Monday, September 25. 2006
Wierd Al gets it. From YouTube.
 This species of the Southern longleaf pine forests (which have been harvested almost to extinction and re-planted with faster-growing commercial pines) has been in the news recently (see Monday links below). It has been endangered since the 1970s because of habitat loss. I have never seen one, but haven't spent any time trying to.
They are one of a very few bird species which are found only in the US. As with other woodpecks like Downies and Hairies, the red cockade is usually not visible. These birds have unusual breeding habits: they are "cooperative" breeders, and the males incubate the eggs. Read about them here at CLO, from which we borrowed the photo. What can be learned from the news story? I think the message is that the Feds cannot expect American citizens to roll over every time a Federal bureaucracy decides they know what is best. However, it is one of the jobs of the Feds, for better or worse, to try to protect endangered species. These are Federal laws and, in this case, their enforcement threatens individual property rights, which Americans feel as strongly about - or more so - than they do about the Second Amendment. So if the Feds want to do their job effectively, they need to approach such issues in a humble, friendly, cooperative, compromising manner. In DC, far from the piney woods of North Carolina, it is all too easy to feel the power, and to forget who pays their salaries and for whom they work.
To our visitors from City Journal: We are pleased to have you visiting the Farm. Please check out our blog, while you are here. You might like our mix of topics, and you might want to bookmark us, and to visit the Farm regularly. Gentlemen, start your chainsaw engines: NC homeowners at war against Feds seek to drive Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers from their neighborhoods. Am Thinker. And speaking of birds, an Archaeopterix update. Science Daily Why is Clinton so angry? It is quite clear why. I wish he could be a real man and simply tell the truth. And the truth, most likely, is that he did not see any political gain in going after Bin Ladin. It would have required taking a big political risk - aka leadership: being the leader of the free world requires more than craftiness and slyness. Captain Ed has the right view, I think. Greenleaf, Idaho. Mayor wants every homeowner to be armed. They aren't, already? How many times have we said similar things? East is east, etc. From a useful piece titled Observations on Arabs, via YARGB - good find. One quote: Since the beginning of the Iraq phase of this conflict of civilizations, I've experienced the teeth-grinding frustration of watching both pro- and anti- Iraq sides make the exact same mistake - that of supposing that these people are bascially Americans in funny costumes. In this respect, George Bush and Michael Moore are equally clueless, as was Jill Carroll apparently.
Husock in City Journal takes a look at liberal housing policy. One quote: Polikoff dreams of extending urban relocation programs to thousands more communities across the country. One wonders when or if liberals will recognize that no magic government-housing scheme can solve the real quandary at the heart of Waiting for Gautreaux: the dysfunctional life habits of the underclass. There’s simply no alternative to encouraging marriage and intact families and pressuring the poor to adhere to middle-class norms—and, yes, providing counseling, mentoring, and training to help. One wishes that Polikoff, who seems like a caring person, would take notice of the facts he reports in the pages of his own book.
He is absolutely right. People are not poor and neglectful because of skin color or neighborhood - they are poor or neglectful, or have kids but no husbands, or because they do not function well, or do not run their lives reasonably and responsibly. Occasionally, because of bad luck. And sometimes by choice. The polluting habits of the Lear Jet liberals. Sad but true: jets far worse than cars. How can you tell if a Latino is living near you? It's a short video. Can you teach ballet without touching the student? Doubtful, but the Brit PC Police want them to try. Spiked. Search engine market share: right-clicked from our pal at AlphaPatriot: 
Fascism is always descending on the United States, but somehow it keeps landing in Europe. Tom Wolfe (h/t, No Pasaran)
Sunday, September 24. 2006
Mix and match. Do it yourself post-modern Leftist dialectics, at No Pasaran.
Was in Nashville for the long weekend - found the big Home Depot, and of course the Outdoor World of Bass Pro Shops and Redhead. Saw Music Row twelve times, and passed by the Opry on I-40 about the same, but heard none of the music except from the speakers at the gas station and the hotel lobby. Do they have music in Nashville? Something about the South: the wives go to Outdoor World with their hubbies. Overheard: "Honey, don't you think you want that same thing in the waterproof version? You could get wet and miserable out there, sweetie. It's only a little bit more. We can put it on the Mastercard." Will some feminazi shoot me if I say "The women are women and the men are men boys men whatever." And we, at Maggie's Farm, love the Southern mentality, and the accents, too. And biscuits 'n gravy. We like to believe that the gravy provides a nice, smooth, healthy, slippery coating to those major arteries. This photo of the Nashville Outdoor World was early in the morning, before they open. But, as with Cabelas, you always wonder why there are so many people INSIDE on a weekend when it's about being OUTDOORS. The parking lot fills up fast. I know the answer: Guys love gear the way women love shoes. Did they have anything I needed? No. Did I buy a few things? Yes. It's the American Way. 
