Sunday, November 30. 2008
 A sign on the door of wounded SEAL Lieut. Jason Redman at Walter Reid Hospital:
"Attention to all who enter here. If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds, go elsewhere. The wounds I received I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love. I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery. What is full? That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. Then I will push that about 20 percent further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you are about to enter is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere."
No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. Mark Twain (h/t, LGF)
 "Fresh antiques made daily" by our friend at Sippican Cottage. His biz site is Sippican Furniture.com.
This is serious handmade country furniture made by a Yankee fellow who knows wood inside and out - not department store stuff. Solid wood on antique designs. Scroll down past the Victorian Christmas here at The Denver Post for an appreciation of Sipp's work. Yes, he can deliver before Christmas, and he'll build you anything you want. (He's having lots of fun building me a large Spanish Cedar-lined Tiger Maple humidor.) My next (post-Christmas) project for him may be a round kitchen table to seat 10.
 Many are advising me to buy this camera, or one of their TZ line.
Why do people always want me to buy stuff? I like stuff but, being a stingy Yankee, I hate spending money, and I hate getting onto the mo bigga betta bandwagon. Well, more accurately, I should say that am ambivalent about it. (When it comes to guns, mo is betta until it's time to clean and oil them.) Anyway, I saw they have them at Costco (where the optician is a heck of a nice fellow). I do not need a SLR, because I would never learn how to take advantage of its capacities because I have terminal ADD and, also, was dropped on my head too many times as a kid. Maybe something for my Santa list...unless Obama gives me one first.
Thanks to Vanderleun for pointing out a Captain's blog, Flight Level 390. It gave me a good sense of what pilots are doing up there in the cockpit.
It's snowing hard this morning in NYC. Lovely, but I am concerned - deeply concerned - about the glacial advances and their effect on real estate values. Perhaps Dr. Merc is wise to live on his boat in Florida.  Moslems say they will quit attacks if Americans give up beer. Good grief. Perhaps they do not really love "peace." Related, from Am Digest, Repulsive Islam.
Related: I guess it is all about the beer, because electing Barack Hussein Obama just didn't calm them down. And some jolly Islamophobia from Steyn - one quote: Signora Fallaci then moves on to the livelier examples of contemporary Islam -- for example, Ayatollah Khomeini's "Blue Book" and its helpful advice on romantic matters: "If a man marries a minor who has reached the age of nine and if during the defloration he immediately breaks the hymen, he cannot enjoy her any longer." I'll say. I know it always ruins my evening. Also: "A man who has had sexual relations with an animal, such as a sheep, may not eat its meat. He would commit sin." Indeed. A quiet cigarette afterwards as you listen to your favourite Johnny Mathis LP and then a promise to call her next week and swing by the pasture is by far the best way. It may also be a sin to roast your nine-year-old wife, but the Ayatollah's not clear on that.
That Steyn is so multicultually insensitive, isn't he? How does the sheep community feel about this casual dating? Have Europeans ever believed in freedom? I very much doubt it. (And voting isn't freedom, is it?) Black Friday and Love. Anchoress "A murderer in Canada has more rights than somebody accused by the Canadian Human Rights Commission." Ezra Levant Bush through the Obama prism. VDH Via Boudreaux: In modern America, the market's bounty is assumed always to be there, as if it emerges naturally from the soil, available for us to "redistribute" as we wish.
About that famous old "Message to Garcia" In Phil Gramm's defense. Dust My Broom It's the culture, stupid. Culture, race, and the aboriginal industry The Krugman recipe for Depression. Amity Schlaes Conservatism needs to get sexy again. And how. They call this "security"? (Maybe they think "full auto" means a car full of Somali immigrants?) The British security guards escaped by jumping into the water, said a news release issued by their company, Anti-Piracy Maritime Security Solutions.
Photo of Coney Island, 1910, via Dr. X who always has interesting photos. Note that sign "Special Ten cents." Does your keyboard have a "cents" symbol? (Dr. Merc probably knows how to do it.)
13:24 "But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 13:25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 13:26 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. 13:27 Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. 13:28 "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 13:29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 13:30 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 13:31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 13:32 "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 13:33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 13:34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 13:35 Therefore, keep awake--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 13:36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 13:37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."
