Socrates' Academy

It Can Now Be Revealed

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:13:00 +0000

Ted Kennedy died and made the long trip South. After his many years in the Senate, he expected as much. Beelzebub greeted him, and asked which sector of Hades he would like to enter.

“Whichever one has the hottest women and the coldest Scotch”, answered the Lion of the Senate.

“OK, but that’s a long way away, in the circle for Envy”, replied the Father of Lies.

Unfamiliar with the territory and unaccustomed to making his own arrangements, the liberal royal family member ordered “Call me a car”.

“Of course, Mr. Kennedy,” Satan said, and dialed his phone. “Oh Mary Jo … our bargain is complete. Your fare is here.”

This Blog has Moved.

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:57:00 +0000

I've come to the conclusion that Google de-searched this blog for political reasons. I don't care to really get to the bottom of it, even to the point of finding out if it happened or not.

Instead, I'm now blogging at Redstate.com and The Minority Report Blog. I do have a few thought pieces in the works that might go here, but look to Redstate and TMR for your daily fix of me.

Sacrifice

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:26:00 +0000

Early in his term, President Obama stressed shared sacrifice as a means to correct the various problems with which he said we were beset. He has shied away lately from that terminology. Why is that?

Perhaps it is because having it called for it incorrectly, and then been stung with his own blatant hypocrisy, he now also incorrectly reckons it politically damaging to call for sacrifice at all. Or perhaps it's just incompatible with his new lifestyle.

Like Dan Perrin, I think Mr. Obama's slide in the polls is a self-inflicted wound, almost an own goal.

Americans understand sacrifice. If all virtue consists in risking something of known value for something of greater, but uncertain value, then some sort of sacrifice is inherent in all acts of virtue.

In our nation's past, we have rallied to the cry of shared sacrifice. In times of war, we have been willing to risk life and limb for the sake of a cause no more definite than putting down evil in some far off place. When presented with a clear goal -- defeating an enemy, sending a man to the moon -- we are inspired to greatness. When some are called on more than others, such as in Southeast Asia, we rebel.

And so it is with economic hardship. When asked to sacrifice to get the nation past economic hard times, we chafe. Such sacrifice is passive, and we are a people of action, immigrants all. To come to these shores we first had to leave somewhere else, and I think that's burned into our culture. Or perhaps we merely distrust that the sacrifice will indeed be shared.

And we are already sacrificing, thank you very much. With the onset of $4 per gallon gasoline in 2008, Americans quickly changed their consumptive ways, altering their lifestyles. More and more of us are turning away from living by credit. We're cutting back on spending now, and saving for later. We're responding to the crisis in a rational way, which happens also to be the virtuous path that got our parents and grandparents through Great Depression I.

We suspect that government policies forcing cheap and easy credit led us into the economic mess, and the only way out of the mess is to shun the cheap and easy credit.

And 10% of us are unemployed; even more underemployed, our talents lying fallow. In that situation no one wants either to sacrifice or to benefit from the sacrifices of others.

Even more fundamentally, we don't believe that such sacrifice would be required if we hadn't wasted our resources on foolish consumerism. We believe in the economic engine our personal liberty creates, and we don't think it ought to be controlled from Washington.

Mr. Obama conceives of sacrifice as shared sacrifice, a thing imposed on the People by the State. And it is not to all of the people that he calls, but merely the Haves. The Haves are asked to sacrifice their capital, the very thing most Americans believe will enable them to end our economic troubles. The Have Nots are not called to sacrifice, but to benefit from the bounty he will lay before them.

And at that, whether Have or Have Not, we chafe even more.

First Pitch Explanation

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:15:00 +0000

President Obama threw out the first pitch at the MLB All-Star Game.

It did not bounce before getting to the catcher. That bactrian trajectory is a new pitch perfected by Obama in preparation for the game.

The president threw out the first pitch without a teleprompter.

There is no evidence that the Commander-in-Chief was distracted by a hot Brazilian teenager, nor even that any were present at the game.

Obama, ACORN, Iran

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:13:00 +0000

I wonder if Barack Obama's tepid, mealy-mouthed response to the violent protests by the Iranian opposition stems from his own complicity in election fixing?

Nah. That would imply possession of a conscience.

Following

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:23:00 +0000

I'm tivoing the Iranian revolution. I have people right now gathering the information into book form, and in a few months I will purchase the paperback.

That's my way of saying it's great the the Iranians are dissatisfied with Ahmedicatedad, but I don't have to spend my day following it. It's not like I can affect the situation.

On the other hand, it does show once again that the global connectivity in general and the Internet in particular make it hard to keep tyranny going. Just as the PC and fax machine are said to have helped bring down the former Soviet Union, it appears that the Iranian revolution is being broadcast on Twitter.