Proverbs 32:10-31 10A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.
11The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
12She does him good, and not harm,all the days of her life.
13She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands.
14She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from far away.
15She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household
and tasks for her servant-girls.
16She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
17She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong.
18She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night.
19She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.
20She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy.
21She is not afraid for her household when it snows, for all her household are clothed in crimson.
22She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and purple.
23Her husband is known in the city gates, taking his seat among the elders of the land.
24She makes linen garments and sells them; she supplies the merchant with sashes.
25Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.
26She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
27She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28Her children rise up and call her happy; her husband too, and he praises her:
29“Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”
30Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
31Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates.
Saturday, September 23. 2006
Re-posted from August 11, 2005  Interviewing Morons and Slackers - Hot Tips for Senior College Students, Plus the Glory of Maine
Pardon my rant, but I am fed up. I am heading to Northeast Harbor through Labor Day tomorrow, thank God, to play with my little Hinckley Picnic Boat which I paid (!) someone to drive up there from CT, do a little bluefishing and striper fishing, get my three lobster pots out, play a little or hopefully a lot of tennis, read twenty books, go to a bunch of nice cocktail parties, and bang around the woods with the kids and the grandkids, and do some minor bird-watching, but I have been forced to run through what seems like a hundred educated fools over the past few months, so let me blow off a little steam. We hire lots of folks every year. All we care about is what you bring to the table. We do not care what sex, color, sexual preference, or anything else that you are (as long as you speak grammatical English including correct use of the subjunctive, which I am a stickler about, and can pass our own patented quick-essay-writing test which I instituted. We give you the topic, and you get 30 minutes to write the most penetrating and knowledgable essay you can. Your one chance to show us what you have under the hood - if we're impressed by it, you will have a great opportunity to prove yourself. If you cannot write adequately under pressure, you cannot think adequately under pressure). We'll also give you an IQ test, but none of those psychological tests. We don't even care where you went to school (provided you had meaningful competition to deal with. Third tier - sorry - we just don't have the time for you no matter how good you might be - you probably paid a lot of money for a second high-school-level education. Time is money, sorry to say, and we are beholden to unforgiving shareholders). We really just care about what you can offer us. We expect a lot, but if we get a lot, we'll compensate you well, and if we are disappointed, you'll be gone in a flash. Period. Everyone is on parole, guilty until proven innocent, useless until proven valuable. That's reality. Assume, at least for your first year or so, that your file will contain abundant negatives. You will deserve them, even if we like you a lot. We do it so we can dismiss you if we decide to, and to educate you, and to motivate you, and because you won't understand what you are doing for a while anyway. Among the other "delights" of my job is the pleasure of interviewing - I decided this year to personally make final approval for employees for two of our our companies, for new hires mainly over $90,000, bonus not included. These are companies that we are trying to aggressively move forward, and need good people. For my own education, and to assess the cut of their jibs, I took on this chore. (I tend to be partial to quirky, brainy, awkward people who love detail but can readily cut to the core of things. I am repelled by smoothies and I like people who will stand up to me, respectfully, of course - I do not find ass-kissers or flatterers useful, but be warned, because many dumb employers love it. At least this is my feedback from my pal in HR, who speaks to me fearlessly since I depend on his judgement so much, and is my tennis partner at home.) This group included plenty of 2005 graduates, BAs, MBAs, and assorted other degrees. A word to the wise in HR: I hereby do not want to waste my time interviewing anyone who has not taken calculus, statistics, macro- and micro-economics, or pre-med biology, and probably chemistry and preferably a few physics courses. Why? Because these are the only things left that are certain to demand intellectual rigor, and separate the men from the boys, as it were. I don't care about your grades, and I don't care what your major is - just show me you will tackle difficult things and that you have a problem-solving attitude. We can train you to do anything, if you arrive with the goods: IQ, discipline, strong sense of duty, enjoyment in taking on tough assignments, ability to use harsh criticism, and the right amount of ambition - not so much as to corrupt you, and not so little as to not be motivated. I could be missing some great hires, but I refuse to spend another five minutes of my life with a BS artist, basket-weaving major, "really nice guy" from Brown who can play squash. Nothing against squash. But got better things to do, like striper fishing. Well, I might seriously consider a Fly Fishing Major from Brown...do they have that major yet? Later, Bird Dog. I am on vacation as of right now.
Time to return to the old duck camp in Manitoba, on Lake Winnepegosis - the lake with the name that sounds like a rare infectious disease. Bird Dog, regrettably, will miss the trip this year, but Gwynnie will not. Boats gassed up and warmed up, and ready to go. No need to go out before daybreak - the ducks there like to sleep in. Weather is either Bluebird weather or sleeting in late September, but breakfast is coffee, scrambled eggs, home fries, bacon, toast, left-over steak from dinner, cereal, and fruit, and should suffice. Plenty of ammo, apples, granola bars and water on board our duck boat. Let's go. Wait...I left my gun in the gun-room. Anybody got their camera? And hey, where's the dog at? And did we remember the radio? Where the heck are my gloves? I thought I threw them in my bag... And my favorite, after you depart the dock: "Did anyone remember to grab the ammo?" 
Friday, September 22. 2006
Were any other of our horsey readers there? I know one who was at the auction on Sept 16th. Sounds like it was good fun. Mostly weanlings, I guess, but others too. Some people in the East love Quarter Horses as trail horses but, these days, you have to go west to buy a good one. The Weavers are said to breed the best. Originally bred for sprinting (quarter-mile) races in the Eastern US, their smaller size, maneuverability, lithe muscularity, delicate feet, and cow-sense made them the standard cowboy horse. They come in good colors, but the Grey and the Blue Roan are my favorites: 
Wierd conspiracy theories could not exist without this handy fallacy, but it is one for which juries are often total suckers. Argumetium ad ignorantium - "argument from ignorance", or "argument from incredulity", does not mean argument from stupidity - it means argument from a proposition which cannot be proven as fact, or from a proposition which cannot readily be disproven due to "ignorance" - eg lack of data. The lack of certain evidence for, or against, something does not make it either untrue, or believeable. Nor does the lack of certain evidence for something make an alternative theory more likely to be true. "It's hard to believe that a couple of terrorists knocked down the Trade Center, so it seems that Bush and the Israelis must have blown up the World Trade Center towers, and faked the TV images with the cooperation of TV news, so Bush could go into Iraq to get free oil to reward his rich friends. It's a huge conspiracy for the benefit of the Illuminati." Prove that is wrong. It is amazingly easy to make propositions which are simple lies, or absurd, but difficult to prove wrong. Thus you raise doubt, which can appeal to the paranoid part of people. Here's another: "Abe Lincoln greatly enjoyed his male friends and colleagues, so he probably was gay." Prove that isn't true. "The authors of the Second Amendment could not have intended that Americans should be killing eachother by having guns to protect their homes, so we should ban guns." Well, name me one of those guy's families which had no guns in their homes, but it's a bit late to do a poll now, so you can assert anything you want, based on your bias. I'd bet every one of the Founders had many guns in their home. Or, "Would my client, an experienced driver, forget to put n his parking brake? Impossible. My client deliberately declined to put on his parking brake, because he was afraid that the brake might fail on his '57 convertible Chevy, so he put it safely in "park" before it unfortunately, and tragically, but innocently, rolled down over all of those nice families at the beach." Try to prove I am wrong on that. Doubt? He's a nice guy - your next-door neighbor - not a murderer or a manslaughterer. He just likes antique Chevys, like we all do.
Thursday, September 21. 2006
Aliyah, 9 /9/06: A Wedding After war, my first wedding. Mordechai’s. And Sharona’s. In Netanya, how to find the wedding emporium? Netanaya, the Nice of French emigres, most of whom but a generation removed from North African refugees -- Algeria, Tunisia, Morrocco. Escapees to La Patrie, home of laicite, they now escape Paristan to find refuge in Israel. I fly in from the States the day of his wedding, cab to my Merkaz Klita apartment, drop off luggage, then seek out the wedding. But before I could get there, I will tell you of Mordechai. He, who calls me loudly, Akhi, “My Brother.”
He and I in Ulpan together for some six months. He made aliyah, because he is a Zionist, moved her to make a Jewish life, now needed a Jewish wife, an Israeli one. At one point, took a drag on a Gallouis, grimaced, then fiercely tossed it to the ground, never to smoke a French cigarette again. He is done with France.
Mordechai teases me. In France, his Jewish friends -- the Ashkenazi from Poland, Germany -- would tease Mordechai when he listened to Mizrachi tapes, the nasal singing from Morroco or Yemen. They accused him of being “almost an Arab,” and he responded, “You’re almost Jewish.” When I -- an Ashkenazi both Polish and German --worked at my Hebrew -- a throaty ayin or chet -- he would chide me, and I said that I was working at being almost Jewish. He left home at seventeen, his parents had told him several times that they had never wanted children. Lived in the streets. He did guitar, Jimi Hendrix his lodestar. Taught guitar. Played with bands. Cut some discs. Also did sports, got into school, first for a masters in sociology, then to the Sorbonne for his Ph.D. in sociology of science. We discussed Yossi Ben David at the Hebrew University, Michael Polanyi at Chicago, and Thomas Kuhn, who died too young. Mordechai wanted to talk with me about his thesis, wanted it translated into English. But he insisted that we only speak Hebrew -- our common language, he insisted. This limited what I could discuss about sociology. But it did not limit our friendship. He loved Rutie, our ebulliant, lizard-booted Hebrew teacher. The boots with engraved silver tips and especially the embossed heels gave her a heel, a height, a touch of attitude which she thinks she needed. When in a feather, she would about crow, straining at her full five feet, insisting that she was closer to six feet. Born during the rainy season in a tent in the early ‘50’s, her parents refugees from Syria. Always in a rush, she explained, so she couldn’t wait for the hospital. She envied Bridgitte of France, for her perfect waist, understated grace. She adored Mordechai; wanted me to uncle him.
And Mordechai loved her.
Continue reading "Guest Author, Aliyah Diary: A Wedding"
Coulter thinks we are overdoing it with the moral purity thing: Or as the New York Times wrote in the original weasel talking points earlier this summer: "The Geneva Conventions protect Americans. If this country changes the rules, it's changing the rules for Americans taken prisoner abroad. That is far too high a price to pay so this administration can hang on to its misbegotten policies."
There hasn't been this much railing about the mistreatment of a hostage since Monica Lewinsky was served canapes at the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton Hotel while being detained by the FBI.
The belief that we can impress the enemy with our magnanimity is an idea that just won't die. It's worse than the idea that paying welfare recipients benefits won't discourage them from working. (Some tiny minority might still seek work.) It's worse than the idea that taxes can be raised endlessly without reducing tax receipts. (As the Laffer Curve illustrates, at some point -- a point this country will never reach -- taxes could theoretically be cut so much that tax revenues would decline.)
But being nice to enemies is an idea that has never worked, no matter how many times liberals make us do it. It didn't work with the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, Hitler or the North Vietnamese -- enemies notable for being more civilized than the Islamic savages we are at war with today.
Whole thing at Human Events online.
"I pulled out for San Anton',
I never felt so good.
My woman said she'd meet me there
And of course, I knew she would.
The coachman, he hit me for my hook
And he asked me my name.
I give it to him right away,
Then I hung my head in shame.
Lo and behold! Lo and behold!
Lookin' for my lo and behold,
Get me outa here, my dear man!
I come into Pittsburgh
At six-thirty flat.
I found myself a vacant seat
An' I put down my hat.
"What's the matter, Molly, dear,
What's the matter with your mound?"
"What's it to ya, Moby Dick?
This is chicken town!"
Lo and behold! Lo and behold!
Lookin' for my lo and behold,
Get me outa here, my dear man!
I bought my girl
A herd of moose,
One she could call her own.
Well, she came out the very next day
To see where they had flown.
I'm goin' down to Tennessee,
Get me a truck 'r somethin'.
Gonna save my money and rip it up!
Lo and behold! Lo and behold!
Lookin' for my lo and behold,
Get me outa here, my dear man!
Now, I come in on a ferris wheel
An' boys, I sure was slick.
I come in like a ton of bricks,
Laid a few tricks on 'em.
Goin' back to Pittsburgh,
Count up to thirty,
Round that horn and ride that herd,
Gonna thread up!
Lo and behold! Lo and behold!
Lookin' for my lo and behold,
Get me outa here, my dear man!"
"Lo and Behold," off The Basement Tapes, a collection of songs released in 1975 but recorded in the summer of 1967 (with the exception of some of the tracks by The Band, which, it later became known, were actually their own studio outtakes).
