We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
This piece by Major Shul came in over the transom:
In April 1986, following an attack on American soldiers in a Berlin disco, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Muammar Qaddafi's terrorist camps in Libya. My duty was to fly over Libya and take photos recording the damage our F-111's had inflicted. Qaddafi had established a 'line of death,' a territorial marking across the Gulf of Sidra, swearing to shoot down any intruder that crossed the boundary. On the morning of April 15, I rocketed past the line at 2,125 mph.
I was piloting the SR-71 spy plane, the world's fastest jet, accompanied by Maj Walter Watson, the aircraft's reconnaissance systems officer (RSO). We had crossed into Libya and were approaching our final turn over the bleak desert landscape when Walter informed me that he was receiving missile launch signals. I quickly increased our speed, calculating the time it would take for the weapons-most likely SA-2 and SA-4 surface-to-air missiles capable of Mach 5 - to reach our altitude. I estimated that we could beat the rocket-powered missiles to the turn and stayed our course, betting our lives on the plane's performance.
After several agonizingly long seconds, we made the turn and blasted toward the Mediterranean. 'You might want to pull it back,' Walter suggested. It was then that I noticed I still had the throttles full forward. The plane was flying a mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit. It was the fastest we would ever fly. I pulled the throttles to idle just south of Sicily, but we still overran the refueling tanker awaiting us over Gibraltar.
Scores of significant aircraft have been produced in the 100 years of flight, following the achievements of the Wright brothers, which we celebrate in December. Aircraft such as the Boeing 707, the F-86 Sabre Jet, and the P-51 Mustang are among the important machines that have flown our skies. But the SR-71, also known as the Blackbird, stands alone as a significant contributor to Cold War victory and as the fastest plane ever-and only 93 Air Force pilots ever steered the 'sled,' as we called our aircraft.
My garden blazes brightly with the rose-bush and the peach, And the koil sings above it, in the siris by the well, From the creeper-covered trellis comes the squirrel's chattering speech, And the blue jay screams and flutters where the cheery sat-bhai dwell. But the rose has lost its fragrance, and the koil's note is strange; I am sick of endless sunshine, sick of blossom-burdened bough. Give me back the leafless woodlands where the winds of Springtime range -- Give me back one day in England, for it's Spring in England now!
Through the pines the gusts are booming, o'er the brown fields blowing chill, From the furrow of the ploughshare streams the fragrance of the loam, And the hawk nests on the cliffside and the jackdaw in the hill, And my heart is back in England 'mid the sights and sounds of Home. But the garland of the sacrifice this wealth of rose and peach is, Ah! koil, little koil, singing on the siris bough, In my ears the knell of exile your ceaseless bell like speech is -- Can you tell me aught of England or of Spring in England now?
* koil -- The Indian bell-bird.
sat-bhai -- Indian starlings.
Kipling really wrote songs, not poems, it seems to me, and he was known to sing them. Not that there is any real difference. He came to mind this week because of neoneo's piece on Kipling in Vermont, which led us to Sippican's Kipling Table. Photo: Naulakha, Kipling's arts and crafts Vermont home where he wrote the Jungle Books, among others.
Filthy rich Dems. This week we have linked on the Clinton and Gore multi-millions. Here's a new windfall for Bill Clinton.Meanwhile, all they can say is that everything in America is terrible: Bleak House, at Dr. Sanity.
If you speak out against Guantanamo Bay, that doesn't mean you're promoting terrorism. But if you speak out against the human-rights prosecution of Marc Lemire, you're "promoting" him and his views. Funny how that works, isn't it?" - Damian Penny
George McGovern at the WSJ. I can't believe my ears:
Since leaving office I've written about public policy from a new perspective: outside looking in. I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.
Why do we think we are helping adult consumers by taking away their options? We don't take away cars because we don't like some people speeding. We allow state lotteries despite knowing some people are betting their grocery money. Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind. But we don't operate mindlessly in trying to smooth out every theoretical wrinkle in life.
"What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? And Just How Sensitive is the Climate Anyway? A final dispatch from the International Climate Change Conference"
Klaus noted that ideological environmentalism appeals to the same sort of people who have always been attracted to collectivist ideas. He warned that environmentalism at its worst is just the latest dogma to claim that a looming "crisis" requires people to sacrifice their prosperity and their freedoms for the greater good. Let me quote Klaus at length.
