Category Archives: History

Pleading for Obama to ‘do something’ passes for editorial perspective at Detroit newspaper

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It appears pleading for dear leader to “do something” that will help Detroit out of its death spiral passes for editorial perspective at Detroit’s ‘more conservative’ news paper.

Via The Detroit News editorial page:

President Barack Obama arrives today for a pair of fundraisers in Dearborn and West Bloomfield. The president runs on a tightly controlled schedule, but surely his suburban hosts would forgive a delay to allow him to take a detour through Detroit.

The president should see with his own eyes, and from ground level, the depth and disrepair, abandonment and danger in Detroit’s neighborhoods.

If we could suggest a route, we’d start his tour on Detroit’s largely deserted east side, past the heaps of rubble that were once businesses on Harper near City Airport, and into the blocks surrounding Denby High School off East Outer Drive, where there are more abandoned homes than occupied ones. But he could throw a stone almost anywhere in Detroit and hit neighborhoods that have been eaten away by cancerous blight.

It would be an invaluable field trip for the president — either today or sometime in the near future — to witness the shocking living conditions in so many Detroit neighborhoods. We can only imagine that he would summon the full force of his administration to get creative in seeking ways Washington could help stimulate a community revival in Detroit and, for that matter, other industrial cities that suffer from urban decay.

Really?

The opinion leaders at Detroit’s more conservative paper are pleading for Obama and his fellow Washing politicians to get creative? Didn’t we try creative with Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society (way back in 1964)?

Your imagination and your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.

The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.

A truly creative solution to our (here in Detroit and the rest of the United States) economic problems would involve local, state and national politicians playing a lot of golf while staying out of the economy.

Fraudulent Liberal Claim: Conservatism may be a consequence of low-effort thought

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Liberal propaganda thinly disguised as serious research.

Via Freakonomics:

It seems that the stereotype of the “thinking liberal” may have some truth. New research (summarized in the BPS Digest) finds that “low-effort” thinking about a given issue is more likely to result in a conservative stance. Here’s the abstract:
The authors test the hypothesis that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism. In Study 1, alcohol intoxication was measured among bar patrons; as blood alcohol level increased, so did political conservatism (controlling for sex, education, and political identification). In Study 2, participants under cognitive load reported more conservative attitudes than their no-load counterparts. In Study 3, time pressure increased participants’ endorsement of conservative terms. In Study 4, participants considering political terms in a cursory manner endorsed conservative terms more than those asked to cogitate; an indicator of effortful thought (recognition memory) partially mediated the relationship between processing effort and conservatism. Together these data suggest that political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought; when effortful, deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.

In other words, if you don’t think too hard, you ‘re a conservative.

Right… Liberals are deep thinkers.

Only a high-effort thinking liberal could design (and proclaim be a champion of) a Ponzi-scheme such as Social Security while simultaneously fighting “tooth and nail” to allow for abortion under all circumstances. Even a low-effort thinking conservative understands keeping the Social Security Ponzi scheme rolling requires an increasing population paying into the system. Murdering a sickening number of unborn children through the liberal sacrament of abortion cripples their number one entitlement: Social Security.

Furthermore, why would any high-effort thinking liberal teacher support a union and movement that will go to the mat supporting abortion?

Would anyone call this the embodiment of high-effort thinking?

Even liberal ‘economic’ policies demonstrate a distinct lack high-effort thought.

Not too long ago, #OWS losers (poster children of liberalism) Tweeted their outrage at ‘corporate greed’ on their Apple iPhones, while sipping Starbucks lattes purchased using their parents debit cards. Is this really high-effort thinking?

So-called low-effort thinking conservatives embrace the Founding Fathers ideals of limited government, liberty, the individual, the concept of Federalism, religious and economic freedom. Conservatives also understand our Founders were students of history and based our Constitution on ideas and principles that have stood the test of time.

History tells us the Founders were correct.

Contrary to conservatives, high-effort thinking liberals embrace central planning government, class warfare, wealth redistribution, devaluing human life & unions. In short, today’s liberal is embracing Marxist principles.

If liberals would stop their high-effort thinking and study actual history (not Social Studies) they would discover that Marxism leads to communism. And communism doesn’t work. Ever.

Maybe our intrepid authors should swallow their liberal pride and re-think their papers thesis.

