Maggie's Farm

That's the title of an opus by Vanderleun. (Bosch's image from his post which I am pleased to add to my image library.) He says:

These days it would seem that the 7 deadly sins are now the 7 cardinal virtues of the progressive left.

I had been having similar thoughts lately, especially regarding government avarice. It's a topsy-turvy world we live in, with Wonderland twists of language and meaning. Glad he wrote the piece.

I'm sure readers have surmised that we are not big on fake things here at Maggie's Farm. We are sort of stuck on that 1960s authenticity thing.

However, we will make an exception for a few fake candles. Mrs. BD used them over the holidays for decorating tables and pine-strewn mantles, and I had to confess that they were quite pleasant and realistic with a waxy look and feel, and have the benefit of not burning down your house on Christmas Eve while you are busy carving the goose.

Real is better, but there's a role for these fake things. They seem to come in all shapes.

I think she got her collection of them at Bed Bath and Beyond the Budget, but they can be found all over the internet now.

Maine Family Robinson: 10 Luxuries We Don't Do Without

NYT: Social Scientist Sees Bias Within:

Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

Egypt Exposes Media Hypocrisy

The Apostate - Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology. (h/t, Lucianne)

Rape flourishes in rubble of Haitian earthquake.

No functioning government, no functioning police force, no sanitation, crime rampant, no jobs, Baby Doc back and Aristide returning. What could go wrong?

Repubs: Are We Cutting Enough?

Too much college, and no skills:

The shortage of skilled workers is the No. 1 or No. 2 hiring challenge in six of the 10 biggest economies, Manpower found in a recent survey of 35,000 employers. Skilled trades were the top area of shortage in 10 of 17 European countries…

Apple CEO Steve Jobs on why dropping out of college was one of the best decisions he ever made.

I don't recall doing anything to change my camera settings, but I guess I did. Perhaps I can term this my brief Ohio Highlands Blue Period and try to make an artistic virtue out of a tech accident:

In the end, Gwynnie kindly managed to salvage some of my pics, and to restore the world to its proper tones:

A few more below the fold -

God knows how many lawyers have built their retirements in West Palm Beach or "the Tampa area" on slip 'n fall cases in New York City. It's a major industry there, feeding mostly off the deep pockets of the city government. They settle promptly.

There is an entire category of inattentive person which seems to be slip and trip-prone. Perhaps their moms never told them "Watch what you're doing." They trip over curbstones. The overlap of that set of people with the set of greedy litigious persons are the key to the jackpot for both the lawyers and for the lucky jerk who didn't watch where he was going and has the personality type to cash in.

In the past, such people would win the Darwin Prize which eliminates their genes from the gene pool, but, in the new world, they win the big bucks.

Winter must be a windfall for these lawyers. Everybody slips on ice, and everybody knows that Gomers Go To Ground.

Subject comes up because New York City's cool Highline, about which we posted in the fall, looks to be a fruitful new source of lawsuits.

Admittedly the design is meant to be as much to invent an aesthetic rus in urba experience rather than a practical one, but how could anybody design anything in which some litigious person might not be able to find something to trip over? Aren't there rocks to trip over in Central Park? There are rocks and roots and ice all over my town paths where I like to take my dog - each one, I would suppose, with dollar signs all over it. I have slipped and tripped and fallen many times in my life, broke an arm, tore a shoulder to shreds, etc., and it never occurred to me to sue anybody.

I thought the litigation risk of the High Line would be drunks falling off the sides. Maybe I am out of sync with this new way of life. How do you design a litigation-proof anything other than a padded cell?

Perhaps NYC needs "Walk at Your Own Risk" signs (see Ski at your own risk).

