Thursday, March 31. 2005
Re Schiavo, by Dr. Bob Dr. Bob reluctantly offers a humble, Christian, medically-sophisticated essay on the case:
Click here: The Doctor Is In
Maybe a bit of rationality will enter the picture. Isn't intent an aspect of determining guilt? These stories remind me of that girl who was suspended for tylenol - it violated the zero tolerance for drugs policy. "HOUSTON – Unaware it had turned cool overnight, Eddie Evans's 12-year-old son bolted out of the house in shirt sleeves. He was on his way to the bus stop when his mother called him back for a jacket. In third period the boy discovered that the three-inch pocketknife he had taken to his last Boy Scout meeting was still inside his coat - a definite no-no under the school's zero-tolerance policy. Unsure what to do, he consulted a friend before putting the knife in his locker. The friend turned him in and, after lunch, police arrested him and took him to a juvenile-detention center without contacting his parents, according to senate testimony"
From: Click here: Why tolerance is fading for zero tolerance in schools | csmonitor.com
Arafat
DEBKAfile, which may have sources deep in Isreali intelligence, has a fascinating article on the wealth shipped to Palestine by naive western countries and kept by Arafat. Gwynnie thinks it explains more about what is happening in Palestine today than anything else she has read. Americans Recover Arafat’s plundered hoard "A part of Yasser Arafat’s secret hoard - $4 bn - has been documented and accounted for in a painstaking project undertaken by Nigel Roberts, the World Bank’s country director for the West Bank, and Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayyad. They have obtained partial information about another $1-2bn and found a further three to four billion invested on Arafat’s behalf by two individuals, his chief financial adviser Mohammed Rashid, and Palestinian-born international tycoon Samer Khoury.
This was reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s exclusive sources for the first time in DNW Issue 197 on March 11.
”You can stop going around with your hat in your hand,” a stern US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) at the London conference on Palestinian reforms earlier this month. “You have all the money you need to transform the economic situation in the Palestinian Authority.”
She told Abbas to go back to Ramallah and assume immediate control of the Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF) where the bulk of Arafat’s money was stashed, or forget about receiving a single aid dollar from international donors.
. . . . Abu Mazen was sent off from London to start selling off these assets to finance urgent projects for his impoverished people. He was warned that the $350 million pledged the Palestinians would be transferred only when it was matched by income from the sale of PIF properties – a dollar-for-dollar deal. The World Bank has projects ready to go. Roberts cited a $1bn plan to create 50,000 jobs in the Gaza Strip.
Back in Ramallah, Abu Mazen ran into his first major obstruction to divestment: Prime minister Ahmed Quriea (Abu Ala), who by withholding his signature has the power to block any Palestinian Authority measure, accused Abbas of surrendering to US-British dictates and opening the door for them to take over Palestinian funds. Then, most of the 11 PIF board members resigned or are about to do so, further disabling the fund’s operations.
. . . . Abu Mazen’s close allies warn him, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Palestinian sources, that without control of the PIF, he will never be more than a figurehead. His rivals have come to the same conclusion and are all now chasing after the billion-dollar fund hoping to lay hands on the wherewithal for buying a following. They are racing all the harder with the approach of the next Palestinian ballots – the April 28 municipal election and the July 17 parliamentary vote. A hefty cash campaign chest can promise victory. It can also buy the undying loyalty of all or some of the endemically corrupt Palestinian security and intelligence services. Conversely, candidates strapped for funds may as well give up.
Control of the PIF will also buy political control within Abu Mazen’s unruly and divided Fatah party. At the same time, some central party figures warn that the gold rush could destroy the Fatah from within." To read the whole piece, click here: http://www.debka.org/article.php?aid=1002
Books, plus Robert Lowell This is a great site and a fabulous source for commentary, book reviews and the like. There is a great column on Robert Lowell and his letters. However they only make a few of the articles available online. The Art Forum is equally chock-full of interesting stuff. Paul Mariani wrote the book Lost Puritan: the Life of Robert Lowell and states "If Lowell as historian was our Gibbon and our younger Pound, he was also our wild Shelley, and Hart Crane, and -- at the last--our Lear: grizzled, fallen, and -- in that wounded state -- most noble and most heartbreaking
 The male Wood Duck is the most flamboyant and exotic looking bird in North America. They have just returned here, where I live - saw a few on Sunday afternoon. It's getting late to put out nest boxes, but not too late quite yet. Assuming you have water - streams or ponds or marshy lakes. Their growing population relies on human intervention, because dopey humans cut down the dead trees they like to nest in.
Build duck nest boxes: Click here: Wood Duck . Buy them: Click here: Duck Houses at BestNest.com! and learn about "Woodies": Click here: All About Birds
Well done, Blogosphere Investor's Business Daily Headline yesterday "Campaign for Campaign Finance Reform was a Fraud." With enough blog buzz, the truth finally enters the MSM, and the job is done. See prior postings on Pewgate. Don't wait for the NYT, tho. They're still waiting for the triumph of international socialism, via the UN, or whatever their dream is. Anti-missile systems on commercial jets Am I in denial because I am not afraid? Maybe it's Bush that makes me comfortable these days...."While there can be no doubt that portable SAMs represent a very real threat to civilian aircraft and that the cited solutions would all be more or less effective counters, JREW believes that the current drive towards wide-scale use of such equipment may falter in the face of cost and infrastructure considerations." Click here: Executive Overview: Jane's Radar and Electronic Warfare Systems The Pope's Tube "Pope getting nutrition from tube in nose." Here we go again? I think not. He has been a wonderful Pope. Click here: My Way News Starvation Can't believe I lost the link, but I somehow did. About how Nazi war criminals were convicted of the war crime of starving prisoners in the concentration camps. Starvation was the main cause of death in the camps. Guess it's OK to do now? What am I missing? Terroir A very funny and pointed discussion of wine and wine snobbery - Caleefornia vs. Islamic Republic of France. Caleefornia apparently ain't got no terroir: Click here: Reason: Critique of Pure Riesling: Wine snobbery in the age of globalization Harvard Can you say "schadenfreude" ? "For the second straight year, New York University (NYU) topped Harvard as the number one “dream college,” according to the Princeton Review’s annual “College Hopes & Worries Survey,” released on Wednesday. " Click here: The Harvard Crimson Online :: News But why not...NYC is the best. Cambridge is podunk.
Something is burning, baby, hear what I say.
Even the bloodhounds of London couldn't find you today.
I see the shadow of a man, baby, makin' you blue.
Who is he baby, and what's he to you? We've reached the edge of the road, baby, where the pasture begins,
Where charity is supposed to cover up a multitude of sins.
But where do you live, baby, and where is the light?
Why are your eyes just staring off in the night? Dylan, from Something's Burning, Baby
Wednesday, March 30. 2005
Internet and the UN How would you like the UN to regulate and control the internet? "....The ITU, a United Nations agency, would like to change that. "The whole world is looking for a better solution for Internet governance, unwilling to maintain the current situation,..." What is wrong with "the current situation"? That it isn't "regulated" by an international body? It seems to be fairly wonderful now, and I would hate to see the great UN "improve" things. Thanks, Instapundit. Read piece: Click here: The U.N. thinks about tomorrow's cyberspace | Newsmakers | CNET News.com
Race for the Bottom at the NYT OK, who will win - Dowd or Krugman? You were quite right, Opie, to point out Krugman's apparent break from reality today. Hindrocket does a heck of a job on him - wonder if he'll show up at work tomorrow. "We're not the first to this party, but, hey, it's never too late to pile on Paul Krugman. Rightwing Nuthouse says that Krugman's latest column in the New York Times is evidence that he has "gone stark, raving mad." I won't go that far; let's just say that Krugman has abandoned any claim to be taken seriously." Click here: Power Line: March 2005 Archives I will renew my subscription to the NYT when they hire either Steyn or Hindrocket.
Roger Scruton on Conservatism A worthwhile reprise of a very wise piece, a past "Best Essay" candidate: "I was brought up at a time when half the English people voted Conservative at national elections and almost all English intellectuals regarded the term “conservative” as a term of abuse. To be a conservative, I was told, was to be on the side of age against youth, the past against the future, authority against innovation, the “structures” against spontaneity and life. It was enough to understand this, to recognize that one had no choice, as a free-thinking intellectual, save to reject conservatism. The choice remaining was between reform and revolution. Do we improve society bit by bit, or do we rub it out and start again? On the whole my contemporaries favored the second option, and it was when witnessing what this meant, in May 1968 in Paris, that I discovered my vocation." Read entire: Click here: Why I became a conservative by Roger Scruton
Welcome, Dr. Bliss A long-time friend, Joy Bliss MD, has generously agreed to be our resident shrink - thank God - we need one here on the Farm. She is "The Analyst." She introduced herself, at my request, on the blog a day or two ago ("A New Member of the Farm"), and I've already gotten a couple of email requests for her phone number. For dates, not for shrink help. Plus the obnoxious but relevant question "Can she cook?" Please!...and no, she cannot cook worth a damn, in my experience, anyway. But she knows her way around Scotch whiskey. (Sorry Joy - can you handle the truth?) And - minor detail - she is married and unavailable, so quit it with those emails, please. Everyone wants a woman who can handle firearms. I just reviewed her post for tomorrow on the subject of evil, and it is good. Too long, but good. She will be a great addition to the Farm - I promise.
Amazon.com: Books: Hedge Fund Mistress. Yes, that's right . The "Barbarians" are back. Check out the latest in the world of Big money. Must be a reason all of these books have titles like Liar's Poker, The Predators Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders, and Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle.
Deception and Self-Deception Robert Samuelson: "We are a nation of closet welfare junkies, which helps explain why we can't have an honest debate about Social Security. Social Security and Medicare are our biggest welfare programs, but because Americans regard "welfare" as shameful, we've found other labels for them. We call them "social insurance" or "entitlements." Anything but welfare. Democrats and Republicans alike embrace the deception. No one wants to upset older voters. Well, if you can't call something by its real name, you can't discuss it honestly." Read entire: Click here: Welfare Junkies (washingtonpost.com)
Misc. Buffet to testify in AIG mess: Click here: Buffett to face questions in AIG probe - report - Insurance - Financial Services - Earnings - SEC Liberman vs. Shays: New England elected reps disagree on feeding tube: Click here: NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story Kudlow: "Writing in the New York Sun last week, George Weigel tells us that "Embracing suffering is a concept alien to us. And yet suffering embraced in obedience to God's will is at the center of Christianity....The Christ of the Gospels reaches out and embraces suffering as his destiny, his vocation-- and is vindicated in that self-sacrifice on Easter." Click here: Kudlow's Money Politic$: Terri Schiavo's Easter
The Doctor on Easter: Click here: The Doctor Is In: Three Men on a Friday
"The greatest virtue is humility, and the shortest route to humility is through humiliation." Edwin Lahey
Tuesday, March 29. 2005
The Monks I have been wondering who those monks were who have been on TV all week. Thanks, reader, for forwarding this to us. Monks are a good thing. Interesting story: Click here: Tampabay: Friars at Schindlers' side felt own loss
College Faculty Leftists Hey Howard Kurtz - do you call this news? "College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says." Why? Either they are much smarter than the rest of us, or it's because they went to school in the 60s, got tenured academic jobs, never dealt with the adult world, and never grew up.
Blogs Rebecca MacKinnon on the new relationship between information and the public - she seems to be trying to explain the new reality to journalists. What many such articles underemphasize is that professional journalists provide most of the fodder on which blogs feed. Bloggers have day jobs. The big thing that is new is distribution and diversity of opinion, not fact-finding, except in exceptional cases (eg Rathergate, Pewgate, etc.) "....this has led to a loss of sovereignty in the press. What I mean by that is simply a loss of exclusive control. Areas that once were under the domain of the journalist are now not exclusively under the domain of the journalist. You are not the boss anymore. What you say is not the law." Click here: The Nation | Article | Blogging, Journalism and Credibility | Rebecca MacKinnon
Another view, from the Crimson: Thanks for the heads up, Powerline: "Besides being disabled, Schiavo and I have something important in common, that is, someone attempted to terminate my life by removing my endotracheal tube during resuscitation in my first hour of life. This was a quality-of-life decision: I was simply taking too long to breathe on my own, and the person who pulled the tube believed I would be severely disabled if I lived, since lack of oxygen causes cerebral palsy" Read: Click here: The Harvard Crimson Online :: Opinion More Lens Lice Show Up And now Jesse Jackson weighs in, urging saving Terri...how did it take him so long?: Click here: My Way News
We believe nuclear energy is a no-brainer: safe, and a freebie from nature. It's just a matter of time before it becomes our major source. I'm not askeered of it - got a mini-reactor in the basement. The family glows in the dark, but that saves $ on flashlights, and it's great for Halloween. "But think of this: Between 1996 and 1999, more children under 5 drowned in 5-gallon buckets (58) than have died in nuclear power accidents in the West since the advent of atomic energy (zero)."
