Asymmetric

America, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. Freedom:

Even my liberal friends find it odd that democratic countries like Canada and the Netherlands persecute bloggers and essayists for sincerely opining on world events. Indeed, except for nations like Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems that much of the world is moving towards less freedom. Well, we're still pretty free to write and say what we like. Besides speech, some other ways in which we're more free than 99% of the world:

a. We can send our kids to the school we want.
b. We can have as many children as we want.
c. We don't have to take a government test to further our education.
d. We can study and attempt a career in any field we wish.
e. We can buy whatever health care we can afford.
f. We can start our own businesses.
g. We can marry any other over-age, non-family member of the opposite sex.
h. We can blog.
i. For the most part, we can drive whatever we want.
j. People choose their religion or no religion.

2. Economic Freedom (Capitalism):

I love it when my son tells me, "Papi, I want to be rich."

I always reply, "Go ahead, son! This is America! Don't forget the old man."

I also tell him that he has to work hard and earn his money, for in America, my son will control his economic fate. He will have to practice good money habits, or he'll end up poor. He will suffer or soar based on his discipline, ability, and aversion or attraction to risk. That's dignity.

And, my son can reach his financial goals through several paths, or he can blaze his own. More than in any other nation, people can be quite successful without having to go the "right" schools or knowing the "right" people. In fact, sometimes they don't even need rights. Publisher John H. Johnson and many blacks created and grew businesses when some blacks couldn't even vote.

3. Diversity:

Choices, choices, choices! We can spend or save. We have tons of products. We can live in San Francisco or Dallas. Cable! We can attend a Cinco de Mayo parade in Los Angeles or a St. Patrick's day parade in Chicago. Vivica or Megan Fox?

Megan Fox...

...or Vivica Fox: Now that's diversity.

4. Genius:

Take a look at what Americans have invented. Considering the above three characteristics, coincidence? I don't think so. The linked-to list doesn't even include my personal favorite, the cheese-filled hot dog. Think about it: Germany has the hot dog for a thousand years and it never occurs to them to fill it with cheese! After how many wars with cheese-riddled France?

5. Culture:

I remember a Korean college buddy of mine saying how Americans have no culture. Another college friend stood up for her white dad at a "Mexican-American graduation" after a very unappreciative new alumni said that Americans have no culture. What are they talking about! Name any kind of art, and Americans are well represented after the mid nineteenth century (We needed time to wind up, no?) if not outright dominant. Movies, plays, literature, visual arts- we're right there. Which brings me to our most spectacular contribution:

6. Music:

From Abba...er...Aerosmith to Zappa, Bolton to Brittney, Country to Western, Jazz to Blues, Motown to Grunge, Disco to Classical, movie music to garage music; America is an aural treasure trove.

People often forget about America's contribution to musical theater. Above, America by Leonard Bernstein.

7. Martial ability:

Since every country is born drenched in blood, it's first heroes tend to be warriors. When a nationalist group, positive or negative,** wants to trumpet its particular nation's greatness, it looks to its warriors. Why? Fighting is hard! The reason the French commemorate Charles Martel and not the French surrender to Germany (Sorry, French brothers and sisters, it's what people know.) isn't because one was a victory and the other a defeat; it's because one of them fought. Poland is proud of its defense in World War II. Religious people are proud of their martyrs. Texans lost the Alamo, yet they still rally to it's crying. Many Southerners still honor Confederate soldiers despite losing because Johnny Reb fought well.

Anyways, whether you agree or disagree with the justification for their sacrifice, Americans have been superlative fighters.

8. The Guirado family:

My father arrived poor and now he's not (He also arrived skinny, but I won't go there.). I joined the Army as a thank you to the country on behalf of the Guirado family.

9. Canada:

Yes, our neighbors to the the north talk funny, but does any country have a better neighbor than the United States?

Vanity is Canadian: Who knew?

10. Physical beauty:

Let's say you were designing the ideal land mass in Civilization: Wouldn't it look a lot like the United States? From the mountains to the prairies, to the oceans, deserts, jungles, it's a very beautiful place.

Sedona, California

Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Gold Edition

Bonus reason: History:

Something that amazes me about the United States is how short a time our flag has waved- a whole 232 years. 232 years is one third of the time between the Muslim conquest and Christian reconquest of Spain. 232 years after Christ, the Romans were still feeding Christians to the lions. The Roman republic which had just ceased to endure at the time of Christ, lasted twice as long as the United States has existed, and the Roman empire almost that. Quick! what happened between 1500 and 1268 B.C.? The fact that we've gone from zero to top of the heap in such a short time is both a source of pride and a warning, for our continuance is not guaranteed, although not all nations have become great, all that have have fallen in one way or another.

