Maggie's Farm

Video of Wilbur Wright demonstrating his flying machine in Italy in 1909, including the first footage ever filmed from an airplane. Here.

Gotta love the internal combustion engine.

The long-time prosperous but (historically) tasteful, silver-spoon WASPy NYC suburb of Greenwich, CT (the growing-up home of George Bush Sr.) became the hedge fund capital of the world over the past decade, as well as a highly-desirable address for newly-weathy Wall Street Masters of the Universe. Many houses, too, are owned by international folks who visit only occasionally, or as second homes for New Yorkers.

In 2006, the median home price was $1.7 million. I recently read that Greenwich suddenly has over 80 homes for sale for over 7 million. That's a lot for a small town. But yes, prices have toppled, sales are nearly dead, and the inventory is surging in the fancier NYC suburbs. Let's see what real estate is doing there now:

Here's one for $460,000. A simple, classic, nice  c. 1900 workingman's house:

 Here's a less modest listing, for $2,175,000. It says 4 bedrooms, but I'd bet that they are small:

 This place is cute, for only $519,000. A happy couple could be happy here - but a contented couple could be happy anywhere:

Here's a 4-acre building lot (in 4-acre zoning) for 1 million. I like it just as it is:

Moving a bit upscale, this pleasant 3 BR place is now only $3,125,000. A tiny Cape with some small additions:

 This 5 BR was the carriage house for the servants on an old estate from the pre-income tax days. 2 acres. $4,000,000. I like it:

That one was lovely, but you can also buy this hideous architectural monstrosity for $4 million. I guess you could set it on fire, live in a tent, and farm the land, but I doubt that tomato prices could pay your mortgage. But who cares? The Obama plan could get you off the hook:

Moving up to $6.5 million, your basic, solid New England 6 BR colonial:

Jumping up to $9.5 million, you often tend to leave good taste behind and begin to find new, self-aggrandizing places like the one below. Things meant to be "mansions," I guess, in wannabe Brit aristocracy-style. Some folks need a mansion-thingy for self esteem or social-climbing purposes. It's a free country: to each his own. You could cover this whole thing with ivy and it would look better:

Just for fun, let's see what $18 million will get you. This one  is comfortable, homey, unpretentious - glitz-free - and pleasant:

Tommy Hilfiger's house is for sale for $22 million. The 20,000-square-foot home has seven bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, a massive great room, basketball court, spa with a waterfall, theater, gym and a 2,000-bottle wine cellar.

Let's spend our very last penny on this one. $95 million, plenty of bedrooms but a mere 40 acres. The sellers were major Lefty donors. Impress your friends! Set up a nice rifle range! Get some kegs, dig a pit next to the pool and roast a pig or two and throw everybody's girlfriend into the pool. Or is it just a shallow self-reflecting pool?

I know that we have many readers who have never listened to Rush. They are missing out on some fun entertainment and a good dose of common sense. His entire speech to CPAC is here - all the YouTube clips of his speech - but here's YouTube clip # 3 for a taste (yes, he is looking as big as a house):

Flocks of birds from Richard Barnes. h/t David Thompson's Friday Ephemera.

That's a King Protea sitting in a water pitcher. Odd, gigantic flowers. You can read about Protea here.

Sipp says that my very old kitchen table is Chestnut, and emailed me this unstained Chestnut sample to prove it. It's the same grain:

How soon before China owns the USA? Mortgaging America. Geopolitically smart of China, because they already have us over a barrel.

Time to loosen up on Havana? I think so. Our approach to Cuba is a Cold War relic. The world is full of terrible governments.

Class warfare returns to Washington. Politico. Related: What's wrong with income inequality anyway?

The era of big government arrives. USA Today

Lib David Broder is worried about Obama

Old Europe finally getting involved in Iraq. For the oil!

Obama's war against coal

Phony Indian tribe's casino plan nixed by Supremes

Why does Obama keep arguing against straw men? Answer: Folks believe him. (H/T, NEONEO)

Krauthammer begins:

Not a great speech, but extremely consequential. If Barack Obama succeeds, his joint address to Congress will be seen as historic -- indeed as the foundational document of Obamaism. As it stands, it constitutes the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president.