Chart below via Pethokoukis:

Am Thinker: classroom discipline

George Soros, Enemy of the State

AOL to buy Maggie's Farm HuffPo for $315 million

EPA to Regulate Dairy Milk Spills as per Oil Spills

Follow the (green) money: Gore Launches $500M 'Green' Asian Fund

BROTHERHOOD DUMPS EL BARADEI; EL BARADEI DUMPS PEACE TREATY WITH ISRAEL

Women in the Cairo Street Scenes: a Troubling Photo Essay

Progressive Scotland: Anger as serial offenders are only sent to prison after clocking up 40 crimes

Cool: A shooting range in the West Side of Manhattan

Krauthammer brings Godzilla into the discussion

Obama invokes religious themes as 2012 campaign nears

Uncontacted peoples in Peru

James May takes a ride in a U2

What school vouchers have bought for my family

Krugman blames Egypt on global warming

Good, at Insty:

MORE ON THE FAILURE OF STATE MULTICULTURALISM. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are basically unemployable in productive fields have chosen it as their rice bowl.

But Nick Cohen writes in The Guardian that appeasement may be over. “I am not sure the prime minister understands that he is taking on a sensibility as much as a political platform. Because Britain was never invaded by the Nazis, and never suffered from any of the other versions of 20th-century tyranny, there is an unforgivable frivolity about our dealings with totalitarianism. Dilettante bureaucrats, journalists and intellectuals play with extremists and their ideas with the insouciance of men and women who know that they will never have to suffer the consequences of coping with extremists in power. The best gift the British can give the world in this moment of crisis is to imitate the crowds in North Africa and say enough of all of that. It is time to break away from a shameful past.”

Drudge amusingly juxtaposes:

Back last night from a quick visit to a snowy and frigid central Ohio. Naturally, we had breakfast at Bob Evans'. Stupid not to:

This was my "be fit" breakfast. Yum:

But look how the outdoor shot is washed out and blue, and the indoor shots were not. I think I fiddled with my settings, but I don't know what I did wrong. It's on full auto, I think.

Every outdoor shot I took, unless there were some lights in the photo, did the same thing.

For another example, this shot (while snow falling from a grey sky) should have been pretty nice, but it's blue:

This problem is new to me. Don't tell me to photoshop it. I don't do that.

Look at this one. This could have been darn good:

We weren't oblivious to Reagan's 100th. We just had little to add to what has been said elsewhere.

We missed Ben Franklin's birthday in January, and therefore missed some of his good thoughts about wealth.

Basically, he seems to advise against spending money.

Matthew 5:13-20

5:13 "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

5:14 "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.

5:15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.

5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

5:18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

5:19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

5:20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

h/t Theo.

Samuelson in The Wilson Quarterly: In embracing a victims-and-villains explanation of the recession, Americans are missing important lessons about the future of the U.S. economy.

He begins:

We Americans turn every major crisis into a morality tale in which the good guys and the bad guys are identified and praised or vilified accordingly. There’s a political, journalistic, and intellectual imperative to find out who caused the crisis, who can be blamed, and who can be indicted (either in legal courts or the court of public opinion) and, if found guilty, be jailed or publicly humbled. The great economic and financial crisis that began in 2007 has been no exception...

The "Oh, shit!" moment:

Tom Friedman's house:

More below the fold -

McArdle: Money Talks: Yours, Mine, and Ours

The PhD scam

Nabokov Theory on Butterfly Evolution Is Vindicated

NYC Bans Smoking At Parks, Beaches

Guess Nanny Bloomberg doesn't like Smoke on the Water. Bloomberg is a pill.

"The Most Dangerous Job in America’

California CRAs Rush to Pave Paradise, Put Up Parking Lot

Boys will be boys. At least until we beat it out of them.

I want my goddamn Sudafed

Lloyd Marcus: I know how to sound like a good little colored boy who knows his place on the Liberal Plantation. 

Why Small Business Wants Repeal of ObamaCare

Hendrik Avercamp, Skaters, c. 1630

h/t, SDA:

SEIU fights healthcare repeal after obtaining waivers from law

Like Congress, they don't want it but they want you to have it whether you want it or not.

