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.
Paul Driessen reported in the Washington Times that ‘the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that wind turbines kill 440,000 bald and golden eagles, hawks, falcons, owls, cranes, egrets, geese, and other birds every year in the U.S., along with countless insect-eating bats.’ The actual numbers are probably far higher.
It's as if David Duke invented a holiday called "Anglika," which he based on the philosophy of "Mein Kampf" -- and clueless public school teachers began celebrating the made-up, racist holiday.
Glory be to God for dappled things For skies of couple-colour as a brindled cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings; Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, fallow, and plough; And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.
A family friend just returned from a year's posting overseas, and despite massive jet-lag got himself over to the Maggie's HQ to cook up a storm last night.
After a year of southeastern Asian food, he wanted to cook a rustic Ragu. Either rabbit or duck are fine, but he used duck because rabbit was sold out at the market. Lots of Italians around here in Yankeeland. Use Porcini for the mushrooms, or at least the dried mushroom mixes with porcini in them.
There are excellent versions of this without tomato, too. "Italian" does not = tomato sauce. The Italians were cooking tasty dishes for thousands of years before tomato seeds were brought over from Mexico.
(Another great Italian classic is Rabbit Stew - like Veal Stew - which is usually not served with a carb or, if it is, with rice or risotto.)
For a Ragu - or for almost any meat concoction like Beef Bourguignon or Beef (or venison) Stroganoff - the only pasta I like to serve is pappardelle, which is a broad, egg noodle. It's also the best pasta for Pasta al Funghi with Porcinis. Trust me. How much do we love Porcinis? Is there any other mushroom really worth eating?
A Chianti Classico or Chianti Riserva works well with it, too.
I've been preaching this since long before Gary Taubes' books came out. That's because I have a colleague who studies the physiology of insulin. From what I know, Taubes is right. A quote re Dietary Incorrectness at Powerline:
Taubes disputes the connection between dietary fat and high cholesterol. He challenges the thesis that dietary fat is detrimental to our health. He rejects a balanced diet. He advocates a high-fat diet. He opposes dieting. He doesn’t object to exercise, but he asserts that it makes you hungry. It’s almost funny. He is the dietary equivalent of politically incorrect.
Taubes is a serious science reporter, not a crank. As I say here ad nauseum, and as Taubes explains, if you want to get trim, quit the carbs. None. That includes fruit, which isn't any good for you anyway. It's just sugar. As the man says, after 14 days off all carbs they will not appeal to you so much anymore. (There is an addiction-like quality to carbs.) And if you want to be fit, youthful, sexy, intelligent, and vigorous, then exercise or do physical work too. If you want to lower your triglycerides, get better genes or take Lipitor.
It's not complicated. It's a free country, food is cheap and exercise is free. Do what you want to achieve the goals you desire. Don't tell me it's hard to do, because everything in life is hard to do except eating, surfing the net, and watching TV.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Supposedly handcuffed the government and liberated people. Composed by James Madison, ratified 1791, now often disparaged as "meaningless inkblots" by statists whose hunger for power accepts no bounds
Indeed, democratic governments and democratic republics, as schoolmarms often forget to mention, contain dangerous germs of emotional or greedy mob rule which are lacking in ideal philosopher-kings.
Never even went to college, ol' GW. Or high school either. Far from a genius general too but brave as a terrier in the face of bullets. A very great man, greatest in his humility and his aversion to state power.
A powerful report from Heather MacDonald: Chicago's Real Crime Story - Why decades of community organizing haven't stemmed the city's youth violence.
I cannot pick out one juicy quote because the whole sad thing is of a piece: moral, family, and cultural breakdown since the 1960s. These kids are growing up in something between anarchy and Lord of the Flies. One quote:
Some members of Chicago’s Left will argue against holding fathers or mothers responsible for their children. “To blame it on the family is totally unfair,” says Gwen Rice, a board member of the Developing Communities Project. “I’m tired of blaming the parents. The services for the poor are paltry; it boggles the mind. Historically, you can’t expect a parent who can’t get a job to do something that someone with resources can do. These problems have histories; there are policies that have mitigated against black progress. What needs to happen is a change in corporate greed and insensitivity.” Rice corrects my use of the term “illegitimacy”: “There are no illegitimate births,” she says.
Wish you all could be here with us! I don't know why anybody would choose to be anywhere else in the world this week. Deep powder, dude, and a comfortable 20 degrees F at the base. Excellent restaurants, too. Good seafood. Carpe diem while you still have strong legs and before the government takes all of your money.
The drive up from Vancouver is stunningly scenic with the ocean and the fjords on your left and the mountains reaching up into the clouds on your right, worth the trip by itself.
