Maggie's Farm

The dude is just a young Commie Chicago pol who talks like a preacher, for heaven's sake. Maybe reporters aren't used to hearing preachers.

The News Junkie of Maggie's Farm, yesterday

Lifted from a comment here by Buddy:

Re oil here's two worthy reads: George Will's current WaPo column, The Gas Prices We Deserve, and an email from a gal in Louisiana, a friend of former Gov. Blanco & until recently an ardent Democrat.

and the body of the email, quoted:

For several decades, the Democratic Party has pursued policies designed to drive up the cost of petroleum, and therefore gas at the pump. Remarkably, the Democrats don't seem to have taken much of a political hit from the current spike in gas prices. Probably that's because most people don't realize how different the two parties' energy policies have been.

Congressman Roy Blunt put together these data to highlight the differences between House Republicans and House Democrats on energy policy:

ANWR Exploration

House Republicans: 91% Supported

House Democrats: 86% Opposed

Coal-to-Liquid
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 78% Opposed

Oil Shale Exploration
House Republicans: 90% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed

Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Exploration
House Republicans: 81% Supported
House Democrats: 83% Opposed

Refinery Increased Capacity
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 96% Opposed

SUMMARY

91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of American-made oil and gas.

86% of House Democrats have historically voted against increasing the production of American-made oil and gas.

PAUL adds: It's useful to keep this sort of thing in mind when we hear (on something like a daily basis these days) that the Republicans have run out of ideas or that Republican ideas didn't work. The truth is that most major Republican ideas weren't tried because the Democrats blocked them. Increasing the domestic production of oil and gas (a move so obvious it barely meets the standard for being an idea) is hardly the only example. Social security reform and school choice also come quickly to mind. Republican-backed policies for increasing the number of Americans with health insurance were also blocked by Democrats. And so forth.

Because the bully pulpit wasn't effectively used, that news never really got out. The above numbers do not include the Dems' blocking of nuclear plants, which are going up all over the world including in Africa.

Abundant power is the sine qua non of modern civilization. Combine it with free markets and free people and you have a civilizational rocket. I sort-of understand the Dems blocking every Repub initiative out of pure partisan bile, but I do not know what their energy plan is. All they talk about are "clean alternatives," which is a joke, and they gobble up oil as fast as I do without any apparent regret.

I do know what my energy plan is: Lots of nuke power, plenty of clean coal technology, none of this dopey, subsidized and highly-polluting biofuel, and drilling for oil where we can: oil is great stuff and we are fortunate to have tons of it in the US.

This should be a major campaign issue, if McCain would wake up to it.

Related: Surber notes that gasoline accounts for only 45% of US oil use, in a piece titled What's the MPG of Your Soap?

Thanks, reader. Most of the above quoted is via Paul at Powerline.

Krauthammer says:

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).

Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.

Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but -- even better -- in the name of Earth itself.

I think that just about sums it all up. It is endlessly fascinating and dismaying to me that so many people seem to want to be controlled.

From Tom Friedman on Israel:

From outside, Israel looks as if it’s in turmoil, largely because the entire political leadership seems to be under investigation. But Israel is a weak state with a strong civil society. The economy is exploding from the bottom up. Israel’s currency, the shekel, has appreciated nearly 30 percent against the dollar since the start of 2007.

The reason? Israel is a country that is hard-wired to compete in a flat world. It has a population drawn from 100 different countries, speaking 100 different languages, with a business culture that strongly encourages individual imagination and adaptation and where being a nonconformist is the norm. While you were sleeping, Israel has gone from oranges to software, or as they say around here, from Jaffa to Java.

Read the whole thing at the NYT

A long-lost Wellfleet, Cape Cod 30' lighthouse which stood outside the harbor until 1925 has finally been located at Point Montara, CA.

How it arrived in California is, as yet, a mystery. Some blame aliens, some blame Halliburton, but only I know how and why lighthouses migrate - and I ain't gonna tell.

To keep up with all of your lighthouse news, read Lighthouse Digest.

Matthew 9: 9-13, 18-26

9:9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me."  And he got up and followed him.

9:10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.

9:11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

9:12 But when he heard this, he said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

9:13 Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'  For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

9:18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, "My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live."

9:19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples.

9:20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak,

9:21 for she said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well."

9:22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." and instantly the woman was made well.

9:23 When Jesus came to the leader's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion,

9:24 he said, "Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping."   And they laughed at him.

9:25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up.

9:26 And the report of this spread throughout that district.