But that presupposes that this is a revolution. It's impossible for me to know whether that is true or not -- are the protests against Ahmedinnerjacket, or against the Islamic regime itself?

And if they are against the Islamic regime, with what form of government will the revolution replace it?

I guess Barack Obama thinks maybe the revolution will bring something worse than totalitarian dictatorship - capitalism.

A Moment Passes By In Utter Inconsequentiality

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:41:00 +0000

Sometimes a tiny detail of daily life, work, or what lies in between will claw its way back from the obscurity of lost memory to intrude once again as the focus of attention.

We read the news on some blog, or in the newspaper, or listen to the radio. Someone wrote that blog post, the wire story, or radio copy. How much work was it? Will they remember it tomorrow?

We drive along the highway, or ride in the bus or train. Who poured the concrete or rolled the asphalt, who laid the rails? Who planned the construction and guided the project along, these many years ago? They may have forgotten doing it by now, or it may be the pride of their life's work, an achievement they tell about to this day.

The sand, gravel, lime, and crushed rock used to make the concrete all came from somewhere. Would anyone remember the day those components were ordered, delivered, or put together?

We dispose of some problem or issue, only to have it return from the grave. The matter is settled, we think, and it leaves our short-term memory, erased from our agenda for all time. But something in the solution to the problem was incorrect, insufficient, or ill-advised. Invisibly, it has clung to existence, waiting for just the wrong moment to spring itself on its erstwhile vanquisher.

A penny lies quietly on the sidewalk. How did it get there? If the penny could write a blog post, would it tell of its glory days as part of the change back from a Happy Meal? Or would it lament that, with the minimum wage what it is, it now would be unprofitable to hire someone to pick up pennies even if the ground were strewn with them?

Where Cheney is Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:27:00 +0000

I like Dick Cheney. I think he's an asset to our nation, and a man to whom we owe a debt of gratitude.

Generally speaking, I agree with his stances on various issues.

And on gay marriage, he has a reasonably consistent position: people should be free to marry whom they choose, and the several States should decide for themselves what they will allow.

But the trouble is this: marriage is not about freedom or liberty, it's about a government sanction of a binding relationship. It's a special contract, with centuries of legal precedent governing it. I say that not to make an appeal to tradition, but rather to say we should tread lightly in these matters, until all of the ramifications are clear.

Extending marriage, or even civil unions, to same-sex couples means giving a societal stamp of approval on their relationship.

And I don't think that's a good idea. I have a variety of reasons for thinking it's not a good idea, about which others may disagree.

So while I agree with Mr. Cheney that people should be allowed to do what they will, they should not demand that I approve their decision.

Is my position consistent? Sure. Do what you will, but don't ask my blessing.

The Health Insurance Mistake We're Going to Make

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:22:00 +0000

In any market, there has to be the freedom not to participate. Without that freedom, there is far less downward pressure on prices, and less incentive to compete.

What the Democrats will do instead is to enforce price controls on the market. They will say, as they do now with Medicare and other services, that a doctor must bill the government no more than what they bill other insurers for a given procedure or service.

That will cause doctors to do what every other regulated group has ever done: they will find ways around the regulations. They will find new services to provide -- or new labels for old services -- and bill whatever the market will bear. Prices will zoom out of sight.

In addition, if everyone has insurance, everyone will go to the doctor. People with head colds will line up for treatment, which will not be forthcoming. But they will still show up, and insist on being fixed.

I know this, because I've been to a hospital emergency room.

GM Bankruptcy: Toldja.

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:47:00 +0000

On November 11, 2008, I said:

The former Big Three are hemorrhaging cash, which an infusion will not stop.
They'll have a larger debt load.
Strings attached to the bailout will include limits on executive compensation and, possibly, government mandates to produce smaller, more efficient cars.

Since the Big Three lose money making smaller, more efficient cars, making more of them in itself won't help profitability. Since a big problem with the automakers has been poor management, limits on executive compensation will only cause the best managers to leave for more pastures which are perhaps less green, but more golden.

Who Wins With Inflation?

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:16:00 +0000

Debtors with real assets.

That class includes homeowners with fixed rate mortgages. Homeowners without mortgages will get a big payout if they sell, but in the mean time there will be mean times.

People who own other hard assets (such as gold) will also benefit, but few people hold gold as a large part of their financial portfolio. A lot of people are over-invested in their houses. Which is fine, because you can't live in gold.

With significant inflation, the denominated value of a real asset (like the sale price of a house) goes up. Wages go up, though usually not as fast as the cost of living. If the loan amount stays the same, it begins to shrink in comparison to the amount of money available to the debtor.

Another big winner is the Treasury, which is the biggest debtor of all.

Rachel Lucas Learns that History Lingers

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:53:00 +0000

Before the eleventh century, the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon peoples of England had more trouble with each other and the Romans, Danes, and Vikings than with the French.

In A.D. 1066, William the Conqueror took over England for France. He installed Frenchmen as the new ruling class, to the point where the English we speak now probably owes as much to Old French as to Old English.

Since that time, the English have had a kind of hate-hate relationship with the French.

I look for the European Union to fix all of that in a thousand years or so.

Diversity: FAIL

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:55:00 +0000

Judge Sotamayor gets reversed a lot.

That by itself could point to a raised level of diversity in the kinds of opinions in the judicial system.

The trouble is that it is her reasoning, not her conclusions, with which her fellow judges disagree. They don't think she gets the whole judging thing all that well.

Which is the first problem with imposing physical diversity in the hopes of achieving diversity of opinion: you may get diversity, but it will be achieved by lowering the overall quality of the whole.

The second problem with imposing physical diversity in the hopes of achieving opinion diversity is that you really can't judge a book by its cover.

Permissive Parents, Leftist Children?

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:44:00 +0000

I have an hypothesis. It is that children of permissive parents grow up to be liberals, while children of strict parents grow up to be conservative.

I'm sure, before I even start, that if my hypothesis is true it is only a matter of degree, a question of percentages and leanings.

What I know for certain is that liberals generally act like spoiled children, and never want anyone to suffer consequences for their actions (nor to be rewarded for hard work).

Can't get back in the blogging habit

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:18:00 +0000

Having taken a semester off, it's hard to want to start up again. It's much easier to read what others write and make the occasional comment.

Something Funny About Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:09:00 +0000

He hardly ever uses a hard 's' sound at the end of words. Instead, he uses a whistling, hissing soft 's'.

It's like fingernailssss on a chalkboard.

Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:13:00 +0000

John Podhoretz, on Joe Klein on Charles Krauthammer:

He won’t like me saying it, but Charles Krauthammer, who is more than a friendly acquaintance, is far from a tragic figure. He is a miraculous figure. He has, through a combination of raw will and a sagacious mind and a rigorous temperament that, were it possible, he should leave to science so that it can be studied and bottled and sold, lived a life both triumphantly important and triumphantly ordinary. (Although his wife, Robbie, is far from ordinary. For one thing, she is from Tasmania. For another, she is an artist of great skill. For a third, she has the dirtiest and liveliest mouth in either her forsaken hemisphere or her present one.) If you are his friend, in a fashion that I can’t quite explain, you come to have no sense whatever that he is in that chair. He may be right about what he argues (obviously, I think so, most of the time). He may be wrong. But whatever he is or is not, to argue that Charles’s views are restricted by the restrictions on his physical form is do violence to the most basic notions of civil discussion.

I'd read the Politico article earlier, but skimmed past Klein's dissing of Krauthammer [w/t link added]. I was too nonplussed at Politico's implication that Krauthammer was some kind of conservative Pied Piper, apparently based on NRO's regular posting of his transcripts. Those transcripts take up no more of NRO's Corner bandwidth than any of the hundred or so other conservative pundits with Corner posting privileges.

In fact, not realizing that Krauthammer has physical challenges, I always wondered why they posted the stuff for him. But I appreciate the fact that they do so, since he's generally on target and I don't catch him on the tube.

Frank J Deserves An Award

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:24:00 +0000

For clear-headed, outside-the-box thinking to diagnose the troubles currently befuddling his Party, his country, and indeed the very human race, FrankJ of IMAO has won the Socrates' Academy Wisdom and Sobriety "Really Smart Blogger Award" award.

Obama 1, Pelosi 0

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:33:00 +0000

And so we have before us the Pelosi waterboarding kerfuffle (which I am dubbing "Prevari-gate" because "Watergate" was already taken).

Who wins if Nancy Pelosi is weakened politically?

Barack Obama. Pelosi will give him whatever he wants, without so much as a whimper.

Note that CIA Director Leon Panetta has come down on the side of the Bush CIA on this one. He wouldn't do that without White House approval. They want Pelosi out of there.

So who wins if Pelosi resigns?

Barack Obama. Obama will have his pick for Speaker, which would probably be long-time Rahm Emanuel ally House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

House Republicans, agitating against Pelosi because they don't like her very much, are going to give Obama just the Speaker he wants.

In the long run, it will all work out, because Obama-Hoyer-Reid triumvirate will ultimately bring about electoral defeat. But not before they screw the country up in some very bad ways.

George W. Bush, the Environmental President

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:16:00 +0000

The Left has been talk-pointing for years that the air is getting worse and worse, the sky is falling, and it's all George Bush's fault. But this is another thing they know that just isn't so.

