Joyce Appleby: Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination
Niall Ferguson: The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets, 1798-1848
Jonathan Israel: The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806
Jerry Z. Muller: The Mind and the Market : Capitalism in Modern European Thought
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This blog is mostly about Bill Gates the Micro Softy with a streak of intelligence.
I nominate Jeffrey D. Sachs and Paul “Bono” or “bonobo” Hewson as the two most unredeemingly outrageous idiots of 2005. These men have proposed raising billions of dollars for the U.N. to spend ending poverty, mostly in Africa.
Few people have trouble recognizing Al Sharpton or Michael Moore as idiots on the face of it, but ....
The week between Christmas and New Years is the lowest period of my blog readership. This is a perfect time for a semi-private admission.
I learned sometime in the early-1960s, when I was active in politics (campaign manager, survey researcher and legislative analyst) that the most effective activists, over long periods of time, were the people who never took credit for themselves and always shared the credit. I personally wouldn’t work with anyone who took full credit for their efforts, so I knew no one else would either.
For my entire activist life I have shared credit for my work with others (including co-authoring nearly all my books) and still do.
One consequence has been that....
I am impressed with the special selection and displays at Walgreens for Christmas. There seem to be many items that were designed for Walgreens Christmas sales at price points that Walgreens selected well in advance. Walgreens had a single person rice cooker for $6.00 and a toaster oven at the same price.
Such retail products require at least one year of planning and preparation.
I would like to suggest an item for next year. We need a home electric air pump for bicycles and car tires that has a compressed air storage tank. The tank could be filled with a low power electric motor, slowly over five or ten minutes and have a pressure in excess of 50 pounds per square inch. It should be priced below $15. The most functional pump-compressors currently on the market now are about $40.
The photo on the right is a rare sight in San Francisco. The Ginkgo tree has leaves that turn yellow in the late fall and usually blow off in the wind. San Francisco rarely has rain during the period when Ginkgo leaves fall. This year was an exception with heavy rain in early December, bringing the leaves to the ground in big clumps, forming a carpet of Ginkgo leaves. All these trees are male. The female bears fruit that stinks.
Not much to say about the Ginkgo, it is beautiful, the tree was first brought to Holland in 1712 after being found in Japan where it had been preserved by Buddhist monks as part of a thousand year old tradition. The tree came from some part of India where the tree had survived many ice ages. The tree is one of the earliest, with fossils of the leaves dating to 270 million years ago.
I mentioned in an earlier blog that New Orleans wouldn’t be rebuilt because tourism is a losing business.
So many people have demanded proof that I dug up the data. The pure case is Maui, an island.
Maui is more than a pure case, it is a “best case” because the average tourist stays a whole week, rents a car and has no relatives in Maui. This compares with Disneyland or Disney World where people only stay for one day. There is virtually no other business in Maui, the farms produce sugar and pineapple worth less than 10% of the island’s total revenue.
Here are the facts:
The anti-gay marriage crowd has promoted the marriage of
Victor de Bruijn to Mirjam and Bianca in Holland (photo on the right) as
evidence that gay marriage is a slippery slope to multiple partner marriage. Gay marriage advocates have ignored the news
or rejected it as inaccurate.
I for one believe that multiple marriage is a logical extension of gay marriage and join tens of millions of others (Muslims, Mormons and horny men and women) in supporting the Victor de Bruijn family.
The diversity of San Francisco hit me this morning.
I had coffee in my regular coffee shop (Greco) which is inside the Northern edge of Chinatown, is an Italian café owned by a Lebanese-American chemist, with two Latino-American employees behind the counter. Carlos (from Gautamala) and Jorge (from El Salvador) were singing the words of the song that must play regularly on the café sound system: popular Israeli tunes.
They could sing most of the Hebrew lyrics. I didn’t ask if they knew what language it is.
While having my cappuccino, I learned from a Korean-Japanese-Hawaiian lesbian that a friend of hers, who travels a great deal, had her living will tattooed on her stomach region to make sure she doesn’t get a life extension procedure done in some out-of-the-way emergency room when she is unconscious. It’s a great idea.
I don’t like to be called a “neo-con.” I’m a moderate. Not because of the company “neo-con” puts me in... I admire the Kristols, Wolfowitz, Rice and many others... but because “neo-con” is a poor descriptor. I and they are not conservative by any stretch of the imagination.
