At the time, the show had a long break during tapings when he and White would go to a nearby Mexican restaurant for margaritas.
“Vanna and I would … have two or three or six and then come and do the last shows and have trouble recognizing the alphabet,” he said. “I had a great time. I have no idea if the shows were any good, but no one said anything, so I guess I did OK.”
The tightly controlled study, which looked at individuals between ages 55 and 65, spanned a 20-year period and accounted for variables ranging from socioeconomic status to level of physical activity. Led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas at Austin, it found that mortality rates were highest for those who had never had a sip, lower for heavy drinkers, and lowest for moderate drinkers who enjoyed one to three drinks per day.
A bottle of red is calling my name. As the father of seven children, it’s my fiduciary obligation to drink it. And drink it I will.
Harsh, but truth be told: It’s kinda how I feel about Facebook.
Print Time
Well, Bernanke is unleashing the printing presses. I’ve been pretty depressed about my mining stocks lately, but yesterday was great: GDX up 6.68%, GDXJ up 7.62%, Yamana Gold up 9.8%, Endeavour Silver up 7.16%. Those were my top performers, but most of the rest were up more than 4%. I’m feeling pretty rich today. The feeling will continue until the next deflationary sneeze.
Newt Skewering
I read R. Emmett Tyrrell all the time while I was in high school and college. I’m not sure why I stopped reading him, though he left the American Spectator (one of my favorite rags of all time–I always flipped straight to “Ben Stein’s Diary”) for a spell, and I suspect that’s when I lost track of him.
Newt and Bill [Clinton] are, of course, 1960s-generation narcissists, and they share the same problems: waywardness and deviancy. Newt, like Bill, has a proclivity for girl-hopping. It’s not as egregious as Bill’s, but then Newt is not as drop-dead beautiful. His public record is already besmeared with tawdry divorces, and there are private encounters with the fair sex that doubtless will come out. . . .
He now says Republicans in the House were exhausted with his great projects. Nonsense. I knew many of them, and they were exhausted with his atrocious leadership. He is not a leader. He is a huckster. Today Mitt Romney has 72 congressional endorsements. Newt has 11. Possibly the 11 have yet to meet him. . . .
Law Twitter
Some of my favorite tweets from my firm’s blawg this past week:
Free the pedophile! Imprisoned sect leader Warren Jeffs spends thousands on ads to free himself – t.co/Kt7hTLQ3
Topic: The Seventh Commandment: Grand Rapids pastor charged with embezzlement to preach on Sunday t.co/c8HzT8CN
Multi-culturalism goes only so far: South Africa investigates alleged ‘gay slur’ by Zulu King t.co/KKTKLWh6
Skanks with lawyers: Nudity clause becoming a standard part of TV acting work – t.co/nqrF3Pgi
Idiocy Reigns: Utah School Board Rejects “Cougars” Nickname on Grounds That It is Offensive – t.co/J3yGVj1w
Chapter 9 is bankruptcy is for suckers, too: Sharpton to protest Michigan emergency takeover law | t.co/wNl4nAgh
George Soros grabbed headlines yesterday with an interview in Newsweek. The rabid leftist octogenarian investment icon and social activist ain’t too optimistic. He’s expecting riots in the U.S., lots of deflation, and a gold smack-down (though one source says he’s buying gold . . . we won’t know until the Q4 reports are released.)
It’s hard to believe that this guy was once partners with Jim Rogers. Rogers is very optimistic about precious metals, and Roger holds a rather Austrian view of things. Soros is about as non-Austrian as they come.
But maybe not. Check out this passage from the article:
To Soros, the spectacular debunking of the credo of efficient markets—the notion that markets are rational and can regulate themselves to avert disaster—”is comparable to the collapse of Marxism as a political system. The prevailing interpretation has turned out to be very misleading. It assumes perfect knowledge, which is very far removed from reality. We need to move from the Age of Reason to the Age of Fallibility in order to have a proper understanding of the problems.”
Fallibility? Imperfect knowledge? It almost sounds like he has read Friedrich Hayek.
The Hayekian theory of knowledge holds, correctly, that no one has much knowledge, so you need the marketplace: each person bringing his micro-knowledge or micro-ability to the plate, then the marketplace coordinating, in a chaotic fashion, all the microbes in the best way possible. It’s not perfect, far from it, but it’s the best option we have. It’s a humble approach that acknowledges our limited knowledge. Big government, on the other hand, assumes a superior level of knowledge and ability that neither the government nor any entity outside of the metaphysical possesses.
So what side is the leftist Soros on? On the side of imperfect knowledge and humility? Or on the side of a deity-complex and hubris? I was certain of the answer 48 hours ago. Now I’m not so sure.
Received in an Email
With the advent of Photoshop, who knows if these are real, but I got a small kick out of them:
“During a debate, Mitt Romney said he grew up in the real streets of America. Yes, the real streets, where people pull up next to you and ask if you have any Grey Poupon.”
I bought a greenhouse. It’s just a little thing: 57″w x 29″d x 77″h. It’s an exaggeration to call it a “house,” since it’s really a tent and it’s portable. You can click on the picture to see what it looks like.
So does anyone know anything about greenhouse gardening? I live in southern Michigan, which puts me in a temperate Zone 5, with much of the harsh weather mellowed by the Great Lakes (our Winters are very mild, when contrasted with, say, the winters of people in Wisconsin who share our latitude). I don’t want to heat the greenhouse artificially, though I will stock it with a few large rocks and a small tub of water (these things release heat throughout the night). I don’t hope to grow an entire garden there, just spinach, lettuce, and kale. I would like to jump start peas, tomatoes, and peppers in there as well.
Two of my immediate questions: Will I be able to grow spinach in there year-round, even during the days that have less than ten hours of sunlight? Do these micro-greenhouses lose heat more quickly than a larger greenhouse?
Any suggestions and input are greatly appreciated, either in the comments box or via email (ejscheske@yahoo.com or ericscheske@sturgislawfirm.com). Thanks.
Received in an Email
Feherty is a Golf Channel announcer who finds very unique, colorful and uninhibited ways of explaining or describing whatever is on his mind…… Probably always on time delay these days.
Feherty Quotes
“That ball is so far left, Lassie couldn’t find it if it was wrapped in bacon.”
“I am sorry Nick Faldo couldn’t be here this week. He is attending the birth of his next wife.”
Jim Furyk’s swing – “It looks like an octopus falling out of a tree.”
Describing VJ’s prodigious practice regime – “VJ hits more balls than Elton John’s chin.”
“That’s a great shot with that swing.”
“It’s OK – the bunker stopped it.”
At Augusta 2011 – “It’s just a glorious day. The only way to ruin a day like this would be to play golf on it.”
“That was a great shot – if they’d put the pin there today.”
“Everything moves except his bowels.”
“Watching Phil Mickelson play golf is like watching a drunk chasing a balloon near the edge of a cliff.”
If there is any literary merit to The Adventures of Beer Man, it came from my close study of Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. It’s a great book for the fiction writer. I would lend you my copy, but it’s scarcely legible, what with all the underlinings and notes in the margins. If you want to read a sketch of the book, go here. The writer has done a nice job of distilling the essence, even if the article is wrapped in the worn-out call for a revival of the Catholic literary tradition.
Don’t get me wrong: I would love to see a Catholic literary revival, but the thing is, people have been pining for one since Flannery died. Walker Percy gave us a one-man revival for a short spell, but since his death in 1990, I’ve seen nothing that comes close to claiming all three legs of the necessary stool: A work that is (i) Catholic, with (ii) literary merit, and (iii) wide appeal. The Adventures of Beer Man comes close, except it doesn’t have those last two (chuckle). I don’t see another Waugh, Tolkien, O’Connor, or Percy on the horizon.
But then again, when writers hit, they often come out of nowhere, like lightning. It wouldn’t surprise me if one crops up before the end of 2012, but by the same token, it’s no good to pine. They’ll show up. Or not. In the meantime, we can each tend our gardens blogs, essays, and reviews, making them the best we can.
I’m a fan of dentists. For whatever reason, my practice has always been graced with a large number of them, and I typically find them congenial clients.
But I have a complaint with the American Dental Association, and I’ve had the beef for about twenty years: By refusing to accredit additional dental schools or to allow existing dental schools to expand (while I was U of M, its application to expand was rejected), they keep the number of dentists suppressed. By suppressing the number of dentists in the country, they suppress competition. By suppressing competition, they keep their rates higher, to the detriment of the general public. As one dental student explained it to me, in uncharitable terms: “You see, if the ADA doesn’t keep the number of dentists down, then we’ll get too many of them and our wages will collapse, and then we’ll start doing unethical things. We’ll end up like the lawyers.” The quote isn’t exact, but it’s substantively accurate.
Needless to say, I have a huge objection to this, and it’s just one of the thousands of ways that state intervention (here, the licensing authorities) create disequilibrium in the markets.
The dental lobby, of course, is trying to block it. It’s part of a long history: businesses seeking support from the government, to the detriment of the general public, until the general public starts to complain loudly about it. Maybe someday, the government will stop promoting monopolies and granting favors to particular businesses and professions altogether.
And maybe someday I’ll play for the Detroit Pistons.
Commodity Chart
Interested to know how various commodities have performed over the past decade? Silver leads the group. For the rest, check out the periodical table of commodity returns:
Of course, if you read the disclaimer on investment ads, you know that past result is no guarantee of future performance. The people who put together the table, though, expect big things from commodities over the next ten years, based largely on increasing standards of living in emerging markets. That’s Peter Schiff’s view, too. It’s mine, too, but keep in mind that technological innovation has traditionally suppressed commodity prices, and there’s no reason to expect technology to slow down any time soon. Innovation has always been a huge headwind against commodities. I just suspect that the population tailwind will blow through it.
This is a nice picture. It’s by the drinker’s artist, Douglas Crockwell, and entitled “A Winter Evening at Home.” I won’t be spending this evening at my house, but instead will be frequenting a downtown bar to listen to two friends play guitar and cover Jimmy Buffett and songs of his genre (read: mellow). I won’t be able to stay late, since my nephew has a home basketball game against our arch-rivals. I figure a couple of beers will blend well with a spirited basketball game and questionable referring.
Urban Stuff
I’ve been a fan of Mayor Dave Bing’s effort to introduce agricultural operations in Detroit. I talked to some people from the Detroit area, who still get to downtown frequently, and they told me the operations are going well. Large swaths of formerly-bombed-out blocks have been reclaimed and are now growing corn, tomatoes, and other vegetables.
Now, if Michigan could take its jackboot off the necks of the alcohol industry, maybe Detroit could try another experiment: Urban Wineries. I guess they’re the newest rage. It sounds like a good development for everybody:
Urban wineries are located in downtown areas, in warehouses, and industrial parks. They often have tasting rooms and retail shops attached. And, they are miles from the farms that produce the grapes. Winemakers rent space in the city, rather than the paying high prices for land in wine country. This new crop of vintners is learning that you don’t need to spend millions on a plot of land, and take the risk of crop failure, to make good wine.
Grapes can be trucked in from regional vineyards, or even from around the country. The urban winery can then crush, ferment, and cellar the wine at their facility in the city. Or, the juice can be processed at a co-op close to the vineyards, and then finished in the city. Winemakers can choose grape varieties, select different appellations, and make the same production decisions for blending, bottling, and labeling as any other winery. And, the wine is just as good as wine made near the vineyards.
Urban wineries benefit the wine consumer as well. Most consumers don’t care where the grapes were crushed, fermented, or aged into wine. Now, connoisseurs can simply walk to a winery rather than traveling miles to the nearest vineyards. The experience in the urban winery is the same as in the tasting room of a vineyard located winery. The consumer can still experience the wine and purchase bottles directly from the source.
This Drinking Corner is a two-fer: First, I might have found the most dedicated beer blogger in America and, if not America, then at least in Ohio. He runs the Ohio Beer Blog. It’s updated frequently with good content.
While checking it out, I ran across this great article: America’s 100 Best Beer Bars. I was pleased to see three of the bars are from Michigan and that one of them was my favorite hang-out when I attended the University of Michigan back in the 1980s: Ashley’s. “Since 1983, this classic U of M hangout has been as smart as the grad students who frequent it. The 70-plus taps reflect a vast beer landscape, pouring local favorites like Founders Breakfast Stout, new releases like Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout and Belgian beauties like Tripel Karmeliet.” I wasn’t a graduate student, but Ashley’s was only two blocks from my apartment and it was a quiet, serene place to enjoy some casual studies and a pint. It also featured a great window view of central campus and busy State Street. One of the finest places on earth.
