Saturday, February 10. 2007
When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, Sir? John Maynard Keynes, to Winston Churchill
 Being a Colonial soldier against native insurrectionists who did not know the exacting Rules of European Warfare, such as standing shoulder-to-shoulder in precise targets lines and taking turns at firing group volleys at one another, must have been most unnerving. A single shot in volley took 56 precise steps, usually on the command of a sergeant (who must have needed one of those little wrist things that footfall quarterbacks have today! Imagine if the savages redskins Indians Native Americans indigenous insurrectionists charged when you were laying down your musket at step 51! Read Philbrick’s fabulous Mayflower to see how they barely survived.
 Here are the orders, or words of command, under the 1668 title of "The Compleat Body of the Art Military," laid down for the practice of the manual of arms (i.e. for such as used the muskets).
1. Stand to your arms
2. Take up your bandoleers
3. Put on your bandoleers
4. Take up your match
5. Place your match
6. Take up your rest
7. Put the string of your rest about your left wrist
8. Take up your musket
9. Rest your musket
10. Poise your musket
11. Shoulder your musket
12. Unshoulder your musket and poise
13. Join your rest to the outside of your musket
14. Open your pan
15. Clear your pan 16. Prime your pan
17. Shut your pan
18. Cast off your loose corns
19. Blow off your loose corns and bring about your musket to the left side
20. Trail your rest
21. Balance your musket in your left hand
22. Find out your charge
23. Open your charge
24. Charge with powder
25. Draw forth your scouring stick
26. Turn and shorten him to an inch
27. Charge with bullet
28. Put your scouring stick into your musket
29. Ram home your charge
30. Withdraw your scouring stick
31. Turn and shorten him to a handfull
32. Return your scouring stick
33. Bring forward your musket and rest
34. Join your rest to the outside of your musket
35. Draw forth your match
36. Blow your coal
37. Cock your match
38. Fit your match
39. Guard your pan
40. Blow the ashes from your coal
41. Open your pan
42. Present upon your rest
43. Give fire, breast high
44. Dismount your musket joining the rest to the outside of the musket
45. Uncock and return your match
46. Clear your pan
47. Shut your pan
48. Poise your musket
49. Rest your musket
50. Set your musket off the rest and set the butt end on the ground
51. Lay down your musket
52. Lay down your match
53. Take your rest into your right hand clearing the string from your left wrist
54. Lay down your rest
55. Take off your bandoleers
56. Lay down your bandoleers
Image: Easy to see why the flintlocks replaced the matchlocks: you could eliminate a few firing steps.
Friday, February 9. 2007
 I bundled up tonight in my old, green, moth-holed wool hunting sweater, and went out after dinner and sat on a frosty lawn chair by the tarp-covered pool, southwest of good old Hartford, with the river chortling in the cool, dim Yankee distance, with the hoot owls hooting far, far off over the hill (What owl, Bird Dog? Hoo, hoo, hoo), and drank a very tall, straight-up, weather-cooled Laphroaig while smoking a delicious Cohiba (sorry, Fidel-haters - I hate him too but I am a sucker for an illegal cigar). Only about a balmy 34 degrees outside. Paradise.
Maybe it's my age that led my thoughts to Social Security - not that it will make any difference in my personal life. But it dawned on me why the Dems are so fiercely opposed to private investment of personal Social Security accounts - even as little as 5%. Of course, we know there is no such thing as personal SS accounts - there is no money there. And of course, the Dems do not want to do anything to risk their Ponzi scheme which would be illegal if any private enterprise tried to build it. But what I realized was this: Even a tiny % of SS investment would make it possible for all Americans, voluntarily, to become investors. Every household could have a stake in the free markets! God forbid - the pathetic Great Unwashed McDonalds-eaters we care so much about - in our markets? The proletariat, become filthy capitalists? No, no, no: they should know their place. The US is well above 50% financial market investors already. Anything higher would create a solid majority with a stake in a capitalist economy, beyond their participation in their daily work. That is the Socialist's nightmare. They cannot tolerate the notion of the proletariat, who are supposed to be on their plantation, checking the price of their GE, Exxon, Apple - and their Heinz. Why? Because how can government take from private enterprise, and over-regulate private enterprise, when a strong majority of folks are invested in it? The Left cannot tolerate wealth-building amongst the proletariat, because it reduces their dependency on the State. Same reason they support death taxes. (They tolerate it quite well amongst themselves, however - but they are different, because "they care".) That's my insight. Blame it on the Laphroaig. Or on Mr. Moon. Good night, moon. Editor's comment: See comments, but this is the all-American Mr. Great Horned Owl. Typically 3-5 deep hoots. A wonderful creature and a terrifying predator, if you are a weak small animal. Known to take skunks, cats, and young raccoons. Often heard, rarely seen.
If you choose to hand-address Christmas cards (as they should be), but are too lazy to write "Mr. and Mrs. P. Chuffington Badlington-Smythe III" on your cards, but opt instead to write "The Badlington-Smythes" - how do you write it? With or without an apostrophe in "Smythes"? If an apostrophe, where? Or do you just dodge the entire grammatical issue by using the overly-casual "The Badlington-Smythe Family"? There is no implied possessive that I can find, so why any apostrophe? Unless it is short for "The Badlington-Smythe's House." But you don't send a card to a house.
 Maggie's Farm, always on the cutting edge of environmental matters, brings you exclusive coverage of California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine announcing he would propose a bill to ban the use of incandescent bulbs in his state. The dim, milky, expensive ones filled with exotic, dangerous gases that require recycling are just as good, and sometimes even come on and emit light-like waves before I crack my shin on the coffee table or before I'm done in the bathroom -- if it's Number 2.
Lloyd is undoubtedly a tireless steward of the environment, and Maggie's Farm is sanguine that he's used the magical powers bestowed upon all state legislators, by virtue of getting several thousand government union workers and extended family members to pull a lever for them every once in a while, to foresee all the various ramifications of outlawing an item that...let's face it... no one much uses any more anyway. I think that's Lloyd on the right there. No, that's a potted plant. My bad. I'm sorry, is that your foot?
China finds itself in a moral and spiritual vacuum, while its economy soars and "relative" freedoms grow. What else is growing in China? Christianity, especially among the better-educated. After two generations of state-worship and Mao-worship, perhaps their hunger for higher things hasn't been eliminated. A quote from a book review in Trinity Forum, What to make of China? Jesus in Beijing introduces a wild card into traditional analyses of China: the growth of its Christian church. Most people outside church circles would consider this topic incidental to the “main” events of economics and politics. Yet growth of the church, particularly in urban areas among highly educated people, is reaching the point where it could begin to influence the tilt of government decisions in the future. This is significant because the institutions that form the bedrock of our global world—democracy, capitalism, free trade, and global financial markets—are in and of themselves morally neutral. They are organizing principles that derive their present moral force from the faith and beliefs of Western civilization. China and the rest of the non-Western world have generally accepted these institutions and their moral anchors because of the dominance of the West. They are playing by the current rules, but they are not necessarily following their own moral beliefs.
 Highly comical Groucho Marx story. Althouse.
Send NY State Sen. Kruger an email. Be nice, or they won't take you seriously. Bainbridge ACLU attorney: "I looked up and I saw Leviticus." ACLU attacks a library. Too bad he didn't read the Leviticus... Blame Christmas cheer, and blame the government: Brits see record number of abortions in January Rough justice. But how rough? Classical Values Faux fur is often not faux. It's coondog. A forbidden assignment in Mecca. NY Sun Something not rotten in Denmark: "Multiculturalism has gone too far." Gates of Vienna "Multiculturalism is really blossoming in Britain these days. It's enough to warm a progressive's heart." Moonbattery. "Kids who attend the Saudi-funded King Fahd Academy in Acton can learn from their textbooks that Christians are "apes" and Jews are "pigs."" Why is Western Europe anti-American? No Pasaran. Honestly, I don't really care why or whether, but I guess it's a bit of a puzzle, since we've saved their asses several times, and even today save them the trouble of maintaining serious militaries. I have a thought of my own, a basic thought about human nature: The given-to always resent the giver, just as recipients of charity must always hate the charitable. It's a matter of maintaining pride, or, you might say, vanity. Charity is a joy for the giver, but a humiliation for the recipient. Pelosi's Tahoe breaks Maggie's Rule of Global Warming. Blue Crab offers Princess Pelosi an airplane solution. How long does it take for these idiots to forget who they work for, and who pays their bills? Dr. Sanity wrote once about "Acquired narcissism." Image: I call this birthday photo "Honey, don't forget the limes." Is that Maggie? We're not telling.
Depending on how you count it, Maggie's Farm is either one or two years old today. Our first year was under the radar - no sitemeter, no stats, etc. - invisible, in the womb. So we could call this our First Official Birthday. All of us farm slaves spend all of the time we are not busy plowing and pruning fruit trees and milking the chickens and feeding the cows and sucking the sap out of Sugar Maples and popping rats at the dump, chained to our PCs in the Maggie's Farm unheated basement amidst squealing mice, flaking asbestos, toxic molds of all sorts, an oil-soaked dirt floor, and dripping pipes, illuminated only by smoking lamps fueled with old recycled tractor oil, required to either Think or Link for our daily allottments of gruel. Yep, "Think or Link." That's what the sign says that hangs from the creaking, termite-infested rafters. Consider that setting when you read us. Those are not tear stains on these pages - they are spots from leaks from the water pipes overhead. Well, most of them. The best present we could receive: Call the SWAT Team and get us out of here Let all your friends, enemies, neighbors, bosses, underlings, kids, colleagues, etc. know about Maggie's. A shame for them to miss out on this pretty good thing. And if you are a blogger, throw us a blogroll. It's a vanity thing. If you are a reader, please leave comments. Sometimes our comment threads contain certain glimmers of humor, and indications - if not proof - of human intelligence. Thanks to our current regular commenters (all highly bribed paid for their work). Other readers: don't be shy. If you have a minute, pitch in. We will pay you equally well. Our mission is simple: To provide a steady stream of stuff that interests or amuses or enrages or delights us, with no ads, with complete free speech and total indifference to the political correctness of the moment, with total independence, with irreverence towards all, with a dose of skepticism towards everything except the US Constitution, and with a deep gratitude for the founders, the traditions, the foundations, and the blessed but shrinking freedom from state power in the USA - and most of all for the God of our Fathers. The official Maggie's Farm hymn (midi music file on link) was written for the Centennial celebration of July 4th: God of our fathers, Whose almighty hand
Leads forth in beauty all the starry band
Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies
Our grateful songs before Thy throne arise. Thy love divine hath led us in the past,
In this free land by Thee our lot is cast,
Be Thou our Ruler, Guardian, Guide and Stay,
Thy Word our law, Thy paths our chosen way. From war’s alarms, from deadly pestilence,
Be Thy strong arm our ever sure defense;
Thy true religion in our hearts increase,
Thy bounteous goodness nourish us in peace. Refresh Thy people on their toilsome way,
Lead us from night to never ending day;
Fill all our lives with love and grace divine,
And glory, laud, and praise be ever Thine. Thanks for visiting us, and thanks to Green Mountain Boy Chris for keeping us up and running. Onward and upward.
Thursday, February 8. 2007
 Physicists at Harvard have been able to play all sorts of games with light.
Astonishing, but I guess the math predicts it. NYT Science Times.
VDH, in City Journal. A quote:  Fast-forward nearly five years, and the national climate has radically changed, so much so that the arguments of Mexifornia—close the borders, return to the melting pot, offer earned citizenship to most aliens of long residence in exchange for acceptance of English and American culture—seem tame today, if not passé. In 2002, when I wrote the original City Journal essay, no one thought that the U.S. Congress would vote to erect a wall. Today there is rumbling that the signed legislation entails only 700 miles of fencing instead of spanning the entire 1,950-mile border. Deportation was once an unimaginable response to the problem of the 11 million here illegally. Now its practicality, rather than its morality, appears the keener point of contention. And the concerted effort by Chicano activists to drive from popular parlance the descriptive term “illegal alien” in favor of the politically correct, but imprecise and often misleading “undocumented worker” has largely failed. Similar efforts to demonize opponents of open borders as “anti-immigrant” or “nativist” have had only a marginal effect in stifling debate, as has the deliberate effort to blur illegal and legal immigration. The old utopian talk of a new borderless zone of dual cultures, spreading on both sides of a disappearing boundary, has given way to a reexamination of NAFTA and its facilitation of greater cross-border flows of goods, services—and illegal aliens and drugs. So why has the controversy over illegal immigration moved so markedly to the right?
