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.
I just read about the circular firing squads at the IPCC, with calls for the firing of the CPU and even for the disbanding of the entire IPCC (why not the rest of the UN at the same time?). Plus other good details at Climate Depot and also in the Political Climate column of Icecap.
Addendum #3: The more I think about it, the more I think that Climategate might be the biggest expose of the year. And yet the MSM will barely mention it because it DOES NOT FIT THE SOCIALIST NARRATIVE. Unbelievable, for people who supposedly want viewers and to sell newspapers - but they did the same thing with the ACORN stories. Thus for real news we must rely on amateurs, semi-pros, and bloggers. This from Clive Crook via Blair:
In my previous post on Climategate
I blithely said that nothing in the climate science email dump
surprised me much. Having waded more deeply over the weekend I take
that back.
The closed-mindedness of these supposed men of science, their
willingness to go to any lengths to defend a preconceived message, is
surprising even to me. The stink of intellectual corruption is overpowering. And, as Christopher Booker argues,
this scandal is not at the margins of the politicised IPCC process. It
is not tangential to the policy prescriptions emanating from what David
Henderson called the environmental policy milieu. It goes to the core of that process ...
Here are three cool vids of three very cool remote-controlled airplanes.
First, introducing the Hydroboat-plane-car-helicopter-lawnmower-skateboard:
Pretty nifty, eh? And some review I read mentioned "sand and snow", so I guess we can add "dune buggy" and "snowmobile" to the list.
Aerodynamically, what's amazing is how maneuverable it is with what little wing surface it has. But it certainly seems like it's under fairly tight control.
And one big plus point is that they don't cost very much, compared to jumping into the field of normal R/C planes and expensive control boxes. So when you pile the rascal up, it won't be a wallet-killer to replace it, and it also gives us the luxury to try a different brand if we're not happy with the first one. Try Stormlauncher, Graupner and HydroFlyer, and Toys 'R' Us has a pretty good selection of flying toys.
Now, if you want a more conventional plane, but one that can still pull off some simple, basic maneuvers, try this little honey:
That's a pretty cool moment when he stands it on its nose. Don't try it at home!
On the other hand, if the above planes are too mechanical-looking...
Whether you call it global warming or climate change or greenie hysteria or a religion or Lefty politics, the fact is that it's an industry, and one which has become increasing lucrative over recent years.
Goldman Sachs, never a company to pass up on chances to make lots of money, has done extensive planning to capitalize on carbon credit markets - as has Al Gore. But don't forget Big Academia: Surber
"If you follow online analysis from obscure websites on the fringes of the map, you'll know what's going on. If you go to the convenience store and buy today's newspaper, you won't."
Two of Canada's greatest and most undersung recent heroes are environmental economist Ross McKitrick and statistical minerologist Steven McIntyre, who by their tireless research in the teeth of the entire ecological establishment, proved the former IPCC claim of drastically accelerated global warming was a fraud. These men have been prominently mentioned in the hacked emails that have just revealed the outrageous lengths the scientific propagators of the Great Green Fraud have gone to to suppress the facts.
At a recent town hall meeting, President Obama said, "Now,
the only thing that I have said is that having a public option in that
menu would provide competition for insurance companies to keep them
honest."
But it is government that is responsible for the dearth
of competition in the insurance business. That's because Congress
enacted the McCarran-Ferguson Act in 1945, which allows the states to
limit the number of players in their insurance markets, and explains
why "in 64 percent of all metropolitan areas, a single health insurer
commands a market share of at least 50 percent".
Government
created the insurance monopolies in the states, thus destroying
competition. Government is therefore responsible for the "dishonesty"
that Obama decries.
We're late to the party with this chart, but it sure is revealing, isn't it?
Also at the Met's show is Homer's Snap the Whip (1872). It is a small painting (and just one of several of his versions on the same theme):
That picture reminded me of a snap we took of Nathan Hales's Schoolhouse in East Haddam, CT a week ago. Hale taught there for a few months after graduating from Yale. He was bored with living in the sticks, and left to teach in the "city" in New London.
Cheers on St. Andrew's Day to our Scots friends and readers!
Now we must move south of the border to take a good summary look at Climategate and its meaning, as far as we now know: Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation: "Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get
away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker."
