Friday, April 7. 2006
"Because the future is uncertain and the past has disappeared, some thinkers have inferred that the present has no reality at all. It is said that Shankara, the teacher of Advaita Vedanta, who taught that the world is only an illusion, was present at a parade in India one day. As an elephant charged into a crowd, Shankara ran behind a tree. "Why do you run from the mere appearance of an elephant?" sarcastically asked a man. "I only appear to run," replied the philosopher." Andrew Tomas, Beyond The Time Barrier
Thursday, April 6. 2006
National Geographic will air their documentary on this papyrus on April 9. The below from Bloomberg:Gospel of Judas' Authenticated, Translated After 1,700 Years
2006-04-06 15:16 (New York) By Samantha Zee
April 6 (Bloomberg) -- An ancient manuscript known as the`Gospel of Judas,'' which was lost for almost 1,700 years, has been authenticated and translated, providing a new view of the relationship between Jesus and the apostle who betrayed him.
The leather-bound papyrus manuscript, believed to have been copied down in Coptic probably around A.D. 300, was found in the 1970s in the desert near El Minya, Egypt. The 66-page manuscript also contains a text titled James, a Letter of Peter to Philip, and a fragment of a fourth text scholars are calling the Book of Allogenes, according to the National Geographic Society.
Unlike accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in which Judas is reviled for his traitorous act, this gospel portrays Judas as acting at Jesus's request when he hands Jesus over to authorities. The 26-page Gospel of Judas was written on 13 sheets of papyrus, both back and front.
The discovery of the ancient, non-biblical text, "considered by some to be the most significant of the past 60 years, enhances our knowledge of the history and theological viewpoints of the early Christian period,'' said Terry Garcia, executive vice president for Mission Programs for the National Geographic Society in a statement on its Web site.
The Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art and the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery were also part of the international effort to authenticate, conserve and translate it.
The manuscript circulated among antiquities traders, moving from Egypt to Europe to the U.S. It was held in a safe-deposit
box in Long Island, New York, for 16 years before being bought in 2000 by Zurich-based antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos.
When attempts to resell the manuscript fell through, Tchacos, alarmed by the manuscript's rapidly deteriorating state, transferred it to the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Basel, Switzerland, in February 2001 for conservation and translation.
It was authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian literature through radiocarbon dating, ink and handwriting analysis and imagining techniques, Garcia said. The manuscript, now known as Codex Tchacos, will be delivered to Egypt and housed in Cairo's Coptic Museum.
In the text, Jesus challenges his disciples to look at him and understand what he really is, though they turn away. In a key passage, he tells Judas that "you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.''
Pages of the papyrus manuscript, or codex, are on public display at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington.
"If not for you,
Babe, I couldn't find the door,
Couldn't even see the floor,
I'd be sad and blue,
If not for you.
If not for you,
Babe, I'd lay awake all night,
Wait for the mornin' light
To shine in through,
But it would not be new,
If not for you.
If not for you
My sky would fall,
Rain would gather too.
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,
I'd be lost if not for you,
And you know it's true.
If not for you
My sky would fall,
Rain would gather too.
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,
Oh! What would I do
If not for you.
If not for you,
Winter would have no spring,
Couldn't hear the robin sing,
I just wouldn't have a clue,
Anyway it wouldn't ring true,
If not for you." "If Not For You," from 1970s pleasant-sounding, light-on-substance New Morning. You owe it to yourself to listen to a live version from September, 2000 here.
Mel Brooks wants your money. I say, give it to him - he deserves it. A look at the Mel Brooks DVD collection, at The Shelf. "What hump?" Hahaha. Yale at Horsefeathers "looks into" Mansfield's Manliness, and finds it wanting. That "Yale" can write - wonder what we'd have to pay him to get him to write for us? Harry Reid wants illegal immigrant felons to become citizens (Powerline)...but look at what he said ten years ago - amazing the way folks "grow in office"- from piece in Instap.: "We are a country founded upon fairness and justice," Reid said. "An individual in real threat of torture or long-term incarceration because of his or her political beliefs can still seek asylum. But this bill closes the door to those who want to abuse America's inherent generosity and legal system." Reid's bill also cracks down on illegal immigration. The 1990 census reported 3.3 million illegal aliens in America. Recent estimates indicate about 2.5 million immigrants illegally entered the United States last year.
Feelin' too good today? Real Yankees should always be a bit cranky about something. Try this, at Protein - the latest schemes of the trial lawyers and obesity. I always find it deeply moving to see how much those guys really care about people.
An interview with Arlo Guthrie. I have eaten at Alice's, just off Main St. in Stockbridge. Long gone. Wonder where Alice is now; she probably owns a Taco Bell franchise in Pittsfield.
