Maggie's Farm

Your tax dollars at work. Homeland Security buys 80 security cameras for tiny Alaskan fishing village. Osama - take note.

Who organized the illegal immigration marches? The Spanish radio stations.

"Immigration backlash"? Saunders says no, at RCP.

"Get back to work, you lazy bastards."
MVRWC on the French. Videos and photos from the infantile French students at No Parasan. Now they are using water cannon...apres moi, la deluge!

Stirrings of wisdom in the Yale Daily, quoted by Ace:

Outrage over religious fascism ought to be the province of American liberals. But in Hashemi's case it has been almost entirely trumpeted by Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and right-wing bloggers. A friend of mine recently remarked that part of his and his peers' nonchalance (and in some cases, support for) Hashemi has to do with the fact that the right has seized upon the issue. Our politics have become so polarized that many are willing to take positions based on the inverse of their opponents'. This abandonment of classical liberal values at the expense of political gamesmanship has consequences that reach far beyond Yale; it hurts our national discourse.

More on Aztlan - with the map! Moonbattery.  

... if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

Nietzsche

High praise for his new record.

Of all of his great tunes, my favorite is These are the Days from Avalon Sunset. A tear-jerker, and rightly so.

And it happens to be a theme song of the wonderful Rockbrook Camp in NC, where girls learn about independence, courage, endurance, horses, white-water kayaking, rock-climbing, guns, corny camp songs, bonfires, heavy-duty hiking, God, life-long friendship, shaving-cream battles, and everything else that matters in life.

We posted Frederick Church last week. Since we're on a Hudson River School kick, here's a local favorite by Thomas Cole (1801-1848) - View from Mount Holyoke (1836), but often referred to as the Oxbow. That's the Connecticut River. A bit here about Mt. Holyoke. If you drive through Route 91 in Mass., you have been past the oxbow.

 

This Pepsi_Italian_Style.wmv  one is as good as the Mercedes advt. If you missed the Mercedes advt we posted a couple of days ago, scroll down. This stuff is Art!

The Religion of Peace

The Song Sparrow may be the most common sparrow in the Eastern US, but is found across the country and Canada. He is on my mind because I have just begun to hear his spring song last week, which will continue throughout the summer (unlike most songbirds who sing territorially in the spring, and then keep quiet).

He is an easy sparrow to identify, with the streaked breast with the big blotch in the center. And, perched on the top of a shrub branch, head tilted to the sky, pouring his heart out, he is hard to miss.

Interestingly, his song has many regional accents, but the basic format remains the same.

More about the exhuberant Song Sparrow, with sample of his familiar song, at CLO.

Photo courtesy of P. LaTourette.

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

C.S. Lewis 

Great Mercedes advt - watch.

Incredible. A model Tomcat. Watch.

And a note to our new Fark readers - click All Categories and enjoy our blog regularly: we are ineligant intelligant smart and inneresting.

Re-posted from March 2006

Victims of hoplophobia need help and understanding, along with firearms re-education from sensitive Social Workers who are not only caring, but carryin'.

The "irrational fear of weapons" is a health crisis which must be crushed before it spreads, as it has spread in Canada, Australia, and the UK. Can we call it the Hoplophobia Flu? It is not yet known why women and metrosexuals seem more vulnerable to this debilitating and life-threatening scourge.

One theory is that is spread by contact with infected newsprint, but other medical researchers believe that a loud "Boom" is just innately disturbing to some people with fragile nervous systems.

We need many more highly-paid professional union-member Hoplophobia Specialists in our schools and businesses if we are determined to defeat this plague. Only Government Resources can hope to have an impact on this crisis, but "a substantial national investment is required," according to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, before "this thing gets out of hand."

An Epidemiological Psychiatry researcher at the CDC commented "Guns go Boom. This is scarey for some, but they need professional help. This phobia has the power to spread just like the Bird Flu. It is highly infectious to vulnerable adults. This phobia has the power to render honest folk, sportsmen and sportswomen and sports-transgenders, and innocent hunter-gatherers, helpless not only against bad guys, but against food on the wing and hoof. Indeed, it is no different, in effect, than having a weak immune system, or being a de-clawed kitty cat."

Image: A very nice Lady without Hoplophobia, hunting Islamo-fascists on her farm without a license, unlike her weenie son.

Frederick Church (1826-1900). His Heart of the Andes, below, brought him fame. A brief bio of Church here, and a good summary of The Hudson River School, and what they wanted to convey in their work (which was very much out of fashion in the 20th century for being overly-sentimental and unsophisticated), here.

 

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.

Winston Churchill

The Eagle Cam (and the Osprey Cam too) are up and running at Blackwater NWR in Maryland, with eaglets already in the nest.

Well, it looks like the "radical" pampered youth of today have somehow got it in mind that those radical 60s are something to emulate. Go for it, kids. But never forget which side your bread is buttered on - your freedom here to make a fool of yourself. H/T, Michelle. And do not forget that you will need to work someday, and to be free to speak your mind later, when wisdom arrives along with gray hair.

We have had 100,000 visits
since January 1, 2006. That's a lot for a minor-league, or a critic might say Bush-league, or, you might say, boutique, or, you might say, insignificant or, you might say, a grab-bag, but we like to think we have an elitist and eclectic blog for the discerning few.

We  hope you all visit daily. Your visits to Maggie's are our reward.

Yes, Maggie's Farm has been around for a year, but we didn't have the stat-gathering format that we have now, thanks to Blogmeister Chris - our Guardian Angel. And his system is more accurate than Site Meter - tho we use that too.

And it's Spring, but it will be 26 degrees (F) tonite and we are having light snow flurries right now.

We made a great mistake in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake. We appointed all our worst generals to command our armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers.

Robert E. Lee

I am taking over The News Junkie's job this afternoon, while he goes pheasant shooting.

In the beginning...Astrophysics, metaphysics, or revelation?

Too stupid to know he's stupid? I do not think that applies to Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom, but it might apply to me.

Mall-Walking, and soaking up the American Experience. Am. Spectator. I am glad he reports on it, because I'd almost rather be dead.

"I didn't touch a girl or alcohol for seven months." Soldiers interviewed.

Another Christian on trial?  Where are the lions in the Colosseum?

A few thousand visits per day. That is all that some excellent blogs get. I guess blogging is kind of like writing poetry - you do it because you have to, and you pray to have any impact. But we won't have much, I fear, because most blog-readers read the blogs that support what they think in the first place. We are politically centrist, but when I read the Lefty blogs, they seem too crude, angry and silly to take seriously - or to respond to.

Academic Bill of Rights introduced to NYS Assembly. Let's support it. It is a counterbalance to academic Maoism.

Mixing Memory addresses the cognitive factors which they believe interfere with the supposedly benighted American population's acceptance of Evolution as Gospel. I make two points: First, as psychologists, and not physical scientists, they lack the humility which the physical scientists possess, probably because they never took Quantum Algorithms and the Fourier Transformation in college - not for lack of brain-power, but lack of interest. Second, they lack metaphysics. They are psyche-centric, which is reductionistic. I enjoy their blog regularly, but everyone has their limited view of the world, as do we, no doubt. Einstein: "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." And, Yes, I do think ID is silly. But, on the other hand, I am more interested in the cognitive obstacles to connecting with God than in the cognitive obstacles to connecting with evolution. Heck - which is more important?

And one piece about politics and science: from The Conspiracy:

The environmental movement maintains that science and technology cannot be relied upon to build a safe atomic power plant, to produce a pesticide that is safe, or even to bake a loaf of bread that is safe, if that loaf of bread contains chemical preservatives. When it comes to global warming, however, it turns out that there is one area in which the environmental movement displays the most breathtaking confidence in the reliability of science and technology, an area in which, until recently, no one—not even the staunchest supporters of science and technology—had ever thought to assert very much confidence at all. The one thing, the environmental movement holds, that science and technology can do so well that we are entitled to have unlimited confidence in them is forecast the weather—for the next one hundred years!

Update: Will have an apology to Mixing Memory coming up soon, for our somewhat frivolous critique...we do enjoy his blog, as I mentioned.

Psalm 19

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
²Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
³There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
⁴yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
⁵which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
⁶Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat.
⁷The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple;
⁸the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes;
⁹the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
¹⁰More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb.
¹¹Moreover by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
¹²But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults.
¹³Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
¹⁴Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

This photo, and more, at Atlas: