Thanks to SDA for alerting us to a new model of the Antikythera Device. It's more of a calculator than a computer.

Most remarkable: they still have the original instruction manual for the 2100 year-old machine. I am missing the manuals for stuff I bought a year ago.

The video about the machine here. 

My meals with W. H. Auden, E. M. Forster, Philip Larkin, and William Empson: American Scholar.

Very cool. Empson is a favorite here at Maggie's.

I have the expert word on the diagnosis of the hawk Gwynnie captured on camera the other day: "Cooper's vs. Sharpie? Impossible to tell from the angles of the photos. Nice photos, though."

Two males and a female, in their breeding plumage already. A reader in CT took this shot on the 31st on a stream-fed pond in southern CT. (No idea why it isn't frozen over. Maybe brackish.)

You can read about the fine Hooded Merganser here. I don't shoot Hoodies, but I know folks who will shoot the males for mounts. I think a photo is better.

From guest poster Bruce Kesler:

There are better states of “peace” and lesser ones.  A better peace is one that leads to or allows increases in mutual safety and respect; a lesser peace increases the security risks and leads to or allows more or larger conflict and suffering.

If that critical distinction is not understood, dictating decisions, then by default a lesser peace will result as actions are taken that undermine the focus and measures necessary for a better peace.

The primary element needed for a better peace is recognition by all sides that it is preferable to the alternatives.  This may require one side to lead the other to this thinking, and that thinking to be reinforced.

Sometimes, either sooner or later, or more usually as a last resort, this will require the side desiring a better peace to take forceful action, including armed ones.

That has always been the regretful but necessary course by Israel since its founding.

Successfully and decisively fending off repeated attacks by neighboring Arab states, soundly defeating them, Jordan and Egypt finally accepted the sense of a better peace with Israel.  The intervention of Iran and Syria into Lebanon’s nascent better peace with Israel, via their Hizbullah proxy, destroyed that better peace.  But, although Israel’s 2006 incursion into Lebanon was far from decisive, and Hizbullah has rearmed to more lethal levels than before, Hizbullah was severely bloodied and has restrained armed and missile attacks on Israel longer than most expected.

Within, Israel has tried to neutralize the enmity of Palestinians through raising their economics and education above that in Arab countries, succeeding in that but it failing to prevail against the power-lusting thuggery of almost all Palestinian leadership from 1967 to now who see greater personal advantage and profit from encouraging the hate that entrenches their position.  Even exiting Gaza, trying to have constructive trade and relations with it, failed to create a better peace as the most extreme of major Palestinian factions – Hamas – forcefully took control and destroyed all facets of external cooperation and internal development, further endangering Israel by thousands of terror missile and mortar attacks moving deeper into Israel till now about 700,000 in Israel are within range.

The West, particularly the US, has properly labeled Hamas as the primary culprit in Gaza’s downward spiral, and its targeting by Israel’s restrained and focused retaliations.  But, at the same time, the West has insisted on allowing flows of “humanitarian” food and medical supplies to enter Gaza, including from Israel.  This relieves suffering, but both through waylaying by Hamas for its own benefit and through reducing Gazan’s need to demand compromise or have hostility toward Hamas, it has contradicted the quest for a better peace.  Even now, during active hostilities, this Western demand continues.

It is harsh but necessary that all supplies to Gaza be cut off during present circumstances.  That is war.

Israel, it is said by all observers, cannot realistically afford to nor hope to eradicate Hamas.  But, it – with the West’s support – can at least hope to so bloody and weaken Hamas as to possibly – not probably, but better prospects than any other alternative – create conditions for a better peace through so weakening Hamas’ stranglehold on Gaza as to allow the opening for Gazans with Arab states’ active involvement to develop a better peace of security and respect under the realistic deterrence of facing a sharp sword of retaliation.

Along with a complete cutoff of external supplies, it may be necessary for Israel to launch a short land offensive into Gaza to further uproot Hamas strongpoints and infrastructure, to drive the point home that Hamas dare not face Israel’s purposeful and firm deterrence measures.