In case you're just returning home from a delightful Christmas vacation on the Moon, perhaps the most reprehensible MSM interview in recent years took place a few days ago when CNN's loathsome Piers Morgan repeatedly vilified Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, on prime time TV.
Pratt: Your [Great Britain] violent crime rate is higher than ours as is the violent crime rate in Australia. America is not the Wild West that you are depicting. We only have the problem in our cities, and unhappily, in our schools where people like you have been able to get laws put on the books that keep people from being able to defend themselves. I honestly don't understand why you would rather have people be victims of a crime than be able to defend themselves. It's incomprehensible.
Morgan: You're an unbelievably stupid man, aren't you?
...
Pratt: The Second Amendment means what it says, and meanwhile, you want to continue laws against self-defense. Laws that prohibit self-defense. Laws that prohibit teachers and other faculty, other members of the administration in schools from being able to defend themselves if they have a concealed carry permit. The laws prohibit them right now. We have been lobbying against those laws since they were put on. We will continue to do so, pointing out that this is where the problem is. And for you to support them means that you're really blind to the role that that plays in enabling murderers to operate with impunity.
Morgan: Yes, I know -- I know why sales of these weapons have been soaring in the last few days. It's down to idiots like you.
It should come as no surprise that certain people didn't especially take to this.
The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a wrecking crew, dismantling civilization bit by bit -- replacing what works with what sounds good.
Those of us who served in Vietnam have fond memories of the traveling cover bands, usually very good, and their female dancers and singers, also very good and sexy. I saw a quote earlier that although we are now old, at least we got to see the great music groups. I'd include these show people who brought fun into our horny lives in Vietnam.
Cinammon Stillwell is an accomplished reporter. Her mother made this documentary about the entertainers who visited us wherever we were in Vietnam. It is one of a kind, something that to my knowledge has not been documented before. The film does not have an embed, so you have to go to this site to watch it. I know that us Vietnam vets will, and I think others out there will enjoy it and learn something different than many misconceptions.
Just for the heck of it, here's one of my blurry (I should say beery) photos in the 1st MarDiv HQs E-Club from back then:
We always say that "freedom is messy" and that "Freedom is not for sissies." From Sultan's A Perfect Prison:
Bloomberg is a living model of the glass half-full theory of human behavior. This is after all a man who banned large sodas, and if you can't trust people to have large sodas, then you can't trust them to have cold medicines, let alone guns. Where does it end? It ends the same place - it ends in a prison. Nowhere. If you believe that people are basically bad, then every problem you identify is met with another control measure until you control absolutely everything.
(Hizzoner, of course, has been surrounded by armed men since he got rich on Wall St, long before becoming Mayor. Must be nice to afford armed bodyguards and armed drivers of your Lincoln Town Car while you sip single malt Scotch in the back with your latest squeeze while denouncing legal gun owners.)
The eternal problem with widespread freedom from state control is that some small minority of people can't or won't handle freedom, personal independence, self-control. For whatever reason, they do not buy into our social contract or are unable to fulfill it. Perhaps they never even heard of it, never were informed that a person makes a deal to be a citizen here and that it is a historically-unique privilege, responsibility, and challenge.How come nobody told them that life in America is supposed to be difficult and risky, but filled with opportunity? It's not about safety and comfort and was never meant to be based on anything but virtue and freedom. Our streets are not paved with gold, but with blood, sweat, and tears.
These failures of a minority of bad apples to get with the program invite the state to step in in an effort to provide controls and supports externally. Thus we all lose a bit of freedom each time some jerk, idiot, sociopath, addict, or lunatic abrogates his American dignity and fails at running his own life in the manner of an honest, free, law-abiding and upstanding citizen. It's a shame - and wrong - that the least moral and worse-behaving of our population should have the power to deprive freedoms from the vast majority of decent citizens who aim to construct honorable, dignified, and independent lives by following their consciences or God's will as best they can.
Go ahead and ask me why I might want a 30-clip magazine, or a Big Gulp Coke. Well, I don't really want those things, but I don't want them forbidden me. I have a handgun carry permit, but I don't walk around armed all the time. Rarely, in fact. I might as well ask why you need a car that goes 110 mph, when car deaths in the US are far higher than gun deaths (32,000, vs 600 deaths by rifle - half of them suicides and others accidents).
(For other stats: Swimming pool drownings in the US: Approx. 3000 per year, mostly young kids. Backyard pools frighten me far more than guns do. I hate pools and I like guns... Also, firearm murders with illegal handguns thus far in the gun-banning village of Chicago, 2012: 470.)
