Maggie's Farm

Again

In London - here.

Of course, in London you cannot call them "terrorists", which is insensitive and prejudicial to our Jihadist brethren. (Laura I. had great fun with that last nite on the radio.) Here's their strategy: Force Britain to clamp down on Moslems, thus further radicalizing the Moslems towards the goal of the British - or European - Caliphate. Simple, and straight out of the playbook of the 1960s American Left - force the cops and the govt to deal with you, and then complain about oppression.  It's like a cancer that feeds on chemotherapy.

Thus the only treatment is the scalpel. Interesting that these four didn't feel in the mood for death - too bad they didn't.  This kind of warrior does not deserve British justice, which is not designed for the likes of them. Brit justice is designed for wayward Brits, not for alien soldiers bent on destroying the country, including its judicial system. What did the Brits do with Nazi spies and infiltrators? I am fairly sure they were a bit rough on them.

So... let's not worry about whether crackdowns radicalize Moslems - let's just hope England and Europe wake up. No more of this return to "business as usual." This is not about criminal justice. It used to be called "war."

Thanks to Morning Coffee blog - it is Dunkin Donuts around here. Rarely Starbucks.
But their House Blend, black, no sugar, is real coffee, I hate to admit.

The Dylanologist: Our own Samuel Pepys: July 20, 2005:

Up by 7, washed, and to the office by 9, and there commenced blogging on the breach with the Mohammedans.  At my office until departing for for supper at 1 with Mr. Smith, and discuss the late announcement of Mr. Roberts’ appointment to the high court.  Then to the office again, and dispatch much business, though not nearly as much as I should have intended.   That done, at the blog once more, until the necessity of settling our accounts with a client compelled me to attend to the matter.  Then home, an unpleasant walk through great heat, and to dinner.  Then to my book for a good hour’s time, and so to bed.

The V1

An excellent review of the history of the V1 buzz-bombs of WW2, with schematics, defensive strategies, and good detailed history of the V1 attacks on Britain.

When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And it's Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through
Don't put on any airs
When you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue
They got some hungry women there
And they really make a mess outta you

Now if you see Saint Annie
Please tell her thanks alot
I cannot move
My fingers are all in a knot
I don't have the strength
To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor,
Won't even say what it is I've got

from Dylan, Just Like Tom Thumb Blues, on Highway 61 Revisited

A Visit to Roald Dahl's House

In The New Yorker

Hope is not a plan.

Anon.

Your Inner Geek

Dr. Bliss always says "Stop looking for your inner child. Look for your inner adult." What about your inner geek? Take the test.

The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.

G. K. Chesterton

Does this sound familiar? "Please tread on me."

Max Boot in the LA Times compares appeasement and anti-war attitudes of the "intelligentsia," in 1940 and today:

Savage naively wondered, "Who is to say that a British victory will be less disastrous than a German one?" Savage thought the real problem was that Britain had lost "her meaning, her soul," but "the unloading of a billion tons of bombs on Germany won't help this forward an inch." "Personally," he added, with hilarious understatement, "I do not care for Hitler." But he thought the way to resist Hitler was by not resisting him: "Whereas the rest of the nation is content with calling down obloquy on Hitler's head, we regard this as superficial. Hitler requires, not condemnation, but understanding."

Read the whole thing.

OK, I get it: Hitler - and Germany - needed love maybe, or therapy? Remember "Better Red than Dead" ? The Pacifist Left had the same idea during the Cold War, too, and Vietnam. Boot's piece has got me thinking about pacifism and its necessary corrollaries - the ideas that nothing is worth defending, and that evil does not exist. I read that, in England, it is a crime to assault a burglar or an intruder. You are supposed to just call the cops...I mean the Bobbies. Is that like calling the UN? Not in my house - we are ARMED, thanks to the US Constitution. Don't tread on Maggie's Farm. We know about evil and were raised with firearms, and we shoot first and ask questions later. If you can still talk, which would be doubtful, with a face - and brain - full of #6 birdshot. It is called "lead poisoning."

How do you like those double rear tires? This is a 2001 Case MX 220. That is one beautiful hunk of machinery. You almost hate to get it muddy.

And, by the way, doesn't that snow look refreshing today?

A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.

G. K. Chesterton

The Holy City
 Frederick E. Weatherly, Lyrics; Michael Maybrick, Music (photo)

Last night I lay a sleeping,there came a dream so fair,
I stood in old Jerusalem beside the temple there.
I heard the children singing, and ever as they sang,
Methought the voice of angels from Heav’n in answer rang;
Methought the voice of angels from Heav’n in answer rang:—
“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Lift up your gates and sing,
Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna to your King!”

And then methought my dream was chang’d,
The streets no longer rang, hush’d were the glad hosannas the little children sang.
The sun grew dark with mystery, the morn was cold and chill,
as the shadow of a cross arose upon a lonely hill,
as the shadow of a cross arose upon a lonely hill.
“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Hark! how the angels sing,
Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna to your King.”

Mammatus Clouds

Holy Cow! Literally. Never seen these before. Thanks, Ballooon Juice.

Here, fishy fishy fishy fishy

600 pound marlin jumps into fishing boat, beats up the fisherman, and gets away! Here, with photos.  This is true catch and release - the fish released the guy. We hunters are glad that pheasants aren't armed with swords, like marlin - but it makes for an unfair contest, if your gun shoots straight. Which many seem not to - or is it me? Naw...

Excerpt from Love Among the Ruins, by Robert Browning:

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop-
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.

Master-Monster Arrested

A Brit school-teacher who fled to Egypt, details here - thanks Instapundit, but Glenn - when do you work? I'd like to see Egypt join the India-Australia-UK-USA Anglosphere...why not? And I stand by our statement: The Brits, our friends and cousins, harbor terrorists.

Listening to: Recondita Armonia, (Tosca), Franco Corelli. Beautiful afternoon. Time to weed the tomatoes.

I'm Part Indian - Give Me Stuff

Dancing the $ Hula: PC racial politics goes berserk. McNicoll at Town Hall:

I’ve been talking to some buddies from high school, and we’re thinking of getting together and forming an Indian tribe. Though most of us have a little Indian blood, we’re not Indians per se. We don’t live together … most of them are still in Louisiana, and I’m 1,200 miles away here in Washington. We don’t share a culture in any real sense. But if Sen. Daniel Akaka’s Native Hawaiian Recognition Act (s. 147) becomes law, we’re going to take our shot.

Go for it! I am in! Waiting for my monthly check from the Indian Nation. And listening to Mr. Charlie by Lightnin' Hopkins, waitin' on the mailman. "Mistah Charlie, your rolling mill is burnin down, and there ain't no water 'round."

Ed Koch speaks out

I just happened to quote Ed last night: "If you agree with me on 12 out of 14 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 14 out of 14 issues, go see a psychiatrist."

To him, as to many of us, Jihad is about a war of civilizations:

The various terrorist organizations are overwhelmingly Muslim. I believe they are supported by millions of Muslims around the world who are bent on destroying both Western civilization and those Muslims, Christians and Jews who believe in the Western values of democracy and tolerance.

At RCP, read entire.

An Excellent, professional Blog

Environmental Economics

Sample from recent piece on dam removal:

There are benefits and costs to leaving a dam in place, and there are benefits and costs to removing a dam.  Can cost/benefit analysis help us weigh the relative advantages and disadvantages of the alternatives?  I think so (as do many others). 

A Friday Times-Bashing Fest

NYT Changed Hillary Quote - NewsMax:

Among the maneuvers cited by the Old Gray Lady was Mrs. Clinton's purported shift to the right on the hot-button issue of immigration. Included in the evidence cited by the Times: Hillary's quote to WABC Radio's John Gambling on Feb. 11, 2003, wherein she proclaimed, "I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigration." The only problem is, Mrs. Clinton never spoke those words. Apparently, the Times was offended by what she actually said, which was: "I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants" - a quote first reported by NewsMax an hour after Clinton uttered it.

Will someone please check on who is mowing her lawn and weeding her rhodadendrons in exclusive, suburban Chappaqua, NY? Not that she is ever there...because her book deal bought her a nice townhouse in Georgetown.

"The Gray Lady's Dishonesty" on the Plame story, at TCS:

It's a shame, then, that the paper has gone so far out on a limb in the recent Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame affair in naked pursuit of two paramount objectives, to the exclusion of all others: uncompromisingly defending the inviolability of reportorial privilege and relentlessly excoriating the Bush administration.

There was a star danced,
   and under that I was born

Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Every American

Every American citizen:

1. Should pay at least some federal taxes
2. Should serve at least two years in the military
3. Should take a loyalty oath at age 18

We are a country. That ought to mean something. That does mean something. It's not a free lunch, and freedom is not free.
There. That is off my chest, and I feel much better now.

Well that big dumb blond
With her wheel in the gorge
And Turtle, that friend of theirs
With his checks all forged
And his cheeks in a chunk
And his cheese in the cash
They're all gonna be there
At that million dollar bash.

Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
It's that million dollar bash

Well I looked at my watch
I looked at my wrist
I punched myself
In the face with my fist
I took my potatoes
Down to be mashed
Then I made it over
To that million dollar bash.

Excerpted from Million Dollar Bash, on Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes

Dear Editor:

Your blog is just a bunch of gasbags, and I have a suspicion about from which orifice the gas is emerging.

Sincerely,

JL in Massachusetts

Dear JL:

Ouch. I think you might be right. At least we don't do it in elevators. Never blog in elevators. Can you offer any constructive suggestions, or do you suggest that we simply shut down Maggie's Farm and spend our time engaged in more productive, profitable, and worthwhile pursuits?

Eagerly, nay, anxiously awaiting your reply,

Bird Dog

The Population Bust

The world has come a long way from the "population bomb" that we have been warned about for 50 years. We have already begun to see the effects of population declines in Europe, but the entire world is facing dramatic demographic changes, for better or worse. The subject deserves more attention. Krikorian at Claremont Inst:

Although the birthrate decline has begun to have significant effects in the U.S., it is in Europe and East Asia that the consequences will be most dramatic. In demographic terms, a "total fertility rate" (TFR) of 2.1 is necessary to keep a population from declining—the average woman needs to have two children (plus the 0.1 for girls who die before reaching reproductive age) to replace herself and the father. The TFR in the U.S. is just a hair below that benchmark, having bounced back from its nadir in the 1970s. But in every other developed nation it is lower, and falling: Ireland, 1.9; Australia, 1.7; Canada, 1.5; Germany, 1.35; Japan, 1.32; Italy, 1.23; Spain, 1.15. Birthrates this low are unprecedented in peacetime societies. As Wattenberg writes, "never have birth and fertility rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long, in so many places, so surprisingly."

Not only is this causing an increase in the median age of these populations, as in the U.S., but many of these countries will soon see declines in total population. By the middle of this century, we could find a Europe home to 100 million fewer people than today, and a Japan shrinking by one-fourth.

Despite their huge and growing populations, the most rapid birthrate declines (and thus the most rapid rates of population aging) are taking place in the Third World. The total fertility rate in less-developed countries as a whole, as defined by the U.N., has fallen by half since the 1960s, to 2.9 children per woman, a much faster drop than anything experienced in the developed world. This is happening almost everywhere: China and India, Mexico and South Africa, Iran and Egypt. Population "momentum" will cause continued increases in these countries for a time, as large numbers of girls have babies, albeit fewer than their mothers, and the Third World will potentially add another 2.5 billion people before population growth stops. This is still a very large increase, but it will come to an end in the foreseeable future (in some countries surprisingly soon). After that, their populations will also start to fall.

Read entire.