Maggie's Farm

On the Brink, at American Thinker. One quote:

Given the political landscape the left decided on a drastic approach: President Obama and his Congressional allies would take advantage of their temporary preponderance and go all in on their program to take control of three major sectors: health care, education and energy. Speed was of the essence; while the Republicans are in post-electoral disarray, attack, attack, attack, overwhelm the enemy's defenses, give him no time to regroup, and push through the coveted legislation. All the chips were placed on a blitzkrieg. Using a football analogy, the Democrats threw a Hail Mary pass into the enemy's end-zone, pinning all their hopes on one daring toss.

Fortunately, it hasn't worked out very well, thus far.

Except for a supply for starter logs under the eaves, I like to keep my firewood wet and out in the weather. I go through around 4-5 cords each season (which isn't much), but it's enough to keep my home fires burning.

Dry wood makes for a dramatic, short-lived blaze, but it will not smolder and produce the slow heat and the slow burn, the popping, and the flickering flames I want.

I like to see a little steam and wet ooze from my wood, not a flash in the pan.

The Canadian version has the old tune, good pics:

Tom Sowell's Christmas reading

How about a doppelganger for Christmas?

Militant Theophobes

Illegals, yes. Anatolie, no.

Climategate: Something’s Rotten in Denmark … and East Anglia, Asheville, and New York City 

Copenhagen: 'This Guy's Just Showing Up to Collect His Check'

A good post with good links re Paul Samuelson

Good comments on our sexual addiction post

A book: Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans from Too Much Law. Interesting reviews there at Amazon.

Ann Applebaum: Some climate-changers are anti-human.

The 2009 Obama Achievement List

Climate Scientists and Ethics: Some Advice from a Finance Professor

How would the Reid bill affect the middle class?

Protecting Investors or Prosecuting Innocents? The Dangers of Vagueness in Financial Fraud Laws

Kimball:

...if it is hard to ginger up any enthusiasm for the topic of health care reform, it is even harder to contemplate what is happening in Washington without an overwhelming sense of alarm. The Obama administration is not only on the threshold of usurping some 20 percent of the U.S. economy, handing it over to government bureaucrats to oversee, it is also just a few signatures away from utterly transforming medical culture and the way you will be allowed to interact with your doctors. Do you really want this?

And via Insty:

ANN ALTHOUSE: Blaming Obama Is The New Trend. “People just don’t want this bill. I think the big mistake was skipping the step of winning public support for a particular plan. It wasn’t enough that people believed there was a problem. People needed to believe the solution wasn’t worse than the problem. We were supposed to look away and trust them. The trust was never won, never earned. It’s been a horrific mess, and it just looks messier and messier as time wears on. Obama kept his distance, which looks pretty smart now.”

Lyrics at Norm, who introduced me to this song  -

Talking points and debating points, at Daily Express. Not that facts matter any more.

Related: Al Gore's mosquito story is pure BS. Malaria is only a tropical disease due to public health advances, DDT, and drainage of marshes in the developed world. At the turn of the last century, malaria was endemic in New England. Russia, too.

Related: It's all about the $. A quote:

Leaders of fifty African nations came to Copenhagen asking $400 billion for the next three years to "offset" carbon credit "damages" which they claim to suffer. Inexplicably, two days ago, that demand was increased to an eye-goggling 5% of GDP (gross domestic product), estimated at $722 billion from the United States alone. There never was a response from the industrialized world.

Related: Copenhagen summit carbon footprint biggest ever. Why not? Who cares? Live it up with the Danish hos and the limos and the grand hotel rooms and the smorgasbord and the aquavit. It's all for Gaia, after all.

Related, via Dino from some psychotic, self-aggrandizing moron at Copenhagen:

I just sat there thinking: It’s not enough. We didn’t do enough. I should have started earlier. People are dying already.

And, via Driscoll's  It Was Necessary To Destroy The Carbon In Order To Save It:

From a Maggie's pal, seeking intertube fame and immortality no doubt. Nice dogs, though - including "Maggie":

Went preserve hunting on Saturday in Delaware.  We killed 16 of the 20 pheasants
and 39 of the 40 chukars that were put out for us.  The two best looking
critters in the picture are obviously the German Shorthaired Pointers, Maggie
and Ellie.  Both absolutely broke solid.  So-so retrievers but so-so was good
enough.  The outiftter included his venison chili for lunch as part of the
deal.  An excellent time was had by all.

A practical Christmas.

Around here, the son and heir needs a new business suit or two from J. Press, and some new dress work shoes like these from Nordstroms. He is supposed to look professional at work. Suits only, it seems. J. Press or Brooks are always ok unless you work at Goldman. Those oxford shoes from Nordstrom's are great, very comfortable shoes for the price. I have a pair of em in brown which had been hiding in the back of the closet, but there are plenty of custom hand-made Italian- or Brit-shoe snobs around here who would only wear such things on rainy days. Not me. They are plenty good enough for me.

Decent shoes, if you have a few of them, last at least half a lifetime (or until gravity broadens your footsies and the old shoes don't fit). The lad could also use a pair of classic Brooks' tassel loafers too, but Santa is on a budget. Santa will try to help a little bit, but a fellow's permanent professional wardrobe is built over time. Fortunately for most guys, fashion doesn't play a role in it. What was appropriate from Brooks Brothers in 1960 is about right today in most work settings.

Me? I should dress well for work, but I can't be bothered anymore. A character flaw maybe, but I just got tired of it.

Who among our readers knows what "Shoes for Industry" refers to? Or, I should say, "to what 'Shoes for Industry' refers." And, in passing, where the heck do those " s belong? Inside or outside the . s?

 VDH: Is America a Deer in the Headlights?

I made a batch of Gingerbread Men yesterday. Only three are left on the plate.

I guess they ran away. Gingerbread Men are known to do that.

I was sent this photo of American Black Ducks ("Blacks") by a reader in CT. Blacks are never abundant, but they are around. These northeastern dabblers, which are closely related to the Mallard, breed around both fresh (expecially beaver ponds) and salt water (mostly salt marshes). 

You can read about these fine ducks at CLO.

A wonderful Christmas hymn written by the Baptist English newspaper editor James Montgomery in 1816. Over the years, the lyrics have been sung to different tunes.

One verse I like:

Sages, leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great Desire of nations;
Ye have seen His natal star.

I am no sage, but I am happy to escape my contemplations to view a brighter vision. The lyrics and a midi of the music here.

Lowry: Is health care bill tottering? Via Lucianne, It's going from awful to worse. Smith at Am Thinker:

The Democrats' colossal experiment threatens to unleash forces that will ultimately overwhelm the doctor-patient relationship, ration our health care and stifle innovation and excellence in medicine.

Is it degrading to look for a job? Douthat: The Conscience of a Social Democrat. He is responding to Judt's October defence of social democracy in the widely-unread NYR of Books: What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?

Astroturf in Copenhagen

Duke at Am Thinker: The Pathology of the Rich Socialist. He asks

 How can someone preach socialism while being the most rapacious "capitalist" imaginable? Well, I have a theory about this.

Cool: Sarah Palin on The Tonight Show w/Conan O'Brien & William Shatner 12/11/09

The head of Athenahealth:

"I still have to keep going to Washington and sucking up," he says, switching metaphors. "Because the problem is when you have a baby with an Uzi, right, they might accidentally mow you down. But here's the thing . . . they're brilliant people. It's just that the idea of a market in health care never occurred to them."

What's in the Senate h/c bill? Via Betsy:

Responding to a complaint by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that Republicans haven't been told what's in the new bill, Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, responded that he's in the same position.

"I would say to the senator from Arizona that I'm in the dark almost as much as he is. And I'm in the leadership," Durbin said on the Senate floor.

Majority Leader Harry Reid has submitted the bill to the CBO from scoring, but Durbin said no one involved in the compromise will spill the beans until the score is released.

"We had a caucus after this was submitted to the Congressional Budget Office where Sen. Reid and other senators who were involved in it basically stood up and said, 'We're sorry we can't tell you in detail what was involved here, but you will learn. Everyone will learn."

Matthew 18:20

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Yes, there is a dusting of snow:

In the WSJ: Deconstructing TV's No. 1 Show - 'NCIS' isn't young, hip or edgy, it just has the most viewers.

I watch it because I love Abby.

Christmas Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The Carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!’

A pal stopped by for a beer with his pup the other day after work. A sweet, gentle puppy. Can you name the breed?

The lists coming in to Santa this year seem to be more about work needs than personal wants. That's what happens as kids grow a bit older. It's more fun to surprise a kid with stuff they never thought of, but first things first.

The Hurricane daughter needs a new Armani business suit or two (as in photo). Armani is made for her (or vice versa), and she is expected to be well put-together at work in NYC.

Santa cannot do everything, but he can try to do a little, depending on what space is left on his Mastercard.

This year, Santa definitely needs the help of his cute nsfw elves (pictured below the fold). 

Via Climate Skeptic:

Personal anecdote:
Last spring when I was shopping around for a new source of funding, after having my funding slashed to zero 15 days after going public with a finding about natural climate variations, I kept running into funding application instructions of the following variety:

Successful candidates will:
1) Demonstrate AGW [ed: Anthropogenic Global Warming]
2) Demonstrate the catastrophic consequences of AGW.
3) Explore policy implications stemming from 1 & 2.

Follow the money — perhaps a conspiracy is unnecessary where a carrot will suffice.

If only alarmist results are funded, then it should not be surprising that only alarmist studies are produced.

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."

Thomas Jefferson

I Feel a Change Comin On. 2009