Andrei, you've lost another submarine?....Most fascinating to me: they got rid of, or "lost," all of their raw data. That means the raw data from which the IPCC reports have been produced - after the data was played with. In science, "losing" data is a felony, and discredits everything you have ever done. Why?
Because it makes it impossible to either corroborate or refute the conclusions.
Bright red berries produced in the fall close along the stems of a deciduous shrub, most often in damp areas in the Eastern US, is Winterberry - Ilex verticillata.
Yes some ilex, ie hollies, are deciduous.
Many cultivars with larger and more abundant berries are now available of this native shrub. They are commonly used in weaths and Christmas plant arrangements. Still, the plant looks best in the woods and swamps.
Modern anti-Semitism has developed a seductive and deceptive newspeak etiquette to mask its linkages to discredited precursors and to disreputable objectives.To penetrate the smokescreens put up by modern anti-Semitism, it is necessary to blow away the semantic clouds it hides behind.
A fair-minded person, especially if not well-informed, may get tangled up in a web of confusing definitions when trying to identify some speech, someone or some organization as anti-Semitic.
It is easy to refer to actual Nazis, a settled matter. However, there is a carefully sown confusion today when deliberating distinctions about hard to sift through criticisms made of Israel or of Jews in the US or elsewhere in the world.
This blurring of the lines owes itself to the detachment of most, Jew and non-Jew, from the actual scenes of anti-Semitic behaviors and from actually feeling oneself at risk.This detachment from harsh realities is eased by the moral relativism that pervades much of Western intellectual culture, where the existence of right and wrong is increasingly a mere notion to be dismissed in almost all cases. Common-sense morality is replaced with a casualness toward insult and attack when perpetrated by some group favored due to its purported grievances.Minor factoids are blown into generalizations, while more important information is ignored, in order to fabricate misleading and erroneous condemnations.
In effect, modern anti-Semitism is a construct built upon and a part of modern moral effeteness.Those with ulterior ambitions exploit Westerners’ moral relativism by creating an etiquette to deceive them and shield themselves from exposure.Perhaps most dangerously, modern anti-Semitism is a primary front and tool of today’s dedicated left, to weaken and isolate the US via Israel.
Those of firmer minds and character, although sympathetic to the left or antagonistic toward fascism, avoided or exited from the communist fronts of the 1930’s.So should those today with actual empathy for transcendent justice be careful not to be drawn into the gingerbread house built by current enemies of the West.It is unnecessary to allow ones ideals to be contaminated, manipulated or perverted, particularly when that serves the ends of those most dangerous to those ideals.
Here are the Rules of Etiquette for Modern Anti-Semitism:
1. Generalize: Treat Jews as a race engaged in racial behavior. Treat the behavior of all Jews as innate, common and similarly driven. The behaviors exhibited by any or attributed to any (whether the specific instance is true or not) can then be ascribed to all Jews.It ignores that Jews come from many differing bloodstock heritages, nations and cultures, exhibiting all the variations of most others in the world (except for a few isolated small tribes in jungles). The purpose of anti-Semitic etiquette is to clothe the critic in anti-racism while, indeed, being a racist in practice or trying to hide it.
2. Empathize: Claim universalist empathy for purported victims of Jews. Credit with credence all the claims of those deemed downtrodden (again regardless of facts).Those deemed downtrodden are, inevitably, hostile to the West and to modernity. Others, for example, like the Montagnards or Hmong who are persecuted worse, are virtually ignored, because they are contaminated by their history of alignment with the US. Just assert, despite evidence, that one cares about all equally. The hypocrisy is ignored that similar criticisms are not levied against others’ far worse actions. The hypocrisy is evident in the feeble defense, if any, that is mounted of those suffering ethnic cleansingby states or ideologies that are part of the alliance against the West.
3. Hyperbolize: Use rhetorical exaggerations to cloud actual meaning and facts. By repetition and osmosis, flaming misrepresentations transit into common discourse. One can, then, feel better about the rightness of claims and delegitimize the target.Take words, like “apartheid”, “fascism”, “racism”, “atrocity”, and such, entirely out of context and reality to manufacture a new reality in the minds of the gullible or ignorant.One needn’t even use the old libels and gross lies (e.g., “Christ-killer,” “Shylock,” “Kike,” “Devil race,” "Jews haven't been in Jerusalem for milleniums and are alien colonizers," "the Holocaust is a fiction") to accomplish the same characterizations of heartless, manipulative, invasive evils by Jews. It is too easily recognized for what it is.
