Saturday, May 17. 2008
As of today, we can put vegetables in the ground up here. Got the garden ready? 
Further Instructions (1913)
Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions.
Let us express our envy for the man with a steady job and no worry about the future.
You are very idle, my songs,
I fear you will come to a bad end.
You stand about the streets, You loiter at the corners and bus-stops,
You do next to nothing at all.
You do not even express our inner nobilitys,
You will come to a very bad end.
And I? I have gone half-cracked.
I have talked to you so much that I almost see you about me,
Insolent little beasts! Shameless! Devoid of clothing!
But you, newest song of the lot,
You are not old enough to have done much mischief.
I will get you a green coat out of China
With dragons worked upon it.
I will get you the scarlet silk trousers
From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa Maria Novella;
Lest they say we are lacking in taste,
Or that there is no caste in this family.
Why is the press exempt from McCain-Feingold, when they are so obviously working for the Obama team? Two examples of MSM lying - not spinning, flat-out lying - this week: The WaPo The NYT I guess I have to calm down and get used to this, or I will give myself a stroke.
Friday, May 16. 2008
How DNA works (a big h/t to Flares for finding this). You can tell me all day long that existence is simply mechanical and not a miracle, but I won't buy it. At the end of this bit, at the bottom of the YouTube screen, click on the other DNA and protein-construction videos. It's Biochem 101, without the details. Amazing visualizations, I think.
 The words on this KY campaign flier read:
My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want. But I won't be fulfilling God's will unless I go out and do the Lord's work.
In a way, I have no big problem with those words (although how one can even attempt to discern God's use for you without tons of prayer and a worshipful heart is beyond me). However, I thought it was a big problem that Bush was inspired by his faith. Somehow this guys' wanting to do his version of God's work to me is apparently no problem. What's up with that? Doesn't this kind of thing raise urgent Church-State concerns for the Lefties? Or is he just trying to reinforce the idea that he isn't a Moslem? In my opinion, nobody has the right to claim that they are doing God's work. That is hubris. Somebody else can say it about you, though, which is a great compliment. (h/t, Insty)
Thursday, May 15. 2008
We disagree with CT Sen. Joe Lieberman on many, if not most issues, but we give him kudos for this. Our thanks to CT for re-electing this good guy.
The Anchoress asks herself: Q: So, you’re so holy and you pray everyday? A: I’m not so holy, but yes I do pray everyday; if I did not, I would barely manage to be human - I would be some sort of feral creature rolling about in the teeming muck. All I can tell you is that prayer is a force; it has real power to transform, beginning with oneself, and then externally. Whether praying liturgically or devotionally, scripturally or privately, it moves and shifts our own psychological and spiritual plate tectonics. Deep below our consciousness, it turns our muck into magma and drives us toward constant change, constant growth and even renewal, even if things don’t always look hopeful or promising as it does so. So, don’t fear the earthquakes or the volcanos, either external or internal. Yes, they’re destructive, yes, they’re alarmingly powerful and they change everything in their path. But they are mere moments in eternity, and after they rattle and scorch, things get quiet, and then life begins again - new growth, new structure, new maps. Without the great, seemingly catastrophic events, the earth would stagnate, and so would we. And then we’d have nothing but Sarah Jessica Parker movies in our lives.
Wednesday, May 14. 2008
Here. (h/t, Right Wing Prof, who says it's Mega Kewl and a seriously tempting time-waster)
Catlin (1796-1872), a Philadelphia lawyer, built his artistic career on paintings of American Indians. This Buffalo Hunt is from this Catlin website. 
This newspaper announcement is from the Smithsonian's collection of Catlin papers: 
Tuesday, May 13. 2008
 A bitter malcontent: The Michelle Obama suicide watch (h/t, Vanderleun)
Mark Helprin on The Challenge from China. I do not happen to see them as an enemy at all, just as a normal growing, amoral world power. Media playing by Obama's rules Never use gasoline to start your grill. Kerosene is OK. We always used to have a barrel of kerosene on the farm, with a spigot. Good for burning garbage too. A countercultural college Who do you call? Licebeaters Sowell: In politics, emotional gratification trumps truth. By the way, I am so ticked off at McCain about this global warming BS that I could spit. If it's just politics, fine, but if he really believes it... Counterjihad: Vienna 2008 The Good Old Days, when kids worked and contributed to their families instead of being lazy spoiled brats. "Members of the Mad Pride movement do not always agree on their aims and intentions." Tim Blair Irene Sendler, RIP Robert Rauschenberg, RIP. I interviewed him once, long ago, as a student. A lively fellow, full of curiosity, and as gay as a Christmas tree. Image: Rauschenberg's collage Stop, 1963
 With a decade of cooling behind us and more decades coming up, your Editor has decided that it's about time to assemble a list of the catastrophic consequences of Global Cooling.
I'll get you started, but I need additions in the comments. We care, and we can make a difference just by spreading awareness of this crisis!!! Problems Attributed to the Global Cooling Crisis Rise in food prices due to reduced crop production and shorter growing seasons, leading to worldwide famine and mass starvation Destruction of citrus, avocado, mango, pepper and tomato crops Increase in road accidents due to ice and snow Icebergs closing northern ports and northern trade routes Polar bear, Reindeer, Musk Ox and Eskimo infestations of residential neighborhoods (see photo) Increase incidence of the common cold, flu, etc: the elderly, children and minorities at greatest risk
Increases in broken bones and cancer as people stay indoors and do not get their natural Vit D from the sun
Increase in fatal heart attacks due to snow shoveling Rises in oil prices due to increased need for imported oil for heating and for 4 WD vehicles Damages bathing suit industry and destroys sun-block business
Fertility rates drop as females don unsexy parkas Stormy weather: nor'easters, blizzards, Perfect Storms, etc. Sea levels fall drastically, destroying marshes, beaches, and coral reefs - and threaten to reconnect Britain with the Continent Divorce - More family conflict due to lengthened ice-fishing season - or from spending too much time together indoors Disrupts migration patterns of birds and fish - animals die and become extinct! Increased Canadian illegal immigration to FL and AZ
Moscow, Toronto, Oslo, London, Sydney, and Boston will be buried under mile-thick glaciers by 2012 Nobody to do the work Americans don't want to do as Mexicans flee back to Mexico
Northern Europeans migrate en masse to the Middle East, bringing cultural dislocation and conflict
Australians invade S. Africa to escape glaciers
Trees killed by the trillions as climate cools, forests disappear and are replaced by tundra. Atmospheric oxygen levels drop: children and minorities at greatest risk.
Help us out in the comments - anything you offer will be officially "Attributed to Global Cooling"
This video is hilarious on several levels. However, I think the corny advice still makes good sense.
Monday, May 12. 2008
A suburban Great Horned Owl amongst the pansies. The story here. These big, adaptable owls seem to live anywhere they can find rats and mice.
 Obama campaign: Get me more white people over here.
Re McCain's global warming foolishness, at Polipundit: In just this week alone, McCain talked about trying again for comprehensive immigration reform, (Amnesty), agreed to address the open border, pro-illegal immigration attendees at the La Raza convention and now this.
The Newsweek embarassment. Corner. More at Gateway: Repubs win by scaring voters The corporate sponsors of the Dem convention Why it will be very bad for everybody when/if the Bush tax cuts expire Obama's likeability: Am Thinker. Yes, he is the really cool black dude. The media have already begun running interference for him, as John H says: I think we are about to witness a level of partisanship in the "mainstream" media that has not been seen since the era of professional news media began a little over a century ago. In the past, when newspapers like the Times have misreported facts, people have generally assumed it was, even if the result of bias, inadvertent. No longer. We have entered an era in which leading news organs will intentionally and persistently misinform their readers in order to achieve a political objective--the election of Barack Obama.
Academic mindset, quoted from Volokh via Insty: ...as much as conservatives may whine and scream to the contrary, liberalism and conservatism are not moral equivalents. Because, on the one side you have the thinkers and activists who have advanced freedom, social justice, and human rights, and on the other, you have those who have attempted to thwart all those things.
 This well-worn oldie came in over the transom again, but I thought it deserved a re-post this time: What Is A Veteran?
A "Veteran" -- whether active duty, discharged, retired, or reserve -- is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America," for an amount of "up to, and including his life." That is honor, and there are way too many people in this country today, who no longer understand that fact.
When in England at a conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.
He answered by saying, 'Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return. (More details on that exchange here.)
Continue reading "Our Veterans"
"I reveal myself in my true colors, as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men have not changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves. I also hold one or two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly. For example, I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos. I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible." Kenneth Clark ("Civilization")
 Lots of links.
Sunday, May 11. 2008
Old postcards from around the US. Here are some cattle (oxen, I think) at the old Danbury, CT State Fair: 
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