Competition: You Gotta Love It

I was checking out the web site for our new town and discovered that they have two, TWO, cable providers to choose from. We only have one here on the Missouri side. I've checked then out a few times in the past, but always decided against it because to get Fox News you had to get the most expensive package. I don't know whether I'd even like Fox News, but I want to be the one to decide. I don't like being roped into things. I figured if they ever got around to offering me more choices, I'd consider their service.

Well, guess what? Not only does the second provider offer cheaper service, the first provider has lowered their prices and put Fox News on the standard tier of channels even on the Missouri side, where there is still no competition. I suppose there would be armed revolt if Kansans were offered a better deal than Missourians.

What you find in the rafters after 20 years.

We were pulling all the junk out of the rafters in the basement when we made an interesting discovery. Mostly, the previous owners had stuck old curtain rods up there. But, apparently, that's also where the man had stashed his girlie magazines. And yes, I checked the dates to make sure they weren't Brian's. They were 20 plus years old.

Go Organic?

Here's an article from Consumer Reports on which foods are worth buying organic and which are not. Mia is on a big apple jag right now, so I've been inspired to look for organic ones. Target sometimes carries them, but they didn't have any last time.

For the time impaired:

Worth It: Apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, imported grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, and strawberries.

Not Worth It: Asparagus, avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet corn, kiwi, mangos, onions, papaya, pineapples, and sweet peas.

(Via A Constrained Vision)

Stupid in America

I watched John Stossel's Stupid in America. Well, I live in Kansas City, so I wasn't surprised to hear that lots money doesn't help kids do better. The Kansas City school district, while improving, failed to regain its accreditation this year.

But socialist Europe has more school choice than we do? Really? Or is it just Belgium? If France does it, we should be able to get the Democrats on board.

"Fake But Accurate" Goes Mainstream

I never heard of James Frey or his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, before this flap about his "embellishment" of his life story. But yesterday's Talk of the Nation had an editor and an author on to discuss the story. Both guests panned Frey for betraying his readers' trust by, not to put too fine a point on it, lying. But most callers defended him. Well, it was a moving story. Well, it helped people see what addiction is all about. And so on. The guests politely tried pointing out that his story is not what addiction is all about, because it never happened. He made it up. That's great if you're writing a novel, but if you say "Hey this really happened to me" and it didn't, then that is a lie.

I thought this was especially interesting in light of neo-Neocon's recent post on lies. She says:

So the new definition of a lie has become: something that fooled me. Something that I heard and thought was true, and then discovered wasn't true. It made me angry to be jerked around like that. So it's a lie.

Such a listener lacks awareness of any need to ascertain the state of mind of the speaker in order to define an utterance as a lie--it is simply irrelevant; it does not compute in the equation. In fact, the so-called liar is actually often either mistaken, misinformed by others, in denial, or deluded. But that doesn't matter to a listener who hears everything only in terms of him/herself and how something makes him/her feel.

The Frey situation is the reverse. I liked the book, it was powerful, it helped me, I agree with it. Therefore it is not a lie. It could have happened. It's fake, but accurate

The Junk Man Cometh

We now have a 30 foot dumpster in the driveway. I was worried it wouldn't hold all our junk (we inherited quite a lot when we bought this place) but I think it will do the trick. The man who delivered it is even interested in buying our old car.

Ahh! We bought a house!

The two most indecisive people in the world bought a house in less than a week. Amazing. It took us months to find the house we are in now. I just figured we'd be looking all spring. But we had some very specific requirements and there just weren't too many houses that met them.

Varifrank reviews "State of War"

and isn't too impressed:

so far its a condensed cream of "East Coast Intellectual Bush Hatred" laid lightly across a bed of foreign service officer dissention, followed by a green-with-envy salad covered in a light vinagarette of Georgetown party circuit smarm.

His final review is here, including this stab at a psychological profile of the leaker:

Things are going along well until a colleague, an old timer who has been left out of the operation becomes aware of what’s been going on with your program. He cares not for the security of the nation, but for the size of the budget of his department and his career and since you and your team have been getting results, you are now also getting the budget, the attention and of course the recognition and promotions to go along with it.

