Wednesday, September 21. 2005
Bush's cronyism - come on, GW - give us good people - we pay for them Brit Moslems worried about extremists - but not the kind you think. LGF The Porkbusters Campaign: worth a good try. We endorse it, Instapundit. Steyn on Germany: a Quote: Germany is dying, demographically and economically. Pick any of the usual indicators of a healthy advanced industrial democracy: Unemployment? The highest for 70 years. House prices? Down. New car registration? Nearly 15 per cent lower than in 1999. General nuttiness? A third of Germans under 30 think the United States government was responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11. Whole thing here.
Marx still popular? WFT? Katrina News Lie # 37, debunked. Bush agenda dead? Some say so. Hope not. But where are all of the political geniuses?
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends. Walt Whitman
Tuesday, September 20. 2005
Sunday Fishing A teaser which will keep you following Maggie's Farm: Last Sunday morning, 6:30 AM. I am out in the garden in the semi-dark, working, digging, weeding, transplanting, drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee and content to be alive. Along comes John and a bunch of my best buddies in his politically incorrect Suburban. "Hurry up. Get in the car, as you are." I guess I missed his call - I do miss some calls. So I grab my camera (without battery), and do so, of course, guiltily aware of missing church and church picnic, etc. Photos, and mysterious story of a death at sea, to follow...
Bush Hates Texas With his nefarious Pentagon Racist Hurricane Joy-stick, he is aiming Rita towards Texas. I guess Rove - Bush's Brain - is trying to make amends for aiming Katrina towards black New Orleans. What a sneaky guy that Rove is to aim a minor storm at the whites. Like he can fool us.
Peddlers of Paranoid Rumor, Lie, Fairy Tale, Urban Legend, and Distortion I have never thought, for a second, that those who peddle leftist or nihilistic rumors, such as the ones that surrounded the Katrina story, believe them. It's common for the non-psychotic among us to imagine that they are nuts, but they aren't. They are cynical manipulators, and know that there is a market of the ignorant and of the conspiracy-friendly who will be influenced by this stuff, such as the notion that the government blew up the levees to destroy blacks because Bush hates blacks. To label these low-life jerks as crazy morons is to greatly underestimate their calculated propaganda. They have an agenda - personal or political - which, to them, justifies tricks and deception. They know that a story, repeated often, will enter people's brains as an idea, regardless of its likelihood or believability. Once planted, ideas and images have a life of their own in our minds - hence literature, art, movies, dance and song. And propaganda. This is why lying and deception are mortal sins in the Christian world. "Mortal sin" is a very big deal, and extremely important (you are written out of the Kingdom of God, and fated to Gehenna, without true repentence, and amends satisfactory to God, prior to death) for good reason: mortal sins have great power for evil, and these mortal sins have the power to usher people into false realities against their will or even their awareness. Thus lies and deception are a "theft of life." Because words and stories are very powerful, we count on people, in our civilization, to identify them as either fiction or fact. Some other cultures and sub-cultures do not count on this at all and make no distinction between the two. Some people hardly know the difference, and some do not care. In our culture, we label this as sociopathy, and liars, sneaks, tricksters, and manipulators as sociopaths or sociopathic narcissists - probably somewhat genetically 3-6% of the population, and many of such are attracted to politics as a no-skills, no-heavy-knowledge, no-heavy-lifting arena for deception and narcissistic gratification (ie weak-ego-building, plus generous benefits). Some cultures, sub-cultures, and personality types regard such behavior as "normal vigorous self-interest." As a very experienced lawyer, I can say this: You always need to know what culture, or what type of personality, you are dealing with, before you let them inside the gates of your personal or civic perimeter, or "boundary," as the shrinks would say. You can take their money to do a job, but your personal perimeter needs to be sacred and your civic perimeter needs good guards. For us regular, boring, wholesome Americans for whom honor and integrity are sacred, if difficult, ideals, fiction masquerading as fact is a tool of Satan, used against the "children of Jesus": the innocent, the trusting, the naive, the ignorant, and those solid, earnest souls who refuse to permit their spirits to be broken or their souls contaminated by cruelty, dishonesty and ruthless self-interest and self-aggrandizement. More on this when I have a little time.
Semicolon Wars It seems like a fine thing to have a debate raging which has nothing to do with politics. Where do you stand on the semicolon issue? Some love 'em, some hate 'em, and, difficult as it may be to believe, some people are actually indifferent to the subject. I happen to enjoy colons, semicolons, ellipses, dashes, parentheses, and any other things on the keyboard, but I sometimes wonder whether some of that is pure laziness, or lack of time for editing. From a piece by Butterworth in Financial Times: Big deal or not, there is really only one use of the semicolon that is “more or less mandated”, says Ben Yagoda, professor of English at the University of Delaware and author of About Town, a monumental account of The New Yorker magazine (whose history is marked by fractious debates over the placement of commas). And that is to separate series elements containing commas (for example, “The cities represented were Albany, New York; Wilmington, Delaware; and Selma, Alabama). The other principal uses, says Yagoda, are discretionary: “That is I might, with total grammatical correctness and without changing my meaning in the slightest, choose any one of the following: 1. ‘The book under review is utter hogwash; and that is why it is worth examining.’ 2. ‘The book under review is utter hogwash, and that is why it is worth examining.’ 3. ‘The book under review is utter hogwash; that is why it is worth examining.’ 4. ‘The book under review is utter hogwash. That is why it is worth examining.’” Deciding which of the four to choose is strictly a matter of sound and rhythm, says Yagoda - that is to say, personal style. “Writers who like (consciously or unconsciously) to stop and pause, and/or who are under the influence of Hemingway, choose 4. Those who like balanced rhythms might choose 3. Those aiming for a ‘transparent’ style might choose 2. And those who are a little bit enamoured with the sound of their own voice might choose 1.”
Read entire.
Teal are small ducks which, in migration, appear as fast, low-flying small flocks. Duck hunters know well how quickly they can appear over the reeds using their ground-hugging radar, and be past you before you know they are there.  Early migrators, both species of teal have moved from their northern marsh breeding grounds to their homes in Central and South America by the time fall hunting season begins in the northern US. I doubt that we will bag any teal in our trip to Manitoba during the first week of October - they will be south. The Blue-wing is the second most common duck in North America - after the mallard. (The blue wing patch is only visible in flight.) One of these days, we will get into the subject of duck plumage, an interesting subject because ducks have two plumages, breeding and non-breeding (or "eclipse.") Duck photos tend to show the colorful breeding plumage of the males, as in this photo, rather than the drab eclipse plumage which beginning birders and hunters find confusing. During migration, both teal species are found in fresh-water or brackish ponds and marshes, often standing around on mud flats, looking bored but content. More on teal here.
Guns and Hunting Two sites: An intelligent rifle website. And Deer Hunting.com.
Environmental engineering summary of why rebuilding NO makes no sense: Confed Yankee. Read it. Agree with him completely. Guard the Borders Blogburst: The latest in illegal hutzpah. Poverty in socialist paradise France. Joe Carter outs himself as a Calvinist. So what, exactly, is a Calvinist? Read comments after article too. Very good. Bloomberg opposes Roberts. Huh? Brit bishops repent war in Iraq. WTF? Norm. Tropical deforestation and weather Health advice from FMFT: Sample: Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach. Read 'em all.
The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money. Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
Monday, September 19. 2005
The Modern Christian Gospels Tod Bolsinger points out an interview which spells out the current "gospels": There are really three gospels that are heard in our society. One is forgiveness of sins. Another is being faithful to your church: If you take care of your church, it will take care of you. Sometimes it's called discipleship, but it's really churchmanship. And another gospel is the social one—Jesus is in favor of liberation, and we should be devoted to that. All of those contain important elements of truth. You can't dismiss any of them. But to make them central and say that's what discipleship is just robs discipleship of its connection with transformation of character."
I could not agree more. Read his piece and his link.
Well Shiver Me Timbers Grab your cutlass, drink some grog and work on your "Aaargh," as today the nation observes "Talk Like A Pirate Day," a great opportunity to indulge your buccaneer fantasies or simply annoy your friends and coworkers. The official site has information on the "history" of the holiday as well as a helpful pirate glossary to inform ignorant landlubbers.
Afghanistan Election Despite neo-Taliban threats, etc., the election happened, and an inspiring one, too. Have we lost interest because it's going well? Publius has all of the details.
New Orleans refugees finding better lives From neo-neocon: Some telling statistics: for two-thirds of those people whom Ladov and his friends flew to Denver, it was the very first time they'd ever been on an airplane. And all of those evacuated to northwest Arkansas were given the following choice: stay in that part of Arkansas, move back to New Orleans, or relocate elsewhere. Ninety-five percent chose to stay in Arkansas, an extraordinary percentage.
