Tuesday, June 6. 2006
Noodles are from China. 4000 year-old noodles found. $275/hour. That's what some SAT tutors are getting in Westchester County, NY, according to Opie. Home schooling as a lifestyle choice. NYT The US would be just fine without immigrant labor. NYT Opinion The anti-Chavez backlash in South America. That didn't take long. WaPo How to be a post-modernist in 2 easy steps. Humbug Dan at A Slower Pace is trying to make his life more sane. Since I enjoy his blog, I will refrain from suggesting that giving up blogging might be a first step.
If a Dem were in office, and going to war against Jihad, he would be called the "Franklin Roosevelt" of our generation. Dr. Bliss, of Maggie's Farm
Monday, June 5. 2006
 I noticed the comments, especially on other blogs, related to our post a week ago by Capt. Gilmore, who offered us a follow-up note on his original letter, which we have since posted there. We do not know the Captain, but I see no reason to doubt him.
The desire, on the part of many, to deny that his letter was true seemed odd to me, until I realized that it must represent the desire to deny that 9-11 actually happened and was a Jihadist attack - or who would care? It did happen, and it was a Jihadist attack. How many others have there been over the past 15 years? Plenty. Why desire not to believe it? Because if you believe it, you have to do something about it. Much more comfortable to imagine that the attacks in London, and the attack on the Cole, and the first WTC attack, and all the others, were performed by an evil Bush-Israeli conspiracy for some dark but as yet-uncoded purpose. But, wait a minute - Bush wasn't Pres during most of them, was he? Well, maybe Bush and Clinton were in on it together...along with the rest of the government. Sure...that makes perfect sense: When Clinton was Pres, he probably said "George, I'll take a pass on killing these suckers, if you promise you will get them, after I rig your election, so you will get the credit and I will get...more Monica." Trying to think like a paranoid is exhausting. We try to be sane, but if the blogosphere is a loony bin, I want out. If I had the time today, I would go into this more deeply, but I cannot. But when I look at this thing on AOL News today - vote and check the numbers - one truly has to wonder about the irrationality, conspiracy cranks, and wierd distrust that is going around. It is Bedlam. Maybe it's caused by fluoridation? (joke) Sometimes I feel like adding comments, such as "Have you taken your medicine today?" However, I resist that impulse, since it would not lead to any civil exchange. One last thought: If a Dem were in office right now, and going to war against Jihad, he would be the "Franklin Roosevelt" of our generation. No doubt. 'Nuf said. Editor's Note: More on this sad subject - "Whack Jobs Convene" - at Atlas.
As our readers know, we ain't got no truck with multiculturalism. We believe that Western, Judeo-Christian, small "L" liberal democratic societies offer the greatest chance for human dignity and f reedom, to date, in the history of the world. We hate anything that interferes with those things. Rick at RWNH says here exactly what we believe at Maggie's - except he says it better. A quote from his piece on the arrest of Moslem terrorists in Canada over the weekend: If we are fortunate enough to survive listening to some of the better angels of our nature that demand obeisance to an ideology of moral relativism, it will be because there will always be enough of us who refuse to play the diversity games so beloved of that segment of our population that sees strength in dividing us. The game has one simple rule; all societies, and by extension, all religions, creeds, races, ethnicities, and cultures are, at bottom, equal. It would be one thing to believe all were equally bad. That, at least, would represent the cynics view of mankind and hence, a realistic appraisal of the capability for evil in our fellow man. But no. This multi-cultural madness posits the notion that we are all equally good (well, except white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian males), and that evil is a social construct manufactured by the ruling class to keep the black, brown, and yellow man in their place. If allowed to succeed, the people who are teaching this view to our children in schools and creating mass cultural touchstones in film and television that push this concept will create the perfectly diverse society – the multi-cultural Nirvana found in the grave where everyone will be finally and completely equal.
Image, etc: Who says "dignity never been photographed"? Photo by The Dylanologist. We have the extremely rare piano version of Dylan's Dignity here: dignitypianoversion.mp3 - quick download.
This piece came in over the transom: Barbara Walters of Television's 20/20 did a story on gender roles in
Kabul, Afghanistan, several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted
that women customarily walked 5 paces behind their husbands.
She recently returned to Kabul and observed that women still walk
behind their husbands. From Ms. Walter's vantage point, despite the
overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women now seem to walk
even further back behind their husbands and are happy to maintain the
old custom.
Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, "Why do you now seem happy with the old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?"
The woman looked Ms. Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitation, said,
"Land Mines."
Border-cams. Monitored by anyone! There's an idea. The Toronto Star cannot figure out what these guys have in common. Maybe they're just mixed up kids? The Toronto Bomb - how big? Great White North What's your opinion? Did she say that illegals can vote?
 Academic frauds. RWN covers the subject here. What pompous morons. But how can they enter reality, if they remain in lala land? And student idiots. Can anyone imagine an 18 year-old turning in his teacher for this? DO NOT hire this guy - too dumb for life. This kid has clearly been TAUGHT by the nice teacher - but he cannot LEARN. And he is no gentleman. Loonies complain about circus elephants. Please! Who wouldn't want to be a circus elephant? It's a good gig. See no evil. The Clinton administration, Al Quaida, and Able Danger. Front Page. CARS. This movie is going to be big. Adults will need to find some kid as an excuse to go. Trailer here. Dr. Sanity takes a look at the narcissism of politics, and the corruption which grows from it. Makes sense to me. Media terror against the USA: noDNC figured out why they do it. Inconvenient truths: Terrorist arrests ignored. Ace Do not look. Some disgusting and entirely tasteless photos from Maggie's Farm fan and Lansing radio host Rich Michaels.
I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well. Theodore Roosevelt
Sunday, June 4. 2006
In the late 1800s, yacht clubs were established along the northeast coast of the US with a dual purpose in mind: yacht-racing, and making sure there were enough sea-wise people to fill the ranks of naval officers in the event of need. Thus these old yacht clubs functioned as an informal naval auxiliary, as does the excellent US Power Squadron. That is the reason that these clubs are commissioned each spring, and de-commissioned each fall; that is the reason for the para-military uniforms worn by yacht club officers on formal occasions; that is the reason such clubs always have a "Ship's Surgeon" and a "Fleet Captain," and that is the reason the chairmen of yacht clubs are titled "Commodore" - the lowest rank of Admiral in many navies. My club, which was my parent's and grandparent's club, founded in 1880 in Westchester County, NY, held its commissioning last Monday. It's always a stirring event (for the non-terminally cynical), and always the same, complete with dressed ships, cannon fire, the national anthem, the first raising of the flags for the year, state and local dignitaries (no Hillary), representative officers from other Long Island Sound yacht clubs within drinking-and-driving distance, a long prayer, recognition of members who died over the past year, recognition and appreciation of the devoted club staff, speeches, etc. Then dinner. It's an unspoken rule that every member shows up in blazer, tie, and good cheer - or have a good excuse not to ... plus the pre-ceremony cocktail hour is "free." Image: That's the fashionable north shore of Long Island in the far distance, where the anorectic women with their fancy horses, and their tall, elegant, seemingly-diffident husbands all speak Locust Valley Lockjaw - aka Connecticut Lockjaw - about 6-7 miles across Long Island Sound. The green spot just offshore is just some little island with a huge egret colony - but of no military significance! 
(Editor's Note: My error - this piece is out of sequence. If you want to know what this is all about, click the Aliyah Diary category in upper left. We will catch up with his bike trek though the Negev with his next post.) Apr 5 06: Back among the Persimmons 
It is pleasant beneath the Persimmon leaves and the early green
furled buds that to my eye look like leaves, but instead are the ova
fertilized and becoming embryonic beneath the sun.
After two weeks abroad, I am back in the Kibbutz orchards.
Moshek always greets me with a broad smile, his bony-muscular grip.
His ancient, cracked leather belt barely holds up sagging work
trousers. I load my bike into the back and we are off. But we leave
the kibbutz, travel across the road, past the train station and I
learn that we have orchards here also. The kibbutz was transected by
the Herzilya road that enters the Coast highway, or continues to the
high-tech Herzilya Pituach. "Pituach", "developing" has an ironic
meaning here, as it is usually used to describe the dusty desert towns
where immigrants were or are placed in the hope of both the
immigrants' and the land's development, with disappointing results for
both people and land. Here, "developing" refers to a narrow rim of
land abutting the sea, a rim of high-tech companies, upscale
restaurants (including a sensuously delicious chocolate restaurant),
and fabulously expensive Rattan furniture boutiques.
But, no mind, I am in the fields, hear the trains starting up like
oversized jet planes, the highway traffic rushing to busy places. I
will flick off sappers from the persimmon trees.
Continue reading "Guest Author: Aliyah Diary #17"
 All of us at Maggie's accept this honor with great pleasure, which has been bestowed upon us via email by noted Canadian journalist "Ted".
