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.
Very good essay on the fate of Detroit - and similar cities - by Wretchard: The Field of Dreams. A quote:
Mayor Bing’s plan to build developments recalls nothing so much as the South Seas cargo cults who believed all that was necessary to make the skies rain with goodies was to build a dirt airstrip and palm-leaf control tower to attract resupply flights from somewhere. “If you build it, they will come”.
Who “they” is remains unclear. But they are out there.
As Glenn Reynolds said (who he quotes):
The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.
Change rarely comes from the outside, in. Recall "urban renewal." Now, those brownstone "slums" that didn't get torn down go for millions in New York, while the "modern" and "dignified" public housing projects are nightmares, socio-cultural wastelands which even cops are reluctant to enter.
The US already has boots on the ground in Libya; CIA intel guys and "advisors." Money and weapons too, no doubt, for the rag-tag rebels, whoever they are - certainly some or many are Jihadists - and regardless of what amount of support the current government has in the country - which seems to be unknown.
This is an American war, and it is not about freedom and self-determination and it's not simply about humanitarianism unless the US is to become the world's Chief of Police again. I can't even see that it's about geopolitics, as Iraq was, because nobody cares much about Libya except the Italians who get their oil from them. I do not know what it's about, but I would not be surprised if the Russians aand Chinese are amused by how we stepped in this pile of dog crap.
We have had Wilsonian wars before and I have no doubt we will have them again. You can, sometimes, wage Wilsonian war. What you cannot do, at least not yet and probably never, is build a Wilsonian peace.
Woodrow Wilson discovered this almost a century ago.
The New York Times reports that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights “took the unusual step this week of condemning the building and storage of anti-Israel rockets in densely populated areas, a practice that has led to injuries and deaths of civilians.”
“Unusual” isn’t quite the word for it. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights also supports Hamas and its affiliated terrorists “resistance” to Israel, and regularly condemns Israel for militarily reacting. In 2008, this NGO, financed by Western NGOs, also criticized the stockpiling and firing into Israel from populated locations in Gaza. Less populated areas in Gaza should, instead, be the depots and firing positions.
What’s missing from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights criticism, and from the New York Times report?
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights doesn’t condemn the rocket and mortar firing into Israel, and the New York Times doesn’t mention that.
The increased import of longer-range rockets into Gaza now land in the large city of Beersheba, and, as seen in the latest firings last week, now puts the southern area of Tel Aviv and Israel’s major port at Ashdod into range. They may soon reach to Jerusalem. See this map.
Even Human Rights Watch, a consistent severe critic of Israel, condemns the rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel: “Deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians are serious violations of the laws of war. Such attacks committed willfully - that is, intentionally or recklessly - are war crimes.” (more here) The New York Times report, also, doesn’t mention that.
For now, Israel doesn't want to serve as an excuse for anti-Israel propagandists to distract from the revolts against Arab satraps. Eventually, however, Israel will have to take more serious measures against the Gaza sanctuary for indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks. You can be sure that pro-Palestinian NGOs, their funders and supporters in the UN, and the Western media will condemn Israel for “over-reaction” or “disproportionate use of force” or “civilians killed in Gaza” and such, as they did when Israel last went into Gaza to suppress Hamas and the firing sites. Seldom if at all mentioned will be that Hamas brought it upon itself and Gazans or that Israel had no other realistic alternative, at least if it wants to protect its own civilians and survive.
Oh, BTW, don't forget the almost 1000 weapons depots, bunkers and OP sites in 250 villages in southern Lebanon set up by Hezbollah -- answering to the same Iranian armers as Hamas, and likely to act in concert with Hamas when Israel enters Gaza again.
Don't bother reading this unless you are on the same page, or pages, that I am on this Lent. My musings and meanderings will bore you, and I do not understand my own religion very well, despite trying to.
As I understand it, to enter God's Kingdom one must die (in a metaphorical sense) and be reborn (in the spiritual sense). By "God's Kingdom" I mean living in Christ today, not in any hereafter.
"He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it."Matthew 10:39
The losing is like a dying of Self, along with an abandonment of one's worldly idols. "Self" is the modern totem and object of psychological and material worship, so that part is fairly difficult for me and, I assume, for all of us. A sort of suicide, or partial suicide. Displeased as I tend to be with my self, I am sort of attached to the old darn thing too. "Self," "identity," individuality," - all that current narcissistic "special Me" psychobabble.
I know I am making it all too black and white, as if we could ever not be who we are, or become like the zombie Moonies in the subway stations. But Jesus understood very well that devotion to self was an obstacle to a connection with God.