Read entire: Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news
The Euristan Press, Dem Dirty Trix, and other topics Nice review by Boyles on how the condescending Euristanians view us: "Practically speaking, modern secularism in Europe is forced de-Christianization in favor of humanism's new convictions" Click here: Denis Boyles on EuroPress on National Review Online From Hinderaker on those "talking point memos" about Schiavo: "What, then, was the evidence for the claim that it was created and distributed by Republicans? As far as the public record shows: There is none. On the contrary, the only published report identifying the purveyors of the memo on March 17 states that they were Democrats. The New York Times reported on March 22:
As tensions festered among Republicans, Democratic aides passed out an unsigned one-page memorandum that they said had been distributed to Senate Republicans. [emphasis added]
This smells. Read entire: Click here: Fake but Accurate Again? A wise piece from the Vatican a month ago, about the limits of Medicine: "VATICAN CITY - Vatican officials on Thursday decried what they called a "religion of health" in affluent societies and held out Roman Catholic Pope John Paul's stoic suffering as an antidote to the mentality that modern medicine must cure all. " Click here: Vatican Officials Decry 'Religion of Health' Steyn one year ago, prescient as ever: "Last year, I had a long talk with a ‘senior EU official’ and I was amazed at the way, quite unprompted, he used the phrase ‘Europe’s post-Christian future’, presuming that I would agree with him that this was a condition to aspire to. Europe’s quite post-Christian enough, and most of the horrors of our time came about through the most prominent expressions of its post-Christian state, Nazism and Communism. And yet faith in secularism is indestructible." Click here: Topical Take
Balanchine Toni Bentley reviews two new books on Balanchine:
"George Balanchine, the greatest dance innovator of the twentieth century, and possibly the most important in all 350 years of classical dance history since the language was codified in the court of Louis XIV, has just been subjected to a global celebration lasting an entire year in honor of the centennial of his birth, in tsarist Russia, in 1904. Now it is perhaps a good time, as he enters his second century of influence, to assess the many acts of heroism performed in his honor—and the attendant damage." Read entire: Click here: The New York Review of Books: The Master
"As men, we are all equal in the presence of death." Publius Syrus
Monday, March 28. 2005
The New Tour Guess everyone wants to hear Merle. I heard the NYC shows were sold out on the first day. Click here: bobdylan.com (Looks like a big day for photos on ye olde blog.)
Movie Review: "Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag" 
"Watching this movie at an IMAX is one of the most amazing things that I've ever seen on a screen. The visuals and sound are so astounding (and the low-level flying so, well, low) that I consistently had to remind myself that it wasn't CGI. Absolutely spectacular. And worth far more than the $8 ticket." Thanks for the heads up, INDC.
Pewgate "The blogosphere is under attack. For three weeks, bloggers have battled the Federal Election Commission, seeking exemption from campaign finance laws that would effectively regulate political speech on the Web. How did it come to this?" Click here: FrontPage magazine.com :: Pewgate: The Battle of the Blogosphere by Richard Poe
The End of Democracy? Fr. Neuhaus assembled the book on this famous 1996 debate on judicial activism, which included most of the wise conservatives in the US. From the description: "American conservatism's most ferocious internecine controversy in years erupted when the journal First Things published a symposium on "the judicial usurpation of politics," exploring the daring question "whether we have reached or are reaching the point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral assent to the existing regime." A far-flung debate ensued, engaging scores of contestants in countless journals and newspapers." Click here: Amazon.com: Books: The End of Democracy...
Travel with Brains Travel around the Med with VDH. Does that sound good enough? I'm already packing, even tho I've been there before.