Anyways, lots of interesting stuff happened.

**Look at Nazi, Communist, and MECHA/fascist/racist art, and you'll notice that they tend to depict idealized, usually historical, warriors.

This article from Libertas has 4th of July movies if you're interested.

Happy Fourth of July!

Signing of Declaration of Independence.

Declaration of Independence.

Here's something nice I found at Youtube (man, is youtube great or what?) The first version is souled up a little by Ray Charles.

The second version is by Celine Dion. She's Canadian, but that's almost the same as being an American so it's OK.

Howard Zinn is undoubtedly a smart guy, but would you want Howard Zinn leading your country? If he did, how long would your country last? Since no nation was born without taking land from somebody else, he'd probably be itching to give it away.

The following article embodies the leftist attitude towards America. Far leftists like Zinn (not you, Mr. and Mrs. moderate Democrat) claim to love America only when they're attacking it like when they say "this isn't what America is supposed to be about; America is greater than that; we shouldn't stoop to their level (suggesting America is better in some way, no?)" whenever they discuss the Guantanamo-interrogation controversy.

Let's look at this essay he wrote.

Read more »

About a month ago, I mentioned how Democrats aren't even defending Obama anymore. Two recent articles in The New Republic demonstrate this trend:

How does Noam Scheiber respond to the charge that Obama is not only a "typical pol," but a downright weasel? With pol numbers:

The easiest way to see this is to consider one of the most persistent poll results of the campaign so far: The percentage of voters who identify themselves as Democrats is eight to 15 points higher than the percentage who identify as Republicans. Even if the GOP were to somehow convince Americans that Obama was typical, they would have to paint McCain as phenomenally atypical to overcome this disadvantage. (An eight-to-15 point deficit in party ID means you have to clean up among independents.)

Then, we have Jonathan Chait. I thought by "Obama flip flop fallacy," Chait meant that Obama is being falsely accused of pandering. No, Chait only means that it won't matter because McCain is also a "flip-flopper:"

From a substantive point of view, McCain accusing Obama of making politically calculated policy reversals makes about as much sense as Obama accusing McCain of lacking experience. Obama may have trimmed his sails a couple times, but McCain has the longest and deepest list of flip-flops of any major candidate I can ever recall. He has completely reinvented himself, changing his mind on the most basic questions like progressive taxation, torture, the role of the religious right, and on and on and on. But very little of this has penetrated the basic McCain narrative in the media, and I don't expect it ever will. Wednesday's Washington Post story on McCain focused on his willingness to take unpopular stances, and included his self-aggrandizing statements ("I take stands on principle, and I don't switch positions depending on what audience or what time it is in the electoral calendar") without any skeptical context by the reporter.

The thing is that Chait is lying about McCain. McCain's opposition to high taxes didn't have to do with progressiveness per se so much as the impact on the deficit; he's against it now because he's against any tax increase. The role of the religious right? McCain isn't thinking that philosophically; he likes some preachers and dislikes others. And Chait's torture charge is an outright lie. McCain voted against a particular bill, not said that he now favors torture. Does he have to vote for bad legislation just to satisfy Chait?

Dear Sci-Fi apologist,

I've been watching the Star Wars marathon on the men's TV station, Spike. What accounts for the poor quality of the holograms in the Star Wars movies?

Sincerely,

Star Wars fan.

Dear Star Wars fan,

First of all, only men under 30 or the perpetually juvenile watch Spike. Mature men watch the History Channel. Now, on to your question: At first, considering the vast distances involved, I thought it was a simple case of transmission interference, but then I noticed that even in local projections such as ones from the Jedi security archives and princess Leia's famous plea for help (below), the holograms were of poor quality.

Notice the lack of color and abundant artifacts.

After a little research, I discovered that long ago, hologram projectors for the entire Republic were outsourced to a small company on the slave planet of Tatooine, Invictatech. Early Invictatech hologram projectors suffered from a firmware bug that greatly degraded quality. Although IT directors across the universe worked hard to resolve the problem, during the events in question, many projectors still weren't patched.

The hologram game on the Millennium Falcon didn't suffer from the problem because Han Solo had decided to go with Macs.

Notice the higher quality.

So, while the Spanish are tearing down statues of the relatively (To Castro, certainly) benign dictator, Francisco Franco, they're erecting statues to one of the most destructive forces in Latin American history, Che Guevara. Way to make sense, Spain. What's next: Are you going to give monkeys human rights?

Mayor failing Che test.

Thanks to Babalu blog.

Blogging and real life friend Son of a Fish from Epistles at Dawn (SOF) posted:

Yes, yes, there's a Funnyordie.com, Adultswim.com, Collegehumor, Break, Ebaumsworld, JibJab, Cleanguys.com (snicker), and good ol' YouTube, but is it just me, or have these sites lost their luster?...

...With sites like YouTube this is especially true, since the content is being created AND promoted by thousands of individuals. An increase in contributors, though, means that a number of people are posting content that is essentially garbage, with very little entertainment value. In addition, in order to produce massive amounts of content, the cost of the content must perforce go down. And with lower costs must come lower production values. From the perspective of these sites, this is an acceptable, even desirable equation. Push the content, maximize impressions, cash in...

...I'd say that we can all help by vetting ourselves. Don't post garbage on your blog. Don't watch pointless kick-in-the-balls videos or man-fall-down fare. In short, the only way we can force content providers to give us the funny is by ignoring the asinine...

And, to assure quality, Hollywood should just release one movie a month. I wouldn't have minded going strait from Iron Man in May to Wall-e in June without the intervening Happening.

I agree that most of the internet is garbage, but I also consider most music, poetry, television (Except for the CSIs which are all great and very dissimilar from each other.), novels, and performance art refuse as well.

Yet, this weekend, my wife brought home 10,000 B.C., a movie I curse once for each year it's setting is removed from our own. Well, she liked it. Add that to my father's enthusiasm for America's Funniest Home Videos and my mother's addiction to court shows and it's fair to conclude that some people, it seems, can't get enough punches to the privates or flushing cats. What can we do: send them to Australia?

The real reason that most content sucks is the same reason Boston and the Knack broke up, James Bond assaulted five secret lairs in six movies, nobody buys the Road Runner box set, and they canceled the Dukes of Hazard: People just run out of ideas. Only a few individuals in history like Mozart and Shakespeare can continuously top themselves.

Finally, I will never limit myself. Garbage or no, it's going on Asymmetric.

Get the Knack

Boston

Shattered

C.S.I. Crime Scene Investigation - The Complete Seventh Season

10,000 B.C.

The Dukes of Hazzard - The Complete First Season

James Bond Ultimate Collector's Set

America's Funniest Home Videos: Battle of the Best

The install was easy and my few but critical "Add-ons" (Download helper, Axexa, Roboform, Google toolbar) updated without a problem.

The address bar "autofills" with a larger font and the default toolbar has updated buttons, which are the only differences I noticed.

The one change I wish they'd have included is the ability to have two "tabs" open side-by-side like in the Opera and Avant browsers. As it is now, you can only view one tab at a time (Yes, I know that you can open another window.). My favorite feature, the inline spell check is still there (Thank God.).

I experienced a few crashes. They were followed by a popup asking me if I wanted to close the window. "Well, if it already crashed..."

O.K. I won't argue for the ideas below since they're just uncharitable speculations on my part and no doubt not held by the majority of people supporting the consequential policies, but now that I'm on a conspiracy kick:

As any student of history knows, crisis prompts action:

Do you think that leftists love it when gas prices increase or we have a heat wave so that they can proceed with their light rail/solar (except for nuclear which is too easy and wouldn't necessitate sacrifice) fantasies?

Do you think the left intentionally wants to break health care by legislating price increases until the public cries for a government take over?

From here:

In New York, a father seeking to buy a typical health insurance policy for his family could lease a Porsche for what it would cost him to pay the monthly premiums. Some would dismiss this as a mere reflection of the fact that things tend to cost more in New York. But that doesn't explain why in neighboring Connecticut as well as in California -- two states that rank right up there with New York for the highest cost of living -- a family policy costs less than half what it does in the Empire State. . . .
J.P. Wieske, director of public affairs at the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, helps compile an annual list of health insurance mandates imposed by the states. . . . Some of the benefits companies have been forced to cover include: in vitro fertilization, morbid obesity treatment, and lockjaw disorders. Some states require coverage of specialists including acupuncturists, pastoral counselors, marriage therapists, and massage therapists. Additionally, several states have imposed so-called "slacker mandates" allowing parents to keep grown children on their health-care policy until the age of 30. . . .
The report that Wieske co-authored estimated that such mandates can add anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent to the price tag of a health insurance policy, depending on the state and the type of mandate. It's no coincidence that New York, one of the most regulated states, is also among the most expensive.

Do you think the left wants to destroy marriage and usher in a post-patriarchal/non-Christian future by promoting same-sex marriage?

Is the above any worse than thinking that Bush manufact