Creeping paranoia - belts and suspenders?

It's funny, sometimes, the things that bother me. Here's someone who has a similar feeling about one thing in particular:

What’s the deal with guys who wear belts and suspenders (braces) at the same time? What happened to them to make them so paranoid about their pants falling down? Maybe that’s too harsh–maybe they’ve just got a terribly misguided sense of style. All I know is that it kinda freaks me out whenever I see a dude wearing a belt and suspenders at the same time.
Around where I live, it’s mostly farmer/logger types that are the style victim. I’ve gotta give those guys the benefit of the doubt, though. I don’t know enough about the kind of work they do, but maybe there’s a very real possiblity that some wayward piece of logging equipment is prone to pulling down logger’s pants, and the belt/suspender combo is just the defense against such malfunction. Who knows. hen I play amateur psychologist, I imagine that guys who wear belts and suspenders simultaneously must have lived through some traumatic pants-falling-down experience. Then I try to imagine what that might be. They got “pantsed” in gym class? Their pant leg got caught in their bicycle chain and they didn’t notice until they were already laying on the ground and their pants were wrapped around the back wheel? Again, who knows. I do know that my own personal traumatic experience, in the eighth grade, of getting pushed into the gym wearing only my jockstrap was probably damaging to my psyche, but not quite damaging enough for me to wear two layers of pants security. So it’s hard to imagine what those guys must have gone through.

Amen. Still, it's better not to criticise until you've walked a mile in their shoes, I 'spose.

Power shift to the East: Is the 'American Century' ending?

I've read several books (the Pentagon's New Map, Blueprint for Action, China Inc., etc.) over the past year or so that deal with the rise of China & India on the world economic/political stage and the impact/changes that will mean for both the US and the world. Here are a few excerpts I saw in the online version of the former USSR news organ, Pravada:

In 20 years time, however, by 2025, America and Europe may both be spending much more time worrying about the rise of Asia than about each other. Even without a collapse of the dollar hegemony, there seems to be satisfactory evidence for a great and rapid shift of wealth and power to China and India. Currently, the economic power of China and India is growing at three to five times the GDP rate of Western states.

Our increasing distracted and inept educational system, burdened as it is with layers of administrators, outdated methodologies, "multicultural diversity and knee-jerk political posturing by its "educators" is one major component causing the US to lose ground ....

One obvious reason to this shift in the balance of power in many technologies is that China and India graduate a combined more than half a million engineers and scientists a year. The United States' educational system is beginning to lag behind in this area. The total number of graduates in America is only 60.000. Together, the labour pool of very skilled professionals, in those two countries, is growing three times faster than the United States. In three years' time, the total number of young researchers will rise to 1.6 million in India and China together.

The world today is too complicated for any single power to dominate it, and the US is trying to maintain its hegemony by relying on diminishing assets. As I mentioned at the start, hegemonic powers come and then eventually go, but the whole process of growth and decline is lengthy. History demonstrates that all global powers experience a long period of growth, followed by an equally long period of contraction. At this latter stage, they tend to become progressively more aggressive and unstable.

This brave new post-Cold War world raises a fundamental question: will the US adapt and recapture its leadership in the world system, or will it follow Eighteenth Century Great Britain into a long and painful economic/ political decline until it is eventually bailout or bought out by its former colonies?

As I indicated at the top, this analysis fits in pretty well with a lot of what I've been reading of late; I wondered if our political/economic/military leaders also read this stuff and, if so, what they think about it. From my perspective down here in the nether reaches of middle America, I sure don't see much going on in Washington that addresses this topic (or, frankly, much else of consequence: immigration, social security, education, etc.) and/or offers any sort of real "vision" for the future. Where and when are we going to find someone with any sort of "leadership?" I, for one, am just about fed up with political demagoguery, sound bites, and posturing.

(Read the entire article here.)

The President's speech about controlling the border...

One of my favorite bloggers - Jerry Pournelle, who is also an excellent scifi writer - has a very well-thought out "take" on the immigration situation and some specific ideas:

Not enough enforcement, and not quick enough. The United States is being invaded. It is not a violation of the posse comitatus act to use the military to repel invasions. We do not need more people with no skills, no education, and who do not speak English, to come in to compete for entry level jobs. A "Guest Worker" program should at least require some skills and the ability to speak English. Six thousand National Guards will not be enough......

..... I do not believe that we can assimilate the number of illegal immigrants we already have. The legal immigration program already admits too many people at the bottom end of society if you count families: elders imported to be on Social Security because the Old Country doesn't have decent pensions. And so forth. Add to that the illegal immigrants and the very character of the American Experiment in Self Government is at stake.....

..... The American Melting Pot model of assimilation to a single language, and a wide-based Judao-Christian ethical and religious culture, might be able to endure nationalization. Might. That would be an interesting experiment. But it is 100% certain that the Melting Pot cannot handle great dilution, and that it takes time for it to work. Adding tens of millions of illegals plus larger numbers of legal immigrants will destroy the model and force our national democracy into the typical defects of a large national democracy, and thus to extinction. This is about as certain as anything we know about history.
Apparently no one in Washington understands this.

