We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
8:27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?"
8:28 And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."
8:29 He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah."
8:30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
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?
Kayaked down the choppy and windy Hudson a piece from the charming, granola-feeling old river hamlet of Cold Spring, NY (which was packed with cheerful strolling, shopping, and eating people) then snuck under the Metro North Hudson Line bridge into Constitution Marsh just before the tide got too high to get under it.
They rent kayaks on the river. We rent kayaks. Kayaking on ordinary waters is easy for anybody. We did a good 4 hours. The rental guy said "Use your core, not your arms, and find your core rhythm." We are not proficient yet, but we sure enjoy it. The pros give the same advice for tennis, but I still use my arms. I have no core rhythm for anything.
Those hills are the Hudson Highlands, on the other (west) side of the river. Storm King. Dramatic. The Hudson there is still tidal, but low salinity. Can barely taste salt when you splash yourself.
Did not see a lot of migrants - no Teal yet. A migrant Harrier, Osprey, and some Spotted Sandpipers, a Sharpie, plus the resident Bald Eagles, Cormorants, Black Ducks, Mallards and herons (Great Blue and American).
A recurrent thought was that this must have been great for October and November duck hunting before the Audubon Society took it over. Good for Rail shooting too. The marsh is full of Wild Rice and Cattails. In the 1830s, some guy tried to make it a Wild Rice farm, hence the kayak routes and the abundance of Wild Rice.
No powerboats allowed. You could get lost in there if they did not have water-trail markers because it is a water maze. Good fun. We kayaked down to the southern lake, and visited the Audubon lodge there (and grabbed a coffee, chatted with the naturalist, and used their facilities).
If you kayak down the marsh around 40 minutes, you turn a corner and what do you see, across the marsh, across Constitution Island, and on the other side of the Hudson?
As I recall, George Washington picked that location. The big river is narrow and defensible there, due to Constitution Island poking into it.
Well they're not showing any lights tonight And there's no moon. There's just a hot blooded singer Singing 'Memphis in June' And they're beatin' the devil out of a guy Who's wearing a powder-blue wig. Later he'll be shot for Resisting arrest. I can still hear his voice crying In the wilderness. What looks large from a distance Close up ain't never that big.
From the new Bob interview in Rolling Stone, the interviewer had fits trying to get Bob to say he loved the O. Here's the best he could get out of him:
"He loves music. He's personable. He dresses good. What the fuck do you want me to say?"
...don’t worry, when your president’s so cool he’s doing gigs in Vegas, what happens in Tunis stays in Tunis.
As a Canadian, I’m interested to see that America has belatedly adopted the divided responsibilities of the Westminster system. Proceeding from the Pimp with the Limp show to Letterman to Beyoncé and back again, Barack Obama makes a perfectly adequate (if somewhat cheesy and downmarket) ceremonial queen.
Our experiment at civilizing the savage failed miserably in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will go on failing as often as we keep attempting it. And at the end of the experiment, there will be burning embassies and savages crying, "There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger", the same words that the bearded bandit who was one of the first Muslims and their many times great-grandfather was crying out as he was raping the shamelessly unveiled tribal woman who would become their many times great-grandmother.
"There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his messenger" means that the Muslim need not waste time worrying about his conscience. His conscience is a Koran and that book says that he's entitled to kill any time that an infidel offends Islam by mocking his prophet, walking in front of him or building a skyscraper that is taller than a mosque. The Muslim need not waste time pondering the ethical implications of killing another human being to know that he is better than we are. His little black book assures him that he is better than us, that he has every right to kill us and that if he fails, he will be raping demon virgins who are so anorexic that their bones can be seen through their flesh.
But, we oh what good people we are, we will apologize for having an embassy and for having free speech and for getting our embassy in the way of their mob and our free speech in the way of our religious sensibilities.
...our media, terrified that their hero would be unmasked and themselves also then revealed as shallow and unworthy, focused their ire on Mitt Romney while the world burned, hoping that Romney had made a “gaffe” even when it was clear that his analysis, if not his timing, was correct.
Meanwhile, our government and its State Department have been revealed to be criminally negligent in the protection of their own people.
The roots of this negligence are a willed ignorance of the realities of the Middle East.
How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event, A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward, I do not know Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do;’ Sith I have cause and will and strength and means To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me: Witness this army of such mass and charge Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d Makes mouths at the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death and danger dare, Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then, That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That, for a fantasy and trick of fame, Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain? O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
Strassel: Mr. Romney, Trust Your Pants - Obama tells Americans the terrible things the Republican will do to them. The Republican remains silent about what he would do.
...that aging rock star will win this campaign going away if Romney keeps playing it safe. That is a terrible waste for Republicans, an ominous sign for a country in desperate need of new leadership, and more than enough reason for me to stop bothering to tweet on Saturday nights.
The worst line in the clip you showed was this where she said there are different views around the world about the outer limits of free speech. Why is she engaging in a disquisition on free speech with the mob? The implication here that, perhaps the mob is right, that we ought to be suppressing anything that offends Islam, this is a nation where somebody puts a crucifix in bottle of urine and it ends up in a museum. We allow all kind of expression. But perhaps we ought to make an exception in the case of Islam. This is absurd. She ought to be speaking to the heads of state, to the State Department equivalents in other states and saying ‘You speak to your mob and talk to them and defend the embassy.’ This is return to statement a few days ago, I think and they are totally in meltdown at the State Department.”
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. For today, we'll (semi-ironically) adopt the Democratic Socialist Party's meme: We didn't build Maggie's Farm on our own.
We rely on the geniuses who made the intertunnels possible, the engineers who provide us with our coal- and nuclear-energy, on the geniuses who invented the hyperlink and YouTube, on our Webmeister who keeps this rickety site functioning with duct tape and baling wire, on hundreds of other bloggers, websites, and news sources for content, on our commenters who add zip, on Dunkin Donuts which keeps us going, on Panasonic who built my Lumix, etc etc - and on our readers and the good folks who link to us.
It's a communal effort, and an enjoyable one. Many farm hands make light(er) work. No government involvement or funds, however.
This is our biannual request that our readers pitch in and give us a hand by sending out the word about our eclectic, informative, and politically-Centrist/Libertarian website. As I always say, our readership is our reward for what we do here.
Pic of the Maggie's Farm hard-working back office farm hands - and fact-checkers (Zachriel missed the photo op) - safely below the fold.
A pal took this pic of the USS Saratoga in Newport, RI last weekend. Some people want to use her for a new Naval museum, but Naval museums aren't really profitable. Even the Intrepid loses money.
With its sales weak, its share price crashing, and its business model still a mess, some analysts already are predicting that GM will return to bankruptcy — but not until after the election.
Dylan recently told Rolling Stone that he had intended to write religious songs for this album, but the songs just didn't end up that way, even though the Book of Revelations makes an appearance right on schedule. Chaos has come again, and Dylan seems pulled to the dark side. From listening to this album - filled with killing floors, "lyin' and dyin in blood," and a "flat chested junkie whore" all leading him, if not to temptation, than a tempest of the soul - it's clear that Dylan's done his three score years and eleven, and he's not going quietly.
Early fall (ie late Sept to November) is the best time for planting or transplanting most things in the temperate zone.
There's less heat to stress the plants, there's more rain, and plants have just enough time to send out new roots so they will be established by Springtime (and also because all plants begin growing - underground - well before what we consider Spring planting season. Thus fall planting gives them a double head-start to prepare. Plants grow roots at least a month before they show any green).
I planted three Knock-Out Roses this weekend. They are the easiest, most care-free, toughest shrub roses around. That's why they have become the biggest sellers. (Bill Radler built them - not the government - and he is getting rich from his creation. It's called genetic engineering.)
September to early October is the time to plant Peonies, too. I remember when everybody's grandma had a circular peony patch somewhere, but now people just put them in borders. Prepare their soil well, because Peony plants last a long time and take a year or two to become established and strong.
People recommend full sun for them, but half-day sun seems fine.
My favorites: BLT, Club Sandwich (with extra Mayo on the side), Po' Boy (fried oysters). Best of all? The Thanksgiving Leftovers Sandwich.
They omitted the classic Northeastern Italian-inspired sandwich: Fried eggplant on a hard roll. And what about the ordinary tuna sandwich? I like capers on mine.
I like 'em all though - except for Fluffernutter (h/t Marginal Rev)
Today, as Mort Zuckerman accurately contended in a Friday evening Wall Street Journal op-ed, “we are experiencing, in effect, a modern-day depression,” where “dependent millions” relying on food stamps and swelling the disability rolls “are the invisible counterparts of the soup kitchens and bread lines of the 1930s.”
I learned about 
Summer is slowly ending up here. Carpe diem. We're kayaking on the upper Hudson River this morning.
Paestum 
I forget where I found today's photo so I can't credit the finder, but 
A pal took this pic of the USS Saratoga in Newport, RI last weekend. Some people want to use her for
Early fall (ie late Sept to November) is the best time for planting or transplanting most things in the temperate zone.
The 
The Town-Gown Connection -