From the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators (pdf), Steven Hayward:

The latest findings are significant because they stand in sharp contrast to a refrain among some environmental campaigners and the media that air pollution is getting worse, and to the assertion that the Bush administration was “rolling back” the Clean Air Act. Final data for 2008 won’t be available for several months, but the EPA’s latest report shows that air pollution levels in every category fell from 2001 to 2007; moreover, air pollution levels in most categories fell at a faster rate than during the first seven years of the Clinton Administration.

Table 1 below displays the reduction in national mean ambient levels of the six criteria pollutants for comparable periods of the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Table 1: Ambient Air Quality Trends under Presidents Clinton and G. W. Bush

Clinton (1993–1999) Bush (2001–2007)

Ozone –5.14% –5.9%

Particulates (PM2.5) N/A* –9.1%

Carbon Monoxide –24.6% –39%

Sulfur Dioxide –32.0% –24%

Lead –33.0% –56%

Nitrogen Dioxide –9.6% –20%

*National PM2.5 emissions monitoring began in 199.
Source: EPA and author’s calculations

OBTW -- w/t NRO

Hammer, Nail, Assembly Required

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:56:00 +0000

U.S. News and World Report's Peter Rolff puts steel to work:

It is true that the U.S. economy was in bad shape when Obama came into office. But he and his top appointees want us to believe that their preferred solution—pushing huge increases in federal spending in his so-called economic recovery act and his budget for the upcoming fiscal year though Congress to prime the Keynesian pump, putting money in the hands of their political constituencies—are in no way related to the just announced record $1.8 trillion federal deficit.

Perhaps the worm is turning. RTWT.

w/t TPM

A Man's Signature Says A Lot

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:54:00 +0000

I'd never seen Harry S Truman's signature before. Here is a man worthy of "the buck stops here". Bold, and incisive, yet also with an artistic side: his signature is enjoyable to look at. It flows, as if looking at it, we get to watch it being created.

But even more than how a man signs his name, where he puts it is the key to knowing him.

America needs you, Harry.

And happy Birthday, Israel.

w/t: Yid With Lid

Gibbs: We Have Ways of Making You Talk

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:57:00 +0000

Via Ace, we have Obama spokesdroid Robert Gibbs admitting that waterboarding worked, but who knows what else would have worked?

In the category of things that work, there are two obvious categories: mean and nice. There is no logical room between them.

The mean things are being roundly criticized as Stuff We Wouldn't Do To Save LA. If there are mean things that are not as mean as those we used, how do we know that they would have been effective? And being effective, would that not signify that they were too mean?

The "nice" category is also properly bisected by "costs something" and "costs nothing".

The things that are nice and cost nothing, I trust we've already tried. Oh, we haven't? You've had 100 days. Put up or shut up. The only possible explanation, then, is that this category of things that cost nothing and are nice takes longer than 100 days to produce results. I posit that there are terrorists targeting the United States with action plans taking less than 100 days to implement.

The things that cost us something can be summarized as bargaining with terrorists.

So the official position of the Obama Adminstruation is that it's better to bargain with terrorists than to waterboard them.

Just so we're clear.

P.S.: Gibbs is now tacitly admitting that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to these prisoners. Otherwise, we would not be able to question them at all.

Obama To Make Draconian Budget Cuts

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:21:00 +0000

President Obama, after spending a mere trillion dollars on government growth in an effort to "stimulate" the economy, and pushing dramatic leaps in Federal spending in his budget, has laid out a bold plan to cut as much as $100 million.

Budget:	$3,000,000,000,000
Stimulus:	$900,000,000,000
Cuts:	$100,000,000

How can he make these awful cuts, while spending in other areas barely keeps pace? Is he going to order women and children to starve in the street, while AIDS patients are left with no medicines, and senior citizens choose between paying the light bill and buying cat food to eat?

Someone Needs to Tighten Reins at Politico

noreply@blogger.com (Loren Heal) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:57:00 +0000

Capital is what you have. Capitol is where they take it.

Obama tightens reins on capital

By MANU RAJU & MIKE ALLEN | 3/16/09 4:07 AM EDT

No longer will the president tread gingerly in his dealings with Congress and lose control of the message war.

Marking a new season in his young presidency, President Barack Obama and his allies around Washington are about to give the capital a bracing lesson in one-party rule.

I thought you guys were the professionals.

	Clinton (1993–1999)	Bush (2001–2007)
Ozone	–5.14%	–5.9%
Particulates (PM2.5)	N/A*	–9.1%
Carbon Monoxide	–24.6%	–39%
Sulfur Dioxide	–32.0%	–24%
Lead	–33.0%	–56%
Nitrogen Dioxide	–9.6%	–20%