John 3:3: Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
The Christian offer is to kill off one's self and to be reborn in Christ to live a Kingdom life. The endeavor is not for sissies.
From Matthew 12:
18And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
19And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
20And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
21And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.
22And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.
Leave my ship and my father? Can we discuss this, Jesus? And from Luke 9:
The tension between the practical, material world and the Kingdom is ever-present, and all rationalizations for loving this world as I often do sound like convenient and self-justifying cop-outs to me. Thus, I am unfit. Therefore, I require grace.
All over the developed world, nations are coming to terms with the fact that the social-democratic welfare state is turning out to be untenable. The reason is partly institutional: The administrative state is dismally inefficient and unresponsive, and therefore ill-suited to our age of endless choice and variety. The reason is also partly cultural and moral: The attempt to rescue the citizen from the burdens of responsibility has undermined the family, self-reliance, and self-government. But, in practice, it is above all fiscal: The welfare state has turned out to be unaffordable, dependent as it is upon dubious economics and the demographic model of a bygone era. Sustaining existing programs of social insurance, let alone continuing to build new ones on the social-democratic model, has become increasingly difficult in recent years, and projections for the coming decades paint an impossibly grim and baleful picture. There is simply no way that Europe, Japan, or America can actually go where the economists' long-term charts now point — to debts that utterly overwhelm their productive capacities, governments that do almost nothing but support the elderly, and economies with no room for dynamism, for growth, or for youth. Some change must come, and so it will.
But fully grasping this reality will not be easy. Our attachment to the social-democratic vision means that we tend to equate its exhaustion with our own exhaustion, and so to fall into a most un-American melancholy. On the left, fear of decline is now answered only with false hope that the dream may yet be saved through clever tinkering at the edges. On the right, the coming collapse of the liberal welfare state brings calls for austerity — for less of the same — which only highlight the degree to which conservatives, too, are stuck in the social-democratic mindset.
I invite you to consider the limits of simple moral impulse as a sufficient justification for making a choice. The fashion for assuming that to discover how we should act we need only look within our own hearts has gone too far.
A reader of Maggie's queried the use of the term "snowpack". Eight days ago, the Central Sierra Snow Lab reported 192 inches of "snowpack", and estimates 150% of normal water content. Between March 18 and March 26, it snowed an additional 169 inches. It is certainly "weather" as he said, but it's also snowpack.
Sipp informed me that the historic landmark, The Hotel Harris, is for sale. It seems to be more of a boarding house, or SRO, or apartment house, than a hotel these days.
Downtown Rumford is half boarded-up, but the hotel houses Brian's Bistro, which I am told is quite good. Haddock cooked three ways on the menu.
Cafe Boeuf? Naw. Rumford isn't Lake Wobegon. Is it? We may hate Garrison Keillor's sanctimony and condescension when it comes to politics, but otherwise he can be darn perceptive and amusing in his fiction.
The traditional, thin plastic bag, though increasingly demonized and taxed, has better environmental performance and is likely to be considerably safer for human health than alternatives.
Antisocial Personality. I miss it all the time. I am posting this in the hope that this will help deter me from missing it in the future.
AVI claims you can tell criminals by their faces, but I am not talking about serious criminals. I am talking about the effective manipulators, seducers, schemers, and deceivers and not the obvious violent and stupid people who end up in jails.
I get burned by such people on a regular basis. I like to think it's because I tend to think the best of people, but it's really probably my naivete.
Not all people with antisocial traits are axe-murderers. Most are ordinary liars, users, con-artists, self-servers, etc., and they often do not realize themselves that they are off base and living in their own amoral reality with all of their rationalizations for their behavior. The problem with the personality disorders is that people with them think they are normal. Sociopathy is a very common personality disorder, and often associated with glibness and a sort of disarming appeal that many people fall for.
Yes, everybody lies sometimes. I am not talking about that. I am talking about deceit and conniving as a way of life. Politics, for an example.
I always get suspicious when they call me "Doc" at first. I take it as an intrusive presumption of intimacy which I have not invited. Do not call your physician "Doc," except on the golf course. "Doctor" is OK.
The only real cure is religion, but that is only if, and after, they have somehow come to realize how off-base they are in their take on life, their relative indifference to others, and their self-centeredness.
In recent years, we have learned that Antisocial Personality traits derive as much from upbringing as from genetics. I think we wanted to believe it was all genetic. How it all works, I do not understand. All I know is to Beware, because these people will turn around and hurt you without thinking twice about it.
