Re Code Pink:

The evidence clearly indicates that Code Pink's mission gave aid and comfort to America's wartime enemies in Fallujah, a clear-cut act of sedition made possible by the group's allies in Congress -- Democrats Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Raul Grijalva, and Dennis Kucinich.

Politico: 99 Democrat seats on the wall, 99 Democrat seats … 

Surber: Generic polls are worse than Democrats think

Dems have become the government union choice

Amusing: Historic Illiteracy: Idiot Sarah Palin "Party Like It's 1773" After The Election!

America needs more rich, not fewer

Can Tancredo win in Colorado?

It's a screwy election there.

Many of my more enlightened friends like to ask me: How could someone as intellectually gifted, delightfully urbane, profoundly moral and breathlessly handsome not want to spit at these stupid tea party candidates, with their stupid positions and their stupid stupidity? (That's slightly embellished; obviously, I'm not that handsome.)

The need for Democrat cross-burning in order to keep blacks in the underclass is over. Democrats have succeeded in creating black intellectual serfs who are so swayed by the blandishments of Big Government and the empty anti-capitalist rhetoric of the left that they don't even realize they've been hoodwinked by some of the biggest beneficiaries of capitalism!

Unless black liberals realize they've been the victims of a decades-long election-buying rip-off perpetrated by the Democrats -- and advanced using the cat's-paws of the black faces in the leftist elite -- the black community will remain in the quagmire of despair it has been in since the Democrats started handing black people their scraps to live off.

The black community's allegiance to Democrats is among the most shameful political facts in American history -- and it can be ended only by the articulation of a true conservative message from passionate, intrepid, and ethnically diverse messengers.

Murchison: How Big Should Government Be? A quote:

No genius can figure out what government could do "for us" if it really tried. Easier to figure is what it might instead do "to us" once it really decided to save us: narrowing choices, curtailing the varied freedoms of action Americans still enjoy. That's why there's this lawsuit in Florida (as in other venues), where the wait-a-cotton-picking-minute spirit has Our Protectors at least momentarily on the defensive.

If the Feds can tax a non-activity (ie not buying the insurance plan they want us to buy), they can tax anything we don't do, "for our own good."

I am annoyed with Obamacare for at least three additional reasons:

1) I am very happy with my catastrophic ("major medical") insurance plan. It covers nothing elective or "preventive," no obstetrics, no vision, no dental, and has a $5000 deductible. I can see any physician I choose. Even including the deductible, it's relatively cheap. Under Obamacare, I cannot own this insurance.

2) The politicization of medical care promises to be an unholy mess.

3) There will be perverse incentives for your doctors to under-treat you.

Carl Sagan's bunkometer list, via SDA re global warming climate change climate disruption:

• Whenever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts”


• Encourage substantive debate on the “evidence” by knowledgable proponents of all points of view.


• Arguments from authority carry little weight as “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that there are no authorities; at most; there are “experts”.


• Spin a variety of hypotheses. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each. The ones that survive are the ones to do in depth study on.


• Do not become attached to any hypothesis just because it’s yours. Find reasons for rejecting all, including your own, hypothesis.


• Quantify. If whatever you are explaining has a measure, quantify it so that measurement is more possible. Vague hypothesis, or those difficult to quantify will be the most difficult to prove or disprove.


• If there is a chain argument, then each and every link must work, including the premise.


• Use Occam’s Razor; which is to choose the hypothesis that explains the data in the simplest terms.


• Ask: is the Hypothesis testable and falsifiable. Hypothesis that are not testable are not worth much. Could you duplicate accurately, at least theoretically, the hypothesis?

I am reading - or trying to read - McDonogh's 2007 After The Reich: From the Liberation of Vienna to the Berlin Airlift. It's about the horrors inflicted on ethnic Germans by the Allies in the years following WW2. Prussia, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany.

This is indeed a tale which nobody wants to hear, and it is gut-wrenching to read.

Probably 3 million ethnic Germans were killed after the war ended, including around one million surrendered soldiers. From Nigel Jones' excellent review:

The two million German civilians who died were largely the old, women and children: victims of disease, cold, hunger, suicide - and mass murder.

Apart from the well-known repeated rape of virtually every girl and woman unlucky enough to be in the Soviet occupation zones, perhaps the most shocking outrage recorded by MacDonogh - for the first time in English - is the slaughter of a quarter of a million Sudeten Germans by their vengeful Czech compatriots. The survivors of this ethnic cleansing, naked and shivering, were pitched across the border, never to return to their homes. Similar scenes were seen across Poland, Silesia and East Prussia as age-old German communities were brutally expunged.

Read the whole brief review to get an idea.

Seems to me that the Czechs were the most brutal and bloody to the Germans in the German-majority Sudetenland, but the Red Army was close behind. In this time period, the Czechs reduced their prosperous German population from 3 million to the handful today - ethnic cleansing by murder, torture, forced death marches, exile, and in concentration camps (the camps were widely used to incarcerate, starve, torture and kill Germans in the Red Army regions).

New Poll: Van Tran Pulls Even with Loretta Sanchez in CA-47

Democrat Dirty Tricks: The Next Round

Related: Did you hear about Axelrod's bestiality problem?

AVI on Kent State:

We were so sure we were the ones who wanted peace, and some of us were willing to get violent to prove it.

How Diversity Punishes Asians and Poor Whites

A reader pointed out that schools use two categories: "Minorities" and "Underrepresented Minorities." Asians are overrepresented minorities. Poor whites are, well, white - and whites who cannot pay full freight, so nobody wants them.

How Krugman became Krugman

Governor Moonbeam Offers Free College for Illegal Aliens

Dick Morris: Dems have no message.

Yes, they do. They just won't say what it is.

Obamacare will kill the private practice of medicine (on purpose)

More on that $250 bribe the over-65 set got in the mail.

As we said, timed perfectly to send it off to your favorite Tea Party candidate

Coyote: Government: The Solution to Failed Programs is to Double Their Size (h/t Shrinkwrapped's Connecting the Dots)

That means there can be no such thing as a failed policy experiment.

ObamaCare’s Unseen Costs - Taxes will go up under the new health care law—and the costs will be more than you think.

What's the Matter With America? President Obama's false consciousness theory of economic worries

Related, the post below, Fault Lines, is a good overview of what is going on politically these days. A quote from that essay:

“He’s trying to Europeanize us, and the Europeans are going the other way. The entire American spirit is being broken,” said an Obama voter and donor in South Bend, Indiana. In Elkhart, Indiana, Time found a Republican candidate who said she was “often approached by Obama voters who want[ed] to vent.” “Betrayed by the health care vote,” “What are they thinking when it comes to spending?” and “He’s not what I voted for,” were among the many complaints. These are not Republicans, and Republicans did not make them say this.
 

Photos of East Germany, before and after reunification. h/t No Pasaran

Photos of the construction of the new Swiss tunnel

Who is Clint Webb? I guarantee that you know him because he is running for something in your state:

A good line: Fiorina Says Boxer 'Too Extreme' for California

Too bad it isn't true.

Why sex in space is a bad idea

Why don't Asians count as racial or ethnic minorities?

I always wonder whether people from Spain count as Hispanics. Also, do Moslems count as minorities? Also, as 1/16th American Indian, am I a minority? (If so, gimme the $ and the freebies.)

The people are scared, explains Obama: Our psycho-babbler-in-chief

The only thing we have to fear is loss of our job itself. And more Dem job-destroying and economy-stifling insanity.

Top 400 Charities See Billions Less in Donations

Debicella now a dead heat in CT-4. 

It's time for New England to elect at least one Repub congresscritter.

Rasmussen: McMahon Closes Gap on Blumenthal

Linda Chavez: Obama has no clue about entrepreneurship

Well, he has done a heck of a job getting government to grow

Surber: No, we are not afraid

The Trouble with Manchin

Washington Reb: Growing Up Conservative 

How Long Will MSM Ignore Assault By NY Congressman Maurice Hinchey On Reporter? / Update: Poughkeepsie Journal Scoops NY Times

Leftoid violence does not exist.

NRO: Some Context on the Wilders Case

Related: Wilders Is Right: Europe Needs a First Amendment

Perino asks Why is Maureen Dowd so angry?

Everybody knows the real reason in her case. However, Leftoids to tend to be angry people in general.

The bay entry to the Wellfleet Audubon's large salt marsh on an incoming tide, in September.

As I live and learn, I no longer view Roman civilization as "ancient." Old, but not ancient. Those folks were a lot like us, and lived a lot like us.

Roman floor mosaics and wall paintings were the usual fashionable decor of the time, and typical for the homes of the prosperous. Naturally, the floor mosaics are better preserved than wall mosaics or wall paintings.

In 2009 we were fortunate to make our way to the Bardo Museum in Tunis to see the world's largest collection of Roman mosaics. They have so many, you even walk on them to get from one display room to another. This was decor, mind you - not fine art.

The Lod mosaics are a recent find, very-well preserved. They are now displayed in NYC.

Here's the story of the Lod mosaics.

Any Hoyt Axton fans at Maggie's? (He died in 1999.)

He wrote Joy to the World, Greenback Dollar, etc. His Mom wrote Heartbreak Hotel. Bio here.

Merkel says German multicultural society has failed

Desmond Tutu: Obama’s Other Anti-Semitic Guru

Murdoch: The goal is to make Israel a pariah

David Warren: End our 'multiuniversities'

Gelinas wonders whether TARP was good or bad, effective or ineffective

Tides Foundation CEO To Fox News Advertisers: Drop Glenn Beck Or Have Blood On Your Hands

Ilya Somin on The Florida District Court Decision Rejecting the Federal Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Case Against the Individual Mandate

A great example of an elitist viewpoint, with takedown by Dino

Betsy: Teachers putting themselves ahead of their students

Ahmadinejad’s Deadly Triumph in Lebanon

Driscoll: All the Way with LBJ!

Union Bosses Are Funneling Millions to Democrats to Keep Money Flowing To Them

Rasmussen:

Voter nervousness about the economy, Rasmussen noted, is clear in the declining number of people he finds who feel their own finances are “in good order.” Two years ago, he recalled, 43% of Americans felt their finances were in good order, 38% felt this way the day Barack Obama was elected, and 35% felt that way on the day he took office as President.

“At the beginning of the year, that figure dropped to 32%,” he added, “and today, it is down to 30%.” Rasmussen also said that more than half of homeowners are “unsure if their home is worth more than their mortgage.

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

3:14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it,

3:15 and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

3:16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

3:17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

4:1 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you:

4:2 proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

4:3 For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires,

4:4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

4:5 As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

Maybe our most common winter sparrow in the NE, the White Throated spends most of his time on the ground and in low shrubs looking for berries, seeds and hibernating bugs. Likes bird-feeders.

He'll be coming down from the breeding grounds in Canada around now, and will give us a chance to hear his familiar pleasant songs (the link has songs).

Mead explains that all it does is to export pollution and jobs to places like China. From his essay:

The left leaning Guardian newspaper in Britain let the cat out of the bag yesterday, reporting that while the EU’s emission of CO2 declined by 17% between 1990 and 2010, this apparent progress was bogus.  If you add up the CO2 released by the goods and services Europeans consumed, as opposed to the CO2 thrown off by the goods and services they produced, the EU was responsible for 40% more CO2 in 2010 than in 1990. The EU, as the Guardian puts it, has been outsourcing pollution — and jobs — rather than cutting back on greenhouse gasses.

EU “progress” on greenhouse gasses in the last twenty years was a mirage.  And the only reason that the EU can pretend to look green is that it was outsourcing economic growth to countries like China.

Our wonderful, invigorating cold weather is finally upon us, despite the warming alarums. I got my wood. It's a start, at least. That's about two cords, and I'll need another two to get to Spring.

I am not good for much, but I can split wood pretty good.

A gallery of carnivorous plants. h/t, NRO - of all places.

Here is a re-posted sample of a few decent places to stay for your New England grouse hunting, ranging from the simple to the quite comfortable (some have fishing too):

Bosebuck Mountain Camps

Miramichi Inn

King and Bartlett

Partridge Cabins

Lopstick Cabins

and in the Adirondacks, The Hungry Trout

These are just some of the places we've been to or heard about first-hand. Here's a good source for Maine outfitters.

Photo: A cabin at Bosebuck, where the only heat is your wood stove and your dog, the bunks are lumpy, the Canada Jays steal the dog kibbles of a slow eater, and where the locals cruise the dirt roads and shoot the partidges along the road from their pick-ups, while the sports in their expensive attire bust the brush with their dogs. Grouse huntin' ain't shopping. It's a rare occasion when I've limited out at 4 birds in an 8-hour, leg-testing day in the woods and marsh edges (think 8 hours of singles tennis in mud, bogs, raspberry brambles and cage-like alder thickets). It's a work-out. At some point, you start wondering how long it is to cocktail hour. The Woodcock keep it interesting and varied. It's a 20 ga. sport, or even 28 ga.

Hunting grouse is wonderfully difficult, challenging, and frustrating - but you get to spend time in the wild woods with dogs and pals and guns, smoking at will and accumulating precious memories to re-live in your old age.

From Sipp, or Greg Sullivan, or whatever his current alias is. A quote:

Me, I'm self-employed, so I always have to be on the lookout lest my next meal comes out of that dumpster I mentioned earlier. My resellers went bankrupt with a bucket of my money, my biggest customer went bust and handed me a five figure loss, the forty percent equity I had in my house might as well have been forty dollars, the state of Massachusetts demanded I purchase $13,000 worth of health insurance with an adjusted gross income that was hovering a little above that just then, and the banks that lent me money at 3% would like it paid back at 30%. Or immediately. Immediately would work for them, they said. Time for a change.

It's illegal to vote with your feet using the method I had in mind for many of the people foremost in my mind last year --using a shod foot like that is a felony -- so we decided that we'd move instead. 

Read the whole thing. It's America today. Also, if you happen to be a Down-easter, read the Meteor. It's your only reliable source of info...assuming you can get contact with the intertubes up there.

How worrisome is habitat loss? I find it highly worrisome. There are many ways for free-market Conservatives to be Conservationists. I am just one example. There are tons of us tree-hugger and turtle-lover Cons out there.

Boot: Shift in momentum in Afghanistan

Tea Partiers love killing miners? The guy has fallen off the reality cliff.

News flash: First Lady eats burger and fries

Krauthammer on "appearances":

He is a tax-and-spend Democrat. He spent a trillion dollars — and we’re going to have to borrow or tax it — on the stimulus. He‘s going to spend $2 trillion to $3 trillion on health care — we’ll borrow or tax it. Cap-and-trade is spending that you’re going to have to [tax for]. That’s [a tax-and-spend Democrat] what he is. That’s why the electorate is against him. It’s not appearances. It’s substance.

Weight of Taxation Is Heavier Than Most Know

KKK Kleagle and a Man Who Allowed Woman to Die are Icons, Witchcraft Bad

Jonah: Obama's Arrogance Starting to Get Noticed

Feed the Indians, get votes.

Prof B:

The basic problem I have with behavioral economics is that its proponents have never met a problem that could be solved without legislation or regulation. Indeed, it's practitioners seems to skew heavily towards liberal paternalism. As Josh put it, "the behavioral law and economics literature nearly uniformly applies the insights of behavioral economics to justify paternalistic intervention."

I have a father. Do not need another one. But, Prof B, watch your "it's"es.

Scott Brown endorses in MA

Barone: They ignored us

Am Thinker: Three Things Government Cannot Do:

Our federal government does not, and cannot, (1) produce products, (2) create wealth, or (3) provide jobs that pay for themselves.

The interconnectedness of these economic truths is not well-understood (especially by the political classes).

A few people asked me for the lyrics of "The Little Bell" which we posted a few days ago.

I wanted them too. I know no Russian, but the song hardly needed English lyrics to be understood. Here's a Red Army Chorus rendition of this heart-wrenching tune, with English subtitles. This is Russian soul music, and Russians have soul if nothing else.

Bake a split Butternut Squash until cooked but with the meat firm - not mushy.

Sautee some chopped onions with garlic, butter, and olive oil. Then toss in 1-2" cubes of the peeled squash, with salt and pepper, a teaspoon or two of sugar, and chopped sage, and sautee it all together for a little while, but don't let the squash cubes disintegrate. Add more butter and oil, and a little water, if it gets too dry.

Some people like to add hunks of turkey sausage, and some like to add a splash of brandy.

I think this sauce works best with a chunky pasta like Farfalle.

As I remind people, always stir pasta with the sauce in the sautee pan before serving. That's why they make big sautee pans - to mix the sauce with the pasta. Sauce plopped on top is not the right way to do it.

Top with a sprinkling of parmesan and some pignolis.

The Englishman tries PB&J. Next time, he needs to try Skippy's with Welch's Grape Jelly on Wonder Bread.

College for the Intellectually Disabled

A book I just heard about: Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much

What a moderate looks like to the NYT

Mankiw calls out Barney Frank

Pajamas: Why Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize Matters

GM still all messed up

A suggestion that the NYT fire its Asian employees

Pajamas again: The (Last) Running of the (Old) Bulls?

Obama admits stimulus didn't work

More on the Dem plan to take your retirement plans