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.
If you think I was angry yesterday…then stand by for today. Let’s connect the dots in close to real time. Reasonably, President Bush took aggressive action against the Afghan and Iraqi regimes that sponsored terrorism against the US and its allies, although – along with every intelligence service – in major error believing that Iraq’s WMDs were more and more able. At the same time, reasonably, President Bush exerted himself to inform Americans to separate believers in Islam from radical Islamists.
That latter distinction is still valid. However, experience has demonstrated that the radical Islamists have grasped power in country after country while the voices or efforts of moderates have been inadequate or squelched by both the radical Islamists and by much of the Western media making increasingly tenuous excuses for the radicals.
Cap that off with an Obama administration, from the president himself to his appointed minions in the highest levels at the State Department, apologizing for supposed US sins, as claimed by radical Islamists, and otherwise stubbornly pursuing fairy tale wishes that catering to radicals will transform them into moderates and allies.
This same Obama administration failed to negotiate a reasonable timetable and process for reducing our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan while directing our military to leave more quickly. This has increased instability in those two countries in which Americans have sacrificed, persuaded fence-sitters to lean or go into the radical Isalamist camps, and encouraged bolder defiance from Maliki and Karzai of US and Western interests.
With all that and more background, the attacks yesterday on the US Embassy in Cairo and the US Consulate in Benghazi should come as little surprise. It should also come as little surprise that the response by the Obama administration was so initially apologetic -- and little better in its walk-back -- to the attackers instead of calling them out as thugs and demanding apologies from the Egyptian and Libyan governments for standing by. It should come as little surprise when there are more attacks on US Embassies and Consulates in the MidEast. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which has seized almost all power in Egypt, calls for more nationwide demonstrations this Friday. There are strong signs that Islamists in other Arab countries are stampeding in that path.
Apologists for extremism, abroad, in the White House or media, will continue to twist themselves into putrid pretzels of pusillanimity, and the media play along, with the most prominent prime perpetrator of press cover-up, the New York Times, even being so craven to keep yesterday’s outrages off its front page.
Presidential contender Mitt Romney, while pointedly criticizing the weak Obama response, needs to go much further, and quickly, to demonstrate how his administration would put spine back in the deboned eagle of the past four years. MidEast expert Michael Rubin lays out a program. That’s more and better than these offenses just being bantered and battered about without purposeful action.
It’s past time to return the proud and mighty eagle to prominence, talons bared, and let our enemies stand by for a thrashing wherever and whenever we decide. No longer can they be allowed so much initiative to incite without serious consequence, expecting the US to just whimper from the Oval Office.
The comments on that post show some eddication, too. Math is the best test of intellectual rigor because, up through Calc 3, it doesn't require talent. Just IQ (ie pattern-recognition, pleasure in the application of logic, and ability to handle abstraction), some humility in witholding one's own precious opinions and bullshitting skills learned in high school as in soft courses, and good study habits.
That's why tough colleges use Calc as "weed-out" courses for so many majors, and why so many grad school entry exams include Calc and advanced math (eg Med School, Engineering, Accounting, Computer, Biz School, Bio, the hard sciences obviously, etc). It's about capacity for mental discipline.
However, many Prep Schools and large High Schools in the US today offer Calc 2 and even Calc 3 so brainy kids don't have to waste college time on them and can jump right into real "Higher Ed."
The sad thing is that many bright kids' brains do not mature at the same pace (due to myelinization and other things), and sometimes can process things easily at 20 which they could not have done at 16.
As they say, eddication - like sex - is wasted on the young. I have friends who have taken up higher math, Chinese, and accounting in adulthood, just for the enjoyable challenge and for life-enrichment. Even writing books about obscure 16th Century Dutch artists. Reading fiction and watching TV and movies do not suffice for the active, adventurous mind. In fact, I have a 65 year-old (not retired) golfing buddy who is taking up Sanskrit. I admire people like that, and do not particularly admire people who do not have serious intellectual, artistic, or religious pursuits, regardless of their age.
I might like or love them, but don't admire. Precious grey matter should not be put out to pasture, because it is a gift. Very rare and fortunate are those who can combine vocation with avocation.
If your kid doesn't know Calc 1 or Stats 1 in High School, your government is ripping you off. That does not happen in India, China, or Singapore.
Average pay for Chicago teachers is $76,000 for 9 months' work with many vacations, not including benefits and defined-benefit pensions. Student performance is terrible, with only 15% of grade school students reading at grade level. In other words, it's not working. If this were a competitive business, it would be out of business but it is a government monopoly, controlled by a wealthy and powerful union.
1. The highest-paid public school teacher in Illinois is a physical education teacher making $191,124 per year (I'm assuming this is a 9-month teaching "year").2. Six of the top 12 highest-paid high school teachers in Illinois teach physical education, each making $170,000 or more. 3. Six state employees teaching driver education make $150,000 or more. 4. Six high school teachers make more than the Illinois Governor's salary of $177,500.5. 14,048 Illinois high school teachers made salaries of $100,000 or more in 2010, which is up 13% over last year.
Many, too many, Americans appear to have not learned or forgotten the critical lesson of 9/11/2001. The United States has some ruthless enemies, in some cases with even more capabilities now than then, and we must go out into the world to foil them. In the 1990s, benumbed and enjoying a supposed peace dividend after the fall of the Soviet Union, we too much ignored other budding threats. Then came 9/11/2001.Now the minor attention paid to foreign affairs in the presidential campaign caters to ostrich-head-in-sand voters.
But, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. BIG shame.
It may be rationalized that downplaying foreign affairs, or downplaying imminent threats, is good politics for this election. It is not, however, the leadership we need and deserve for now and the coming years. It is a shame.
Welcome to those of you arriving from Instapundit and my thanks to Glenn for the helpful link. My original post on this gruesome subject is here and the Save-Our-Doc donation page is here.
And welcome to Maggie's Farm, the oldest and bestest eclectic site in the sphereoblogs. It's the only site in town where you'll see a penetrating look into the human psyche by a renown psychiatrist, an exposé of the rotten core we call our educational system, a warning about the latest nasty computer virus, all followed by an endearing piece titled 'Chipmunk of the Week'. Quality eclecticity, all the way.
As far as who the hell I am, I was blogging ten years before the word was invented and had a page of the latest hot web links up a decade before Instapundit launched. Details here. As I said to Ed Driscoll today, relics like me should be preserved. As for some of my recent posts, if you like music, check this out. If you like horses, check this out. The genetics post Ed once referred to as "epic" is here, and my home site is here.
As for the rest of you lugs (and lugesses), I'm still tentatively scheduled for the 24th, but I might push it back a bit. The problem with the entire medical field is that it's full of 'ifs'. If the operation goes routinely, I might have enough money. If the post-operative costs are normal, I might have enough money. If the drugs are still available (a number of post-operative cancer drugs have recently become harder to find because of — you guessed it — government over-regulation by the FDA), I might have enough money.
It's the not-ifs that are worrying me.
The good news is that a subsidiary of the company I normally do the web work for hired me to do a big project for them (Ever put an Excel database online? It's not a pretty site.) so that'll keep me busy for a while. It should be worth about $800, but the pisser is that I won't get it for almost two months.
I also dusted off my plumbing tools the other day and made $350 replacing a water heater and two faucets. I modestly admit I haven't lost my touch. I had those puppies replaced in no time flat.
And, of course, no Big C update would be complete without including one of the many, many (many) happy-go-lucky, cheer-me-up cartoons and pics my two best friends have sent me since this all began. I'm sure lucky to have such support!
A pal took this pic of the USS Saratoga in Newport, RI last weekend. Some people want to use her for a new Naval museum, but Naval museums aren't really profitable. Even the Intrepid loses money.
With its sales weak, its share price crashing, and its business model still a mess, some analysts already are predicting that GM will return to bankruptcy — but not until after the election.
Dylan recently told Rolling Stone that he had intended to write religious songs for this album, but the songs just didn't end up that way, even though the Book of Revelations makes an appearance right on schedule. Chaos has come again, and Dylan seems pulled to the dark side. From listening to this album - filled with killing floors, "lyin' and dyin in blood," and a "flat chested junkie whore" all leading him, if not to temptation, than a tempest of the soul - it's clear that Dylan's done his three score years and eleven, and he's not going quietly.
Early fall (ie late Sept to November) is the best time for planting or transplanting most things in the temperate zone.
There's less heat to stress the plants, there's more rain, and plants have just enough time to send out new roots so they will be established by Springtime (and also because all plants begin growing - underground - well before what we consider Spring planting season. Thus fall planting gives them a double head-start to prepare. Plants grow roots at least a month before they show any green).
I planted three Knock-Out Roses this weekend. They are the easiest, most care-free, toughest shrub roses around. That's why they have become the biggest sellers. (Bill Radler built them - not the government - and he is getting rich from his creation. It's called genetic engineering.)
September to early October is the time to plant Peonies, too. I remember when everybody's grandma had a circular peony patch somewhere, but now people just put them in borders. Prepare their soil well, because Peony plants last a long time and take a year or two to become established and strong.