A Film Not by Ken Burns. Damn funny, whatever your skin color. You will never see a Ken Burns film the same way, again. Dr. Fingeroot is perfect, and the music is not only perfect, it is real good. YouTube at AlphaPatriot
 Churchill and Global Warming?
Steve Hayward of The Commons did a speech at the American Political Science Association recently, The Use and Abuse of Churchill in History. (Found it before Powerline linked it, but those guys are SCARY FAST.) Link to the whole speech here, but here is a quote: It is worth remembering how long we waited before finally facing the challenge posed by Nazi totalitarianism and Hitler. Many were reluctant to acknowledge that an effort on the scale of what became World War II was actually necessary, and most wanted to believe that the threat could be wished away with trivial sacrifices. For several years before the awful truth was accepted, one Western leader spoke out forcefully and eloquently about the gathering storm. Winston Churchill was uncompromising in his insistence that every effort be immediately bent to the task of ensuring Hitler’s defeat. After Neville Chamberlain concluded the Munich Pact of 1938, which gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler in return for his pledge not to take over still more territory, most Britons were happy and supported the policy that later was condemned as appeasement. Churchill, however, grasped the essence of what had occurred and of the unavoidable conflict that lay ahead. From here Gore goes to quote at length the ultimate paragraph of Churchill’s Munich speech in the House, though, like the BBC’s Wilderness Years adaptation of the speech done in the late 1970s, he omits the final phrase, "as in the olden time." From here Gore continues his main theme: "Thus do we meekly acquiesce in the loss of the world’s rain forests and their living species, the loss of the Everglades, the Aral Sea, the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, the topsoil of the Midwest. . ." etc. "Bitter cups all--but only ‘the beginning of the reckoning,’ only the first of a steady stream of progressively more serious ecological catastrophes that will be repeatedly proffered to us . . ." In An Inconvenient Truth Gore ratchets up the comparison, making out skeptics of his eco-apocalypticism, or doubters of the proposed remedies such as the Kyoto Protocol, to be the moral equivalent of Nazi appeasers. Gore cites the conclusion of Churchill’s 1936 speech attacking appeasement: "The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."
  This piece is a bit behind the news cycle, but what the heck. Breasts are interesting subjects which keep popping into the news: see Anchoress. More on "boobgate" at Protein. Boobgate is just too silly, and not worth commenting on at any length. (Ed: Basil does a great job with the subject today.)
But remember the fuss about that BabyTalk magazine cover last month? I thought it odd that many were upset by story about the mom breast-feeding her baby on the cover. Some termed the image "disgusting." Meanwhile, that magazine for new moms probably sat on a magazine rack five feet from a wide variety of porn magazines. Why did anyone find that Baby Talk cover worthy of comment at all, much less negative comment? Can a society be puritanical and licentious at the same time? Well, why not? We're not supposed to be reminded that breasts are for food? Nobody gets upset about using T&A to sell things (tits=hits, as the old blog expression goes), but something about using breasts to feed babies seemed to touch a nerve. Very strange, because feeding a baby is the most natural and beautiful thing in the world, or so we are told. I figured that it bothered people because it's an animal function, and we aren't animals, are we? John of Part-time Pundit has a theory, as quoted in his piece Where Feminism and Motherhood are Forced to Do Battle, in the Daily Illini: Earlier this summer, breast-feeding mothers were harassed by staff at Sholem pool for breast-feeding in public. Women caring for their children have been harassed in restaurants, parks and pretty much anywhere you find children congregating.
The law is quite clear that breast-feeding is not indecent or sexual. The medical community and community health advocates have concluded breast-feeding is what is best for the baby (and usually the mother). However, there is still tremendous public pressure against breast-feeding.
Despite the fact I see more boobs walking across the Quad, or for that matter watching C-SPAN, somehow breast-feeding is apparently too much for this promiscuous college town. After all, Champaign County does have a syphilis epidemic for a reason. A society that uses breasts to sell every conceivable product on the market is horrified by the concept of a breast being used for its designed biological purpose.
It could seem plausible to blame the religious right; After all, they were responsible for the protests over the infamous Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction of 2004. However, the religious right is generally more child-friendly than those on the other part of the political spectrum. The religious right supports women having children in the first place, as opposed to the left which supports slaughtering them on the altar of abortion.
Here is a more reasonable theory about the source of resistance to breast-feeding: It collides head-on with radical feminism. When former Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggested there are biological differences between men and women, he was run out of town. Breast-feeding is the ultimate expression, next to child-birth, that women are indeed different from men.
