Maggie's Farm

Forever young? For women (maybe men, too) 40 is the new 30, and 60 is the new 40. Daily Mail

830. A new record Scrabble score.

An ESV Bible trick. Middlebrow. Cool.

Why won't France send the army into the banlieus? Too many Moslems in their army? Brussels Journal (h/t, Dino). Great idea - a multicultural army.

Will Bin Ladin win the American election? From a piece by Scheuer in Wash. Times (h/t, Env. Republican)

Bin Laden, his lieutenants and their allies are no doubt pleased by the destruction of the Spanish and Thai governments and the exhilarating message it sends to the worldwide Islamist movement: The infidels are weak, politically divided, terrified of using full military power and think we can be appeased. In short, war works; keep at it.
    Even so, bin Laden, et. al, know the biggest prize looms just ahead — the chance that the Republican Party will be ousted from one or both houses of Congress. There are many factors contributing to this possibility: the Foley abomination, other corruption cases, the trumped?up "crisis" over First Amendment rights and the administration's ill-informed and ham-fisted handling of the Iraq and Afghan wars. If the Republicans are ousted, pundits on both sides of the aisle will find the causes strictly in America's navel.
    But what will bin Laden and his Islamist allies think? Well, if Republican defeat comes to pass, they will first thank the Almighty — "Allahu Akhbar!" or "God is the greatest!" — for tangible proof of approaching victory. In Spain, Thailand, and Britain — where Prime Minister Tony Blair suffered the fate of Messrs. Aznar and Thaksin for the same reason, but is leaving gracefully — al Qaeda and its allies see politicians winning power who argue: "The military option has been tried and it has failed. We must seek other-than-martial means to defuse the Islamists' appeal and power." As in Europe and Thailand, this has been the refrain of Sens. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Rep. Jane Harman, and a swath of Republicans who value their seats more than U.S. security.
    If Americans vote for what sounds like sweet reason from the Democrats, bin Laden and company will rejoice. What they will hear is the death knell for any prospect of effective U.S. military resistance to militant Islam. With the Republicans out, the Islamists will be confident that Democrats will deliver the best of both worlds: less emphasis on military force and a rigid maintenance of U.S. foreign policies that are hated with passion and near-unanimity by 1.3 billion Muslims. If Osama approved of music, he would be whistling "Happy Days Are Here Again!"

From Sailing Anarchy:

"Hydroptère, the radical 60' hydrofoil trimaran hauling ass. For those who haven't seen it, it is a pretty fascinating thing. Take a look at the "shock absorber" foils."

We need to create a blogroll category for media-watchers. Here's one dedicated to keeping an eye on the NYT: Timeswatch.

From Sailing Anarchy:

"We recently sailed in a race from St Simon Island GA to Ameilia Island FL with my 70 year old father, brother in law and brother last weekend. We won the race.

In the middle of a 60 feet deep channel between two islands separated by about two miles was a six point buck swimming at about three knots."10/27/06

Any breed of cattle can be - and is - made into hamburger meat, including old Daisy herself, when her milk production slows down. But today we'll just look at two of the historically popular American beef cattle.

The Shorthorn is a relatively minor breed now, but when it was brought from England in the late 1700s it became popular. It had its origins in Roman times. This is a bull:

The Longhorn was brought to the New World by the Spanish, and was the main Western breed until replaced via hybridization, and by other breeds like the Angus and the Hereford, by 1900. Now it only exists on refuges and there are few breeders, but its gene pool might have something to offer today's breeders.

Australia's top Imam explains why women are the cause of rape. LGF.

I will grant him one point: sexy women do elicit erotic thoughts, and they know it, and they do enjoy that magical witchcraft.

But where is the Imam's expectation of civilized behavior on the part of Moslem gentlemen... or is that not part of modern Islam?

Image presented for scientific purposes only. Middle Eastern scholars claim that this sort of devilish thing is what is hiding under all of those burkhas.

The department store is the ancestor of the mall, and of WalMart. From a piece in Washington Monthly:

Department stores emerged as the Wal-Marts of their time, known for low prices, convenience, and controversy. When the first stores opened in the 1870s and ’80s, they were cavernous, no-frills storerooms that stocked a hodgepodge of items once available only from specialty merchants. The different merchandise lines were known as “departments.” At these one-stop Victorian shopping destinations, the sales staff might not have known silk from twill, or how to trim a jacquard vest, but the prices were low, and one could pay in cash—an innovation at a time when most retailers required annual credit lines that were extended only to wealthy regular patrons.

Not everyone was a happy customer. Established venders feared being driven out of business, and indeed many Main Street tea merchants, booksellers, crockery stores, and glassware dealers did lose patrons and close shop. Other early critiques were less about cents than sensibility. In 1897, Scribner’s lamented the big stores’ tawdry sales events; banal and homogenous goods; and appeals to customers as crowds, rather than as selective individuals. Mark Twain found maddening the stores’ practice of heaping goods of no practical relation on adjacent tables for customers to simply rummage through. Of particular offense was the sight of an autobiography of President Ulysses  S. Grant strewn alongside the rugs and teapots at John Wanamaker’s store in Philadelphia. Clemens, who had co-published the book, blasted Wanamaker as “that unco-pious butter-mouthed Sunday school-slobbering sneak-thief.”

The worst digital cameras, here. (h/t Protein)

The new camera gift guide - it's all 10 megapixels now, even for point-and-shoot.

Isn't capitalism amazing?

And, speaking of capitalism, what is the best way to protect an industry? To permit competition - of course. Look at the City of London: The Economist . (h/t, BusinessPundit)

These three dudes are the modern masters of farce, absurdist and semi-black humor. They all have no trouble making fun of earnest silliness, and all of their humor is dead serious.

A friend turned me on to the Brit Tom Sharpe, who has never been afraid of political correctness. But I never knew about his Wilt series, which is on the way to me from Amazon at this moment. I had only read his two which were set in South Africa. The mental hospital staging a Zulu War as a therapeutic theater piece with the patients taking sides with real weapons is just unbelievable. But so are the people with the rubber suit fetishes.

Peter de Vries, a long-time editor at The New Yorker and Editor of Poetry magazine, and long-time resident of Westport, CT now, alas, dead, wrote a number of droll, warmly satirical novels, most of them about life in Fairfield County. He is the most religious atheist writer I can think of. Adultery, social climbing, book clubs, alcohol abuse, horny adolescents, existential crises, wonderful misfits, nouveau riches, do-gooders, old-time eccentric grouchy Yankees, wacky preachers, and hearty golfers are the grist for his mill. Favorite De Vries quotes: "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be," and "It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us." One more: "I was baptised, but it didn't take." Can you label this genre "comic seriousness"?

Carl Hiaasen - bio here - prize-winning Florida journalist and co-songwriter with the late lamented Warren Zevon, has a feel for the dark side of South Florida culture (is there a bright side?) which he illuminates with such characters as Skink, the one-eyed ex-Florida governor who lives in the swamp, eats only road kill, and trusts only vets for medical help. My favorites are Skin Tight, Double Whammy, and Tourist Season.

When asked by Parliament members why be believed so much in America, Tony Blair said:

"A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in, and how many want out."

The appropriate age for marriage is eighteen for girls and thirty seven for men.

Aristotle

Nancy Pelosi said this, re the chance she will end up as Speaker (h/t, Driscoll):

"The gavel of the speaker of the House is in the hands of special interests, and now it will be in the hands of America's children."

The truth shall set ye free, but first it shall make ye miserable.

Soren Kirkegaard  (h/t, Stumbling)

Editor's Note: This is one of a series of occasional reports from our friend Nathan, who is "making aliyah" this year. For more info about this, and for past postings, click the Aliyah Diary category. I have to say that I am both amused and pleased to see Nathan getting comfortable with firearms. Most Jewish, urban psychoanalysts are not - and that is fact, not stereotype.

Aliyah, October 21

Stopping power is a matter of physics: mass times velocity.  A .45 caliber has greater stopping power but is slower because of its greater mass. The Berretta, using a .22, is faster, perhaps more accurate, but has less stopping power.  The 9 millimeter FN (Fabrique Nationale of Belgium), which I also trained with Friday, is in-between in stopping power.

All this learned within about three hours of my first fire arms training Friday. In fact, the first time I have every shot.  Training for the citizen police force I am doing before leaving Ra'anana for Jerusalem next Tuesday.  Went with Russell, who, I learn afterwards, was a firearms instructor for the Jewish community police force in South Africa. In a multi-gated, guarded community, his house surrounded by fencing and electronic alarms, his mother was tortured with a blow-torch while his wife and two children were visiting. Thieves got through the back patio, as the maid opened the doors. The torture was gratuitous, just for the helluva it, as they had already robbed the house.  After this, Russell and his family moved to Israel.

Back to the .30 caliber shell on my desk.

We train first on the carbine. Brief history for those of us who had never before fired nor held a carbine.  Developed in WWII to be a one-handed rifle for paratroopers and such, the carbine can be held one-handed by its fore-shortened stock, or by its barrel.  I sense that the whole matter here is stabilizing the weapon so you shoot where you intend. To do so, as in a bicycle, you work at becoming one with the weapon, so that it feels an extension of yourself; you put yourself around the weapon (don't accommodate it to your body's idiosyncracies).  Reuven -- a bit potty around midsection, shaved head, sound-proof ear muffs with a whistle hanging from them -- shows five steps to shoot straight.  After cocking the first bullet into the chamber: stock to shoulder; right hand on stock, index finger points down the barrel, towards target; left hand cradles the stock; then shifts back to snug the magazine; right cheek firmly nuzzles stock. Then, finger trigger; squeeze.

(Now, I picture most vividly Reuven in profile, whipping the handgun from holster, right elbow 90 degrees gun at eye level, left hand cocks as in-one-motion rotates gun upright, elbow to side, fore finger points to target, then shoots in bursts.  He demonstrates repeatedly, lightening moves, pivots 180 degrees to us from side to side.  Moves precisely, focused, as if nothing exists but his imaginary fatal target.  I want to be at his side, on his side. Always.)

But, Reuven starts with the Carbine.  He is crisp, speaks in bursts, declarative statements. 80% of terrorist attacks in the past year are in this Sharon/Dan region. He will teach us to stop a terrorist, shoot him.  This is not target practice, it is not sport, nor we will not qualify for Madgam, the SWAT team.  He will teach us to load aim, shoot from standing, kneeling and concealed positions.  Russell later tells me that Reuven covers in 3 hours what is generally taught in three days.

The Carbine.  Designed by convicted murderer, David M. "Carbine" Williams, for Winchester arms, it was first delivered  to the US army in 1942; about six million made and is now on its third generation, the second moving from fixed wooden stock, to foldable. A semi-automatic, it works off a clip, is much lighter than the previous M1 rifle. Effective to 300 yards. Image is of an M4.

In a piece titled The Paradox of Liberty, Brewton quotes Andre Maurois:

“What the [French philosophes] of the eighteenth century did not see....is that traditions are not all fetters, that many of them constitute the very framework of a society, that every society rests upon the legitimacy of some government....The English succeeded in this enterprise, because the transition in that country was extremely slow and because they preserved side by side new [traditions] and old.”

1200 pounds for hurt feelings? I'd be very rich about now. Gay and Right

More on Ted and the KGB: Ace

The Fjordman has The Eurabia Code at Gates of Vienna, in which he describes Europe's long romance with the Middle East. It is long, but it's all you need to know.

We try to give them away, but nobody wants them. The Gitmo prisoners. No Pasaran

Govt tries to give Amish their food stamps - Amish refuse, govt gets upset. Crazy. Moonbattery

Venture capitalist needed to protect plastic flamingoes from extinction.

I don't understand why Ohio isn't going big for Blackwell. Nor does Betsy

Re shooting, Kim says:

For the benefit of the Hunters, let me say this, once and for all: The Second Amendment is NOT about duck hunting. And if you think it is, you deserve to get everything that comes to you.

No, I am not referring to Washington, DC. I am referring to one of the smallest North American birds, the Ruby-Crowned Kinglet.

Yesterday was classic New England weather - 50 degrees and clear in the morning, 70 degrees, drizzling and calm at noon, then branch-breaking wind gusts with a 25 degree temperature drop at 4 pm. By night-time, it felt like fall had truly arrived, and today it was clear and crisp, and the maples showed some red.

All day long, small flocks of Kinglets were fluttering around the shrubs, and poking into the sedum, outside my window. Close enough that you could occasionally get a slight glimpse of the red crown, if they tilted their heads in the right way. But, basically, you cannot count on that as an identifying feature.

These drab, tiny warbler-like guys - but smaller than warblers - weigh about a quarter of an ounce, lay clutches of 12 eggs (a clutch can easily weigh more than the mother), and winter wherever the temperatures stay above 25 degrees. The flocks outside my window are working their way south, but I hope they will hang around for a while.

They must have had a good breeding year up in the coniferous forests, because I have never seen so many.

Image borrowed from the excellent CLO site.

What a delight to know that he is still alive and kickin'.

Here's the Chuck Berry website.

Mooooo. Are you tired of our cattle interest over the past couple of months?

Well, just a couple more cattle posts to go, then the final exam.

Today, wild cattle. There are 12 species of wild bovines left. We already learned that the mighty Auroch, the prized game animal of Polish kings and the ancestor of the domestic cow, has been extinct, alas, since the 1600s. We all know the American Bison and the Cape Buffalo - a member of the Big Five great game animals of Africa (image above), but you cannot name all twelve, and neither can I. Here they are.

Note that the Musk Ox is not among them. It's not a bovine, and it is more closely related to goats.

Image of a friendly Cape Buffalo from the very fine wild cattle site.

A witty saying proves nothing.

Voltaire

Jimmy Carter's reportedly anti-Israel book's release date abruptly moved from before the election, to after. Israpundit.

Masculinity is bad, says Mr. Jensen. Who? I am not sure that most women would agree with that. Moonbattery

Babbin at RCP: "Go for it, Mr. Pres":

The news dynamic - the momentum of the media herd - has focused on the bad news from Iraq, but not what the Democrats would do (regarding Iraq or anything else) if they take control of Congress. Why don't the media ask the tough questions, calling irresponsible those who seek power but refuse to say what they'll do when they get it? Because many among the 527 Media think the Dems have already won and won't rock their boat. But they remember 2004, and will publish a few more October surprises timed to deter a Republican comeback. The news dynamic will serve them up as part of the continuing, "Iraq is a disaster, Bush is incompetent" narrative. To turn the media herd, Republicans have to disrupt the narrative.

What makes it tough to change the dynamic is that the "news dynamic" is little more than MSM bias, and the MSM acting as cheerleaders for the Left. The MSM deliberately created the "dynamic." Anyway, Babbin's whole piece with his advice, here.

The Left gone nuts - VDH. A quote:

The Democrats have not elected congressional majorities in 12 years, and they've occupied the White House in only eight of the last 26 years. The left's current unruliness seems a way of scapegoating others for a more elemental frustration - that they can't gain a national majority based on their core beliefs. More entitlements, higher taxes to pay for them, gay marriage, de facto quotas in affirmative action, open borders, abortion on demand, and radical secularism - these liberal issues don't tend to resonate with most Americans.

To compensate, leftist pundits, billionaire philanthropists and politicians, from current officeholders to ex-presidents, work to ensure that isolated moments of Republican ineptness (George Bush strutting on a carrier deck in his flight suit) and wrongdoing (repulsive e-mails from a perverted Congressman Mark Foley) blare out as the only issues of the day. This distracting drumbeat, not their own agenda, is the only strategy for success in the next election.

Whole thing here.

The dust band around the perimeter of the nucleus of the Black Eye galaxy (M64), from the Hubble site.