Very fine brief essay by Dinocrat. One quote: In a way, people live their lives as though magic existed, as the blogger Shrinkwrapped has stated. Flick a switch, the lights go on; get a sinus infection, take a pill and it’s gone; push control-alt-delete, and Windows just might fix itself. There is magic in technology, no doubt about it. But historically the American people have been a can-do bunch, tinkering, and fixing and creating, and not that much given to Utopian fantasies. How much that it still true today is, in our opinion, an open question. Certainly, as Thomas Sowell alluded to, and the Rahmatullah-Yale incident highlights, our educational institutions have become debased. Furthermore, as we discussed in How Your iPod is ruining America, there is a critical need to connect the people of today with the world of 130 years ago in America so they can understand how we came so far so fast from where we were, and this education is not happening. The lack of such awareness and education can lead to alienation, as well as ignorance, and that is quite dangerous.
Read it all. Lots of good links in it.
In response to our Massachusett's reader's heated objections to the new law, Bruce Kesler of Democracy Project emailed this: I suggest he read this at National Review( http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/haislmaier200601271110.asp ), and realize many of his objections are met, and many of many others' are met, including why someone else should be responsible for his family exceeding his means to pay, and including that limited (more toward what he calls catastrophic) policies will be available at a more affordable cost.
The USS New York. 
The 6th USS New York is being built (LPD-21,
an amphibious assault ship) with steel from the Trade Center. (LPD is "landing platform dock). Image is the USS San Antonio (LPD-17) Now for the bad news: Super-Cavitation Torpedoes. 250 mph and 27-feet long, these Russian-designed nasties could change naval warfare. And Iran has some. Info at American Spectator. Update: (Thanks, reader) This torpedo's bark may be worse than its bite. Strategy Pages.
Who is Katie Couric? How would anyone know if they go to work in the mornings? I have never seen her. And who, unless they are over age 90 and in nursing homes, watches TV in the morning? People who can think of nothing better to do? I guess maybe Moms with a bunch of rug-rats crawling around the kitchen. To win elections, Dems need to come out of the closet and proclaim socialism. So says Aronson in The Nation. Hey - it's a winning idea. Go for it. Works great in France. Linda Chavez on illegal immigration: Hefty fines and rapid naturalization. How birds change their tune. Very similar to speech. Stupidity Contest in Colorado. Who wins - the school principle who banned camo jeans because they show support for our troops, or this parent (at Gateway): Daniel Wenger, whose stepdaughter attends Shaw Heights, wants Shepherd out, saying "kids have the constitutional right to wear whatever they want to school" ? Missing link between fish and amphibians found. Science Times. Turns out that it's humans! What is up with Muzak these days? No more elevator music - it's the New Muzak. The New Yorker: the Music that makes you buy. NYC welfare rolls are finally down to where they were pre-War on Poverty. We will never undo all the mess Lyndon Johnson created for us.
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. Nietzsche (That is a good Maggie's Farm motto)
Wednesday, April 5. 2006
A Massachusetts reader offers this: What are you guys smoking over there? Here I am in Massachusetts, without health insurance, and with a family of four, and all that has happened is on top of having to pay full freight for my family's doctor bills, I get fined $1000.00 for the privelege.
I don't want your stinking welfare greenstamp department of motor vehicle government cheese copay paperwork foodstamp prepaid doctor tax charity ward let a millionflowers bloom supervision of my family's medical situation, thank you very much.
Catastrophic medical insurance is currently illegal in Massachusetts. All they had to do is allow me to purchase what I could get if I lived 50 miles west, which is REAL LIVE INSURANCE, that is, they would pay if something unexpected, substantial, and expensive happened. And it would cost me a couple hundred bucks a month. But no, I have to pay full freight for every lamebrain thing that every knucklehead who has a job with benefits wants tax free, like gym memberships and aromatherapy and acupuncture and reiki massage and "mental health," ie, I'm a miserable failure as a human being and I want to talk to another miserable failure that went to community college for psychology about it, at great expense. Oh, yes, let's not forget all middle age men that need free blue pills because what a mean spirited thing it would be middle age men didn't wander the earth with extra free hardons.
And so "insurance" becomes paying in advance for others to get what they don't need or deserve, to the point where "Insurance" costs 1200 a month and if something catastrophic did happen, would bankrupt me anyway, because instead of paying $50 for an office visit for an imaginary ailment, but having a real catastrophe paid for, the powers that be would prefer paying $5 dollars copay for an office visit to their yogurt enema wellness healer, but have to chip in 20% for cancer therapy, which would bankrupt anybody that has to worry about the cost of health insurance in the first place.
