Maggie's Farm

Regular readers know that we love turtles here at Maggie's Farm. All sorts of 'em - turtles, tortoises, sea turtles. We think that turtles are cute, cuddly, witty critters, created by a humorous, inventive God to feed, amuse, charm, and fascinate us.

I do not know whether Arnaud's exists post-Katrina (which Bush and Rove caused, don't forget), but they made a fine Green Turtle soup. I had a clear Turtle Soup once, and I would not boycott it (what good would that dumb, self-congratulatory, pointless thing do?), and it was good - but not so good that I would kill a turtle for it. Mock Turtle Soup is at least as good, if not better. Turtle Soup can be clear, like consomme, or full of stuff.

In addition, turtles can teach us a lesson about the economics of conservation, especially sea turtles.

One of our favorite blogs, Brussels Journal, took the time to post this piece on turtle conservation, about how some conservation methods can endanger species, which begins thus:

If people were not allowed to own chickens and if chicken eggs and meat could not be legally sold, how many chickens would there be? The reason chickens, cattle, catfish, and goldfish are not endangered is because they are owned by private parties, bred and raised in captivity, and sold for commercial profit – hence there are billions of these animals. The poor sea turtle is endangered precisely because the global environmental lobby refuses to let sea turtles be commercially farmed and marketed.

Four decades ago, you might well have bet that Cayman would eventually be known best for its turtle farms, rather than as a tourist destination and one of the world’s largest financial centers, but economically ignorant environmentalists, who tell us they love sea turtles, have ensured there will be fewer of them.

Image: A Green Sea Turtle - a species we would far rather see than eat. But we would eat them, without hesitation, if presented to us at table. We like a nice light red with turtle.

In 1802 Beethoven retreated to the then-countryside outside Vienna in an effort to deal with his despair over his increasing deafness and other family issues. There he wrote this letter (found after his death), to his brothers.

It begins:

Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me? You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you. From childhood on, me heart and soul have been full of the tender feeling of goodwill, and I was ever inclined to accomplish great things. But, think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, from year to year deceived with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Though born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to withdraw myself, to live life alone. If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly I was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, "Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf." Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed.--Oh I cannot do it; therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would have gladly mingled with you.

Whole thing here.

Readers may recall that Beethoven moved from Bonn to Vienna to study with Mozart. He never did that, and probably never met Mozart, but he did study with Papa Haydn - and with Salieri too.

Psalm 51:1-10

51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

51:2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

51:4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

51:5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

51:6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

51:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

51:9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

This was done to glorify God. Gilding the lily, in my Protestant view, but it's a heck of a sight. They have the bony corpse of a saint in an altar on the side, under glass. Memento mori.

That must be some American kid in the Nantucket Red.

A fantasy trip, that is. NetJets to Vienna. Five days at the Hotel Sacher with opera tix etc. Then onward maybe to Bucharest and Budapest. And why not Trieste, then down to Venice? Or tack on five days of skiing at Innsbruck or Zermatt? Those nice NetJets pilots will be there whenever needed, and the copilot will load and unload your skis and luggage and mix your drinks for you, and a car and driver will be waiting for you on the tarmac.

It's like I said about boats...

I don't need to go back to Venice, but the rest seems fine to me. That's why I buy Powerball tickets. Foolish not to.

That was just a couple of weeks ago.

in the Adirondacks. That's my kind of place.

The garden-level back entrance of the Belvedere in Vienna. Like them columns?

Fairfield was established as a town in 1635. Pleasant, unpretentious place. Wiki says:

In July 2006, Money Magazine ranked Fairfield the ninth "best place to live" in the United States, and the best place to live in the Northeast.^[1] This is primarily due to its affluence, low crime rate with only three homicides in the last five years ^[2] , excellent public school system, suburban character, scenic location on the Long Island Sound, and proximity to New York City. The town was also listed among the "preppiest" places in the United States in the tongue-in-cheek 1980s best-seller The Official Preppy Handbook.

It considers itself the "dogwood capital of the world," and each spring a Dogwood Festival takes place in the Greenfield Hill neighborhood.

This handsome place is just off the Boston Post Road (which is the Main St. for most CT shoreline towns). It was build in 1791, now in the historic district. 

The listing is here, with the details. I see the asking price is creeping downwards, now asking 1.3

Kudlow: The business of America is business

James K. Glassman in the Wall Street Journal: “Subsidy as a Way of Life”

Victor Hanson on Multiculturalism

Health Insurers Plan Hikes Rate Increases Are Blamed on Health-Care Overhaul; White House Questions Logic

Golly gee, there's weather outside. Revkin discovers weather, feels worried. I know how he feels: There never used to be weather, and now there is. Take a Valium, and it will be fine.

Stossel: Entrepreneurs Under Attack

Obama vs. Boehner . America yawns.

“Party of Limbaugh is Polling Great”

I agree that rules are often confusing: Letters Show Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) Steered CBC Scholarship Money Directly to Her Grandsons

“The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us” says Castro. And Roger Simon wonders whether Fidel is Jewish.

The textbook bubble.

The Obama economy

AVI: A new way of thinking about Liberalism

Ace: Are You Ready For The Chris Christie Fall Tour? I am.

Vanderleun: An Open Letter to Democrats Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Was Not Enuf

NYPD Top Cop: Planned Koran Burning Is "Dangerous" Rude, foolish, and provocative as heck to ignorant, grievance-seeking people who have no clue about American freedoms. As with the mosque, being legal doesn't make it right.

Speaking of our constabulary, Chaos After Cop Dares Shoot Drunken Knife-Wielding Reconquistador. Yes, the guy needed a hug instead.

Obama Writes His Thesis Statement. Same old...

Gotta love the nerve of these jerks: Harry Reid: "I had nothing to do with" bad economy. In my view, there is little government can do to help a free-market economy, but much it can do to damage it. Its efforts to "help" are usually efforts to undo their damage by adding new layers of damage.

In a farming hamlet outside Deggendorf. Frequently, the farmers live in little hamlets and drive their equipment to their barns or land to work. Like non-agribusiness farmers in the US, they often supplement their incomes with other work (such as driving school buses, running booths at Oktoberfest, driving tourists around in horse-drawn wagons, etc). I noticed a keg with spigot and cups inside one cow barn, leading me to believe that either the farm workers or the cattle drink beer on the job.

I will dribble out some last few interesting trip pics as I find them in my screwed-up photo files.

Our friends got their Rightnetwork up and running today. We wish them all the best with this enterprise.

It's not fair to judge a restaurant on opening day, but whadday'all think about it?

Above via Legal Ins. Not seen in MA. The "9 mm inside" is cool, but a 9 isn't really all that daunting to me.

A deer hit my car. Both are dead, but we'll eat the deer.

Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss

Reason: The Ruling Class - Scenes from the class struggle on the American right

Overlawyered: A round-up of legal craziness

Underfunded govt pensions: We are altering the deal...

The Schools Scandal:

American spending on public education, adjusted for inflation, has more than doubled over the last three decades. What did taxpayers get for their money?

The average math and reading scores of American 17-year-olds have not improved since the early 1970s, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress long-term trend assessment.

If the polls are reliable, it seems that Chávez will be tested on September 26.

Driscoll: ‘Something Weird Happens When Presidencies Go Wrong’

Reb: SOROSIS: A Disease of the Mind

What's wrong with Pax Americana?

Are Heat Records Due To CO2? Ooops, No New Hot Record Temps In Last 30+ Years

I want my MTV: Europe goes on strike

The Austrian Adolf Hitler spent a few years just over the border in Passau in youth before his parents moved back to Linz, but there are no signs there bragging about it. He spoke the Southern Bavarian dialect which is used in north Austria and southern Bavaria (there are apparently many German dialects).

I got onto that topic because, having recently returned from that part of the world, I was checking out the Anschluss, the 1938 "joining" of the short-lived Republic of Austria (short-lived since the Hapsburg's Austria-Hungary fell apart after WW1) with Germany. From what I have read, this event was welcomed by many Austrians - but what do I know? It was certainly not welcomed by the Jews of Vienna.

The Anschluss is part of the story of European - and American - appeasement of aggressive expansion and control. Not a shot was fired and a vote, of sorts, provided some legitimacy. Today, the EU is trying to do it, but with paper not armies.

The history of Europe, since Roman times, is one of things being pulled together, then coming apart. It will be the same with the EU. Anschluss.

Waiting for Superman:

Waiting for "Superman" is a paean to reformers like Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, while it casts AFT president Randi Weingarten in the words of Variety, as "something of a foaming satanic beast."  

Ten signs your 401 (k) Plan is a clunker

Kesler, a Van Tran fan, is following the polls of the CA 47 race.

Big Govt: Abolish Labor Day

Joe Biden draws dozens to parade

VDH on Krugman: If Only It Were World War II Again?

Weekly Std: Tax Cuts For All, Not Just For Some

Never before have so many governorships been up for grabs — and with so much at stake.

Jimmy Breslin: Tea Partiers Are Like Kennedy’s Killer Sirhan Sirhan, Are Racists Filled With ‘Madness’. Good grief, he is angry to the point of madness. Why?

Shaidle: Muslim Brotherhood infiltrates Canada with lawfare — and RCMP approval

The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet

Wkly Std: Marching Off the Cliff - Obamacrats misunderstand the economy.

Sippican: (How I Came To) Disregard The Man Behind The Curtain. How did he notice that hand? One quote:

In the movies, any evil fellow in a suit always has a picture of a Republican president prominently displayed in their office, usually where any normal person has a picture of their family. In my life, the only really crooked executives I ever met all had pictures of JFK in their offices. I don't know what any of that represents, really.

It was wonderful to have the entire BD family with us, including Mrs. BD's parents and the precious new daughter in law. Special times. Got to grab them. Ars longa, vita brevis, and all that. A fine trip for us history buffs, beer-tasters, and relentless walkers. As usual, we walked our butts off and I was glad to have my ugly old man walkin' shoes to alternate with my elegant New Balance sneakers.

Today's first snap is for our down-under reader, who ate here recently. The Weissbrauhaus in Regensburg. Superb fresh Weissbrau and famous for its sausages. You can see my hearty lunch below the fold, along with my entire final fun photo dump with ignorant comments from this year's Big Trip.

For Labor Day, Steyn on Sixteen Tons

Big labor's big betrayal

George Will on the global warming industry. h/t Q&O

Dems run away from health care

Swing Sets Banned to Ward Off Lawyer Swarms

It Isn't Just Lost Jobs—It's the Lost Jobs Machine

The UN: “Reaffirming the central role of the United Nations in global governance.”

Soros Launches Frontal Assault Against Tea Party

Jackie Evancho can sing. Wow.

A bumper sticker insurrection

Der Spiegel lectures America:

The Obama administration and the Federal Reserve want to fix the United States economy by spending more money. But while that approach might work for Europe, it is risky for the US. The nation would be better off embracing traditional American values like self-reliance and small government.

My favorite things to watch at the US Open are the mens' and womens' doubles matches on the side courts. You are up close, and really feel the game. The game, however, has little in common with the doubles I play. The pros handle net balls that would drill a hole in my chest and leave me bleeding and dying on the court.

And doubles does not require a hard serve, but the services of these dudes would probably break my arm - if I could get a racquet on the ball at all. Probably could not, with the crazy, twisty jumps and jigs and jags that the pros put on their serves, which are difficult for the TV viewer to see.

The US Open is a jolly tennis festival. The crowd is ethnically diverse, polite, and well-behaved. When the court judge says "Thank you" he means "Shut up." When he says "Pretty please," as he did yesterday, he means "STFU." People do shut right up. No movement from seats is allowed until breaks, so the Open is the wrong place to be with bowel problems. Everything is designed to minimize distraction for the players, including the line judge uniforms and the ball boys holding the balls behind their backs.

The almost-instant replay on line call challenges is a fun aspect to the matches. The challenges add another tactic to this complex game of wit and talent.

NYC is lucky to have the Open. San Diego almost stole it in the 1970s.

More Show-and-Tell pics below the fold.