Free the Animal

Sorry to do this to you...(but)

I actually got this from CK in email this morning, thought it was a riot, but had no intention to blog it. But then I proceeded to have the thing bouncing around in my head all day, cracking myself up each time I get to the "Ken Lee" part.

So, here you go. Try to read and integrate the subtitles. For some odd reason, that makes it even more hilarious.

A Moral Question on Charity

So can anyone tell me when the the notion of charity -- to give help -- became "giving back?"

Do you see the difference; the moral difference?

To put it most bluntly: in the former, you're giving someone your property. In the later, you're giving back someone their property, carrying with it the implication that you didn't earn it -- commonly known as stealing -- and they are the ones entitled to and deserving of it.

I watched a big big show last night that raised a lot of money under the moral principle of "giving back," wherein I suppose that millions were encouraged to feel guilty -- perhaps because it has been found more motivational and effective than causing people to feel pity, compassion, good will.

I'm not even going get started on the whole insanity of dependence-perpetuating aid to Africa and elsewhere, much of which ends up as cash or product in the hands of the kleptocracy and of their nomenklatura*. What those people really need is freedom to prosper, and they'll take care of their own problems. Here is, I think, a perfect charity: Kiva.org. And it sports the correct moral principle too: loan them your money, but only for an entrepreneurial purpose; they execute, and pay you back your money. It's social, so you've only got a few bucks at risk on any one entrepreneur. The charity is the risk you take on, plus the opportunity cost, since you're just getting repaid principal (the borrowers pay interest (as they should), but it goes to support the local branches who help to arrange these loans).

So, to my mind, you can go glitz, pat yourself on the back for "giving back," perpetuating the dependence that is the morass of institutional international aid, or, you can help out because you've determined you can, and what you're doing is helping someone with drive and a dream to not only escape dependence, but to create jobs and opportunities for others to do likewise. Civilization can take root in no other way.

* Beck

Attention Shoppers

Gene Healy is back blogging, and has published his first book. The Cult of the Presidency.

They say that when you’re writing a book, you should have a two-sentence answer at the ready in case people ask you what it’s about while you’re on the elevator. For a long time, mine was “it’s about the presidency. I’m against it.”

That elevator pitch was enough for me.

Squirrel Blood

Well, she finally got one in her clutches.

Those are battle stains, folks. Every morning we walk up this greenbelt to the west of the freeway and back. There are usually a number of squirrels, but also a lot of trees. She is lightening quick and is usually almost on them before they scurry up trees. Well, today one messed up. The springtime grass is tall, so rather than chasing it into the grass she stopped and listened. When it fell off the trunk of the tree she was into the grass in a two foot high, three foot horizontal bound. Right on top of it. It got clear, onto the next tree but by this time must have been too scarred to get a good grip. Fell of that tree, then another, and Nuke was on it again. Then there was some darting back & forth, a little contact here and there, but as soon as it began running across the street in a straight line she was on it in an instant, and out in the clear.

She ultimately couldn't hold it and it got away, so I have no idea the extent of the injury to the squirrel (first you learn to catch, then to kill). She gave pursuit immediately, but It finally made it successfully up a tree. She had a bit of a small cut on her snout, either from a bite or a claw, but it's hard to even see, now.

Good girl, Nuke. She has many talents.

Blogs Kill Traditional Web Design

I began getting a sense of this some time ago.

...Blog platforms can be customized beautifully these days with a fraction of the development time and cost because the entire backend of the site is already done. That’s a huge shift for the web design business because traditional shops (and I’ve worked for and with some) would have their own code set for building sites or they would start from scratch. Customers got charged like crazy for sites that would really be no big deal in this day and age. The worst part is not everyone knows this and some web shops are still selling their services like always.

This blog, though I could, isn't even customized directly in the CSS (cascading style sheet) but is rather just a stock template that I've customized within a limited range of parameters TypePad provides, such as colors, fonts, link styles, title styles, and so on. Basically, just like creating a fancy Word template that you then use over and over. So I have several different page designs which are saved as templates. The front page is one, the about page another, and then there's a generic page style for displaying posts past the first 10 or so here on the front page, and also categories and archives.

All the content, i.e., the posts, images, comments, etc., are all stored in a sort of a database and then that content is transfered into one of the templates in response to the link a person clicks on, and also links within the content itself to display things like images and whatnot.

My first company websites I built myself, the first in 1994, I believe. Hundreds of hours. Then, later, I hired professionals and all told, we've probably spent near a quarter million in the last 10 years through about four designs and re-designs total.

We still are sitting on a hand coded site. Here's another of ours. Any time we need to change anything is a major hassle, and expensive. So we do what lots of small businesses do. We let our websites kinda collect dust. Now, here's what's been in development for only a few days and will soon move to the root directory and be our new presence (it's being worked on now, so no telling what you'll see at any given moment). WordPress. At any rate, the company we hired to do this gave an initial budget of...drum roll...$1,000 (not a typo). Then they took our contact form that integrates with salesforce.com, made it into a widget we can drop anywhere, and are currently taking our debt calculator and making a widget of that too, all for another $1,000.

Of course, there will always be a demand for the complex websites that actually perform some service via the interface, but if the company website is principally to convey information with very little in the way of bells & whistles, then a blog-based site is ideal. Not only is it quick and inexpensive to put together, it's whole raison d'être is to provide a means for constantly changing and adding information, content, which also serves the purpose of keeping the company website fresh, relevant, and (hopefully) linked to.

Thanks to my friend Greg Swann of both Bloohoud Realty and Bloodhound Blog, who gave me some very valuable advice when I was considering my options.

Organization and Efficiency

I guess California is just better organized and efficient than these cluster fuckers. More here.

Saw it first at Billy's, then Radley's.

Continue to be Amazed

Yesterday I called attention to a photo of Art De Vany at 70 years of age.

Ever heard of Clarence Bass? That's him at 60. And here's a series of him all along the way, including what he looks like at 70. Of course, if you drill down to discover his methods, it's largely much of what I've talked about here for months on this topic: clean whole food and intense, brief, intermittent resistance training. Though he appears to include grain in his diet, I'll bet he eats it in moderation, minimally processed.

I'm interested in his "one set" routine and have been reading about this elsewhere. I'm going to talk with Mike, my trainer, and perhaps give it a try.

All in all I think this speaks volumes. We are so conditioned to the idea of losing our bodies to nature as we get older, and nowadays, there are people -- including myself -- who simply gave into nature at around the age of 40. Well Art's, Clarence's and others' similar photos aren't a lie, and equipped with this information: that it can be done -- and rather simply, in fact -- it's just dissonant to claim an interest in long-term longevity, vitality, and health an not put in the minimal effort necessary.

In fact, that's why it has been a steady progression of success after success for me for what will be a year come next month. Once I realized that it was not about willpower and discipline, but about fun and enjoyment, it unlocked the whole thing. If you're not having a blast getting fit and eventually ripped at <10% BF, then you're going about it all wrong.

That's why I'm interested in the one set routine. I always enjoy the first set of every exercise, but not so nearly as much the second and the third. I'd prefer to just keep going on that first round, keeping it fun and looking forward to the next exercise. But even still, it's hard not to have fun lifting weights when it's only for 30 minutes and you are dumbfounded each and every time with how pumped you can get yourself in that short of time.

Getting Used to China

Whatever you may think of it, the simple reality is that China is fast becoming the financial powerhouse of the world and they're partly responsible for saving our financial ass. Here's a 60 Minutes segment that gives quite an overview.

You can judge for yourself, but I instinctively like the guy. He seems pretty forthright and talks good sense.

"It's our policy not to control anything," Gao said.

"So you’ll put a lot of money in a foreign company, and not even get on the board?" Stahl asked.

"You’re right."

"Why?"

"Simply because we don’t want to go in and say, 'OK, I think you should change this person or I think you should change this product line,'" Gao said. "That’s not our business."

Investing is quite a different animal from management. Here's the standard Churchillian logic for the maintenance of peace between nations.

"What if our two governments had a serious dispute?" Stahl asked.

"Over Taiwan?" Gao asked.

"Yeah. Now could your government come in and say to you, 'pull your money out now?'"

"It could be. But I seriously doubt that will happen.

"It would hurt you, too," Stahl said.

"Definitely," Gao said. "It would hurt me. Hurt the company. Hurt China."

And finally, on the issue of transparency, he draws a perfectly valid and logical distinction between transparency and business suicide.

"Oh, we are. Yes, we are," Gao said. "We are going to do things, just the -- most of these -- what Americans will believe as good sovereign-wealth funds, like the Norwegian -- the Norwegian sovereign-wealth fund."

"You are?"

"Yeah."

"But you know this is a huge issue," Stahl said. "Are you going to be as open as the Norwegians?"

"First, simple answer is yes. But secondly--"

"But?"

"The -- yeah. Secondly, as far as commercially viable," Gao said. "Because with that much money on hand, if you tell people what you're going to do next, immediately -- you know, everybody you buy becomes very expensive. Everything you want to sell becomes very cheap."

He's going to have a tough time of it. Nothing sells like fear. China for sure has a lot of problems, and to large extent those problems are directly rooted in an utter disregard for the individual as anything other than a cog of the state or society. But as far as I can tell there's only one long-term way to get that to change and that's through some degree of freedom in markets and capital investment, which is the way they appear to be moving full steam ahead.

