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 suppose it's slightly ironic that, twelve hours before I might possibly drown from a hurricane, I'm posting an article on fire. Such are the whims and vagaries of outrageous fortune.
Yesterday, I said something in an email that only a Floridian would say:
The good news is that it's supposed to still be a tropical storm when it gets here, or a weak Category 1 hurricane. Hopefully.
Only in Florida would someone say it'll hopefully be a Category 1 hurricane.
When I posted on Isaac last Wednesday, it was barreling directly for us. Over the next few days, it moved slightly to the west, as far as Key West, then it turned slightly northward which drew it back our direction. So it looks like we'll get clobbered pretty good.
The good news is that it's picked up a real head of steam over the last few days and is now scheduled to hit us tonight, rather than tomorrow morning as originally forecast. More speed = less time over the water = less time to pick up energy.
For what it's worth, this is the fifth hurricane I've gone through in the six years I've been here. Four in the first two months, now Isaac. We also got lashed a good one a few years ago with Tropical Storm Fey.
As for the video, I don't think you'll learn anything particularly new ("governments are stupid"?), but it's nice to see the subject neatly laid out. As you know, along with earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and unscheduled solar eclipses, the recent spate of large wildfires has also been attributed to global warming.
What makes this video exceptional — coming from a left-wing, AGW-loving organization like NPR — is that the expert actually says the following in real, live English words for all to hear:
Even without climate change in the mix, this is probably not coming back as the forests and woodlands that they were before.
That's right, even without global warming, the expert still acknowledges that shortsighted government agencies might have played some small, tiny part in this travesty.
Why should we? Fruit is just fattening sugar-water - a dessert - and you can get all the vitamins you need from a daily or occasional multivit. Men seem to prefer, given the choice, meat and roots. Life is short: eat what you enjoy but avoid the carbs if you don't like your weight.
My brain chemicals forced me to link that essay. Seems to me that when we make good decisions, we like free will, but, when we make lousy decisions, we do not. Anyway, it is not binary. People are complicated and flawed.
84:1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!
84:2 My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
84:3 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God.
84:4 Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise. Selah
84:5 Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
84:6 As they go through the valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools.
84:7 They go from strength to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion.
84:8 O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
84:9 Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed.
84:10 For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness.
84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; he bestows favor and honor. No good thing does the LORD withhold from those who walk uprightly.
84:12 O LORD of hosts, happy is everyone who trusts in you.
It should be a scandal that the federal government is purposefully weakening a core principle of our value system: self-reliance. To wit, the feds are praising local bureaucrats for "counteracting" what they call "mountain pride." These bureaucrats are convincing people who characteristically reject food stamps to instead embrace a culture of dependence.
It's in the politicians' interest to grow dependency: dependency means votes. It's in the bureaucracy's interest to grow dependency: that's how they grow their "business" and make themselves necessary and important, and keep their jobs.
I cannot imagine mowing an entire hayfield with a scythe, but they are excellent tools once you get the hang of the rhythm and the motion, especially for steep or hard-to-reach places. If you sharpen the blade.
We always had a foot-pedal-driven sharpening wheel, with an oil can on top. Handy for sharpening anything. Easy to get kids to do the foot-pedaling for a few minutes.
"The Marugg grass scythe proves itself an excellent tool. It is the most satisfying hand tool that I have ever used. In tough grass it cuts a little less uniformly than the power scythe. In all other ways, in my opinion, it is a better tool because, it is light, it handles gracefully & comfortably even on steep ground, it is far less dangerous, it is quiet & makes no fumes, it is much more adaptable. In rank growth one narrows the cut & shortens the stroke. It always starts - provided the user will start. Aside from reasonable skill & care in use, there are no maintenance problems. It requires no fuel or oil. It runs on breakfast. It's cheaper to buy than most weed eaters & is cheaper to use than any other power mower. And best of all it's good exercise."
Berry wrote a short story titled The Good Scythe.
As for me, I suffer from a decadent weakness for power tools and power equipment - anything that uses gas or electricity - but I am sure Berry is right. I do have two large patches on the farm that require a scythe. One is too steep for the tractor, and one is too muddy for the TR or the tractor. A stuck-in-the-mud heavy machine is no fun at all. A TR on a very steep slope makes for dangerous slapstick, but I've done it a few times.
My Mom still reminds me about how much her Dad - a businessman, Polo player, sailer, fisherman, skiier, hunter and shooter, Poker-player, Scotch-drinker, cigar-smoker, and a good pal of mine - loved to clear his head with a few hours of scything each weekend on the farm. Followed by a few hours of riding over hill and dale. My Mom does not approve of my affection for power tools (unless I am doing something she wants done). I miss the guy, dead from an MI at 63.