I don’t know or care about a god, I see no moral problem with abortion, I want some restraint on executive compensation and less restraint on immigration. I’m not “neo” either. I love commerce and the status quo because it is so dynamic, expansive and volatile.
I’m moderate and pragmatic. The “neo-cons” are.....
I admit I am perplexed about being a member of an organization that lobbies for me on one subject but acts against my interests in another.
One example is the AOPA, a group that lobbies on behalf of private pilots (so called “non-commercial aviation”). The AOPA has regularly argued against restrictions on low altitude flying over populated areas (the current minimum is 1,000 feet.) As a pilot I want to fly anywhere at any altitude, but as a citizen I sure as hell don’t want to increase the risk of a small plane crashing into my home.
Symmetry is very important. We recognize each other’s faces by the tiny differences in symmetry, which is why the slightest changes along the midline of the face are immediately noticeable. Most autos, looked at from the front, are symmetrical as are airplanes, boats, forks, pots, bottles and the bulk of the animal, vegetable and mineral products in our lives.
We even look at behavior as symmetrical: the carrot and the stick; firing and promotion, reward and punishment.
Yet, somehow, we get asymmetrical.....
I apologize for the failure of my blog to be current online on the past Friday and Saturday and the failure of the blog site to show images on Saturday and Sunday.
Why, you may ask, should I apologize when it was Six Apart, the company that posts my blogs that had a computer meltdown? 
I apologize for the same reason that many anti-war citizens believed that President Bush was compelled to apologize for wrong information that he and thousands of other legislators and leaders around the world believed about Iraq in 2001. President Bush delegated the responsibility for collecting military intelligence to others under his command. I delegated the job of presenting my blog to my readers to a firm that I consciously hired.
President Bush has fired one person for the intelligence failure and I fired off one email to my blog supplier.
End of story.
I ate at a new San Francisco restaurant yesterday (four months old): Medicine Eat Station. Don’t trust my judgment on food, I have only two classes of food. French Laundry (I’ve gone dozens of times) and great Tokyo meals are in one category (first-rate experiences) and everything else is in another category (food). Medicine serves monk food with elegance. 
I like natto, konyaku (acquired tastes) and steamed fresh veggies; so I enjoyed my meal fully.
To sell such fare to ordinary people you have to go wild, they did. The décor is ultra-simple, what I call the New Google Look. The seating is all at tables with benches; the wall graphic is a large screen DVD with clouds and leaves barely moving. Stark, with good service and elegant appointments.
They went overboard on one policy item. No tipping (17% fee is included in the bill.) This will fail within a year. I asked the wait staff what percentage of clients leave tips: 2-5% was the answer. The photo on the right suggests the actual percentage is higher, since I got a photo.
Tipping ( and .99 cent pricing) can only be stopped with a Congressional mandate and a president setting a date to stop both practices. He or she could pick July 4th. Tipping is a relic of servants which is why we don’t tip lawyers, doctors and accountants. 99 cent pricing is an insult to poor people. On self pricing used car lots a Mercedes is $32,500 and a Chevy pick-up is $3,499.95
Sleazy because banks are bouncing checks for every possible excuse they can find. I had a transfer from one account to another bounced ($2,000 deposited to Citibank) because I wrote 10/22 instead of 10/22/05. Several friends have had checks bounced because a deposit was held up (four day hold by Bank of America) from another local bank. My partner had a hold put on half of a cash deposit (Wells Fargo).
What is going on? Banks are bouncing deposits in order to create “insufficient funds” for our checks which then generate overdraft fees. Overdraft fees regularly run to $35 per check with many checks bouncing at the same time. Sleazy.
Mean. If you don’t pay your overdraft fees in 90 days the banks get mean. You go on a national “no bank account” list and nothing will get you off the list for five years.
I have two recent references for those who are certain about human induced global warming.
The first is a recent report of humans, our ancestors, living in England 700,000 years ago. Humans lived in southern Europe 780,000 years ago. I can’t believe anyone lives in that freezing climate today.
The second recent report is the data from the ice core under the Vostok station in Antarctica. This data (on the right) was only published a few years ago. Have the global warming scientists looked at this chart, the one on the right? The chart, going back 750,000 years, shows a warming trend over that entire 750,000 year period. The current inter ice age period is going to be longer than the previous warm periods and warmer than the previous six warm inter ice age periods.(Click on each image to enlarge.)
Most importantly, the global ice age patterns are driven by the eccentricities of the earth’s orbit around the sun as indicated by the chart on the left. That bottom chart on the left is a pure mathematical creation derived directly from orbital dynamics and it matches the reality of the historic ice core chart on the upper right.
Now let's add a small recent element that I never hear discussed: sun spots have been increasing during the same recent 15 year period that
“scientists” are blaming humans for an increase in global temperature. If we compare the importance of the sun on our climate to the importance of humans we are talking about many orders of magnitude. Think of a comparison between a small button on the only white shirt owned by a NASA climate scientist to Mt. McKinley.
We know absolutely nothing about the patterns or causes of sun spots.
Have we no humility?
The photo on the right is a tree in my neighborhood that has a solar collector sticking out the top with three spotlights below the branches, illuminating the tree at night. With the solar panel doing the equivalent of photosynthesis, this would seem to be a bionic tree.
Which reminds me of a project of mine in the early 1990s when I started a campaign to label genetically altered foods.
To explain to people what the future presaged, I tried to make a luminescent broccoli. The broccoli was easy to grow, the mechanism for delivering the luminescent genes to the germ cells was clear: mix the pcr generated powder of luminescent gene segments with the powdered tobacco mosaic virus and use it as a culture for the broccoli seeds. 
Some of the seedlings would take on the genes and glow. Take the seeds of the mature glowing broccoli, reproduce and sell to the public.
I expected my luminescent broccoli to be an international press sensation. Many kids hate broccoli and they would help make a point of the luminescent broccoli as a monster. On the other hand, luminescent broccoli could be planted along running paths for running at night.
Please try this project yourself. I couldn’t order the luminescent genes nor the tobacco mosaic virus because I didn’t have a certified lab address. A photo of real luminescent tobacco is on the right.
The Fall issue of the Hoover Digest (a fascinating quarterly), from the Hoover Institution has an article adapted from Thomas Sowell’s new book Black Rednecks and White Liberals. Sowell argues that anti-Semitism is a generic. The same hatred of Jews can be found towards Ibos, Marwaris, Lebanese, Parsees, South Koreans, Armenians and Overseas Chinese. All these people have in common their skills in trade and success in commerce. Most get good educations when it is available and help their peers in business. Sowell argues that the hatred is often open scapegoating and also covert envy.
I totally support Sowell’s thesis and would add the Japanese to his list of hated and commercially skilled people.
The trouble I see with Sowell’s thesis is that one group doesn’t fit the list: Rom people. They are hated in Europe and were included in the Holocaust … but they are not considered strong on trade skills.
I would also point out to my readers that the convergence of Lefty Fundamentalism’s dislike of commerce and the thriving State of Israel will continue to be expressed as weak anti-Semitism and can be expected to grow to a much worse form of anti-Semitism.
The good news is at the end of this blog. It is authoritative.
The photo at the right is a seasonal addition to our palm trees. I love the palm trees, they’re clean, bold and they seem to surprise everyone. This city has had palms throughout its history, largely because we don’t get winter freezes. City planners have recently come to re-appreciate palms.
The new De Young.....
I joke that my peers are stuck in the 1960s with their anti-Vietnam (read Iraq), hate Nixon (read Bush) rhetoric. But I went to a talk by Sam Harris (author of the End of Faith) and I now think my peers may be stuck in 1775, the year before Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations.
Harris’ talk is summarized by the wonderful Stewart Brand, the host of the lecture series. Harris argues that religious faith is irrational and we should get in the habit of confronting people who hold views that are not empirically based. The dark cloud of Islamic Fundamentalism lends Harris a basis for his audience appeal. He also gains points by not confronting Lefty Fundamentalism or New Age spirituality; faiths that his audience holds dear.
Harris suggests...
A while back I explained why the current federal budget deficit was small and either a minor matter or even a positive force because it was created by a tax cut. I promised to discuss the balance of trade deficit which also bothers some of my non-economist friends. It has been more than a year since the earlier blog and I can’t think of anything interesting or original to say.
The balance of trade is in itself irrelevant.
Boots are popular these days. Most of the shoe stores I looked in today have boots in more than a third of their displays.