The Mighty Quinn might have been a reference, in part, to the great actor Anthony Quinn, but it feels like Obama/Messiah today. Not to worry. Reality will set in, at some point. Always bear in mind that Dylan is a genius, but, like most geniuses, a nut. This world would be lost without us regular, common-sense folks.

via Driscoll:

This captures some of it. h/t, Flares:

Hour by hour, drop by drop,
Pain falls upon the heart
And against our will
And even in our own despair
Comes wisdom from the awful grace of God.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon

The Wooden Boat Show. June 27-29, at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT.

Fascism, at its core, is the view that every nook and cranny of society should work together in spiritual union toward the same goals overseen by the state. "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State," is how Mussolini defined it. Mussolini coined the word "totalitarian" to describe not a tyrannical society but a humane one in which everyone is taken care of and contributes equally. It was an organic concept in which every class, every individual, was part of the larger whole.

From Jonah Goldberg's book, as quoted at No Pasaran. It's what Mark Levin terms "soft tyranny."

Rick Moran on Hillary. A quote:

I will fight her hammer and tongs over what will be an effort to pass national health insurance regardless of who wins in November and her other schemes. But I will do it with a new found appreciation for her tenacity and a recognition that she is more than just an empty pantsuit.

Obama as King Canute. Never Yet Melted. The guy really does speak messianically (sp?).

A quagmire. US Out of DC Now! It's a civil war.

John Bolton lights into Obama. Michelle

Now that a woman has come within inches of the White House, can we declare feminism obsolete? And with Obama's nomination, can we declare the obsolescence of the old Civil Rights movement?

From the peak of the housing bubble, Americans have lost a lot of $. Bubbles create a false sense of wealth.

No one has to starve in Africa. It's their rulers. That's why Clinton gave up on Africa.

Easily fooled. Obama as Candide? I don't think so.

Don't break one of those supposedly greenie fluorescent bulbs.

A quote from Nidra Poller, via Scott at Powerline, on the Al Dura Affair:

The French media blackout of information about this gigantic media hoax is an indication of the abysmal absence of a vibrant free press here in France. The media sleaze Sarkozy, trash Bush, and protect Charles Enderlin whose reports from Israel perpetuate the tiresome bashing that serves no honest purpose. This zombie French press silence should not be contagious. American mass media broadcast the al Dura image, participated in the dissemination of the hatred it bears. They have not even begun to examine the case, the footage, the sources.

They never checked with Snopes first.

Via Theo:

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director how he determines whether a patient should be institutionalized.

'Well,' said the Director, 'we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub.'

'Oh, I understand,' said the visitor. 'A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup.'

'No.' said the Director, 'A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?'

The below came in over the transom (thanks, reader), and our fact checker is on strike this week so you have to take this as it is:

We Conservatives may be guilty of nurturing a "flattering consensus" in our own ways, insulated from rigorous debate. Thompson uses the neoneo piece we linked a while ago about the lack of intellectual diversity in the academy, and takes it a bit further, concluding:

If students and faculty are spared serious, thoughtful contact with opposing arguments, their own views can easily become lazy, reflexive and glib. One can simply feel one is right, or ought to be, and that may be the end of the process. This should matter irrespective of one’s political leanings. If a person wants to be right about a given issue, it helps to know why their ideas are sound, if indeed they are. And knowing why an idea is sound generally arises from that idea being tested, vigorously, by people who disagree.

"Deceptive simplicity." An "artist's artist."

Auction at Christie's of Scott's work in London on June 6.

This is Blue Frying Pan.

Few family lines can claim wealth and influence in a straight line from the 12th Century to today. Usually, decadence, disease, dilution, war - and taxes - take their toll.

Here's a brief history of the family through 1652, from the family's rise in Tuscany, to their power in Milan, to their landholdings in Lombardy. I do not know what their current status is, but they do own at least three islands in Lago Maggiore, including Isola Bella with its palace and remarkably ornate Italian gardens (which are studied in all garden design classes, I am told, even though they may look vulgar to today's spartan Yankee eye). Such things were designed to impress as much as to delight.

All of the soil was brought in by boat:

The family even has a family website, but I don't want to try to struggle with the Italian.

I'll be there in a week or two, mainly to do some Alpine hiking, some eating, and to see a medieval village or two, and I like to know what I am looking at.

Belmont found this YouTube of an Icelandic crab boat coming into harbor:

Shorpy's comment: September 1940. "Mountaineer trying to change tire with a fence post as a jack. Up south fork of the Kentucky River, Breathitt County." 35mm nitrate negative by Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration.