Maggie's Farm

A month or so ago we posted a snarky and unkind critique of a post by Mixing Memory, a blog concerning cognitive psychology which we read weekly because of our interest in the subject.

Specifically, we erroneously claimed that his blog, or at least his post, ignored the religious and/or spiritual, and we also were ill-mannered in doubting the hard-science rigor of the post.

I hope he will accept our apology. Here are some of his posts on religion. And here is his latest: How Motivated Cognition can Save your Marriage.

From an interview with Benedict:

Asked by one student how he realized his own priestly vocation, the 78-year-old pontiff said that when he was young in Germany it was more "normal" to accept faith and vocations than it is today.

"There was the Nazi regime," Benedict said. "We were told very loudly that in the new Germany 'there will not be anymore priests, there will be no more consecrated life, we don't need this anymore, find another profession."'

Looking for a "How-To" book on becoming a Manly Man - a review of a few books on the subject in the CSM:

"A Guy's Guide to Being a Man's Man," is as full of practical tips as Mansfield's is devoid of them. He reminds men exactly how to behave with honor, respect, and gentlemanliness. That includes dating ("don't look too eager"), dressing ("no ties with animals, Looney Tune characters, or Spongebob."), dining ("order New York strip steak for three"), and listening to "man's man" music ("Sinatra was the ultimate"). His formula for men in 2006 is to get a manicure (but no pedicure), money clip (no Velcro wallets), and a DVD of "Saving Private Ryan."

Why aid doesn't work in Africa. It's a well-known fact, and even our State Dept gets it. Africa needs investment by bold entrepreneurs from all over the world. Samizdata. 

Rick Moran gets on a roll. One quote:

There are even efforts in blue states to stop “trading” with people and companies who live in ordinary America, as if people who live, work, play, go to church on Sunday, take off their hat when the flag goes by, and get choked up when they hear the national anthem live in a different country than the urban sophisticates who dominate the culture and to a large extent, the national conversation. We are told what is proper to believe, what we should watch on television, what cartoons are blasphemous, and which European countries are better than we are. We are instructed in what is “good” and even what is funny and what is not.

And when red state America rebels against this cultural tyranny by voting the way they think rather than the way they are told to, they are belittled as morons, mouth breathers, hicks, hillbillies, and dolts.

And liberals wonder why they can’t win an election for dog catcher in most areas of the country?

In truth, as we head into the silly season in politics, Democrats are going to have to find a way to put a lid on this attitude of loathing toward ordinary voters lest they be discovered for the insufferable elitist louts they truly are.

Thanks for that, Rick, from your loutish hillbilly friends at Maggie's Farm. Whole thing here.

I suggest he read this at National Review( http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/haislmaier200601271110.asp ), and realize many of his objections are met, and many of many others' are met, including why someone else should be responsible for his family exceeding his means to pay, and including that limited (more toward what he calls catastrophic) policies will be available at a more affordable cost.

 

The USS New York.
The 6th USS New York is being built (LPD-21,
an amphibious assault ship) with steel from the Trade Center. (LPD is "landing platform dock).

Image is the USS San Antonio (LPD-17)

Now for the bad news: Super-Cavitation Torpedoes. 250 mph and 27-feet long, these Russian-designed nasties could change naval warfare. And Iran has some. Info at American Spectator.

Update: (Thanks, reader) This torpedo's bark may be worse than its bite. Strategy Pages.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

Nietzsche (That is a good Maggie's Farm motto)

We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made.

M. Acklam

We are working on fixing it. Somehow, we have been seeing more and more searches for "farm  porn  sex"  coming through.

Somehow something somewhere listed us as a farm porn site. We are not. We do not even look at farm porn sites.

Admittedly, we once considered becoming a farm porn site to stiffen up our readership numbers, but decided against it for no good reason at all.

Still, ya gotta admit that is one sexy-looking 1950 Farmall Model C - in the nude.

In an effort to film some anti-Moslem
prejudice in the US, NBC has been
seeking Moslems to volunteer to attend NASCAR events while wired and secretly filmed. No doubt they planned to continue filming until they caught something "useful" on film. Like Candid Camera.

I guess it reveals something about what NBC thinks of NASCAR fans.

Nice try, NBC. But you are busted. They used to call this "yellow journalism," and it is beneath contempt.

And the real question is this: If 100 people were pleasant to these stooges, and one person was rude - what would be shown on the news?

Chalk up one more for the blogosphere vs. the biased and, in this case, insidious and corrupt MSM.

Two comments from The Chairman:

1. If they really wanted some good footage, they should have gotten five or six of the scariest-looking Moslems they could find and put them on a transatlantic flight as a group.

2. Why didn't Cynthia McKinney think of bringing a film crew with her when she punched the cop? And why isn't her story a bigger story than Cheney's?  His was an accident - this was on purpose.

Like many bloggers,
the strange case of
the Yale Taliban-
Man has been on my mind. John Fund (his latest piece is linked in the following paragraph) has, of course, been on the story. What's the story really about? Here's my first take on it.

Some of those folks up at Yale are just so doggone smart that they have managed to use their powerful brains to transcend not only Judeo-Christian morality, but all morality, and have thus transcended themselves into the abyss of amoral, ie anti-moral, relativism.

And, all the while, thinking themselves morally superior beings for having done so. (Let's hope they do not run their personal lives in a similar fashion - but I am sure they do not, generally. They live morally, and preach relativism. A rather wierd form of hypocrisy, and the inverse of the common form of hypocrisy most of us practice.)

So, since the wise men of the Ivy League have determined that multicultural diversity and respect have now replaced our narrow-minded and obsolete Judeo-Christian morality, we offer the suggestion that this man might have been an attractive, multiculturally diverse applicant to Yale - had he not been too busy. Goebbels surely could have provided a different perspective - and all perspectives are now valid - right?

No. There is one exception: The Maggie's Farm-type of perspective on the world is definitely not valid. It, alone, is "marginalized" on campus, as they say. We think of ourselves as traditionalist, capitalist, God-fearing, rationally patriotic, freedom-loving, and proudly protective of our country and our heritage. Why is this one "perspective" unwelcome, and disregarded?

Image: Reichsfuhrer Doktor Joseph Goebbels speaking in Hamburg, 1936

Two of my buddies got back from Islamorada on Sunday.Tarpon, Permit, and of course, these nice Dolphin (aka dorado, aka Mahi Mahi). Jealous? I am.

This hunt story from this past winter, in Florida, came in over the transom:

Today, I had something very different happen to me at Burn's field.  This morning saw me sitting in my tri-pod, suffering thru 30 deg.  temps with a biting NW wind in my face. Sure, some of you have it colder, but, this is Florida!! Right about the time I started to begin a stalk hunt (to warm up), seven does filled the end of the field and I picked out the one safe shot and dropped her in her tracks. The other does ran off, then slowly returned to stay around another 45 min. or so. When the last one started leaving, I began to get down as no Bucks wanted to come out and play. Half-way down the ladder, I looked back into the field and saw my doe jerk!!! By the way, she was only about 120 yds. away, so, to see her move, something bad was going on. At first I thought she had only been stunned with a high spine shot and was starting to get up. Then, I saw another body along side of her and I thought the .270 has shot thru her and hit another deer that was bunched up after all. Then the object I couldn't make out, attacked the doe's head and was all balled up around it. 

    I quickly climbed back into the shooting chair, re-attached my steady stick, centered the mass outline on the doe's head and squeezed the trigger. Puff of hair, no movement. After getting down and easing over to the doe, attached you will see the huge male bobcat that was trying to kill my dead doe. He died instantly by my .270 injection, so quick in fact, he still had the death grip on the doe's neck. I've never seen or heard of something like this in my life. Even when I loaded the doe up on my carrier, the bobcat was still attached to her neck. While I didn't weigh the bobcat, the doe was in the 120 to 130 lb. range. You can see how the bobcat was almost as long as she is.

If I have any belief about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very very few people.

James Thurber

A brand new Congregational Church in CT, consecrated last night. and celebrating the congregation's first Sunday worship in the new home today. A joyful day. And for once, everyone fit.

It looks 200 years old, but built 2005-2006. Steel beams, and no pillars supporting the balcony. A church is just a building, but a congregation needs a home in which to worship, learn, and to pray together. Despite the fine building, the church is people - not steel and wood. This one is as plain as plain can be, but the spirit within is not plain.

Interesting facts: The original church of this congregation burned down in 1920. They have been holing up in a tiny, abandoned, rickety but beloved Methodist meeting house since then, from which a generation has worshipped, been married, and been buried. This congregation of about 300 broke off from the politically-activist UCC last year, by unanimous vote, showing that the Yankee independent spirit continues. Evangelical? Yes, a bit. Part of the Congregational movement was/remains that each congregation determines its own path by prayerfully seeking the will of God - each as one small component of the body of Christ.

^{Psalm 51 (A penitential Psalm of David)}

¹Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
²Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
³For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
⁴Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
⁵Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
⁶You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
⁷Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
⁸Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
⁹Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
¹¹Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
¹⁴Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.
¹⁵O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
¹⁷The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
¹⁸Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,
¹⁹then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Image: Rembrandt's picture of rock star David singing and playing the lyre for King Saul.

I was very fortunate to have my camera handy yesterday when I came out of my house in North Attlebury, MA, and was amazed to see an extinct  Passenger Pigeon passing by. The size and the prominent white marginal tail feathers mark it clearly as a PP and neither a Rock Dove nor a Mourning Dove. It's mid-photo, on the right. The picture is not the best because I tripped over a bag of peat moss in my excitement.

As further proof of my sighting, here's a photo of the peat moss that I tripped over:

And, as final, incontrovertible proof, here's my girlfriend with a hearty endorsement: "If he says he saw something, he probably maybe did, but I wouldn't swear to it. He is full of it, sometimes."

April 1. This is the day we are reminded of what we are the other three hundred and sixty four.

Mark Twain

Borders is as chicken as City Lights Bookstore is hypocritical.

But you can have an impact on Borders, if you believe their cowardice in the face of Jihad is shameful and un-American. And dumb: When you cringe in the face of bullies, you only encourage them.

Samizdata has two pieces on the subject, and supplied their email address: ccare@bordersstores.com

Why not send 'em a friendly email? Personally, I like their stores, but this kind of dhimmitudinous, weak-sister behavior cannot be rewarded in the proud USA. We are not the UK or Canada.

(And also, if you are the only person in the world who has not seen those silly, harmless cartoons, here they are, via Jihad Watch.)

Image: Borders chicken dinner tonight, but we will add some Gibier sauce with fresh porcini mushrooms, and a mountain of Smashed Potatos potatoes taters.

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.

G.K. Chesterton (1924)

The world is nuts. From Heather MacDonald with yet another great Heather MacDonald piece in City Journal - read it all, but here's a quote:

And so the future is clear. That rustling sound you hear is the migration of university deans and associate provosts, “managing differences” consultants, and ed school faculty to the next big employment bonanza: helping boys succeed! Boys are poised to become the newest victim class, requiring a sturdy structure of advisors, trainers, and counselors just to get by. The requisite helping apparatus is already in place: the professions and academia overflow with committees on the recruitment and retention of minorities and women; they will undoubtedly be only too happy to expand their mandate to boys.

But what, you say, about girls’ hallowed victim status—how can it co-exist with a newly designated male oppressed class? Not to worry. The great thing about victim thinking is that it is not zero-sum; it is win-win. Each individual, each group, can be a victim in his or her or his/her own special way.

Hahaha. What a funny spat. At least The Globe didn't refer to Scalia as "a Sicilian jurist." That would be racist, right?

Let's see... I guess we have two Jewish Jurists, two Italian Jurists, one Irish Jurist, one African Jurist, is it three Catholic Jurists, two or three English Jurists (not sure what white-bread country Roberts immigrated from). Gee, don't we need some American Jurists?