The Evolution of Basketball

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I found this interesting article discussing the evolution of the game and equipment.

Via core77:

Basketball was invented because of crappy weather. In 1891 a guy named James Naismith (pictured above) was working for the Phys Ed department at a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts. He needed to keep his students exercising. But it was December in New England, where freezing rain and snow make outdoor sports impractical.

While Naismith couldn’t control the weather, he did have access to an indoor gymnasium. It wasn’t the right shape or size for baseball, nor was an indoor hockey rink a possibility. He didn’t want the physical contact and potential injuries of football or rugby, nor the guarded goals of lacrosse or soccer and the contact those could engender.

His solution was to invent a sport where players could only advance the ball by throwing or slapping it to each other; running with the ball, kicking it or wrestling it out of someone’s hands was forbidden. And there would be no goaltender; instead the “goals” would be placed high up over the players’ heads to preclude contact and provide the scoring challenge.

“Running with the ball, kicking it or wrestling it out of someone’s hands was forbidden.” The game has certainly changed.

The evolution of dribbling in the sport has an interesting history as well (from part 2 of the article).

James Naismith’s original rules only allowed the ball to be passed from one player to another. At some point a “bounce pass” became allowed; this was a clever way for a player to get the ball to a teammate when the opponent’s persistent coverage made an air pass impossible.

This is where the unpredictable nature of human behavior comes in. Clever players began to “hack” the bounce pass by essentially bounce passing the ball to themselves while running. Naismith admired the ingenuity of this move, and by 1910 it was part of the game, referred to as “dribbling.”

Be sure to check out the rest of the story.

Saturday Night Links: The Skateboarding in 1960′s New York Edition

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Found these great pictures over @ the ‘Naut.

Now, on to the links…

FCBZ: Nail, meet hammer. A really BIG hammer.
TBA: High Gas Prices Might Save Your Life!
SJ: Does freedom matter anymore?
CH2.0: Religious Liberty is Only the First Casualty
theCL: Social Responsibility with Doutzen Kroes

ChrisWy: A funny thing happened on the way to Obamacare Nirvana.
Bunker: Obama will turn Algae into Energy
CoF: Drill Baby, Drill!
CP: Detroit holds payroll audit for city employees. Employees will be forced to show identification.
The Eye: Class Warfare 2012

LaS: Why You Are Paying More At The Pump
MTTM: Republican Robo Calling Needs To END
Robot: Old Commie Meets New Progressive
Spellchek: Undecided on this election? Not sure which direction the country should follow? Here’s the way NOT to go!
Gator: Romney Lied In Debate; He DID Force Catholics To Violate Their Conscience

WWTFT: Outrageous Fortune
Rocky: When he’s right he’s right
Grumpy: Hey Barack, your religious bias is showing
Roug: Example #4,433,218 Of How Government Screws Taxpayers
Zilla: Bloggers Beware – A Cautionary Tale

Sunday Morning Links: The “Tooth Picks, Bug Eaters, Pukes and Suckers” Edition

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click for larger version

This is so cool. Via Strange Maps @ Big Think.

The map’s link to Sus domesticus [1] is via the company that produced it: H.W. Hill & Co. This Decatur, Illinois outfit were the sole manufacturers of Hill’s hog ringers, Hill’s triangular rings, calf and cow weaners, stock markers &c. On the map, we see one pig per state or territory, each with one of H.W. Hill’s trademarked triangles through its nose.

But that is as far as product placement goes. Even though it was printed in [H.W. Hill’s] own advertising department, the map is a deft example of oblique advertising – a clear-cut case of 19th-century viral marketing.

For its main attraction were not H.W. Hill’s markers, weaners and rings. It was mailed out – for five one-cent stamps – as a tableau entitled: “Nicknames of the States”. It’s always interesting, and perhaps a little titillating, to see what names you’re being called by others, and to know how to return the mockery [2]. And it helps that all involved are portrayed as that most unloved of domestic animals, the pig.

For us, the map holds one extra appeal: in the almost 130 years since its publication, the nickname landscape has shifted somewhat. A few have remained popular, but many have fallen into disuse. Curiously, next to the sobriquets that are insults or compliments, a few are merely descriptive, and some states and territories don’t even get one. Somehow, that feels like the worst option.

Included in this post, are close ups of the more interesting areas taken from a high res version of the map downloaded from the Library of Congress.

On to the links…

CH2.0: The reports of Mitt Romney’s “inevitability” have been greatly exaggerated.
The Eye: Rightward Ho an Electoral No? Edition
TBA (formally GTBTBA) has a new look and the same great content: What do they mean by ‘choice’?
LaS: Recess? Don’t Talk About Recess!
WyBlog: Pipeline Dreams Busted By Green Schemes

MTTM: Rep Walberg Responds To Administration’s Rejection Of Keystone Pipeline
Moonbattery: Gear Up for Maximal Mudslinging
LD Jackson: Democrats Want a Reasonable Profits Board for Gas and Oil Companies
FCBZ: Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho… Obama Shuts Down Disney World to Talk to 150 Special Invitees about Tourism
RR: Newt Gingrich “The Establishment is Right to Be Worried About a Gingrich Nomination”

Pundette: Call off the coronation
Zilla: Quick Resister Update
SJ: Newt Gingrich- Once again the left is trying to manipulate the right
Spellchek: U.S. seeks to expand its role as global cop
TMGGB: Ron Paul’s concession speech sounded more like a clarion call to the American people than a concession speech
theCL: Ron Paul — The Spirit of 76!

Gator: *VIDEO* The Newtster Delivers Victory Speech Following South Carolina Primary Blowout
The Other: Why is Romney doing such a lousy job defending his record at Bain Capital?
Republican Mother: Not a Dime’s Worth of Difference 
Wade: The Defence of Fort McHenry
WWTFT: Michigan – A Canadian State

Hmmm….

So much for conventional wisdom: Do Stradivarius Violins really sound better?

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Hmmm….

it appears that concert violinists cannot tell from the sound alone whether they are playing a 300-year-old Stradivarius or an instrument made last week. And, for playing quality alone, the virtuoso will opt for the modern one when asked which fiddle they would like to take home.

These discordant findings emerge from experiments by Claudia Fritz, a researcher at the University of Paris, at an international violin competition in Indianapolis in 2010. She asked 21 musicians to play six different violins, three modern instruments and three by Italian maestros – one made by Guarneri del Gesu around 1740, and two made in Antonio Stradivari’s workshop around 1700.

The plot thickens further.

The researchers could find no link between the age and value of the violins and how they were rated by the violinists. The three old instruments had a combined value of $10m, a hundred times that of the modern violins. “They are beautiful instruments, but the prices are insane,” Fritz said. “The old versus new issue doesn’t make any sense.

“It doesn’t matter if the violin’s old or new, all that matters is whether it’s a good violin or a bad violin. Many modern violin makers are doing a great job.” One shortcoming of the study was that the violinists were asked to rate a particular instrument’s projection, how well its sound travels, themselves. Another was that only a few violins were tested.

But, as the researchers note, this latter was perhaps unavoidable. “Numbers of subjects and instruments were small because it is difficult to persuade the owners of fragile, enormously valuable old violins to release them for extended periods into the hands of blindfolded strangers.”

Kai-Thomas Roth, secretary of the British Violin Making Association, said that double blind tests, where neither experimenter nor musician knows which violin is played, had already shown people cannot distinguish a modern violin from a priceless work of art.

“There’s some myth-making that helps old instruments,” Thomas said. “If you give someone a Stradivari and it doesn’t work for them, they’ll blame themselves and work hard at it until it works.

So much for conventional wisdom.

Since this is a post about violins, a short violin solo by Anastasia Khitruck.

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Liberal America: Christmas is not the only Generic ‘Holiday’ on the calendar

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Liberals who have worked overtime trying to scrub the word “Christmas” from America’s vocabulary are turning their sights on the distinctly American holiday of Thanksgiving.

One recent example of assault on Thanksgiving appears today in Detroit’s more liberal newspaper The Detroit Free Press. The headline writer couldn’t bring himself to use the dreaded word “Thanksgiving” in a headline for an article discussing traveling on Thanksgiving :

Airfares soaring for the holiday travelers

To be a liberal one has to be an incredibly hollow person.

Some people think this is a small thing, but it is really important to maintain tradition. Sir Winston Churchill summed it up perfectly:

A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.