Friday, July 7. 2006
When you see palm trees in Ireland, you have to wonder. We were taught that it was the Gulf Stream. Wrong. American Scientist
The DaVinci Barcode. A new train - the Beijing to Tibet express. A plea for support for Diana Irey - she is running against Murtha. Cotillion Hamas can't let Israel go. That's right - opposing the existence of Israel is their only claim to power. If the Palestinians were interested in anything else - like running a country, and an economy, having normal happy lives, getting educated, etc. - these terrorist creeps would be outta there. Tiny Israel, with no natural resources other than people, is the Great Middle-Eastern scapegoat and distraction from their own failings. Without Israel, or the Americans, they'd have to look at themselves in the mirror - and who wants to do that? So killing Jews, a handful at a time, can keep them in power for a long time, because there are lots of Jews in Israel. How dumb can you be? Coke employees try to sell secrets to Pepsi. NYT Nice clips from the Volvo sea-racing video. Not for the faint of heart. You Tube The economics of the minimum wage. Good, clear stuff. Cafe Hayek. Nutjobs in lab prove 9-11 was a hoax. Good grief. Yup, that sure looks like proof to me. Gateway A good birthday post for our youthful Pres, by Anchoress Update on the Iraq govt's peace plan. Oxblog. For better or worse, control is gradually being transferred to them, as it must be. Why would a state pay for kids of illegals to go to college? Wizbang takes a look at Massachusetts. Walkin' down Main Street, looking for a hoe. Any idea how many kinds there are?
Thursday, July 6. 2006
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it. "Mr Tambourine Man," from 1965's Bringing It All Back Home. A lovely performance from the 1995 Manchester, England show can be downloaded from the link here.
Is it moral to sell your kidney? Your placenta for stem cells (or does it belong to your kid?) What are the ethics - if any - and morals of commerce of the human body? Which is an indirect way of asking what the morals and ethics of capitalism are. We know what many libertarians would say, but what would each of us say? Eric Cohen at New Atlantis has a fine wide-ranging essay on the subject, covering Calvin, Voltaire, Weber, Adam Smith, Irving Kristol, etc etc.: Biotechnology and the Spirit of Capitalism. Couple of quotes: In 1991, with the last vestiges of communism crumbling and the Cold War ending, Irving Kristol warned that the greatest threats to a capitalist future were spiritual and cultural. “In a sense,” he said, “it is all Adam Smith’s fault. That amiable, decent genius simply could not imagine a world where traditional moral certainties could be effectively challenged and repudiated. Bourgeois society is his legacy, for good and ill. For good, in that it has produced, through the market economy, a world prosperous beyond all previous imaginings—including socialist imaginings. For ill, in that this world, with every passing decade, has become ever more spiritually impoverished.” In the end, Smith’s error was his lack of “eschatological realism.” Man is not simply an average being who seeks to improve in material ways. He is also an imperfect being who yearns for perfection, a mortal being who yearns for immortality, and an ambitious being who sometimes believes that he can make others more perfect or less mortal through his own mastery of nature. And so Adam Smith’s world of practical commerce—a great success—is still haunted by the Protestant desire for other-worldly grace and by Voltaire’s desire for “terrestrial paradise.” We demand that material progress offer salvation—which is exactly what socialism once promised and what biotechnology may promise in the future. Or we demand that material progress be abandoned in the name of salvation—soberly, by those who seek to preserve sacred retreats in a profane world, or radically, by extremists who seek to dismantle modern life altogether.
Read the whole thing. It's an education.
Vizslas, aka Hungarian Pointers, 
are not only the most
frequently-misspelled breed, but, in my experience, the most eager, alert, energetic, and driven hunters I know for upland game. They are considered medium-sized, but I have hunted with some that were fairly small, which was good for getting under briar patches and alder thickets: I prefer the smaller bloodlines. They are said to be very tolerant of the cold, but I have seen them shivering and miserable after four or five hours in Maine sleet. But so were we brainless humans, who should have been sitting by the wood stove sipping brandy and telling lies. Cuddly babies at home, they are lions in the field. The svelte Vizslas have only come out of Hungary in the past 50 years. Excellent, loving pets, too, but they were born to run and need lots of space and vigorous exercise. I'd love to have one or two of these guys.
- Reposted from May 12, 2005 Voegeli on "Values" vs. Morals Morality is a distinctly unfashionable subject. Nothing fun about it, I guess, and I guess life in the USA has become about fun and self-gratification and "fulfillment" - ie the religion of Self - instead of about being solid grown-ups. Perpetual adolescents instead of Atticus Finches. Sometimes I feel like Rip van Winkle, waking up to a world in which all that is sacred and deep has been replaced by neon lights. Many would rather talk about "values" or "ethics" than about morals. As I see it, we'd all like an escape clause from being bound by morality, me included. And yes, I have had my stumbles too - but I haven't been able to let myself rationalize them. In this piece, Voegeli addresses the politics of absolutism and relativism. Tough subject. Made me re-think what people are really saying when they say "That's a value judgement." Good, thoughtful piece. Wish I had written it: "The term "values" has become so widely used as a synonym for "moral beliefs" that it is hard to remember the term has a history. Though Max Weber did not invent the fact-value distinction, his profound influence on American social scientists caused them to promote the idea here after World War II. They insisted that their study of society was scientific because it was confined to statements of fact, which could be empirically verified or disproven, differentiating such statements from "value-judgments." "Values" were irrational, subjective personal preferences. Because value-judgments could not be tested, none could be described as true or false, much less as wise or foolish, or good or evil. A debate between people with opposed views about the meaning of justice would as pointless as a debate between people with different favorite flavors of ice cream. The fact-value distinction has swept all before it. It's hard to find any American who doesn't speak the language of values and value-judgments, or who understands that this distinction is a recent innovation, one never employed before the last century and incomprehensible or ludicrous in any age but our own."
Read entire.
Wordplay. Pejman likes this new movie. For iPods, file-sharing is down, legal music is up. Ars Technica The Godfather of the Muslim Brotherhood and Grandfather of Al Quaida: Saayid Qutb. A bit of recent history at Gates of Vienna Flag-burning on July 4th. Moonbattery First it was dodge-ball, now tag, soccer and flag football are being banned from school recess. Ed. Wonks Henry Paulson is a bird-watcher and nature lover. I like this guy already. The Commons Brit National Health Service attacks "complementary and alternative" cancer treatments. These things are enjoying growing popularity in the US. Is Hawaii really part of America? Brown at RCP Haha. Fred Sanders offers a bit of art criticism at Middlebrow Is Bin Ladin turning into a religious fanatic? Blame Bush Why do some gays want kids? Gay Patriot explains. Multiculturalism is a social nuclear weapon. View from 1776
Wednesday, July 5. 2006
 We have been rough on the New York Times since Maggie's Farm opened for business. I think it is because many of us grew up with this newspaper, and had come to rely on her.
But she done us wrong. Things have changed, since Pinch took over. So many feel betrayed, and played for fools. And have cancelled, despite missing much of their unobjectionable, good, well-written material on non-political matters. We, and others, have caught them many times with their pants down, but now they are caught dead to rights: Powerline It's a damn shame that they chose this route. If you have an opinion, send it to the public editor at public@nytimes.com, but do not expect any satisfaction. They have already drunk the kool-aid, and have left objectivity far in the past, with Abe Rosenfeld. Now, they are not only flagrantly partisan, but dishonest and anti-American. You might almost think they were French, but, God knows, they might take that as a compliment.
On rainy days like today, our local Box Turtles come out of hiding and gather 'round. I throw them strawberries or tomatoes, and they are grateful. Such cheerful, gentle, pleasant reptiles. They even look up at you, as if to ask for more. They go nuts over a nectarine, but who doesn't? 