 Powell's new book reveals shocking steroid use in White House:
"Top Cabinet officials are up in arms about the allegations of widespread steroid use made by former Secretary of State Colin Powell in his new political tell-all Pumped." Read entire:Click here: The Onion
A New Member of The Farm In his misguided, deeply neurotic determination to develop Maggie's Farm as an essential general-interest blog with tens of thousands of hits per day, Bird Dog persuaded me to give this a try. He and my husband have hunted the Maine marshes together each fall for over twenty years. His advice: "Occasional posts, mostly shrink-related but anything that interests you is fair game. Keep it short and sweet with max one or two ideas per post, but you can let it rip once in a while if the spirit moves you." I'll try to stick to that, but I don't take direction well. I am a native Bostonian, a mother of four, a New York-trained Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst working at a teaching hospital in Boston. We have a fourth-generation country place in New Hampshire where we now just raise Black Angus and keep a couple of riding horses and a couple of aged, useless but loveable retired horses and, yes, you are quite perceptive - Dr. Joy Bliss isn't my real name. Thank God. But I was born cheerful, despite being a life-long Red Sox fan. I can ride and jump and I can shoot and fish; I can sail and I can handle any boat up to 50 feet - sail or power; my golf handicap is lower than yours but it's a boring addiction for bored people; I can serve a tennis ball that will wipe the snot off your nose; I can smack the hell out of a softball or out of any little creep that bothers me. I am a Yankee gal. But piano is my main love, second only to my anonymous hubbie and our granite-ribbed Yankee Congregationalist family heritage. The big fella makes the big bucks and I get to follow my heart in the world of medicine. A good deal. And that's enough about me. Woops- I forgot - Bird Dog wants me to list my favorite adult beverage: Laphroaig up, with two Prozacs ...just kidding about the Prozacs...a double Laphroaig with the hubbie while the kids are away at boarding school.
Misc. I'm not surprised the authorities are having trouble finding Al Quaida's web sites and email arrangements. Heck, I still can't find even Maggie's Farm blog on Google. Hunt for Zarqawi's Webmasters Always tasteless and always funny: "At this very moment, the Christian right continues their relentless assault on Roe v. Wade by praying and singing their little Jesus songs outside brave Michael's home. The line between Christian and Islamic Fundamentalism has never been more blurred than it is right now." YES! Die with Dignity! DIE! DIE!!!! How are sex offenders different from other criminals, from the standpoint of recidivism? Are they really worse? I don't know. Why not track all felons? Better idea - let's track everyone. After all, most of us are unarrested felons. FEC and blogs: Regulation of free speech is bad enough, but possible regulation of speech in blogs would be totalitarian. Prof B is on the case: Click here: ProfessorBainbridge.com: The Business of Blogging
Microjets Microjets for the middle class - I need one or two of these: "Travel in "very small jets" operating outside traditional commercial airline rules is expected to explode in coming years and is already causing congestion at some small airports." Click here: MSNBC - Affordable personal jets closer than you think
Euthanasia, more Lucette Lugano re her mother's stroke: "That is when I realized that the stroke had not robbed Edith of her charm. Or her fundamental humanity. I glimpse the same charm and the same humanity in Terri Schiavo--though the advocates of the culture of death have sought to rob her of both." Read entire: Click here: OpinionJournal - Taste
Millions is that sweet rarity: a film about religious faith and miracles that's very much down-to-earth. "Millions (2005) Finally a movie adults and kids will enjoy without having to be exposed to smash them up, kill them all, syrupy boy meets girl, or girl overcomes cancer, blindness and wins Olympic Gold and admittance to Harvard. Seems these pics are being made by everyone except Americans these days.