50 Best Blogs for Humanities Scholars (h/t, Marginal Rev)

Tiger: Light rail is stupider than ethanol.

I see light rail (subways, trolleys) and even commuter rail work very well in densely-populated areas. It should not be subsidized, though (and neither should highways, but we have enough of them now anyway).

Catron at American Spectator: Obamacare Unconstitutional? Roger That!

Q&0: Bubble-headed nonsense from the left about income inequality

Why work 15hrs/day if you only make the same as an 8 hour day?

Insty: SAY IT AIN’T SO: The ever-increasing cost of education is not sustainable.

Morris: Cornerstone of Obama Presidency is Collapsing

Barone: Obama's Antique Vision of Technological Progress

Where are the new ideas? My new-old idea: unleash the genius of the people and get government out of the way.

Video: Koch protests include calls to lynch Clarence Thomas

Obama issues global warming rules in January, gives GE an exemption in February

Yet another form of waivers for friends

Dalrymple: Paul Offit’s new book chronicles the destructive impact of the anti-vaccination movement.

Arianna Huffington’s Insulting Treatment of Minorities

Separate but equal?

Via Insty, is college a public good?

I say it is not. It's a private good, or perhaps not much good at all except for the 5% who really use it. Who ever said you need a school to learn stuff? I learn all I can, every day. Every night, too. As we always say here, knowledge comes from books and from The Teaching Company, and wisdom comes from engaging life to the fullest.

Late last winter the Spring snowmelt combined with a late nor'easter washed out our footbridge along with some multi-ton marble blocks that formed the old mill dam. Nature's entropy is always trying to destroy whatever man does.

We still haven't figured out how to fix it all in a cost-manageable way, but the beavers are always working on rebuilding the dam now. The mill which had been here was built for cutting marble blocks, then rafting them downstream in the Spring high water towards NYC and Boston. Oxcarts too, I believe. Lots of marble in the Berkshires.

Pics from last year.

The footbridge had been here:

It ended up here:

1,500-year-old church found in Israel

Can this work? Classical Music Meets the Big Screen

Capt Capitalism: Well My Husband is a Republican, So So Am I!"

Hard Times For Planned Parenthood

Standpoint: Overrated: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Repubs: You can keep your insurance if you like it - Unless You Have ‘Child-Only Health Insurance,’ Or You’re A ‘Retiree,’ Or You Have ‘A Medicare Advantage’ Plan, Or You Get Your ‘Insurance Through An Employer’

Moonbattery: Jesse Jackson Wants Big Government to Take Over Most Everything

‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ is not a documentary; or: How liberals created ‘the homeless’

Legal Ins: How we doin'?

Moonbattery again: Knives Okay at School if They Serve Multiculturalism

Driscoll: ‘The Man is Hiding the Stash’ Fallacy

Wisconsin attorney general: "Health care law is dead". Also, IBD: ObamaCare Is No Longer A Law

Lucianne: Notice to Google on Prophet’s indecent images

Headlines at Drudge:

AL GORE: THE SNOWSTORMS ARE CAUSED BY THE 'WARMING'...

FLASHBACK: Dem Sens say decreased snowfall caused by warming...

So which is it? I say all weather is caused by Bush, or Palin, Glenn Beck, or the Jews. Except for the nice weather.

Such claims are termed, in the language of logic, unfalsifiable. It is entertaining to read the news and the pundits and to hunt for the unfalsifiable claims. It's like an Easter egg hunt but you don't have to look as hard.

We have ice today. Snow is fine, ice sucks. Can't shovel it, and 4 WD doesn't really work on it. Sand does the trick.

The Immateriality of Wealth

Gov. Cuomo sounding a little like Gov. Christie

New Administration Brings Change To Litigation Laws In Wisconsin

Volokh: Theories of International Politics and Zombies

The Tax Code As Parent Trap

11.2 Million Illegal Immigrants in U.S. in 2010, Report Says; No Change From ’09

Related: Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends, 2010

Al Gore vs. Al Gore