Zeta Woof

The whole damned thing.

We knew that already, as I said before, but still it's nice to have another federal judge agree with us.

The Schoenberg and Sibelius violin concertos by Hilary Hahn and the Shostakovich and Prokofiev concertos by Sarah Chang.





I may not know much about music, as the saying goes, but I know what I like.

After a day like today when I work myself to exhaustion I always come back in the house and fix myself a rumedy. "Rumedy?" my wife asks. Yes, rumedy, and after a few long sips, especially if I'm alone at the table, I'm liable to take up a song:

I don't work for a living.
I get along alright without.
I don't toil all day.
I suppose it's because I'm not built that way.
Some people work for love
And say it's all sunshine again.
If I can't have sunshine without any work
I'd rather be out in the rain.

Leslie actually taught me that years ago. Her dad used to sing it. It's only got one verse that we know of:

Give me a nail and a hammer
And a picture to hang on the wall.
Give me a strong stepladder
So that I won't fall.
Give me a bottle of whiskey
And a barrel of strong stout ale,
And I bet you I'll hang up that picture
If somebody'll drive the nail...

I don't work for a living, etc.

Some old hobo named Pete Wiggins sings it on YouTube if you want to know the melody. He kind of messes up the words, and his chords aren't a hundred percent, but the melody is mostly right.

Anyway, I think it was Gene Autry did the one that Leslie's dad sang, but I could be wrong. If you know better, drop me a line.

Maybe it is time to get The Wall Street Journal Guide to Investing in the Apocalypse.

Whether a global disaster is natural or man-made, environmental or financial, every fearsome scenario contains the seeds of profit for the investor who stays calm and thinks rather than panics and runs.

Available February 1st at all fine book stores.

In the news today but I chose not to listen.

Which brings to mind the age old question...

If something happens in the middle of the news cycle and nobody's around to give a damn, does it still make a difference?

I'm voting "no."

I'm going full paleo.

Hardest part is getting the herd of bison to stampede off the cliff.

Seventy-five to go.

This is what I've been doing on my winter vacation. This, and another dormer on the back of the house just like the dormer on the front. And mincemeat pies — I've been baking a lot of mincemeat pies.

It so happens that in the last six months, a lot of people have suddenly discovered their dishwashers don't work as well as they used to. The problem, though, isn't the dishwashers. It's the soap. Last July, acceding to pressure from environmentalists, America's dishwasher detergent manufacturers decided to change their formulas. And the new detergents stink.

Read why at The Weekly Standard.

Scott Locklin explains why no one watches the Miss America contest any more.

I'd be afraid to look at this sorry little girl with her clothes off. With her beady eyes, her hatchet jawline, her manly shoulders and ribcage, her total lack of hips and barrel-like physique, what horrors lurk underneath the bikini?

Be sure to click through to the illustrations.

Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded congress.

Not exactly a good idea right now.

It did get him a Drudge-alanche, though.

Why Governor Palin Should Run for President

He's right, and you know it.

Why set a limit on federal borrowing if we're going to routinely raise that limit every time we approach it?

Good question.

I enjoy no form of music so much as the violin concerto and recently I have started listening to a different one each evening. Unfortunately, I only have a dozen — Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Bruch, Goldmark, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, Sibelius, Nielsen, Khatchaturian, Korngold, and Shostakovich.

What should I buy next? Which composer? Which soloist?

Update: Two people have suggested Elgar; also Schumann, Lalo, Dvorak, Glazunov, Bartok, Prokofiev, Berg, Schoenberg, and Barber. Additionally, Saint-Saens and Shostakovich each wrote two, but I've only heard the one. Lots of shopping to do.

Thanks also to OregonGuy and Terrance, who posted replies and added Ravel and Paganini to the list.

A long plume of moisture extends from near Hawaii up to the Pacific Northwest... and moderate to heavy rain will result from this feature overrunning the forecast area during the next 24 to 30 hours. The NAM12 continues to suggest higher precipitation amounts than the GFS or ECMWF... but given that satellite-derived precipitable water values are registering at 1.8 inches just offshore... am leaning toward NAM as the better solution regarding this atmospheric river. Also of note are the high dew points inland... reaching the mid 50s in the Umpqua basin. River stages will peak anywhere from Sunday night to Monday night...

Reference: Area Forecast Discussion and International Satellite Imagery. Also watch the River Forecasts.

This month's Straggler. Worth reading.

When you spend as much time as I do sitting at a desk, and always the same desk, forty hours a week paid and another twenty or so just trying to keep up with the damned news, then it really matters what kind of desk you have. This year's Christmas present to me from my lovely wife, although she hadn't planned on it being that, was this beautiful hundred-year-old "tiger oak" antique, found on craigslist and purchased for only fifty dollars.

I put in about eight hours gluing the drawers back together and rubbing it down with Restor-A-Finish. Then I rigged up a keyboard tray because you know a hundred years ago they didn't have keyboards and even the type writer was fairly new fangled and usually sat on a stand of its own off to the side some place out of the way.

Of course the tray wasn't big enough for a standard sized keyboard so I ordered this little gem, and a wireless rodent to go with it.

Yeah, I know. Small things for small minds. Would you rather wrestle with the big questions of the day?

From Patrick. It's just too good not to share.

I really like their gene pool theory of American character, except in my case it's been a bit diluted, since my ancestors have been here for some fifteen generations (or, if you trace back along the mothers' side, well over 10,000 years).

James Taranto's take on the Huckleberry Finn kerfuffle is classic.

There's not much I can add to it, except to say that I think that publishing a bowdlerized version of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an insult to every descendant of American slaves. That unfortunate episode of slavery, for better or worse, is part of their heritage. The word "nigger" is part of their history. To suppress evidence of the racism that American slaves endured seems to me not much different from denying the Holocaust.

History is ugly, if it's done right. We humans have plenty to be ashamed of. Little is gained by pretending otherwise.

Q. Why did God give liberals annoying, whiny voices?

A. So that even the blind could hate them.

I don't think there's a word yet in our language that means "the total polar opposite of an Insta-lanche" so "getting linked by innominatus" will have to do for now.

He already is the funniest right-of-center blogger in Oregon — and, yes, since you asked, the competition is fierce.

Nobody does it like Dave Barry.

Greg mentioned this the other day but it went in one ear and out the other. Instapundit reminded me: Taubes has a new book out. Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, although as he says on his blog, once you understand the why, the what is pretty obvious.

I thought that Good Calories, Bad Calories was the most important book I'd read in years. I went so far as to buy a second copy so I could have my book and lend it too. But other than Greg, who has a degree in philosophy and works in a medical lab, I couldn't get anyone to read it. Too long. Too hard. It contradicts itself. (It doesn't really, but if you skim it too fast you might miss that he paraphrases his opponent's arguments before rebutting them.)

Hopefully this book will fix that. I've ordered mine. Get yours.