Euthanasia Pat Caddell said on TV Saturday that we should not believe the ABC poll about the Schivao case, and he was quite angry about the probably deliberate distortions in the polling method. The euthanasia issue is morally and spiritually complex and treacherous in many ways, of course. (Courts and politics are trivial aspects of the discussion - it is about religion, or at least about spiritual beliefs.) And we are dealing with euthanasia at this point, not Terri. Andrew Sullivan believes, for example, that it's all about insane Christians and that courts are the bottom line, if they are not God. He's very smart, but who believes that courts are that smart? Terri is the dying martyr .Then there's Frank Rich, the arch-materialist ranter - odd for an ex-theater critic - for whom all of this is a religous scam:The God Racket, From DeMille to DeLay Peggy Noonan does a great job of explaining the pro-life view on euthanasia: Peggy Noonan and Steyn does too, drawing on a Canadian case: "Like other statist politicians, Mr. Trudeau . . . either didn't see, or resented, that right and wrong are only reflected by the laws, not determined by them. That's how I feel about the Terri Schiavo case. I'm neither a Floridian nor a lawyer, and, for all I know, it may be legal under Florida law for the state to order her to be starved to death. But it is still wrong." No compelling reason to kill Terri Schiavo There is a debate here which is too deep, and too real, to be left to politicians and courts. I hesitate to compare it to the national debate on slavery, but it could be one of those defining debates that symbolically reflect our national view of existence. And, don't forget, the mainly religious opposition to slavery was based on the idea that Africans have souls. Last week, there was a well-reported case in the Netherlands or Denmark about a later-term abortion of a baby because he had a cleft lip, and the parents wanted a "perfect" kid. Let's have a national debate on euthanasia, which that case clearly was, and its limits, if any. Because this is about values and emotion and belief, not law. And I ask you - Why does this pan out to a left and right issue? Put your replies in "comments," OK? Addendum: got a few emails noting that the links do not work on this bit - will try to fix.
"When everyone says you're drunk, you'd better sit down." Old Irish saying
Saturday, March 26. 2005
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream? from A Dream within a Dream by Edgar Allen Poe. Read entire: Click here: E. A. Poe Society of Baltimore
Friday, March 25. 2005
Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice "Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" that is, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" And some of the bystanders hearing it said "That man is calling Elijah." And one of them at once ran and brought a sponge, filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him." And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit.
"We spend all our lives killin time, but, in the end, time kills us." Bob Dylan as "Jack Fate", in the 2003 movie Masked and Anonymous (wonderful sound track) Click here: Amazon.com: DVD: Masked and Anonymous (2003)
Thursday, March 24. 2005
The Schiavo Death Watch Like Doc Higgins in a prior post, I hate this case. It should never have gotten to this point and, as the Doc said, this poor lady died years ago. It's the Karen Quinlan story all over again. The politics makes it much uglier. The Repubs look like opportunistic vultures, and the Dems begin to look like the Party of Death, with abortion and Terri. Haven't I always said that politicians are crowd manipulators and dream twisters? As Kissinger said, "90% of politicians give the other 10% a bad name." It is a disgusting spectacle, filled with yellow journalism, and the whole thing is sad as hell. The entire story is complicated by the fact that Terri Schiavo doesn't look dead, even though she's long gone. It is called a "coma vigil" in medicine. Most people with her degree of brain destruction are on respirators and totally unresponsive. The truth is that, as the Dems seem to be willing to acknowledge, a "person" is not a body - a person is the heart and soul and spirit of a person. The body is just a vessel - a fact which everyone who has performed surgery, including me, many times - knows well. The body is a complicated hunk of meat and bone and guts which miraculously works pretty well, most of the time. But the trouble is that we've seen that concept abused over history, haven't we? It has seemed easy, over history, for people to decide that a Moslem, a Jew, an African, an unborn baby, a grievously ill person, or an American, has no real soul and is just a disposable biological unit like a laboratory rat. To Al Quaida, we are "the other" - we are Terri Schiavos to them as the Jews were to Stalin and Hitler. There is a path to the de-humanization culture - the soul-less culture - the death culture - that we must not take. And it is "reason" and science - not religion - that beckons us, in Western Civilization, down that ugly, "Brave New World," "rationalist" path. So the subject is complex. However, note to world: If I end up like that, please be merciful and let me go to complete my journey through this world. There. It's official. It is written on a blog! My cynical take on what is going on is that, with Iraq wrapped up, the press needed a new hot topic, and the Michael Jackson trial just didn't do it, because no-one cared. They found a new hot drama, and the lens-lice put on clean shirts and new Gucci neckties and lined up for the cameras. But the real subject and the real debate is about the sanctity of God-given life, and Terri, through her extended departure of soul and body, has given us the gift of raising this issue in public. May her soul rest in peace.
