Maggie's Farm

Surely all agree that Hunt for Red October is the best movie of the past 20 years.

The poll is "Who is your favorite character in this movie?"  (in which the casting is astonishingly good - Brit quality, and in which the detail and subtlety of the acting is endlessly interesting. Just the way the head of the Russian Navy drops his teacup, echoing the spilled tea when Ramius kills the KGB guy)

We aren't going to bother with that voting software. Just let us know whether you are able to decide.

Mrs. BD votes for Bart Mancuso, after agonizing over the cynically amusing pol Jeffrey Pelt, the Russian Ambassador, and, of course, Captain Ramius. I vote for Jonesie, but Alec Baldwin, one must admit, was fantastic as Jack Ryan. As was Fred Thompson as the Admiral, and James Earl Jones, and ... everybody else in this wonderfully engaging movie which holds up well after many, many viewings.

How to get your spouse to quit overspending. h/t, Marginal Rev

How to survive a job you hate. Many links.

If China, India and Russia don't care about CO2, what good can we do?

Dying malls and ghost town malls. Good riddance.

Roast baby Neanderthal? Why not?

You might not like ObamaCare

"The Germans could not kill Walter Gibson. But Britain’s National Health Service was up to the task."

Does Colin Powell belong in the Repub Party? Of course. All welcome, in my view. I am a Big Tenter. I think of us Conservative/Libertarians as just a part of that Party. Party factions come and go, rise and fall, over time. That's why it works.

America's Christless Christianity.

Krugman: Bush destroyed our food. Is he insane? I mean, of course Bush tried to destroy our food. That's what evil, sadistic Repubs do for fun, right?

What's with Jihad in the Bronx?

President Above-It-All. Rich Lowry. Yes, a figurehead. Riehl sees him as a weak man with a big image. Well, he has never done anything difficult yet, but he has his chances now.

Joe Biden: "I'm out of the loop." It's a life-long affliction. I feel sorry for the guy.

Jules was pretty amusing about the Great Debate.

Voters sick of bailouts.

Has America really turned Left? Neoneo

Let's legalize counterfeiting. Brilliant!

Stolen from Samiz:

"I think in the U.S. and in most of the world the public understanding of economics is abysmal. But it’s one thing not to understand something. I don’t understand brain surgery. It’s another to want to form policies on things on which you are ignorant. I hear the wonderful phrase “I want to make a difference” when it comes to policy. I would be horrified if I wanted to make a difference in brain surgery. The only difference is more people would die on the operating table. The only encouraging thing about public reaction to the crisis is that going by polls citizens seem to have more misgivings about some of these policies than politicians or the media. Still, though there have been studies that indicate the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression by years, what is also clear is it was enormously popular. FDR was elected four straight times, and more than once without ever having brought unemployment down to single digits. An economic disaster does not necessarily mean a political disaster. If we could raise the average level of understanding of economics to what Alfred Marshall had in 1890, the vast majority of politicians would be voted out of office."

Thomas Sowell

We have had some mischievous, or possibly malevolent, hobgoblins in our servers for the past couple of days. Our apologies.

In my view, we need to call Ghostbusters. However, we are too cheap to call them.

We will do our best to keep stuff coming, despite the goblins and despite the holiday weekend, with its holiday which is the most sacred secular holiday of the year.

Remember, you never know what you will find at Maggie's - even if it's nothing more than "Cannot connect to server."

Race and IQ. There's a provocative topic for ya.

Speaking of IQ, a Suckers and Morons Tax for MA

The Prof takes on "Lost." It's a mystery to me.

Recruiting kids to spy on adults in the UK. Unrelated: Brit cops claim sex change operations. Still some humor over there.

The dueling speeches yesterday. Related: The ten punches Cheney landed on the O's jaw.

Related: Legal Aid for Jihadists and thoughts on the dueling speechs at Hugh Hewitt. Related: O forced to play defence. This will happen more and more now.

Where's the only employment growth in Michigan? You guessed right, didn't ya?

Women less happy than they used to be.

Megan takes a deeper look into that victim of the greedy bankers. Live beneath your means, friends.

The Jihad virus in American jails

Despite ten years of global cooling, Congress acts.

The Jacksonian says:

The primary duty of the President is Commander of the Armies and the Navy, which is also the seat of the Admiralty power and this the President Commander in Chief of our armed forces.  He is not given the spot to remedy economic ills, or other woes of the financial sector - in no place is this given as a Presidential duty.  Indeed, that primary responsibility calls for the thing the Left bemoaned over the last few years: sacrifice.  Yet this President has decided to fight on the cheap by removing funding for weapons systems that have either been demonstrated as effective (such as Ballistic Missile Defense) or which went into final testing after acceptance (like the Non-Line of Sight Cannon).  Such systems are meant to protect the Nation and our soldiers in the battlefield and make them more effective.  By cutting back on systems, support and equipment, President Obama is the first President in quite some time to actually cut back on military systems during two Congressionally Authorized wars.

I have special and sentimental feelings about this fine state, including time in the elegant Bluegrass and at Keeneland (even saw Secretariat grazing in retirement) - and time working up in the wild hollers of eastern KY where everybody is a cousin of eachother and either works in coal, moonshining, or is on welfare.

I have seen many fine Kentucky mornings, with the mist rising from the fields and crouched in the valleys. I guess I was also only passin' through, but I had a true love there, and I still have her.

The psychotherapist Robin of Berkeley, author of the essay Letter of Amends to Conservatives, is back with more on her journey. She begins:

So what do you do when you realize that everything you've ever thought and believed no longer worked for you?  Where do you go when the bubble of progressive politics bursts in your face and you're left in the leftiest place on earth?  It seems that the choices are as follows:  either you cling to your beliefs even more zealously and attack anyone who dares to disagree.  Or, if you're like me, you embark on a journey of discovery and recovery.

h/t, Patterico:

Lots of ways to make firewood:

A rotary log-splitter. Watch them fingers, Pops:

For giant trees:

We linked Stanley Fish's God Talk, Part 2, earlier this week. Thanks, reader, for pointing out the discussion of Fish and Eagelton at Augean Stables.

It's a rich and impressive discussion. One quote:

One of the things that always struck me about “post-modernism” was the combination of ignorance and hubris embedded in the name. We don’t know what we are, but we do know that we’ve superseded modernity, that we’re well beyond that period. I always thought of modernity – that is, the liberal project of trying to establish a society run according to the basic rule of equality before the law for all citizens — as a long and difficult process. Indeed, it sometimes takes decades, even centuries to confront some of the difficulties that arise in such an endeavor – letting women and other races vote, de-imperializing, creating a safety net for citizens, figuring out how to treat other nations decently.

Except for the twitterings of some migrating warblers and thrushes, the morning bird chorus here has suddenly gone silent.

That's because the local breeders have now laid their eggs, and no longer want to draw attention to their presence with their territorial calls. 21 days for a bird egg to hatch, and then comes the long hassle of feeding, protecting, worrying over, and keeping track of the bird babies.

All parents know what that is like.

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.

Friedrich Hayek (h/t, Samiz)

(Related, via Politico: "a recent CBS News poll show(ed) 72% of Republicans worried over the growth of government as opposed to 58% of Democrats who want more of it." What sort of red-blooded American would want "more government"?)

The new garden path that I mentioned on the Spring to-do list. Besides looking nice, it solved the problem of the previously muddy route that the dog always takes on his routine patrols for enemies and intruders. Fortunately, he likes the new path. No, I did not build it myself but I could have, given the time.

The Mrs. did a nice job with her new semi-shade border, but it will take a year or three to mature. As you can see, I pruned the heck out of that young Crepe Myrtle behind the hybrid Rhodies. Maybe too much. That's a small Kousa Dogwood on the corner.

It is truly a conspiracy to keep them poor and stupid.

There are a number of sites to visit to keep up with the totalitarian joke of a tin-pot dictatorship that Venezuela is turning into, but we still rely mainly on Venezuela News and Views. He retains some sense of humor about it all, despite the unfolding tragedy of a once-fine and hopeful nation.

It's a damn shame to watch them head down the Zimbabwean path to disaster while Fidel, Hollywood, and Ahmadinejad cheer Chavez on.

Promo for a new Mike Judge toon series (h/t, Ace):

“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name — liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny.”

Abraham Lincoln, Baltimore, MD, 1864 (h/t, And rightly So)

The man likes to sail:

You have nowhere to go, and nowhere to be, and after the second time you take them your sailing companions must lose the urge to talk about the process of sailing in an enthusiastic fashion and simply enjoy it, and the company. And with the sky arrayed overhead, and the sea below, you are content to examine the world dispassionately. And the beauty and simplicity of the clouds that drift, the terns that swoop, the wavelets that tap their gentle knuckles on the windward side, the feeling of motion snatched without struggle from the endless breezes that massage your cheek and sail alike allow you to enjoy the world and all its wonders, and everybody in it, if just for a moment.

The giant garbage dump in the Pacific. What a shame. h/t, Cons. Grapevine

Pelosi first heard of 9-11 attacks in late 2003. Scrappleface

Jail for not holding those filthy handrails? I thought they were there for the old folks.

How to land an F-16 with a spinal injury. (h/t, Neptunus)

MA: Let the frail die. The best way to save $ is to refuse treatment for anybody over 45. Ted Kennedy too old for brain surgery in Canada.

Related: CBO estimates on Obamacare top $1 trillion.

What's happening to the piano?

How uncertainty is affecting investors

High state taxes lead to job loss and population loss. Duh. Related: NY taxpayers vote with their feet.

The pork inside cap and trade.

PBS' war on religion will cut "Mass for Shut-ins." How progressive.

This letter from Congress is unbelievable. Don't they realize that they are our servants?  h/t, Cafe Hayek

The "snarl of hatred" from the Pro-lifers. Related: Waterboarding terrorists bad; infanticide good. Go figger. Related: Is abortion "murder-lite"?

That porkulus package did a lot of good, didn't it? Well, everybody knows it was pure political pay-off.

American Thinker is up to 1 million unique visitors/month. They deserve it. They want your support, though.

Excuses, excuses. Breitbart, "I Jerk", and Dowd

Finally, Honda produces a crappy car

Sam Huntingdon eulogies

Those climate ocean buoys must be defective. Science must be required to fit the narrative. So, just for some cruel fun:

A nice email from a friend who came from Russia with his family to work in the US:

Special thanks for the introduction of the Maggie’s Farm. I don’t go to bed unless I read something there. I hope that you are going to survive the Bolsheviks intervention in this country.

It is a wonderful day indeed when we stop working for God and begin working with God.

Anon.

One quote from the NYT Op-Ed:

When one Dickinson College alumna recently applied to work at a public school, she had a photocopied version of her Latin diploma returned as foreign and illegible.

All of my kids took Latin in grade school and high school. Good fun, and it has served them well. I took ancient Greek instead, plus French and German. Only fairly fluent in French now. Sorta-kinda. Can still read French or German OK if it's non-technical. Struggle with the Greek but have a feel for it, I think.