I am totally sympathetic to what you are saying. I wrongly assumed it was catastrophic health insurance, which used to be called "Major Medical", which is the only kind of medical insurance that makes sense to me. Perhaps we are too gentle with the People's Commonwealth. I am not in favor of insurance for yogurt enemas or yoghurt massages either. What are we smoking? Upmann Magnums. (We call it mid-day "relaxation-inhalation" therapy, paid for by our insurance, of course.)
 The Slippery Slope of speech laws, in Europe. Not to worry - the blogs will ignore every PC "rule" that exists. Had not known that the great Bernard Lewis had gotten caught up in this. Augean Stables.
I somehow missed this: Incompetent President slammed by former Navy Chief. Quoted in full from Instapundit: ARNOLD KLING ON fear of confrontation: "Unfortunately, large segments of American society no longer have the ability to confront real evil. People lack the confidence and moral clarity to stand up to intimidation. . . . One can view Islamic militants as armed versions of unruly teenagers. We should not feel guilty toward them. We should demand reasonable and decent behavior from them, rather than excuse their tantrums or their crimes." That would require thinking of ourselves as adults, which is unacceptable to many.
The Communist, anti-Semitic charmers of International A.N.S.W.E.R. are back! Let's all welcome their latest efforts: supporting illegal immigration. They give us fine blog fodder. The best cheap date I have ever heard of. Thanks, Kim. A Tale of Two Immigrants. PoliPundit looks at two immigrants to the US. Good News for UK Burglars: Police requested to send them home with a warning. They will call it the "Your home is not your castle" memo. The "Corporate Social Responsibility" "movement" is nuts, and the sort of thing only academics, who have never functioned in the real world, would dream up. The Prof gently explains.
Massachusetts has a new medical insurance law. I don't unders tand it all, but Bruce Kesler likes it, and he studies these things. The key is that you are required to be insured. Like with car ownership - if you own a body, you have to insure that darn thing yourself so you don't dump your maintenance costs directly onto everyone else. And taking care of one's health and one's family's health is a greater source of pride than taking care of the car - or should be. Interestingly, it turned out that most of the uninsured in Massachusetts were young single men - they figure they are invincible, and they would rather buy beer and cars and F150s and deer rifles and Ezra Pound poetry and new outboard engines. That is natural - irresponsible, but entirely natural. I don't think it will have much effect on the private practice of medicine, so that is a good thing. Hospitals will like it: they will get paid. And people should like it, because it keeps politics out of medical care...hopefully. Read Kesler's piece here. This could be ground-breaking. PS: Welcome, HH readers. Check out our blog - we are sure you will want to bookmark us! Our April Fool's Day satires were pretty good. PSS: Dissent from a Massachusetts reader - scroll up.
Money for nothin' and the chicks for free. No Pasaran notes the piece in the Guardian in which the President of the Sorbonne terms students "ignorant and stupid." "Today's youth don't have dreams, they have illusions." Read it. He could have said "delusions of eternal childhood".
The DaVinci Code. Those with little knowledge of Christianity, and those of conspiratorial tendencies, have been hoodwinked by imagining that Brown's fictional novel has a basis in fact, and they will be hoodwinked again by Ron Howard's new movie. Is this a teaching opportunity? (h/t, News for Christians) Or is it plain old casual entertainment? Don't ask me.
The Burj Al Arab in Dubai is the only seven-star hotel in the world. This roof-top tennis
is just one remarkable aspect of this place. This is Agassiz and Federer, but I believe that it
is really a helipad. Nice promo, though. 
 
We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made. M. Acklam
Tuesday, April 4. 2006
 We are working on fixing it. Somehow, we have been seeing more and more searches for "farm porn sex" coming through.
Somehow something somewhere listed us as a farm porn site. We are not. We do not even look at farm porn sites. Admittedly, we once considered becoming a farm porn site to stiffen up our readership numbers, but decided against it for no good reason at all. Still, ya gotta admit that is one sexy-looking 1950 Farmall Model C - in the nude.
On Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 AM, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.
In an effort to film some  anti-Moslem
prejudice in the US, NBC has been
seeking Moslems to volunteer to attend NASCAR events while wired and secretly filmed. No doubt they planned to continue filming until they caught something "useful" on film. Like Candid Camera. I guess it reveals something about what NBC thinks of NASCAR fans. Nice try, NBC. But you are busted. They used to call this "yellow journalism," and it is beneath contempt. And the real question is this: If 100 people were pleasant to these stooges, and one person was rude - what would be shown on the news? Chalk up one more for the blogosphere vs. the biased and, in this case, insidious and corrupt MSM. Two comments from The Chairman: 1. If they really wanted some good footage, they should have gotten five or six of the scariest-looking Moslems they could find and put them on a transatlantic flight as a group. 2. Why didn't Cynthia McKinney think of bringing a film crew with her when she punched the cop? And why isn't her story a bigger story than Cheney's? His was an accident - this was on purpose.
