My friend Stephen calls it my idolPod.

(For the record, I have an iPod Touch, not an iPhone.)

Steve

Dunkin’ Donuts pulls Rachael Ray ad after complaints

This infamous rewording by economist Steven Landsburg of the famous words of John F. Kennedy does a nice job of getting to the heart of candidates appeals to altruism and collectivism. I am actually a big fan of altruism, as long as its done for selfish reasons!

Steve

PS Please take the time to read the link, a brilliant column by David Boaz.

HT to Don at Cafe Hayek

Wisdom from my wife.

After you read this pray for our troups. We forget that today-right-now there are American and British and other soldiers in harm’s way because they love their country.

The text of the speech is from the Reagan Foundation website.

HT to Campaign for Working Families EOD report.

Remarks at the U.S. Ranger Monument
Pointe du Hoc, France
June 6, 1984

One of two speeches commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion, this speech was delivered at the site of the U.S. Ranger Monument at Pointe du Hoc, France, where veterans of the Normandy Invasion, and others, had assembled for the ceremony. Later during the day, President Reagan spoke at Omaha Beach, France.
1,988 words.

We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers–the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

(more…)

I would love to hear from other bloggers what processes and resources they use to generate new ideas for new blog posts?  Hear are some of the specific questions I wonder about:

• What are you usually doing when you think of an idea for a blog post?
• Where are you when you think of ideas for blog posts?  E.g. in the shower, in bed, at your desk, early morning, etc.
• How do you capture the idea so that you  do not forget it?
• Do you do any thing whose specific purpose and goal is blog post ideation?
• Assuming that most of your ideas for new posts come from the reading of other material, what is your best source of ideas?  The answer could be either a category of reading or specific material like a particular magazine.

Steve

Here’s how.

Out of town. Meeting mid-morning.  No comb or brush.  Mind wildly seeking a solution.

My brother Scott sent me this great article comparing and contrasting how Botwswana is thriving while Zimbabweans are wallowing in misery and suffering.  Botswana enjoys the liberties of liberal democratic rule while Zimbabwe is an “Orwellian  nightmare” under the dictatorial rule of Robert Mugabe.  The story begins:

“We used to look at Botswana as our poor cousin, but now we do all of our shopping there,” said David Coltart, an opposition member of the Zimbabwean parliament

This story reminded me of the oft cited truth that the greatest evils in the history of the world have been perpetrated by governments.  But its reverse is often missed:  the sorts of blunt instruments that make government so good at oppression also make government remarkably ineffective at spreading prosperity.  Governments should be judged not but what they do, but what they don’t do.  Less is more.

Steve

The incorrect instinct and bias that trade hurts the poor and helps the rich is nicely discussed in this short article in The Economist magazine.  The summation:

Fortunately for the government, the tariffs have been removed while prices are at record levels. With maize at $5 a bushel, thanks to a (subsidised) boom in its use to make ethanol in the United States, even the least efficient subsistence farmer can make money. Open markets benefit the millions of poor Mexicans who are not farmers but consume lots of maize. But few of them seem to realise this.

Steve

This past Monday, USA Today published this story on the continued influence of Frank Sinatra on contemporary music and culture. Sinatra disliked the rock music scene but as Bono revealed:

The feeling is not mutual. Rock ‘n’ roll people love Frank because Frank has got what we want: swagger and attitude.

Of the 178 albums and 327 artists I have in my iTunes library, Frank is the one I tune into the most. I never get tired of it. My favorite tracks are:

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

You Make Me Feel So Young

I’ve Got the World on a String

South of the Border

Their is one song I consistently skip, Three Coins in the Fountain. It’s a silly song about three sentient coins wishing for happiness. (I picture the coins raising their hands, since they have already been anthropomorphized, and saying “Pick Me.  Pick Me!”) Maybe I would feel better about it if I had seen the movie.

It’s great to discover that Sinatra is finding a new generation of listeners and fans.

Steve

Russ Roberts of Cafe Hayek has posted a remarkably timely and insightful excerpt from Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, in light of the earthquake in China. I was tempted to re-post the excerpt in its entirety here. Not willing to be that tacky, here is the first part of the excerpt and the conclusion:

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connexion with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befal himself would occasion a more real disturbance…

It is not the love of our neighbour, it is not the love of mankind, which upon many occasions prompts us to the practice of those divine virtues. It is a stronger love, a more powerful affection, which generally takes place upon such occasions; the love of what is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and superiority of our own characters.

I am struck by two things about the excerpt: the astonishing beauty of Smith’s prose and the similarity of the term “a more powerful affection” to the famous sermon by the old Scottish preacher Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. I believe that the affection that Smith is referring can be properly called joy. And it is not so much a celebration of the “superiority of out own characters” as it is the happiness that we find in serving others, especially when we have the proper perspective on what we deserve before a holy God and what we have received, as Christians, at the Cross.

Steve

P.S Please read the entire excerpt at Cafe Hayek.  It is extraordinary.

There is a misnomer out there in the wild that says “we are running out of oil.” This article claims otherwise. Read it. In fact, you will be shocked and amazed at exactly how many untapped sources of oil are available. Here are a couple of teaser quotes:

Even as our consumption increases with each passing year, the projected depletion point keeps moving further out into the future.

…

All this should make one thing amply clear – there is enough oil to go around for a very long time. Even on conservative assumptions – accelerating consumption and few new discoveries – earth’s oil supplies should last for at least a century.

This, however, is the worst case scenario. We can be reasonably certain that new exploration and advancing technologies will in coming years greatly add to the quantities of available oil. So much so that Morris Adelman, Professor Emeritus in Economics at Harvard, has argued that the ‘amount of oil available to the market over the next 25 to 50 years is for all intents and purposes infinite.’

HT to challies.com

Seth

Speed Racer

Watch Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry discuss language:

Total HT to AP at 22Words