Tuesday, December 13. 2005
 Drifting Like A Satellite: Dylan To Hit The AirwavesIf various news outlets are to be believed, Bob Dylan will begin broadcasting his own music show on XM satellite radio next March. In addition to playing music hand-picked by Dylan, the show will apparently feature Dylan conducting interviews of special guests and providing commentary on music and as-yet unspecified "other topics." The news is all the more surprising given Dylan's notorious reticence, not to mention a rigorous touring schedule which takes up a good portion of the year. Perhaps the shows will be taped right from the tour bus? Either way, this is quite the coup for XM, which is in a fight with rival Sirius for the subscription satellite radio market. Learn more about satellite radio here.
 A (rare) Maggie's Nod to Multiculturalism
A reader reminds us that somehow - probably due to the effects of Bush's global warming on our brain - we neglected the essential topic of Virginia's famous Smithfield Ham in our little piece on Christmas Ham. We deeply apologize for any possible offense, humiliation, pain, or other neurotic reactions we might have caused. Shame on us for neglecting a treasured, age-honored, and totally delicious cultural tradition of the great people of the great Commonwealth of Virginia.
Whiners and Ambulance Chasers The reason I cannot get any more flu shots this winter is because American drug companies no longer wish to make them. Why? Fear of law suits and side-effects. If a company is sued and hassled out of existence, they won't make anything for us, will they? When the whiners, hypochondriacs and con-artists team up with the trial lawyers for their mutual enrichment, watch out. The reason I can no longer prescribe an excellent drug, Vioxx? Law suits. Same with silicone breast implants for post-mastectomy people, now finally available again after driving Dow Corning bankrupt (because the whole legal case was a con job). My list goes on and on. Oh - and for a really big one - Tamiflu. Who's making it? Not one of the great US pharmaceutical innovators, no - Roche. Buy some, if you can - good luck. If law suits drive Merck out of business, there will be two big losers: the American patient and the shareholders - and a handful of extremely big winners: the lawyer-predators for whom it is no more than PR that they help "the consumer." Pure BS - they help themselves and themselves only. Like that bozo whathisname - the dopey smiley guy with the hairdo and dental work who made many millions from cerebral palsy, as I recall, and ran for VP with cut-and-run Kerry. You cannot preach to the trial lawyers - it's just a good slip-and-fall game to them. But patients need to know that all medicines and medical procedures have risks and side effects. We may as well just tell you that anything could go wrong with you if you take an aspirin - because it's possible. You could bleed out your stomach, become hypotensive, and have a stroke, then fracture your skull on the bathroom sink as you fall, and break your arm when you land on the floor. It's happened. There is no benefit in life without a risk - however small. Life is not safe, and bad luck should not require involuntary compensation from your neighbors. Voluntary help? Definitely. Dr. Miller has a good piece on the subject at TCS: One quote: Regulators’ increasing sensitivity to safety concerns -- sometimes at the expense of the availability of essential drugs -- may have become contagious: Drug manufacturers, too, seem to have begun to “err on the side of safety” to a degree that causes safe and effective drugs to be taken off the market voluntarily.
Consider Tysabri, only the sixth medication approved -- and the first in several years -- for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a debilitating autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. The stunning results of the drug’s testing in clinical trials -- the frequency of clinical relapses was cut by more than half -- induced FDA to grant accelerated approval last fall. MS patients eagerly put their names on waiting lists to get the medicine.
But this ray of hope for MS sufferers was short-lived. By the time that several thousand patients were being treated with Tysabri, three confirmed cases of a rare neurological disorder caused by a virus were reported. (Because the drug suppresses certain aspects of the immune response, regulators, clinicians and the drug’s developers had from the beginning been sensitive to the possibility of infections as a side effect.)
Immediately -- some would say prematurely -- the manufacturers of the medicine voluntarily halted production and distribution and withdrew Tysabri from the market. MS victims and many neurologists were bitterly disappointed.
Read the whole article.
