Maggie's Farm

"My Daddy always told me if you hang around with smart people, some smart will rub off on you, and if you hang around with dumb people, some dumb will rub off on you, but if you hang around with rich people, you will go broke picking up dinner tabs."

Tommy Earl Bruner, in Dan Jenkin's classic Baja Oklahoma

Tony Blair's legacy. Quoted from a piece in the Daily Mail (h/t, Samizdata):

Tony Blair has shown himself the most accomplished political actor ever to occupy the premiership.

He is an orator of near-genius, a performer who has for years dominated party conference platforms, TV studios, Parliament, White House press conferences, even the U.S. Congress.

Put him before an audience in his heyday, whether of three people or 3,000, and he could weave a spell worthy of Gandalf.

But now let us step over the camera and lighting cables, walk past the brilliantly painted frontage of whichever modern temple of glitz he is patronising - the Millennium Dome would be appropriate - and venture backstage.

Examine the real Britain after ten years of Blair.

Read the whole thing.

“To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. ...it signals to everyone that you’re not in the real world.”

Mark Steyn (h/t, Kim du Toit)

I have a soft spot for motor-sailers, probably because my Gramps was so fond of them. This one is a 1983 Island Trader 40. Not too expensive, either, and the finish is plenty nice. Take a look at the details and the interior. Nice boat.

Here's a rendering for a new Nordhavn 56' motorsailer with transatlantic range under power. Very slick. The designs and large renderings from all angles are on the link.

And below is 1918's 62' Old Glory, build by Lawley's and designed by Fred Lawley. Note her "canoe" stern design. She is for sale. You might be able to afford to buy her, but can you afford the upkeep?

For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization.

Robert A. Heinlein

Niall Ferguson discusses Nassim Taleb's new book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, in The Telegraph.

The piece echoes some of the themes in Dr. Bliss' Virginia Tech and the Fantasy of Safety.

Quote from Ferguson:

... it is Taleb's assault on traditional historiography that is most relevant here. Since Thucydides, it is true, historians have encouraged us to explain low-probability calamities (like wars) after the fact. Such story-telling helps us to make sense of a random disaster. It also enables us to apportion blame. Generations of historians have toiled in this way to explain the origins of great calamities like, say, the First World War, constructing elegant narrative chains of causes and effects, heaping opprobrium on this or that statesman.

There is something deeply suspect about this procedure, however. It results in what Taleb calls the "retrospective distortion". For these causal chains were quite invisible to contemporaries, to whom the outbreak of war came as a bolt from the blue. The point is that there were umpteen Balkans crises before 1914 that didn't lead to Armageddon. Like Cho Seung-Hui , the Sarajevo assassin Gavrilo Princip was a Black Swan - only vastly bigger.

The same flaw is obvious in the stories currently being told about the Virginia Tech massacre. If we can see the causes of Cho's rampage now, why was it not anticipated at the time? Negligence is not the only possibility. The reality is that for every Cho who runs amok, there are hundreds of thousands of depressive, misanthropic students who don't.

and

...as President Bush has learned, you don't get rewarded for trying to stop bad things from happening, precisely because if you're successful they don't happen. On his watch, after all, there hasn't been another 9/11 (a classic Black Swan event). And Saddam Hussein will never invade Kuwait again. But is anybody out there grateful? Not even Bush himself can be certain that his strategy of pre-emption deserves the credit for non-events.

Read the whole thing.

Thursday night a week ago the Bird Dog, Mrs. BD, and the youngest BD schlepped into NYC to see La Traviata at the New York City Opera (half the price of the Met next door, and just as enjoyable unless you need to see the world stars). The performance was wonderful, as always, and the guy singing Germond, my favorite role in the opera, was perfect.

But that's not my story. Because we arrived a bit too late to grab a spot in the Lincoln Center parking, we parked in a regular parking garage a few blocks away.

As we were waiting in line to pick up the car and to pay the parking fee around 11 pm, we observed a minor altercation. A lady in her 40s began yelling at the attendant that she would not pay the bill, and the mainly Spanish-speaking attendant was calmly trying to calm her down in halting English.

As the story became clear, they had just driven down into the parking garage, been issued the garage ticket and the rate for three day's parking ($270) and immediately decided not to stay because it was too expensive. But having already been given their garage ticket, they had to pay the one-hour minimum or the attendant would get into trouble. That was the problem.

In the not-new red Nissan sedan were her husband, and a lady who looked like her sister and two kids around 10-12 years old squeezed into the back. The car had Pennsylvania plates. 

The attendant says "Missy, please sign this. It says you not pay, then you go."

"I am signing nothing. Just let us out of here."

It went on like that. The t-shirted husband seemed tired and uncomfortable, and was silent. The kids in the back looked mortified.

A dapper fellow standing next to me in the line approached the sister while the shouting is happening, and told her where they could park the car less expensively than in the prime neighborhood of the Upper West Side. She was appreciative, but had no idea how to get to where he suggested, which was far downtown along 11th or 12 Ave.

What had occurred was clear. This family had driven in to NYC from PA for a celebratory long weekend in the big city at the end of the school vacation. They arrived late, were doing it on a tight budget, and had a hotel without a garage.

I said to the sister "Why don't you just sign the paper, and find another place to park?" She finally does that, despite her sister's shouting "Don't you dare sign that. They can come after you." 

Finally the wife took the wheel and managed to get the car out of the garage, and the line began moving again.

I felt so sad for them, doing their best to take on an adventure, but uprepared to handle the costs and complexities of New York City. Like a bird that can't fly, fallen out of a nest. I hope their little vacation got better after that, because I can't bear the thought that it didn't.

I love Pot Roast.

When I was in school, we called it Mystery Meat. It came out grey, dry, and tough. They served it with brown gravy. It was terrible. If done right, Pot Roast is fit for a king. Here's how I am making it this weekend:

A big hunk of beef
1 bottle of $15 cabernet
Half a little can of tomato paste. Or some canned tomatoes. Whatever, but not so much that you make a tomatoey sauce: it's meant to be a wine sauce.   
Some lightly sauteed garlic
A slice or two of lightly-cooked bacon, chopped
5 roughly chopped big onions
A bag of roughly chopped carrots. I never bother peeling carrots for cooking but, if you have OCD, you can.
A bunch of mushrooms, of any form. I always prefer porcinis, fresh or dried, in everything, but sauteed mushrooms, canned button mushrooms, etc are just fine.
 A couple of bay leaves
A teaspoon or two of sugar is necessary for any sauce with tomato in it
Salt and pepper to taste

Salt and pepper the beef, then brown in butter, then throw into a pot with the above ingredients. You can throw in some beef bouillon if you want, and a few good shots of hot sauce. Low simmer, covered, for 5-6 hours, or put in the oven, covered, at 350 for 5-6 hours. Crock pot probably works well too. Turn the meat when you remember. When almost done, throw in a couple of jars of button mushrooms, or lightly sauteed mushrooms of any variety, if you prefer. The beef, when sliced in 1/2" slices, should easily crumble with a fork - no knife needed.

Serve with mashed potatoes or wide noodles, and salad. The sauce from the pot, with the root vegetables,  is the key. Once evenings begin to get warm, it will be too late to make this variety of rib-stickin', soul-satisfyin', sleep-inducin'  Dad's home cookin'.

I missed this piece which indicates that Cho was diagnosed with Autism when the family moved to the US. That puts things in a different light. He could not communicate with anyone, including his family.

When I think about autism in adults, I think of Arthur "Boo" Radley (as played by Robert Duvall in the remarkable 1962 movie) - a rare example of a movie which was better than the book.

The reader who sent the link notes that this April happens to be National Autism Awareness Month.

Discussion of the photo we posted in our piece on the return of crime to New Orleans prompted Sippican Cottage to do some more architectural posting on NO.

He was also kind enough to send in this turn of this 1920s (?) photo, which includes the building we posted. (The building on the left, on Royal St.)

Gee, I hope they are nice to these terrorists, and don't torture them or do anything mean, unkind or insensitive. Offer them social workers? Or maybe they should just release them to the UK, where they can go on Welfare and plot to deliver the coup de grace to Britain? Or to Gitmo-By-The Sea, where they can watch TV, lift weights, grow fat, work on their tans, and study Koran?

Story at Dino.

Our tiny Yankee pal is around in both summer and winter. Often, in winter, he is the only bird you will encounter in the woods, searching for bug larvae in bark and rotten wood. You can read about our Chickadee here at CLO. Their springtime song - pheee-beeee - is a sweet delight. Photo by Gwynnie, yesterday:

This just isn't fair. I have skin color, but it's sort-of a blotchy pale unhealthy-looking thing with freckles and pimples and stuff. Not my fault. Too bad the photo-shopper couldn't spell "defusing."

This is not by our Roger, but it is Roger-quality:

Re gun control, read this at Confederate Yankee.

What makes it especially amusing is that it sounds like Gen. Petraeus' plan in Baghdad. 

I would be all in favor of rounding up every illegal gun in Boston (where I had an attempted mugging but ran faster than they did) and NYC (where I've been mugged, and also robbed twice). Both times by evil young crims with handguns of certainly doubtful legality.

Of course, knives would have worked almost as well, since my Kung Fu is a little rusty, and drug-crazed sociopathic teens make me deeply uneasy.

Sometime, when I feel like exposing the true depths of my stupidity, I'll post the story of how I gave the guy a subway token, two crumpled one dollar bills, and a pocketful of change, when I had a $1300 wad in my back pocket.

As I reflect back, maybe I need a whole post on my victimhood!!!

Borrowed without permission from a piece on our excellent economy,  by Dr. Sanity:

At Pajamas. I have never cooked with White Truffle, but my favorite use of Black Truffle is to shave a bit on top of a plate of Woodcock ravioli. 

And speaking of Fungi, here's a 20-foot mushroom. I didn't know that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants.

Canada's FLICK OFF campaign, to tell people to turn their lights off. Nobody noticed how those letters appear when written in that curvy neon-style.

Anyway, it's an absurd idea which should leave Canadians feeling like telling their idiot bureaucrats to FLICK OFF.

Story is at Dust My Broom.

I believe that a far more effective approach to the alarming crisis of global warmening would be federal regulation, or banning, of beans. If Canada really cares, they will do it. They could call it FART OFF.

Pit Bull encounters porcupine. I bet that hurts. This is a job for general anesthesia.