Stopping now, especially when the point is not sufficiently driven home, and appearing to kowtow to misled pacifist demands from the West, will only accomplish a disrespect for Israel’s deterrence and lead to another shorter-lived lesser peace.

Although, according to the latest Rasmussen poll, only 31% of Democrats back Israel’s choice to take military action in Gaza (75% of Republicans do), ironically soon to be president Barack Obama can right now provide the voice that can lead to a better peace.  Obama’s coy silence fosters Hamas’hope or expectation that a soon less resolved US will, in effect, save its necks by demanding Israel halt its attacks on Hamas.  If Obama would forcefully speak out now in favor of Israel’s measures and express his determination to continue to do so until Hamas assuredly ceases its missile attacks upon Israel, Obama could both prevent the necessity of Israeli troops having to enter Gaza and persuade Hamas that it can only lose more by its intransigence.  A better peace could emerge.

That would be real hope and change all would welcome.

Finally saw Shawshank Redemption. Very sorry I hadn't seen it before, but I don't see very many movies.

Best lines from Red (paraphrased):

"At first you hate these walls, then you get used to them. Finally, you get dependent on them. It's called institutionalization."

One good clip:

From 2006, with the above title. Linda Kimball begins:

There are two misconceptions held by many Americans. The first is that communism ceased to be a threat when the Soviet Union imploded. The second is that the New Left of the Sixties collapsed and disappeared as well. “The Sixties are dead,” wrote columnist George Will (Slamming the Doors, Newsweek, Mar. 25, 1991)

Because the New Left lacked cohesion it fell apart as a political movement. However, its revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups. Thus we now have for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war ‘peace’ activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, and ‘gay’ rights groups. All of these groups pursue their piece of the radical agenda through a complex network of subversive organizations such as the Gay Straight Lesbian Educators Network (GSLEN), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), People for the American Way, United for Peace and Justice, Planned Parenthood, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), and Code Pink for Peace.

Read the whole thing.

Today, the Jokerman seems like Father Time.

Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed
Michelangeo indeed could've carved out your features
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face.

Audio only. Full lyrics here.

Fort Lauderdale, yesterday:

Winter is the time for study, you know, and the colder it is the more studious we are.

Thoreau

Getting Along with Women 101. Villainous. One quote:

Many women will argue, understandably, “My husband knows I love him. He doesn't need me to have sex with him to know that. And this is especially so when I'm too tired or just don't want sex. Anyway, my man only enjoys sex with me when I'm into it, too.”

Not a bad argument so far as it goes. Realizing that many men would rather stick their heads into a gas oven than talk about their feelings, ask a woman how she would react to this statement from a man:

“My wife knows I love her. She doesn't need me to listen to her or tell her I love her to know that. And this is especially so when I'm too tired or just don't feel like making nicey-nicey. Anyway, it wouldn't mean anything to my wife if I acted affectionate just to please her.”

Photo: A theo pic

Photo is one of several from a commenter to Free Republic's Obama's silence on Gaza angers Arabs. It is A.N.S.W.E.R. people, it appears. Useful idiots, for whom Israel is always in the wrong. But what the US has to do with this is beyond me.

My view is that Hamas deliberately provokes Israel into responding, for their own political purposes. Their pathetic political purposes, it seems to me, are to maintain a privileged victim status, to deflect attention from their failures to create a decent society by scapegoating Israel, to collect $ from other countries - and to stay in power.

No wonder the Arab countries dislike and distrust the Palis to the extent that they refuse to take them as refugees.

This is reposted from Sept, 2007 for Gramsci Week -

Yesterday's handy summary of Gramsci put me ta thinkin'. I realized that when I am in the mood to be appalled by a pure strong dose of Gramsci thought, I check out what insanity our friend Van Helsing at Moonbattery has to offer.

Top of his blog right now - Bloomberg compares US in Iraq to Brits during the Revolution. Perfect Gramscian confusion. The amoral elements of New York love to create moral equivalents because it makes them feel sophisticated. Of course, Bloomberg is the embodiment of the intrusive Nanny State too: it's miraculous that he is one of the world's most successful and exuberant Capitalists.