One question for VDH: Why is this "to the right"? I do not understand how "left" and "right" apply to illegal immigration. "Illegal" is not a matter of opinion. The law is not complicated on this subject.
 We Better Talk This Over
I think we better talk this over,
Maybe when we both get sober,
You'll understand I'm only a man
Doin' the best that I can.
This situation can only get rougher.
Why should we needlessly suffer?
Let's call it a day, go our own different ways
Before we decay.
You don't have to be afraid of looking into my face,
We've done nothing to each other time will not erase.
I feel displaced, I got a low-down feeling
You been two-faced, you been double-dealing.
I took a chance, got caught in the trance
Of a downhill dance.
Oh, child, why you wanna hurt me?
I'm exiled, you can't convert me.
I'm lost in the haze of your delicate ways
With both eyes glazed.
You don't have to yearn for love, you don't have to be alone,
Somewheres in this universe there's a place that you can call home.
I guess I'll be leaving tomorrow
If I have to beg, steal or borrow.
It'd be great to cross paths in a day and a half
Look at each other and laugh.
But I don't think it's liable to happen
Like the sound of one hand clappin'.
The vows that we kept are now broken and swept
'Neath the bed where we slept.
Don't think of me and fantasize on what we never had,
Be grateful for what we've shared together and be glad.
Why should we go on watching each other through a telescope?
Eventually we'll hang ourselves on all this tangled rope.
Oh, babe, time for a new transition
I wish I was a magician.
I would wave a wand and tie back the bond
That we've both gone beyond. This song first appeared on Street Legal in 1978. I am fond of the loose, casual, garage recording of the song on the album.
 Leave science to the scientists. American Thinker. Of course, the UN Report hasn't been released yet - they are fiddling with the real data until May. Why? Boston Globe. (h/t, Viking)
I suspect someday we will confirm that much climate variation is based on solar radiation. Coyote. Makes sense, since the ice is melting on Mars, and Jupiter is getting more stormy. In the meantime, climate change may become a hate crime - against Eskimos! Why is the Climate Change thing such a bandwagon for the UN and other governments, and for the Left? Because it's an excuse for a money and power grab - whether it's true or not. Pure and simple. It is only rational to be skeptical about such hysterias, because they have always proved to be wrong in the past. But, as we've said, we don't care whether it gets colder or warmer - we can cope. I always try to remember the #1 rule of political power: Trump up a crisis, then offer to solve it. No, insist on solving it: "We can do better." Just consider: Have we ever heard (except for Reagan and Maggie Thatcher) governments offer solutions which reduce government power? Image: Bad, bad Mr. Sun
Pro-life speaker nixed at Catholic school. With info about Margaret Sanger that will blow your mind. (h/t, Michelle)
The world is ruled by violence. Bob Dylan Indeed it is, even in democratic, "social contract" nations where the threat of state violence (police, jails, FBI, Federal prosecutors, etc) is a big part of what holds things together - supposedly. So it's funny to see "life in a bubble" folks at Harvard horrified when a dog kills a squirrel. Harvard Crimson. (h/t, Instapundit). There's a lesson in that.
 Via Hot Air. My views have changed since college, but I'm not so certain about hers. (Grammar Help Desk: Does that "hers" take an apostrophe somewhere, or not?)
If she can say things like this, one must wonder. More worrisome, I think, is that she can say things like that and not be crucified by the press and the voters.