Despite its being very much in the "public interest," the NYT still refuses to disclose Pinch Sulzberger's IQ, or the length of Bill Keller's johnson under conditions of journalistic arousal. However, these are secrets the public has a strong need to know, and it would not kill Americans to know these closely-held secrets. Image from The People's Cube: 
At a July 4th party last night, saw the daughter of friends - hadn't seen her in a year or more. Last time I saw her, she had purple hair and body piercings, acted sullen, etc. She graduated from Princeton two years ago, and has been working at a media company in NYC since graduation. At the party, where we all took part in reading pieces of the Declaration of Independence and drank gin and tonics, this nice young gal - who no longer has purple hair, etc., told me that she is joining the US Army and beginning Basic Training in September. I said "God bless you." I asked all about how they do boot camp for gals, etc. Some is co-ed, and some is not. Interesting. She wants to go into Army Intelligence. She should. She said "They didn't quite know what to make of my resume." I said, "Read Illario Pantaro's Warlord." She didn't know about it. What a fine thing to hear about on the Fourth of July. The moral of the story for me was: Never judge a kid by what they're like as a teen-ager, because most of them grow up.
EU votes for "green tax" on airfare. What will a tax on airfare do to reduce air pollution, I wonder? Daily Pundit Everyone on earth has royal roots. Knew I did. That asteroid near-miss: It will come back again, in a while. Excerpted from The Conspiracy: According to the Theory of the Unitary Editor, whenever a Times reporter is given unauthorized classified information, Bill Keller's editorial conscience allows him to unilaterally declassify national secrets, bypass Congress, and violate the law in the interest of keeping the nation safe from a popularly elected President who he fears may be bypassing Congress and breaking the law.
Rhode Island has a 9% state income tax. Even their Dems are now trying to cut. Lib Leanings From Jed Babbin, via Dinocrat: Since 9-11, none but a few of our former allies have given us more than lip service to help fight terrorism. And among them, fewer still have been willing to do so openly. When those who cooperate in secret are exposed, the damage is enormous, whether someone dies the next day or not. The NYT and WaPo bloody well knew, before the stories ran, that their publication of the CIA prisons and the SWIFT program would make it impossible for some nations to continue cooperating with us. By using their power to interrupt nations’ cooperation with us, the New York Times and the Washington Post have done more damage to our nation’s security than Usama bin Laden has been able to since 9-11. They have become a weapon in the terrorist arsenal. Their claims to still be guardians of our freedom are laughable, and tragically so.
Stossel adds himself to the Gore debunking squad: RCP From Atlas: 
Reposted from July 27, 2005  The young Cornell engineer Willis Haviland Carrier patented his "Apparatus for Treating Air" in 1906, for industrial purposes, and it was quickly taken up by the paper industry. By 1926, Hudson's Department Store in Detroit had A/C, which was a huge draw. His technique came to him in an instant of inspiration at a train station. By 1928, residential machines first became available, and after the war they became common in new housing developments. But their appearance in movie theaters in the 40s was maybe the most dramatic event - even more important than the magical moment of color in the Wizard of Oz. The A/C alone was worth the price of the 25-cent ticket. The first air-conditioned car was the 1940 Packard.
While we must be grateful to Mr. Carrier on days like today, the downside is that his machines eliminated the traditional months-long July and August vacations to places like New Hampshire, Cape Cod, Maine, and the Berkshires, where at least nights are cool and breezy. And it eliminated the wonderful screened "sleeping porch" which late 1800s houses often located on the second floor, in the back, of course. My Great Aunt Buffie had one, and her bed got moved out there for the summer. Camping out, in town. And I suppose it made the old front porch redundant too, where you rocked and sipped beer or lemonade in your undershirt to the tune of the crickets and katydids, smoked a Lucky or two, watched the young folks promenading past, flirting and courting, and could hear, in the distance, the muted, murmering conversations of the neighbors on their porches. A/C pulled people indoors, and isolated them, I suppose, from both neighbor and nature. Not to mention its effect on high-rise buildings - A/C is right up there with Mr. Elisha Graves Otis and his elevator. Many traditionalist Yankees continue to eschew air conditioning at home, but they don't sleep very well in the summer. And they drip sweat on their paperwork. They view A/C as a weenie pantywaist luxury, unnatural and indulgent. Which it is, for sure. But what a fine and inexpensive luxury. Surely it's not a sin? Call me ambivalent about it - but I could not work without it. A major effect in the US was that it permitted the huge business growth, and population growth, of the South and the Southwest. I guess you could blame Carrier for the Red State phenomenon, in a way. You can read about the the A/C compressor and refrigerant works here, and more about Mr. Carrier here.
