Maggie's Farm

Hillary can't remember Bill's Dubai ties. OK. Gotta believe her. I am concerned that her memory problem may be getting worse.

Cyberthieves. This is creepy.  (H/T, Part-time Pundit)

Yet another poll demonstrating that illegal immigration bothers people.

Getting your kid into school in NYC: It's all about me. Shrinkwrapped.

A guy who loves stray dogs. This is great. CSM

Murtha terms Gen. Pace a Liar.

Taliban at Yale. Jeez. John Fund stays on the story.

From Ace:

Little rule(s) I've learned:

Anyone who says looks don't matter is probably not very attractive.

Anyone who says book-smarts aren't the measure of intelligence probably has trouble getting through a comic book.

And anyone who says that political labels mean nothing at all, especially the label "liberal," is probably slightly to the left of Pol Pot's junior economic advisor, the one Pol Pot ignored as "too utopian and impractical."

Crocodile Tears and Censorship. Moonbattery. Whatever happened to "sticks and stones'''?

Was there something on TV last night? I didn't watch it.

Will Bush's major diplomatic success in India get the credit it deserves?

IPTV - Internet Protocol TV. It's the newest rage. What is it? Blogcritics.

Art Buchwald is dying, by choice - slowly but relatively happily. via Drudge

Iran admits playing Europe for fools.Capt'n Ed

Three Blind Mice? They run about $250.

Was the Halimi story blacked out? Bird of Paradise

Police Chiefs on access to firearms. They approve.

How to Win your Own Oscar. Cracked.

Strunk and White, 4th Edition. On sale. We love it but we don't obey it.

Recoil. Mr. Free Market takes on the pressing subject.

Some thoughts about writing new laws when existing laws "don't work." We have all thought about this, but Classical Values wrote it down.

Thought Crime in England. This is bad. We are permitted bad thoughts legally, although the sin thing is another matter.

Broken penis. Ouch is right. Hey, girl - go easy on me. I am not a machine. Kevin, MD

Chavez, his new army (should help with his unemployment), and his delightful links with Iran. What a nice guy. 

College newspaper editors fired for running Moslem cartoons. WTF? We'd do it in a second. Sometimes publishers need to be ill-mannered, if only to mark the right of freedom. Manners are good, but they aren't the law.

Unbelievable. Video at BKP. We need to "work harder to understand" these people.

What country does Jimmy Carter live in? LGF

Everybody is talking about this Bennish teacher character. Sounds like standard Dem boilerplate to me. If Colorado weren't paying him to teach geography, it would be no biggie. Normal stuck-in-the-1960s. Wow - I am cool - I have radical ideas!!! Yup, very advanced in 1905. Comments from Classical Values.

Lent, from David Warren. One quote:

It is not a simple joy. Abstaining from customary pleasures is hard, can be very hard, and so can be the shame one feels each time one falls off the wagon -- which happens to everyone who tries to ride against the grain of his habits through forty days and nights. Lenten resolutions are not made to oneself, but to God. Part of the discipline is to get clear in my head that when I fail, I am not merely failing myself. For in the Christian view, I am letting down my sinless Lord, who for his own penance, nailed the sins of the world with Himself to the Cross. Take each failure as the crowing of a cock to Peter; then rise, and return manfully to the struggle.

Now, this is not likely the sort of thing you are used to reading in a newspaper. I am immensely grateful to have editors who do not demand that I conceal my “Christian content”; I hope they will continue. At the worst, it is not a dangerous activity. We are not proposing to kill anybody. The “mortification of the flesh” that is proposed can have no meaning unless it is voluntary; just as Christian belief is deprived of meaning when it is compelled. We may proselytize, however, as we have been doing wherever there is freedom, for two thousand years.

Does everyone know by now that Bill Clinton helped with the Dubai deal? I think the entire ports thing is a non-issue.

The dark side of China's economic rise: Pei on corruption, cronyism, and neo-Leninism.

Arthur J. Dahlgren, Jr  to Strike Fla. Panhandle?  National Weather Service to give hurricanes full names next year.

Borders wars. What is going on down there? Hey, GW??? Wash. Times

Anger at AOL for its plan to charge for email. Why shouldn't they charge for it? Give me one good reason.

Are there too many people on the earth? Earth's population has doubled since 1960. Is it a problem? Of course it is.

Can you have Bible study at the Univ. of Wisconsin? Now you can. But wait... one student felt "uncomfortable" about it. Have we raised a nation of infants?

