Maggie's Farm

From VDH's excellent but scathing Obama Fatigue:

...just as liberals were turned off by Bush’s cowboyisms, so too conservatives are tired of Obama’s professorial, condescending sermons. After a year, the people are tired of all the “let me be perfectly clear” psycho-drama, the “make no mistake about” pseudo-tough man pose, the straw man “I reject the false choice that some would…,” and  the narcissistic “I have ordered…..my team…to.”  The boilerplate is now recognizable even to the Washington press corps. But as important, it dovetails with more disturbing propensities: there are the periodic signs of inanity like “Cinco de Cuatro” and “corpse-man;” the constant fudging on the truth of multibillion dollar new programs really “saving” money; and the surreal bowing to dictators and emperors, with the relish of turning our misdemeanors into felonies and our enemies’ felonies into benefactions.

Read the whole thing. I did not vote for the guy, but I "hoped" for better.

Smart guys do not tolerate fools or BS, and Lindzen doesn't. How about a Nobel Peace Prize for Prof. Lindzen's lecture videotape? It's long. It's about data vs. models.

Richard Lindzen PhD, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: The Peculiar Issue of Global Warming.

If that link doesn't work (it works for me), try this: http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/VMS_Site_03/Lectures/Colloquium/100210Lindzen/f.htm#

Philippians 3:17-4:1

3:17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.

3:18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.

3:19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.

3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

3:21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

4:1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

A reader sent in this photo of Phragmites australis, aka Phragmites, aka Common Reed, from a southern New England marsh yesterday. This presumably non-native, invasive reed has spread like a cancer in marshes across the US, crowding out native marsh species and, in many areas, creating hundreds or thousands of acres of sterile "monoculture" marshland (eg the vast and once-biologically-bountiful New Jersey marshlands).

(There is a native species of Phragmites, shorter, far less aggressive, and pickier of habitat. I took a photo of a stand of it in Canada, but can't find my photo. Here's a genetic study of Phragmites species in North America.)

Ducks Unlimited has many programs, such as this one, to try to control these weed reeds. Nonetheless, they are here to stay. Illegal immigration or globalization?

Are You Content?

I call on those that call me son,
Grandson, or great-grandson,
On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts,
To judge what I have done.
Have I, that put it into words,
Spoilt what old loins have sent?
Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content.
He that in Sligo at Drumcliff
Set up the old stone Cross,
That red-headed rector in County Down,
A good man on a horse,
Sandymount Corbets, that notable man
Old William Pollexfen,
The smuggler Middleton, Butlers far back,
Half legendary men.
Infirm and aged I might stay
In some good company,
I who have always hated work,
Smiling at the sea,
Or demonstrate in my own life
What Robert Browning meant
By an old hunter talking with Gods;
But I am not content.

Is anything more inviting than a cozy Dunkin' Donuts early on a cold snowy morning? Hot chocolate or coffee? Or both?

The friendly and cheerful legal Hispanic gals there know what you like and they manage to get to work on time no matter what the weather or "climate" offers. I am usually game for a plain stick. And a medium milk no sugar.

Then to the shoveling as the wind whistles and moans through the trees. A good workout. That chest pain is just in your imagination...

A reader has a good op-ed piece which has things in common with the Repub medical insurance ideas. The point being "Why should Washington run things?"

It's about time some different views got some public air time, if people aren't bored to death by the topic -

Surber: Rave reviews

Excellent: Rising star Paul Ryan (h/t, Gateway) -

Few of our readers recall tunneling to the barn during the big New England nor'easter blizzard of March 11, 1888.

Here's the weather story of that snowstorm (which tragically omits the role of AGW - we should never let an ancient weather crisis go to waste).

Some photos:

Longacre Square, NYC (Now Times Square):

Somewhere in Manhattan:

Somewhere in Brooklyn:

Main St., Stamford, CT, from this Stamford history site with more photos:

Train tracks in Norwalk, CT:

There’s nothing like Lent for reflecting on the sins of other people.

A sarcastic Mead, linked here. Oscar Wilde could have said that.

Hurricane-Like Snowstorm Aims for Northeast...

Looks like another big dump for New England. This will please the News Junkie, who I believe suffers from a serious case of Skiing Addiction. (He loves the cold fresh powder and the fine wintry weather this global warming is bringing us.)

Scuppers and Harley on a grouse hunting trip in Maine 7 or 8 years ago, hanging out by the lake that President Eisenhower liked to fish:

Re humanitarians,

"They are compassionate to it (humanity) doubtless, as one may be compassionate to the most revolting animal. But their dislike of it appears to be general and fundamental."

G K Chesterton "Humanitarian Hate," 1908, from AVI's Chesterton, Conrad, and HG Wells

This makes the best cornbread I've ever had - and I have had plenty of cornbread. I'll never bother with another brand. What makes it special is the sort of corn meal they use: coarse-ground with corn hunks so it comes out chewy but with a crunchy crust.

They sell it at Costco. Also, I was surprised to see, at Amazon. Try it.

Related to our previous post, From Drudge:

Boehner: New Obama Plan Doubles Down on Failure, Puts Summit in Peril...
SWALLOW: White House Warns Republicans: We'll Pass It With 51 VOTES...
PROPOSAL SUMMARY USES WORD 'TAX' 35 TIMES...
'Increase in Fees on Brand Name Pharmaceuticals'...
Broaden 'Tax Base for High-Income Taxpayers'...
Orders 'Comprehensive Database' On Health Claims...
FORCED: 'Raises percent of income assessment that individuals pay if they choose not to become insured'...
BACKDOOR FIX: Healthcare 'Funds will be transferred to the Social Security Trust' if necessary...
White House Endorses Sen. Landrieu's 'Louisiana Purchase'...

Rasmussen said on TV last night that 71% of Americans view government as a special interest group.

Who said Americans were stupid?

Stolen from Jungleman:

A DC-130H Hercules drone control aircraft banks to the left while passing over the guided missile cruiser USS Chosin (CG-65).