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.
Imagine the pics I could take for Maggie's with one of these sorts of babies instead of my Costco pocket point and shoots. Trouble is, I'd never carry one of those larger things around - just a pain in the ass to lug a camera around all day when you're hiking in the woods with bottles of water, or up and down the hills of Spoleto or Norcia with a shopping bag full of jars of truffles and truffle sauce and and cinghiale salumi and Umbrian olive oil and stringozzi. When you shrink all those magapixels down to size, you lose the detail anyway.
The experience is the thing. A pic is just a souvenir, and the camera can be a distraction from simply "being there". And, in general, nobody wants to look at anybody else's artful pics (altho some folks seem to enjoy my travel pics on Maggie's but I make extra effort to make them informative rather than artful, illos of a mini-narrative).
It's fun to go places, sometimes, camera-free so you don't end up a slave to the lens. Same thing with periodically going a week or two without looking at the internet, or without beer.
Freedom from habits, whether good habits or bad ones, can be enlightening.
We are accustomed to thinking that our country is in the midst of a long transition from an industrial economy to a "service" economy, and these figures would seem to confirm that perception. But the service economy is not what we often think it is. The images that most readily come to mind when we think of these sectors might involve retail sales, information-technology consulting, and financial services. But Spence and Hlatshwayo's work shows that, within the non-tradable sector, health care was easily the growth leader — increasing from 10 million to 16.3 million jobs, and accounting for almost 25% of total job growth in the past two decades. Government was second, growing from 18.4 million to 22.5 million jobs, and accounting for about 15% of total job growth. Of this expansion in government employment, nearly 70% was attributable to jobs in education. Today, the drivers of the American labor market are therefore clearly health, education, and government work; these sectors form the backbone of our post-industrial economy.
...illegal immigration has transmogrified into one of the most illiberal, reactionary phenomena on the current American scene, an ossified concept of racial solidarity and tribalism that attempts to privilege one group, solely on the basis of race or ethnic fides, in its exemption from federal law, and in a manner that would never be extended to other immigrant lobbies, with less numbers, influence, and potential electoral power. We have come full circle back to the 1920s when immigration was likewise largely seen through racial lenses — when one’s race determined how one navigated immigration law.
Should there now be 6 million Korean nationals — and more on their way — inside California without legality, would the proverbial Hispanic community in large part be calling for stricter border enforcement? Would it be amnesty or deportation? English-only or Korean-language interpreters?
Adams thought the day of independence should be commemorated by “Acts of Devotion to God Almighty,” and further “solemnized” (as he confided in a letter to his wife, Abigail) “with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
2:8 The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.
2:9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.
2:10 My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away;
2:11 for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
2:12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
2:13 The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
I always thought it amusing when it was "the voice of the turtle is heard in the land." The Song of Solomon is good stuff, a glimpse into Jewish history and literature. Pic is our common North American Mourning dove.
Everybody has an opinion on pruning tomato plants. Here's my view of the subject.
First, I'll assume we are growing "Indeterminate" types of tomatoes, i.e. vine tomatoes as opposed to the tree-like ("determinate," aka "bush" tomatoes) ones often grown in pots. Left alone, vine tomatoes will grow 10+ feet along the ground, as you can often see in gardens in Bermuda, but we stake them.
Up here in New England (Yankeeland), we need to prune them because our short growing season doesn't allow much time for good fruit formation. We have to prune most of the suckers and plenty of their leaves, and we cut their tops off in July or August - all so they will put their energy into good fruit and not into further pointless growth.
Further south, diligent pruning is less important.
And even though I grow mine in fine soft soil, I fertilize them with liquid fertilizer whenever I think of it. I usually have lots of plants, but only ended up with 10-12 this year of around 5 varieties.
Here's the best site I have seen on indeterminate tomato vine gardening. For all of the effort, and despite our short season, it is well-worth it when you pick one on a hot day and eat it in the garden like an apple. A tomato should be hot, with little salt on it.
We owe Club ABC Travel a plug today because they have been so kind and helpful to my in-laws this past week. Yes, they will discuss your tours on the phone with you. Good folks.