And then next I happened to stop by David Warren for my weekly visit and read Reconstructing the Family. Yes, it's about Gramsci again.

This stuff is everywhere. Am I a victim, a pitiful captive of counter-revolutionary Bourgeois Thought which causes me to believe that this stuff is utter, malevolent nonsense designed to mess with your mind?

Photo: The Minuteman in Lexington, MA, who is the moral equivalent of an Al Qaida Jihadist.

Tiger begins:

...do not let this happen to your state. New Jersey is functionally bankrupt, and there is no sign that the state's political class is going to do a damned thing about it. The state has been waging war against employers for years, and the result is that 93% of the jobs created in the state from 2000 to 2007 were in the public sector. That is an extraordinary statistic for the United States, and it includes a period of long economic expansion elsewhere. I suspect that if the number were recalculated to include 2008 and then 2009 results, government jobs would account for more than 100% of total growth in employment.

From Gene Expressions on Dec. 28:

Samuel Huntington died yesterday. Though famous for his Clash of Civilizations thesis, more recently he argued for an emphasis on the reality that this (the United States) is an Anglo-Protestant country. But I think that this assertion needs to clarified to a finer grained scale. In Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, the author makes the claim that the culture of the United States is a synthesis of four strands of colonial settlers; New England Puritans, the Lowland Southerners (e.g., Tidewater Planters), the Highland Southerners (i.e., the Scots-Irish of Appalachia) and the polyglot peoples of the Mid-Atlantic (e.g., Quakers of Philadelphia, Dutch Patroons of New York and Swedes of Delaware, etc.). After reading quite a bit of American history, especially the period between 1600 and 1850, I think that over the long haul the concrete political and social realities of America owe much more to New England than the other regions.  After I came to this conclusion (which I will flesh in more detail later), I couldn't help but note that today New England isn't included in the "Real America."

Bruce Kesler sends this post:

The headline from CNN is that the “World rallies around Palestinians amid Gaza offensive.” 

What does CNN cite for this?  Groups, mostly of young Arabs, numbering several hundred to several thousand having street demonstrations in the following countries: England, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Iran, the Sadrist neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq, and even in Israel. 

Ironically, and tellingly, none interviewed saw any reason to protest Hamas terror rockets and mortar barrages into Israel.  This is what CNN calls the world!  Or, is this CNN’s market that it caters to? 

Also, see Death to All Juice

Also, see the view from J Street

Also, see the Juicebox Mafia on Gaza 
Also, see Hamas is hoping for an IDF ground attack

The Dutch Left rethinks "tolerance." (h/t, Insty) A quote:

"The multi-cultis just aren't making the running anymore. It's a brave step towards a new normalcy in this country. "

Given enough time, Reality always wins in the end.

On Saturday. As you can see from the age of the trees, these rocky woods were pasture 50-60 years ago. The remains of Chestnut trees, tragically felled by the Chestnut Blight in the early 20th century, can still be seen slowly disintegrating on the forest floor.

 Tired dog after walk:

Two totally random and undistinguished shots of the far West Side of Manhattan on Sunday:

We think this toon is about 15 years old, or more:

Just watched a Red Tail grab a squirrel from my bird feeder. Squirrel was, understandably, not happy about it at all.

They usually miss them. This guy came out of nowhere, fast, like an Israeli jet. Nature red in tooth (?) and claw.

Those squirrels are over-fed and full of juicy fat. Happy dining, pal.

Now I wish the Sharpies would pick off the rest of my pesky English Sparrows.

Is "small government Republicanism" a fantasy? Are libertarian ideals silly utopian fantasies?

It's a good debate, and it would be fun if enough readers are home or working this week to join in via comments.

We have three fine pieces on the topic today:

Jennifer Rubin: How do you fight Obama's New New Deal?

The GOP must reject big government: LAT

Where should Conservatives draw the line? Am Thinker