Named for the Japanese vine that covers much of the south, these fellows definitely had it covered at the Birmingham Folk Festival. They hauled it all the way from Marion, Alabama to do some pickin and grinnin for us and, if you missed it, here’s a small taste of what you missed. Here’s Old Joe Clark and some buckdancin’ by Kudzu’s “Onion”:

Lagniappe tracks: “Reuben’s Train” and “Cluck Ole Hen”

Here’s their myspace page.

“How would you define the Birch fallacy?” Jay Hall asked.

“The fallacy,” I [WFB] said, “is the assumption that you can infer subjective intention from objective consequence: we lost China to the Communists, therefore the President of the United States and the Secretary of State wished China to go to the Communists.”

“I like that,” Goldwater said.

That’s from this interesting account by the late William F. Buckley that I stumbled across recently.

Pretty incredible. Hope there’s no doctor fish/piranha mix-ups though.

Is this a surprise to anyone? When I first saw the T. Boone Pickens “plan” advertisement, I promptly ignored it. A billionaire oilman finds religion and is now promoting green energy? That narrative certainly has a heartwarming appeal doesn’t it? (Btw, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a billionaire or an oilman; it’s just good to consider where a message is coming from.) Now we learn that T. Boone is set up to make a killing if his “plan” is implemented. Nothing wrong with making money or catering to the demand for greener energy. However, T. Boone’s plan requires massive use of eminent domain. That is, instead of buying all of the land between his farm and Dallas to put his wind farm on and exploit his water rights as well as his natural gas investments, ol” T. Boone just figured he’d get the gubmint to take all that land and give him some sweet kickbacks in the form of taxpayer-funded subsidies (but I repeat myself) to boot. It seems that this “plan” to end the energy “crisis” is going to cost a lot more than T. Boone lets on and that he will be the primary beneficiary.

Though the red flags should’ve gone up in everyone’s mind when this “plan” first started circulating, I’ve been amazed to see the comment wars going on between skeptics and true believers in several different online outlets. One commenter, who shall remain unidentified, said something to the effect of: “It might not be perfect, but at least it’s a plan. Where’s your plan?” Now I’m no fan of making the perfect the enemy of the good, but I’ve seen similar arguments in many different policy discussion from both the left and the right and they all strike me as hollow. It would be wonderful if every critique could propose a better solution, criticize by creating as John Mackey, channeling Michaelangelo, likes to say. That is certainly the ideal and the best way to advance a discussion. However, sometimes criticism is all you can offer because there is no problem (I’m not saying that’s the case here) or the offered plan is premature or so boneheaded that it will result in a waste of time, money and other resources and may in fact accomplish more of the harm you’re trying to prevent. That certainly could be the case here, where T. Boone benefits by receiving some of the inputs to his new energy business at well below market rates, thereby increasing his profit, but also resulting in a massive investment of resources into a plan that is a best a boondoggle and at worst might actually harm the environment and result in tying up that massive amount of resources which might be better spent on other more efficient green technologies. For really complex problems, sometimes the best short-term solution is to wait until the problem is better understood or better technology exists to address it.

In other words, merely having a plan to address a particular doesn’t mean anything. Each plan must be evaluated on its merits, that is, whether it efficiently addresses the problem thereby making the situation better. Some plans must be implemented to find out if they work. Others are workable or unworkable on their face. Usually, the marketplace will sort the good ideas from the bad ideas. However, folks like T. Boone convince their politically powerful friends (and many of the rest of us) that their plan is good that the market needs to be bypassed through subsidization of their ideas. In such a case, it’s perfectly correct to offer a critique even if you don’t have a plan to replace it with. I’m a little leery of anyone with plans that require mandatory support. If it’s such a good plan, actually sell us on it, not our “representatives.” To paraphrase Laocoön, “Beware of oilmen bearing gifts.”

End of rant.

Via Reason.

Headline allusion. Available here.

Fair warning: the next several WWs will definitely be Folk Festival artists. The folks who played the festival were fantastic and many, if not most, were new for me, which is a crying shame, but I’m making up for it now:) I don’t think I’d ever heard Heath Green play before last Saturday, but that guy can play. Not only did he lay down some mean licks on the guitar when he played his own set, but he also joined Chris Porter and the Back Row Baptists, I believe–it was a long day for me:), on keyboards and backup vocals for their set. The man not only knows how to play, his voice is incredible. He’s got a throaty, somewhat rough growl that’s perfect for blues, but can smooth it out for bluegrass or rock. Here’s a video of him performing with his backing band at Marty’s, a late-night Birmingham institution:

Here’s his myspace page.

Thanks so much to everyone who came out and supported the Birmingham Folk Festival this past weekend! We had a great time and it would not have been possible without the hard work of many folks including our sponsors, volunteers, vendors, musical acts, artists, attendees, Birmingham city workers and the kindness of friends and strangers. We don’t have hard numbers yet, but it looks like the festival was a tremendous success. I’ll post the final figures here when I know them. Thanks again for everyone’s support!

This Saturday, August 2nd, come on out and enjoy folk music at Avondale Park. It will be a day of music, food and fun and benefits a very good cause.

Can I just say how frustrating and not user-friendly WordPress’ comment management system is. I continue to lose comments like G.R. Kearney’s comment on the Cristo Rey Network post and Xaq’s comment on the White Knight Two post. Google’s cache is not quick enough to save me this time and there appears to be no way to retrieve a comment that was accidentally deleted or marked as spam. I really value comments, but I’m tempted to get rid of them altogether. I also have no idea why I’m marking most of them as spam, since this appears to do exactly nothing. Every day, I mark multiple copies of the same message as spam and the next day there are five more. It takes a while to sort through all of those. At the risk of having them eaten, can anyone suggest a WP-compatible comment management system or tell me how to make the magic happen within WP and get it to stop randomly eating comments? Thanks.

A lot of rumors about our state AG Troy King have been swirling about in the ol’ Bama blogosphere. Though I sometimes comment on state politics, I’ve not commented on those rumors because I try not to engage in rumormongering and I think that whatever King does in his personal time is his own business. What’s of more interest to me is how he executes the duties of his office. Unfortunately, King has chosen to use his office to promote his own political agenda, place a high priority on consensual “crimes” and reward his friends with cushy jobs.

That last one is the focus of this piece exposing King’s questionable, at best, and probably unethical hiring and promotion practices. Via Dan.

This bit of news is also disturbing. It shows that King is more concerned about persecuting non-violent drug offenders than dealing with legitimate issues like making sure people on death row actually belong there.

If that’s not enough for you, Dan has compiled a list of King’s greatest hits.

Now seems like a good time for a resignation.

Here’s the story.

Wired has more.