Tuesday, May 16. 2006
Bush Offers Unilateral Surrender To Mexico; Vincente Fox To Assume Executive Powers What can I say about last night's speech that hasn't already been said by VFR, Michelle Malkin, or any number of sources...just check out this incredible collection of linked commentary from throughout the blogosphere at Hot Air, virtually all of it negative. Even the New York Times shakes its head in amazement at the fact that it seemed to please no one - not conservatives, who no longer trust Bush, not Democrats, who likewise cannot bring themselves to accept the fact that Bush might be sincere about amnesty (no matter how overwhelming the evidence), nor, apparently, even illegal aliens themselves. The only positive response I saw, apart from those of die-hard Bush apologists, was from the Mexican government - a bad, bad sign indeed. The lies and distortions were too many to note in full, from the insistence that anyone would ever have to leave the country to apply for a green card (contradicted directly by the bill's language, and even by Bush himself just two weeks ago here), to the avoidance of any mention of the truly massive increase in legal immigration under the bill, or the halfhearted deployment of National Guardsmen who will not even have the power to apprehend illegals - an announcement that Lou Dobbs correctly pointed out last night is hardly worthy of central billing in a major address, were it not born purely of political calculation. To avoid closing on too down a note, this is pretty hilarious. Also, for any statistics geeks out there, or really for anyone concerned about the incredible numbers inside the Senate bill, the Heritage Foundation has this amazing study which is a must-read.
 If your dogs need work - hunt-training, obedience, etc., and you are in the CT area, Rick emailed us to recommend Quinebaug Kennels:
Jennifer is doing a great job with Parker and Sammy, my two hunting labs. Maggies should put her site up. A lady who can train dogs AND shoot guns. Nice. http://www.quinebaugkennels.com/
Oh - she has a new litter of black labs - only hunters need inquire.
 Bush does indeed want to be the First Hispanic President, just as Clinton was referred to as the First Black President.
And Bush is a stubborn guy, if nothing else. Once he makes his mind up, he stays with it. So, besides throwing a few bones to the enforcement-oriented majority of the country, he is sticking with his plan. And plenty of smart guys are with him on this, like Tony Snow and Kristol and others. I do not see their position as pure political calculation, but maybe as secondarily so, because all of these Mexican kids born in the US will be able to vote in just a few years. No, I believe that Bush and others believe it is the right thing to do - the virtual amnesty and all that. At Maggie's Farm we believe in managed, controlled immigration. We are not "a nation of immigrants" - we are a nation descended from immigrants, with, until recently, a small percentage of immigrants. An experiment such as Bush and the Senate propose - a Katrina-force flood of immigration into a settled and reasonably assimilated country - has rarely occcurred in history without force of arms. This is our country, and we do not want to be the guinea pig. If that is "nativist," then fine. Every nation is and must be nativist to a degree, if they value their culture and traditions and their approach to life. I doubt that any citizen would welcome 100 million new immigrant citizens in 20 years. We need to bear in mind that much of the world's population would rather be in the US than where they are, and it's much easier to move than to fix your own country. If someone wants to come to the US, my message is to imitate the US where you live. Linknzona has an analysis of the details of the speech, along with a bit of a rant: Something is seriously wrong. President Bush seems hell bent on putting the interests of Mexico ahead of the interests of the US; he seems hell bent on rewarding criminals at the expense of legal immigrants and US citizens; he seems hell bent on doing anything and everything to further the interests of Mexico and its millions of illegal immigrants; and he seems devoted to this cause beyond all reasoning and understanding.
He also adds this info - everyone needs to be heard, regardless of how they feel: Here is a site where you can email Repub Senators as they consider immigration legislations.
Here is the White House Site, where you can contact the President.
And here is a site where you can register and send free fax messages to all members of Congress and the White House. It is an excellent, personalized, and free site.
Image shamelessly emigrated from here.
 The speech? What speech?
Outsourcing tutoring to India: Naturally, the unions are going bonkers. Too bad - it's a global economy. And a good idea too. WaPo The Comfy Chair: This is a good day to link to the Spanish Inquisition and the Comfy Chair torture.
Am I the last person to find out that you can get XM satellite radio free on AOL?
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs. Aldous Huxley
Monday, May 15. 2006
Sometimes you come across people you don't understand very well. Your mind doesn't work like theirs does. The muse that whispers in their ear is different than any other. Many see work like his, and wonder why anyone would ever make something like that. Others might wonder why it had never occurred to somebody before. Maybe it did, and they thought: That's nuts. I can't do that. It's not the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. It's not Art, or Science, or Boatbuilding, or Engineering, or any thing else in particular. It's just captivating, all by itself. The world is often a harsh and violent place. We argue and tussle over things great and small; but every once in a while someone like Livio de Marchi shows up, and injects a little whimsy in the proceedings, just for the love of it, just for fun. Visit his virtual museum, and see all the cures for the world's ills he sculpts from wood in Venice, Italy. He didn't cure cancer, but he sure cured Monday.
It requires Tequila, Dos X, extra worms, plus lime, salt, 
etc. Gateway. It could be the only way to survive Bush's
speech. Why are those things necessary? Because the Pres will propose all of the wrong things. Quote from Michelle's update (quote is from Paul): Paul Mirengoff: "...the Hagel-Martinez legislation would lead to a rapid and fundamental transformation of the social, economic, and political nature of our society. This fact needs to be brought into the open and discussed -- something the bill's supporters seem reluctant to do."
That is for certain, if the 100 million number is accurate. One more comment from NRO (h/t, Driscoll): A political-junkie friend who I can always count on to find the political silver lining if there is one just said to me: "Tonight could be the first fully televised political suicide in history. I don't even want to watch."
Everyone on the radio, TV, and on the blogs are concerned - or, in some cases, pleased - by the prospect of Bush falling on his face tonite with his immigration speech. The whole issue is a no-win for him, whatever he does. Like HH, most of us at Maggie's want a fence. And want people to get in line for their legal immigration status. NYC up to its ears in cash: Highest tax receipts ever. Want to bet they find some way to spend it all? NY Sun Joke of the Day: Last night, my wife and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."
She got up, unplugged the TV and threw out my beer.
Bitch...
We received the most heart-warming and 
encouraging compliment ever, as a comment on
our Sunday Nite/Monday Mornin' Links last night. That is the kind of soul food we need to continue slaving on Maggie's Farm. As Dickens said, only a fool would write without getting paid. We are thus fools, by definition: our compensation is your interest in our writing and "thinking", such as it is. All we ask is that the folks who enjoy our brand of eclectic stuff send us around to friends, relatives, enemies, and neighbors, so we can get the discriminating and intelligent readers we deserve. Image: Yes, that is our own Dr. Joy Bliss again, in a pensive mood, reflecting on Object Relations theory. She has promised us a major essay on "happiness" this week. In my opinion, an eyeful of Dr. Bliss is happiness enough for anyone.
I hope Bob did not copyright "wackademia," 
because Maggie's Farm is going to appropriate the
term via eminent domain. Many Boston College profs etc are protesting the selection of Condy Rice as graduation speaker. Why? Because she works in the interests of the USA. While this is clearly political, it is completely bizarre as a rationale, since that is what she is paid to do. I understand where they are coming from - an anti-American, internationalist place in their dreams. But they are so far from the reality of life...they really need some reality therapy. Perhaps 9-11 wasn't sufficient to convince them that there is evil out in the world, and not just in themselves and their evil, evil country. A quote from Adyanthaya's piece on the subject at RCP: The authors of this letter, Theology Department Chair Kenneth Himes and theology professor David Hollenbach, seem to be arguing that any high U.S. official is unfit for a Boston College honorary degree. For what President, Vice President, or Secretary of State would not maintain that “U.S. foreign policy should be based on U.S. national interest”? Himes and Hollenbach betray their anti-American bias by assuming that the U.S national interest is somehow less concerned with “the common good of the entire human family” than is the “international community” interest.
Here's the contradiction: the US government is too evil and too powerful, but it should be the government of the world? Theologians need to stick to their knitting - God is a big enough job for them, or anybody. And the US Government needs to focus on protecting and defending the US - that's a big enough job for anybody, too.
I was so poor when I grew up, if I wasn't a boy I would have had nothing to play with. Rodney Dangerfield
On the day of Bush's speech, Tancredo offers his well-known views at Human Events. A quote: Americans are not in a mood to negotiate the matter of “regularization” for 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens -- and Newt Gingrich has pointed out the amnesty would ultimately legalize up to 36 million -- until they see we have in fact achieved secure borders. Once that is done, once our laws are being enforced, then we can begin to discuss the problem of how to deal with the millions of illegal aliens already living here.
Read it all.
Sunday, May 14. 2006
 Pimm's #1 is IN. Who knew? It has been around since the Celts, I think. My Life in Stockholm. Plus a recipe. Perfect for a wedding - punch! - in a carved-ice bowl. Cheap, Anglo-Saxon, delicious, and not overly-intoxicating. A sort of Brit Mint Julip.
Dems join suit to quit terrorist surveillance. Good for them. What a genius idea! Osama and pals salute your dhimmitude. A Hornet at 30 feet. Nice photos. We are deploying aircraft carriers in the Gulf. Damn - is anything finer than an aircraft carrier? Tammy. Passenger dies. Tour bus continues on schedule. Hilarity ensues. What's the big deal? A dead person is just a person who quit breathing. People do that all the time, on a daily basis. At a certain point, it just becomes too tiring, and people say "what the heck." Fewer Americans go to church weekly than has been thought. Of course - there are so many more worthwhile things to do, like, ummmm. (h/t, News for Christians) How to endear yourself to Philly fans. Some catch. Some bruises, too. Nude fencing? There's an idea whose time has come. I'd prefer they wear the standard helmet, though, in case they aren't attractive enough in the face. For their eyes, too. Still, this could be a boon to the fencing world. A list of books Uncle Norm likes to read to kids, and grandkids. The complicated politics of illegal immigration. Rick covers it, with reference to Podhoretz's piece. It is a maze. Just do what is right, and boldly cut through the tangle. Antidepressants cause suicide? Great - a new trumped-up hysteria. Trial lawyers - take note. And they will. Guess what? Depression can be a serious problem. If you frighten folks from treatment, you are doing them a serious disservice.
Saturday, May 13. 2006
 It becomes clearer that this sad, feckless, larcenous gal got caught up in something bigger than she could handle, and then it became too late to back down. But it is never too late to tell the truth. She could be facing some serious civil suits, but she has no money, so she is "insulated." Latest news.
By the way, note that she is referred to as a "dancer." Martha Graham was a dancer; Baryshnikov is a dancer. This lady is a stripper: I believe the liberals refer to that as a "sex worker," not a "dancer." Check your manual, AP writers. Yes - there is definitely racism at Duke: black racism against whites. Sexism too: Women against men. That is proven, now, by all of the loud noises emanating from Durham. Also, for a small minority, envious hatred of the athletes with their puny SATs. Who wants to address those "issues"? What is with this assumption that white guys are always guilty, just for "happening to be" white and male? How about a federal "program" to deal with that "crisis"? God knows, for college admission and job application purposes, we would all be black females. I would happily be black - I don't care. Or maybe, to be fully up-to-date and totally cool, an illegal Mexican. No "race or gender" has a monopoly on wrong-doing or stupid-doing or lying. We are all prone to it, which is why we all need to be careful about what we do and say. If I am wrong in my instinct about this, I promise to drink a 6-pack of Ballantine Ale in one hour, without enjoyment. But, by the way, where are our fave race-pimps, Jesse and Al? Running away? Hmmm. Show some courage; come back, fellas! Jump into the fray and get your pretty faces on the news again. Hey! Where did they go? Hit and run? What? Oh...I heard that they are all in their black-tinted window SUVs, heading out of North Carolina, leaving smokin' tire marks in the parking lot. Must be nice to have professional drivers, just in case you'd like to have a few roadies on the way home, with an "intern" or two in the back seat. Image: Note to the Associated Press - That is a "dancer": Suzanne Farrell in Serenade. "My Stradivarius", as Balanchine referred to her. Your reporters need to get out of the Bada Bing Club and see the world.
 If you are a Tom Wolfe fan, you will enjoy the speech he gave as the Jefferson Lecture at the National Endowment for the Humanities on Wednesday, printed in the New York Sun. In this wide-ranging and a bit random essay, he discusses speech, status, Freud, neo-Darwinism, immigration, Max Weber, rednecks, politics, college kids, drugs, and a host of other matters. One quote:
Evolution came to an end when the human beast developed speech! As soon as he became not Homo sapiens, "man reasoning," but Homo loquax, "man talking"! Speech gave the human beast far more than an ingenious tool. Speech was a veritable nuclear weapon! It gave the human beast the powers of reason, complex memory, and long-term planning, eventually in the form of print and engineering plans. Speech gave him the power to enlarge his food supply at will through an artifice called farming. Speech ended not only the evolution of man, by making it no longer necessary, but also the evolution of animals! Our animal friends—we're very sentimental about predators these days, aren't we—the lions, the tigers, the wolves, the rhinoceroses, the great apes, kangaroos, leopards, cheetahs, grizzly bears, polar bears, cougars—they're "endangered," meaning hanging on for dear life. Today the so-called animal kingdom exists only at the human beast's sufferance. The beast has dealt crippling blows even to the unseen empire of the microbes. Stunted adults from Third World countries with abysmal sanitation come to the United States and their offspring grow six or more inches taller, thanks to the wonders of hygiene. Cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys would be extinct by now had not the human beasts hit upon the idea of animal husbandry. So far the human beast enjoys the luxury of crying sentimental tears over the deer because she's so pretty. But the day the human beast discovers deer in his cellar, fawns in his bedroom closet, bucks tangling horns in the attic at night above his very bedroom . . . those filthy oversized vermin, the deer, will be added to that big long list above. We're sentimental about the dolphins, because they're so smart. What about the tuna? It's okay to kill tunas by the ton because they're dimwits? It would take an evolutionary mystic (and there are such) to believe these animals will ever evolve their way out of the hole they're in thanks to man's power of speech.
Friday, May 12. 2006
Why can't "older" women find husbands? Joe explains it: For a woman of any age, finding a good man is a daunting task. By the age of forty, women find that all men are either (a) already married, (b) gay, or (c) idiots. Since the good ones are already taken, women have a choice of either stealing someone else’s man or stealing someone else’s man - and then converting them. Over the age of forty, women have a similar difficulty since all men are (a) still married, (b) still gay, or (c) dead.
I am shocked - shocked! The sudden phony shock and alar m about NSA phone data-mining is a nice bit of acting, but congress has known about it for years, and the whole story was reported earlier by the NYT, as seen here. Is it constitutional to data-mine phone records in search of suspicious international calling patterns? I don't know, but the laws are on the books - Calif Conservative lists them. I can easily see its potential usefulness: it's like taking a CAT scan of the nation, to find a tumor. There really is no other way to try to do it, and our phone records are not secret or confidential - but their content is, so wiretapping is another matter. However, effectiveness is no justification for unconstitutional acts: only in love and war can the ends possibly justify the means. (It's a shame that the Supreme Court forgot that principle over the past 30 years.) So I suspect that how people feel about all this depends on whether they view us as being in a war or not - a war against Jihad, but an unconventional war with a pre-industrial people, which requires that Jihad plant organizations within the US. Is this crime, or war? You tell me. It might be a matter of semantics, but to me, it's a kind of war. If anyone wants the NSA to stop doing this, they should speak up and say so. I trust the NSA not to mis-use their data, but I still do not like the idea. My plan: let no-one into the US unless properly vetted and checked, and find and kill the terrorists, and then quit this operation.
 A quote from Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, after Lee's semi- boyfriend Cross loses a basketball game:
When the buzzer sounded, I looked at Cross and was astonished to see that he was crying. I looked away reflexively, then looked back; his face was scrunched-up and red, and he was roughly wiping his eyes and shaking his head, but he wasn't trying to hide it... Sports contained the truth, I decided, the unspoken truth (how quickly we damn ourselves when we start to talk, how small and inglorious we always sound), and it seemed hard to believe that I had never understood this before. They rewarded effortlessness and unself-consciousness; they confirmed that yes, there are rankings of skill and value and that everyone knows what they are (seeing those guys who were subbed with two seconds left before the end of a quarter, I'd think how girl's coaches would never be that heartless); they showed that the best things in the world were to be young and strong and fast.
The "white guy" won! Booker won in Newark, despite being a lighter-skinned black than his opponent. Talk about playing the race card. The good news? Democrat Booker is pro school choice. Moonbattery Enviros are anti-illegal immigration, but they won't admit it because they do not want to alienate their liberal donor base. CSM Half of US kids under 5 are minorities. Related chart below from the CSM story above: 
The condition of being forgiven is self-abandonment. The proud man prefers self-reproach, however painful - because the reproached self isn't abandoned; it remains intact. Aldous Huxley
Thursday, May 11. 2006
Call the Chianti Squad: Haha. It must smell like my kitchen. Blair Won't you be my neighbor? (h/t, Allah) 
The whole mess summarized by Michelle.
 Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind
"Visions of Johanna," from 1966's Blonde on Blonde. Download an intimate sounding live version from 1995 at the link here.
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