I'll tell you, son, the minority got us outnumbered. Congressman Frog, from Pogo
Tuesday, July 4. 2006
Lawrence Auster, proprietor of the excellent View from the Right, is asking for some donations to help him finish his book. It would be the right thing to do. Paypal, or email him for his address. We, at Maggie's, will help him. I think he would be grateful for even modest donations. We read him all of the time, but do not link him enough - we do not link any of our superiors enough. Time is limited, and our to-do list is always too long - we have a farm to run, and turtles and chickens to milk, and cows to feed.
Rhode Island's multi-talented  George M Cohan sent the following letter to a show biz paper on July 4, 1906 (borrowed from a Steyn piece):I write my own songs because I write better songs than anyone else I know of. I publish these songs because they bring greater royalties than any other class of music sold in this country. I write my own plays because I have not yet seen or read plays from the pens of other authors that seem as good as the plays I write. I produce my own plays because I think I’m as good a theatrical manager as any other man in this line. I dance because I know I’m the best dancer in the country. I sing because I can sing my own songs better than any other man on the stage… I play leading parts in most of my plays because I think I’m the best actor available. I pay myself the biggest salary ever paid a song and dance comedian because I know I deserve it. But believe me, kind reader, when I say, I am not an egotist.
Read Steyn's piece, You're a Grand Old Flag, which began as You're a Grand Old Rag My image of Cohan is entirely mixed-up with Jimmy Cagney, who played Cohan in the 1942 Yankee Doodle Dandy.
 We are offering John Adams' quotes today:
"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.""I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain." "In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.""The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body. We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other."
Samizdata found this good blog which deals with Chinese business and law: China Law Blog Govt unions oppose performance pay. Big surprise. Redstate We love our Brit cousins, but we are still glad that we had the revolution. After all, we have less crime, a booming economy with essentially no unemployment, more babies, no class system, millions of people gleefully resisting nanny-statism and political correctness, freedom of medical care, lots of guns, and the ability to hunt foxes with dogs and horses. Plus better skiing, better beaches, better sex - and NO MARMITE. Hey - I guess we just do not have the serf mentality. Gateway on how the Brits look down on us. Shame on them. They gave us our foundation, for which we are forever grateful, but our self-determination had to be taken by arms, and we still detest, or at least distrust, State power. I never exhaled. Enviros want to control CO2 emissions. In New Zealand, cow farts are the major source (really), but animals and people exhale tons of it all day long. Let's face it - the enviros want YOU to go away. They could always set an example? Coming out of the closet by becoming a black Repub: neo neo Why solar energy won't work: you'd need to cover two states with solar collectors. YARGB did the math. Read Powerline yet today? Too much good stuff. George Mason has benefited from reaching the Final Four. Good for them, but it's still a dumb way for a university to get visibility. Volokh Haha. Chomsky is a deep cover CIA operative and agent provocateur. Sure, probably. But isn't he a bit obvious? Church of England: being destroyed from within. Big Lizards shows how the same news is and would be reported, depending on the party involved. He is right as rain. Just heard Sean Hannity say he doesn't read blogs. Too bad, but I don't know how he would have the time. Really, talk radio is just a verbal blog anyway. Or vice-versa.
