We’ll provide a few services, and use the lion’s share of revenues to pay the bribes.
More than providing services to ‘em, taking people’s money is what makes organizations real. Be they formal, informal, or temporary.
Mayor E.B. Farnum as depicted in the Series Deadwood, episode “No Other Sons or Daughters”
Norman Borlaug passed away yesterday. He most likely did more for humanity than anyone in history. Most of the people whose lives he saved were extremely poor, in Mexico, Pakistan and India. Despite a boatload of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, nearly nobody know who he was. He deserves, but likely will not get, the media attention and elaborate memorials given to politicians who did far less public good, and much more public evil. R.I.P.
It is very likely he saved on billion lives.
Willy DeVille, who brought street elegance and soul to New York’s punk scene in the late ‘70s, died yesterday of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 58.
Tall, thin and debonair with almond-shaped eyes, DeVille was an anomaly on the punk scene centered at CBGBs on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He could sing in a smooth style reminiscent of the great Atlantic Records balladeers and craft a mean pop tune; in time, he co-wrote several songs with Doc Pomus, an influence. During his three-decade long career, he covered a vast musical terrain –- soul, R&B and blues — and scored an international hit with a Cajun-flavored rendition of “Hey Joe.” His song “Storybook Love,” which appeared in the film “The Princess Bride,” was nominated for an Oscar.
DeVille is survived by his wife Nina and son Sean.
Willy DeVille Dies at 58 – Speakeasy – WSJ.
Hey you/ I remember/ ’cause the empty streets, fill me now / Gone away, but not forever… Is it over now?
1953-2009.
And this is just damn beautiful.
Willy DeVille Mixed Up Shook Up Girl 1994
My favorite part is the bag at the end. My only disappointment is they missed the opportunity to use the line, “Those jobs weren’t even on the table.”
George Tiller did evil things, but so do all of us. His life was precious, and Rober P George pretty much covers it:
For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller’s life was precious.
I see no reason to improve on last year’s Memorial Day entry, so I’m repeating it in full below. All of the links have been updated with new information since last year.
In addition to you fun with friends and family, and catching up on your chores, please spend some time this weekend to commemorate Memorial Day.
First, you might want to educate your self a bit. I learned a lot by reading though some of the links below:
Here is a good source of information on Medal of Honor recipients in the War on Terror. Scroll down to read about them all. Next, I would suggest visiting milblogger Blackfive and his Fallen But Never Forgotten Series. While there, you might also read through the Someone You Should Know series.
Then, please do something to help our current service members. This should mean more than thinking “I support the troops,” or supporting politicians who favor some course of action, whether it be supporting the war, ending the war, etc. A good place to start is, of course, the USO. If you want to get beyond the mainstream, Blackfive, again, has some great ideas.
Finally, if you set aside some time this weekend for worship, please pray: for our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen, for their soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen, for non-combatants, for the innocent, for the not-so-innocent, and for an end to the circumstances that sometimes require war.
Richard Stith has a fantastic short post over at Mirror of Justice, with the best single line about current abortion dialogue I have seen in some time:
Reducing the numbers of those who need protection is no substitute for protecting those who need protection
So we’re in a recession, at least, where one of the biggest problems is that people with money won’t lend it. Then the President stiff-arms secured creditors to pay off his union buddies, overturning basic law to do so. Who will lend money now, without seeking potentially high rewards with higher interest rates?
Scott Grannis at Calafia Beach Pundit predicts:
Rising interest rates are thus likely to be driven by a) an avalanche of Treasury supply and b) rising inflation. These are going to be the critical issues to focus on in coming years. I don’t think they mean that the economy will collapse. Instead, I think it is a good reason to expect that economic growth will be subpar (averaging less than 3%) for many years.
Here is the chart of Obama deficits that’s been making the rounds for a while:
Obama's Budget Deficit Projections
And it’s already out of date, and getting worse:
The White House on Monday projected 2009 and 2010 federal budget deficits far higher than it forecast just two and a half months ago, even as it continued to defy most experts and predict that the economy is headed for a strong comeback starting late this year.
Economists scoffed at the latest administration predictions.
“Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget” at McClatchey
Heaven help us, but I don’t see how we avoid low growth and high inflation unless we change course soon.
“If you don’t know who the mark is, you are the mark.” Good advice for any poker game. Sometimes you might think somebody else is the mark, but an elaborate ruse has been created to fool you. This mostly happens in movies, like The Sting. Other times your partner might double-cross you, and after you and he previously conned other marks, you become the mark without realizing it. Think White Men Can’t Jump. Current events have me trying to remember if there has ever been a movie in which one player is an insider on one con, while simultaneously being the mark in another con, involving some of the same players. I don’t mean a fake con, but 2 simultaneous real cons happening at the same time.
Instapundit has been asking “who is the rube” a lot lately. Very recently, Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz argued it’s time to play who is the rube on the issue of gay marriage. It’s clear that many gay marriage supporters believe President Obama has been lying about his opposition to gay marriage, and therefore believe that everyone who believed him has been the rube — but since Obama hasn’t tipped his hand on that issue yet, we don’t know. Assuming, for now, that the gay marriage supporters are right, that might explain how they could be “idiots” at the same time regarding another issue. Tigerhawk criticizes wealthy Obama supporters who are horrified to find out he really is a class warrior:
If you are going to be “rich,” be proud of it and only vote against your own pecuniary interests to achieve some collateral objective. You know, because you want to treat our traditional allies more respectfully or some such reason (bwahahaha!). Do not, please, be a moron and claim to be surprised when the dude’s actions in office closely mirror everything he stood for his entire life up until the last five months before the general election.
I think it is pretty clear that many of the rich, and even the working affluent, voted for Obama for just such collateral objectives, including culture war issues like gay marriage. Figuring that they had spotted the rubes in one context, they thought they couldn’t be the rubes on economic issues. But candidate Obama talked from both sides of his mouth on such issues. Somebody had to be the mark, and it turned out to be the folks with the cash.