Read the whole thing.

Conservative strategies: Who needs Joe the Plumber? A quote:

Conservatives should not need Joe the Plumber to prove their middle class bona fides. We are naturally the party of the middle, and we don't need gimmicks to prove it. Demographically, Democrats rely on being the party of the upper sixth and the lower third, while Republicans tend to do better with everyone in between. When we start losing the middle class and the suburbs, we lose big like we did in 2008. 

What Conservatives need are compelling candidates who can communicate. 

Kandinsky has always been one of my favorite Expressionists. This is Kirche in Murnau (1909):

This is going around. There will be lots of honking:

From Ed Driscoll's Rendezvous with Scarcity:

When people move into the White House, they get a dog. Sometimes a cat too. Some of them actually had dogs before the White House, which is a different matter. It's about Pet Politics. (As you may recall, the Clinton's Lab was promptly run over by a car after leaving the WH, and Hillary dumped her famous cat on the secretary. I suspect the Bush's still have their dogs.)

The breed the Obamas decided to exploit is the Portuguese Water Dog. It's probably a breed ancestor of the Poodle. They need more daily exercise than any White House pet is likely to get.

I don't know how anybody can live without dogs around the place.

h/t, Samizdata. The crew ejected.

- From Vanderleun:  Let my cry come unto Thee: An Ash Wednesday Confession

- Via The Anchoress in her Ash Wednesday post:

Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan, newly-named, Archbishop of New York City ...:

“Maybe the greatest threat to the church is not heresy, not dissent, not secularism, not even moral relativism, but this sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice, asks for no conversion, entails no battle against sin, but only soothes and affirms.” -

Today's Free Advt for Bob is a good piece for Lent, I think. Dylan's song is like a Psalm.

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dyin' voice within me reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake,
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear,
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer.
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

If you don't care for Dylan, here's Emmy Lou Harris' cover of the song: you will like this. 1995.

Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

William Burroughs, as quoted at Driscoll (nb: a QQQ doesn't mean we agree with it)

Dodd also has a place in Ireland. How do pols accumulate so much wealth?

How do photochromic eyeglass lenses work?

A fish with eyes in the back of his head - and all over.

Shea Stadium is gone

Stopping traffic for a Peregrine Falcon. Good on that cop. But I would have chased the falcon away. You don't want him to get the idea that the middle of the road is a good place to eat.

Andrew Breitbart wants a Hollywood revolution

Moderately alcoholic Irish Catholics victimized

A FIRE co-founder as candidate for the Harvard Board of Overseers. Good.

Ice Ages and Sea Levels. Watts

Save Auschwitz, but get rid of the EU

Hate it when this happens.

Are we back to Sept. 10th? Powerline

The Palestinian industry. Jules

Missouri Dem: Don't worry. Our kids and grandkids will pay these debts.

Pub surveillance in Britain. Insane.

A Climate Change leader, quoted at Thompson (not satire):

The longer I work on climate change, the less important I think it is whether or not the warmists or the sceptics are right. [...] Imagine a world where we had listened to the climate scientists and started to change our resource-consuming behaviour and address the inequities of the global economic system. Although the warming still didn’t materialise, we would have addressed a host of environmental issues and be living a largely pollution-free existence. We may even be saying thank you to the climate scientists who, although they got it wrong, provided us the opportunity to create a cleaner, brighter and fairer world.

Are these judges werewolves? Via Althouse. Supremes to decide:

The American Civil Liberties Union objected to the cross and filed a suit on behalf of Frank Bruno, a Catholic and former Park Service employee. The suit noted that the government had denied a request to have a Buddhist shrine erected near the cross.

Two years ago, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the ACLU and declared the cross an "impermissible governmental endorsement of religion."

Congress has intervened to try to save the cross by transferring a small parcel of land with the cross on it to a private group. However, the 9th circuit judges were unswayed. This "would leave a little donut hole of land with a cross in the midst of a vast federal preserve," the appeals court said.

The 9th said what? Article Vll: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

h/t, Bits & Pieces:

I will post a series of random quotes from Boswell's London Journal for a while, on Sundays. As was commented on the publication of these journals:

"Boswell was the most charming companion in the world, and London becomes his dining-room and his playground, his club and his confessional. No celebrant of the London world can ignore his book."-Peter Ackroyd, from the introduction; Praise for the earlier edition: "The journal is admirably edited and annotated."-W. H. Auden, New Yorker

A friend told him "Mr. Boswell, you are the vainest man I have ever met, and yet it is impossible for me not to love you." Mr. Boswell - Jamie - is an easy person to like. His honesty about himself shines through. He is 22 at this time, journaling about his second move from Edinburgh to London in search of a cushy commission in the Footguards (which he was never able to obtain despite his extensive networking efforts).

Much of these journals documents his daily life, which is mainly social - and centered on meals. Breakfast with these friends, dinner with other friends, see a play with others, then maybe a late supper with others, perhaps after a bit of whoring, which he describes in some detail including an assessment of his performance. He is quite open about preferring "genteel" ladies for his "amorous adventures" because he lives on a tight budget and prefers not to pay.

He is a devout Anglican. He takes long walks every day, usually discussing politics or literature with friends. The great David Garrick befriends him, and, towards the end of these journals, Boswell meets Samuel Johnson. Johnson, of course, finds the young fellow to be a delightful companion. Boswell is always puzzled about why people like him so much and seek out his company, viewing himself as shallow and dull. He worries about his social presentation, especially his tendency to lose his reserve and dignity (which he constantly does). He also has recurrent incapacitating bouts of depression.

 This bit is from December 11, 1762:

I drank coffee at Macfarlane's. Erskine and he got into a dispute about the Peace and each told his antagonist that he was speaking arrant nonsense. They were seriously hot. I was much diverted at Captain Andrew's being so, who does not enter the least into common notions, and does not care a farthing whether there be peace or war or confusion in Europe, provided he and his own agreeable circle be safe and happy.

I must own that I am much of that way of thinking. I cannot help it. I see too far into the system of things to be much in earnest. I consider mankind in general, and therefore cannot take a part in their quarrels when divided into certain states and nations. I can see that after a war is over and a great quantity of cold and hunger and want of sleep endured by mortals, things are upon the whole just as they were. I can see that Great People, those that manage the fate of kingdoms, are just such beings as myself: have their hours of discontent and are not a bit happier. This being the case, I am rather passive than active in life. It is difficult to make my feeling clearly understood. I may say, I act passively. That is, not with my whole heart, and thinking this or that of real consequence, but because so and so things are established and I must submit.

Meditating calmly and finding myself situated in this sublunary system, I do not know well what to make of it. I do not rightly understand it. Guardian Angel: "Stop. How should you? God has formed men with very limited capacities." True. But still I cannot help enquiring and thinking.

Image: Boswell in his 40s. Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1785

Massachusetts' Berkshire County (and northwestern CT Berkshires) has been a popular summering area for 150 years. The nightime is cool, even in August. It is filled with second homes and country places for those from NYC and Boston. The area is artsy and full of pretty-good, small-scale skiing. There isn't much work up there outside of once-industrial Pittsfield - and there never has been. As we have commented, 2009 is a good time to have cash to buy things, because these second home prices are falling. Take a look:

This 3-BR 1942 Cape on 0.3 acres overlooks the town of Great Barrington. $620,000:

 This 1793 eyebrow colonial in New Marlborough has 1/2 acre, 3 bedrooms. $185,000;

This 1770 center hall colonial is on 1/2 acre near downtown Sheffield. 6 BR. $725,000.

The village of Alford has a Congregational Church, an 1830 schoolhouse, and a town green. Not a single store, shop, or restaurant. This is a 4 BR 1810 farmhouse (with additions) on 4 acres. $700,000:

 Here's an 1825 village colonial in Becket. 5 BR, one acre. $430,000:

In Lenox. Not an antique, but just a walk to Tanglewood and to the pleasant antique village. 4 BR, 0.5 acres, $1,000,000.

 In Stockbridge, this 1795 renovated farmhouse. 8 BR, 4 acres. $1,000,000. I like it, but 150 acres would be better.

Stratfor's George Friedman. Thanks for this one, Tiger: