tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:41:47 +0000http://grdurand.com/blogger/noreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)Blogger2837125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-735316084163079085Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:17:00 +00002009-07-03T15:41:47.309-07:00Having decided not to run for re-election, Sarah Palin has made a follow-on decision not to govern as a lame duck. She announced this morning that she will "transfer the authority of governor to Lieutenant Governor Parnell" effective July 26.AP story here. Rather rambling official statement by the governor here.Update: Better treatment of the story at the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. She said she http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/07/sarah-palin-to-resign.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-7752467728471228318Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:53:00 +00002009-07-02T17:28:18.361-07:00The headline this morning was not good. Nation's Unemployment Rate Climbs to 26-Year High at 9.5 Percent And headed for double digits, everybody says. Geoff at Innocent Bystanders has an interesting chart.It shows Obama's projections of unemployment with and without the stimulus bill, and superimposed on it the actual numbers. It looks as if we would have been better off Without.http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/07/should-have-gone-without.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-7339476945679686142Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:36:00 +00002009-07-01T08:39:03.545-07:00Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute in The American Spectator.http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/07/libertarian-argument-against-abortion.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-503615936172620255Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:19:00 +00002009-06-30T21:23:22.721-07:00The Bacone.Filled with scrambled eggs, hash browns, and cheese, topped with gravy and a biscuit. The Bacone won judges' choice at Bacon Camp, San Francisco, 2009.Hat tip to Breda.http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/ladies-and-gentlemen.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-5157553059896882891Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:14:00 +00002009-06-30T21:26:40.498-07:00There, I Fixed It.Thanks to Say Uncle.http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/also-not-to-be-missed.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-7407373480113468877Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:21:00 +00002009-06-30T17:25:42.482-07:00Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSBlog has some interesting thoughts on what the Court is doing, and where they are headed. Here is what strikes me most about this Term. The Court is moving steadily in the direction of rolling back Warren Court-era precedents that conservatives view as significant overreaching of the judicial role. To be clear, that isn't the Court’s principal occupation. Most of its http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/this-term-and-next.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-8885792952178057150Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:09:00 +00002009-06-30T17:18:22.309-07:00I don't have anything to add to what's already been said, but for those who would like a concise summation of the case and its implications, read Jess Bravin and Suzanne Sataline in The Wall Street Journal. Monday's ruling affects any employer of 15 persons or more that uses any type of exams for employees, including test of personality, computer skills, physical fitness or honesty, said http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/more-on-ricci.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-3486997289384856556Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:21:00 +00002009-06-29T07:24:07.483-07:00Sotomayor loses. SCOTUS Blog is live-blogging: Ricci result: Kennedy finds a violation of Title VII. An outright reversal 5-4.... Ricci is decided 5-4 on ideological lines. The middle ground suggestion of remanding for further proceedings is rejected.... Kennedy delivered the 5-4 majority opinion of the Court in Ricci. Justice Scalia filed a concurring opinion. Justice Alito filed a http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/ricci-wins.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-9131507524411374598Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:04:00 +00002009-06-28T18:09:14.648-07:00Debra J. Saunders has the back story. This is not a joke. Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision that required an Oregon public school district to pay a $5,200 monthly tuition (plus fees) for a private boarding school for a high-school senior whose psychologist had diagnosed him with ADHD, depression, math disorder and cannabis abuse. Math disorder? Let me translate: the kid has a http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/forest-grove-v-ta.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-8033019659757447358Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:52:00 +00002009-06-28T19:24:42.417-07:00Once more, Jack Cashill piles on the evidence that Bill Ayers wrote Dreams From My Father.I'm convinced; not that that matters to anyone else. Believing, or even caring, that Bill Ayers wrote Dreams From My Father is like wondering who killed Vince Foster. The mainstream punditocracy is more interested in gamesmanship than truth. This is a matter that they have decided is unimportant, and their http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/who-wrote-dreams.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-1811936817394305144Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:27:00 +00002009-06-27T09:31:32.266-07:00A fascinating site full of backyard ballistics tests profusely illustrated. The Box O' Truth.I could spend hours there. I already have.http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/box-o-truth.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-8894037895677026906Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:10:00 +00002009-06-26T23:13:07.739-07:00No Looking Backwards: The largest tax increase in our nation's history just passed the House by a margin of 219-212, with eight Republicans (soon-to-be unemployed, God willing) jumping in bed with the Marxist revolutionaries. http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/largest-tax-increase-in-our-nations.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-862923089710715313Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:17:00 +00002009-06-26T12:21:47.155-07:00Diana West in the Jewish World Review. The worst thing that could happen next, at least for the absolute, non-contestable pundit-ocracy, is that it becomes clear we're looking at an intra-Islamic power struggle that has nothing to do with liberty and justice for anybody. If this happens, the next question becomes: At what point do said pundits change the color of their Twitter avatars (Joe http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/iran-skeptic.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-222376025790252972Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:14:00 +00002009-06-25T21:19:54.744-07:00Hell, he's probably as good as all the dead ones put together. Michael Ramirez. Time for another Pulitzer.http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/worlds-greatest-living-political.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-6654280836860703878Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +00002009-06-25T21:02:06.404-07:00Video via Cogito Ergo Geek.C'mon, Ted, tell us how you really feel.http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/ted-nugent-on-self-defense.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-7986022819563288493Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:00:00 +00002009-06-24T20:31:28.803-07:00The mother, a dark and not very pretty cat, had a litter of five under our barn. Charlie and Marielle spotted the kittens a couple weeks ago; they were already eight weeks old. We trapped the mother first and took her to Animal Control. The kittens laid low. A couple days later I saw the gray one sitting on a mossy log in the sun, cold and hungry and utterly dejected. He hissed at me when I came http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/mom-jailed-kittens-in-custody.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-5927279059227419285Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:47:00 +00002009-06-24T18:51:44.980-07:00I don't golf, but my sister and her husband do. Today she explained why. A recent study found the average golfer walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found golfers drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means, on average, golfers get about 41 miles to the gallon. Kind of makes you proud. Almost feel like a hybrid. Sounds good to me!http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/why-they-golf.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-1741609388939691477Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:14:00 +00002009-06-24T12:50:47.309-07:00The June 12 Sarychev Peak Eruption in the Kuril Islands.http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/tomorrows-apod-today.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-3893204607643983024Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:13:00 +00002009-06-24T08:27:02.640-07:00A primer by Bob Metcalf in The Wall Street Journal. Nuclear energy is released during fission and fusion. During fission, large elements like uranium are split into smaller elements. During fusion, small elements like hydrogen are combined into larger elements. These two processes have occurred naturally since the beginning of time -- 13.7 billion years. The Earth is warmed naturally by its own http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/nuclear-revolution.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-36709553767425216Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:43:00 +00002009-06-23T19:57:53.388-07:00Abraham Verghese, Senior Associate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford, in The Weekend Journal. To come back to my favorite painting: a computer cannot take the place of the doctor in Fildes's painting; an electronic medical record (EMR) may or may not save money (it won’t be anywhere as much as is projected) but what it will do is ensure that we doctors, nurses, therapists,http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/doctor.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-225064149060970077Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:01:00 +00002009-06-22T22:07:08.892-07:00Making ammunition.http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/spent-weekend-in-my-bunker.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-18732357883898615Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:35:00 +00002009-06-21T11:10:46.157-07:00Wise words from the eighth century B.C.Telemachus, you'll lack neither courage nor sense from this day on, not if your father's spirit courses through your veins— now there was a man, I'd say, in words and action both! So how can your journey end in shipwreck or defeat? Only if you were not his stock, Penelope's too, then I'd fear your hopes might come to grief. Few sons are the equals of their http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/few-are-equals.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-216727186233178967Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:48:00 +00002009-06-20T11:53:47.205-07:00Oregon is featured twice in the weekend Wall Street Journal, first in The Weekend Interview (which is not really an interview at all) with Senator Ron Wyden, and then in this short but stinging Editorial, which I reproduce in full. The Labor Department reported yesterday that Oregon's unemployment rate soared to 12.4% in May, the nation's second highest after Michigan's 14.1%. What to do? If http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/oregon-in-journal.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-6327715620354290852Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:30:00 +00002009-06-19T18:39:25.108-07:00From a review by William Anthony Hay in The Wall Street Journal. Has American conservatism run its course? To judge by the pronouncements of scolding liberal pundits -- not to mention of conservatives themselves -- it may even be at death's door. Long ago, the worker-philosopher Eric Hoffer remarked that "all great movements start as a cause, evolve into a business, and end up a racket." While http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/evolution-of-movement.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24799032.post-4739325104618881972Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:20:00 +00002009-06-19T08:23:53.855-07:00Some people will refuse to fill out the long form. Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household.In an interview Wednesday morning with The Washington Times "America's Morning News," Mrs. Bachmann, Minnesota Republican, said http://grdurand.com/blogger/2009/06/we-wont-either.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gordon R. Durand)