SOPA
I haven’t followed the Stop Online Piracy Act as closely as I ought. I guess it provides that your website can be wiped away without due process of law, if it’s deemed that your site has violated copyright provisions in the Act. That’s unpleasant. And un-American.
We’re talking about copyright violations, giving such alleged violations more urgency than we do murder trials. The entire copyright law–statutory and common law–is a batch of vagary, yet SOPA is going to allow some bureaucrat behind the scenes to decide, “Yup, that’s a copyright violation alright. Time to delete that site.” Members of Congress don’t see the potential for injustice and abuse?
I received this SOPA observation in the email yesterday:
“It’s D.C. versus Silicon Valley in the SOPA fight,” observes colleague Greg Grillot. “You have Google, Mozila, Wikipedia, Reddit, Firefox and Boing Boing against it. And how many D.C. shills for it?”
“It’s a true war: the last bastion of creative/productive ingenuity in America versus the swamp of D.C.’s parasitic, industry-conflicted bureaucracy.”
Is D.C. winning?
Last year, Census data revealed Washington moved past San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area.
One of the best Catholic pieces of the new year: G.K. Chesterton and the Art of Living Well in a Time of Crisis. It’s by a recent Catholic convert, and we all know that converts are brilliant folk. The writer boils down the GKC attitude to four things: humor, self-deprecation, transcendental joy that transcends immanent crisis, and emphasizing the Gospel instead of the world’s skepticism. Those are good ideas. Long-time readers of TDE know that I’m something of a skeptic myself. I even have a notebook dedicated to reflections of a Christian skeptic, but some things shine through ignorance, and GKC had a sure grasp of those things.
Received in an Email
An email newsletter, actually: “Northwest Trustee Services — the Pacific Northwest’s largest foreclosure trustee — has bought up or started six weekly newspapers in the region. It might buy as many as 50 more. ‘Owning newspapers,’ reports the Portland Oregonian, ‘will reduce costs for Northwest Trustee’s lender clients and could make foreclosures more profitable for [the] firm.’ That’s because Oregon — indeed, most states — require a series of legal notices in the local paper before they auction a foreclosed property. ‘These legal ads, which generally cost $500-2,000, are one of the largest expenses of the foreclosure process… For many small-town papers, foreclosure notices have become one of their largest revenue sources.’”
Drinking Corner
Whoa, whoa, whoa! My region has a Beer Week, and I didn’t even know about it. Kalamazoo Beer Week started last Saturday. I scrolled through the list of events. Pretty impressive, even if their PR campaign hasn’t been. I’m guessing this is the first annual (a friend who actually lives in Kalamazoo sent me the link, stating that he’d never heard of it before). Let’s hope it’s the first of many.
If you’re from Michigan, you remember the Silverdome. It housed the Detroit Lions for 30 years, was the chosen venue for many major rock bands, and even hosted the Super Bowl. It was the largest NFL stadium for nearly 20 years and is still, I believe, the largest indoor venue in the Midwest. After the Lions left about five years ago, the humongous structure became defunct, just sitting there in Pontiac, Michigan, taking up a bunch of space.
But I guess that’s changing. From what I have been told, a management company purchased it for $500,000 (I guess it cost over $50 million to build) and is incurring $1.5 million annual carrying costs (e.g., insurance, utilities, maintenance, etc.). They hope to bring it back, possibly as the home for a major indoor soccer team and other events.
Well, I had the honor of spending Sunday at the Silverdome. My son Jack is a talented football player and there was a 7-on-7 football tournament at the Silverdome that featured some of the top talent in the State (among others, there were recruits from Michigan and Georgia Tech). It was a grueling 14-hour day, and I don’t know how much exposure Jack received, but it was neat to see the Silverdome. It’s in far better shape than I expected. The picture above was taken with my iPhone. It’s still a magnificent structure that deserves serious consideration from promoters who need an absolutely huge stadium.
Note: I’m still reeling from Sunday’s events. Regular blogging will resume on Wednesday.
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Soros the Austrian?
Received in an Email
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