In his electrifying words, which have shaken the entire blogosphere, he says: "You have the most interesting blog in the world, well, maybe except for a few other really good ones that I also check daily." Alas, our friend Ted is neither an influential blogger, nor a blogger at all, but he had some college and rebuilds truck carburetors. You'd be surprised how many trucks there are in Winnipeg: the town is one giant truck stop with a fine S.I.R store just down the road from the MacDonald's, next to the tittie bar and the incredibly busy WalMart. Ted writes a bit of poetry on the side (you may have read his "blue-collar modernist" gem in The New Yorker, a deeply spiritual piece which begins: When my girl is on the nag / should I sleep in my car / or go to the bar?) along with the occasional feature piece on local color for the Winnipeg Free Press. Sad to say, local color is a scarce commodity in Winnipeg other than at Pop's Topless Lounge and Pizza. Ted has been known to shoot a Snow Goose or twenty, or more, on a slow day at work - but, in Canada, every day is a slow day at work unless you live in the US suburb called Toronto. Thank you, Ted, for the honor. We will treasure it always.
Re-posted from June 2, 2005. For more of our farmer friend, click The Laconic Yankee Farmer category. Sorry it's been so long, Bird Dog,
 since I wrote but we got the plowing done, as I said we would, but it has been a bitch of a job of work due to the soil remaining so damp this year and still some pools of water, and the – ing machines always giving us problems of course. Esp. the hydrogenator on the Farmall, which is a reliable machine generally except for burning almost as much oil as gas, and of course loose plow blades. We figure we have them all ready to work a month ago and tuned up but some goddam thing always goes wrong which is why we farmers make the big bucks, right Bird Dog? They’ve got the corn seed down in Mass. and we can do it any day now, just hoping for a sunny dry spell so the seed don’t rot before it can sprout. I don’t want to jinks things, but we’ll be OK. We are putting down the red clover fields tomorrow and you and your pals can have some fat clover-fed turkey and deer when the time come and I know what sticklers you fellows are about the game regs being obviously not real country boys which your chain saw posting pretty much summed it up. No news of course is good news up here, so it’s just the usual fights Seth and Ruben are having with their fat girlfriends in town and I tell them to try and meet some of the fancies with their summer houses and skinny daughters without already a bunch of snot-nosed illegitimate brats etc. on the state dole because I have heard that the fancies sometimes find real working fellows charming in a rough cut way not "refined," not suttle you might say and basically ignorant but they do not feel up to it and likely they arent up to anorexia girls with snappy repartee. See we are exotics to the fancies and the fancies are exotics to us, the way I see it, but maybe best to stick to your own kind and dont put on airs. And even if they dont intend it dont let other folks go slumming on you as we used to say because it is degrading to all concerned. I saw it in Korea these buddies would patronise you and not even know it but still they would die to save you because we are all Americans. And my own boy well he’s doing good at the mill but he keeps saying he shoulda gone into the Service and done some good and maybe kill some insurgance or something and get some free training and damn right he shoulda as a Green Mountain farm boy and I told him to but he was too immature with his girls and his erges and his excuses and his ponytail and probably pot too and now he is too old for Uncle Sam to want his lazy truck driving ass.
But the main thing we have right now Bird Dog is happy cows, happy cattle, smiling cattle, in clover, as they say, and our milk production isn’t entirely bad. And I dont need the money because what do I need but you got to keep on or you will decay. Well, the other good deal is that I did not shoot that fat bear with my .357 down at the bottom of #6 and I ain’t changing my story and that meat in the freezer was pure mana from heaven, but I done like you said and I marinate it well for a day or two, even if I feel kind of girly doing it and then put it on that charcoal thing you give me, well I use wood or charcoal whichever I have. The boys won’t eat bear they prefer McDonalds or spagetti if the fat girls fix it for them but there is nothing like a bear flank steak after a hard day of work.
Comment from Editor in reponse to emails: The Farmer seems to find it amusing to sound quaint. He is neither innocent of irony nor mechanically ignorant. He just calls every part of a mechanical device a "hydrogenator." He can probably spell better than he does, too, but I would never make an issue of it. He can rip apart an engine faster than you can drive to the auto parts shop or, more likely, Starbucks.
 From Alan Jacob's The Narnian:
Transformation is not optional but mandatory for Christians. This was Lewis' consistent position. After all, he had undergone his own transformation, discovering "depth under depth of self-love and self-admiration" and submitting to the life-long discipline of being purged of such sin. We must die in order to live, hate our lives in order to find them, give up what we think of as ourselves in order to gain our true selves. And this is the most difficult of tasks.