4. Patriotize: Claim to have the national interests of the US at heart. Use the natural isolationism of some, or old-fashioned religious anti-Semitism of some (raised on Christ-killer theology), to cause loyal Americans, or Europeans, to ally with those on the radical fringes and left in denying aid to Israel and to undermining it.
5. Camouflage: Use some Jews to front for the anti-Semitism. Among any people, there are a few who will seek notoriety, position or payment to provide cover for others with more malignant ambitions.The miniscule but vocal “peace” movement within Israel is largely funded from European leftists and from speaking tours and book sales among Western leftists.The Arab financed Middle East centers in US universities provide plump stipends to those who criticize Israel.Secular Jews who haven’t been affiliated in decades clothe their religion of extreme liberalism by trotting out their parents or grandparents’ affiliation.
6. Idolize: Treat all heads of states with respect. No matter how outrageous their statements or actions, or how hostile toward Israel their appointments to high positions, give deference to high government leaders and give credence and respectable platforms to their excuses and mendacious rationales. Their associates, who would be ordinarily be ostracized as extremists, are also given protective coloration. Excuses usually take the approaches of “he really couldn’t mean that,” “it’s too outrageous to take seriously,” “there’s really a secret plan for nirvana hidden somewhere that no one else can find, it’s so clever,” or “…but there’s another appointee or action that somehow counterbalances or restrains the sheer nuttery or malevolence” although there’s no real evidence of that. When such a state leader excuses himself by saying “I wasn’t listening closely although I chose his church and sat there for 20-years,” he is playing that same duplicitous card.
7.Enoble: Claim that the focus is expanding justice. The fruits of the labor, education and courage of those who accomplish are seen as proper targets for redistribution or expropriation to feed the demands of those whose own failures to advance themselves is really at fault.Leveling in this way is presented as justice. Rather, it is another front of anti-capitalism/anti-Western civilization, focusing on gaps in possession of life’s comforts instead of focusing on who creates them and how they earned them, or focusing on how some lack due to their own choices. It eliminates the talents that create wealth for more, and holds down those whose efforts would lift themselves.It entrenches the despot, while suppressing popular challenges and aspirations for freedoms.
The modern anti-Semitism is as pernicious and widespread as the older varieties, the older varieties finding comfort within its fuzzier facades.Due to its purposely confusing “newspeak” of demonization and excuses, it is even more dangerous.It wraps up old canards in purposely cute circumlocutions, to deceive and forward its deadly goal, the death of the civilized West so that backwardness, tyranny and barbarities can continue or prevail in greater safety from exposure, comparison or challenge.
Col. Douglas Mortimer:
“You know, when you consider that ‘We’re Saving The Planet’ is the
biggest power/money grabbing scam since ‘We’re Saving Your Souls,’
whoever leaked/released those e-mails and such is kind of like the
modern scientific equivalent of Martin Luther. This person/persons may
well have broken the backs of the Global Warming Priests who did
everything in their power to make sure that the common man, and those
who would oppose them, had no direct access to the Spoken Word of God.”
I think what's interesting about Obama is he is going to be at the U.N. [conference in Copenhagen] to announce the [new] policy about climate change on the basis of — nothing. He is going to be proposing what the House has passed — that he knows is not going to pass in the Senate. And we are actually a constitutional democracy where the president can't announce a policy unilaterally. It actually has to pass the two houses of the Congress, and our allies abroad know that, and they’re going to look at this announcement he is going to make and think it … extremely strange.
Photo: Christmas trees along the median of Park Avenue, NYC. Not yet lit.
My snap of the tree in the Medieval section at the Met is blurred because the guard was not permitting photos, so I took it too fast.
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
3:9 How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you?
3:10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.
3:11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.
3:12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.
3:13 And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Finally made it to the American Stories show at the Met today. Wonderful fun. I highly recommend it, especially with the museum's audio guide. I think going through this show takes around 1 to 1 1/2 hours with the audio, and it will be there until the end of January.
Amazing examples of American art - for a few striking examples: Copley's Paul Revere, Eakins, George Bingham, plenty of Charles Willson Peale including the one showing his mastodon skeleton, and lots of great Winslow Homers including Gulf Stream:
My advice to anybody visiting the Met: Pick one thing to see.One permanent exhibit or one temporary show. Go straight to it and, after that, leave. Do not get distracted or drawn into other things or you will end up with the brain-numbing surfeit of images and information to which I refer by the term "museum brain." You can always come back.
Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.
I had read his paper before, but it seems especially relevant now. h/t, Classical Values.
You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land.
But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine
One insight distinguished Barack Obama from the other presidential candidates last year. While he lacked experience or a special grasp of issues, Mr. Obama said he uniquely understood what ails Washington, and what was causing the endless squabbling and bitter stalemate on important issues. If elected, he said he would change the way business is done in Washington, end the partisan deadlock and the ideological polarization.
So the battle over health care is not just about health care. It's about whether government will permanently gobble up more of the private-sector economy -- and slow it down in the process.
I think that's right. I don't believe that Democrats in Congress actually disagree with the majority of voters who expect a government takeover of medicine to result in worse health care at a higher cost. Rather, the Democrats believe that degraded health care is an acceptable price to pay for what they are really after--government domination over the life of every citizen. Whether the American people understand how profound is the Democrats' assault on their liberties, and will be willing to do what it takes to throw the greedy rascals out of power, remains to be seen.
Europe has felt the temptation, for sure. We Americans do not - or should not. We are supposed to be better and stronger than that. Prof. Paul Rahe via NRO
‘AGW is in fact now an industry (as well as a religion) and your insistence upon peer-reviewed papers makes me smile because there seems to be a preponderance of reviewers from within the AGW industry. Why do I think of the expression “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”?"
Money managers do this sort of thing all the time for marketing purposes. To make their performance look good, they pick their start point and their end point based on what the chart looks like. Then they decide whether to include or exclude new money or new accounts from the data, depending on what looks best. Etc.
Tinkering with data is easy. Pols and activists do it every day to manipulate. See How to Lie with Charts and Graphs, one of my favorite data books - after the classic How to Lie with Statistics. Nether require advanced math to understand.
It's a shame journalists aren't required to read those two books.
...we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere—in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.
We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.
And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land.
Your editor is going off duty until tomorrow. 20 people arriving in a while (all bringing pies or vegetable dishes) - and a few more just for dessert. Here's what we're doing:
One just begun on the grill:
One in the oven, stuffed:
The cranberry sauce:
Squash pies (with heavy cream, spices, and brandy). More Pilgrim-authentic than Pumpkin:
I give thanks to God today (and every day) for being a free American - and for being free to read, write, and report whatever I want to here on Maggie's Farm. I am grateful to our Founding Fathers, for our Constitution, for all of the past and present men at arms who defend our freedoms.
I have a shoot today, then family dinner this evening in MA. A grouse and woodcock hunt on Friday in the lowlands, swamps and marshes. Image via Mr. Free Market:
Another good link for Thanksgiving: Malthusians wrong since the year 200. Fewer people would be better for my hunting, though. The good hunting habitat in the Northeast is being overrun with strip malls, developments of McMansions, and second and third homes.
Skepticism about global warming is wrong because it is not supported by
scientific articles in “legitimate peer-reviewed journals.” But if a
journal actually publishes such an article, then it is by definition
not “legitimate.”
The EU has a Ten Year Plan. How could that go wrong? Central planning worked just great for the Soviet Union. Euroland is heading swiftly back towards the Feudalism they seem to love.
George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.
"The makers of the Constitution conferred, as against the government, the Right to be left alone; the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men.”
United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States (1928). h/t, reader.
If nothing else, watching the Democrats sacrifice so much on behalf of
this monstrosity is fascinating, appalling—and dramatic. Common sense
suggests that they shouldn’t do it. The basic laws of political physics
say they can’t do it. And yet on they march.
...we do now have hundreds of emails that give every appearance of testifying to concerted and coordinated efforts by leading climatologists to fit the data to their conclusions while attempting to silence and discredit their critics. In the department of inconvenient truths, this one surely deserves a closer look by the media, the U.S. Congress and other investigative bodies.
Our ongoing series on Woodstock, CT by guest poster Capt. Tom Francis -
Quasset School
At Town Meeting in 1690, the citizens voted to teach and instruct their children to "read and cipher". At that time, the first "public instruction" was held at a local farmer's barn. Sometime around 1736/1739, the Quasset School was built and began formal classes ending in 1946 when the first Elementary School was built, thus the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating school in the US.
The school was moved from it's original location in 1956 and became a National Historic Landmark. In 1963 the Lt. Ambassador of England representing Woodstock, England presented Quasset School with a portrait of King George the Second and a replica of the Union Jack that would have flown for the 27 years that the school was under British rule. Two oak trees from the grounds of Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, England, birthplace of Winston Churchill, were planted near the building (partially seen in the photo).
The Quasset School is still in operation today as part of the Third Grade local history immersion program. The three Third Grade teachers take turns for one week taking the kids back to another time and place. The kids get to dress up and role play leaning arithmetic by rote, spelling by playing Hangman and - this is really amusing - manners which actually were an important part of the education of 18th and 19th century education. They learn about gender roles as the girls learn hand crafts like sewing, knitting and cross stitch and the boys, under supervision, get to bring in wood, "light" the stove, sweep and clean the blackboard.
When the government proposes a major program, one expects a meaningful national consensus behind it. I neither see nor sense any national consensus behind a government takeover of medical care. Quite the opposite, and the polls agree with my impression.
Watch this video at Gateway to see what I mean. I think there is far more dissension on this issue than I ever heard about going into Afghanistan or Iraq.
Not very many people want what they are trying to "give" us. One of the things they want to "give" me is to make my family's medical insurance - my carefully considered free choice - illegal.
My message to my government: Quit giving me stuff. I am an adult. Leave me the heck alone.
It's the time of year when I stock up on bags of Ocean Spray Cranberries and throw them in the freezer.
The canned cranberry "sauce" pictured is garbage. It's just congealed sweetened cranberry juice.
The recipe on the Ocean Spray bags is pretty good, but I cut the sugar they recommend. It's nothing but water, fresh or frozen berries, and sugar.
Better yet for Thanksgiving, game, and even chicken, isCranberry-Orange Relish. Raw berries and an orange. Thanks to the mother-in-law for introducing me to this tangy thing years ago.
A great food, the Cranberry. I love to put them in pancakes (the combination of the sweetness of the maple syrup and the tartness of the cranberries is perfect).
Funny thing about Cranberries: not many animals or birds like to eat them. Maybe bears? I've seen Box Turtles take a bite out of one, but I've never seen anything else eat them. I love Cranberries, as long as they aren't cooked too sweet. Here's a tiny Massachusetts Cranberry bog, flooded for harvest:
He's not in the showers in jail picking up the soap, so why do this so constantly? Is it a twitch? A twitch of submission, like a beta dog? I think it is pathetic - and it reflects on me as a free and proud American. Please tell me it's only because the Asian leaders are short of stature height-deprived, and not ass-kissing.
I cannot imagine Abe Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt bowing to a dictator premier of China, a Sheik of Arabie, or an Emperor of Japan.
The only people to whom the O does not bow is to people like me, the honest, hard-working, tax-paying, slightly overweight citizens of the USA. As Bob Grant says, "It's sick out there, and getting sicker."
Putting one of the BD pups and friends on the plane today to Barcelona or Madrid - I forget which - heading to the wedding of a friend since nursery school and a little vacation. I advised them to live on tapas, and, even if it is a boring food, to try paella in Spain once, just to be able to have done it.
Paella in Spain for Thanksgiving? The American yoots of today have it good. We often forget that Squanto had been to Spain - and to England too, before the Pilgrims met the fine dude who doubtless spoke his English with a refined Brit accent.
And we picked up the BD baby at the airport Friday night after the first few eventful months at college (including a grueling hospitalization with Swine Flu pneumonia - she has been otherwise in perfect health and is finally all better now).
After the airport, right to the baby's favorite little Thai place for a late supper. Very hot mango curry. Then home, at which point the likable and polite boyfriend shortly appears, and out they go.
The yoots of today have it good.
Saturday, she slept until 11, then did the big drive down to NYC - If You Can Drive It in NY, You Can Drive it Anywhere - to meet her big sister to see Men of Iron (basically Troilus and Cressida - I saw it the previous weekend with the $10 tix). Then home for supper (steak and string beans with lemon juice and olive oil), then out again with pals. She was out all day Sunday after throwing in a few loads of wash for us to deal with. I have no idea where, but that's fine with me.
The really good news is that she is obeying the "who pays the piper calls the tune" Bird Dog College Rules(which I once posted here): You gotta take the list of courses I require, since colleges these days do not require much real education despite the big $. Thus she is taking the year-long Great Books course (modeled after my Columbia required course), so I can now happily discuss Genesis, Augustine, Hesiod, Boethius, Aquinas, Homer, etc with her. It's about time. Good fun. Can't wait to discuss Calvin and Adam Smith and Locke with her. And later, Chem and Biochem - but especially Geology 1. (I believe if you don't know basic geology, you don't know what the heck you are looking at when you go outdoors just like if you don't take Econ 1 and 2 you don't know how the world works - unless or until you have a real job or two in the real world, of course.)
She said at supper Friday "Everybody I know at school is studious as hell."
She also said "My friends and I can't decide whether we like Augustine or not."
Said I, with the wisdom of age, "What does 'like' have to do with it?"
I've been slow to realize this: the O is turning out to be a dud. I did not vote for him, but I had some hope that he would try to govern as a pragmatist-moderate - against all evidence, of course. Even the thrill is gone for Chris Matthews.
"Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter."
President Obama took office wanting to distinguish himself from President Bush. That was foolish and arrogant. Now, as Der Spiegel concludes, he is trying desperately to distinguish himself from Jimmy Carter.
Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama
and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the
plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.
Changing admissions requirements from favoring extended family members to favoring high-skill immigrants could give Republicans cover from charges that they are anti-immigrant. They could argue that, in a time of high and extended unemployment, it makes sense to switch from admitting job seekers to admitting job creators.
The 1965 and 1986 laws resulted in a large illegal immigrant population because they promised things that proved beyond the capacity of government to deliver. Now that a combination of public indignation and high-tech ingenuity have increased government's enforcement capacity, and while the inflow of immigrants is slowing and an outflow of illegals may be accelerating, we may have reached a point when we can put in place immigration laws with enforceable limits and that encourage an influx of the kind of immigrants we need most. Can Congress act?
By 1940, essentially all American Chestnuts, a dominant climax tree (and a major mast-producing tree - once the major food of Turkey, Deer and lots of other critters) of American forests, were killed by the blight. Their wood has a remarkable durability and their somewhat rusty-colored carcasses can still be seen in our woodlands.
That is a bunch of Christmas Fern behind the fallen log.
ARGH. Just went back to check on synthetic production. Apparently - I have no memory of this at all - we're not doing observed rain days! It's all synthetic from 1990 onwards. So I'm going to need conditionals in the update program to handle that. And separate gridding before 1989. And what TF happens to station counts?
OH FUCK THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found.
Quite possibly. We have been calling "fraud" on this site since forever. The raw data has been carefully hidden for years (see conceal the decline). It's heart-warming to see a Viscount rant. One quote:
As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up. Unfortunately, the British researchers have been acting closely in league with their U.S. counterparts who compile the other terrestrial temperature dataset — the GISS/NCDC dataset. That dataset too contains numerous biases intended artificially to inflate the natural warming of the 20th century.
Finally, these huckstering snake-oil salesmen and “global warming” profiteers — for that is what they are — have written to each other encouraging the destruction of data that had been lawfully requested under the Freedom of Information Act in the UK by scientists who wanted to check whether their global temperature record had been properly compiled. And that procurement of data destruction, as they are about to find out to their cost, is a criminal offense. They are not merely bad scientists — they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.
Whether you call it global warming or climate change or greenie hysteria or a religion or Lefty politics, the fact is that it's an industry, and one which has become increasing lucrative over recent years. 
Cheers on St. Andrew's Day to our Scots friends and readers!
Bright red berries produced in the fall close along the stems of a deciduous shrub, most often in damp areas in the Eastern US, is 
It’s Not Marriage, It’s the Woman.
Noonan: 
Wines for Thanksgiving. 
When the government proposes a major program, one expects a meaningful national consensus behind it. I neither see nor sense any national consensus behind a government takeover of medical care. Quite the opposite, and the polls agree with my impression.
It's the time of year when I stock up on bags of Ocean Spray Cranberries and throw them in the freezer.
I've been slow to realize this: the O is turning out to be a dud. I did not vote for him, but I had some hope that he would try to govern as a pragmatist-moderate - against all evidence, of course. Even t