Enlightenment, individualism, capitalism, free markets...these things always were and always will be the seeds of the destruction of the state. I often wonder if Chinese communist authorities figure that they've already sown the seeds of their eventual downfall as an authoritarian state, but realize it's the only way, long term, and so they're simply managing the process carefully. Something's gotta give, somewhere, eventually, and they may already be in too deep to go back even if they wanted.

"Polygamy"

Then there's this news, which I happened to just catch splattered all over the TV at the local mini mart moments ago.

First off, the legal sense of the word means nothing to me. I couldn't care less if 400 people of whatever gender get together in whatever combinations suit them and make like rabbits all goddammed day long, for all the world to see.

What's it to me?

Now that that's out of the way, let me just say this: in a rational world, that mess would have been dealt with long, long ago, and definitively so. ...By real men concerned more that women and children, who may be rationally presumed not to want to endure rape at the age of 13 or 15 by 50-yr-old men, and who are unable to cry out for help, would have welcomed it. Those who didn't would have been free to carry on. This is telling.

Dressed in home-sewn, ankle-length dresses with their hair pinned up in braids, some 133 women left the Yearning for Zion Ranch of their own volition along with the children.

Yea. Fucking perverted, impotent bastards. Afraid of real, independent women with minds of their own.

So why weren't these women and children rescued from this gang of rapists a long time ago? The system. A case had to be built. What's a few hundred more late night visits to the bedroom of a terrified girl when prosecutors have their win records and promotions to consider?

Remember this: "justice" in our "system" is not about protection of the individual or the victim. That's what they say, to keep you interested. But it's really about maintaining the integrity -- such as it is -- of the system itself. You are but a function; a cog. A statistic.

Later: I ought to add: this would have been dealt with forever ago if the name of the compound was akin to "Bob's Garage." Or even "Bank of Eldorado," rather than "Zion Ranch" of the "Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." Get it?

Twitter

What can I say about it?

After an initial 30-second look, whenever, I kept seeing reference to it, and so I looked more deeply last week, I think. Sat through the demo and everything. I do not get it. Not in the least. Not in the slightest.

Now, I can think of a couple of people who aren't close family members where I might be interested to see what they may be up to at any given moment, presuming they took the time to log it, but it seems to me like a lot of effort to go to for something that's so fleeting and superficial ("OK, but that was 5 minutes ago; what are you doing now?"). I suppose it's precisely what makes me so interested in blogs that concurrently makes me so profoundly uninterested in Twitter. If you're interesting -- eclectic and eccentric, even a kook, is better -- then I am interested to know what's going on with you. But I want the highlights. The most interesting stuff. The stuff you put some effort into, or what others put effort into riling you up about.

Get it?

On the other hand, of my current reading stack, Jump Point by Tom Hayes is getting the most attention at the moment. He's dialed in and the conclusion I'm coming to is that the Internet is eventually -- if not already -- going to be something akin to Kowloon and Hong Kong to some large exponential power. What I'm referring to is the unplanned, organic nature of a city where there's a density that creates its own dynamics. It's a very interesting book.

Art

Here's a photo of Art from behind, taking a practice golf swing. That wouldn't be a big deal, of course, but Art is 70 years old. Turns 71 in August, I believe. Most 40 year olds could be envious.

Bea & I are headed out to Vegas May 17th for Art's Evolutionary Fitness Seminar on the 19th.

What You're Up Against

Top North Port police officials said that their agency handled the case appropriately, and that they would not have done anything differently had the victim been one of their family members.

"As a professional looking at it, yes, I would be satisfied," said North Port Police Chief Terry Lewis, who was out of town when Lee was kidnapped. He returned two days later. "As a dad or as a husband or as a family member, when your daughter doesn't come home, you're never satisfied.

"I'm confident in the response."

...

He noted that officials captured the man who allegedly kidnapped, raped and murdered Lee. And they found Lee's body.

Do you get it?

Billy linked that, and adds:

"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." Or even hours. While you're being murdered.

Singing My Tune

Warren Meyer, with the audacity to try and run a business and produce something for himself, family, employees, customers.

None of these guys have the first clue what it takes to run a business day to day, nor how much of a business owner's time and effort is aimed not at service customers better, and not at being more productive, and not at making employees happier or better trained, but at responding to the latest mass of government regulation, paperwork, licensing, taxes, and other total crap.

If you haven't dealt with it first hand, with all of it coming out of your money, time, profits, you just have no idea.