People recommend full sun for them, but half-day sun seems fine.
My favorites: BLT, Club Sandwich (with extra Mayo on the side), Po' Boy (fried oysters). Best of all? The Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich.
They omitted the classic Northeastern Italian-inspired sandwich: Fried eggplant on a hard roll. And what about the ordinary tuna sandwich? I like capers on mine.
I like 'em all though - except for Fluffernutter (h/t Marginal Rev)
And I don't mean large in a Chris Christie kinda way, I mean large in a spit-in-the-face-of-the-law, let's-incite-anarchy kinda way. That kinda large.
I've never gone to Coyote's site on a regular basis. Coyotes are, to be perfectly frank, scavengers. And a pretty scruffy lot, to boot. As such, I also tend to view his writing as 'scruffy'.
Such is the power of word association.
Well, Bird Dog bravely linked to this scalawag the other day, so I held my breath (coyotes live in filth, I needn't remind you) and checked it out. I enjoyed the article, but it seemed like there was something 'off' about it. I read a few more posts and continued having this strange feeling that all wasn't right in the world of coyote scruffiness.
Then I discovered the raw, naked truth: A blatant admission to the world that he had spit in the face of Truth, Justice and The American Way by preaching outright anarchy against the government!
Automatic weapons, you ask? Incendiary bombs? Molotov Cocktails?
No!
I am proudly holding the government-mandated flow restrictor I just removed from my most recent shower head purchase.
Pic: Artist's concept of the crime in progress
After calling the FBI, DHS, EPA and OSHA (just for good measure) about this self-admitted nihilist, I felt it my duty to warn you, the Maggie's Valued Reader™, about this 'gateway crime' — where the pusher draws you into his web of sin with a 'simple' crime — only to have you later trapped into doing his bidding when it comes time to rob that armored car guarded by six ex-Army commandos with Uzis and you end up dying a horrific, painful, bloody death — and all because you visited Coyote's blog.
I also thought I might elaborate on his post, so that you may further know exactly what to watch out for while steering clear of gateway crimes such as this. I have a little perspective on the whole water-rationing thing because I was a sub-contractor when California went through an official 8-year drought back in the 80's. Then the weather cycle flipped back around and 'flood control' was at the top of everybody's list.
Such were the whims and vagaries of weather, back in the days before global warming, back when nature still had a say.
Today, as Mort Zuckerman accurately contended in a Friday evening Wall Street Journal op-ed, “we are experiencing, in effect, a modern-day depression,” where “dependent millions” relying on food stamps and swelling the disability rolls “are the invisible counterparts of the soup kitchens and bread lines of the 1930s.”
Hinderaker suggests that it might be the increase in the dependency culture. I wonder whether it's just because Obama's brand is cool, and Romney's is square. I doubt that the country has suddenly swerved Left.
BTW, I think Obama's DNC speech was entirely on purpose. That speech worked before, so why change anything? If it ain't busted, don't fix it.
2:1 My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?
2:2 For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in,
2:3 and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please," while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet,"
2:4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
2:5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?
2:6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court?
2:7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
2:8 You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
2:9 But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.
2:11 For the one who said, "You shall not commit adultery," also said, "You shall not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
2:12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.
2:13 For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?
2:15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food,
2:16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?
2:17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
Sure, in heavily Democrat California Senator Feinstein is a sure thing to win re-election. But, does that mean that the state's voters should not hear her views directly compared to her Republican challenger in a debate. Well, according Feinstein's incumbant attitude, Feinstein says NO and leaves the news interview and her empty chair!
As a Californian, I deeply appreciate (not) Senator Feinstein's attitude toward Californians' informativeness.
Everybody should have whatever they want. So we should just outlaw prices.
Education is not a necessity. Ask Larry Ellison. It's a very good thing to have, and it's certainly something to strive for. But not everybody should get a college education. It's this mind-set which is part of the cause of increased costs.
Re-posted because it's so good, because it's been in my brain all week, and because it's stormy here today:
Gonna make a lot of money, gonna go up north I'll plant and I'll harvest what the earth brings forth The hammer's on the table, the pitchfork's on the shelf For the love of God, you ought to take pity on yourself
I forget where I found today's photo so I can't credit the finder, but 
A pal took this pic of the USS Saratoga in Newport, RI last weekend. Some people want to use her for
Early fall (ie late Sept to November) is the best time for planting or transplanting most things in the temperate zone.
The 
Pic: Artist's concept of the crime in progress
The Town-Gown Connection - 