lulling the people on the right with his not bad choices for cabinet and other offices so far. I’m afraid he’s picking his battles and that his main battle will be to change even more the education system that has brought us to this sorry state to bring it more in line with what Bill Ayers has been up to in Chicago.

We shall see, won’t we?

After all that unpleasantness, a reminder that life goes on and is another reason for my lack of blogging lately.

However, I have a number of items I want to bring to your attention, so for a while there will be a post a day! How about that.

Happy Christmas to everyone and specially to Zee and her extended family, we all have a lot to be thankful for.

Like Zee in her post below, I have been somewhat mortified that the good old US of A could elect a beginner for President in these complicated times, but there you go, what’s done is done, we have to wait and see how badly the neophyte screws up before being thrown out in 2012. [You'd think I'd be a little circumspect in my predictions, well in the words of the prophet, No Way!] He’s made a good start on the screwing up if reports of Hill as Sec of State and Eric Holder of Marc Rich pardon fame as Attorney General turn out to be true. Goes right along with Wright, Ayers, Rezko and co. The leopard’s spots remain the same.
The media has a lot to answer for in Obama’s victory, what a job they did on Sarah Palin that when given one of O’s or Bidens idiot statements to attribute, they automatically think it must have been her. I hope they get their just reward and I note that the NYT is trading today at $7.08, down from $18.66 one year ago. There is a God.

I have other reasons for not posting much, seven day work week, daughter and grandchildren and all the other everyday activities that take up time. I have played a trick on myself, kept my clocks on summer time, gets me up early in the morning and to bed earlier than would otherwise be the case at night. It’s cool too, I feel like I’m in my own little time/space one hour separated from the rest of the world. it’s restful and liberating at the same time. Am I making too much of it? Well so be it. I like it.

One more reason, it’s November and winter is coming on……

Update. From NRO, comment on the Eric Holder appointment.

He is convinced justice in America needs to be “established” rather than enforced; he’s excited about hate crimes and enthusiastic about the constitutionally dubious Violence Against Women Act; he’s a supporter of affirmative action and a practitioner of the statistical voodoo that makes it possible to burden police departments with accusations of racial profiling and the states with charges of racially skewed death-penalty enforcement; he’s more likely to be animated by a touchy-feely Reno-esque agenda than traditional enforcement against crimes; he’s in favor of ending the detentions of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay and favors income redistribution to address the supposed root causes of crime.

In any other time, Holder would simply be an uninspired choice. But these are not ordinary times — we face a serious, persistent threat from Islamist terrorists. At the same time, Democrats have expressed outrage over both the alleged politicization of the Justice Department and the reckless disregard of its storied traditions. For these times, it is difficult to imagine a worse choice for AG than Eric Holder.

Much has been made, and appropriately so, of Holder’s untoward performance in the final corrupt act of the Clinton administration: the pardons issued in the departing president’s final hours. Of these, most notorious is the case of Marc Rich, an unrepentant fugitive wanted on extensive fraud, racketeering, and trading-with-the-enemy charges — but granted a pardon nonetheless thanks to the intercession of his ex-wife, a generous donor to Clinton’s library and legal-defense fund.

I wonder how many who voted for Obama knew this is what they’d get.

Well, first the good news. [Hmm, come to think of it I only have good news!]

The Zogby rolling poll shows Obama at 48% and McCain a 45%. So it could be better but the way the MSM are spinning the campaign and from the rhetoric coming from the the Obamacides you’d think he was home and dry and picking out the drapes for the White House.

Obama leads McCain by 48 to 45 percent among likely U.S. voters, down 1 percentage point from Saturday. The four-day tracking poll, which has a margin of error of 2.9 points.

Pollster John Zogby said the numbers were good news for McCain, and probably reflected a bump following his appearance in the third and final presidential debate on Wednesday.

“For the first time in the polling McCain is up above 45 percent. There is no question something has happened,” Zogby said.

He said the Arizona senator appeared to have solidified his support with the Republican base — where 9 out of 10 voters now back him — and was also gaining ground among the independents who may play a decisive role in the November 4 election.

Obama’s lead among independent voters dropped to 8 points on Sunday from 16 points a day earlier.

‘RED FLAGS’

“If that trend continues, it is something that has got to raise red flags for Obama,” Zogby said. “It suggests to me that his outward look of confidence may be as much strategy as it is real.”

Other national polls have given Obama a double-digit overall lead, fueled by perceptions he would do a better job managing the faltering economy and unhappiness with McCain’s attacks on him over the past week.

But he has cautioned his supporters against overconfidence and most polls now put his lead in single digits.

Just think, he is massively out spending McCain specially in the battleground States, the MSM are ridiculously and despicably rooting for him, he has the black and Hispanic vote in his pocket and with two and a bit weeks to go that’s the best he can do. Against that is the fact, to me at least, that an awful lot of Americans are going to arrive at the polling booths and say, ‘Nope, can’t take the chance here’ and vote for McCain, the tried and true candidate.

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I have long been a fan of Christopher Hitchens, his writings and talks on the Iraq war have been exemplary, I’ve been going off him a bit of late because of his strident, shallow diatribes against religion which are typical of the lefty he used to be and now it seems still is. Now he has endorsed Obama! What is it with these intellectual types, and how the hell can we just get rid of them all and let real people like Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber run things? Hot Air has a post which includes a video of Laura Ingraham on Fox news taking him to task and doing a great job. First time I’ve seen Hitch stumbling over his words and not quite knowing what to say, much like Obama actually.
Hey Hitch, just go back to the left where you belong and let the grown ups do what has to be done.

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Last Friday was little Lara’s third birthday! She is talking up a storm now [well she is female!] and last January looking at the snow falling out of the window she could just manage ‘no’ for snow, it’s kind of like a miracle how fast they master the language.

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If you want to beat any lefties over the head with the facts about global warming, read the ‘Open Letter on Global Warming’ by Viscount Brenchley. It’s long and detailed and should be compulsory reading for anyone who wants to pontificate on the subject.

H/T Alan Sullivan.

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Well here’s something to warm the cockles of your heart: