Maggie's Farm

Since when does "the public," ie the government, "own" the airwaves? A radio operator buys or leases a frequency, and then transmits radio waves on that frequency. Who gave the government ownership of frequencies? The government took them over in a weird example, I guess, of eminent domain, in the 1930s. However, the arguments used could just as well have been used for government ownership of news print.

Boortz makes the history of the notion very clear. Perhaps it would be analogous to the government taking ownership of bandwidth. How long until political use of bandwidth is regulated by Washington?

We wrote about this yesterday.

Photo: Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi. The first transatlantic radio message from the US was sent from Teddy Roosevelt to King Edward Vll in 1909, from good old Wellfleet on Cape Cod. The beach location is now called Marconi Beach, and it is surrounded by protected land - part of The Cape Cod National Seashore - thanks to JFK.

Addendum: For fascinating historical detail about the early goverment intrusion into radio, read the first comment on this post.

Bill Roggio. On Day 5, it sounds good. I like the blocking troops to prevent escape.

What kind of war is this, though? We are fighting al-Sadr's army which seems to be a proxy for Iran, and Al Quaida with all of their foreign fighters. This is no longer about Iraq at all. Iraq just happens to be the battlefield. That was the original idea, wasn't it?

If this offensive goes well, watch Americans change their tune about Iraq.

Dalrymple reviews Walter Laqueur's The Last Days of Europe in The American Conservative. Naturally, it's about immigration, declining native populations, and economics. One quote:

Laqueur is neither apocalyptic nor optimistic but measured and open-minded about the future. Yet given the earnest frivolity of the European political classes, who face up to and legislate for every problem except the serious ones, it is likely that his prediction for Europe is accurate: it will sink into insignificance, more important, it is true, than Africa but no more important than Latin America.

Here's the whole thing.

Michael Yon in Baquba. Since Jules is following the battles so closely, I will rely on his links. It is getting quite interesting. Hey Harry Reid - It ain't over yet.

I wish some wealthy person would donate Yon enough money for an assistant and a photographer. Yon does this work on his own, of course, and what is happening now looks like the big push of the entire Iraq story.

Buffalo Hunt, 1897. More of his work here. (thanks, reader). Two wonderful things about Montana (among others) are Russell and A. B. Guthrie. Yes, that painting is what the Montana high plains look like. They are desert-like, since all the rain gets dumped by the weather as it rises over the Rockies, heading east.

Story at Think Progress. It's a seriously, frighteningly wrong impulse to consider shutting up voices you don't agree with.

The way I see it, conservative talk radio emerged and blossomed because conservative views had been suppressed for so long in all mass media - TV, print, and radio. Back in the 80s, I would hear people say things like "Until I heard Rush on the radio, I thought I was the only person who thought that way." Around 60 million people listen to Rush Limbaugh now, I believe.

AM radio was a dying animal until daytime talk came along.

The fresh viewpoints have been great for the country, in my opinion. The debate is good for everyone, because it makes us think and re-think instead of stagnating. Even when you disagree, it helps sharpen and clarify your thoughts.

Talk radio remains one of the few places where alternatives to the MSM "establishment" views and spin can be heard. If print and TV were more balanced, some talk radio and some blogs wouldn't feel the need to exist. Their markets would shrink.

Still, I suspect that if some cheerful, optimistic, warm-hearted, avuncular, humorous, and self-mocking (all traits I attribute to Rush) liberal came along on the radio, he or she could build a sizeable audience. But maybe not.

About clouds and solar wind, from Canada's National Post, a quote:

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Not only will we all freeze to death in ten years, but the freezing of Arctic ice will kill off all of the seals and Polar Bears, not to mention all of the Eskimos. "Mommy, let's take the SUV so the Polar Bears don't freeze to death."

Addendum: We tend to see it the way Vaclav Klaus sees it.

750 lb. male Griz caught in Montana, collared, and released, near beautiful Choteau, MT - "The Paris of the Rocky Mountain Front."

In reality, if he was looking for a decent meal then downtown Choteau is not the place, but you can buy cigareets and whusky there. I have been there.

Volunteers at Good Samaritan Hospital (not sure which one) in 1957, delivering cigarettes and candy to patients. I'll take two packs of Luckies and a Clark Bar please, Ma'am, and some matches.

We always hear about the uninsured. Who are they? Some answers. (h/t, Dr. Helen)

Comment from Dr. Bliss:

A recent exchange with a new consultation, after three office visits during which we had established some good rapport and understanding:

"My recommendation to you is that we begin a course of psychotherapy to deal with all of these issues, which I believe are connected and which I think we can do something about."

"OK, I knew that, and I guess I have known that for a long time. But will my insurance cover it?"

"I don't know. I would need to meet with you two times a week to do this properly. But whether your insurance will or will not help you with that, I will expect you to pay me from your own pocket, beyond and above whatever your insurance reimburses you."

"You will? I have car payments, credit cards, tuitions, vacations planned - all sorts of expenses. If insurance doesn't cover it, I don't want do it. I don't see how."

"Well, it's a matter of priorities. I'd suggest that you think it over for a little while to decide how important dealing with these things is to you. If something is valuable enough to you, you will find a way to pay for it."

Life is like that, isn't it? Everybody is now trained to want a free lunch... but when they get it, it is no darn good, because the free lunch is a baloney sandwich on Wonder Bread. Life is filled with tragedy, is it not? These sorts of situations sadden me deeply, but reality is about limits. It is useless to pretend that it is not.

No philosophy could be more impoverished than one which denies the existence of this radiant interior Light -- or that reduces it to some material property of physics. "Divine light" is not a metaphor borrowed from our sensory apparatus. Rather, the reverse is true: the radiant light that fills the cosmos is an analogue of God's infinite luminous presence.

Marxism is the opiate of academia.

Anonymous

Eric at Classical Values has an excellent piece on creeping totalitarianism. His views on the subject sound like ours at Maggie's Farm. A quote:

...the problem is, people vote for it, and we live in a democracy. Perry de Havilland has also called the process "Democratic totalitarianism":

...a total state really is what a great many people have in mind for us all. They seek a sort of 'smiley face fascism' in which all interactions are regulated in the name of preventing sexism, promoting health, and defending the environment. The excuses will not invoke the Glory of the Nation or the Proletariat or the Volk or the King or the Flag or any of those old fashioned tools for tyrants, but rather it will be "for our own good", "for the Planet", "for the whales", "for the children", "for the disabled" or "for equality".

But if they get their way it will be quite, quite totalitarian.

It would be an error to dismiss such warm and fuzzy totalitarianism as the product of top-down rule by a Leviathan state. Pliant and well-meaning citizens (some of whom I suspect in my darker moments are wannabe eunuchs) voluntarily condition themselves first to accept self-imposed limitations, following which it becomes easy to impose them on others.

One Hundred Years of Solitude turns 40 as Gabriel Garcia Marquez turns 80.

From an essay on the novel, by Ilan Stavans at The Chronicle Review:

In my 40s, I've returned to García Márquez's masterpiece. Now it seems to me that, like Cervantes's Don Quixote, it decodes the DNA of Hispanic civilization. It's a "total" novel, designed by a demiurge capable of creating a universe as comprehensive as ours.

1874. L'allee au Bouffan

The Comprehensive Bill is part of the War on America: a point of view, with many facts and details, from LinknZona.

The purpose of this unsatisfactory and unsuccessful photo in the rain on Saturday was to try to capture the excellent and highly-varied Hosta beds in front of the little antique farmhouse. How many sturdy, self-reliant Connecticut Yankees have been raised in this humble 1720 home?