At Maggie's, we are all a bit too busy during December, with hunting, Christmas stuff and events, kids, end of year business things, etc. to do the amount of writing we like to do. But we can compensate by continuing to locate cool stuff by better writers than we are. Visiting NYC? Don't forget Old Bars. Tookie the Ducky Beats the Rap. Iowahawk. Blame Bush can't resist the topic either: Schwarzenegger to Terminate Beloved Children's Author Do not forget The Ladies in White, in Fidel's human rights hellhole. Paxety Dec. 14, 1902. A big snow. The Brooklyn Eagle. Is NO ready for human habitation? No, never was, either. The env. issues at Environmental Econ. The new trophy wife. She's a bit older, makes a lot of money and can be hard to handle, but she keeps life interesting. That's the point of this piece, anyway, in Psychology Today.
"Everybody knows" that Iraq is a disaster. I call that wishful thinking on the part of those who cannot abide a Republican success. Not only do the insurgents spike up the volume before elections in Iraq - so do the Lefty commentators at home. Elections in Iraq belie all of the propaganda. Aaronovitch at TimesOnline asks "A disaster, compared to what?" Here. US Federal Deficit: It's ugly. We should have had a temporary War Tax. The SOHO spacecraft: Didn't know it existed. Extremely cool. ScienceTimes
11-12: Persimmon Picker Inspector
Today, I was a Persimmon picker inspector.
To Kibbutz Glil Yam (Ocean's Wave), in Herzilya, I went on bus, after
talking with Moshek last night to be sure I could join our "cousins,"
he says, his Bedouin pickers today.
First, small town living vignette. I am up around 530, but Moshek had
asked me to come later, more like 800. So, I write, then head off for
the bus at just before 700, packing my laundry to be done before
shabbat (one set of sheets, guys). The makhbesah, laundry on
Ostrovski is closed -- unusual. I won't dally, so head over to Ahuza,
figuring Alberto's (formerly of Argentina) is open. Nada doing. What
to do, other then lug a plastic bag of linens about? I ask the owner
of the stationary store, who is setting up, if I can leave the laundry
with him to give to Alberto. He apologizes that he cannot leave the
store to deliver my laundry until 900 am. (Goodness, even an apology
for this?) Fine, I write a note to Alberto b'Ivrit to call me when
done.
Which he does around 1200. I field a call in the orchard, from a
foreign sounding Hebrew fellow, confuse him with Patrick placing a
prank call to me from San Francisco, then realize it isn't Patrick.
Alberto is done with my laundry and will close in half an hour. No way
I can leave and get back by then; we are just finishing and Moshek is
nowhere to be seen. So? Well, I ask him to deliver my laundry to
the stationary store. But to pay him. No hay problemo; he says to
stop by on Sunday, after ulpan. Beseder.
Nice life, if you can get it.
Continue reading "Guest Author: Aliyah Diary #8"
A Wide-Screen Narnia Trailer Here.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Monday, December 12. 2005
Why Bush's "guest worker" immigration plan won't work - because it doesn't address the size of the invasion. It's up to us voters to decide who moves here, and when, and why. Period. It's our country. Antle at Intell. Cons. A Christmas request from Marine Corps Moms - link at Confed. Yank. Laffey Vs. Chafee: Another reason to check out Rhode Island's Anchor Rising NY Appellate court rejects judicial activism regarding gay marriage - and gives the trial court a lecture, followed by a spanking. No Oil We are in the "low-level insurgency phase" in Iraq, says Maj. Gen Huck. Thought so. Bill Roggio in Iraq.
Strange Cosmos labelled this a "Redneck Snowplow." I'd call it a damn fine and useful vee-hicle. But hey, wait a minute...That's My Car! 
A bit more on Gene McCarthy: TNR has a series of essays by McCarthy in this week's edition, including How Artificial Turf is Ruining Baseball. Mary Mapes is back with her book, this time. Scott Johnson addresses her flagrant lies and distortions. How does she get away with this? Daily Std. Real Hard Cash: A fine essay on Johnny Cash's career and life by Moore. One quote: The prison imagery seemed real to Cash because, for him, it was real. He knew what it was like to be enslaved, enslaved to celebrity, to power, to drugs, to liquor, and to the breaking of his marriage vows. He was subject to, and submissive to, all the temptations the recording industry can parade before a man. He was a prisoner indeed, but to a penitentiary of his own soul. There was no corpse in Reno, but there was the very real guilt of a lifetime of the self-destructive idolatry of the ego. It was through the quiet friendships of men such as Billy Graham that Cash found an alternative to the vanity of shifting celebrity. He found freedom from guilt and the authenticity of the truth in a crucified and resurrected Christ. And he immediately identified with another self-obsessed celebrity of another era: Saul of Tarsus. He even authored a surprisingly good biography of the apostle, with the insight of one who knows what it is like to see the grace of Jesus through one’s own guilt as a “chief of sinners.”