The failure of blue social policy to create an environment which works for Blacks is the most devastating possible indictment of the 20th century liberal enterprise in the United States. Helping Blacks achieve the kind of equality and opportunity long denied them was more than one of many justifications for blue social policy: it was the defining moral task that has challenged and shaped American liberalism for the last fifty years.
The Census tells us that in the eyes of those who know best, these well intentioned efforts failed. Instead of heaven, we have hell across America’s inner cities. Blue economic policy has cut the creation of new private sector jobs to a trickle in our great cities, while the high costs of public union urban services (and policies that favor government employees over the citizenry at large) impose crippling taxes and contribute to the ruinously high costs that blight opportunity. All the social welfare bureaucracies, diversity counselors and minority set-asides can’t make up for the colossal failure of blue social policy to create sustainable lower middle class prosperity in our cities.
I do not agree with some of what Mead says in his essay, but it's an interesting piece. I am more of the Moynihan persuasion; to get government out of the way. I do wonder, however, how come every minimart and deli and coffee shop and dry cleaners I see opening is opened by new immigrant Moslems who hardly speak English, instead of by American black folk who have attended American schools and speak English. Despite the Leftist assaults, I suppose, family remains the cornerstone of civilized, structured, and productive life. If you do not build supportive bonds with the people you create, no government can save your life, your soul, or provide you with dignity.
But don’t worry. Individual liberty is overrated and inherently messy, anyway — and besides, who wants to follow a plan set out by dead white European males? Did the stupid patriarchy spell out the right to collectively bargain, or the right to high speed internet access for all?
No. So fuck them right in their tri-corned hats. It’s 2011. Like, over a hundred years after these slave owners scribbled on a parchment. We have computers now. And Twitter. Time to fix shit. You know, for freedom.
Obamacare is like that, isn't it? And Romneycare. And do not forget to smile while you eat that government cheese. "Freedom" means eating what the government gives you: FDR taught us that.
"Scientists sometimes refer to the effect a hotter world will have on this country’s fresh water as the other water problem, because global warming more commonly evokes the specter of rising oceans submerging our great coastal cities. By comparison, the steady decrease in mountain snowpack — the loss of the deep accumulation of high-altitude winter snow that melts each spring to provide the American West with most of its water — seems to be a more modest worry. But not all researchers agree with this ranking of dangers. Last May, for instance, Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the United States government’s pre-eminent research facilities, remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas. When I met with Chu last summer in Berkeley, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides most of the water for Northern California, was at its lowest level in 20 years. Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. “There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Chu said, “and that’s in the best scenario.”
"An even darker possibility is that a Western drought caused by climatic variation and a drought caused by global warming could arrive at the same time. Or perhaps they already have. This coming spring, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will issue a report identifying areas of the world most at risk of droughts and floods as the earth warms. Fresh-water shortages are already a global concern, especially in China, India and Africa. But the I.P.C.C., which along with Al Gore received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month for its work on global-warming issues, will note that many problem zones are located within the United States, including California (where the Sierra Nevada snowpack is threatened) and the Colorado River basin.
A street this week in Donner Lake, CA (Note the cars)
Facebook finally has faced up to its responsibility and rules to not allow pages that incite violence. After denying that the Facebook page incites a violent Third Intifada against Israel, but facing an outpouring of criticism for avoiding the obvious, Facebook has now taken down the page. (More here and here, and CNN.) Instead, anyone trying to go to that page is redirected to their own personal page.
Thank you to our readers who joined into the call to complain to Facebook.
The supporters of violence against Israel among the many Facebook users in the Middle East have already set up a new Third Intifada page. The fight, of course, continues by those determined not to have our freedoms abused by those who would kill them. For those who don't get it, Intifada Means War on Israel.
P.S.: MEMRI has the translation of the Third Intifada Facebook page.
You have to half-crazy to move to Rumford, Maine. Hardly anybody moves to Maine anymore, much less Rumford. Maybe Portland, for a summertime-only retirement (six months plus one day in Florida, and no state income taxes to pay - and estate tax advantages to when you get to that point).
Winter is a wonderful, lovely thing, but, unless you are a skiier, it goes on too long up there. (However, we were 26 degrees F this morning down here, thanks to the crisis of Global Cooling.) You cannot grow tomatoes in your garden up there unless you build a greenhouse but that's not too hard - you just throw a couple of layers of polyurethane over some old boards in the sun next to the back of the house. "Just put some bleachers out in the sun..."
The Northeast is full of dying old towns where the best jobs are government jobs and where industry has fled for friendlier climes with friendlier taxation. In my opinion, if you move to a place in the hinterlands with a 6,000 population, you had really better love your spouse - and your family.
Little old Rumford is fortunate, however, to have its own online newspaper, the Rumford Meteor. It's good for keeping up with the town's main forms of recreation, which appear to be DUI and marijuana. However, from the reports, towns like Rumford still have their cadres of good old reserved and private Yankee small town folk who go to church and whose kids will play football and go to wars and want to work. They will mostly leave town, for sure, but some won't.
When I think about it, I realize that maybe I have to be at least half-crazy to live where I live, too. But my friends are here - and my church and my work - and I can get to good olde NYC once in a while - so I guess I will stay put. Nothing is perfect.
For me, Maine means grouse hunting and Moose filet mignon and Bert and I. I've heard that Sugarloaf is great, but never tried it. Too long of a drive, and the delights of skiing are hassle enough.
I grew up on The New York Times. Delivered, every morning, even before they had a national edition. Read it every morning, through high school and college. An essential part of breakfast.
The second factor in the Times’s decline was the ascension of Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. to the perch of publisher in 1992. Having come of age in the sixties counterculture, Sulzberger moved to shift the paper’s focus from its historical commitment of reporting the news “without fear or favor” to the more activist promise to “enhance society.” In particular, Sulzberger wanted the paper to promote “diversity” and to move beyond what he disparaged as the “predominantly white, straight, male version of events.” As the author of Coloring the News, a critical look at the politically correct mania for “diversity” and its damaging effect on the news media, McGowan writes as an authority on the Times’s transformation. The change was most obvious in the paper’s increasingly strident editorial pages, but the news content, which began taking its cues from editorial, suffered as well. Times veterans groused that the paper risked compromising its news coverage with a newly ideological agenda, but Sulzberger dismissed such concerns, declaring that he was “setting a moral standard.”
A newspaper's job to set a moral standard? Grandiose? How about just giving us the real facts with tough, skeptical, half-drunk cranky journalists instead of metrosexual twits, and we'll take care of the morality part ourselves. We're Americans, not illiterate ignoramuses who need to be taught how to think correctly by our superiors who filter and slant our information "for our own good." Propagandists, exploiting their historic franchise.
I quit The Times years ago because it would make me begin my day in an irritable mood. Irritated with them for quitting their job. Now, I catch up with Maggie's for breakfast, and so does She Who Must Be Obeyed. Imagine that!
It is politically risky to try to be a responsible politician (and most politicians don't want to have to go back to real, productive jobs unless all it is is to be a lunching lobbyist rainmaker). See Politico's Govs face budget blowback.
Better just keep borrowing from the Chinese until they own the US. Let our kids worry about it.
I keep saying that the "entitlement mentality" is not just a problem here; it's a problem in the entire industrialized world. England, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, the USA...governments are beggaring themselves (and their productive taxpaying citizens) trying to fund their brobdingnagian welfare-state apparatus.
As Steyn said in our link this morning: "The collapse of the Entitlement State is not going to be pretty."
This state of childishness, this dependency explains the stunningly supine acceptance of the take over of Sweden by an alien human horde that couldn’t be more incompatible with Sweden’s centuries-old culture even if they rode around on giraffes and lived off boiled vulture. Getting your mouth on the tit is Job No. 1 and daddy and mommy will take care of any unpleasantness, notwithstanding the complete absence of evidence that mommy and daddy want to take care of the Unpleasantness in Question.
We had a late St. Patrick's Day dinner Friday night, so as to be able to include my Irish father in law.
I happen to be one of those people who love that Irish boiled dinner, with lots of potatoes in there. You just cook the heck out of the meat, for hours, until it almost falls apart. Lots of whole peppercorns, Allspice, and garlic in the pot.
The carrots are optional, in my view - and the cabbage is the best part.
A pot of mustard on one side, and a pot of beer on the other side. Great peasant eats.
I use Preen on our perennial beds and shrub borders. I think Mrs. BD, the Weeder-in-Chief, appreciates it, but my Mom gives me heck for using it since she views it as lazy and possibly not environmentally acceptable.
As I understand it, it mainly prevents seeds from germinating. What's wrong with that? Yes, we mulch too, but seeds germinate in mulch.
Weeding plantings to make fresh space for the new weeds no longer interests me. I'd rather be playing tennis.
5Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
6Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.
7There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
8(For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
9Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
10Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
11The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
12Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
13Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
14But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
15The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
16Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
17The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
18For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
19The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
20Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
21Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
22Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
23But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
24God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
25The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.
26Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.
27And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?
28The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men,
29Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?
30Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.
31In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.
32But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
33Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?
34Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
35Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.
36And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.
37And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.
38I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.
39And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did.
40So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.
41And many more believed because of his own word;
42And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
The unusual ad hoc mixture of supporters of the US military involvement in Libya can cause heads to explode among those with other principles. I count myself as having a shattered skull.
The weird mixture of automatic supporters of Obama’s usual muddle and wrong-headed policies together with many neocons who automatically endorse humanitarian foreign interventions even when our national security is not seriously threatened have provided cover for a descent into madness.
Heads are exploding among those of us who require clearer goals that further our national interests and demand the will and means to achieve them. But, as Congressman Duncan Hunter points out in this op-ed, the Constitution does not really restrict President Obama’s military intervention. Only the uproar of Americans against Obama’s dangerous flailing and specific restrictions that may be passed by Congress can save the US from further squandering our servicemembers’ lives, our strapped wealth, and our credibility in the world as the actor who has the will and means to accomplish serious goals.
If one wanted to find a country where civilians have been and are currently being slaughtered by a minority despot who also directly supports the most dangerous armed foes of the US and its MidEast allies -- Hezbollah and Hamas, armed by Iran, go no further than Syria.
Junior Assad, of the splinter Allawite Shia sect, faces uprisings by majority Sunnis throughout Syria. He is brutally murdering the rebels. See the map at the link.
Assad has virtually subjugated Lebanon, squashing its Cedar Spring and helping its Hezbollah ally to turn Lebanon into a launch pad for missiles that have and will again reach throughout northern Israel. Syria serves as a way-station to send longer-range missiles to Hamas in Gaza, that now are launched into southern zones of Tel Aviv and into the major port at Ashdod. Syria has served as a privileged sanctuary for terrorists and trainers killing Americans and Iraqis in Iraq. Syria is a reliable ally of the region’s archfoe, Iran. In short, Syria is an immediate and severe threat to peace and to US interests throughout the Middle East.
Assad’s air force could relatively easily be destroyed, and his ground forces meted irreparable damage, by similar actions as we’re now taking in Libya.Assad’s minority regime could not survive. That would be a worthwhile goal, within our means, if the Obama administration actually had the sense and will to put US national security interests above all.
P.S.: Also see this analysis from JINSA, "Syrian Turmoil Could Benefit the Region." --Also see "Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Urges Syria Regime Overthrow Against White House Policy." -- Two more links: Elliott Abrams in the Washington Post, "Ridding Syria of a despot," and Michael Ledeen on Iranian snipers caught shooting Syrian rebels.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States deplores the violence in Syria, but does not expect intervention in the Middle East country.
"There's a difference between calling out aircraft and indiscriminately strafing and bombing your own cities, than police actions which frankly have exceeded the use of force that any of us would want to see," Clinton said Sunday on the CBS program "Face the Nation," comparing the situations in Syria and Libya.
Senator Lieberman, Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, however, is a bit clearer on whether the US should intervene against the Assad slaughter of rebels:
Lieberman told host Chris Wallace that if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad begins to slaughter his own people he could face an international coalition willing to implement a no-fly zone as they have done in Libya.
Lieberman said he would support U.S. intervention "if Assad does what Qaddafi was doing, which is to threaten to go house to house and kill anyone who's not on his side."
"There's a precedent now that the world community has set in Libya and it's the right one," Lieberman said. "We're not going to stand by and allow this Assad to slaughter his people like his father did years ago and in doing so we're being consistent with our American values and we're also on the side of the Arab people who want a better chance for a decent life."
Senator Lieberman must be missing the slaughters that Assad is already committing. Intervention in Syria should be put on the front-burner of the Obama administration, as more analysts correctly raise the issue of priorities and national security. Secretary of Defense Gates remarked that Libya is not a "vital interest" for the US.
Despite the heavy involvement of U.S. forces and the rising costs of the Libyan operation, Gates said that Libya did not rank high on the list of U.S. national security concerns.
There would be proper concern as to what may follow Assad. However, as the Sunni majority would be in control, instead of Assad's Shia Alawite sect, it is unlikely that Syria would continue as a paw for Iran or arming Hezbollah and Hamas. That's a victory in itself.
P.P.P.S.: Ed Morrissey lashes into the Obama administration and Senator Lieberman. "In Syria, our national interests and security interests are much more clear — as they are in Iran." -- Martin Indyk, usually a parrot to liberal hopes that coddling Middle East tyrants will further peace, finds the correct road now, to Damascus.
“There’s much more upside than downside for the U.S.,” said Martin S. Indyk, the vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “We have an interest in counterbalancing the advantages Iran has gained in the rest of the region. That makes it an unusual confluence of our values and interests.”
An Apple-connected friend sent me the gifts of an iPad and a groovy big Macbook Pro today. Very nice indeed. Slick machines. They work with my wireless, and have come with abundant Apple assitance from my local Apple Store. Plus he had them set up with my own new email etc. Am I ready for this?
But exactly how do all these Apple things work? My fingers are not trained for this, much less my brain. He says "Now, mind you, I am not an Apple evangelist, but..." Right.
I'll give it the old college try before dinner out on the town, while I listen to Dylan Radio. Me think me needs an Apple mouse in my house.
How can you rate schools by graduation rates? All a school has to do to raise graduation rates is to pass more people. Give them As for showing up. "When all else fails, lower your standards."
Profs who want to keep their jobs will cooperate with that. Seen it many times. It has become extremely difficult to flunk out of colleges these days, even if you try to major in Beer Pong, and whether you play a varsity sport or not. "All shall have prizes." Then, if you are lucky, you might get a cubicle with a computer screen in some HR department.
Ah get born, keep warm Short pants, romance, learn to dance Get dressed, get blessed Try to be a success Please her, please him, buy gifts Don’t steal, don’t lift Twenty years of schoolin’ And they put you on the day shift...
"Twenty years of school and then they put you on the day shift." Unless you are of an energetic American entrepreneurial bent, and want to make things happen instead of letting them happen to you. People with true grit create jobs, they don't look for jobs. Even in a crappy Obameconomy.
Everybody always ought to think about what they can do to build something useful or interesting, now or in the future. That's the American Way. Failure is just a necessary learning experience. I have had costly failures, but I kept plugging away until things worked out and Life knocked some sense into me. Anybody can do that if they want to, and it keeps life stimulating and challenging.
Failure is the best teacher. Success teaches us little - except to keep doing the same thing over and over, like GM and Microsoft and Kodak. Giving up on life's endless opportunities is like a form of death.
I don't think we have ever posted a link to Dylan Radio. Time to correct that error now.
It can be an addiction for those interested in Dylan's music. Lots of live performances. Fascinating stuff. Dylan is a walking jukebox of the American Songbook.
Some of it is covers of Dylan tunes. I think it runs 24 hrs/day, streamed and for free (unless you hit the tip jar).
The site is great fun. Ain't these intertunnels cool?
Give Dylan Radio a try for a day, Captain Tom, while flying ties and tying flies. You too, Sipp - and Vandy.
What if it turns out, like in Egypt (and in Afghanistan in the past), that the US and Euroland are naively laying out a red carpet for the Jihadists? Then what?
Granted that the region's squalid polities haven't had a decent military commander since King Hussein fired General Sir John Glubb half-a-century back, how difficult could it be even for Arab armies to knock off a psychotic transvestite guarded by Austin Powers fembots? But no: Instead, the Arab League decided to volunteer the U.S. military.
The NY Times' reporters on the ground in Egypt apparently did not see Islamism coming, unlike the right-bloggers in pajamas sitting in dimly lit basements with candy wrappers strewn on the floor.
Everyone needs to take a step back and calm down. I'm not excusing the actions of national unions like SEIU (I detest them) but not every public employee is a hard-left ideologue. Mostly, we're regular folks doing a job and supporting our families. I hope this bit of insider's perspective is useful to AT readers, and thank you for letting me vent.
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of march hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye (so priketh hem nature in hir corages); Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially from every shires ende Of engelond to caunterbury they wende, The hooly blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. Bifil that in that seson on a day, In southwerk at the tabard as I lay Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage To caunterbury with ful devout corage, At nyght was come into that hostelrye Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye, Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward caunterbury wolden ryde. The chambres and the stables weren wyde, And wel we weren esed atte beste. And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste, So hadde I spoken with hem everichon That I was of hir felaweshipe anon, And made forward erly for to ryse, To take oure wey ther as I yow devyse. But nathelees, whil I have tyme and space, Er that I ferther in this tale pace, Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun To telle yow al the condicioun Of ech of hem, so as it semed me, And whiche they weren, and of what degree, And eek in what array that they were inne; And at a knyght than wol I first bigynne.
Not aprill yet, but almost. A "palmer" is someone who wears a palm leaf as testimony of having taken a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I am posting a "modern English" translation below the fold, but bearing in mind that Chaucer wrote in the closest thing to modern English at the time - some say invented modern English in literature. The British Isles had many languages and language variants at the time; Anglo-Saxon, French, Gaelic, Welsh, etc. Just consider how many Norman-French words he uses. What the literate and well-educated Jeff Chaucer wrote was and is pretty much modern English - and fine job he did with it.
A Facebook webpage was created calling for a Third Palestinian Intifada against Israel. It is mostly in Arabic. The creators of this page are calling for the violent uprising against the State of Israel. The "Third Palestinian Intifada" Facebook page has amassed more than 310,000 supporters or "likes," it keeps increasing by the hour, and includes inflammatory anti-Israel language calling for supporters to build on the previous two intifadas, while sending users to Twitter, YouTube and elsewhere for more information.
The Second Palestinian Intifada was responsible for thousands of casualties and deaths through a campaign of terrorism against Israel that included suicide bombings of public places like restaurants, buses, dance clubs and cafes.
Directions to ask Facebook to remove the page:
JUST click on the link below to reach the Facebook page.
Then scroll down the left side of the page where you will see "Report Page" in tiny print. Click on 'report page' and Choose "Contains hate speech" You can then choose a further option of 'targets a race or ethnicity' or "violence or harmful behavior" Then click 'submit'.
If you don't have a Facebook account, and even if you do, please forward this message to others.
America's largest newspapers--The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The L.A. Times--all wrote richly detailed obituaries for Elizabeth Taylor, the Hollywood icon who died of heart failure this week, at 79. But no matter how richly detailed, every single one of these papers didn't say a word about Taylor's conversion to Judaism when she was 27. Why? Is it not chic among the MSM to be so dedicated to Israel as Elizabeth Taylor?
- the attitude that society should be governed by an elite group of individuals
- 1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. 2. (A) The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class. ...
- someone who believes in rule by an elite group
Well, if you perused my pedigree, resume, career, J. Press tweedy and conservative life style, and the respectable, intelligent, accomplished, well-educated, well-behaved and refined people with whom I tend to associate, some might consider me one of America's elite. Given the definitions I found, however, I am not: I have no interest in power or control over anybody, and despise anybody who thinks they deserve that position. I lack all desire to tell anybody how to live other than myself, and I am not even especially good at that. Beneath my superficial aspects beats the simple heart of my free, crusty and cantankerous independent Yankee farmer ancestors who had far more freedom than we have today.
For example, when it comes to politics, the only politicians I trust are the crooked ones. They don't seek power over me and have no plans to make my life "better" - they just want money, chicks, easy jobs without meaningful accountability, and maybe some support for their weak egos. Let them have that if that's what they need, just so long as they leave me, my life, and my hard-earned assets alone. I will not be an obedient and passive serf like some of my Brit ancestors doubtless were, sending most of their grain or wool to their superiors.
We are not an aristocracy here. Let the elites figure out how to run their own lives (in general, I am not impressed), instead of trying to run mine. A few relevant links:
A Delta pilot’s story written by a Delta pilot on approach to Tokyo during the earthquake, forwarded thru CTV Television:
I'm currently still in one piece, writing from my room in the Narita crew hotel. It's 8am. This is my inaugural trans-pacific trip as a brand new, recently checked out, international 767 Captain and it has been interesting, to say the least, so far. I've crossed the Atlantic three times so far so the ocean crossing procedures were familiar.
By the way, stunning scenery flying over the Aleutian Islands. Everything was going fine until 100 miles out from Tokyo and in the descent for arrival. The first indication of any trouble was that Japan air traffic control started putting everyone into holding patterns. At first we thought it was usual congestion on arrival. Then we got a company data link message advising about the earthquake, followed by another stating Narita airport was temporarily closed for inspection and expected to open shortly (the company is always so positive).
From our perspective things were obviously looking a little different. The Japanese controller's anxiety level seemed quite high and he said expect "indefinite" holding time. No one would commit to a time frame on that so I got my copilot and relief pilot busy looking at divert stations and our fuel situation, which, after an ocean crossing is typically low.
It wasn't long, maybe ten minutes, before the first pilots started requesting diversions to other airports. Air Canada, American, United, etc. all reporting minimal fuel situations. I still had enough fuel for 1.5 to 2.0 hours of holding. Needless to say, the diverts started complicating the situation.
Japan air traffic control then announced Narita was closed indefinitely due to damage. Planes immediately started requesting arrivals into Haneada, near Tokyo, a half dozen JAL and western planes got clearance in that direction but then ATC announced Haenada had just closed. Uh oh! Now instead of just holding, we all had to start looking at more distant alternatives like Osaka, or Nagoya.
One bad thing about a large airliner is that you can't just be-pop into any little airport. We generally need lots of runway. With more planes piling in from both east and west, all needing a place to land and several now fuel critical ATC was getting over-whelmed. In the scramble, and without waiting for my fuel to get critical, I got my flight a clearance to head for Nagoya, fuel situation still okay. So far so good. A few minutes into heading that way, I was "ordered" by ATC to reverse course. Nagoya was saturated with traffic and unable to handle more planes (read- airport full). Ditto for Osaka.
With that statement, my situation went instantly from fuel okay, to fuel minimal considering we might have to divert a much farther distance. Multiply my situation by a dozen other aircraft all in the same boat, all making demands requests and threats to ATC for clearances somewhere. Air Canada and then someone else went to "emergency" fuel situation. Planes started to heading for air force bases. The nearest to Tokyo was Yokoda AFB. I threw my hat in the ring for that initially. The answer - Yokoda closed! no more space.
Reminds me of this Neal Stephenson quote: “The twentieth century was one in which limits on state power were removed in order to let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the century into an abattoir. . . . We Americans are the only ones who didn’t get creamed at some point during all of this. We are free and prosperous because we have inherited political and value systems fabricated by a particular set of eighteenth-century intellectuals who happened to get it right. But we have lost touch with those intellectuals.”
Many people only know about the Municipal Art Society of New York through their acclaimed architectural walking tours or their historical preservation efforts, but they do much more than that. A BD daughter is considering getting involved with them, and I'm sure the BD lad would be interested too.
Good video with an IHop owner in Ohio, at Q and O.
He says, interestingly, that his restaurant business profits an average of $3000 per year per employee. Obamacare would put him to -$4000 per employee. Out of business.
In the 20 years to 2010, he gave 2,045 concerts, according to the fan site ExpectingRain.com, where you can study the setlist for every one of those nights. In April he will play in Singapore, Australasia and—if Beijing lets him in, after rebuffing him last year—China. In the summer he is expected in Europe. Not for nothing are his wanderings known as the Never Ending Tour.
and
His predicament raises the opposite question: how does it feel to be so known? Dylan gives an answer in “Chronicles”. “The big bugs in the press kept promoting me as the mouthpiece, spokesman, or even conscience of a generation. That was funny...I was more a cowpuncher than a Pied Piper...I really was never any more than what I was—a folk musician who gazed into the grey mist with tear-blinded eyes and made up songs that floated in a luminous haze...I wasn’t a preacher performing miracles. It would have driven anybody mad.” Maybe that is his achievement: to have stayed sane.
Bob's Where are you tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat) from the under-rated and garage-recorded Street Legal (1978):
There's a long-distance train rolling through the rain, tears on the letter I write. There's a woman I long to touch and I miss her so much but she's drifting like a satellite. There's a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze, laughter down on Elizabeth Street And a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone where she bathed in a stream of pure heat. Her father would emphasize you got to be more than street-wise but he practiced what he preached from the heart. A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted to me the time and the place that we'd part.
There's a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage And she winds back the clock and she turns back the page Of a book that no one can write. Oh, where are you tonight?
Two years ago, George Soros said he wanted to reorganize the entire global economic system. In two short weeks, he is going to start - and no one seems to have noticed.
On April 8, a group he's funded with $50 million is holding a major economic conference and Soros's goal for such an event is to "establish new international rules" and "reform the currency system." It's all according to a plan laid out in a Nov. 4, 2009, Soros op-ed calling for "a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order."
We don't know what we are doing. We only know that we have moral support for it on paper, from an international organization that is utterly corrupt, wherein members who do not wish us well are pleased to grant us permission to blunder.
Don't bother reading this unless you are on the same page, or pages, that I am on this Lent. My musings and meanderings will bore you, and I do not understand my own religion very well, despite trying to.
The 
Sipp informed me that the historic landmark, 
Gateway: 
GOP Appears 
I happen to be one of those people who love that 
I use Preen on our perennial beds and shrub borders. I think Mrs. BD, the Weeder-in-Chief, appreciates it, but my Mom gives me heck for using it since she views it as lazy and possibly not environmentally acceptable. 
I don't think we have ever posted a link to 
The author begins -
I'm currently still in one piece, writing from my room in the Narita crew hotel. It's 8am. This is my inaugural trans-pacific trip as a brand new, recently checked out, international 767 Captain and it has been interesting, to say the least, so far. I've crossed the Atlantic three times so far so the ocean crossing procedures were familiar.
Anchoress: 
Still sane? Dylan turns 70 in May, and is still on the road. From