Maggie's Farm

The Sharpie is one of the most commonly seen
small hawks in the US. He is our smallest member of the Accipter family of hawks, which are designed to catch smaller birds.

In winter, they are known to hang around bird-feeders, where they have good sport with the sparrows and finches, and fine dining for them at the end of the game.

You will see their flap-flap-glide flying pattern at woodland edges, or more often see them perched in an open area, surveying the landscape for likely prey and just enjoying being alive.

Diagnostic issue: If you can tell a female Sharpie from a Coopers Hawk, you are a pro birder. I cannot.

More about Sharpies at CLO.

Photo courtesy of Bill Horn.

 

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town?

Mark Twain (1835-1910) Huckleberry Finn

Good Time-Waster. Here.

 

Mathias Dopfner, Chief Executive of the German publisher Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in DIE WELT, Germany's largest daily paper, against the timid reaction of Europe in the face of the Islamic threat. Written in 2004 - how much truer does it sound today...

EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE (Commentary by Mathias Dopfner CEO, Axel Springer, AG) November 20, 2004

A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe - your family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true.

Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives, as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements.

Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe, where for decades, inhuman suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.

Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and even though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans debated and debated and debated, and were still debating when finally the Americans had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet again, and do our work for us.

Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European Appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.

Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly
500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace movement, has the gall to issue bad grades to George Bush ... Even as it is uncovered that the loudest critics of the American action in Iraq made illicit billions, no, TENS of billions, in the corrupt U.N. Oil-for-Food program.

And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement. How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic Fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that we really should have a "Muslim Holiday" in Germany?

I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of our (German)
Government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German people, actually believe that creating an Official State "Muslim Holiday" will somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical Islamists.

One cannot help but recall Britain's Neville Chamberlain waving the
laughable treaty signed by Adolph Hitler and declaring European "Peace in
our time".

What else has to happen before the European public and its political
leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially
perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims,
focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies, and intent upon Western Civilization's utter destruction.

It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great
military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by an enemy
that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but is actually
spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and will always be taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness. Only two recent American
Presidents had the courage needed for Anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush.

His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans know the truth. We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, freeing half of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror and virtual slavery. And Bush, supported only by the Social Democrat Blair, acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic War against Democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed.

In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the
multicultural corner, instead of defending liberal society's values and
being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true
great powers, America and China.

On the contrary - we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to those
"arrogant Americans", as the World Champions of "tolerance", which even
(Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes.

Why? Because we're so moral? I fear it's more because we're so
materialistic, so devoid of a moral compass.

For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of
additional national debt, and a massive and persistent burden on the
American economy - because unlike almost all of Europe, Bush realizes what is at stake - literally everything.

While we criticize the "capitalistic robber barons" of America because they seem too sure of their priorities, we timidly defend our Social Welfare
systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive! We'd rather discuss
reducing our 35-hour workweek or our dental coverage, or our 4 weeks of paid vacation ... Or listen to TV pastors preach about the need to "reach out to terrorists. To understand and forgive".

These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber
breaking into a neighbor's house.

Appeasement?

Europe, thy name is Cowardice.

We dedicate today's QQQ to Larry Summers.

"I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei of Florence, being 70 years old... swear that I have always believed, believe now and, with God's help, will in the future believe all that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church doth hold, preach and teach. But since, after having been admonished by this Holy Office entirely to abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the Universe and immovable, and that the Earth is not the center of the same and that it moves. That I was neither to hold, defend, nor teach in any manner whatsoever, either orally or in writing, the said false doctrine. After having received a notification that the said doctrine is contrary to Holy Writ, I wrote and published a book in which I treat this condemned doctrine and bring forward very persuasive arguments in its favor without answering them. I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is of having held and believed that the Sun is at the center of the Universe and immovable, and that the Earth is not at the center and that it moves. Therefore, wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith these errors and heresies. I curse and detest them as well as any other error, heresy or sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I shall neither say nor assert orally or in writing such things as may bring upon me similar suspicions. And if I know any heretic, or one suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place in which I may be."
   - Galileo Galilei (recanting his scientific beliefs before the Inquistion, 1633)

For those with freezers full of game, now that this hunting season winds to a close, try this Game Cookery site.� How many hunting seasons does a person have? Each one�is precious; each one could be our last one;�and each critter is a precious thing which deserves to be cooked with the utmost care.

Atlas reminds us that yesterday, Feb. 26, was the
anniversary of a declaration of war against the Infidel.
The follow-up attack was not a movie.

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt

Most deer hunting injuries
are caused by falls from
tree stands, and the
conventional safety harnesses can leave you dangling helplessly in the air with a couple of broken ribs, while the deer gather around to laugh. Cabela's has a safety vest that is a true improvement.

Our final pheasant hunt of the year today. A real breakfast at the lodge, fun with dogs, birds and guns for five hours, then some beer and pheasant pot pie. Maybe shoot a couple of lawyers, too. That is really living.

Dubai. Sisu takes a look at Dubai. Very wealthy mini-nation where Moslems go to break all of their rules, and party with booze and multicultural hoes.

The Clockwork Orange, Revisited. The mighty mighty Dalrymple on this 20th Century grotesque pop classic.