After years of work, after all the "sucking up" to political appointees after every election, he’s about to be lapped by “the new kids” who are violating every rule you followed in the previous 10 years when you had the project. He decides he can’t compete with these rules and the culture that comes with it and the results that are expected, so he decides to even the game in the only way he can.

He decides to have lunch with a friend; a friend who just happens to work for the New York Times.

Career Opportunity

Artist paints with her breasts:

The mother of two, from Tasmania, who is happy to describe herself as a big
woman, works at the kitchen table rather than at an easel, reports the Mercury
newspaper.

She said: "I either apply the paint to my breasts and lean on to
the canvas or apply the paint to the canvas and then lean into it to spread the
paint.

Sounds like the perfect job for a stay-at-home mom. Do you think there's a market for this in Kansas City? (Via Ex-DonkeyBlog)

Well, At Least He Has A Sense Of Humor

For all my dissing of Robert Reich, at least he doesn't take himself too seriously. I just saw the skit he did with Conan O'Brien. Pretty funny.

What a 10 foot snowfall looks like

Japan has already suffered 71 deaths from this storm.

House Hunting

That's what we've been up to recently. Yesterday we saw 7 houses. Our eyes were glazed over by the time we got to the last one, but we found a likely candidate. It's not in that snobby suburb I blogged about earlier. We couldn't quite afford the houses we liked there. But it is in the soccer-mom capital of the Kansas City metro in a neighborhood of moderate snobbiness.

What is it with liberals and dictatorship?

By happenstance, I often hear Robert Reich's NPR commentary while I'm in the car. I'm always a little surprised when the announcers mention at the end that he was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor. He seems so impossibly wrong all the time. How did he get to be Secretary of Labor?

Yesterday, he talked about China and how fab it was that a country didn't have to be a democracy to have a successful capitalist economy. (Reich's commentaries are not available from NPR, but transcripts are eventually available on Reich's site. Yesterday's is not up as of this writing) It struck me as the height of foolishness when I heard it. Democracy may not be required for a thriving economy, but civil liberty, enforced by rule of law, is. And how many countries have leaderships that abide by the rule of law without at least a little democracy? I can't think of any dictatorships that aren't hopelessly corrupt. And the long-term economic performance of such countries isn't so hot either.

Of course, Reich knows this. Here's his commentary from 2 weeks ago:

Economic freedom and civil liberty -- the two are inseparable. And both are threatened by unaccountable power that refuses to be confined by the rule of law. As they did centuries ago when confronting monarchs who claimed unbridled power to rule as they wished, business leaders must come to the defense of liberty.

Oh, but wait. He was talking about the Bushitler regime in that commentary. Apparently, business needs to be rescued from the Bush monarchy, but is doing just fine in the Chinese Communists dictatorship. There are thousands of such examples of liberals making excuses for communist regimes, but I'm still surprised by them. How many times can a guy apparently as smart as Reich be fooled by the "OK, this time we've got it figured out" promises of communists? The number seems limitless.

What prompted this post was reading this (via Instapundit) by Rebecca MacKinnon:

It’s actually not uncommon in China for people in one company to actively “tattle” on their rivals and get them into political trouble in order to gain a competitive business advantage. I saw it happen several times in the media and entertainment worlds when I was living and working in Beijing. This is one reason the communist party will stick around longer than many outsiders think. Businesses get greedy and try to manipulate the authoritarian system to their advantage, rather than working together to make the whole thing more fair, accountable, and transparent.

You mean people might game the system to increase their competitive advantage? And an authoritarian system might be more interested in holding onto power than promoting competition? Don't tell Reich. He'll be so disappointed.

Update: More on China's faux capitalism here.

Successful Christmas Gifts

If you will be visiting a house full of nine-year-old boys and their fathers, consider bringing a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. If you aren't familiar with Harry Potter, I will tell you that one of the things Harry discovers in the wizard world is a jelly bean that can be any flavor, from spaghetti to dirt. While Harry has to pop one in his mouth to discover the flavor, the Jelly Belly Candy Company has helpfully labeled its beans.

From the not too terrible Ear Wax to the truly atrocious (so I'm told) Vomit, my male relatives could not wait to try the next disgusting flavor. We laughed ourselves silly for 15 minutes.
Definitely one of the most successful Christmas gifts ever.

Merry Christmas!

Mia just told us this was the best Christmas ever. Of course, her standards are pretty low. Every time we have pizza she says that was the best pizza ever. Hamburgers - same thing. But still, I think it went well. She's painting on her new easel right now.

This was the first Christmas that she could grasp the concept of Santa and I think we pulled it off. She was really excited when she went to bed last night.

Well, we still have lots of family to visit so I probably won't be blogging until after New Year's.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Manners

Since I explained to her that she gets presents from Santa and her family, Mia has been talking non-stop about who is giving her presents. Is oma? Yes. Is Aunt Kelley? Yes. Is Santa? Yes. Is Grandma? Yes.

Well, we're going to see grandma today, so I told her not to ask for a present right when we walk in the door:

Me: Grandma will give you a present. But don't ask for it.

Mia: Why?

Me: It's not polite to ask people for presents.

Mia: I asked Santa.

Me: Uh, yes, well, uh it's OK to ask Santa, but no one else.

Discrimination or Common Sense?

Seems that Qantas and Air New Zealand have caused quite a ruckus down-under. Both airlines have a policy of not seating an unaccompanied child next to an adult male. This strikes me as a common sense precaution. Some 95% of child molesters are male. If you're rolling the dice by sending a child on a long journey alone, why not up the odds of a safe arrival by seating the kid next to a woman?

But no. Mark Worsley was offended. Now right-wing politicians are up in arms about the "war on men" and left-wing politicians are in a tizzy about equal rights violations. Since this is one thing the two sides can agree on, odds are this policy has seen it's last days.

Sure, the vast majority of men aren't dangerous to children. Of course, it's even less likely that a man will blow up the airplane he's riding in, yet he still has to submit his shoes to a search. On the off chance. Can't be too careful. Better safe than sorry. And so forth. Was Mr. Worsley just as horrified that he was considered a potential terrorist?

Can't this guy just suck it up and switch seats? You know... for the children.

Oh, Fetus Tree, Oh Fetus Tree

Okay, is it stranger to decorate a Christmas tree with baby dolls representing 11-12 week old fetuses, or to be shocked and offended by said baby dolls? Perhaps the strangest thing of all is to run a new segment on the "Fetus Ornaments Controversy."

A Major, Major Turn

John Burns of the NY Times tells The Newshour:

They want an American military withdrawal, but as I heard it expressed today they don't want it to be precipitous, I'm talking about the Sunni Arabs now. They want it to be staged so that political stability here is created.

I said to one man, it sounds very much as though you have been listening to President Bush. And he laughed and he said, Bush's formula would be fine with us -- so a major, major turn here.

And this:

My reading amongst the mood of the Sunnis who voted was that what they want is well within the reach of what the American command here, the American diplomats, feel should be offered to them over the next several months as a new government is formed.

Does Carl "The Sunni's aren't on board" Levin know about this?

(Via Tim Blair)

Participatory Dictatorship

From Jay Nordlinger:

Okay, I’m holding in my hands a new book, about East Germany. The author is Mary Fulbrook, a history professor at University College London. The book is called The People’s State: East Germany from Hitler to Honecker. (So far, so unpromising.) And here’s how the text on the jacket ends: “Replacing the simplistic black-and-white concept of ‘totalitarianism’ by the notion of a ‘participatory dictatorship’, this book seeks to reinstate the East German people as actors in their own history.”

We like to say that Reagan won, but did he? In the universities, never! “Participatory dictatorship”! The cake is taken. Congratulations, Professor Fulbrook. Comrade Honecker would be so pleased.

I used to think communists and their fellow traveler's felt that they just needed one more chance (and one more, and one more) to get communism right. Apparently, many of them thought they had it right all along. (Via Betsy's Page)