He made the most of the time he had, which was and is an inspiration to me. A Congregationalist Protestant, in his will he gave his field next to his house to the RC Church which had wanted to purchase it for a new church, and left them his house for a parish house.
During the War, he made that field into a large Victory Garden with a large chicken coop, and raised cattle on the Farm (and kept his - and my Mom's - horses at the farm too. Big Hunters). My family tradition is to always have some land somewhere, whether for survival or for pleasure.
I disagree that Romney is a weak candidate. He is not a highly charismatic candidate - not yet, anyway - but charisma has its limits. If people want normality, R&R get the vote. If they want more hopey-changey, they will get more of it.
With autumn just around the corner up here, it's time to stock up on pre-fossil fuel. A carbon-emitting friend sent me his pic of his growing woodpile.
It's also a good time to call your chimney sweep, because he will begin to get busy after Labor Day.
The grey sea and the long black land; And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow, And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!
It's a very complicated state of affairs, but the economy still stinks for almost everybody without a government job. However, it does not alter my longstanding thesis that a liberal arts education is not meant to be a job credential, and never was. It was designed as life-enrichment, advanced mental discipline, and delayed-adulthood for the clergy, for serious scholars, and for the prosperous elites.
Most of the kids today are being challenged to build something for themselves. That's a good thing for everybody, but it works better if the government gets out of the way.
Strassel: The Silent Second-Term Agenda - Despite the Democrats' shellacking in 2010, the president moved left. Re-election in November will reinforce his view that he was correct to do so.
It begins:
President Obama has a reputation for talking, but not necessarily for saying much. He has achieved new levels of vagueness this election season. Beyond repeating that he's in favor of making the "rich" pay for more government "investment," he hasn't offered a single new idea for a second term. This is deliberate.
The core of the Obama strategy is to make Americans worry that whatever Mitt Romney does, it will be worse.
When we last left the exciting Fukushima/earthquake/tsunami story, it had been determined that the Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered almost no ill effects from the largest earthquake in Japan's history and the fifth-largest ever recorded. They had built the reactors deep in solid rock and they withstood the upheaval just fine.
Then the tsunami came along, knocked out the backup generators, and the whole thing went into the toilet.
Then the Japanese government freaked out and shut down all of their nuclear power plants due to 'safety concerns'. The first one finally went back on line a few weeks ago, a year and a half later.
Now, a little panic and overreaction from a government is hardly anything new. We see it here all the time. Some 11-year-old moron puts out an eye with a bottle rocket and immediately all fireworks are banned throughout the county. About the only thing they have in some places these days are sparklers and snakes. Happens all the time.
But then Germany got into the act, likewise shutting down all of its nuke plants over safety concerns, all of which raises one of the greatest questions of all time:
There are tsunamis in Germany?
Earthquakes, sure, but, as Fukushima testified, nuke plants can be built to withstand earthquakes just fine. So what the German high command was really saying to its citizenry was, "We're afraid we're going to get hit by a tsunami any minute now." That, all by itself, might have earned Germany the coveted title, Fool of the Decade.
But it gets even worse than that.
When they built Fukushima, they constructed a sea wall that would withstand the highest tsunami in Japanese recorded history, back in the 30's. These people obviously aren't fools, and they well knew that (1) the reactors would probably withstand a major quake just fine, but (2) a tsunami breaching the sea wall would do them in. So they obviously put a lot of research into it.
Turns out, that wasn't a tsunami after all that swept into northeastern Japan last March, killing nearly 20,000 people and launching a major nuclear and environmental crisis.
That was two tsunamis that merged far out at sea and rolled swiftly toward shore, more than 135 feet high. That means the speeding wall of water was almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty, torch to toes.
They've been studying data from a trio of satellites that fortuitously happened to be passing over that part of the Pacific Ocean on Friday, March 11, Japan time. And they have now confirmed what until now had only been hypothesized:
That separate massive water movements, ignited by undersea earthquakes miles beneath the ocean surface, can grow and actually merge their massive energy and water volumes to roll across scores of miles of ocean undiminished by distance. They are, it now appears, shaped and steered by the unseen contours -- the ridges and mountain ranges -- of the ocean bottom beneath.
Until now such twin tidal waves had never been observed, just theorized as possible explanations for such devastation as the 1960 Chilean tsunami that traveled trans-Pacific to kill about 200 in Hawaii and Japan.
"It was a one-in-ten million chance that we were able to observe this double wave with satellites," said Y. Tony Song of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. "It was like looking for a ghost. A NASA-French Space Agency satellite altimeter happened to be in the right place at the right time to capture the double wave and verify its existence."
So, to sum up, not only did Germany shut down its entire nuclear power industry because they were afraid of getting hit by a tsunami, but it turns out the tsunami they based this on was such an unlikely event that, until now, it had only been hypothesized.
...the Democratic Party is fourscore behind abortion on demand, radical environmentalism and tax hikes. These issues, we are told, are quite popular, so the Democratic Party should not be shy about touting them. These issues are what define them as Democrats, right? Let the Republicans talk about all that boring stuff like the private sector, energy (from underneath the ground, no less!), debt reduction and reforming entitlement programs. Borrrrring!
Ferguson’s whole piece is worth reading; I’ll confine myself to two bits. Responding to what Ferguson says about Obama’s notorious “You didn’t build that” speech, one critic says: “It’s bizarre that Ferguson thinks government policies didn’t help create America’s middle class. America was the first country to make high school compulsory.” Ferguson:
Fact checked and — oh no! I really did get that wrong. It was the government that created the middle class, as well as the Golden Gate Bridge! Remind me to tell Karl Marx about this. It will come as news to him that, contrary to his life’s work, the superstructure in fact created the base. (Come to think of it, this is going to come as shock to a lot of American liberals too. Imagine! The state actually created the bourgeoisie! Who knew?)
When I was a kid, one of the most exciting things to do was to take a Sunfish out in a hurricane. Doubt I'd still have the nerve to do that now, but these fun-loving folks in Maine took a Hobie 16 out in Hurricane Earl 2 years ago. Boat reached a max speed of 22 knots before pitchpoling.
It's usually amusing to hear from PJ O'Rourke, but this post of his is rough on his own generation. Quotes:
America’s retreat from visible, tangible manifestations of superiority doesn’t hurt just our pride, our economy, and our place in the Guinness Book of World Records. It’s also a bad advertising campaign. America has one great product to sell, individual liberty. It’s attractive, useful, healthy, and the fate of the world depends upon it.
We are the most important and maybe the only country that fully embodies the sanctity, dignity, independence, and responsibility of each and every person. “American” is not a nationality, an ethnicity, or a culture; it’s a fact of human freedom. Our country was not created and is not governed by a ruling class or even by majority rule. America is individuals exercising their right to do what they think is best with due respect (to the extent human nature allows) for the right of all other Americans to do likewise. This is not an ideology or a system. This is a blessing.
The rest of the world would like to be so blessed. But the concept of individual liberty is harder to grasp than we Americans think. Those with little experience of liberty understand license and lawlessness better than they understand freedom. We want everyone on earth to have sanctity, dignity, independence, and responsibility. And we want everyone to want it for each other. We want this not because of our idealism but because of our selfish desire for a little more peace and plenty.
The world will never be good. People fight hard and cause a lot of trouble when commanded by their self-interest. But people fight viciously and cause ruin when commanded by the interests of others. Individual liberty is the best we can do. Try any other sociopolitical combination—collective liberty, individual oppression, communitarian despotism.
However, if we are going to promote the benefits of individual liberty, we have to show what free people can do. We need evidence to support the truths we hold to be self-evident. We have to advertise. Putting something double the size of the Burj Khalifa where the World Trade Towers once stood and building a Corvette that can top 300 mph would be a start.
Even assuming a full recovery from the Great Recession—possible, though not certain—the resulting prosperity will be qualified by greater competition for scarce economic resources. Massive federal budget deficits are only the most conspicuous sign of a society that has promised itself more than it can afford. To resurrect a familiar metaphor: A more slowly growing economic pie will face more claimants for slices. Some will receive bigger slices, others smaller.
Another:
The premise of the post–World War II affluent society, that we were or would soon become so rich that we could afford almost anything, was never true, but we often acted as if it were. We avoided unpleasant choices, especially in government, accepting routine federal budget deficits (46 out of 51 years since 1961). Now, limits are painfully evident. There are more promises than can be fulfilled. Meeting all of government’s spending commitments would require higher, broad-based taxes, which both liberals and conservatives reject, or perpetually large deficits, which both parties consider unsustainable and undesirable.
What looms is a future of more distributional struggles between young and old, rich and poor, different regions, and many interest groups. Each will defend subsidies, work to avoid tax increases, and maneuver for regulatory advantage.
The entire piece is worth studying. There are lots of people out there, young and older, who could be doing much more right now were it not for the Administration's horribly misguided responses to the recession.
U.S. Open 2012: 
It's about Americans who have 
I cannot imagine mowing an entire hayfield with a scythe, but they are excellent tools once you get the hang of the rhythm and the motion, especially for steep or hard-to-reach places. If you sharpen the blade.
It's also a good time to call your chimney sweep, because he will begin to get busy after Labor Day.
Don't forget.
When we last left the exciting Fukushima/earthquake/tsunami 
“I Want To Be A Crony!”
It's usually amusing to hear from PJ O'Rourke, but