France: ongoing strikes, and the CPE seems to be dead Zarquawi has been impeached. Tom Bowler takes on the WaPo's campaign against the war, and concludes: ...is it worth the fight? The answer yes, we have no choice but to fight. We will fight the jihadists at a time of their choosing or at a time of ours, but we will fight them. Unfortunately, the Post isn't thinking about them. The Post's fight is with the Bush Administration.
Powerline believes Karsch will be our next Bernard Lewis. High praise. Islam's Imperial Dreams.
Like many bloggers, 
the strange case of
the Yale Taliban-
Man has been on my mind. John Fund (his latest piece is linked in the following paragraph) has, of course, been on the story. What's the story really about? Here's my first take on it. Some of those folks up at Yale are just so doggone smart that they have managed to use their powerful brains to transcend not only Judeo-Christian morality, but all morality, and have thus transcended themselves into the abyss of amoral, ie anti-moral, relativism. And, all the while, thinking themselves morally superior beings for having done so. (Let's hope they do not run their personal lives in a similar fashion - but I am sure they do not, generally. They live morally, and preach relativism. A rather wierd form of hypocrisy, and the inverse of the common form of hypocrisy most of us practice.) So, since the wise men of the Ivy League have determined that multicultural diversity and respect have now replaced our narrow-minded and obsolete Judeo-Christian morality, we offer the suggestion that this man might have been an attractive, multiculturally diverse applicant to Yale - had he not been too busy. Goebbels surely could have provided a different perspective - and all perspectives are now valid - right? No. There is one exception: The Maggie's Farm-type of perspective on the world is definitely not valid. It, alone, is "marginalized" on campus, as they say. We think of ourselves as traditionalist, capitalist, God-fearing, rationally patriotic, freedom-loving, and proudly protective of our country and our heritage. Why is this one "perspective" unwelcome, and disregarded? Image: Reichsfuhrer Doktor Joseph Goebbels speaking in Hamburg, 1936
Two of my buddies got back from Islamorada on Sunday.Tarpon, Permit, and of course, these nice Dolphin (aka dorado, aka Mahi Mahi). Jealous? I am. 
The dramatic growth of Right to Carry (ie concealed weapons) since 1986 occurred beneath my radar. "Shall issue" means a carry license will be issued if you pass the background check. I am getting mine - not because I want to carry, but because I want to be able to if I want to. It's a freedom issue. Brits and Aussies: Eat your heart out. A nice summary of the subject, with maps, at RWN. Here is the current state of the states: 
 We will never run out of oil. Cafe Hayek, on Venezuela's reserves.
Winchester. New Haven. A very sad day for CT, the home of fine military and personal firearms since the early 1700s. Everybody's talkin' bout it. Will Justice Kennedy become the next O'Connor? "Outside the realm of civil discourse." In my opinion, that is a phrase which applies to manners, but should not apply to rules. Nor do I think those Danish cartoons were outside it - they seemed rather harmless to me. Anyway, Volokh has a couple of fine pieces about NYU and the cartoon spat, all occurring two weeks after the Pres. of NYU gave a stirring speech about academic freedom. Maggie's Farm in the Vanguard Again. We may have been the first to suggest boycotting Borders to try to bring them to reason, but now there is a movement. Bookstores aren't supposed to behave like that. They can sell whatever they want to sell, but they should not offer voluntary dhimmitude in the USA. Captain Marvel 1955 image stolen from Chris's Invincible Super Blog
Monday, April 3. 2006
 Remarkable piece from Ledeen at NRO - h/t Ed Driscoll. Here, he quotes Oriana Fallaci and comments:
How come that, in a country where 85 percent of the citizens say to be Christian, so few rebel to the ludicrous offensive which is going on against Christmas?!? How come that so few protest when your Caviar Left speaks about abolishing Christmas holiday, Christmas-trees, Christmas-songs, the same expressions Merry Christmas and Happy Christmas?!?
That’s the sort of anger that comes from a self-described "religious atheist" like Oriana, who knows that if anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism spread again, it is only a matter of time before they will come for people like her. As indeed they have already, with their legal briefs and their anti-hate-speech codes, dragging her off to the latest version of the Inquisition for the sin of apostasy against the Church of Political Correctness. San Francisco, under cover of "existing and established customs and traditions," bans free speech. The little reichs of San Francisco, St. Paul, and Paris ban free religion. And "top professors" at Harvard and Chicago take off after the Jews. No wonder Ayman al Zawahiri and his buddy, the Ayatollah Khamenei, think we’re going to be an easy prey.
Read the whole thing.
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