Minor Thoughts from me to you

Keith Hennessey: Basic facts on the General Motors bankruptcy. http://bit.ly/kJJFg

Ian Murray on GM: Cut out the union liability and the requirement to build small cars and you have a profitable company. http://bit.ly/7cmsz

GM files for bankruptcy. http://bit.ly/axWCW It should have happened a year ago and it should have happened without government bailouts.

Hooking up twitter to the blog. We'll see how this goes.

Paul Copan busts some "First Christmas" myths over at Reclaiming the Mind.

1. There would have been no inns in a backwater town like Bethlehem. They would be found along main roads or in cities.
2. The word for inn (katalyma) is the same one as the "guest room (of a private home)" mentioned in Mk. 14:14 and Lk. 22:11 --the room where the last supper was eaten.

Shikha Dalmia and Reason Magazine unload on Detroit's bailout request in It's 65 Million B.C. for the Detroit Three.

General Motors alone burned about $5 billion a month for the last quarter and is expected to completely exhaust its kitty by the end of this year. (The other two will follow suit shortly after.) At that rate of cash burn, the bailout money translates into five more months of life.

A comeback in that time would be hard to pull off even if these were the best run companies on the planet, rather than ones debilitated by decades of labor intransigence and management incompetence, two characteristics that show few signs of abating.

Indeed, United Auto Workers (UAW) Chief Ron Gettelfinger, who has been accompanying the auto CEOs on their taxpayer shakedown missions to D.C., had until this morning ruled out any new concessions to the Detroit Three.

... Gettelfinger is also unwilling to overhaul the rigid workplace rules that have long crimped labor productivity. For instance, these rules prevent workers from doing multiple jobs, which means that they can't be quickly redeployed in response to shifting market conditions. Nor will Gettelfinger allow the immediate shuttering of the notorious job banks program that pays laid off workers nearly their full salary for years on end.

Maybe Gettelfinger is just posturing. Happily, he has convened a UAW meeting tomorrow to "mull" some concessions. But if the threat of imminent death won't persuade him to pull out all the stops to restore the auto companies to profitability, why would he do so after receiving a $25 billion life-line from Uncle Sam? In effect, this means that the bailout will force non-auto workers--who should be saving in the event they get a pink slip themselves--to subsidize unemployed auto workers so that they can continue to draw fat checks for a few more months.

Finally, Dave Barry gives some gift recommendations in his Holiday Guide 2008: Gifts - For the Naughty (washingtonpost.com).

A man buys a gift only when he sees a clear and present need, such as he remembers that his wedding anniversary was last week. Otherwise, when a man is in a store, he is looking for practical items.

If he happens to pass by, say, a little ceramic statuette of two little smiley-face turtles with "BEST" painted on one shell and "FRIENDS" painted on the other, he is not going to give it a second glance, because he can't imagine anybody having any use for such a thing except as an emergency substitute for a clay pigeon.

The gift guide includes such jewels as the Uroclub (#2), the wearable sleeping bag (#5), the gun-shaped egg fryer, and the Zombie Yard Sculpture (#11).

I think this is basically how I would react if someone tried to steal my laptop.

Arizona State University student Alex Botsios said he had no problem giving a nighttime intruder his wallet and guitars.

When the man asked for Botsios' laptop, however, the first-year law student drew the line.

"I was like, 'Dude, no -- please, no!" Botsios said. "I have all my case notes...that's four months of work!"

At that point, the law student wrestled the bat away and began punching Saucedo, Botsios said.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Bill Quick sends an e-mail to Glenn Reynolds:

So I'm out on my bike today - it's gorgeous in SF - and I stop by the Bay for a breather and just to sit and watch the sailboats gliding under the Bay Bridge.

I open my backpack and drag out my 3 lb Lenovo with builtin EVDO, fire it up, and check my blog. Then yours - and see your post about The Mirrored Heavens. I click the link and check it out at Amazon. Sounds right up my alley. So I open my Sony eReader, connect it to my laptop, and buy the book for ten bucks, download it, and watch it join the 400 or so other books sitting in my reader.

It's next on the "pile," after I finish crunching my way through Peter Hamilton's endless, but fascinating trilogy.

Speaking as a SF writer, I can tell you that intellectually this shouldn't amaze me (and intellectually, I expect the process to be a lot more seamless in a couple of years), but as a 62 year old person who can remember when phones were black, tvs had tiny round screens, and the "network" was The Lone Ranger on CBS radio, there are times it seems downright miraculous.

Thanks for the recommendation.

This'll leave a mark.

From the it-made-me-laugh files, this e-mail arrived in my spam folder:

Get a complimentary 2007 personal forecast from Bethea Jenner

I think this has to be a candidate for best April Fool's Day prank ever:

But Partridge's ordeal was only beginning. It's reported that he woke up the morning of his death to the sound of the church bell announcing his passing. Before long, he was visited by an undertaker looking to prepare his home, and later by the church sexton seeking orders for the funeral sermon. Throughout the day a string of mourners, funeral workers, and church officials were shooed from the cobbler's door.

Partridge would frequently be stopped on the street for inquiries into how his widow was coping, or to be chided for lacking the decency to be properly buried. The old astrologer had no shortage of enthusiastic enemies willing to perpetuate the myth of his death, and the more literarily inclined among them -- some the past victims of Partridge's own predictions -- set about printing additional denials and confirmations of his passing, adding to the confusion. Some of these forgeries were released under Partridge's own name, making it difficult to separate his genuine protests from the comically-enhanced accounts of his imposters.

When writing, it pays to be as clear and concise as possible. This sentence (from Alliant Energy's "Monthly Natural Gas Update") is neither:

A decatherm (equal to 10 therms) is enough natural gas to heat an average home for 4.5 days.

It's not clear because I still don't know what a "decatherm" is. The parenthetical definition is useless unless you know what a "therm" is. If you did now what a "therm" is, wouldn't you likely know what the "deca-" prefix meant?

It's not concise because it includes the useless definition. So be both clear and concise: don't use useless definitions.

This is the best news I've read all week.

DOT Creates New Lane For Reckless Drivers

WASHINGTON—Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters unveiled a new $270 billion federal project Monday to build special lanes for dangerous and careless drivers on most major U.S. highways.

"These new lanes are for the millions of drivers who can't be bothered with speed limits, turn signal use, or not careening madly out into oncoming traffic," Peters said during the opening ceremony for the first reckless-driving route, a steeply banked, guardrail-lined on-ramp to I-395 outside Arlington, VA. "Whether hell-bent on putting themselves and everyone around them in danger or just drunk off their gourds and out for a simple joyride, America's reckless will no longer be forced to putter along with careful, conscientious, considerate citizens."

Lately, I've felt like the cold weather will never end. It seems like every single week of the winter has brought more snow, more cold, more icy, and more dreariness. But -- at last! -- I have hope that we're seeing the end of winter.

Average temperature for the first five days of March: 28 degrees.

Average temperature for the last five days of March: 39 degrees.

At this point, that would feel like heaven.

How's the weather in Madison, WI?:

Including today's snow, it is the 37th time in the last 67 days -- since Dec. 1 -- Madison has seen measurable snowfall, according to weather service data.

Madison's normal winter snow total is about 49 inches, Kuhlman said, but the city is already well above that average with about 60 inches of snow through midnight. The storm could push Madison to within inches of the snowfall record of 76.1 inches set in 1978-79.

You know, snow stopped being fun somewhere around December 5th. I move that we move immediately to Spring. I further move that we proceed immediately to global warming. The world's climate is obviously not warm enough yet. Can I get a second?

16:30 - Leave the office for my car.

16:40 - Finish digging my car out of its parking spot and leave the office building.

17:23 - Arrive home. The roads are mostly empty. Apparently, the vast majority of Madison heeded the media warnings and stayed off of the roads. Driving down 14-South, to Oregon, a few jerks with four wheel drive pass me on the left. I am driving slowly, to avoid careening off the road into a snow drift. They are not satisfied with my 35 mph progress and pass with only 12 inches of clearance. I want to report them for reckless driving, but snow covers their license plates.

17:30 - Start moving the snow off of the driveway, so I can park my car. The snow-plow-provided drift at the end of the driveway is more than 2 feet deep. The snow thrower gives up in despair. I almost do too. But I won't. I persevere and clear a space just wide enough for my car to slip through.

18:40 -Finish clearing the driveway, sidewalk, and path to the front door.

18:55 -Get dressed, after a warm shower. My lips no longer feel numb!

There you have. Two and a half hours to drive home and get into the driveway. This is just too much snow for this Southern boy. I'm getting more and more tempted to just move to Tennessee.

You really should watch this parody of "24". Not only is this hilarious, but really -- isn't life a lot better than it used to be?

You know how it's said (at least, I've heard it) that after a long marriage, you tend to start resembling your spouse?

Next time I witness such a phenomenon, this story will make me wonder:

"Twins separated at birth have married each other without realizing they were brother and sister, it has been revealed.

"The British couple's marriage has now been annulled by the High Court after judges ruled the marriage had never validly existed."

Next time anyone calls the plot of Oedipus Rex forced, we know just where to refer them.

(From FOXNews via SKY News)

Im Gegensatz zu vielen anderen Pokerspielen, bei denen die Pokerspieler gegeneinander spielen, online blackjack hier die Spieler direkt gegen das Haus.

If you haven't heard yet, the horse-chestnut tree that gave famous Jewish refugee Anne Frank so much comfort in the early 1940's has been condemned by the city. And I don't mean "condemned" in the sense that the U.N. "condemns" things; I mean it's going to be ripped out of the ground. The tree's simply so old now, it's become a hazard to its human neighbors, who understandably take a dim view of a piece of living history crushing their houses.

However, that hasn't stopped it from continuing to comfort somebody; a few people have picked off some of its chestnuts and are now selling them on eBay. The price for your own Anne Frank Chestnut Tree (TM) is, at present, over $30,000 and climbing.

On a personal note, I'll be reading The Diary of Anne Frank for the first time soon. I've just got about a hundred pages of The Brothers Karamazov left before I jump into it.

(Tip o' the hat: FOXNews' site).

Above: "Blogger Etiquette."

The Economist is a classier magazine than most. Even the comments on its website's blogs, I've often noticed, tend to be of a far higher quality of cut than you'd find, say, here, where you * won't even post and give me the attention I pathologically crave.

But back to The Economist: Really, on what other site is it demanded that you register not just any old "username", but under your very own "pen name"? And how many websites automatically add the address "SIR-" to any e-mail you send them?

I don't know, but I'll tell you one thing: our own Webmaster Joe here at Minor Thoughts could learn a thing or two from this approach. Why I have to read posted comments that start out "Hey, Butthead", I don't know, when we could program this WordPress mutha to automatically add "To The Writer Of The Most Brilliant Article I Have Ever Read" to each barbed arrow you misanthropes aim at my sensitive heart.

Dear Reader, some mornings I wake up and ask myself: "Self, how much are hated, really hated?". Invariably the answer that comes back is "Not nearly enough". This morning, I'm going to take the first step towards changing that.

Over the weekend, I saw this video of pretty people trying to save pretty animals, dolphins in this case. Seems that the Japanese like to catch and eat dolphins. Several actors, including Hayden Panettiere -- better known as Claire Bennet, to fans of NBC's "Heroes" -- tried to swim out and save the dolphins. They were shockingly unsuccessful. Apparently Japanese fishermen don't hold actors and surfers in the same high regard that Americans do.

After her brush with evil, Hayden had this to say:

It was so incredibly sad. We were so close to them and they were sky hopping, jumping out of the water to see us. One little baby dolphin stuck his head out and kinda looked at me and the thought that it's no longer with us is really hard to take."

She broke into tears at this point.

Here's where I draw the hate (if I haven't already!). I see no moral distinction between killing cows, chickens, pigs, or eels and between killing dolphins. I've never eaten eel or dolphin, but I have eaten chickens, cows, and pigs. They're all quite tasty. I'm not a fan of seafood, generally, so I'm not optimistic about dolphins or eels. But I see absolutely nothing wrong with killing them -- or with baby seals for that matter.

I think that seals and dolphins attract an inordinate amount of love solely because they're cute. I'll acknowledge it: they are cute. But if cuteness is our sole defining criteria of what life is worthy to save and what life isn't, we are messed up in a major way.

Right now, there are poor kids in Vietnam whose parents would love to sell Vietnamese catfish to American diners. They can't, because American trade regulations are designed to protect catfish sellers in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. Hayden, do you cry for those poor children nearly as much as you cry for the cute baby dolphin?

Let the hating begin.

For contact information, please see postscript

This is not the time to be writing a love letter.

Bluntly, I've got snot all over my face. It's pouring both down my throat and out my nose, wherein it joins a non-stop stream of tears that have rendered this screen in front of me all but unreadable. And good grief, my head - o my poor head - my head right now is so foggy that, were ya t'ask me if I'll be going to Heaven tonight 'pon my surely-inevitable death, I'd quite confidently answer you yes - I just probably couldn't explain to you why.

Brilliant bounds for boogying back betwixt the bedsheets, you might say - for instance, if you were yourself the young lady to whom the letter is actually going. But Darlin', it's your birthday, and lemme tell ya something: the world outside our houses may be diving headlong into Winter (a fitting metaphor for my body), but it's been Springtime in my heart '365 since I started courting you.

And by God, you weren't born on the 25th of October, now were you?

According to Facebook, the answer is no, it was definitely the 24th (knew there was a reason I signed up for that), so let's go.

Anna

A best friend of mine once famously yelled, upon being complimented by her boyfriend for the millionth time or so about her physical appearance - not about her mind, not about her spirit, not about her driving record, but about her looks: "Is that all there is?!"

Many a long-form essay has been written to answer exactly that question, but here it's sufficient to point out, if I may plagiarize liberally from Mr. Charles Dickens (yep, I can, he's dead, thanks Chuck!), that Anna was attractive, to begin with. There can be no doubt whatsoever about that. And this must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. Just how attractive is she? So attractive that compasses do not function properly within her immediate vicinity. If you were to go hiking in the woods with Anna you would get lost. And if you were a man, you would not care.

I high-light this obvious detail of Anna's character not to elevate it at the expense of other admirable and more important qualities, but to hopefully shed a little light on the position I'm currently in; since the first day I remember meeting her, Anna's always been an object of non-platonic interest to me.* That being the case, I admit to sometimes having difficulty extricating myself from the perspective of the Suitor, which to degrees both wrong-headed and righteous has almost always been my role.

(*I actually suspect Anna doesn't care too much to recall this secret motivation of mine in sharing pre-courtship time with her. Back when we met, the beauty firmly belonged to a school of Christian thought which demands of the meaningful Christian relationship a slow development via at least one year of best-friends-ness, after which both male and female realize that there is something more to their friendship than just platonic interest and weep in their respective beds to the LORD God Almighty for the evil spirits to be cast out of them. This is eventually and grudgingly followed by a second year of companionship, known as "courtship", in which the respective parties involved join each other at their respective family's dinner tables, engaging in wholesome dating activities like passing the biscuits, pouring each other refills, etc. - just so long as their hands never touch. Eventually, this leads to the gentleman caller trying to pass the woman of his dreams a diamond ring, which her mother should smoothly intercept and, if she can get away with it, flush down the commode.

Needless to say, the young lady and I have taken a divergent but equally righteous path, one with which I'm happy to report the gorgeous creature remains perfectly at ease. Yet, I secretly think she still clings to the idea, perhaps just on principle, that there was at least one point in our story in which I did not think to myself, "I must at the very least dance with that exquisite creation, because I'll never forgive myself if I don't."

To my mind, these supposedly base beginnings merely testify to the LORD's humor, and His grand love for subverting all of our expectations. I flatter myself one of God's better jokes on her.)

A birthday tribute is not about celebrating Anna's value to me in particular, however; it is about celebrating Anna's objective value altogether. Or at least, this is how I am feeling about it right now. Joe, if I look like I'm going to get myself into any trouble here, please feel free to edit (Joe: Oh, I'll edit alright. This is the chance I've been looking for since you put up the pizza picture). By teh way, Ana iz also stinki and hr shoes iz bad.

So I switch gears as best I can. I give up the sword and shield of my crusade for her heart for a little while and take up the (party) banner of her life. What is there to say about this woman when I am not in the position of trying to win her?

Summarily: everything I've just said, and far, far more.

That was perhaps never so apparent as over a year ago, when I was hanging out at her house and happened to peruse a couple of her family's picture albums. I got to watch a video or two of her when she was younger, too. The experience was interesting not just because of my curiosity concerning her past, but because of the emotions roused in me by viewing that past. The little girl smiled out from history at me and - she was not yet grown up. O, she was a very pretty child, to be sure, but to my hormones the little one was, of course, a total flop. Her immature body could elicit no interest. And as linked in my mind as this smaller version was to the one I knew... well, neither could Anna herself at that moment.

Point being:

'Pessa, if ever I have seen you with eyes at liberty from those rose-tinted glasses you're always claiming I wear, well, that afternoon was it - and I wanted you more than ever.

But not as a lover - I just wished we'd become friends sooner. I wished I'd known this swiftly-changing girl in the albums and videos; I wished I'd been able to stop in at a much younger Anna's birthday tea party to wish her - in a toff accent of course - the very best birthday she might have. I wish the next day you could've told me what your parents got you. And my heart simply burns with the wish, strange as it may seem, that I myself had gotten you something, on that special day and every one since.

You are a life very much worth celebrating, Anna. I am so very glad you were born!

May God [have blessed] you with a day to equal the joy He, even more than I, takes in you.

And sweet dreams.

Adam

PS: I cannot fairly deny my fellow males the opportunity to take their own shots at the most beautiful woman I know. It is not for me to influence who's affections she will accept. So, if you would like to write your own love letter to Anna, her mailing address is provided below.

Anna Fraijo-Ruiz #X10882

PO Box 1508

Chowchilla, CA 93610-1508 USA