"Future dangers will not come from the same source. The ideology will be different. Its essence will, nevertheless, be identical—the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of the common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice man and his freedom in order to make this idea reality," warned Klaus. "What I have in mind [is], of course, environmentalism and its currently strongest version, climate alarmism."
Photo: Our favorite photo of tennis fan and freedom's champion Vaclav Klaus
I have been hearing much praise for this year's Philadelphia Flower Show. It is known as the best and the biggest plant and flower show in the country.
Should have sent somebody with a camera. Some exhibitors have constructed entire small scale landscapes and gardens - with trees - in the Convention Center. Here's a photo from the show's photo gallery:
I have Friday off and will be skiing again for two days at Mt. Snow (current conditions here - when they call it "granular," they mean like gravel, but if it warms up a little it's a nice ride), so I will leave our readers with this "stack of stuff":
Man-made floods in the Grand Canyon. We have mentioned many times here that flooding is good and natural. Foolish to live where floods happen, though: if you are asking for it, do not come crying to me.
It may well be that I am suffering from some sort of mental illness. Whether to call it "Hillaryphobia" I don't know. "Clintonphobia" is more like it, as I view them as inseparable people. FWIW, I think they suffer from Comegalomania. I know I complain a lot about Hillary's screeching voice, but to tell the truth, just about every time Bill puts on his angry satyr face and throws another tantrum, I have the same reaction. I've had Clinton fatigue for years, but to see them alive again and playing their same old dirty tricks, appalls, disgusts and annoys me as few things can.
How dare she? I am with Coyote on Mrs. Obama. A multi-millionaire Princeton and Harvard grad makes a national complaint about how difficult life is, about her college loans, and about getting good babysitters - while telling me to get a low-paying job in a "caring" profession. What a baby. Nobody owes her anything, least of all a (proud) UMass grad like me (where I stupidly majored in Domestic Beer Studies with a minor in Coed Studies - but it wasn't my fault).
ALI ETERAZ on Harvard's gym-closing mistake. Meanwhile, some readers wonder if Harvard will close its gyms to openly gay men at certain hours, so that straight men who are made uncomfortable by gays can work out without being uncomfortable. It appears that they're in sync with Islamic thought . . . .
Why Cass Sunstein likes Obama. A puff piece? I do not take political advice from Mr. Sunstein. Still, Obama seems like an amiable, bright guy. Wrong politics, though.
Our first migratory wave of flocks of Common Grackles and Robins arrived here this week from their winter in the southern US. We have spoken of Turdus Migratorius (Robin) here in the past, but not about the Common Grackle, who has been extending his range from the Mississippi Valley across the US east of the Rockies, and north into Canada.
A flock of these large wetlands-loving (but highly adaptable) blackbirds will empty your bird feeder in a few hours, accompanied by their loud screeching and squawking.
Our friend Sippican sends this photo of a migratory flock in his yard on the Massachusetts coast last September:
Not only has there's been a rise in the number of Christian "work affinity" groups at city firms - including American Express, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Suisse Bank, Goldman Sachs and Ernst & Young- there's also a growing number of city-based advocacy groups promoting the integration of faith and work.
They stay low-profile, though. It almost reminds me of the early days of Christianity in Rome:
"There are very strong religious groups in New York City, it's just that people don't talk about it," said the woman, 25, who asked not to have her name or the firm name used, citing company protocol about speaking to the press - and noting that firms do not endorse or sponsor such groups. "It's all here, it's just not as public."
(A desire to stay under the radar seems to have been reflected in the reporting for this story: Most leaders of work-site groups contacted either didn't respond to messages or declined to comment.)
I say bring Him to work. He can handle it, and Wall Street needs His companionship as much as any other workplace.
A quote from a piece on Mayor Bloomberg at Pajamas:
Since he took office six years ago, Mike Bloomberg’s record is, among other things, a study in finicky prohibition. Not only is Bloomberg certain of what’s best for you, he knows you to lack the good sense to choose it. In order to ensure the well being of his charges, the Mayor has instituted a few laws about which he has said, “People will adjust very quickly and a lot of lives will be saved.” Has an American politician ever expressed a more vitally un-American sentiment? Dubious claims of life-saving aside, American citizens aren’t to be schoolmarmed into compulsory purification.
I say, again and again, that it is an embarrassing non-sequitur to argue that people are "irrational" and then leap to the conclusion that they need benevolent paternal guidance from the state. After all, if people are irrational then voters are irrational, politicians are irrational, bureaucrats are irrational, etc. ... There is no way to wriggle out of the fact that people who win elections are just like the rest of us. ... I don't doubt that non-terrible policies are sometimes successfully enacted. To doubt that would be a bit like a market skeptic doubting that anyone ever succeeds in buying a candy bar. That would be terrifically dense. What I doubt, very strongly, is that the discovery of "irrationalities" undermines the authority of market institutions more than it undermines the authority of government institutions.