Read entire at Touchstone.
Christianity, Capitalism, and Technology Stark's piece in Chronicle of Higher Education Review addresses the question of how and why technology and thus prosperity developed in Europe. One selection: The most convincing answer to those questions attributes Western dominance to the rise of capitalism, which took place only in Europe. Even the most militant enemies of capitalism credit it with creating previously undreamed of productivity and progress. In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels proposed that before the rise of capitalism, humans engaged "in the most slothful indolence"; the capitalist system was "the first to show what man's activity can bring about." Capitalism achieved that miracle through regular reinvestment to increase productivity, either to create greater capacity or improve technology, and by motivating both management and labor through ever-rising payoffs. Supposing that capitalism did produce Europe's own "great leap forward," it remains to be explained why capitalism developed only in Europe. Some writers have found the roots of capitalism in the Protestant Reformation; others have traced it back to various political circumstances. But, if one digs deeper, it becomes clear that the truly fundamental basis not only for capitalism, but for the rise of the West, was an extraordinary faith in reason.
Read entire.
Iraq Shiites are still torturing Sunnis in Iraqi prisons. The ABC poll of Iraqis reveals optimism, but ongoing Shiite-Sunni-Kurdish differences. No surprise there. Checkerboard discusses the poll. This week's election could/should be a turning point: NE Repub. - they seem to be getting the idea.
Wolcott defends bloggers against the condescending and arrogant press. Will Israel attack Iran's nuclear facilities? Tammy thinks so. The Prof. hopes so. I can picture it. What Condi thinks about the Middle East. Am. Future A recoiless rifle? Aussies say they made one. Ace. Might come in handy in Cronulla. (H/T HH) How did Bill Clinton suddenly become pro-Kyoto, just when the rest of the world is moving beyond it? View from 1776
Instant Narnia Review It gets a 5/5 from the Bird Dog crew. Enchanted and enchanting, great casting, perfect computer graphics, absolutely loyal to Lewis' tale, and, if anything, more overtly religious than the books (which are mythic, allegorical, and a very good tale). Who knew Disney had it in 'em? A perfect Christmastime movie and an instant classic. Definitely not just for kids.
Fear of Success We at Maggie's have been saying for many months that the Left is terrified by the prospect of an American success in Iraq, and is determined to paint a hopeless picture and to get us out of there before success is obvious to everyone. As we have pointed out many times, it already has been a success - not a perfect success, but few are. It's nice to see that Podhoretz agrees. One quote from his lengthy summary of the politics and distortions about Iraq in the WSJ Opinion Journal: Like the mainstream media and the theorists in the academy and the think tanks, the Democratic Party--fearing that it might be frozen out of power for a very long time to come--is also in a panic over the signs that George W. Bush's new approach to the greater Middle East is on the verge of passing the test of Iraq. Hence the veritable hysteria with which the Democrats have recently tried to delegitimize the war: first by claiming (three years after the fact!) that it had begun with a lie, and then by declaring that it was ending in a defeat. Leaning heavily on the turn in public opinion largely brought about by reports in the mainstream media and the lucubrations of the theorists, the Democrats--with the notably honorable exception of Sen. Joseph Lieberman--now joined in by clamoring openly for a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.
Read the entire piece. It's a good reality check.
The Habits of Highly Defective People: How to screw up your life. Doug Giles Iran defends holocaust-denial statements, and statements about eliminating Israel. Ca. Yank Wal-Mart to open medical clinics. Am. Thinker. The religious zealots of the Left. Prager
A Slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts. Euripides
Sunday, December 11. 2005
Up in the northern US, you have to rely 
on people like this: Burger's Smokehouse. And all of our dear Brit readers probably don't even know about attic-aged ham. They need to learn about how ham is cured right, for a year, in the southern US. I don't know whether I prefer the pulled pork, or the attic hams, or the second-cut bacon, or the whole slabs of bacon, or the spiral cut hams, or the smoked turkey, or everything else they do. (Yes, it's yet another Maggie's free advt. in support of commerce, free enterprise, and capitalism. But feel free to send me an aged ham, you guys at Burgers, if you want to. We'll eat more, easily. We will not be corrupted by filthy lucre, but by good pork - always. Please try to corrupt us with aged southern ham. Everyone has their price - right?)
Good Education for Christmas: The Teaching Company. They are the best invention since Books on Tape. Great fun, and I wish libraries would stock up on them. You'll have to find out for yourself how excellent these are - they use great teachers - not (necessarily) great researchers - which is the right approach. Get the CDs - there's never time to sit down and watch the DVDs. Hey - listen to 'em twice (assuming you have ADD too), then share and trade with friends and relatives. Like baseball cards. Goldfish Hates Bowlmate. This will ring a bell with lots of people... life must be better somewhere else, outside of this bowl. Like jumping out and becoming a dried trisket of tiny bones on the carpet. I wanna go. Hacienda de los Santos. They have a dove shooting package too. Happiness is a warm gun (but hmm, I wonder how nasty that sounds to non-hunters, especially at Christmastime. These are White-Winged Doves - not doves of Christ or of the Holy Spirit or Doves of Peace - they are practically almost sort-of pigeons, really.) Tasty things broiled medium-rare with a strip of bacon on top of each one, and stuffed with sauteed chopped onion, apple, and pear, their livers or maybe a hunk of foie gras, and served on a buttery, garlicky piece of toasted French bread with the drippings on top...man, getting hungry. Shmoosh some of the liver into the drippings, and some cognac, before drizzling on top. Lots of pepper. Great compensation for the sore shoulder from all of that arduous shooting. Gene McCarthy. What a fine fellow he was. Fine people can be wrong. He was wrong about the war, and would have made a rotten and probably Minnesota-socialist president - but a superb gent, and more poet than politician, although some people I know say he was craftier and more calculating than he seemed. His death saddens me - I was in New Hampshire for him in my callow youth, and met him at a Georgetown party, in the 60s. A special person who followed his own path and who asked God for answers to his questions. The US economy is in great shape. Why don't we hear about the Bush Boom? Department of No Gratitude: Katrina rescuees complained about Red Cross. Jeez - that takes some nerve. I do believe this country has somehow inculcated the ethics of grievance and entitlement over gratitude. Big mistake. That path leads nowhere except to wasted time and a wasted life. Have enjoyed this for years - still have it on vinyl: Christmastime with The Judds.
Saturday, December 10. 2005
London raises a pint to the passing of the Routemaster: Telegraph A book for the youth: Sophie's World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy
Crude, Nasty, and In Poor Taste Our Editor made me post this "I'm Dreaming of a White Trash Christmas" image on a continuation page (see below) so as not to contaminate the elevated and refined tone of the Maggie's Farm front page. As if we thought we were Powerline, with a magisterial dignity to maintain. We love barbecue and beer, right? How many barbecue, beer, Bush (?), and Botticelli blogs are there out there?
Continue reading ""
Friday, December 9. 2005
The White Flag ad has been released. Ankle Biting has the link. I'd call that gentle push-back. Or maybe iron fist in a velvet glove? What do churches do when Christmas falls on a Sunday? NYT. My humble opinion? You have church. It's the Sabbath. You do the Christmas Eve service, then you do a brief, joyful Christmas Morning service. Whoever comes, comes. It beats drinking Spicy Clamato and vodka at 10 AM and listening to carols and tossing wrapping paper into the fireplace. Well... for me it does. Cannot say it always would have. And always thought the combination of carols on the player and boxes of presents was just wierd and phony anyway. Not that I do not love the music - love it to death. All the same, Christmas Eve is what it is about. A Holy Night. How taxation on unearned income effects savings. Marginal Revn. Disarming Canadians further. And it isn't working. RTLC. Pretty soon, only criminals will have guns. I have heard that the ducks and reindeer favor Canada-style gun laws. But the crims couldn't care less. Indeed, the less guns people have, the better for the crims. A store for gizmos. The Wired Store.
Why bulls hate winter. Hope this works: WhyCowsHateWinter.mpe
Narnia Comments Collected at Blogs4God - thanks, Instapundit.
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