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.
While preserving my usual skepticsm about what "studies say...", it does make sense that humans would need a good dose of full- body sunlight daily.
Recent studies say 40 mins/day (without sun block), or 20 minutes per side or until done to taste.
With unblocked sunlight over enough of your body, your skin produces the right sorts of Vit D that you need for full health, vigor, and maybe even cancer prevention. Roofers get enough but, in my experience, roofers often tend to destroy themselves with crystal meth and/or alcohol. It's a roofer thing.
The alternative is to do the research yourself and try to figure out what kind and what amounts of Vit D a person ought to take as pills. As I have posted here in the past, Vit D is the only vitamin I take on the advice of all of my doc friends. However, I also take my shirt off whenever I can.
(Men, middle-aged and above, also probably need a baby aspirin and Vitamin L - Lipitor, but don't take medical advice off the internet. Including mine.)
I don't think you can attribute all of the prosperity of Medieval Europe to the Medieval Warm Period, but surely some of it.
At Maggie's, we retain a healthy skepticism about AGW just as we do about most or all scientific theories - and especially those driven by political or economic agendas.
What we mostly hear from the Climate Change propagandists are the terrifying effects of some planetary warming. We never hear about the benefits.
I took a minute to google "advantages+global warming" and "benefits+global warming," and found tons of links. A few samples of them:
I recently learned that there is software out there to make overly crisp digital images into more film-like images. Here's one of them. Other programs are out there to specifically change your images to Kodachrome-like, Ektachrome-like, etc.
Anthony Weiner now joins a disturbing list of elected officials in our
time who've lost any sense of self-discipline. If there are others out
there wandering in the confused ethers that trapped Anthony Weiner, we
have a request: Get out now. Spare the rest of us.
In an otherwise excellent essay, a distinction that Mead fails to grasp is the difference between what I will call a “breadwinner” business and a service business.
A breadwinner business is a business activity that brings money into a community. It can be manufacturing, agriculture, mining, banking or even government (e.g. Washington D.C., which hauls in cash from every state). When the breadwinner business closes down (the mine plays out or the factory closes), you have a ghost town. Service businesses can provide jobs only in communities that have a thriving breadwinner business.
Small businesses in general are service businesses that are completely dependent on the health of breadwinner businesses.
American prosperity completely depends on the health of our breadwinner businesses, and policymakers should be focusing solely on policies that will help those businesses succeed. This is not an issue of big business vs. small business; it is an issue of winning in a severe competition in a hyper-competitive global marketplace.
It's an interesting distinction, but I am not sure how well it holds up. In the failing old towns that I have seen, the main breadwinner (ie importer of $) is via government in all of its redistributive efforts, such as Social Security, Medicare, welfare, government jobs, government job programs, etc.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the threat of tax increases and increased regulatory burdens have produced something in the nature of a hiring strike.
It is real, and much better than riding horses. I will not tell you how I know this other than to mention the ancient themes of Will and Surrender. Why should such experiences be limited to the women of India?
I do not mean to imply that men are not essential components of a woman's life because, when properly trained, men do have many useful applications and I consider a manly, vigorous, and adventurous male to be an essential component of the modern household.
Actually, it is now a small hotel in the Valnerina (the Nera Valley in the Appennines). We stayed here last week. There is a cross hanging over every bed, and the rooms are (converted) monks' rooms (Yes, each room or suite has a bath). This is the Abazzia San Pietro in Valle. It began as a Benedictine monastery in the 5th C., established by converted Lombard invaders, the lords of Spoleto.
In fact, the Lombard Lord of Spoleto gave up his lordship to become one of the early humble monks there, and his bones rest in an old (recycled) and beautifully-carved pagan Roman sarcophagus next to the altar. I guess they threw out some old Roman's bones to make room for him.
Their chiesa is old, but, like most things in Italy that have been around for over a thousand years, things have been re-done and re-decorated. We were told that the cheisa, in some places, has five layers of frescoes on the walls. Sort of like old wallpaper, but, as Mrs. BD observed, any one of those layers would make for a blockbuster show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This wealthy and politically-powerful monastery was sacked by the Saracens - the marauding Moslems who held parts of Europe in terror for hundreds of years during the Dark Ages, and who specialized in collecting infidels for the Middle Eastern slave trade - around the year 900, but it came back. It was abandoned by the Benedictines in the 1800s and was used as stables and sheep shelters until some rich guy from Rome bought it in the 1920s and began semi-converting it into his country villa. Mussolini himself visited the Abazzia to celebrate the restoration of Italian history and culture.
One of the most photogenic places I have ever been to. Impossible for even a lousy pic-taker like me to take a bad photo. Felt unreal to be staying there, stunned by the romance of history but mainly by the beauty and glory of creation, just like when you are on a horse in the Montana Rockies, or on skis at the top of Whistler in a snowstorm. The times when the glory of God gets so much in your face you cannot deny it no matter how much of a curmudgeon you might want to be.
See what I mean about Mrs. BD being a good trip-planner? She plans, I just do the driving and go where I am told - except when I don't... More pics from around there later in my ongoing travelogue.
This is inside the walls, in the garden, facing the inner cloisters and the rear of the chiesa with its bell tower:
View from the long, steep dirt entry road, lined with small farms and olive groves. The place is halfway up the mountain. Everywhere, the tinkling of sheep bells, the occasional barking of the sheep dogs, and the crazy horn-like braying of mules. (I don't know why they keep mules, but I do know they make a popular sausage out of them, called "Mulo." Not kidding.)
Lombard-era carvings of Peter and Paul (with the sword) at the monk's side entrance to their chiesa from the inner cloister. You could write a thesis on these "paleo-Christian" things if you wanted to:
Who was staying here? A group of jolly Aussies, and two delightful Dutch couples. The rest were from Rome on getaways with wives or girlfriends. (We had a good chat with a Roman fellow, a young 30s internet entrepreneur, who was there with his dazzling and seductive-looking fiance. They have a 4 year-old daughter. They were planning their honeymoon trip to NYC, San Francisco, and then Kauai, and wanted names of good NYC restaurants and shows to see. What a world! Except for their paranoia, the Italians can teach us all how to really live.)
As I said to Mrs. BD, this ain't no Motel 6. The have only around 12 rooms and suites. The inner cloister, with a couple of outside breakfast tables:
Monks loved their wines. That's my refreshing post-mountain-hiking, pre-dinner Orvieto - the classic white wine of Umbria:
4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
4:13 But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.
4:14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.
5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.
5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
5:8 Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.
5:9 Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.
5:10 And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.
You can't make this stuff up. What's this country coming to? The government doesn't have enough to do? If something is copyrighted, should it be embeddable on YouTube in the first place? No.
Crazy thing is, lots of people use YouTube for self-promotion. If you are a would-be performer or show or whatever, and copyright your stuff, do not make it embeddable. Simple. Can't have it both ways. Can't tell me not to post a photo of your billboard along the road.
YouTube is good fun, a vast resource, and one of the best time-wasters ever invented. If George Shearing's estate, or the Feds, come after Maggie's for embedding his YouTube vid, I have good defenses planned already. Make my day!
Liberals just love hearing America denounced as "parochial." It makes them feel worldly and superior. This phony posture in part explains the tasteless joke we now have in the White House.
This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark And cold to an orchard so young in the bark Reminds me of all that can happen to harm An orchard away at the end of the farm All winter, cut off by a hill from the house. I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse, I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse. (If certain it wouldn't be idle to call I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall And warn them away with a stick for a gun.) I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun. (We made it secure against being, I hope, By setting it out on a northerly slope.) No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm; But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm. "How often already you've had to be told, Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold. Dread fifty above more than fifty below." I have to be gone for a season or so. My business awhile is with different trees, Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these, And such as is done to their wood with an axe-- Maples and birches and tamaracks. I wish I could promise to lie in the night And think of an orchard's arboreal plight When slowly (and nobody comes with a light) Its heart sinks lower under the sod. But something has to be left to God.
Better yet, let's take a WW 2 Vet fishing. A pal's hunting and fishing club had their annual Saturday Take a Vet Fishing Day last weekend, and he sent me this snap. Some guys in wheelchairs:
George Shearing died on Valentine's Day 2011. He was blind from birth and died at the age of 91. George started playing piano and accordion at age 5 and his only formal musical education consisted of four years of study at the Linden Lodge School for the Blind. Later, finances would force him to turn down university scholarships to play piano in a neighborhood pub for $5 a week.
Years later he became a prolific songwriter, known for expanding the boundaries of jazz by adding an orchestral sensibility and a mellow aesthetic to the music. In 1947, Mr. Shearing moved to America where he became one of the most popular performing and recording artists. He won earned many prestigious awards, honorary doctorate degrees, Grammy Awards, and three presidents have invited him to play at the White House.
In 2007, this once poor, blind kid from Battersea, the youngest of nine, whose father delivered coal and his mother cleaned trains at night after caring for the children during the day, travelled with his wife, Ellie, to London to be Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the Ballroom of Buckingham Palace.
After the ceremony he is quoted as saying, "The poor, blind kid from Battersea became Sir George Shearing. Now that's a fairy tale come true." He once introduced his composition "Lullaby of Birdland" by saying: "I have been credited with writing 300 songs. Two-hundred-ninety-nine enjoyed a bumpy ride from relative obscurity to total oblivion. Here is the other one".
They're the ultimate Sherlock Holmes mysteries. You're given mere scraps of information, the wreckage is usually twisted beyond recognition, and you're faced with the knowledge that nine times out of ten you're looking for a chain of failures, not just a single part that suddenly went kaflooey.
And unless it's an actual bomb, which is fairly easy to detect afterward because of the micro-pitting that takes place during an explosion, the one thing that modern airliners almost never, ever, do is suddenly just go poof and drop off the radar screen without a peep from the crew.
As Air France Flight 447 did two years ago, taking 228 people to a watery grave.
Below the fold I'll present a 1-hour video on the mystery and an update on the recent findings. Unlike normally, where the black boxes provide the vital clues that solve the enigma, this time around the complete opposite occurred.
We are not going to participate in the Weiner roast (because what regular middle-aged guy hasn't sent pics of his trouser pup tent to young girls he doesn't know on Twitter now and then?), but lawyer Ace has a good related post on what lawyers term Bad Facts.
Dealing creatively with Bad Facts is one thing lawyers get paid the big bucks for. It is always a fun challenge. Life is simpler if we are careful to avoid Bad Facts in our own lives, but sometimes Bad Facts find us, and nobody is perfect.
Never try to be your own lawyer, because you do not know how the game is played.
People seem to feel it's pretty lousy, unless you are lucky enough to have a government job. Since we all work as serfs for the government from January 'til May, and since the Chinese are loaning us money to pay the bills, no surprise there.
Speaking of the economy, my neighbors down the road are adding a fancy new master bath, and I stopped by to take a look. I like construction. Things are not universally bad, I guess. Those are legal Mexicans working on it, of course. The jobs Americans don't want to do.
We stumbled by accident into a little ristorante in the dreary (and definitely not touristy) medieval hilltop village of Amelia around 2 pm, and found the place in the otherwise dead town packed with jolly Italians chowing down and drinking wine. We were the only foreigners there. The Hosteria dei Cansacchi. A simple neighborhood place with a simple menu: you order either the Mare or the Terra. I ordered the Mare, Mrs ordered the Terra, and halfway through lunch we had to "stop the menu." However delicious, it was just too much. That's when we decided we needed to share meals.
Here's their menu - no choices - they just bring it all, one course after another. The English translations in the fine print are imperfect, eg "Wild Board."
While preserving my usual skepticsm about what "studies say...", it does make sense that humans would need a good dose of full- body sunlight daily. 
I don't think you can attribute all of the prosperity of Medieval Europe to the Medieval Warm Period, but surely some of it.
I must confess before God and a jury of my peers:
