Tuesday, December 2. 2008
This is from our guest poster Bruce Kesler - What if Peter, or Paul, is your son? If Peter is your child, then you might think at least twice about robbing Peter to pay Paul. Indeed, if Paul is your child, you might think twice about when Peter runs out of money to rob. Today, we’re moving beyond robbing to literally looting Peter, and Paul will face standing on his own. Our older, unionized industries centered around the domestic auto companies are yammering for federal tens of billions to keep them breathing a while longer. Meanwhile, their smothering, very generous retirement pension and healthcare benefits are, at best, likely to be hardly trimmed. Our states, whose heavily unionized employment has grown faster than in private companies, face almost $2 trillion of future payments on retirement benefits for which they don’t have funding. Add in localities and the unfunded debts climb even higher. Meanwhile, our governors clamber for hundreds of billions from the federal government to keep their mini-welfare states going with, at best, small temporary spending cuts. Our federal government faces the imminent bankruptcy of Medicare and Social Security under the weight of trillions of unfunded benefits. Meanwhile, nothing is done, while the remedies become more severe. Add to this the trillion dollars or so, hidden behind misleading titles like “stimulus” or “growth”, already committed and more to come to briefly cushion the shock to some politically favored sectors. Where is all this money to come from? It can only come from four sources: It can come from increasing taxes or cutting future government benefits, both of which land on our child Peters, and the latter on our Pauls, to reduce their standard of living and their incentives to excel and produce. It can come from foreign and domestic lenders, the debt payments mounting and interest costs increased by the reduced credibility of repayment in non-inflated dollars. It can come from speeding up the currency printing presses, devaluing investments and savings. It can come from our Pauls learning to more care for themselves. At a point in the not too distant future our Peters may well no longer have enough resources left to be robbed for the Pauls. Our Pauls better learn, fast, how to be more productive and care for themselves. We have a pretty clear choice: The first choice is we can continue the fiscal and moral insanity of robbing Peter to pay Paul, of the impossibility of sustaining our heavy subsidies of so many currently over-benefited adults. Or, we can redouble and redirect our efforts to provide a practical education to our Pauls. That means several things. It must be made clear, throughout our society, which includes our Hollywood and Times Square dream factories, that there is no free ride, but that an individual is dependent upon his own work and ethics. It must be made clear that diligent attention to skill-enhancing education is the road to self-sufficiency. It must be made clear that any individual, company or government which doesn’t live within its means has no other choice but to do so, at whatever adjusting discomfort to oneself, owners, employees or clients. The first choice, of fairly blithely continuing on the current path, downward, will soon hit a dead, self-destructive end. The second choice will then not be a choice to be managed but the only harsher way remaining. The sooner we head toward the second path, the easier the way will be. The first step is to recognize that both Peter and Paul are our sons, to be cared about enough to be set on the right path.
Monday, December 1. 2008
Soros' Move-On is still in business. This is post-election, on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Free medical care seems to be one of their goals, but I think they want lots of free stuff from what others produce. It's quite evident that they do not know how to produce anything themselves. It's hard to see how such feckless people can be effective, but there is no doubt that they now feel individually "empowered" by Obama. How nice for them. (h/t, Moonbattery). These people are "the useful idiots," as Lenin termed them. It's a fund-raising scam. Not that they need it, if Soros is really paying for the thing... The potty-mouth blond is kinda hot:
 During the past couple of months, I have noticed our bunny rabbit (Cottontail Rabbit) population taking a sharp decline.
Then we saw the fox. They must have moved in recently. The diminutive Red Fox is the most widely distributed predator in the world, from Asia through Europe and North America. (Yes, he is a Fox and she is a Vixen.) While our American Red Fox is likely a descendent of foxes imported from England for hunting, there was a pre-existing Red Fox here which inhabited boreal regions of North America. In the US, they are hunted with horses and hounds, but I don't know anyone who shoots them for fun. In the UK, our cousin Mr. Free Market loves to blast them, but he is a deeply disturbed individual (like all Capitalist gun-lovers), and he also tries to protect his pheasants. I tend to feel happy when I see one, which is not often, at dawn, trotting across a meadow. I think I have liked them since Roger and the Fox was a favorite of mine around age 6. They are increasingly semi-suburban, but are basically a rural animal. These nocturnal handsome bushy-tailed guys are mainly mouse, fruit, and bug-eaters, but they have been known to steal a chicken or young pheasant. Both coyotes and wolves will kill foxes. A bit about their range and natural history here. More here.
Sunday, November 30. 2008
No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. Mark Twain (h/t, LGF)
 "Fresh antiques made daily" by our friend at Sippican Cottage. His biz site is Sippican Furniture.com.
This is serious handmade country furniture made by a Yankee fellow who knows wood inside and out - not department store stuff. Solid wood on antique designs. Scroll down past the Victorian Christmas here at The Denver Post for an appreciation of Sipp's work. Yes, he can deliver before Christmas, and he'll build you anything you want. (He's having lots of fun building me a large Spanish Cedar-lined Tiger Maple humidor.) My next (post-Christmas) project for him may be a round kitchen table to seat 10.