The whole piece is here.  In my opinion, breasts are multi-purpose organs: breasts are for feeding babies; tits are for fun, bosoms are for comfort, and snuggling; and boobs are ART to look at. Guys look at boobs - always. We cannot control our eyeballs, which have little tiny minds of their own. And, dear lady readers, we love 'em all, regardless of size or shape. I know that you understand, ladies: you check us guys out in your own sneaky ways.
No workplace rules or social rules will ever prevent men from staring, or admiring, or glancing, or covertly appreciating. Guys are made to like them - and women are always interested in their own, too. No amount of PC will prevent this fun and intriguing male pastime. But I think that it is an unusual guy - or an adolescent boy - who would find nursing mothers sexually titillating. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast-feeding for a minimum of 12 months. Not only is it best for the baby, but it's best for the mom, too. Every month a mom breastfeeds, she reduces her risk of breast cancer. Moms with jobs find it challenging, unsurprisingly. Image on top of blog: Picasso's Nursing Mother For a t-rated, adolescent-type humor image, see continuation page for a gal for guys (or gals) who think they have it all.
Continue reading "Tempest in a B-Cup: Breasts, Bosoms, Boobs and Tits"
 77% of Aussies think it is government's role to make them happy. That is the craziest thing I have read this year. Government? Hahahahaha. You'd think they could answer with something at least slightly less stupid, like their spouse, mistress, gigolo. Now their dog - that would make good sense as an answer. My suggestion: government to add Prozac and Grey Goose to the Aussie water supply, and, if that does not work, opium also. What, me worry?
Paul meets Agrippa: An inspiring mini-sermon from Middlebrow. The NYT is advertising itself: Truth and Accuracy. They need another ad line: How about "The Dead-Tree Daily Kos"? Or, as an alternative, "All the News We Want You Morons to Know." Or "Pravda on the Hudson"? The left loves Ahmadinejabbywobby. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. But wait. Ahamadinejobby doesn't like at least 50% of them. How many women of the Left have had sexual relations outside of marriage? He would kill them first. Betsy. Is there a single torture the US uses on Jihadists which is not also used in frats? Or just in college? Is this the stuff that has Colin Powell's panties in a wad? Moonbat update from Moonbattery: I pledge allegiance to the Mexican flag, and to the corrupt dump of a country for which it stands,... Also, Mayor Bloomberg wants to PAY YOU to go to the doctor. Dear Mayor B: NYC is lookin' real nice, but leave us ALONE already! We are grown-ups. Are you nuts? How much does the Left hate Christians? Quite a lot. RWN Enforcement of borders is what Americans want. It's our country. Just One Minute shows Kaus, getting it right. The regrettable discrimination and double standards in our schools. Gal teachers can play, but not guy teachers. What the heck? RWHowler NPR getting long in the tooth. What's the average age of their tax-subsidized listeners, anyway? And Squaring the Boston Globe is right - their men sound like they have no testicles and never played a sport. It's wierd, really. The Scarecrow Syndrome. The dumbing down of education isn't an accident: it's an agenda. Just give the slow ones a diploma and tell them to get a job and to quit wasting the teachers' time. Here's the plan unfolding, in the UK. Samizdata. Some farm workers are crapping in the field, on your organic spinach. Hey, it's organic, right? You want those poor oppressed farm workers to walk all the way to the toilet? That's cruel. Daily Pundit has it. A quote from Coyote Blog: The US does harm when we fail to live up to our values. Radical Islam does harm when they successfully pursue what they value.
Whole piece here. Want to go hunting in Canadanistan? They should welcome our dollars, and our recreational tourism, right? Look at this BS. To add insult to injury - you need to print it out on 8X14. Who are they kidding? Do I look like a lawyer? Mr. Harper - please fix this travesty. Thanks, pal. All I am bringing is a damn 12 ga s/s for grouse. For heaven's sake! Finally, we get a fence, not amnesty. I'd be surprised if the fence doesn't pass both houses. Poli. Honestly, I'd like amnesty for every wrong I have ever done, but no-one is offering that to me.
Wednesday, September 20. 2006
We were fishing through the cut-out bin at the used record store and came across this gem. If Punxsutawney Chavez comes out of his hole and sees the shadow of El Diablo Bush, do we get six more weeks of $2.25 per gallon gasoline?