Saturday, November 29. 2008
Here it is only late November, and the dang glaciers just keep on coming. Here's me this morning, trying to keep the Farm family warm in our Wooly Mammoth-bone igloo in New England (as you can see, the Mammoths have eaten all of the Rhododendrons and Azaleas): 
 Gene Expressions takes another look at Cultural Regions of the United States. One quote:
One of the obvious inferences that can be made from the data is that New Englanders shaped the culture and polities of many regions of the United States where they were a minority. Boston was self-consciously the Athens of America. Not only does this region have many elite universities, but the more prominent state institutions such as the Universities of Michigan and Wisconsin were started in part by Yankees who valued these sorts of public investments. The role of New Englanders in primary education throughout the United States is well known, Puritan America may have been the world's first universally literate society, and they were intent on spreading this trait across every group into the United States.
Though New Englanders were often outnumbered by later waves of immigration from the Upland South (e.g., Scots-Irish), as in the Pacific Northwest's Willamette Valley or Northern California, they were overrepresented among the intelligentsia and captains of industry. In the western Upper Midwest Yankees were absorbed by a sea of Northern European immigration, but for several generations they retained a hold on the cultural and capital classes. One might contend that many of the complaints about the "brainwashing" which occurs at elite universities of bright but impressionable young men and women is simply the latest manifestation of the conflict between numerically superior Middle America and the elitist New England outlook (even outside of New England, see Leland Stanford's biography).
 I remember back in '87, buying my first modem. The expensive new 2400 bauds were out, but I settled for a normal 1200 baud. "There's no need to go so fast," I said at the time. "So what if it takes an extra thirty minutes to download a file? Big deal! This new 'faster and faster' modem thing is just a fad!"
And, for the most part, it could be argued I was right. Okay, so it would take six minutes to display this page with my new modem — but what's a mere six minutes for a quality product like a Maggie's Farm home page? Of course, waiting half a day to see one of the videos might irk some of its more impetuous readers, so there might be something to this 'faster and faster' thing, after all.
And, yes, I eventually bought the lightning-fast 2400 baud modem. I was smokin'! "With this kind of speed, I'll never have to upgrade again!," I proclaimed loudly for all to hear.
Sticking tightly to my resolve, I immediately bought a 9600 modem when they came out. Then a 14.4. Then a 19.2. Then a 28.8. Then a 33.6. Then a 56K. Then I combined two 56K's using MultiLink. Then I got one of them fancy new 'experimental' ADSL modems at .768 meg. Then cable at 1 meg. Then 1.5. Then 2. Then 3. Then 5.
Then I ended up going wireless.
I always was a sucker for fads.
And, during that entire time, I tried program after program and tweak file after tweak file that claimed it would increase my Internet speed, and not one of them ever did.
Until this rascal drifted along.
This is a patch to update Windows XP (and earlier) to meet current broadband standards. Vista already has the updates. To possibly double your browsing speed, please...
Continue reading "Doc's Computin' Tips: Double your browsing speed?"
 The new political economy. Krauthammer
Why they hate Mumbai I heard that Lord&Taylor was empty, but somebody got crushed to death by crowds at WalMart. Viking went to WalMart, and they were sold out of TVs. I have never been to WalMart, and I don't go Christmas shopping. Re shopping, Greg Mankiw wants you to buy this book. Kingsley Amis on everyday drinking. It's all about the Credit Default Swaps (h/t, reader) Where to set up a weather station. Nothing like asphalt to keep those temps interesting. But the entire subject is on the back burner now. Or, should I say, in the back of the fridge? Vintage marijuana Targeting our Yankee trains? We've already had enough from those people. Arm the passengers and engineers. Libs: Are they impossible to please? (h/t to I-forget-who) Media bias infects media self-examination.(Also, h/t to I-forgot) Foolish me for not knowing what a Dyson is. Photo: That's the Unsinkable Molly Brown's house in Denver
Friday, November 28. 2008
 I have never seen this famous Rosie person on TV, but I gather she is some big celeb of some sort, for some undoubtedly well-deserved reason which is unknown by me.
She must be a very big celeb, because she gets more TV viewers than we get daily visitors at Maggie's Farm! That's proof that the world is nuts. Well, on the other hand, we don't have a broadcast monopoly either.
If you think that government really wants to, or can, or will, help you with your life problems, just ask yourself this: "Where did I ever get that idea? Who put that idea in my head?" Rush, paraphrased, on the radio today. Related: Is govt a service or a product? Related: Angst about how hard life is, from multi-millionaire Michelle Obama. Who said life was supposed to be easy? What do we have bones and muscles and brains for? Surely not to play tiddlywinks.
I’ve never seen the attraction of prostitution. If a man wants quick unfulfilling sex with a woman who despises him, he should get married.
That's from Stumbling, with whom we have frequent disagreements. He refuses to consider the possibility that some entrepreneurial women might want to be whores. It pays well, requires little higher education, and is a "cash business" (ie, no taxes). We already linked AVI's piece on a related topic, with this quote: We care very deeply about these expressions of who we are as a society, locally or nationally. Some people don’t want to see strip malls. Some don’t want to see litter. Some don’t want to see sexual advocacy in the children’s section of the public library. Zoning, historical districts, wilderness areas, nude beaches, prayers before football games, public smoking, girlie magazines at the convenience store, transvestites, mosques, loud music next door, ORV’s, communications towers, homeless people, Wal-marts…We don’t want to see it! Or we do. It says something bad/good about us as a people. We want to feel that the place is ours, that it expresses us. I don’t want to live in a society that…
Yes. We get to decide what we want around us, don't we? Sometimes I think rationalist materialists like Stumbling need to listen more often to this great Supertramp tune and develop a bit of humility about his/their rationalism:
 Of course we are.
Most of us want to be desirable and desired, and feel terrible if we are not. Obviously, the human species would be long gone if that were not the case. I don't mean just physically, but I do mean at least partly physically. A good lady has many more sources of charm than boobs. It seems to me that guys tend to outgrow their sexual narcissism - their desire to look physically appealing to females - sooner in life than do ladies. (However, they do not outgrow their interest in females.) On the other hand, guys have, perhaps, more ways of being attractive than ladies have, and they do not have menopause to make them look and feel old. Why does the subject come up? Because of this report, Why Do Women Have Breasts? That anthropological essay (on pdf) claims that breasts (which are largely absent in the other great apes except while nursing) confer an evolutionary advantage that has nothing to do with sex appeal. I do not know the answer. I do know that in societies like ours, men love to look at, and to play with, breasties. I have no idea whether that is equally true in the jungle where nobody wears tops.
 Man, do I need an extra-large coffee this morning. Here's Thanking the Puritans.
"Average Joe" Biden and his $4 million Nantucket house. I still believe that Liberals and Leftists love money, and that quasi-Libertarian-Conservatives like me just value free opportunities to do whatever we people want to do. Related: Biden still without portfolio. Makes good sense to me. India terror attack is Obama's first test. Related: India matters. NRO. Related: Jihad Update at Atlas. Obama on the "urgency" of fixing global warming. What global warming? I think it's a modern-day apocalyptic myth. We humans love such myths to organize and to "give meaning" to our lives...or don't we? I think I need my own life to give meaning to my life. As far as I know for sure, it's the only life I've got. Rahm Emanuel: we should "never let a serious crisis go to waste..." I am afraid I know what he means. Crises, whether real or trumped-up, are opportunities to expand gummint power. Same for Bush. Rove praises Obama's economic team. Jules is thankful for a few things. I am thankful for personal things - that I have a big family, and a decent job, and that I have the chance to live in NYC for a while. It's a darn lively spot this time of year. Inspiring, really, how smart folks are and how hard people work - and how they find ways to have a good time doing it. The world has become normal again. SNAFU. Can Marxism ever die? Am Thinker. No ideology has produced more death, misery, injustice, and oppression. Obama tells disappointed supporters: "I am the Change." Hmmm. WTH? Well, OK for now, but he sounds like a pompous goofball to me. I hope he doesn't believe his own BS.
Thursday, November 27. 2008
And we wish him, and his comrades, the same. Powerline. God bless our uniformed guys and gals. They do it for us, and we are unspeakably grateful.
For Thursday Free Ad for Bob, his 1988 folk-rock recording of Shenandoah. To my mind, the best version of that tune I've ever heard. Give it a listen:
We will not be posting much today, but we want to say that a sunset from a duck boat on Lake Winnipegosis is an excellent representation of God's bountiful nature. 
Wednesday, November 26. 2008
Try this: Splash a little real Maple Syrup on top of your slice of Pumpkin Pie tomorrow. You'll be hooked.
 The new documentary Blocking "The Path to 9-11." A reader says it's fascinating, and so do the Amazon reviewers.
It's a DVD.
With the global cooling becoming increasingly obvious, when will it be declared a crisis? Still too many deniers, I guess. Quoted at Gateway's It's a Hoax: Climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill are quietly watching a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.
While the new Obama administration promises aggressive, forward-thinking environmental policies, Weather Channel co-founder Joseph D’Aleo and other scientists are organizing lobbying efforts to take aim at the cap-and-trade bill that Democrats plan to unveil in January.
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