Because of ABC's volume, nobody can claim that they cannot afford to see the world in reasonable comfort if they want to and, if you are an inexperienced or unconfident traveller, they arrange everything for you. If you want to spend a little more money for organized trips, you can try Tauck for the highest-end version - but it's not necessary.
If you would rather have new wallpaper or a new TV or iPad, it's your choice - and your loss.
I'd rather be hanging out and trying to get lost in Budapest than sitting on my ass shooting farts into my couch while playing with a new iPad.
Life is short, and getting shorter every precious passing minute.
Subprime Scandal: Democrats thought they'd dammed up the truth about government's role in the financial crisis. But the levees are breaking, thanks to a spate of rogue new books on the subject. The latest, "Reckless Endangerment," shreds the narrative carefully constructed by Democrats and the liberal media that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were only bit players in the crisis and followed Wall Street into subprime lending.
"Democracies endure until the citizens care more for what the state can give them than for its ability to defend rich and poor alike; until they care more for their privileges than their responsibilities; until they learn they can vote largess from the public treasury and use the state as an instrument for plundering, first those who have wealth, then those who create it” -- Jerry Pournelle.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those spirits dare, To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.
Every American schoolkid knows these lines which Emerson wrote in 1836 on the unveiling of the obelisk (just across the street from his house) commemorating the 1775 Battle of Lexington and Concord. People figure the "flag" to be metaphorical.
Often it's more fun for me to learn about things after experiencing them, than before. You have a reference point, and something tangible to tack information onto.
Weissbier is one example (aka Weissbrau or Weizenbier or Weizen or Hefeweizen or White Beer or Wheat Beer or Wheat Ale - technically an ale). It's an ancient brew, and there are several styles of it. What we sampled in Bavaria was the Southern German style. Never had a better brew, fresh and unpasteurized. Bready, fruity, and just bitter enough. Low alcohol content, so you can have some more if you're thirsty. It's a summertime beer. Here's the Wiki entry.
Blue Moon's Belgian White and Harpoon's UFO are the closest I've seen to it in a supermarket bottled beer in the US - but it's no match and has more ethanol than the fresh German stuff. Beer is not about booze unless you are in college. These beers are good with an orange slice to squirt into them, although they don't seem to do that routinely in Germany.
Have no fear, readers. I will never let myself become a beer snob, although my taste buds have already priced me out of the wine market altogether. I am fortunate to have a pub in town which gets fresh draft beers weekly from Germany, but I do not get there often enough because I work.
Photo: Weissbier is typically tasted from tall 0.6 L. slender glasses or tall slender mugs. Sometimes I like beer in a mug, sometimes in a glass, sometimes from ye olde long-neck bottle.
Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.
Another one of our hydrangeas, a lacecap variety, in bloom right now. Late June/early July is Hydrangealand up here. It happens right after the first bloom of the roses fade, and we try to have at least one variety in bloom through the entire summer:
Those are female Diamondback Terrapins living in Jamaica Bay in New York City, looking for nesting sites. Good to know that they are still thriving there. Somebody built a cement runway on their historic nesting site.
Maggie's Farm will stick with our antique look - for now. You can scroll down quite a long ways here, and we only put things on a continuation page when they exceed our ordinary format.
Greece is already bankrupt, financially, morally, and spiritually. But, as Donald Trump once said, if you owe a bank a half million bucks, they own you - but if you owe them 300 million bucks, you own them. Something like that.
Children will starve, Granny will die, etc. As Lizards says:
Now it's B.O.'s turn to schrai gevalt, just as sister J. did in the ancient times. But J. had a perfectly legitimate reason to act like that: She was five years old.
The American people continue to have little patience for politicians who shamelessly try to siphon off more and more of the public’s hard-earned money to fund grandiose, top-down schemes that inevitably reward powerful interest groups instead of bolstering the economy as a whole.
..this new claim is that really there is only one clause that matters in the Constitution, and that is the Commerce Clause, and this one brief clause renders all 4400 other words in the Constitution null and void, because the Commerce Clause says, it is contended, that the federal government may do anything so long as, in the aggregate, it "affects interstate commerce," which, as is often pointed out, applies to everything.
