Maggie's Farm

No sappy Mom's Day commentary - just a virtual bouquet for my Mom, who happens to be in England at the moment with my Dad. (Still life by Juan de Arellano, c. 1650)

Confessions of a Car Salesman

Blacks seem racist in their voting patterns. Riehl. For one delegate, however, it's about the green, not the brown.

Obama and cap gains taxes. Already factored into the market?

A global warming two-fer: Synthstuff. Related: A very cold April this year.

The MLK memorial statue. Neoneo

"Wellness" uber alles. Am. Thinker. Be healthy or else...

Knee-pad time? Journalists ogle Obama. Michelle. Related: The Messiah and the media. Related: Caesar comes to the Capitol

Al Qaida plans attacks on Nigeria. Is that chickens coming home to roost too?

Bob's new tour. Right Wing Bob. He's only 67, which is no time to slow down.

Big Brother Video isn't working in the UK. (h/t, Flares)

How Japan continues to suffer from WW2. They lost their national meaning and purpose.

Brit corporations want to flee England.

The Cuban blogging revolution. Power to the People!

The NYT, the Hmong, and a criticism of the right. Dem Project

Time for regime change in Burma? No doubt, but not on my nickel.

A book: The Dirty Dozen - How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom

The Poison Ivy League. Prelutsky

MADD goes insane. Classical V. Maybe it's time for those MADD people to have a drink or two, and chill out.

Acts 2: 1-21

2When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ ¹³But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

 ¹⁷“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
   and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
   and your old men shall dream dreams.
¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
   in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
     and they shall prophesy.
¹⁹And I will show portents in the heaven above
   and signs on the earth below,
     blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
²⁰The sun shall be turned to darkness
   and the moon to blood,
     before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
²¹Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Stick with it to the debate with the three Canadian Moslem lawyers (or law students?). Video:

The Agenda: May 6, What's wrong with Mark Steyn's view of the world (h/t, LGF)

I WILL SOON HAVE BIRD DOG PUPS FOR SALE. ANYONE WHO IS INTERESTED IN ONE, PLEASE CONTACT ME. THE LITTER WILL PROBABLY BE ABOUT 7 - 10 PUPS, WHICH I WILL SELL AT A VERY REASONABLE  PRICE.

I HAVE ATTACHED A  PICTURE OF THE MOM AND DAD SO YOU WILL HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT THE  PUPS WILL LOOK  LIKE.
 
PLEASE LET ME KNOW  AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AS THEY MAY GO FAST. THANKS.

On the other hand, this seems like a better way to breed top quality bird dogs: Cloned Sniffer dogs.

A re-post:

A few nifty finds: New York City in Pictures, with "every street and every building in NY"; NewYorkology is a site with depth and detail, with tips for visitors and residents, including the location of the Whispering Gallery in Grand Central Station, which is quite near my favorite spot in the world for oyster stew and a beer, the famous and venerable Oyster Bar & Restaurant, which, along with oysters from all ends of the earth, almost always offers the rarest and very best oyster on earth, Wellfleets , with their subtle nutty flavor derived from the Herring River which flows into the harbor of Bird Dog's favorite town on his native Cape Cod. 

Then there's NY Architectural images - cool building photos listed by neighborhood. Oldbars lists - with photos - some of NYC's oldest, including McSorleys, where I have both booted and rallied in youth, back before 1970 when women weren't allowed in; and, since we're on bars, there's the unique  The Campbell Apartment, if you can find it; Forgotten New York is a good ramble; and the new Tenement Museum has been getting a lot of attention, but I haven't been there.

Little Walter on harmonica with Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers, Wild About You, Baby, 1967.

I have been through James Burke's series twice.

Get it while it's hot. I don't know how long he will donate the bandwidth to the general public.

The "Point of View" episode makes it clear that armies exist to defend ideas, which, being American, I knew, but it clarified some things. Western Civ is about asking all of the questions we can think of asking, and viewing every question as an adventure.

From this morning's men's Bible study group:

"If you could take an immortality pill right now, would you swallow it?"