Saturday, June 3. 2006
Is this news? It's like Dog Bites Man. Of 
course, ducks always eat aliens, wherever
they can find them, now that they have no food due to Bush's Global Warming Crisis. That's why we see so few inter-galactic aliens around, these days. And so many fat ducks. It's a no-brainer: the ducks are obviously eating up all of the aliens - because of Bush. It doesn't take a scientist to put 1 and 1 together. What do you expect the ducks to eat? MacDonalds? Poached salmon with dill sauce? Oysters Rockefeller? They do not seem to have taken to eating illegal aliens quite yet: give them time to adjust to the jalapeno and cilantro flavors, and they will gobble them up, too. Image: North America's flamboyant but blood-thirsty Wood Duck, fattened on alien flesh.
For Sale: A lightly-used 2003 36' Hinckley Picnic Boat for sale in Marion, MA. You know you want her: you know you need her. Details, more photos, price, and specs here. The water-jet drive is the second-best part: her lines are the best part. The perfect week-end powerboat. Not cheap. 
 A Glock with a drum magazine. Perfect for popping rats at the dump, or for protecting your Hinckley Picnic Boat from pirates. Video.
Image: A Glock 18, 9 mm, alas without drum! Not a powerful person-stopper, but intimidating enough for many routine purposes.
Friday, June 2. 2006
From the NY Post's review of Big Al's movie: Gore claims, with pie-chart-in-the-sky dreaminess, that unspecified measures can reduce emissions to 1970 levels. He assesses the tradeoff between the economy and the environment with the kind of buffoonery you'd expect in a Marxist comic book, displaying a cartoon of a scale with Earth on one side and bars of gold on the other. "OK, on one side we have gold bars," he says. "Mmm, mmm, don't they look good!" Why doesn't he get specific and replace the "gold bar" side of the scale with, say, a $50,000 tax on SUVs? The ensuing destruction of the car business would hurt blue-collar workers, not the rich. What if global warming continued unabated? Gore's faith-based pessimism would lead him to call for even more taxes. People are skeptical about global warming because it builds up to the same chorus as every other lefty hymn: more taxes, more hypocritical scolding (the film is the brainchild of Larry David's wife, Laurie, part of the community of people who drive a Prius to the private plane) and especially more America-bashing. Gore says that America, alone, is the problem. Taking us to China, he ignores the filth spewed into the air by its coal-fired cities. He does not meet with bronchitic citizens who wear surgical masks outdoors and pause to hawk up brown gunk every few minutes. Instead, he tells us America is lagging behind. "China," he says, "is on the cutting edge" of environmentalism. Nonsense. Gore is a dangerous evangelist for whom all roads lead to his sole, holy revelation. Remember how his son was injured in a car accident, the story he told at the 1992 convention? He's still telling it, and what was once touching has become exploitative. This time, the accident's meaning is that he wondered whether the Earth would still be there for his son.
Read the whole thing.
It is probably a measure of the comfort - or decadence - of our soft, safe, self-worshipping and easy civilization that the above question could even be asked.  Esolen at Touchstone has written a wonderful piece on the risk that is involved in manliness - the willingness to take risks unto death to do what is needed. One quote:
The humility of risk is perfected in Christ and is, even when marred or hidden by the swagger, essential to natural manhood. The men of all really thriving cultures know that their lives, if truly lived, are not their own. The samurai was taught to relish each day as one won from death, an unexpected boon: For the moment he swears allegiance to his lord, he must consider his life as already forfeit. Thus, he can lay that life down at a nod, whenever the sacrifice should be required. Men who went down to the sea in ships, Viking marauders or Nantucket whalers, knew well they might never return, yet they did go; and the man on the mizzen in the midst of a storm knew that his life literally hung by a thread, and that many of his fellows in just his situation never saw land again, but without him and his obedience there could be no voyage beyond the calm of a bay. The crewmen on the Titanic held it as their duty, once the iceberg’s devastation had been reckoned, to assume that their lives were lost. Only so could they tax their muscles and their broken hearts to the last stretched fiber, to save as many other souls as they could, particularly women and children. The lad who carried the flag in the old fields of war was unarmed and most conspicuous, but most necessary for the rallying and ordering of his comrades. He was indispensable in his choosing the honor of being the single man least likely to survive the battle. The man first up the ladder to scale the walls of a besieged city would likely also be the first man dead beneath; but if he does not go, no one goes. The Spartans at Thermopylae knew they could not hold that pass forever against a Persian army many times their strength, but they held long enough for the Athenians to prepare for the onslaught. And you hold a pass by understanding that your life is not your life. You block the opening. The foe must break through over your dead body.