"The global green treaty movement to outlaw climate change is the most egregious folly to seize the world’s imagination since the Kellog-Briand Pact outlawed war in the late 1920s." Mead'sThe Failure of Al Gore: Part Deux
"Government should not tell you what to do unless there’s a compelling public purpose." It's difficult to believe that the Nanny Of All Nannys Bloomberg said that. Perhaps he was quoting the US Constitution?
Wal-Mart’s profit to shareholders is about 3.6% of sales. This means that for the majority of the country, on the items you buy at Wal-Mart, they are earning less than half of what the government takes in sales tax on the same item.
His mother hated the USA, his dad hated the USA, his step-dad hated the USA. His schools in Indonesia hated the USA. His college buddies hated the USA. His pastor of 20 years hates the USA and his associates in Chicago hate the USA.
It's Radical Chic. Loving freedom is not cool. Lenin and Che were cool.
The Nikko Blue hydrangea and its variants are classic plants in Yankeeland. Mine are in their full glory today.
Hydrangeas are the sorts of things that make a house a home.
Here are three important tips for those who grow hydrangeas of any type: first, they like moist (but well-drained) soil, hence their name. Second, full-day direct sun is too much for most of them unless you have irrigation. Third, prune them with caution: you have to first determine whether they are macrophylla or paniculata, etc. Prune them wrong and you get no bloom. Better yet, don't prune them at all unless you have to.
(More general shrub pruning info: Except for hedging or shaped shrubs, mature shrubs can or should be pruned at ground level - not from the top - removing 25-30% of the woodiest growth to keep the plant young and vigorous. This is especially important with shrubs like Lilacs. I will try to dig out my old pruning posts. Always study the correct pruning technique for a given plant before attacking anything with a sharp tool. Never prune young shrubs.)
My seven men must yearn to see some fine, strapping, young body-in-its-prime with some specific ailment to which they can apply something quickly sovereign, doctor and patient both ending up refreshed. But no, they face daily the procession of an ever older, more decrepit, more grotesque, unsavory parade of bodies-- of those who have lived too long.
He looked me directly in the eye, with a cold blue eyed stare and said, “Young with a bit of life and not too wide in the back. Should be a sure footed mare that can move fast and smooth with rhythm, without being scared of every little thing.”
Whoa now, that was a different request; I started to ask him if he was referring to a woman or a horse, but you can’t count on everyone appreciating my sense of humor.
Dr. Thomas Sowell wrote about "seductive beliefs" in a two-part article (second part here). He touched on some of the incorrect beliefs guiding President Obama. In short, Obama is an ideologue, narrowly (and poorly) educated. As a result, he is ignorant in the ways of the world.
and
Instead of having a superior intellect, we likely have the most ignorant, ideological, brainwashed dupe this country has ever elected to high office. The man's intellectual development never progressed beyond the stage of all-night freshman bull sessions where all the world's problems were solved (with help from adequate amounts of beer of course).
Beer, or pot and coke. Whatever. True or not, I guess that piece counts as a rant.
Way back in 1988, at the beginning of the climate crusade, Se. Wirth remarked "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing--in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." There, in one sentence, is a succinct display of the serial bad faith and will to power of modern environmentalism. Even if catastrophic global warming turns out to be correct, would you trust control of America's economy to people like Gore and Wirth? Neither would I.
It's been a bad month for the New York Times. The feeding frenzy it tried to stir up over Sarah Palin's e-mails left the sharks unfed. (Snip) But none of that will change the Times' behavior. The Times is preparing itself for a huge push to re-elect President Obama and will leave no story unpublished that could possibly help Obama or hurt his opponent, regardless of who it is.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MCCAIN, WE’D HAVE ONGOING WARS ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND FAT-CAT DONORS ENTERTAINED RIGHT IN THE WHITE HOUSE. And they were right!
Or, at least, some modest help towards buying one of them, which is far more likely. Just a little help. 
Robin Hanson: 
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Everybody has an opinion on pruning tomato plants. Here's my view of the subject.
New England Real Estate: 
Often it's more fun for me to learn about things after experiencing them, than before. You have a reference point, and something tangible to tack information onto.
Godless Britain - 
Photo from 
