Maggie's Farm

Quoted in a piece on dealing with rejection at Dr. Helen:

Legendary psychologist Albert Ellis pioneered the "shame-attacking exercise" in 1933 at age 19, when he decided to approach every woman who sat down alone on a bench at the New York Botanical Garden. "Thirty walked away immediately," he told the New York Times. "I talked with the other 100, for the first time in my life, no matter how anxious I was. Nobody vomited and ran away. Nobody called the cops."

And Ellis learned he wouldn't die from rejection. Of the first 130 women he went up to, he got only one date, he said, but "with the second 100, I got good and made a few dates"—and, eventually, got to be "one of the best picker-uppers of women in the United States."

Department of Black Humor: From MySpace, borrowed from Right Wing News:

It's the second day in a row with temps above freezing, so it is either a global warming issue or early Spring. Worth a trip to Florence: Botticelli's allegorical La Primavera.

And for a cute springtime photo of an old bridge over the Seine (possibly not OK for work unless you work in a sawmill), see continuation page. You will like this one, Bruce:

Luke 13: 1-9

1 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ²He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? ³No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. ⁴Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? ⁵No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

⁶Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ ⁸He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Image: A fig tree. We can grow the Brown Turkey fig in New England, if it is given good protection over the winter. It grows like a shrub.

Thanks to our Harvard physicist pal Lubos for linking the entire movie of The Great Global Warming Swindle.  So many fine folks who help with the labor on Maggie's Farm - it's a blessing.

I don't know what to watch first, 300 or the Swindle. OK, I am off duty for the evening.

As a counterpoint, how is this for shrill panic-mongering?

Update: OK, I watched the whole thing. Quite engaging. They have some real heavyweights in it. What is most striking is how much money is at stake in promoting the warming scare. And yes, it's all about Mr. Sun and his spots.

The movie does need to be seen, to balance the debate. Send it around. Riehl has some good comments and summary of the points. The big problem is that people are not properly educated in science or scientific thinking, so they are prone to believing anything. The only proper attitude towards research is skepticism. Interest, but skepticism. And never trust "truth" in the world of science, because "truth" does not exist in that world.

In science, facts and theories can be "falsifiable," but Truth is always elusive. This is why most scientists are humble.

It's a comic book movie, of the best sort, from reading the reviews around the blogs. Testosterone City. Proud Greeks eager to fight and die for their families and their homeland.

Clips here. Right Wing Nation's thoughts here. Jawa's amusing review here. I don't think Dr. Sanity has seen it yet, but she has some thoughts about it.

What would western civilization be without Thermopylae, Salamis, Lopanto, Poitiers - and more? We owe everything we are, and have, and can be, to warriors.

Timely indeed, BL: DC Circuit strikes down DC Gun laws. This will get interesting. Instap. has some updated links to other commentators.

A quote from the opinion:

To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment's civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.

Music to my ears. It is the music of the basic human right to self-defence being protected. I think I'll read it again, and then bring out the champagne.

The border war with Mexico - or at least with Mexicans - is heating up, big time.

I think we ought to send this guy down there.

The guys at EU Referendum are working on a book about how scientific scares are generated. They offer this illuminating graph, demonstrating the delinkage of CO2 levels with temperature (and the linkage with sunspot cycles). Sorry - I forget who found this piece, but it reminds us of what was traditionally taught: that CO2 concentration is caused by temp changes.  Oh, now I remember: h/t to Flares.

... if there's one thing I've learned in nearly four years of blogging, it's that defeating the logic of an argument does not defeat the argument.

Eric at Classical Values

Could you relax and pee in this men's room? Giggling could be a problem. It's in a hotel in Queensland, NZ:

Yes, people - All weather from now on is due to global warming. If you can believe it, this is from SI. It's the kind of article people will pull out in three years and laugh about:

The next time a ball game gets rained out during the September stretch run, you can curse the momentary worthlessness of those tickets in your pocket. Or you can wonder why it got rained out -- and ask yourself why practice had to be called off last summer on a day when there wasn't a cloud in the sky; and why that Gulf Coast wharf where you used to reel in mackerel and flounder no longer exists; and why it's been more than one winter since you pulled those titanium skis out of the garage.

Given the weather, maybe it would be an excuse for a swimsuit cover every month? Whole ridiculous thing at SI (h/t, Drudge). I thought it was a satire. Was it? Tell me it was a spoof.