Wednesday, June 4. 2008
The below came in over the transom (thanks, reader), and our fact checker is on strike this week so you have to take this as it is: 1.) Selma Got Me Born - NOT EXACTLY, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961 - Selma had no effect on your birth, as Selma was in 1965. (Google 'Obama Selma' for his full March 4,2007 speech and articles about its various untruths.) 2.) Father Was A Goat Herder - NOT EXACTLY, he was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan Government. 3.) Father Was A Proud Freedom Fighter - NOT EXACTLY, he was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had. 4.) My Family Has Strong Ties To African Freedom - NOT EXACTLY, your cousin Raila Odinga has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007, in Kenya. It is the first widespread violence in decades. The current government is pro-American but Odinga wants to overthrow it and establish Muslim Sharia law. Your half-brother, Abongo Obama, is Odinga's follower. You interrupted your New Hampshire campaigning to speak to Odinga on the phone. Obama's cousin Odinga in Kenya ran for president and tried to get Sharia muslim law in place there. When Odinga lost the elections, his followers have burned Christians' homes and then burned men, women and children alive in a Christian church where they took shelter. Obama SUPPORTED his cousin before the election process here started. Google Obama and Odinga and see what you get. No one wants to know the truth. 5.) My Grandmother Has Always Been A Christian - NOT EXACTLY, she does her daily Salat prayers at 5am according to her own interviews. Not to mention, Christianity wouldn't allow her to have been one of 14 wives to 1 man. 6.) My Name is African Swahili - NOT EXACTLY, your name is Arabic and 'Baraka' (from which Barack came) means 'blessed' in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama. Barack Hussein Obama is not half black. If elected, he would be the first Arab-American President, not the first black President. Barack Hussein Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro from his father's side. While Barack Hussein Obama's father was from Kenya, his father's family was mainly Arabs. Barack Hussein Obama's father was Arab (his father's birth certificate even states he's Arab, not African Negro). http://www.arcadeathome.com/newsboy.phtml?Barack_ Hussein_Obama_-_Arab-American,_only_6.25%25_African 7.) I Never Practiced Islam - NOT EXACTLY, you practiced it daily at school, where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years, until your wife made you change, so you could run for office. 4-3-08 Article "Obama was 'quite religious in 8.) My School In Indonesia Was Christian - NOT EXACTLY, you were registered as Muslim there and got in trouble in Koranic Studies for making faces (check your own book). February 28, 2008. Kristoff from the New York Times a year ago: Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it'll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset." This is just one example of what Pamela is talking about when she says "Obama's narrative is being altered, enhanced and manipulated to whitewash troubling facts." 9.) I Was Fluent In Indonesian - NOT EXACTLY, not one teacher says you could speak the language. 10.) Because I Lived In Indonesia, I Have More Foreign Experience - NOT EXACTLY, you were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn't even speak the language. What did you learn, how to study the Koran and watch cartoons. 11.) I Am Stronger On Foreign Affairs - NOT EXACTLY, except for Africa (surprise) and the Middle East (bigger surprise), you have never been anywhere else on the planet and thus have NO experience with our closest allies. Lots more, below. Just "distractions from the critical issues," of course...
Continue reading "More Obama issues that the MSM ignores"
We Conservatives may be guilty of nurturing a "flattering consensus" in our own ways, insulated from rigorous debate. Thompson uses the neoneo piece we linked a while ago about the lack of intellectual diversity in the academy, and takes it a bit further, concluding: If students and faculty are spared serious, thoughtful contact with opposing arguments, their own views can easily become lazy, reflexive and glib. One can simply feel one is right, or ought to be, and that may be the end of the process. This should matter irrespective of one’s political leanings. If a person wants to be right about a given issue, it helps to know why their ideas are sound, if indeed they are. And knowing why an idea is sound generally arises from that idea being tested, vigorously, by people who disagree.
 "Deceptive simplicity." An "artist's artist."
Auction at Christie's of Scott's work in London on June 6. This is Blue Frying Pan.
Tuesday, June 3. 2008
A right to bestiality discovered in Constitution. Does it include insects?
