Sunday, March 8. 2009
 Thanks to Gwynnie, I am entirely absorbed by Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World.
The war of Islam against the West must be the longest war in history. During this era, it was the remarkable Sulieman the Magnificent.
 Pruning is a subject of great interest to us, as it is to all gardeners. It is now the last chance to do our winter pruning of those late-blooming shrubs and trees which bloom on new growth.
This site from Texas A&M is an excellent pruning overview, with special attention to the pruning requirements of Crepe Myrtle.
Shrubs which are pruned wrong offend my delicate gardening sensibilities.
Photo: One of my young Crepe Myrtles blooming a couple of Augusts ago. Up here in Yankeeland, north of their growing zone, they have a small chance of thriving if they are a hardy variety, and are well-sheltered and well-mulched for the winter. Mine do just fine. While they are commonplace in the South, up here nobody seems to know what they are.
As with hybrid Rhodadendrons and azaleas, it's an iffy proposition up here - but well-worth when it works.
8:31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
8:32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
8:33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
8:34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
8:35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
8:36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
8:37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
8:38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
Saturday, March 7. 2009
From Stuart Taylor (h/t, Insty). He begins:
Having praised President Obama's job performance in two recent columns, it is with regret that I now worry that he may be deepening what looks more and more like a depression and may engineer so much spending, debt, and government control of the economy as to leave most Americans permanently less prosperous and less free.
Other Obama-admiring centrists have expressed similar concerns. Like them, I would like to be proved wrong. After all, if this president fails, who will revive our economy? And when? And what kind of America will our children inherit?
Read the whole thing.
A book: What he must be if he wants to marry my daughter
Hopeful about Afghanistan
Imagine what they'd be saying if Bush did this
How did California commit suicide? VDH
Via Animals as Weapons at Ace:
”A couple drove 170 kilometres (100 miles) from South Africa's famous Kruger National Park with a highly venomous spitting cobra in their car, the Beeld newspaper reported on Wednesday.”
“Gordon Parratt, 69, felt the 85-centimetre (33-inch) long snake wind itself around his leg while he was driving.”
Always check your car for snakes.
From Krauthammer's The Big Bang Agenda:
...with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.
What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."
Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.
Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.
From Examiner:
Has this late winter storm left you scratching your head about global warming? This winter itself has proven to be cold and snowy for most of the US, including many southern locations (Las Vegas, New Orleans, Houston, and Hawaii). The snow finally arrived in the Mid Atlantic, albeit late in the season. The irony of five inches of snow still did not stop the Global Warming protest in DC on Monday, but the onslaught of new research may hinder others.
Michael Reilly posted an article in Discovery News that is getting a lot of internet traffic, as well it should. It brings up the possibility that warming of the planet will not resume.
"A financial crisis is the worst time to change the foundations of American capitalism."
Powerline:
Most people ... have figured out that the Obama administration is making war on the private sector. No wonder the stock market is in the tank and employers continue to lay off workers.
The Obama stock market:
Friday, March 6. 2009
How about that grin on Cupid's face? And Psyche looks happy too.
Psyche and Cupid (1817)
Thursday, March 5. 2009
 When the Deal Goes Down, from Modern Times (2006). I think we posted this one in the past, but it's been on my mind -
"Well, I picked up a rose and it poked through my clothes
I followed the winding stream
I heard the deafening noise, I felt transient joys
I know they're not what they seem
In this earthly domain, full of disappointment and pain
You'll never see me frown
I owe my heart to you, and that's saying it's true
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down."
It's not embeddable, but it's worth listening to. The video isn't bad either.
 Chart on right via Am. Digest
Via Lucianne:
President Obama's newly named Economic Recovery Advisory Board, the real-world Americans being asked to help solve the nation's financial crisis, includes a union executive who took the Fifth in a federal probe, a billionaire whose failed bank pioneered the subprime mortgage market, and deep-pocket donors who gave or gathered nearly $1.2 million for the president's campaign. In all, 11 of the 16 board members donated or raised money for Democrats in the last election.
8 harsh truths that will improve your life
Boys are "an enormous genetic experiment." AVI
Dr. Bob picks up his guitar again
The Left's romance with terror and tyranny. Radosh at Front Page
Which states are open for business? Not many in New England
Chavez update: Sell food at a loss, or else... And to media: Shut up, or else...
Chris Dodd update: A Kudlow run? Why not? And also via Insty, Bernie Loves Dodd
Geithner is a Warmist.
Cramer's response to the White House attack
Why did the WH snub Brown?
h/t, S,C&A
Wednesday, March 4. 2009
Politico reports that these tricks have been in the works for months. We need to get used to this new ball game. Can anybody imagine the Bush admin. doing stuff like this?
I do not believe that Conservatives, or Repubs, are up for these kinds of games and tactics. We have often observed here that the Left prefers to reserve their live ammo for their fellow Americans rather than for foreign threats or dangerous criminals.
“Deepen, exacerbate existing problems, crises, differences, and if they don’t exist, create them or convincingly claim that they exist, and then deepen, exacerbate them...and profit the most from them in any way you can, and, in the resulting chaos, blame our enemies for the whole thing.” -
Vladimir Ilich Ulianov (Lenin) - Thanks, reader.
One considered opinion, from Moderate Voice:
Let's put all of this in proper perspective: Rush Limbaugh and George Stephanopoulos are private citizens who are media celebrities. They do not run the RNC of the DNC, write any bills or pass any laws. Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama are part of the White House. The President can veto bills and apply political pressure but the Presidency does not appropriate any money or is authorized to spend one dime without the legislative branch. Michael Steele hasn’t figured out his responsibilities at the RNC, and if he did, his role is to win elections not shape fiscal policy.
Barack Obama has got less than a year before the 2010 primary season begins. He has only got that window of opportunity to turn around the economic mess that he has inherited from Republican Administration and a Democratic Congress. If Republicans want to recover their political mojo, it is the Congress that has got to be the focus of any message. Stop playing their game - Obama is not important and you are not going to beat him… plus he not running for re-election for three years - last time I checked, you can’t beat someone who is not even running.
 Nice icicles out my window today. 14 degrees F.
Awesome underwater photography of dolphins and Gannets feeding on sardines. Those Gannets move like fish underwater.
Tuesday, March 3. 2009
 The Obama stock market. Is the Left rejoicing in this loss of wealth?
Obama's war on the middle class
Not gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more. Staying under O's tax limit. Dr. Helen has more. Our Barrister already promised his wife that he would.
Today's economy is a response to Obama policies
4.9 billion for ACORN?
Family farms are the big losers in Obama's budget
Riehl explains why he thinks TigerHawk's video (posted here earlier today) is off base. He says O doesn't give a damn about TigerHawk. O is an orator, but you have to watch what he does, not what he says. He will say almost anything, being a politician.
Obama lied; the economy died
The filibuster, then and now. Powerline
O's plans for medical care rationing. NY Post
From Dick Morris' Obama's War on Prosperity:
President Lyndon Johnson’s administration was known for his War on Poverty. President Obama’s will become notable for his War on Prosperity.
We’re speaking, of course, of Obama’s plans to hike income taxes on the most wealthy 2 or 3 percent of the nation. He’s not just raising the top rate to 39.6 percent; he’s also disallowing about one-third of top earner’s deductions, whether for state and local taxes, charitable contributions or mortgage interest. This is an effective hike in their taxes by an average of about 20 percent.
And soon the next shoe will drop - he’ll announce that he’s keeping yet another of his campaign promises: to apply the full payroll tax to all income over $250,000 a year. (Right now, the 15.3 percent Social Security tax only applies to the first $106,800 of income - you neither pay the tax on income above that, nor accumulate added benefit.) For many taxpayers in this bracket, this hike will raise their total taxes by about half.
Finally, he’s declaring war on investors by raising the capital-gains-tax rate to 20 percent.
These increases are politically insignificant: The top 2 percent of the nation casts only about 4 percent of the votes, barely enough to attract the notice of even the most meticulous pollsters.
But they have enormous economic significance. Those who earn more than $200,000 pay almost 60 percent of America’s income taxes and account for a third of its total disposable income. If these spenders and investors are hunkering down, waiting for the revenuers to beat down their doors, their confidence will be anything but robust. Their spending will drop; they’ll be unlikely to invest (except in new tax shelters).
Photo: Eyeball Soup. I will spare you the recipe for that bummer of a dinner.
A personal testimony at Wizbang. Many, many people in that same category.
Related, Rush vs. Doofus. Am Digest
We are still using some 20,000 year-old words.
Some Afghani weavers are producing "War Rugs." You can find them sometimes on the eBay rug sites.
Monday, March 2. 2009
I never cover my log piles. I like my wood damp, and out in the weather. Dry firewood burns like paper, which is not good. I do maintain a small supply under eaves and porches for starter loads, though. We had a nice, very enjoyable snow today, and my log piles in the foreground are entirely buried.
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