Monday, July 3. 2006
Reposted from the blog in 2005: A quote: Even the most tepid of believers among the Founders assumed that the health and success of the American republic depended on the vitality of religious belief. As George Washington put it in his "Farewell Address": "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports." Famed deist Thomas Jefferson once asked, "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are the gift of God?" Thomas Paine, accused of atheism, wrote at the beginning of The Age of Reason, "I believe in one God, and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life." So too another Enlightenment hero, Benjamin Franklin: "Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His providence. That he ought to be worshipped." And of course, the works of the many more numerous orthodox Christian Founders could provide an endless supply of quotations to show that teaching the Founding without taking into account the powerful role that Christianity played is an act not just of historical but of pedagogical malfeasance. Many of the Founding generation believed that it was impossible to teach republican virtue without teaching religion: "The only foundation for a useful education in a republic," Benjamin Rush wrote, "is to be laid in religion. Without it there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."
Read the whole thing
We recently wrote about Pogo. A reader emailed us this one - thanks. 
 Maggie's Farm is still in vacation mode. A long July 4th vacation.
How to force your liberal arts major kids to grow up? Reality boot camp. Someone should have sent Pinch Sulzberger. It's for kids who are reluctant to grow up. I could run this: are whips and chains allowed? Jeff Jarvis: Can the press please just tell us what their principles are? Other than trying to bash conservatives? American Left going crazy. Why don't they move to France or China or Bolivia or Venezuela or Cuba, where voting doesn't mess things up? norm. Rejection hurts, but you have to adjust. Moonbattery thinks he found a prof who is nuttier than Ward Churchill. A State Department officer talks, after two years living in the Green Zone. No Pasaran Where is the Supreme Court? In transition? And what's with Justice Kennedy? Greenhouse in the NYT Belgium: "The Frog is getting warmer" by Dymphna USA Today corrects/retracts their NSA spy story. It's too little, too late, and the damage is done. A defense of Ann Coulter's book Godless, by Kirk in Am. Spectator
There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America. Henry Clay
Sunday, July 2. 2006
 For the third time this weekend - at least - I find myself reading NYT publisher Suzlberger's recent commencement address, this time in an update, dealing with the financial transaction tracking report, at Dinocrat.
What he said was, as posted by Dino: his generation “had seen the horrors and futility of war and smelled the stench of corruption in government. “Our children, we vowed, would never know that. So, well, sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” the publisher continued. “You weren’t supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights,...”
 So this guy still buys into the adolescent grandiosity of the 60s. This guy still thinks that earthly paradise, beyond history and human nature, can be created -but now with the NYT in the vanguard of world peace, love, justice, etc. See our NYT and Love Beads link in Recent Essays - but I didn't think he was this stuck in a myth and a delusion. Has he ever held a job, or met any normal non-Manhattan people? And was he even there in the 60s? If he was, he would know how nutty it was.
Along with his honorary degree, these comments earn Pinch an honorary doctorate in Moonbatism, for having demonstrated both his grandiosity, his lack of realism, his reflexive anti-Americanism, and his inability to understand evil in the world - unless it's the evil American military, and the evil, brain-dead, ignorant, knuckle-dragging, uneducated, red-neck, right-wing extremist nutjobs like us at Maggie's.
Reposted from December, 2005 This is going around the net: You will enjoy these. Ahh... names like Charley Weaver, Rose Marie, Paul Lynde, George Gobel, and Vincent Price. They sure were quick-witted.If you remember The Original Hollywood Squares and its comics, this will bring a tear to your eyes. These great questions and answers are from the days when game show responses were spontaneous and clever, not scripted and (often) dull as they are now. Peter Marshall was the host asking the questions, of course. Q. Do female frogs croak?
A. Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water long enough. Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be?
A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it. Q. True or False, a pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
A. George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes. Q. You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
A Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake. Q. According to Cosmo, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he's married?
A Rose Marie: No, wait until morning. Q. Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
A. Charley Weaver: My sense of decency. Many more fine ones, below:
Continue reading "Quaint Humor from the Hollywood Squares"
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