I love this piece, on marriage. Sippican. This author is hiding his candle under a bushel by limiting his writing to a blog. Defending China's pollution. Blair. I guess their pollution is cleaner, or more socialistic, or something. Anyway, it doesn't seem to count. I blame global warming: The UK braces for major snowstorm. Times Leftists always admire, or at least make excuses for, Fidel and now Chavez (and Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc in the past). Why not Hitler too - he was one. The Left and totalitarianism will be forever wedded. Must be, because socialism crushes the human spirit and, eventually, people rebel. Who buys lottery tickets? Answer here. (h/t, Squaring the Boston Globe) Save the Polar Bears: Open a garbage dump. SDA New Green Crimes in the EU. Quote from Samizdata: It used to be the dream of socialists and utopians of varying degrees of malevolence or stupidity to want a world state. In a world state, pesky local regulatory differences would be obliterated and replaced by a rational grid of laws from which no escape was possible. In true 'watermelon' fashion - green on the outside, red in the core - the Greens are embracing the instruments of a pan-national state to enforce their ideas.
Nice image of the not-yet-completed USS New York, an amphibious assault ship (LPD 21) containing 24 tons of WTC steel. What would you give to drive this baby around the block a few times? 
One of the rum things about human life is that we treat any stage we happen to be going though as something permanent and unchangeable, as if spring will never come, as if happiness will never end, as if youth will last for ever. Simon Barnes, Times sports writer, as quoted by Stumbling and Mumbling
Wednesday, February 7. 2007
The Pakistan steam railroad, over the historically critical Khyber Pass, between Pakisatan and Afghanistan. You can do it. Margaret Vladisova did, and posted her photos here. 
Why won't Bush et al push nuclear energy? Forget global warming - it's the only sure and cheap path to energy independence. Piece at American.com Blacks and Hispanics lag in educational achievement. LaShawn takes a look at immigration, self-help, culture, etc. and how these variable affect education. Links to some good stuff. A quote: Back in the day, immigrants flocked to the United States, ready, willing, and able to become assimilated, English-speaking Americans. They prized not only America’s opportunities but what America symbolized. These immigrants didn’t just want a good job or higher standard of living. They wanted to be productive and proud Americans. Today’s “immigrants,” mostly from Central America, have no such ambitions. They come to the U.S. for the employment opportunities and to take advantage of America’s social services. They know what suckers we are for the “disadvantaged,” and they use our own generosity and laws against us. Not only are illegal aliens pouring across the border, they’re reproducing at higher rates than the native population. Since the federal government is uninterested in carrying out immigration law, illegal aliens are here to stay. This new wave of “immigrants” is uneducated, poor, lacks good English-speaking skills, has disproportionately higher rates of out-of-wedlock births and crime. While black Americans have the convenient white boogeyman to point to as the cause of all their troubles, illegal aliens aren’t really complaining or blaming anyone for anything. At least not yet.
Hating Horatio, by Dr. Jack Wheeler in Free Republic. It begins thus: Ancient Rome's greatest historian was Titus Livius, known to us as Livy (59 BC-17 AD). In the Second Book of his monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City), he tells the famous story of Horatio at the Bridge. In 510 BC, Rome was threatened with destruction from an invading army of Etruscans. All Romans living in the countryside had abandoned their homes and fled for protection inside the city. The city walls were heavily garrisoned, but the most vulnerable point was a wooden bridge, the Pons Sublicius, across the river Tiber and into Rome. When Etruscan forces focused their attack on the bridge, the Roman troops guarding it fled in fear - save for one man, a soldier named Horatius, whom we call Horatio.
Read the whole thing - it's about Iraq and Bush.
The truth is true whether you want to believe it or not...it doesn't need you to make it true. That lie about everbody having their own truth inside of them has done a lot of damage and made people crazy. Bob Dylan (in his notes for the Biograph album)
Cold enuf for ya, in Yankeeland? Heretics must be tried and burned at the stake. One Oregon Prof and the warming religion. A little intimidation of debate? Same experience that Dr. Ball had in Canada. You might figure that if people want to stifle discussion, they might not really feel so confident. But what if the heretics are right? The dissenters have been right about every other predicted environmental apocalypse in the past 30 years. No-one should be allowed to vote before passing a serious statistics course, to protect them from being duped. MSM lies, and a little civics lesson: Calif. Yankee Thank You, Connecticut, for re-electing Joe Lieberman. A voice of sanity. Captain Ed India offers a model for Europe: A Shariah Court in every county. Ah, yes - it is all going according to Mohammed's plan. Turn on the sound when you watch The Islamic Mein Kampf.
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