Happiness, Jeremy Bentham, and high taxes to reduce envy! Good piece by Wilkinson at Reason. (H/T, Samizdata)

Whither Conservatism? The goal of a smaller federal govt is as elusive as ever. Rick Moran proposes "good govt" rather than smaller govt.

Minneapolis blacks love their charter schools. From a piece titled "Black Flight" in Opinion Journal:

According to the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute, Minneapolis charter school enrollment is 91% minority and 84% low-income, while district enrollment is 72% minority and 67% low-income. Joe Nathan, the center's director, says that parents want strong academic programs, but also seek smaller schools and a stable teaching staff highly responsive to student needs. Charter schools offer many options. Some cater to particular ethnic communities like the Hmong or Somali; others offer "back to basics" instruction or specialize in arts or career preparation. At Harvest Preparatory School, a K-6 school that is 99% black and two-thirds low income, students wear uniforms, focus on character, and achieve substantially higher test scores than district schools with similar demographics.

The Cotillion gals are carrying. Do not mess with them. They quote Colt: "Have no fear of any man no matter what his size. When danger threatens call on me, and I shall equalize."

Good sounds from the Supremes. They sound skeptical about campaign finance regulation - which means maybe they support free political speech. Gee, that's a good idea. Captain Ed

Ann Coulter's Oscar predictions. (I haven't seen a single one of these movies, and haven't heard of most of them.)

Can you write negative blog posts about your employer? No, not if you want to keep your job. WaPo. Duh? is right.

The French Quarter Festival this year - including Dylan. Dylan loves New Orleans.

"Because they hate."  Brigitte Gabriel at the Intelligence Summit.

A Marine. This will make you feel GOOD.

Is Science all it's cracked up to be? Be careful. John at P'line. Scientists play games, too...political ones. Shame on them.

Speciesism. This used to be a joke. Well, still is, really - even for those who love animals, whether alive in the woods or steaming on the stove. A major and fascinating piece on the subject by Appleton at Spiked.

Is the true purpose of the EU to bring Socialist Totalitarianism? Could be. They certainly seem to want to control everything, including whether you cut your toenails straight or on a curve.

A fresh and objective look at Jacques Derrida, the enfant terrible of the complacent. What about his relationship with God? Caputo at Crosscurrents.

Los Angelinos freak out when it rains. Good grief. No wonder they are such babies out there. Hey, Southern Californians - skin is waterproof.

Mindless cant on assimilation of Moslems, covered by Driscoll

If you think politics and religion don't mix - try politics and government medicine. Canadian hospital bans more hip replacements - too efficient?!?!?!

The Left always blames the victims. So says Prager.  What did we evil ones do to piss them off? If something pisses me off, how come I don't receive the same consideration?  I guess it's complicated...

Pathetic. CT accepts Chavez' oil "gift."  It's a bribe,
not a gift. Shame on a Yankee state for this. It is infra dig.

Visualizing Infinity. Yes, it is way cool.

We know of two apocalyptic extinctions on earth: the Cretacious Extinction 60 million years ago, which wiped out the dinosaurs, and the great Permian Extinction 250 million years ago, which almost entirely eliminated life. We believe that the former was caused by the big, bad meteor that created the Gulf of Mexico. What about the latter?

Looking deeper into the Evangelicals and Global Warming story. They don't get it, but they mean well. Always remember - the road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions. And always remember that The Law of Unintended Consequences never quits, like gravity. These nice folks are in over their heads, and I think their good intentions are being exploited.

A New, Improved college ranking system, from the Carnegie Foundation. It does seem better than the ones from Fiske and US News. Site has link to the actual list.

Also from the Carnegie Foundation, a piece by Thomas Ehrlich on how Harvard has failed to strenthen its core curriculum. That is a serious failure.

The Cape Wind story. We all understand that the oh-so-green Kerrys and Kennedys and their limousine liberal ilk will try any trick to prevent their Nantucket Sound views being despoiled by a wind farm. It is hypocritical in the extreme, and disgusting. However, here at Maggie's we are opposed to wind turbines in general, and see no "necessity" for them. It's a 13th Century energy source. What we do need is a nuke plant - on Nantucket - safely distant from the regular folks. Until then, Oil is Our Friend.

What did the Reagan Revolution do for the US economy over the past 25 years? Pete DuPont at Opinion Journal. And, for the 100th time, he notes what is now well-known: tax cuts increase government tax revenue. Thus the only conceivable reason to raise income taxes is to take money away from people who are fortunate enough to have it. Envy, anger and resentment. Very unproductive, un-Yankee and probably sinful emotions - and discouraging to hard work, too.