Read the whole inspiring, true thing. And let me know what you think: Should a man be willing to risk his life in defense of home, hearth, tribe or nation? Image: Missing Man formation of Air Force F-15s
Not a good place to fall off your water skis. They got some hungry gators there, and they'll really make a mess outta you. 
 The "dark side of croquet." Haha. Watch the Brits ban croquet, because it's "mean." Honestly, what kind of pussy-men would complain about "vicious" croquet? Maybe the pussy-men at the BBC. These aren't your grandfather's Brits. They need to try lacrosse sometime.
Sager at RCP calls it Cultural Federalism, but I call it plain Federalism - and I like it. Why "cultural" issues ought to be left to the states. We are a big country - why not? That giant sucking sound is the sound of local power getting sucked into DC, and it never quits. Moms want to drive SUVs. Most popular was the Escalade. That's a wierd choice, a bit of a pimpmobile, but who understands Moms? Nobody, except maybe other Moms. Why is American medical care so expensive? Kling has the answer, and anybody who has ever had $10,000 worth of tests for a simple complaint knows that he is right: American physicians are test-addicted, partly out of fear of lawsuits and partly because they are spoiled by technology and leave judgement behind. Only in America will a dizzy spell buy you an MRI. Good piece by Kling - worth a whole post. Did I miss something? When was Huck Finn banned from America's public schools? Powerline. May I ask why? Have they banned Moby Dick yet? White guys try to kill a nice little whale in that tale. What are they reading now? Maya Angelou and Mao's Little Red Book, no doubt. The Librarian/academic "community" confuses me...they want unlimited porn and gay sex education in second grade, but they ban Mark Twain and the Bible. What am I missing? If you live in LA, you are paying for this. Wizbang. Suckers!
 Let me place the Al Gore quote in context, from a brief interview about his movie at Grist Magazine:
Interviewer: There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?
Gore: I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.
Over time that mix will change. As the country comes to more accept the reality of the crisis, there's going to be much more receptivity to a full-blown discussion of the solutions.
How much would you bet that his "solution" would entail government control of the American economy? A "Five-Year Plan," perhaps? Over 100 readers have complained, on my original post this week, that his statement conveys no dishonest intent. In my book, half-truths and distortions in a documentary intended to inform and influence, if not frighten, is dishonest, cynically manipulative, condescending to the point of contemptuousness and, in the end, self-defeating. It is self-defeating because you lose your credibility, and become a common crank. People aren't dumb, except when they want to be. The fact is that anyone can cherry pick data on any subject: the economy, the weather, the dangerousness of ladders, the dangerousness of Coca Cola - and create an instant "crisis." But such "discussions" are not in good faith - they are the ordinary tricks of disputation - "lawyerly", in the worst sense. Are half-truths lies? You decide for yourself. For me, they are. My opinion after this whole Al Gore storm this week on the blog: This issue is not about science; it's about politics or, as Al Gore puts it, it's a "spiritual issue." Hence the emotion. For more quotes from the Global Warming Big Lie squad, see continuation page below - these statements will bother you, even if Big Al does not:
Continue reading "Paul Revere, Chicken Little, or Fear-Mongering Politico?"
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. Shakespeare
Thursday, June 1. 2006
Michelle supports Dunkin Donuts. So do we. I could use one right about now. New Orleans is a sinking ship. Sensible Mom. Get out of there, people. It is Gatorville. Truthful warning labels for products: Samizdata. This product contains sub-atomic particles moving at the speed of light... Importing Mexico's Welfare and Mexico's underclass. Why would we want to do this? They are the 9th largest economy in the world...Daily Pundit. Mexico is a mouse, tweaking a lion's tail. The Homeland Security scam. It is a total scam. Omaha? Please - Osama never heard of Omaha, nor have most Americans heard much about it other than Mutual of Omaha. Am. Princess. What a joke, but it's our money that is being flushed down the toilet. The UN wants money to rescue Hamas. Are they serious? China will probably go along with it. Buy them off? Captain Ed Long Island Jews ally with illegals, claim "they are just like us." Ummm. View from the Right. Hillary wants me to drive 55?!?!?! Jimmy Carter all over again? Driscoll. I will never drive 55. Never watched Oprah? Neither have I. But you can read about her secret of success here, at TNR Experienced salesman needs job.
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