Few family lines can claim wealth and influence in a straight line from the 12th Century to today. Usually, decadence, disease, dilution, war - and taxes - take their toll. Here's a brief history of the family through 1652, from the family's rise in Tuscany, to their power in Milan, to their landholdings in Lombardy. I do not know what their current status is, but they do own at least three islands in Lago Maggiore, including Isola Bella with its palace and remarkably ornate Italian gardens (which are studied in all garden design classes, I am told, even though they may look vulgar to today's spartan Yankee eye). Such things were designed to impress as much as to delight. All of the soil was brought in by boat: 
The family even has a family website, but I don't want to try to struggle with the Italian. I'll be there in a week or two, mainly to do some Alpine hiking, some eating, and to see a medieval village or two, and I like to know what I am looking at.
Shorpy's comment: September 1940. "Mountaineer trying to change tire with a fence post as a jack. Up south fork of the Kentucky River, Breathitt County." 35mm nitrate negative by Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration. 
Monday, June 2. 2008
Krauthammer on the warming craze, at Moonbattery. One quote: Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but — even better — in the name of Earth itself.
Waiting for - or planning? Jules has a dandy summary, Audacious Hopefulness. If that mystery tape comes out on YouTube, it might be time for Obama to throw Michelle under the bus too. I've lost track - has he already thrown Farrakhan under it yet, or not? (The MSM didn't tell me that Obama used Pfleger as a counselor. Sheesh.)
"Like an old door, every man past a certain age comes with historical warps and creaks of one kind or another, and a woman who wishes to put him to serious further use must expect to do a certain amount of sanding and planing."
- Joseph O'Neill, in Netherland
A close-up of a bit of the shade border, yesterday. Yes, our azaleas are in bloom now up here. 
Sunday, June 1. 2008
Richard Wiseman of Quirkology seeks the funniest jokes in the world. Of course, Monty Python already addressed this subject:
 A quote from a Cindy in the Wind Amazon review of Shelly Lewis' Five Lessons I Didn't Learn From Breast Cancer (And One Big One I Did):
Have you received a breast cancer diagnosis? Got a friend who has? Before you make another move, read this funny and truthful lowdown from Shelley Lewis, whose emotional viewpoint matches mine so precisely I can't shake the feeling that I should've written it myself (after all, I went through this a year before she did). Unlike just about every other book on the breast cancer "experience," with its pretty pink cover and its crapola about how dealing with breast cancer will make you a "better person" (just like it supposedly made its author!), Lewis gets down to the real nitty-gritty. Namely: Breast cancer, at least for some people, isn't a "spiritual growth program," a "journey" or a "gift." It's not the ultimate opportunity for the perfect boob makeover. It's not necessarily going to turn you into Lance Armstrong and an inspiration to everyone. It's just a DISEASE--a scary, upsetting DISEASE that makes you hope you can get through the treatment so you can get back to your life--if at all possible.
A friend who has had breast cancer sent some quotes from the book, with the comment: "I Finally Found My Club! Good laughs @ all the BC bullshit. Thought this book might be helpful if you know others who aren't using their B.C to accomplish a spiritual makeover... & don't expect B.C. to fix what's wrong w/ them." "My only growth was the one removed by the surgeon."
"Its completely life affirming to want to remain who you essentially are, good...and bad, rather than make permanent accomodations for a disease that you have to believe is just passing through."
"Lots of us decide we don't have to stop our lives to have cancer with all the trimmings - support groups, chat room visits... You don't see a lot of TV or magazine stories about those of us trying to keep b.c. impact to a miniumum."
"I felt about the Cancer Club the same way I did when I got my first invitation to join AARP."
"I draw the line at "Cancer was a gift"... You hear it a lot"
"B.C. wasn't a journey that led me to anywhere worth going...."
"Wherever you go on b.c. web sites somebody is trying to sell you an angel...I hate to say it but if you had a guardian angel before you got b.c., apparently that angel was a fuckup....(or) a slacker..and not just angels, fairies too. I don't know where fairies land on the spiritual ladder ...(but) it seems that those of us who battle serious diseases are practically being overrun with them. If Lou Dobbs weren't so concerned with Mexicans sneaking across our borders, he'd probably do a big expose about fairies..."
"Pink Ribbon Barbie" should be stripped, head shaved, (one-breasted) & forced to replace her pink tulle dress with a green hospital gown...."
"I was happy in Healthyville. Couldn't I just get a short-term sublet in b.c.world briefly then move back to my old place..? I felt pressured to go into the Pink Ghetto, but I couldn't stay there, I couldn't breathe... I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there..."
I tend to agree with Ms. Lewis. Bad disease is a plain bad deal. Scary (if you like life), with little redeeming about it.
Here's one guy who won't be showing up for church this morning. Good grief. I don't think much of Obama's church, but what does it say about a guy that he would throw his church overboard for political power? Isn't that a Faustian deal?
As a contrast to our occasional New England houses, a reader thought we might like a peek at the 250-acre Rose Ranch, 50 minutes from Missoula. It's for sale, asking $995,000. Pretty nice views and nice wetlands on it, but 250 acres seems a bit small for Montana. I wonder whether they have Grizzlies. 
This is a 46' Palmer-Scotto built in 1939. She is for sale in Belfast, Maine. Details and more photos here. 
Matthew 7: 21-29 21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 22On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ 23Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’ 24“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. 25The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. 26And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!” 28Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, 29for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
Saturday, May 31. 2008
2 highly amusing Ikea ads In your heart, you know he's right. Go to 1964, and listen to a few Goldwater ads. He was right about pretty much everything. What a shame that he wasn't elected. (thanx, B)
Milford is a pleasant seaside village with a nice harbor that sits between Bridgeport and New Haven, and is a bit far for a NYC commute although it has a Metro North train station and a number of intrepid train commuters. Its fine harbor lies at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It's a comfortable but not wealthy middle-class town which doesn't put on airs but which has fairly high property taxes, and has a serious racing yacht club in the wealthiest (by income) state in the country. The house below is right in town in the historic district, in walking distance to the train and to the marina and harbor. Built in 1836 probably by a ship captain, but totally updated with a/c, 1st class kitchen, 5 bedrooms, family room addition on the back, etc. Look at the pictures of it: I think it is a perfect Yankee home which I would be very happy to live in, modestly elegant, with 1/4 acre offering enough space for flower gardens and tomatoes without burdening you with maintenance - plus a handy 3-car detached garage with room for a duck boat or a spare sports car. Asking only $749,000. (And again, no, we do not sell real estate. We just appreciate interesting shelter.) (The old house is too exposed to the street, though. I think it could benefit from a 4' hedge or picket fence out front along the sidewalk with a row of hydrangeas, and some nicer, less-random and more vigorous plantings in front of the porch - either a simple perennial border or a low hedge. And maybe a red Cherokee Dogwood or Magnolia in the middle of the the right side of the little front lawn. A cool thing about America is that, when you improve your plantings, you inspire your neighbors to do it too. It starts them thinking. The current plantings in front of this nice house insult the simple dignity of the place.) Overall, however, this house sits there like it's been there for a while and wants to be where it is, and I admire it very much. 
Friday, May 30. 2008
An excerpt from Bejart's 1959 Le Sacre de printemps. Maurice Bejart died last November. I believe this is by the Wuppertal Dance Theater:
Thursday, May 29. 2008
Indeed a natural and perfect second banana. Here with one of my all-time favorites, Tim Conway:
The boomers are in power, and they aren't too grown up. A quote from VDH's "All About Me": Those who came of age in the 1960s now hold the reins of power and influence -- and we are starting to see why their values have worried almost everyone for nearly a half-century. History has seen something like them before in the "blame them" years of Demosthenes' Athens, the self-indulgence of Julio-Claudian Rome, the "after me, the deluge" generation of late 18th-century France, the Gilded Age, and the Roaring Twenties. What are the baby boomers' collective traits? Like all perpetual adolescents who suffer arrested development, we always want things both ways: Don't drill or explore for more energy, but nevertheless demand ever more fuel from other suppliers. There are never bad and worse choices, but only a Never Never Land of good and even-better alternatives. Housing not only has to stay affordable for buyers, but also must appreciate in value to give instant equity to those who have just become owners. When things don't go well, we always blame someone else. Why drill off Santa Barbara or Alaska when we can sue those terrible Saudis for not putting more oil platforms in their Persian Gulf?
Read the whole thing, of course. Link above. Thanks, reader.
Gas prices by county, across the nation. Looks like CT and CA have the highest "carbon taxes" Gas taxes around the nation, by region.
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