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Website of the Week
Another great movie from the BBC.
Local Pump Price of Unleaded Gasoline:
$3.89/gallon
Price Per Barrel of Oil:
$136.04 (previously $125.96)
last modified Jul 8, 2008 at 22:33
Full text here.
(hat tip: Barlowfarms)
UPDATE:
Jeffrey Meyers has posted a response entitled "30 Reasons: Why It Would be Unwise for the PCA General Assembly to Adopt the Federal Vision Study Report and Its Recommendations".
Great (and accurate) press release for The Disclaimers:
The Disclaimers, Wayne Irby and Kelley Norris, are Oxford’s own version of cosmic American music. The duo, augmented by other Oxford pickers, are patterned from Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris’ amazing early 70s collaborations. The group is full of inspiration from Americana legends Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, and Lucinda Williams to name a few. They’ve spent the last couple of years bringing their musical quest for redemption to venues in and around Oxford with a semi-regular booking at Taylor Grocery. Their sound is reminiscent of driving around in a rusted pickup truck on Highway 334 out past Yocona, not really going anywhere, but having plenty of time to kill and plenty of beer to drink. These are not songs or sounds for lovers of modern country music, but for those of us who think the best American music was made in the era before the internet and hybrid cars and cell phones, this is the stuff. If Larry Brown had written books about local bands, this would have been his favorite. He wouldn’t have been able to resist songs that are perfectly at home in cotton fields and cattle ranchers and all the best dive bars. If you like acoustic music with a real depth of feeling and substance, The Disclaimers are sure to be a local favorite of yours as well.
Andrew Coffman
Oxford Town April 26, 2007
__________
Party on, Wayne!
The early part of this week, I had the chance to spend a few days in New Orleans as part of the Society for Human Resource Management's Staffing Management Conference. (Try to say that after three shots of Jaeger! j/k) I had not been to New Orleans since Katrina hit a couple of years ago and honestly did not know what to expect. Would I see signs of the devastation and is New Orleans on the road to recovery?
Unfortunately, I did not get to see much of New Orleans that was not alongside I-55 or enroute to the French Quarter. I did see a lot of shacks along the I-55 and I-10 bridges, but I couldn't remember if they had already been there. The French Quarter apparently has not missed the beat too badly and is teeming with tourists from all over the place. I did notice that there were significantly less homeless and/or mentally ill people hanging out downtown, although I'm sure that number will build itself back up.
The conference was great with a lot of interesting seminars. We had several well-known conference speakers as well: Malcolm Gladwell, Nanci Giles, and Mark Morial. Although I got to listen to Mr. Gladwell, I couldn't stomach having to listen to Morial's liberal tripe and Ms. Giles, I'm not sure why they had her speak, so I decided to forego their speeches for breakfast at the Cafe du Monde.
Malcolm Gladwell is a very interesting fellow and seems to emanate a quirky intelligence and quiet confidence that's typically associated with the likes of Einstein or Hawking. That's what he projects, but whether or not he rises to the level of genius is certainly debatable. Regardless, he had an interesting discussion on talent and genius which was apt for an audience of HR professionals seeking to acquire top talent for their companies. Gladwell postulated that the best fruit of talent is yielded in one of two ways and uses the case of the two artists Picasso and Cézanne. Picasso's genius demonstrated itself early in his life while Cézanne performed his greatest work during his latter years. One had a huge concept and was able to communicate it through his art while the other (Cézanne) had to continuously refine his technique and art until he eventually mastered it.
Gladwell's point was that talent (or genius) may take time to develop and that businesses need to incubate those who have the potential promise (the Cézannes) and not exclusively seek to find those who can perform right away (the Picassos). Gladwell's suggestion is that businesses should have a portfolio of talent consisting of employees in various stages of talent development.
Gladwell amused us with the history of Fleetwood Mac and the patience that the record label had had with them during their formative years. Rumors was the band's 16th album (and it's most successful). Before the speech, Gladwell had told us about a lady who had stood up during one of his question and answer sessions and had asked him to marry him, so it was to much laughter during our question and answer session when another lady upped the ante by asking Mr. Gladwell if she could have his baby.
For another blogger who heard Gladwell speak at Columbia University, click here.
This is pretty funny (from IMAO):
It's sounding more and more likely that Fred Thompson will run for the Republican nomination for President. Can he win, though, when it's well known that his penchant for bureaucracy nearly kept Bruce Willis and Clint Eastwood from getting the job done against terrorists and assassins?
I think he can.
Actually, the more I find out about Fred Thompson, the more I think he needs to be President. And I mean he should be President right now, like Dick Cheney should resign, President Bush should then appoint Fred Thompson to be Vice-President, and then President Bush should resign.
Do you think I'm going overboard when I've only just started to learn about Fred Thompson, but you won't when you read this:
AWESOME FACTS ABOUT FRED THOMPSON
* Fred Thompson has on multiple occasions pronounced "nuclear" correctly.
* Fred Thompson has blasted more people in the face with a shotgun than even Dick Cheney.
* The masked executioner of Saddam Hussein: Fred Thompson.
* Not only does Fred Thompson cut taxes, he cuts tax collectors.
* Fred Thompson is the only person to have ever bested Miyamato Mushashi in a duel. The reason Musashi is so vague about the book of the void is because the fifth ring of combat is really Fred Thompson.
* The reason Fred Thompson didn't want to stay in the Senate for long is because all the extra scrutiny kept him from doing his favorite hobby: Prowling the streets at night killing drug dealers.
* Every night before going to sleep, Osama bin Laden checks under his bed for Fred Thompson.
* Fred Thompson took over what was Al Gore's Senate seat, thereby dramatically reducing the Senate's carbon footprint. Fred Thompson then created carbon offset offsets by wastefully burning hippies.
* The Fremen consider "Fred Thompson" a killing word.
* Fred Thompson reconsidered running for reelection after 9/11 but later decided to handle things on his own. He was soon seen entering the Middle East with a bottle of tequila in one hand an a handgun in the other. They're still counting the dead.
Read the whole thing.
Great piece on Bobby Jindal over at RedState:
Bobby Jindal, at that time a senior policy advisor at HHS, arrived late to the meeting, cracking the door and slipping through. He is a slim and quiet man, with an easygoing smile—but always with the underlying intensity of those truly dedicated to the tasks in front of them. I knew who he was, but had never seen him in person before.
After a few minutes of watching Jack Welch roll his eyes as Gerard launched into another tirade on the virtues of socialist health care, he stepped toward the table.
“Mister Secretary, if I may interject?” he asked. Relieved for the possibility of some help, Thompson nodded assent.
Off the top of his head, Jindal started going down the list. He snapped Gerard’s smaller concerns like dry twigs, citing statistics and anecdotes as if they were memorized specifically for this moment. The larger socialist arguments he hacked into little bits—this won’t work, here’s why it won’t work, and here’s three places where they tried it and it didn’t. He was polite, he was intelligent, and he was passionate. He was ruthless.
While mowing my yard, my mind engages in the deep things of life. To wit, as I mowed the yard in the rear portion of my house this past weekend, I pondered how the United States might cure its ills with Mexico and our immigration program.
Then it hit me: why doesn't the United States simply annex Mexico as one of our territories? The government of Mexico has, for all intents and purposes, contended that their citizens are entitled to cross our border without being treated as illegals. Let 'em cross as "legals" through the annexation of Mexico!
Think of the benefits:
* As a United States territory, Mexico could keep it's low wage rates.
* The United States could send in our "federales" to clean up Mexico City and all those little towns south of the border that are plagued by organized crime and drug cartels. We'd be able to put a huge dent into the illegal drug trade.
* Social Security (and the Treasury overall) would be buoyed by the inclusion of a large new class of workers.
* Our southern border would be a lot smaller and easier to defend.
* We'd have Cuba surrounded on the North, West, and East sides.
******
I'm amazed that nothing has come of the Iran/British hostages fiasco. I wonder if Iran was hoping to gin up some anger with the Brits. Maybe with the Brits of yesteryear, but the Brits of today seem a bit perplexed and unsure of themselves. It might be because they no longer have a powerful military or simply because they are a crusty shell of the great people they used to be. It's pretty sad, really.
******
The last time that I remember being less enthused about a Presidential election was in '96 when Bob Dole ran against Bill Clinton. It didn't seem as important back then that we have a real star candidate, maybe because we saw Bill as unbeatable and Dole was a "throw-away" candidate who earned the nomination by virtue of his time in the Senate. Many folks are eagerly hoping that Fred Thompson will jump in and make things interesting. James Dobson said that he wouldn't support Fred Thompson because Mr. Dobson didn't believe that Mr. Thompson was a Christian. Mr. Thompson's people countered and said that Mr. Thompson was a Christian and had been baptized into the Church of Christ. I wonder what the FV proponents think about that...
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