Read entire Kindness of Strangers
The bureaucratic approach, at FEMA, reported by Buzzmachine/ Stop the US Occupation of NO: Sheehan and the Left display more wisdom; NE Repub Roberts is great: Vote against him. NYT via Powerline, also by Right Thinking The problem the Dems face, from Macho Nachos: Unless they discover a purpose, a vision, and a personality, the Democrats will be doomed to repeat the same political note over and over again - namely, tying themselves to the possibility of American failure in Iraq, or at the very least, Republican failure at home. However, they will always have a problem taking this approach: no one is inspired by someone who looks for failure, who barely contains their glee when it occurs, and who seeks to capitalize on a misfortune that affects a whole country. That is not the sort of agenda that almost anyone votes for, and it certainly isn't one that's capable of flipping a ten-seat majority.
Read entire Yahoo plays ball with China: Right or wrong? Roger Simon The civilized world gradually comes around to Bush: Chris Christner
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.Calvin Coolidge
Saturday, September 17. 2005
 Country Pie
Ophelia gently blew through here yesterday, resulting in a literal windfall of nearly-ripe and ripe peaches. Peaches ripen in late Aug-Sept. up here in Yankee-land. The yard guys must have eaten a dozen yesterday, juice running down their chins, (I don't spray 'em), but there are a couple of bushels more, on the ground and on the tree. Plenty enough to spare some to the squirrels and possums and box turtles that love 'em. So the splendid youngest daughter made her dad a peach pie. Wow. Crust from scratch, too. Nothing better. Can't dare dilute it with ice cream...plus I didn't see any in the freezer. Now to yard work and maybe fishing later. (Listening to: Sweet Melissa, Allman Brothers)
Friday, September 16. 2005
This photo reminds me of John (Gigolo-John, AKA "Gig-John") Kerry's most famous quote during the campaign: "Whom among us does not love NASCAR?"
 9th Court of Appeals finds Pledge unconstitutional.
God just doesn't seem to get the message that He is unconstitutional, and unwelcome in the Modern America of the ACLU and California's 9th Court. Isn't it true what they used to say, that "A gentleman always knows where he is not wanted"? Can't God tell that they just want him to go away? God is a downer, man. Obsolete Creator. Creation is done. Now it's our turn, right, Brother Cain? But why doesn't the 9th just go all the way and declare America unconstitutional? Then they can declare the Constitution unconstitutional (or has that already been done by the Supreme Court?), at which point they will have achieved their goal.
Sensitive Men As a female who enjoys the company of men, I find "sensitive" men unappealingly slimy. They are either weenies, or manipulators. You can care about somebody without wearing it on your sleeve, and real men do not wear it on their sleeve. Real men show things in action, through the way they live, and not in words and show and expressions of emotion and empathy. That's mostly the female department. All that you guys are allowed to do is to listen to us, or to pretend to, and to make occasional noises to indicate that you might be paying attention, or that you are, at least, awake, after we have given you our all and you are at peace. We know you love our magnificent pleasure-filled bodies, and the charming way we turn our heads to glance at your studly selves across a crowded room, or the way we put our hands in the back pockets of our jeans, Bette Davis style, but we'd like to imagine that our hearts and souls matter to you, too. Grant us that fantasy, fellas. It means a lot to us. We are needy souls, and it isn't our fault. God made us this way. Why does this subject come up? Well, Right Thinking has another one of his deeply sensitive and thoughtful reactions to a study of why men die before women - a study which suggests that if men would become sensitive liberals, they might live longer. A sample of his impressive, if anectdotal, scientific analysis: So, in other words, turn men into pussy liberals, and they’ll live longer. What a crock of shit. The real reason men don’t live as long is because women drive us to the grave. Really. Think about it. Our sex lives are over in our mid-30’s if we are married, so we have nothing to live for outside of football, gambling, and strip joints. If a man is not married, then he is chasing young ass around the nightclubs, which includes lots of drinking, which also leads us to an early death. I wonder how much teabag tax money was wasted on this “study.” Any study that doesn’t say its women and their constant nagging and bullshit that drives us to an early grave, is 100% scientifically invalid.
A persuasive case, no? Girls and ladies, take note.
Never did this before But I have to post the entire Scrapple-Dude piece, here: September 14, 2005 Responsibility Missing from Gulf Coast, Bush Took It
by Scott Ott(2005-09-14) -- After two weeks of speculation about what happened to personal responsibility on the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, President George Bush finally admitted yesterday that he has taken it. "...to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," the president told reporters at a news conference as he stood next to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who first alerted Americans to the absence of responsibility, issued a joint statement downplaying the significance of the Bush announcement. "Now that the president has taken responsibility, he can keep it," the Democrat leaders said. "We don't have much use for it in state and local government. After years of benevolent Democrat leadership, most of our constituents think that it all lies in Washington anyway, so they won't even notice it was taken." Meanwhile, some members of Congress called for an investigation. "Bush's announcement that he takes responsibility is being spun to sound like something new," said one unnamed Democrat senator. "But we can see from his actions that he's been on-the-take for years. He didn't just take responsibility yesterday. He had it all along. I can certainly confirm that it was nowhere to be found in Congress. Our hands are clean."
Disaster Politics, etc. I have already done my rant. Better writers have written better on the subject of using a natural disaster as material for a low-life political gotcha game, below. 1. Jack Wheeler has it right: What’s the difference between a disaster and an election in New Orleans?
-The buses run during an election.
Why isn’t New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin worried about all the dead people being found in Katrina’s aftermath?
-Because they’ll keep right on voting anyway.
Tasteless? Here’s what really tasteless: Cleaning up New Orleans physically without cleaning it up politically. Not draining New Orleans’ political cesspool of organized crime and corruption. Not evacuating Mayor Ray Nagin and every city official and police officer on the take before they get their greasy hands on all those billions of taxpayer dollars to rebuild the place.
Read the whole amusing thing at To The Point 2. And neo-neocon has a thoughtful take on the cynicism of journalists, who assume self-interest is all conservatives have in mind: I don't recall any of the newspapers of my youth ever taking a Katrina-like tragedy or an attack and analyzing either of them in terms of how they affected the rise and fall of each party, and how each party was deciding to use the disaster/attack to its political advantage. It seems to be something that has cropped up in the last few decades only. When did we become so strategic in our thinking; when did journalists begin to resemble sports commentators, concentrating on ongoing play-by-play analyses of who is going to win the game?
Read her whole piece here. 3. And the masterful Steyn: These days, the Republicans are the party of small government and the party of big government, and the party of all points in between. The Democrats, meanwhile, are the party of emotive know-nothings, the go-to guys for soap-operatic sobbing and righteous histrionics. You can understand why the 24-hour cable-news networks love the Dems. Just stick a camera in front of New Orleans's Mayor Nagin: "To those who would criticise, where the hell were you?" he roared the other day. "Where the hell were you?" In a town you're not the mayor of, happily. That's how most Americans react. But the media think, wow, this is great television, he really socks it to Bush. And, if life were an especially bad daytime soap, he would. But ask Democrats for specifics and they're either as blank as Mrs Pelosi or as mired in their ancient tropes as Jesse Jackson, who demanded Bush appoint more high-ranking blacks to the hurricane relief effort. Charges of Republican "racism" rang particularly hollow in the context of New Orleans, where sodden blacks might be better advised to ponder what they have to show for being a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party for four decades.
His entire humorous and penetrating piece here.
Roberts refers to Calder v. Bull on Kelo: Samizdata. Sounds unambiguous to me. Ms. Zanotti sums up the Roberts hearings. Yes, Roberts does believe that blacks have a right to vote. Whew. Was worried about that. Flight 93 Memorial: Is it a covert pro-Islam thing, or is it a sappy Hallmark card embarassment? You decide. Angela Merkel: Learn about her now. Germany's next Chancellor, probably. Her father, a pastor, moved the family from West to East Germany as a religious missionary. In the NYT
Thursday, September 15. 2005
"Tryin' To Get To Heaven," from Dylan's 1997 Time Out Of Mind The air is getting hotter
There's a rumbling in the skies
I've been wading through the high muddy water
With the heat rising in my eyes
Every day your memory grows dimmer
It doesn't haunt me like it did before
I've been walking through the middle of nowhere
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door
When I was in Missouri
They would not let me be
I had to leave there in a hurry
I only saw what they let me see
You broke a heart that loved you
Now you can seal up the book and not write anymore
I've been walking that lonesome valley
Trying to get to heaven before they close the door
Continue reading "Thursday Lyrics"
 Hispanic Heritage Month at the METFor those who might happen to be in New York this month, go check out the lectures on Goya, and Frieda and Guatemalan Marimba and much more: (Goya, Self-Portrait, 1815)
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