Mitchell gets it (quoted his piece in full, below, from Democracy Project). Our bold font: Today's Democratic leadership came of age during the 1960s and 1970s, in the era of anti-Vietnam War protest. Moreover, the party activists have a left wing view of the world whereby conflict between labor and capital, oppressed and oppressor, first world and third world, black and white or left and racist right play a central role. Much as Marx omitted a careful discussion of how communism would work, with the result that his philosphy was the ugliest, most violent and vicious of all philosophical ideas, today's leftists conceptualize themselves as protestors rather than leaders. This includes the leadership of the Democratic Party. The Democrats have not been able to articulate a coherent strategy for the Middle East because they see themselves as protestors who right wrong rather than leaders who obtain and use power effectively. The focus on demonizing Bush and the left's inability to articulate a strategy for Iraq illustrate my claim. Should the protest Democrats win the White House and Congress, America will be set on a self-destructive course. It would be nice to see competent Democrats running agains competent Republicans, but there are few competent Democrats too be found, and the few that can be found such as Senator Lieberman, are demonized by the rest.
Bush speaks up for America at the UN. Quit the terror - we want peace. It's the right message. Comments in the NY Sun. "They say that it's the institution..." Thinkin' about blaming it on "the system," at Asst Village Idiot. One quote: The Zen koan "The Tao that can be described is not the real Tao," applies here. The system that can be described is not the real system. Better to start from the idea that there is no system at all.
Free Willy Nelson! Does this explain his politics? Protein From the author of Path to 9-11, Cyrus Nowrasteh: In July a reporter asked if I had ever been ethnically profiled. I happily replied, "No." I can no longer say that. The L.A. Times, for one, characterized me by race, religion, ethnicity, country-of-origin and political leanings--wrongly on four of five counts. To them I was an Iranian-American politically conservative Muslim. It is perhaps irrelevant in our brave new world of journalism that I was born in Boulder, Colo. I am not a Muslim or practitioner of any religion, nor am I a political conservative. What am I? I am, most devoutly, an American. I asked the reporter if this kind of labeling was a new policy for the paper. He had no response.
Whole piece at Ed Driscoll Experts want to move the Mississippi to save New Orleans. Why not. What the heck? It's just water, right? NYT Science News Wish I had written this, quoted from a piece by Malzahn in Spiegel Online: One thing should be kept in mind, however: The often violent protests that erupted in the Muslim world in the wake of the cartoon controversy have often been manipulated and fuelled by Islamists. The bile currently being flung at the pope is no different. But the attacks against the pope are especially grotesque. The severe criticism -- often coupled with threats of violence -- directed at the speech held last Tuesday by Benedict XVI is not just an attack on the head of the Catholic Church. The malicious twisting of the pope's words and the absurd allegations made by representatives of Islam represent a frontal attack on open religious and philosophical dialogue. That so many in the Muslim world joined the protests against the pope merely show just how influential Islamist extremist groups have become. The political goal of the Islamists is clear: any dispute between Christianity and Islam must obey the rules handed down by political Islamism. Bending to this demand would be a mistake -- indeed it would be tantamount to turning one's back on freedom of expression and opinion. What will come next? Perhaps a complaint that Allah feels insulted by the numerous European women who don bikinis during a summer trip to the beach. It could be anything really -- militant Islamists will always find something. But the response needs to be firm.
Big Supermarket is Watching You. How stores study buying behavior to get you to buy more. Science News My father asks for nothing. He was a ball gunner on a Liberator. Sippican Dennis Prager interviews Howard Zinn. I won't quote from it, but you have to read it. Unbelievable. They let this bozo write textbooks? His knowledge of history seems so...um... incomplete. Or selective? Almost like he had an agenda or something? And we feature yet another supposed historian with selective memory of what he learned in school. This is Rick Moran quoted from his piece on Juan Cole's comments on "Moslem sensibilities": Shooting old women in the back, burning churches, and threatening the life of the leader of a billion Catholics is an excellent demonstration of Muslim “sensibilities” I must say. Cole’s analysis is spot on. Who woulda thunk it? All the burning, and killing, and screaming, and gouging, and stabbing is the fault of the West and our mean old ancestors who told the fanatic’s ancestors that their religion was dirt. Failing that, it is the legacy of those superior airs put on by the Brits and the Frogs that is causing our Muslim brothers so much pain. Of course, the good professor conveniently forgot to mention the most famous footstools in history – the Ottomans – and their bloody, inhuman rule over the Middle East. By the time Napoleon saw the pyramids, the Ottoman’s had made themselves at home in the region for nearly 300 years. Known as “the sick man of Europe” the Ottoman’s proved that they not only could out-atrocity the west on any given day, but also proved that they could be pretty damn good colonial oppressors themselves even when they weren’t feeling 100%. Of course, the Ottomans didn’t worship Jesus. They didn’t recognize the Pope’s authority. They never saw the inside of a synagogue (except to set fire to one), nor did they worship, Bal, Babel, Ra, Isis, or any other regional deity. They followed the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed.