Boots may connote a hidden support for George W. Bush who wears cowboy boots. Boots are traditionally macho and military. Is there invisible support for the Iraqi Liberation War?
I just enjoy being provocative and asking that sort of question.
Personally, I have never found a connection between fads in the pop cultural and anything happening in the real world. Pop culture includes the worlds of fashion, top 100 songs, top 50 movies, sports and the top 20 TV programs. The real world is economics, trade, politics, technology, science, international relations and retail sales.
Maybe the success of pop-culture studies by Leftists in academia is proof of my personal observations about the disconnect of pop culture and the real world. Maybe Michael Jackson is the best evidence.
I don’t think New Orleans will be rebuilt.
The reason many people expect the city to be rebuilt is that Bourbon Street survived and there is a substantial tourist industry to bring back.
I don’t think tourism is a viable industry...
Rick Wagoner, CEO of GM, used today’s Wall Street Journal to whine about the unfair conditions that poor GM has to work under.
First, GM claims it was too kind to employees with pensions and health benefits because GM is such a socially responsible company. Wrong. GM isn’t more socially responsible than any German or Japanese auto company.
Both Japan and Germany still have real lifetime employment.
Second, Germany has a ....
What happens when you get a whole society strongly committed
to moral laws?
Answer: you get brilliant solutions to contemporary medical questions.
First question: should a women who has invitro fertilization be forced to deliver three or more babies because multiple eggs were implanted in her uterus? The Israeli Knesset voted several years ago to require doctors to limit the number of live IVF births to 2 unless the mother wanted more because births of three or more are almost always an horrific financial strain on the family and society.
Second question: how should a terminal patient be treated when their life can not continue and the responsible people involved want the life terminated? Answer: read the most recent Knesset legislation. The solution is ingenious. A 24 hour timer on the ventilator.
I just read a reference to Leo Strauss as the man who called our attention to the inherent contradiction of liberalism. I had always given credit to Sidney Hook, having read his seminal 1954 argument when I was in college a while back.
The issue is becoming increasingly a serious matter that most people have not confronted (and which is commonly confused with relativism or moral cowardice). I call this the challenge of tolerance: can we be tolerant of intolerance?
Hook argued persuasively that the Communist Party should not be tolerated....
The most noticeable quality of life these days in San Francisco is the dramatic increase in automobile traffic. Traffic has increased noticeably on all the freeways and on quiet city streets.
There is one explanation: business is picking up and more people are getting jobs. San Francisco was among the last cities in America to get the benefits of the four years of uninterrupted high economic growth.
My guess about what has been happening in San Francisco is that we have seen a long term decline, beginning in 1970 as people left the city for the greater surrounding suburbs and business followed them. We didn’t perceive the changes because it was covered up by the explosion of new small businesses that the hippies generated from 1975-85 and the vast Internet boom from 1992-2001. We are now living in the remnants of a super nova, surviving on the largess of summer tourists from the world and the monthly visitors from the suburbs.
The photo on the right is new clothing in a new men’s clothing store in the Castro. Current style is based on contrast of every kind: color, fabric and pattern.
I didn’t expect to grow old and find pure evil all around me. I thought that it would be mostly in prisons and small pockets of out-of-the-way cults and possibly a few places overseas.
Now I find I was very wrong. Not only am I surround by evil everywhere on the Left in the form of aggressive anti-Semitism, I have now found a pure form of evil that is widespread in America. It only takes two published references for you to come to the same conclusion for yourself.
First, what is pure evil? Pure evil is torturing a three-year-old to death over a three hour period. Pure evil is a .....
Norway has hired an academic philosopher, Henrik Syse, and given him a staff of four to deal with the moral issues surrounding the $190 billion fund generated by oil wealth.
That is meat for me. Morals and money.
Morals are independent of commerce. I am among the rare people (Georg Simmel is the only other person I know of) who have thought and written about this subject. My thoughts are in my book Commerce and on my blogsite Commerce, a book.
Norway starts out with no moral authority … none.
Unless you read the Jerusalem Post carefully you may have
missed the following important sentence: "If by the end
of March 2006 the international community will have failed to halt Iran's
nuclear weapons program, diplomatic efforts will be pointless," said
Farkash.
Farkash is Ahron Ze-evi Farkash, head of
Israeli Military Intelligence.
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