Notable Quotables

A few quotes that caught my eye recently:

But as you move forward in life, try to remember your grandpa’s advice. Don’t accelerate and be obsessed about what awaits in the future, but at the same time don’t brake and be consumed by the past. There’s nothing you can do about the past, and not much you can do about the future, either. You might as well do the best you can right here in the present.

Also, this is unrelated to the metaphor, but keep two hands on the wheel. It’s really icy.

 - Bill Lee, former Red Sox pitcher, "Letter to My Younger Self", The Players Tribune

A constitutional government will always be a weak government when compared to an arbitrary one. There will be many desirable things, as well as undesirable, which are easy for a despotism but impossible elsewhere. Constitutionalism suffers from the defects inherent in its own merits. Because it cannot do some evil, it is precluded from doing some good. Shall we, then, forgo the good to prevent the evil, or shall we submit to the evil to secure the good? This is the fundamental practical question of all constitutionalism.

- Charles Howard McIllwain, Constitutionalism Ancient and Modern (1940), via Powerline

Self-driving cars aren't a problem to be solved, because there's no problem there. Why do Millennials want to sit in a booster seat clutching a ziploc bag of Cheerios and a Gameboy until they're ready for a nursing home? Drive your own damn car. It's not that hard if you're not texting.

- Roger de Hautville, Maggie's Farm 

The media feel like lawyers for the Clinton campaign, taking whatever the evidence is and presenting it as advantageous to their client.

 - Ann Althouse, referring to, (what else?) a New York Times story

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called “guessing what was on the other side of the hill.”

 - Duke of Wellington, 19th century, via Ghost Writer 

. . . in the world of modern democratic politics, a declared aim is more important than a an actual effect

- Theodore Dalrymple, "Bludgeoning Aspiration to Get to Equality" 

Because in the world of modern democratic politics, a declared aim is more important than an actual effect. - See more at: http://www.libertylawsite.org/2016/08/23/bludgeoning-aspiration-to-get-to-equality/#sthash.sAOlzyAX.dpuf

Because in the world of modern democratic politics, a declared aim is more important than an actual effect. - See more at: http://www.libertylawsite.org/2016/08/23/bludgeoning-aspiration-to-get-to-equality/#sthash.sAOlzyAX.dpuf

The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them. 

- "Reynolds Law"; Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on designing and implementing disclosure rules for such products as home mortgages.  Has there been a single case of a consumer who read such a disclosure and made a better decision as a result of it?**

- Arnold Kling, Askblog

G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything." Whoever said it - he was right. We are supposed to live in a skeptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.

- Umberto Eco

** Our first mortgage was in 1979.  Obtained from a local bank it had a couple of page document telling us how much we borrowed, the interest rate, how much we'd pay a month and the amount we'd pay over the lifetime of the mortgage.  It worked fine.  Since then the paperwork for every mortgage and refinancing we've done has gotten longer, more complex, and less useful.  Every government attempt to simplify the mess they created with their prior simplification just makes it more complicated.

The Waco Kid Is Gone

Gene Wilder always made you smile.

As Leo Bloom:

Our New Home?

For those of you thinking about leaving the good 'ol US of A, depending upon who wins the election, or, like us, thinking of leaving regardless of who wins, there may be an unexpected option.  Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth may have a habitable planet!   And it's only 4.2 light years away.

The discovery was recently announced in Nature; from the abstract:

Although Proxima is considered a moderately active star, its rotation period is about 83 days (ref. 3) and its quiescent activity levels and X-ray luminosity⁴ are comparable to those of the Sun. Here we report observations that reveal the presence of a small planet with a minimum mass of about 1.3 Earth masses orbiting Proxima with a period of approximately 11.2 days at a semi-major-axis distance of around 0.05 astronomical units. Its equilibrium temperature is within the range where water could be liquid on its surface⁵.

This provides more information:

So, it seems to me, the only questions left should be pretty easy to resolve:

1.  Is the planet really habitable right now, or is some terraforming required?
2.  How long will it take to develop a space ship to get us there?
3.  How long will the journey take?

On the last question, if we can increase the top speed of our craft by only 10X that of the Saturn rocket which took the astronauts to the Moon, it would take only 15,000 years to get there!

Meta Sudans

You won't find it if you are in Rome today.  The remaining part of the crumbling structure was bulldozed on Mussolini's orders in 1936.

(Meta Sudans, in front of Colosseum, 1890, from flashbak)

The precise purpose of the Meta Sudans is still debated.  What is known is that it was built in the 1st century AD, during the same period as the Colosseum.  Nor does it have anything to do with the country of the Sudan.  It's meaning in Latin is roughly "sweating turning post" and it's thought it served as a fountain and point on which Roman Triumphs turned left, from heading along the valley between the Palatine and Caelian hills, and proceeded up and over the incline on which sat the Arch of Titus, and then on down into the Roman Forum.  Below is an 1860 photo showing the remnants of the Meta Sudans looking toward the Arch of Titus; an arch commemorating a dark time in Jewish history, Rome's suppression of the Jewish Revolt of 66-70 AD and the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
(from roger pearse)

This is an artist's impression of what it may have looked like during the time of the Roman Empire.  Next to it is the Arch of Constantine, which was not constructed until around 320 AD.  Behind is a corner of the Palatine Hill, which held the Emperor's Palace.
 
(From detritus of empire) 

I'm A Boy

For prior Who singles  . . .

50 years ago today, The Who released I'm A Boy, their 6th single.  It was to be their most successful releases to date, hitting #2 or #1 on the British charts.  Like their previous singles, it was a flop in the U.S.   It's also one of their funniest lyrics:

One girl was called Jean Marie
Another little girl was called Felicity
Another little girl was Sally Joy
The other was me, and I'm a boy.

My name is Bill, and I'm a head case
They practice making up on my face
Yeah, I feel lucky if I get trousers to wear
Spend evenings taking hairpins from my hair

I'm a boy, I'm a boy
But my ma won't admit it
I'm a boy, I'm a boy
But if I say I am, I get it

Put your frock on, Jean Marie
Plait your hair, Felicity
Paint your nails, little Sally Joy
Put this wig on, little boy

I'm a boy, I'm a boy
But my ma won't admit it
I'm a boy, I'm a boy
But if I say I am, I get it

I wanna play cricket on the green
Ride my bike across the street
Cut myself and see my blood
I wanna come home all covered in mud

One thing I've never been able to clarify is why The Kids Are Alright was released only two weeks prior to I'm A Boy.  Some histories of The Who don't even refer to the release of The Kids, so the mystery remains (at least for me).

Tears Of God

The four founders of Los Lobos have been playing together since the mid-70s.  All from East Los Angeles, David Hildago (guitar), Caesar Rosas (guitar), Louie Perez (drums), and Conrad Lozano (bass) play a mix of rock n roll, Chicano funk, folk, traditional Mexican music, sometimes adding a  dash of zydeco or country.  A good live act, go see them if you have a chance.

Here's a ballad, Tears of God.

When it's up to you
To figure out what's right and wrong
It's someone else's parade
And yours is an unhappy song

When it hurts so bad
And you feel that you can't go on
Each day goes by too fast
And the nights are so very long

You'll find out true
What mother said to you
That tears of god will show you the way
The way to turn

And for something more upbeat, Don't Worry Baby.

Emily, in the country/folk mode, with Hildago on fiddle and lead guitar.