Well said. Serious adult people are not interested in controlling other adult people (unless they're married, of course).
"Well, there was this movie I seen one time, About a man riding 'cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck. He was shot down by a hungry kid trying to make a name for himself. The townspeople wanted to crush that kid down and string him up by the neck.
Well, the marshal, now he beat that kid to a bloody pulp as the dying gunfighter lay in the sun and gasped for his last breath. Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me fair and square, I want him to feel what it's like to every moment face his death.
Well, I keep seeing this stuff and it just comes a-rolling in And you know it blows right through me like a ball and chain. You know I can't believe we've lived so long and are still so far apart. The memory of you keeps callin' after me like a rollin' train.
I can still see the day that you came to me on the painted desert In your busted down Ford and your platform heels I could never figure out why you chose that particular place to meet Ah, but you were right. It was perfect as I got in behind the wheel.
Well, we drove that car all night into San Anton' And we slept near the Alamo, your skin was so tender and soft. Way down in Mexico you went out to find a doctor and you never came back. I would have gone on after you but I didn't feel like letting my head get blown off.
Well, we're drivin' this car and the sun is comin' up over the Rockies, Now I know she ain't you but she's here and she's got that dark rhythm in her soul. But I'm too over the edge and I ain't in the mood anymore to remember the times when I was your only man And she don't want to remind me. She knows this car would go out of control..."
Lyrics to the 11-minute song continued on the following page. A youtube below has the entire audio of the song, oddly accompanied by a Tina Turner video. But ... that doesn't matter, since the audio is all that you need for this one. It's from "Knocked Out Loaded," the first and likely last song will will feature from that particular album (at least for a while).
For years now, the American left has been arguing that the war in Iraq is a distraction from the "real" war against al Qaeda and is counter-productive because it's "creating" new terrorists. Apparently, it never occurred to these deep-thinkers that inflicting a defeat on al-Qaeda in Iraq -- a defeat made possible because a previously sympathetic population turned with our help against al Qaeda -- might constitute a devastating blow to al Qaeda's standing in the Arab world.
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
King Solomon in Ecclesiastes, 9:11 (thanks, H. - I studied Ecclesiastes a couple of years ago. It is packed with good things.)
There's a big world out there.Maggie's Farm hangs out in a comfy little corner of the "blogosphere." Of course, hard-core porn is the biggest biz by far on these internets, but we are accustomed to thinking of an Instalanche or a Powerline link as BIG. And a FARK link as very big. But Digg, whose link is below each of our posts (please click our Digg link if something might be of general interest), has true global power. Digg has exposed us to more than a month's worth of potential readers in 24 hrs. We hope some of 'em will stick around.
And, since I am on the subject of ye olde blogge, please, readers - don't be shy. Post a reaction or an opinion. We know that you are all busy, but we like to hear reactions, and you do not need to sign in or any of that annoying nonsense because we have a potent spam-stopper which sometimes stops even us.
You be the pundit. What do you think about those primaries? Leave thoughts in comments.
I am told by those who know such things that Platycodon grandiflorus, a member of the Campanula family, belongs in every perennial flower border.
Some cartoons from the 
"What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? And Just How Sensitive is the Climate Anyway? A final dispatch from the International Climate Change Conference"
I have Friday off and will be skiing again for two days at Mt. Snow (current conditions 
Our first migratory wave of flocks of Common Grackles and Robins arrived here this week from their winter in the southern US. We have spoken of Turdus Migratorius (Robin) here in the past, but not about the Common Grackle, who has been extending his range from the Mississippi Valley across the US east of the Rockies, and north into Canada.
A quote from a piece on Mayor Bloomberg 
We have had problems with images as fallout from the things we had to do to manage our link storm this week. Bear with us.
There's a big world out there. Maggie's Farm hangs out in a comfy little corner of the "blogosphere." Of course, hard-core porn is the biggest biz by far on these internets, but we are accustomed to thinking of an Instalanche or a Powerline link as BIG. And a FARK link as very big. But Digg, whose link is below each of our posts (please click our Digg link if something might be of general interest), has true global power. Digg has exposed us to more than a month's worth of potential readers in 24 hrs. We hope some of 'em will stick around. 