Don Surber makes the case FOR pork-barrel spending. Don - that argument is 100 years old, from the days when they didn't have so much of our money to play games with. It is ours, remember. We earned it. Your argument, Don, is that politicians are slimy jerks for whom the pork greases the wheels. I am sure that that is true. To think like an Islamist, you have to take a time machine to the Dark Ages. Few of us can do this. Quote from a piece by Eric at Classical Values: There's a crucial difference between the West and its attackers: the bottom line is simply that we in the western world don't act that way. We don't riot when insulted; we don't burn when inflamed. That difference is what we in the West naively call civilization. We tend to assume that all people want to be civilized. The enemies of civilization don't. They want to kill us. For things like looking at the wrong pictures. For quoting obscure Byzantine emperors. And what do we do? We apologize, because among civilized people, an apology is seen as the civilized thing to do when someone is offended. The problem is, uncivilized people see apologies as weakness. No number of apologies is ever enough. Which means one is too many.
Image: That would be a Jersey Cow. A good looking, smaller, and manageable breed of dairy cattle. Read about their history here.
Tuesday, September 19. 2006
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 Two hat-tips and three generous wags of the dog's tail to Dinocrat, who found this excellent piece by Spengler in Asia Times, entitled Jihad, The Lord's Supper, and Eternal Life. A quote:
What distinguishes Allah from YHWH and (in Christian belief) his son Jesus is love. God gives Jews and Christians a path that their foot can tread, one that is not too hard for mortals, to secure the unobtainable, namely immortal life, as if by miracle. Out of love God gives the Torah to the Jews, not because God is a stickler for the execution of 613 commandments, but because it is a path upon which the Jew may sacrifice and yet live, and receive his portion of the World to Come. The most important sacrifice in Judaism is the Sabbath - "our offering of rest", says the congregation in the Sabbath prayers - a day of inactivity that acknowledges that the Earth is the Lord's. It is a sacrifice, as it were, of ego. In this framework, incidentally, it is pointless to distinguish Judaism as a "religion of works" as opposed to Christianity as a "religion of faith".
To Christians, God offers the vicarious participation in his sacrifice of himself through his only son.
That is Grace: a free gift by God to men such that they may obtain eternal life. By a miracle, the human soul responds to the offer of Grace with a leap, a leap away from the attachments that hold us to this world, and a foretaste of the World to Come.
There is no Grace in Islam, no miracle, no expiatory sacrifice, no expression of love for mankind such that each Muslim need not be a sacrifice. On the contrary, the concept of jihad, in which the congregation of Islam is also the army, states that every single Muslim must sacrifice himself personally. Jihad is the precise equivalent of the Lord's Supper in Christianity and the Jewish Sabbath, the defining expression of sacrifice that opens the prospect of eternity to the mortal believer. To ask Islam to become moderate, to reform, to become a peaceful religion of personal conscience is the precise equivalent of asking Catholics to abolish Mass.
Islam, I have argued for years, faces an existential crisis in the modern world, which has ripped its adherents out of their traditional existence and thrust them into deadly conflicts. What was always latent in Islam has now come to the surface: the practice of Islam now expresses itself uniquely in jihad. Benedict XVI has had the courage to call things by their true names. Everything else is hypocrisy and self-delusion.
Read the whole thing. Image: Botticelli's very late work, Mystic Crucifixion
Poll: In Match-up Between Hillary and Kerry, Most Democrats Would Choose Suicide Survey Spells Trouble for Dems, Pollster Says A new survey of Democratic voters indicates that in a hypothetical match-up between Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and former presidential nominee John Kerry, most Democrats would choose suicide over either candidate.
The poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, shows Mr. Kerry drawing 21%, Sen. Clinton 18%, and various forms of suicide 61%.
“Throwing yourself in front of a speeding city bus” was the most popular means of suicide at 22%, with “jumping off the roof of a really tall building or bridge” coming in second at 17%.
Read the rest, at Borowitz.
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