Likelihood of Success

Scaredy cats

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 25, 2007

Emily Yoffe writes, in a piece referred to by Glenn Reynolds:

It was a mild January evening, and people had filled the restaurant’s outdoor patio. As our group walked past the tables, one of my friends said, “This terrifies me.” I don’t know if she was reassured later by the chilly April, but we are all supposed to be terrified of the weather now.

Rather than weigh in, again, on the topic of fear-mongering among climate changers, I wanted to make a point about “terrified.”

I notice that people on the left are always terrified of something or an0ther. They even teach their children to be terrified — I remember when the polls were telling us, 25 years ago, that Ronald Reagan was making all the chillun go to sleep ascared because he wouldn’t agree to a nuclear freeze.

We’re always hearing how terrified they are of this, that and the other thhing. They’re terrified of censorship, they write in major circulation magazines, newspapers and blogs. They’re terrified the infringement of this right, the loss of that one — almost all things that never come to pass, and which, in the rare cases that they, do, are hardly anything to be afraid of at all.

For a grown up.

Posted in Sisyphus | 4 Comments »

Inflammatory move

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 21, 2007

It’s just a bad approach, regardless of your ultimate strategy, to include dousing yourself with gasoline. You just never know what could go wrong, you know?

Posted in Americana, Sisyphus | Leave a Comment »

The birthright

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 21, 2007

The New York Times reports:

The eldest children in families tend to develop slightly higher I.Q.s than their younger siblings, researchers are reporting, based on a large study that could effectively settle more than a half-century of scientific debate about the relationship between I.Q. and birth order.

About three points. As the article ponits out, it’s a pretty general result — an average, not a prediction of what will happen in a given family — and, believe me, I am closely acquainted with one family where this does not seem to pan out at all. In short, interesting news, but be careful to whom you send the link!

Posted in Nuvo-Techno | Leave a Comment »

Rolling the document production dice

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 21, 2007

As a first-year associate in one of the world’s great law firms, I heard stories about smoking gun documents that were “disappeared” rather than turned over to adversaries as part of the discovery process. But we always learned, as well, that in the photocopy and electronic eras, you can never really be sure you got rid of every copy — so if you were at all inclined to engage in this sort of fraud on the court, you were playing with fire.

But the temptation, when big, big bucks are on the line, must be great. And some folks never never learn.

Posted in Lex scripta, O Mores! | Leave a Comment »

Blooming nuts

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 20, 2007

Mike Bloomberg for President?

What an awful idea. What is there to like about this?

I know the feeling, Mike. Wealth? Done it. Mayor of New York City? Done it. What’s left? Spitzer is governor for eight years and mayors don’t do so well in Albany, anyway. Yes, you and I know what it’s like to have accomplished everything, and then some, and be left with no challenges.

Well, actually, there is one thing I’ve done that you haven’t.

Get married, Mike. I promise this will keep you busy.

Posted in Americana, Politics and Poker | 1 Comment »

Road work crew Bergen County

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 19, 2007

Road work crew Bergen County

Originally uploaded by Ron Coleman.

It was about 90 degrees yesterday and these guys were out there doing roadwork with all that safety gear on…

This is not minimum wage work, but I doubt any of these guys is driving a Lexus, either.

Posted in Americana | Leave a Comment »

We’re all chickens now

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 18, 2007

Mickey Kaus runs the number on the wage effects, putative and otherwise, of the proposed immigration bill.

But as a sans laude economics major, I’m numerically challenged. This formula, in contrast, works for me: “This is indeed a struggle between the governing class and the governed.”

Posted in Gelt, Politics and Poker | 1 Comment »

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 18, 2007

The “Literary world applauds Rushdie knighthood.”

What’s not to like? If you can remember whathisname’s promise, why, you can remember that date in 2007 when Likelihood of Success agreed with the “Literary World” on something besides the fact that publishers never support their authors sufficiently and that it’s too humid in New York during July and August.

But what can we do? When they’re right, they’re right. I like this bit, as the British would say:

John Sutherland, academic and former Booker prize judge, suggested the award might represent a tacit olive branch from those who perhaps had failed to support Sir Salman as he might have hoped.

“It’s astonishing that Tony Blair, among others, has been so reluctant to be seen shaking Rushdie’s hand, and here he is getting a knighthood from the Queen,” said the emeritus professor of literature.

Not the most literary sentence, but as sentences go it does beat a fatwah. And we all get the point. Jolly good show.

And now we have an answer to the question, Why does England need a monarch? Perhaps, from time to time, to remind a once-great nation of its better self. I’m not the only one to notice that this makes an interesting moment for the monarchy’s greatest critic, Christopher Hitchens, and one of Rushdie’s biggest supporters: “Now that Rushdie has been royally evevated to a status Hitch must necessarily despise, it will be fascinating to see how Hitch handles the public congratulations for his old friend.” Yes, it usually is with him, anyway, one way or another.

Posted in Ars Longa, Oppression | Leave a Comment »