If they did, they would close the borders NOW, not in 2008.

As to how, it's simple: call it 2000 miles of border. At $1 million per mile that is $2 billion/year, a drop in the Budget. Hand that money on a per/mile basis to each border county sheriff, with provision that it must be spent on border control -- apprehension and confinement. Now hand every border city $20 million a year for the same purposes. Hand each Border State $50 million a year, again solely for border enforcement. The whole program will cost less than the illegals cost us now. And yes, there are details to be worked out, including rewards for performance and penalties for non-performance, and I took the numbers out of the top of my head; but it would work a lot better than sending 6,000 Guardsmen down to the border for TWO WEEK SHIFTS. The present plan will do nothing. It won't even LOOK as if it is doing something, which is its only purpose anyway.

Close the border now. Deport all illegals who come to the attention of the police courts. Insist that any legalization program includes instruction in English, Civics, American History, and such, and have a zero tolerance policy regarding crime including DUI, speeding tickets, driving without a license, drunk and disorderly... IN other words, deport those who volunteer for deportation. And hope that we can assimilate the rest. And do that NOW.

Apparently no one in Washington understands what is at stake.

Well said .....

Whew .... that's a close call ....

Spanish bullfighter Eduardo Gallo barely misses a bull's horn during San Isidro's bullfighting fair at Madrid's Las Ventas bullring May 11, 2006.

That's a little too close for comfort....

Safety ... and humor ....

Qantas is the safest major airline. Maintenance is the key. Apparently, after every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a "gripe sheet", which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight. And it seems that a sense of humor permeates the entire organization. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas' Pilots and the solutions recorded by maintenance engineers.

Pilots: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
Engineers: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

Pilots: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
Engineers: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft

Pilots: Something loose in cockpit.
Engineers: Something tightened in cockpit.

Pilots: Dead bugs on windshield.
Engineers: Live bugs on back-order.

Pilots: Number 3 engine missing.
Engineers: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

Pilots: Mouse in cockpit.
Engineers: Cat installed.

Pilot:. Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
Engineers: Took hammer away from midget

My tax dollars at work ....

On Friday I was sitting in my office (located conveniently in the basement of my home) when I kept hearing a big, grumbling sound. Once I finally noticed it I went outside to find out that my street was being resurfaced!! I was shocked - our whole subdivision is only 5-6 years old and, as far as I know we have no "VIPs" in our little part of the county (shoot, I don't even think the street was all that bad). Anyway, pleased to see my tax dollars at work.

All achievements should remind us of the grace of God

Here are a few excerpts from Eric Mack's blog. A self-professed computer geek and productivity guru, he's also a strong Christian with an interesting website and blog. It seems he's also a recent graduate of John MacArthur's Masters Seminary .....

God is truly the source of all skill and the goal of all labor.

Dr. John MacArthur admonished the graduates: You will be a product of your influences. Choose very well, those whom you allow to shape your life. "... everyone when he is fully trained, will be like his master." Luke 6:40. He went on to discuss how we should carefully consider our goals, and how we approach life, allowing God to work through us.

My take on this: When all is said and done, at the end of our life, what really matters is what kind of eternal impact we have made. Everything else, when considered from eternity, is of no significant value. That does not mean that we should not engage in daily activities; it means that whatever we do, we should do it for the glory of God, working, not as unto men, but as unto the Lord. A godly perspective will certainly change our approach and our motives for the things that we do.

Go here to read the entire post.

"Eye candy," sort of ...

Here's a really interesting "blog" of a different sort .....

The truth shall set you free...

The kind of truth that many fear to touch with a 10-foot pole!

White Guilt and the Western Past

Why is America so delicate with the enemy? …Anti-Americanism, whether in Europe or on the American left, works by the mechanism of white guilt. It stigmatizes America with all the imperialistic and racist ugliness of the white Western past so that America becomes a kind of straw man, a construct of Western sin. (The Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons were the focus of such stigmatization campaigns.) Once the stigma is in place, one need only be anti-American in order to be “good,” in order to have an automatic moral legitimacy and power in relation to America. (People as seemingly disparate as President Jacques Chirac and the Rev. Al Sharpton are devoted pursuers of the moral high ground to be had in anti-Americanism.) This formula is the most dependable source of power for today’s international left. Virtue and power by mere anti-Americanism. And it is all the more appealing since, unlike real virtues, it requires no sacrifice or effort–only outrage at every slight echo of the imperialist past.

Europeans are utterly confounded by the swelling Muslim populations in their midst. America has run from its own mounting immigration problem for decades, and even today, after finally taking up the issue, our government seems entirely flummoxed. White guilt is a vacuum of moral authority visited on the present by the shames of the past. In the abstract it seems a slight thing, almost irrelevant, an unconvincing proposition. Yet a society as enormously powerful as America lacks the authority to ask its most brilliant, wealthy and superbly educated minority students to compete freely for college admission with poor whites who lack all these things. Just can’t do it.