Leftist control freaks often try to find signs of "market failure" to justify government intrusion into the free and voluntary exchange of goods and services. Similarly, they seek signs of "freedom failure" with the same goals. It's about power of the elites over us little people - always for our own good, of course, because we are "the masses." However, there are no "masses" in America and there is no aristocracy of any sort, political or otherwise.
Isn't obesity a "freedom failure"? Of course it is. North Korea has no such problem because they enforce "food control." So my final thought on this topic tonight: Why does the government allow Medicare-aged people to be overweight? 500,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease per year. Surely some controls are called for to address this crisis of excess freedom which results in so much disability and death, and burdens everyone else with their medical bills. Easy for the government to fix that: just offer to pay for medical care based on your BMI. If it's over 27, no free doctors. They are heading that way in the UK already. My view is that if you want to be heavy, do so and enjoy it. Not on my nickel, though. My freedom to life and property should trump all else because it is a gift from God.
Winter in central New England entails jump-starters, oil lamps and lanterns, snow-blowers, snow plows, flashlights, snow shovels, plenty of firewood, hats and long-johns, and good gloves and boots of all sorts. Global cooling will be here soon. Oh, and 4WD for the sissies and the city-folk for whom a little snow and ice are daunting - and for your plow truck. Gas generators? We country folk don't go in for those.
I keep one of these charged up in the garage, and it came in handy when one of the tractors, rarely used this summer, had both a dead battery and squishy front tires Saturday. I had been using the Ford all summer, and figured I ought to get the Farmall moving a little to prevent Tractor Arthritis.
What was my chore? Heading up into the woods with the wagon to clear our cross-country ski trails of fallen trees, and to accumulate some more firewood in the process.
I presume you heard the tragic story of how a large golden eagle almost carried away a young child and devoured it. Controversy immediately followed, of course, as the usual two sides faced off against each other. On one side was PETA, echoing my own personal belief that eagles have the right to eat, too.
On the other side are people who apparently want to see eagles starve to death. I'm honestly not sure why these virulent animal haters are even given a say in the matter, but such is the nature of a modern society that allows the voices of all to be heard.
The seizure of the child was caught on smartphone. I think it should be obvious that this is not for the squeamish. Management strongly urges all liberals and young children to immediately leave the room.
Luckily, there's not a lot of blood.
I think it's safe to say the eagle learned a valuable lesson that day in nutritional management.
But for an inside look into this horrific nightmare, let's go to the video:
I thought it amusing that both sides of the interview said something quite naive.
"Did it surprise you that everybody thought it was real?"
No, you mental midget, six people spent over 300 hours on it so it would look fake!
But one of the guy's comments was even more innocent.
"We never thought people would analyze it frame-by-frame."
Guys, I was analyzing it frame-by-frame the first time I watched it expecting it to be fake!
Not in the exact sense he means, but as an acknowledged video guru, I know what to look for. I bought the whole thing right up to the close-up of the afternoon snack kid and saw how big he was. My next thought was, "That snack sure looks big for a squirrel!"
I suppose it was also a point of naivete when the teacher set the grade of 'A' at a mere 100,000 views. When something goes viral these days, it's almost always in the millions.
I realized I had a very special Christmas gift for these very special people.
The gift is, thankfully, you're all dead wrong.
It may not feel like it, but 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world. That sounds like an extravagant claim, but it is borne out by evidence. Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.
You're very welcome. Merry Christmas, after all.
And greetings from the incredibly awesome state of California.
You remember California, don't you? From the tall virgin forests of the Trinity Alps in the far north, to the Death Valley deserts in the far south. From the eerie volcanic fields of Mt. Lassen in the Sierras, to the pristine white talcum powder sand of Pismo Beach on the central coast. From the majesty of the sharp, towering mountains above Lake Tahoe, to the greatest agricultural valley the world has ever known.
You know. That California.
Current temperature back home in the Florida Keys?
A delightful 71.
Current temperature here in Palo Alto, California?
46.
I sure wish that global warming stuff would hurry up and get going. Overnight would be preferred.
Best Christmas wishes to our readers all around the world.
Food info: 
A family friend just returned from a year's posting overseas, and despite massive jet-lag got himself over to the Maggie's HQ to cook up a storm last night.
I've been preaching this since long before Gary Taubes' books came out. That's because I have a colleague who studies the physiology of insulin. From what I know, Taubes is right. A quote re Dietary Incorrectness 
Oxygen TV to Run ‘All My Babies’ Mamas’ Show
This morning's art photo stolen from
We always say that "freedom is messy" and that "Freedom is not for sissies." From Sultan's 