Addendum:  By coincidence, Dr. Bob's quote today:

God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the end of life, because He alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. It is for Him alone to justify a life or to cast it away.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I do not think that she and her team are deluded. I think they have known for a while that they cannot win this thing without a miracle. The Clintons are hard-headed, practical, cynically calculating, and realistic when it comes to power (and money - when Dems get rich, it isn't greed).

But she is getting more than her share of time in the media sun (BTW, is a Repub also running for Pres? You would hardly know it.)

It's all about power. She keeps running to firmly plant the Clinton flag in the center of a Dem party which seems to be giving her a bit of a cold shoulder, and to show her tough stuff so that she will be a major force in the Party - and maybe a Pres candidate - in the future. If Obama goes down in the November election, she will look good and will become the #1 Dem. And if he doesn't go down, she'll be the heavyweight in the Dem Senate and the de facto #2 Dem in the country (overshadowing Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, and whoever the VP nominee is).

Thus she has much to gain by not appearing to be a "quitter." She can win by losing, but the timing is key to polishing her halo. She needs to sell on an up-tick.

The speech she will eventually give in support of Obama will bury the hatchet, and will be designed to make her look like a Dem angel. The Dem angel.

Samuel Finley Morse Badger of Massachusetts, aka Sam Badger, aka Solon Francis Montecello Badger, painted ship portraits. This is the schooner Edward H. Cole:

Our Spring Peepers have been out for a while, but now, on warm days (we haven't had many), the larger frogs come out to play.

I have eaten plenty of frog's legs in my time, mostly in the South, and they aren't bad sauteed with a little butter, wine and garlic... but so is anything.

However, I prefer that my Bullfrogs stay alive, croaking in the swamp. "Jug-a-rum."

These large (3-6") frogs are native to the Eastern US and Canada, and have become pestiferous when they have been transplanted (as in California and Europe). They will eat anything moving that they can fit into their Jaba The Hut-sized mouths, including small snakes and frogs.

I love swamps for their mysterious wildness and their abundance of life. Sippican isn't so sure that he does, but he is an effete, hyper-civilized egg-head sort, isn't he?

As the human race awaits the next inevitable Ice Age which will leave vast areas of the Northern Hemisphere under mile-thick glaciers, humans find it amusing to argue about the weather.

Quote from a piece at Global Warming Politics:

“The warmers are getting more and more like those traditional predictors of the end of the world who, when the event fails to happen on the due date, announce an error in their calculations and a new date.” [Dr. John Brignell, Emeritus Engineering Professor at the University of Southampton, on Number Watch (May 1)]

Oh dear! The inevitable is happening. The ‘global warming’ trope is unravelling on a daily basis - scientifically, economically, and politically. The wheels are coming off the hysterical bandwagon, and it is not going to be a salutary sight watching the politicians and the media junkies jumping cart and trying to throw mud in everyone’s eyes.

However, fear-mongers like well-known emitter Al Gore says cyclone a consequence of global warming. WTH? Does he believe that, or does he just have a policy that everything that happens in weather is man's fault? He parodies himself while frightening the ignorant.

Meanwhile meteorologist John Coleman echoes our piece on how the warming frenzy is damaging worthy environmental efforts. From his Open Letter to Environmentalists:

Here is what I am suggesting you do. Campaign for your environmental goals on the basis of their own merit. Let go of the global warming frenzy before it leaves you discredited and embarrassed. Stop screaming, “The sky is falling.” It is not.

Do your good work. Devote your lives to our environment. In many ways you will succeed. We are all grateful for your love of the planet. But, don’t use scare tactics.

Most of all I urge you not to become extremists.  And, may I encourage you to live your lives in a loving way, love your fellow human beings and our wonderful advanced standard of living and way of life as much as you love the Earth.

Image is a free plug for Prehistoric World Images.

"The national median home price for existing homes is just over $200,000 right now. Knowing how difficult it is to find a home for that price in some areas of the country, I decided to do a little research to see how much it would cost to buy a '$200,000 home' in different cities."

That median house in Topeka: $115,000. In Greenwich: $1,400,000. Average home prices, at A Comparison of US Home Prices. (h/t, Wall St. Fighter)

Photos: Larger photo is a $1,495,000 home in Greenwich, CT. The other is a $109,000 home in Topeka, KS.

I believe I could have a fine life in anything with a roof, as long as I have my fireplace, my broadband, and a place to grow tomatoes.

Episode 3 (which deals with geometry, maps, architecture and the Renaissance).

All on one tape at Videosift, or on big screen at Dr. Merc.

Does the American Constitution protect unenumerated rights? Of course it does. Their intentions were clear as day: to limit the power of government, not to limit the power of the people. The notion that unlisted rights are not for the people turns history on its head.

Digital sticky notes.

A man with no regrets. Pathetic.

Clinton attacks Wall St. NY Sun. Also, Clinton to attack Dem Party. Might be easier to report who she isn't attacking today.

Via Insty:

OUCH: "Now that he's disowned his pastor, I'm looking forward to Obama initiating a national conversation on religion to explain his church."

Microsoft's war for the web

The housing "crisis" is over.

A millionaire's gospel of bitterness. Related: Cosby is the real prophet

McCain's health plan. Radical and right

From Prager:

Though many individual liberals have only goodwill toward black Americans, the liberal world since the late 1960s (i.e., after the major civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s) has done incalculable damage to black America and to race relations in this country. Whether out of guilt or because of its own racist views (i.e., the unspoken but regularly implied belief in the inferiority of African-Americans), the left-of-center's general attitude toward black Americans has been that they cannot be judged by the same standards as others.

From lowering standards of admission to universities to blaming the high number of black men in prison for violent crimes on white racism to decades of cultivating black victimhood and the subsequent Wright-like rage against America, liberals and their party, the Democrats, have immeasurably hurt African-Americans and America.

Top Photo from Theo: "U.S. Marines assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, wait aboard a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft at Manas Air Base, Kyrgyz Republic, March 27, 2008, to be flown to Kandahar Air Base in the Helman province of Afghanistan. U.S. Marine photo by Lance Cpl. Jason T. Guiliano"

Lower photo: from Gateway: "U.S. Army Warrant Officer Leslie "Scott" Henry fishes in a lake surrounding a former palace of Saddam Hussein at the U.S. headquarters Camp Victory in western Baghdad April 13, 2008. Henry is an experienced fisherman who helps other soldiers learn how to fish at the Baghdad Angler's Club and School of Flyfishing set up by U.S. troops. (REUTERS/Peter Graff)"

Our Dylanologist is flying to Prague today for a visit with friends, thence by train to Rome to work for a few months.

He will need to dust off his Italian, but I know he can do that. For what it's worth, his conversational Latin isn't bad either, for a Protestant.

We trust that he will be able to continue his Thursday free ads for Bob Dylan, and that he will send us some fresh photos. Especially train photos. And photos of Roman and Greek ruins.

Bon voyage, and Arrivederci.

Photo: Bridges of Prague

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

G. K. Chesterton

P.J. O'Rourke's Commencement speech, with life advice

Dell vs. Apple

David Warren on free speech in Canada.

Barnett on the slow death of the MSM, and what it will mean (h/t Anklebiting on The Dying Media)

From Samiz:

Environmentalists like to claim that the politicians should pursue their agenda because that is what the public wants. So free-marketeers will be cheered by a new poll that says that 67% of British people believe that the green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes. 72% of Brits would be unwilling to pay more in taxes, even if used for environmental purposes.

Photo borrowed from Tim Blair in Trees worse than cars

Over the transom:

Is one Nobel Prize
  so much to ask from a child
  after all I've done?

Today I am a man
  Tomorrow I will return
  to the seventh grade.

More below -

These handsome sparrows are uncommon in New England. However, I was pleased to see a flock of five or six this morning under the bird feeder. They are just passing through on their way to their Arctic and sub-Arctic breeding grounds.

Photo from this site. More about these sparrows at CLO.

If there were no God, there would be no atheists.

G.K. Chesterton

It's not a Grand Banks trawler - it's a 1970 "Grand Banks-type," which makes it more affordable. Nice 50' boat. A single guy or gal could live on her quite happily.

From Thomas Merton, via Anchoress' Memories of God:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is, so to speak, His name written in us…It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.