Brown University How advanced and sophisticated they are over there in Providence. Surely a beacon of reason and hope in a wayward world. An applicant tells me their application form has a part that says: Circle One: Male
Female
Other I must admit I am intrigued by the "Other" category, but in a way that I do not respect in myself, a sort of morbid curiosity, I suppose. The thing that brings people to side shows. At least it doesn't ask "Gender Preference." Heck, who wouldn't want to be a guy? It's not so bad to be one. Or am I hopelessly outdated?
Parts of Venezuela's new Penal Code...Why do Leftist governments always do stuff like this? It's a rhetorical question. We know why - they want to do GOOD FOR PEOPLE, so the ends justify the means - right? It's OK to do bad to individual people if you claim that you want to do good for the abstract "the people" - right? Or at least you can get a good run for your money - literally- until someone gets rid of you by coup, bomb, bullet or, occasionally, ballot.
“Anyone who offends with his words or in writing or in any other way disrespects the President of the Republic or whomever is fulfilling his duties will be punished with prison of 6 to 30 months if the offense is serious and half of that if it is light. The term will be increased by a third if the offense is made publicly.” “Anyone who by his words or acts offends in any way the honor, reputation or decorum of a member of the National Assembly or any other civil servant, will be punished in the following way, if the action is made in his presence and is motivated by his responsibilities…” “Anyone who communicating with various people, together or separate, would have charged any individual with a responsibility which may expose him to public scorn or hate, or an offense to his honor or reputation, will be punished with prison of one to three years…if the crime were committed in a public document or writings (blogs?), drawings or exposed to the public, the penalty will be from two to four years…” Hope they won't come up here and track me down. Read the piece: Click here: The Devil's Excrement
Global Warming "The sky is falling, so we must shoot the dog." Bird Dog has always been fond of claiming that global warming is the only thing that can save New England from the coming ice age, or at least delay it, in the interest of maintaining our property values. There is no market for land buried under a mile-thick glacier. So it's nice to see someone else, namely The Ornery American, cast a jaundiced eye on global warming: "If you want a perfect example of this, look at the Kyoto Protocols. The consensus among serious scientists is that the Kyoto Protocols, even if they were completely implemented, would not have any serious effect on global warming for the next century.Yet they insist that we should adopt and obey the protocols with all the force of law that international treaties have. Why? Because it will show that we take the problem seriously. Because it's a first step. Because it's the Right Thing. In other words, we should blindly obey even though we know that it's pointless. "
Read entire: Click here: World Watch - March 6, 2005 - Global Warming: Fighting Off the Ice Age - The Ornery American
That damn password crap you give me. Daughter visiting up from Worcester for Easter and she showed me how. Man does she find it amusing that her old dad is a blogger on her old 6 year old Dell machine on my phone line. To me, plain embarassing to put myself out there like I was someone important. Not that anyone is. We have been ass over elbow up here making sugar in the Northeast Kingdom. Not a God-dang New Yorker to be seen, so that's something good. Smoke pouring out of the shack's chimney. Sap flowing like a son of a b. A good year for maple which as I say is a damn bad year for income. Working for nothin'. That's the Vermont way. We could go 5000 gallons, maybe more. Not all Grade A. I prefer the lower grades, got more substance. But a good vintage, you know. What else? Haven't seen a bear yet but I'm waiting to use that bear-heart recipe. Figure it might build me up. I don't like to complain but my bum knee is a ---ing pain. ---ing Korea. A hell-hole. And don't tell me to go to that VA, Dog, or anywhere else. They'll want to give me a stainless steel knee etc. and I'd be laid up for 6 mos. which a farmer cannot do. Plus there is no ----ing way anyone is taking a saw to my legs. OK, time to bring the coffee down to the boys. Is that enough for you this week, Dog?
Insurgents Hey Main-Stream Media - I know you're listening out there - quit it with this "insurgents" word. You know as well as I do that these are 90% foreigners who snuck into Iraq to defeat freedom and to humiliate America. Only the MSM and Ward Churchill believe they are noble rebels. It's quite simple - the word is TERRORISTS. Or, if you prefer, ANTI-DEMOCRATIC FOREIGN TERRORISTS. Got it?
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