I'm an architecture critic

And I like this building (the relatively new DeYoung Museum in SF):

Sweet

Team Obama.

Random

Just a memory from high school:

Allen Ginsberg came to my high school to speak and read poetry. At the time I fancied myself a bit of a beatnik--the 80s version--so I was quite enthralled. Of course, I had smoked so much pot earlier in the day that I fell asleep and missed much of the first part of his presentation. When I arrived he was on stage playing an accordion, "rapping" poetry about the evil CIA. Wild! It didn't occur to me that the man was a lunatic with a burning hatred towards the United States. I can't imagine what those not in thrall to such ridiculous bile presented as "poetry" felt--they must have been appalled and embarrassed for the school they taught at or attended.

The next day he conducted an informal Q & A for a smaller number of students. Of course, I was there to listen to this intellectual giant. A friend of mine (who was considering forgoing college altogether--extremely uncommon at my school), asked Ginsberg why he should go to college since clearly there was nothing to be learned from such a corrupt, bourgeois institution as higher education. Ginsberg replied that he should get as much education as he could---we were slightly surprised that he would sanction the "establishment" in that way.

What Ginsberg failed to realize is that he and his intellectual brethren had passed along to our generation a contempt for all formal institutions that extended equally to the armed forces as to higher education. It was all the same evil world we thought we would tear down, inspired by Ginsberg and later 60s radicals.

What we failed to realize was that Ginsberg's intellectual friends on the left were in the process of taking over and destroying a good many institutions---creating places that held the rest of American culture and civilization in contempt. So, of course, we should go to college---everyone needed to go to reeducation camp!

Obama

While I am as amused and somewhat pleased as the moonbats are unhappy about some of Obama's cabinet picks I feel the need to remind everyone of the true nature of Obama's ideology:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

In my book, when the government tells you what you can drive, how warm you can be, how much food you can eat it may not be full-on socialism but it is totalitarianism. Generations of Americans have worked incredibly hard, sacrificed so much, and now Obama says we must give up our wealth. In my opinion, this idea of his is economic suicide and morally vacuous. The things he derides are the fruit of American productivity and a work ethic that has been eroded by Democrat party policy. Only when Americans are fully dependent on the federal government for all their needs will liberals be satisfied. For a good idea of how that might look, check out The Matrix.

So, while we may hope that he is moderate based on some of his picks, we must remain vigilant since he is the President and he makes the final decisions on policy and based on his own words he is very liberal.

Excerpt

"An imbecile habit has arisen in modern controversy of saying that such and such a creed can be held in one age but cannot be held in another. Some dogma, we are told, was credible in the twelfth century, but is not credible in the twentieth. You might as well say that a certain philosophy can be believed on Mondays, but cannot be believed on Tuesdays. You might as well say of a view that it was suitable to half-past three, but not suitable to half-past four. What a man can believe depends on his philosophy, not on the clock or the century."

GK Chesterton
from Orthodoxy

Auto bailout

People who are defending this bailout point to the jobs lost not only in the companies themselves but in their suppliers. I agree this would be a painful result, but what is the alternative? We bail them out now...and they continue to operate stupidly...and in a few more years we bail them out again! Meanwhile, they are stuck with all kinds of government mandates to build electric cars and solar powered anti-gravity vehicles and to keep the pensions and wages they can't afford. They become quasi-private companies just like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...that sounds like a good idea. I love the democrats problem with this though...they don't like to be seen bailing out corporations but this is also a bailout for the UAW...so, since they are controlled by big labor, they have to push this bailout.

The big thing everyone misses is this: if there is a demand for cars someone will build them! It is clear that there is not a demand for cars built by UAW workers and incompetently managed companies. I understand that not everyone can start a car company, but if there is money to be made...someone will do it, if not...we can't go on subsidizing failure and make-work.

Quote of the day

"Every one who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgement. He is not hampered by a sense of humour or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is more logical for losing sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason."

GK Chesterton
from Orthodoxy.

Next 10, F. Noel Perry, Professor David Roland-Holst, Applied Materials

Let's just start by saying I distrust people who use a first intial and men with hyphenated names. So I am bound to find some fault with these guys.

F. Noel Perry is the founder of Next 10, an environmental activist organization pushing for more CO2 regulation. They claim to be bipartisan even though F. Noel Perry gave $2300 to Obama (the limit) and David Roland-Holst, who is the lead author of the studies put out by Next 10, gave $500 to Obama. Roland-Holst is a professor of Ag Econ at UC Berkeley. Noel Perry is also the managing director of Baccharis Capital, a silicon valley venture capital firm. Applied Material is a silicon valley firm specializing in alternative energy products: solar, etc. Applied Materials is cited by and approved by and of Next 10. Applied Materials would stand to gain from new CO2 regulations. Is Baccharis Capital an investor in Applied Material? I haven't discovered that yet. Stay tuned on that.

With that said, Next 10 has come out with a new study claiming that global warming will cause untold trillions of dollars damage to California hence we need to regulate greenhouse gases. Disregarding the fact that action by California will have a negligible effect on the climate they are ignoring that all that damage will create more jobs! More jobs are always good according to these guys. Climate regulation will create more jobs ("green" jobs) according to Next 10. These jobs are categorized as a benefit of climate regs, mitigating any cost associated with the regs. So, if natural disasters destroy real estate then the jobs and investment needed to rebuild can only be a good thing, right? So they should be welcoming global warming and the destruction it brings! Why are the jobs and investment needed to implement climate regs considered a benefit but the jobs and investment to rebuild after a fire are not? Jobs are jobs, right?

The truth is that Next 10 is being dishonest about the costs associated with climate regs. The question is why? Do Noel Perry and Roland-Holst stand to profit from climate regs? If they are investors in Applied Materials the answer is yes. I intend to find out.

The LA Times continues to uncritically report Next 10's "studies" as news. They do not question who they are or what they might gain from new regulations. And they do not find fault with any of their analyses.

We are just gonna get railroaded into a state run economy based on BS economics.