And here's another thing Warren doesn't mention, but it's the truth. Do you know how much of this regulatory crap gets through and gets enforced? Big business and associations of many smaller ones. That's right. All this stuff equals barriers to entry and friction working against success. Large scale companies can pretty efficiently deal with a lot of crap, so they support it.

Just the other week I found out about a change in some building permit requirements that's going to cost $40,000 more than budgeted on a project and the girl at the counter who delivered the news did so as if it's just like "oh, yea, $40K more? No prob."

Some days I wonder why I even bother.

Hard Money

Interested in becoming a banker? Now, you can, with several different avenues. The largest currently are Prosper and Lending Club. There's a few others, and a couple in startup and pre-startup (hint hint). Here's a cool ABC News story about Lending Club and a guy who got 15 bank rejections for his loan application for seed money for a business before 74 strangers on Lending Club listened to his pitch and chipped in for $25,000 total.

A few weeks back I opened accounts on both Prosper and LC and deposited $1,000 in each just to test it out. I've used the automated bidding mechanism to create a portfolio with a large chunk at moderate risk and a small bit (15% of portfolio) at higher risk. So far, Prosper has lent out $900 in 18 loans at an average rate of 15.59%. LC is more difficult to work with for the way I want automated bidding to work (I'm not interested in people's stories, only their credit grade, debt ratios, and so on -- all the classic criteria). Lending Club has now lent out $750 in 29 loans averaging 12.05%.

I'll be blogging much more about this in the future. The surface of what can be done with this in terms of risk management, creative hard-money finance, international arbitrage, and so on, has not even been scratched.

HT: Rate Ladder

Pat Condell

Hmm; this might get interesting. I can't get enough of Pat. Here's another of his videos, and this is really better than the last. It's about appeasement, cowardice, racism, and culturism. Standard disclaimer: his base premises are wrong. That said, it otherwise works.

Take a look. And you can proceed onto others on your own, or stand by and I'll highlight a few over the next few days. I'm going to watch them all.

By the way, I got wind of all this via an entry and the comments at Art's place.

Animal Planet

That's really all there is to say about it. That's Fitna, a 15-minute short film out of the Netherlands. Take a look.

On another note, Englishman Pat Condell has lots and lots to say. I can pick at a lot of it, but the general thrust is right on. His last one was about that film and it's as good a place as any to begin. Here's a bit about the man.

Weekend Cooking

Real quick, without a lot of 'splainin.

Friday night Ribeye steak. Cooked in the pan by first trimming some of the fat and melting it, adding some butter, and then some lard. Once done to a perfect medium rare, as you can see, set the steaks aside to settle while you add some red wine to the pan along with some fresh or sour cream to thicken. Then add the juice that has escaped from the steaks in the interim. I had a bit of chopped onion, minced garlic, and lots of freshly ground pepper. Much like a pepper steak sauce. So yummy.

I forgot to get a picture of the finished dish (just as I was late on the one above), but here is a tomato, basil & garlic purée that is a great addition to a dish of chicken mushroom fettuccine, which is what I made for guests and was devoured. (Yes, I'll do non "Paleo" for guests, from time to time.)

I took two small tomatoes, cleaned out the seeds so they are just skin & flesh, dice 'em and rapidly sauté in a little olive oil, crushed garlic, and basil fresh or dried. That was for five people. It's simply a dollop on the sautéed chicken breasts, which I did in olive oil (that's paprika seasoning). When complete I set the breasts aside in the warm oven, added white wine to deglaze the pan, and in the meantime nuked a big handful of fresh shredded Parmesan in a cup of heavy cream until it was smooth. Once the wine has reduced, I added just a couple of medium sized crimini mushrooms, chopped pretty fine and a small amount of onion, also chopped fine, and a touch of minced garlic. Once that was all soft, add the nuked cheese & cream, then about a half tub of créme fraîche. Then toss in the pasta. Then, add in all the juice that has exited the cooked breasts. I serve it with the breast alongside rather than cut in strips and mixed in. Add the dollop of purée and garnish with a light dusting of dried parsley. Wish I had take a photo of the finished deal.

Last up, this morning's frittata, which employed use of the leftover crimini mushrooms and Parmesan cheese. There's also a little bacon inside, as well as onion, and it's topped with some chopped prosciutto. Alongside are blueberries and red grapes in some heavy cream.

Pathological

How anyone could even consider letting this pathological liar, Hillary Rodham Clinton, within a furlong of the White House is completely beyond me.

Actually, that's not true. I think most people love lies and liars. It's only the nature of what is being lied about where they discriminate.

(Balkolink)

Charlton Heston, RIP

Well it was quite a ride.

Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments rank, I think, as some of the best work ever laid down on celluloid and I doubt anyone would think that were it not for Heston.

If you imagine the biblical character Moses, whose face will you always see?