Thursday, March 25. 2010
From Newsmax:
According to (Dick) Armey, the common theme of Democrats' initiatives, from near-universal healthcare to environmental legislation to card check rules limiting a worker's right to a private ballot on unionization, is the establishment of new categories of government-dependent citizens who are more likely to cast ballots for Democrats.
Wednesday, March 24. 2010
Jesse Abbate with Glock 18 on full auto:
This was an ad for a vacuum cleaner. I need one of those Rowenta vacuums:
In Keep Your Stinking Paws Off My Body and Out of My Pocket, You Damn Dirty Apes!, Gagdad Bob comes down from his double-wide cloud and begins thus:
Know what I hate? I hate it when the left drags me and everything else down to the crudest level of raw power politics, so that I can't ignore them even if I want to. The point is, real Americans mostly just want to be left alone by the State, just as they would be pleased if criminals would refrain from breaking into their cars and houses.
But just as we must take precautions against criminals and sociopaths, our well intended liberal fascists force us to take steps against them. Who would want to spend a moment thinking about the likes of Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid unless they were in your face, trying to purloin your slack? What did I ever do to them? Nothing. Indeed, I pay their salary and for their travel, retirement, and healthcare (hair plugs and botox injections included). All I ask in return is that they leave me alone.
But no, they can't do that. They can't keep their hands off my body and out of my pocketbook...
Hate-filled anti-haters. Good old Ann is a born comedienne and a mocker of the status quo - sort of my Lennie Bruce. I can't believe these jerks who have no sense of fun and who cannot take a jab.
She is having good fun with this.
"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."
John F. Kennedy, via Media Mythbusters
 Our pal Anchoress is doing a Lenten retreat day today with posting all day long.
As the man says, the beginning of wisdom is the awe of God.
Tuesday, March 23. 2010
Constructing and maintaining shrub and perennial gardens is a Maggie's Farm hobby. Here's good gardening advice from a commenter at some gardening site I was looking at the other day:
JUST STOP!
Take a deep breath and a few steps away from the tree. Look at the package you have created and realize that you are more of a "crammer" than a designer. Your apparent desire is not to better display your specimen but rather to create more room to cram in ever more plants - "I want to be able to have the bottom more open for plants under it."
I believe the overall effect of your landscape would be much improved if you graduated to the design level where you begin an analysis of what you already have and start editing. DIY'ers often fail to realize that as gardens mature, they are dealing with a different set of design parameters than when they began. This present situation requires a different thought process.
When you first began, it was probably "more is better" because you had so much open space to fill. Your landscape has matured to the point that it is now craving some unity and simplification -- yet, here you are trying to figure out how to add even more.
When you go out, do you put on every piece of jewelry that you own or do you select only a few that serve to highlight? Think about your garden in the same way.
Image is a well-balanced garden, mature and perfect, at Christchurch, Oxford, from a post on English Gardens
Monday, March 22. 2010
We posted on the plight of the Mediterranean and Atlantic populations of the majestic Bluefin Tuna recently. The outcome is not good.
I like this one, from AVI. Been there myself, AVI.
From Steyn's "Deemocracy" in Action:
Investor's Business Daily argues that the "health" debate is really a proxy fight on the size and role of government. According to its poll, 64 percent of people think the federal government has "too much power." Correct. But a big chunk of that 64 percent voted less than 18 months ago for a man and a party explicitly committed to more government with more power, and they're living with the consequences.
Part of the fun in reading Steyn is imagining his voice speaking it. He writes like he talks.
Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.
GK Chesterton (h/t, Dr. Bob). Indeed. We alluded to that topic in our Two Americas on Saturday.
Sunday, March 21. 2010
 Our sermon today was one of the ones I would have liked to have taught/preached myself, had I the ability and the calling.
(It followed one of our missions updates about the prison ministry we support (good stuff indeed, but as a friend said in our Lenten Lunch study group afterwards, "Can we be as sharing of Christ's love to our next-door neighbor with the BMW as we can to the sick, the despairing, and the folks in prison?")
The sermon seemed unusual to me in being a preaching against religion. Our Pastor, instead, held up the vision of the primacy of a personal relationship with God through Christ, bypassing much of what is often referred to as "religion." I suppose it was, in part, a preaching about the sins of piety, spiritual pride, righteousness, pro-forma ritual, and self-righteousness but I cannot do justice to the message.
A personal relationship with God through Christ...that sounds kind of ordinary, but I suppose I was ready to hear the "relationship" part in a new way. Less abstract; more felt. I understand how the "religion" part is meant to be a help in building, guiding, and maintaining the relationship, but it can be a hindrance too. Religion can easily become idolatry.
He spoke about how he has learned to tell when he is out of relationship with God by his reactions to life and people, and mentioned, interestingly, that having been raised and lived all his life as a Christian was a handicap to him as a Christian because he feels that he has never had the experience of being entirely out of relationship.
He was speaking on Luke 18:9:
He spoke also this parable to certain people who were convinced of their own righteousness, and who despised all others.
"Two men went up into the temple to pray;
one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this:
‘God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’
But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying,
‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."
This specimen plant is a contorted variant of a member of the Hazel/Filbert family. It is of most interest when its leaves are off because the dense foliage conceals most of the branches.
Mine is coming into bloom with its catkins right now:
John 12:1-8
12:1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.
12:2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him.
12:3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
12:4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said,
12:5 "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?"
12:6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)
12:7 Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.
12:8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
Saturday, March 20. 2010
Weather adventures are great, but I will not be an idiot either. Since I already have a good gas line, I am finally installing one of these babies. Anything to keep Mrs. BD happy, and it turns out that she is no longer the rugged camper that she once was.
Re-posted from just one month ago -
"Jesus tells us that everything we had ever thought about how to approach God is wrong."
 After church yesterday, my Lenten study group listened to a DVD of Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, teach on the prodigal son. (We are using Keller's Prodigal God as our guide this Lent.)
Among other fascinating points, Keller observes that Jesus used the parable to depict two kinds of lost sons - the seemingly-"good" kind and the obviously-"bad" kind. The elder "good" son is crippled with the sins of spiritual pride and self-righteousness, and the younger is just an everyday rotten kid. However, Keller's main point in this regard is that neither son loved the father - they both focus on what they can get from the father (the inheritance in the elder's case, and a job in the prodigal's case) rather than on loving the father. They are lost because neither is in a loving relationship with the father.
Keller holds up a vision of a Christianity which consists of a transformative relationship of love and communion with Christ and God which is, as he puts it, "beyond morality and beyond religion." He invites us to be reborn in a loving relationship with the Father. The fruits of that - the "fruits of the Spirit" - may emerge after and be more than the "clanging cymbals" of empty, dutiful, or self-validating virtue.
I like this message because I have never directly associated Christianity as being centrally about doing "good" or being "good." Indeed, I sometimes think a good church sign might be "Sinners only, please." Good character and behavior are damn important in life and important to the people we are involved with, but not basic to Christianity. Being respectable, honest, dutiful, responsible, self-controlled, reliable people are primarily secular and/or psychological issues, despite Calvin.
In Christ's time, the Pharisees (represented by the elder brother) were scrupulous about doing the right thing but lost track of their relationship with God during their search for goodness and correctness. Christ gave them hell for their pursuit of rightousness and, famously and scandalously, chose to hang out with lepers, whores, tax-collectors and the like (the sinful younger brother who might, someday, have to recognize a need for redemption).
One of my comments in our group was in this vein:
"Seems to me that there are many rational, practical, mature caring adult, legal, narcissitic, relational, and emotional reasons to be a good and upright person in this world and to live a life of decency and honor, but getting on the Father's good side and getting the Father to do what we want is not one of them."
As one reviewer of Keller's book asks, "Which brother am I?" My private answer: "A bit of both and, I hope, a bit of loving son."
There's a trailer of Keller's DVD here.
Name that gull. Photo from a reader in CT, taken yesterday:
Friday, March 19. 2010
I cannot find Bob's haunting solo version from his record, so I'll post a less impressive live version from '95.
The lyrics:
Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon is on the riverside
They're drinking up and walking and it is time for me to slide
I live in another world where life and death are memorized
Where the earth is strung with lover's pearls and all I see are dark eyes.
A cock is crowing far away and another soldier's deep in prayer
Some mother's child has gone astray, she can't find him anywhere
But I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise
Whom nature's beast fears as they come and all I see are dark eyes.
They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes
They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I'm sure it is
But I feel nothing for their game, where beauty goes unrecognized
All I feel is heat and flame, and all I see are dark eyes.
Oh, the French girl, she's in paradise and a drunken man is at the wheel
Hunger pays a heavy prize to the falling gods of speed and steel
Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies
A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes.
We try to rotate our images on top of the site once in a while. That image is Mt. Tom on the Connecticut River, from the wonderful Currier and Ives who never would have imagined such a use of their pictures.
Many friends in town still without power etc. At some point, it gets a little old. A hot shower is one heck of a fine thing. A few more of my storm photos were posted earlier today. A few observations -
- You can get the phone co. to forward your regular phone to your cell phone on an emergency basis. That's a good service. Problem is, it pretty much wears out your cell battery while trying to get through to them.
- The power of nature is a majestic, frightening, unpredictable, glorious, exciting, humbling thing.
- Throwing out everything in your freezers is a bummer. Furthermore, the smelly garbage draws raccoons from all surrounding counties, who spill and drag it all around. Lovely. Thanks, fellas.
- It might be time to spring for a Home Depot generator like Gwynnie has. I am always the last person to have the techy thing.
- Memo to self: "Call your mother." Don't wait for an 80-something lady to call to see how you are doing. She said "Oh, we're fine. Your Pop and I are having quite an adventure with candlelight and the fireplace and the wood stove all going strong. We keep eachother warm. No stove though, so your Pop keeps sending me out five miles to Dunkin Donuts for coffee."
- The importance of fortunate timing: the BD pupette spent this week skiing in Utah with college pals - Deer Valley, where they offer you a hankie and a VSOP or glass of sherry on the lift line - instead of chilling here in the dark. Nice life to be a BD kid. I'd be happy to be one myself right now, around 20 years old with what I know now.
- No government was needed to get New England back up and running. All it took was neighborliness, dutiful utility companies, and tree companies from all over. The guys clearing our roads came down from NH and Quebec. I believe we also had every cherry-picker truck in Mt. Airy, NC, up here.
- No distractions: When you have no radio, TV, internet, phone, or power, you are pretty much stuck with your own thoughts. Sometimes that is interesting; sometimes it is living hell with memories, regrets, remorse, pain, etc. Dr. Bliss posted on this in A New Way to be Insane and in Try turning off the radio: Obsessions, Distractions and Diversions.
- My preferred living temperature is between 60 and 64 F. Keeps me alert, and comfortable in the proper dress code.
- All fossil fuel is just stored solar power. So is firewood. These things are solar power batteries. "Organic," too.
- It is said that fireplaces draw heat from a house. Perhaps that is true - but not in an unheated house. In an unheated house, a fireplace will radiate fairly well. Of course, a Franklin stove will do a much better job of that while burning less wood. Ol' Ben was quite a fellow, even if he was a jerk in some ways.
- Sheesh, Mr. Bruce Kesler! Now I see why people complain about the cheesecake on Maggie's. Every time I stopped by the library to check my email (they had power) and to see how Maggie's was holding up, out popped that seductive St. Paddy's leprechaun for all the world to see. I have to consider my reputation! However, she is one pleasant leprechaun.
 - The problem with socialist solutions is always that there isn't quite enough socialism (or enuf $)
- How Obamacare screws the middle class
- 65% say Do nothing or Start Over
- Virginia: If you ram healthcare through, we'll see you in court next week
- People want coverage of pre-existing conditions, but they don't want to pay for it. So who do they want to pay for it?
Maggie's HQ was fortunate to regain heat, cable, and power last night, after losing those fine modern conveniences on Saturday. Here's how we lost them:
another one:
A photo of the HQ at dusk:
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We make the rules up as we go along...