 Many are advising me to buy this camera, or one of their TZ line.
Why do people always want me to buy stuff? I like stuff but, being a stingy Yankee, I hate spending money, and I hate getting onto the mo bigga betta bandwagon. Well, more accurately, I should say that am ambivalent about it. (When it comes to guns, mo is betta until it's time to clean and oil them.) Anyway, I saw they have them at Costco (where the optician is a heck of a nice fellow). I do not need a SLR, because I would never learn how to take advantage of its capacities because I have terminal ADD and, also, was dropped on my head too many times as a kid. Maybe something for my Santa list...unless Obama gives me one first.
13:24 "But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 13:25 and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. 13:26 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. 13:27 Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. 13:28 "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 13:29 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 13:30 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 13:31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 13:32 "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 13:33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. 13:34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 13:35 Therefore, keep awake--for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 13:36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 13:37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake."
Saturday, November 29. 2008
Here it is only late November, and the dang glaciers just keep on coming. Here's me this morning, trying to keep the Farm family warm in our Wooly Mammoth-bone igloo in New England (as you can see, the Mammoths have eaten all of the Rhododendrons and Azaleas): 
 Gene Expressions takes another look at Cultural Regions of the United States. One quote:
One of the obvious inferences that can be made from the data is that New Englanders shaped the culture and polities of many regions of the United States where they were a minority. Boston was self-consciously the Athens of America. Not only does this region have many elite universities, but the more prominent state institutions such as the Universities of Michigan and Wisconsin were started in part by Yankees who valued these sorts of public investments. The role of New Englanders in primary education throughout the United States is well known, Puritan America may have been the world's first universally literate society, and they were intent on spreading this trait across every group into the United States.
Though New Englanders were often outnumbered by later waves of immigration from the Upland South (e.g., Scots-Irish), as in the Pacific Northwest's Willamette Valley or Northern California, they were overrepresented among the intelligentsia and captains of industry. In the western Upper Midwest Yankees were absorbed by a sea of Northern European immigration, but for several generations they retained a hold on the cultural and capital classes. One might contend that many of the complaints about the "brainwashing" which occurs at elite universities of bright but impressionable young men and women is simply the latest manifestation of the conflict between numerically superior Middle America and the elitist New England outlook (even outside of New England, see Leland Stanford's biography).
Friday, November 28. 2008
 I have never seen this famous Rosie person on TV, but I gather she is some big celeb of some sort, for some undoubtedly well-deserved reason which is unknown by me.
She must be a very big celeb, because she gets more TV viewers than we get daily visitors at Maggie's Farm! That's proof that the world is nuts. Well, on the other hand, we don't have a broadcast monopoly either.
Thursday, November 27. 2008
For Thursday Free Ad for Bob, his 1988 folk-rock recording of Shenandoah. To my mind, the best version of that tune I've ever heard. Give it a listen:
Wednesday, November 26. 2008
 The new documentary Blocking "The Path to 9-11." A reader says it's fascinating, and so do the Amazon reviewers.
It's a DVD.
With the global cooling becoming increasingly obvious, when will it be declared a crisis? Still too many deniers, I guess. Quoted at Gateway's It's a Hoax: Climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill are quietly watching a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.
While the new Obama administration promises aggressive, forward-thinking environmental policies, Weather Channel co-founder Joseph D’Aleo and other scientists are organizing lobbying efforts to take aim at the cap-and-trade bill that Democrats plan to unveil in January.
 On September 6, 1620, our Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers set sail from Holland, where many Puritans had fled, to England to furnish the boat and pick up more passengers, and headed to what was called "North Virginia" - New York harbor, specifically.
They left too late in the year. The leaky Speedwell slowed them down, and the Mayflower herself was an old tub. On November 9 they made landfall in Cape Cod (a mere 2 degrees off course), but found heading south to NY was treacherous with the autumn storms, so they gave up that effort and returned to the Cape, anchored in Provincetown Harbor, and began exploring Cape Cod (and stealing caches of Indian corn) until deciding on Plymouth as the spot to settle down for the very hard first winter. Only 50 of the 110 on board the Mayflower survived the first winter. Had they anticipated that catastrophe, they never would have left Europe. Samoset and Squanto appeared in March (Squanto spoke English, and had already been to England, and probably to Spain too), and helped them figure out how to live, farm, hunt, and fish, in rugged New England. Plymouth, fortunately, had many large, abandoned Indian corn fields so it wasn't too difficult to get the spring planting underway. How differently history might have developed had they ended up where they had intended in the environs of the soon-to-be wealthy Dutch mercantile colony of New Amsterdam.
Tuesday, November 25. 2008
 Our occasional commenter "Retriever" has had her own blog up and running for a little while. She writes (and thinks) well.
Check it out: The Retriever. It's about life. Yes, the photo is a tough Chessie, which seemed appropriate.
Monday, November 24. 2008
h/t, Theo. 
This reminds me of the old genie joke: 60 year-old guy tells genie that he wants his wife to be 30 years younger than he is. Genie: OK, Poof - You're 90.
This is something different. You need to stick with it. It's in English, despite the intro. Here's the scoop on Freddie Frinton.
The following is from our regular guest poster Bruce Kesler: We won the war, but lost the victory. That charge can legitimately be made about Iraq. It could also be legitimately made about World War I, World War II, and Vietnam. In all these, initial goals were not achieved of either preserving the status quo or creating a more peaceful world order. Inevitably, domestically and abroad, new inimical forces are strengthened or unleashed, encouraged by our turning inward. World War I led to the rise of state fascism and communism, as we focused on our own comforts. World War II led to Eastern Europe and China behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains, and Russia and China feeling able to take South Korea from our inattention. Vietnam (which was won, only to be tossed to the wolves of an overwhelming invasion) led to a generation of US defeatism and half-measures that encouraged today’s jihadism. On the other hand, World War I spread the ideal of self-rule and led to the end of colonialism that sapped rulers’ wealth and honor. World War II led to the world-wide wealth-producing leadership of American free enterprise. Vietnam bought the time for emergence of vibrant economies among those that allowed greater freedom.
The Clinton years were the ascendancy of those whose lesson from Vietnam was, at best, half-measures in the face of clear threats and attacks. The irony of much these same people populating the Obama administration is not lost on aggressors, despite Obama saying during the campaign “The real gamble in this election is playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expecting a different result.” While WMD’s were not discovered in Iraq, neither has the extant capacity to produce them survived. While sectarian competition simmers, none are subjugated nor victims of state oppression. While democracy has not spread through the region, neither has any power the strength to impose itself. While terrorist organizations continue their threats, their power and draw has been stifled and we have avoided domestic attacks. What will Iraq bring that’s more positive? A recognition that others must take greater responsibility for their own fate would be welcome, but unlikely. Perhaps more likely will be a greater recognition and appreciation for the US’ leadership and sacrifices. But, that will only come after a period of suffering reduced US willingness to bravely lead and sacrifice. The ending of prior wars led to our electorate relaxing and turning its attentions internally. That led to increasing the potentials for those with nefarious objectives to try their chances. We’ve done it again. And so will they. Comparatively, The US will emerge from the global economic meltdown as strong or stronger than ever, as our innate and predominant values of free and responsible initiative are strengthened while others are more committed to statist stultifying. Good thing, because we have also repeated the error of turning in, which will only encourage those abroad with nefarious objectives. The operation will, again, have been successful, and the victory lost. History continues, and future generations will pay the price.
 Obama reconsidering tax hikes. related, Obama irritating all the right people
Times' Mark Halperin discusses "Extreme pro-Obama press bias" Roast Brined Turkey. It works. I tried it last year. If fat people get two seats, should skinny people get a 1/2 seat? E=mc squared seems to be true. But why should that be? NYT spins history Palin's star power increases In appreciation of Bush. Wizbang Home on the Rangel. What other laws does this guy break? Am I crazy, or is the world crazy? Look at this new NYC statue. Surely the NYT is pulling our collective leg? From Volokh: Lessons from the Great Depression: Tyler Cowen on the lessons for today from FDR and the Great Depression: In short, expansionary monetary policy and wartime orders from Europe, not the well-known policies of the New Deal, did the most to make the American economy climb out of the Depression. Our current downturn will end as well someday, and, as in the ’30s, the recovery will probably come for reasons that have little to do with most policy initiatives.
Eric at Classical Values considers mens' room gay sex. I had to look up the meaning of "trade." Social politics. Why do we care so much about things that don't directly affect us? Quote from a piece by AVI: We care very deeply about these expressions of who we are as a society, locally or nationally. Some people don’t want to see strip malls. Some don’t want to see litter. Some don’t want to see sexual advocacy in the children’s section of the public library. Zoning, historical districts, wilderness areas, nude beaches, prayers before football games, public smoking, girlie magazines at the convenience store, transvestites, mosques, loud music next door, ORV’s, communications towers, homeless people, Wal-marts…We don’t want to see it! Or we do. It says something bad/good about us as a people. We want to feel that the place is ours, that it expresses us. I don’t want to live in a society that…
A flock of Brant ("Brent" in the UK) over Long Island Sound this weekend. Thanks, reader. 
Saturday, November 22. 2008
 This via Am Digest: How to carve a turkey like a man from The Art of Manliness: just the blog title tells you it is essential in today's sissified world.
If my memory serves me, I think that photo is from Dr. Bob a few years ago.
What happy people tend not to do. NYT Get a room, David Brooks A single-celled organism the size of a grape. Repubs will never reach people who feel that they are owed stuff At least 25 years of global cooling now predicted. It's cold as heck here today. How bad will the recession be? Hawkins Eric Holder, gun-grabber, also makes the case for "reasonable" restrictions on internet The Waxman Dems: WSJ. A quote: It's obvious who now pulls the Democratic levers of power, and anyone in the energy or health-care business had better erect the barricades.
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