The Scooter-Plame story. "Who cares?" is right. It's just more "drip drip drip" from the Bush-haters. In any event, I remain very unhappy with the idea of nailing citizens on perjury when there is no underlying crime. They did it to Martha Stewart. Not saying that perjury is OK - just saying "No blood, no foul." Common sense. Libertarian Leanings has story. Scooter is a good kid.

The Tipping Point? Dinocrat thinks we've reached the point where the greater European community realizes that radical Islam is TROUBLE. I think he is right. It is push-back time for those with any self-respect.

Why are Conservatives happier people than Leftists? Many have commented on the study, but Ex-Donk does a good job with it.

Red Ken's Time Out. Superb piece by Big Lizard. Who votes for this embarassing schmuck?

How the PTA was co-opted by the Left (and the teacher's unions). Horsefeathers.  How many mainly women-led organizations did this happen to? The YWCA, the League of Women Voters, the Junior League... what else?

(Click the Aliyah Diary Category to find out what this is about)

Feb. 17, 2006  Leg Hopper

Something about working in the persimmon orchards gets the writing into me.

    Today, despite a partially severed Achilles tendon, after ice pack, much anti inflammatories and Linus Pauling dosages of Vitamin C, I am
off.  The bus is beaten by my favorite, the Sheirut Monit. (Pronounced as in the Old West term for stogies, Cheroot).  I hop on (hopping being a current mode of travel on my left foot) and sans newspaper, sans reading glasses, sans full wakefulness, daydream the route to the kibbutz. The woman just in front of this 10-seater van is making herself up. I wonder of this, as I see her wedding ring. But she is careful, with mirror balanced on two fingers, she works with concentration.  She needs little help, with her slightly olive-green tint of skin, but -- as woman have wont -- does look more beautiful after her  "do."

Moshek is always enthusiastic when I call. I read the word "karkar" on the Glil Yam welcome sign -- it is an archaic term for "founded."  I also glance at the signs pointing to various companies leasing space from the kibbutz -- DHL is here, as is some high-techy place. Then there is the "biton," which I later learn is the kibbutz's own cement factory; this kibbutz and these kibbutzniks have very fundamentally built this country and in ways not deeply appreciated today.  Moshek arrives in one of his dust-burdened diesel-powered trucklets.  His handshake, this 68 year-old, rail-thin former Navy Seal, a man whose abdomen is noticeably hollow beneath his work shirt, is bone-hardened, firm.  We are off.  I mean to ask him something about energy collaboration with the Swedish government, but these matters evaporate from my head this early in the a.m. and in the face of his greeting: the last of the Zionists, he calls me.  But, I tell him there are more of us. He likes, "us." We join the two Thai workers -- Shay is out ill, Moshek says. (Tomkap later tells me that Shay has sore muscles, not from work, but from weightlifting.)

Cool book. Gwynnie made me read it because I had forgotten the Danish Viking kings of England - the Canutes etc.

My favorite - George lll. A good fellow, for sure. We demonized him here in the US during the Revolution, but he was just trying to pay his bills, like all of us. "Farmer George" they called him. Sadly, a victim of porphyria later in his life. Always interesting to see that the loss of the American colonies is just a footnote in Brit history.

Entertaining reading: Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards: Who's Who in the English Monarchy from Egbert to Elizabeth ll.

Yes, we usually do good poetry on Saturday, but for once, some Broadway Lyrics from Bernstein and Sondheim's West Side Story - of course.

Gee, Officer Krupke 

Music: Leonard Bernstein/Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim



RIFF:
Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
You gotta understand,
It's just our bringing up-ke
That get us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies,
Our fathers all are drunks,
Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!

RIFF and QUARTET:
Gee. Officer Krupke, we're very upset;
We never had the love that every child oughta get
We ain't no delinquents,
We're misunderstood,
Deep down inside us there is good!

RIFF:
There is good!

ALL:
There is good, there is good,
There's an tapped good,
Like inside, the worst of us is good.

SNOWBOY(imitating Krupke):
That's a touchin' good story!

ACTION: Lemme tell you to the world!

SNOWBOY ("Krupke"):
Just tell it to the judge!

RIFF(to "Judge"):
Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,
My parents treat me rough,
With all the marijuana,
They won't give me a puff.
They didn't wanna have me,
But somehow I was had.
Leapin' lizards, that's why I'm so bad!

DIESEL ("Judge"):
Officer Krupke, you're really a square;
This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care!
It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
He's psychologic'ly disturbed!

 

There are as many different thinking "styles" as there are personality types. But we obviously cannot be aware of our unconscious reflections - by definition.

Every student of chemistry remembers Kekule, to whom the structure of the benzene ring came in a dream. Apparently for many people, not thinking about something can be a way for the mind to think about it.

From the Science Times article:

Snap judgments about people and places can be remarkably accurate, and there is no substitute for simple logic and reflection in determining questions like which alarm clock or cellphone is the best value.

But many more important decisions — choosing the right apartment, the optimal house, the best vacation — turn on such a bewildering swarm of facts that people often throw up their hands and put the whole thing temporarily out of mind. And new research suggests that this may be a rewarding strategy.

In a series of experiments reported last week in the journal Science, a team of Dutch psychologists found that people struggling to make complex decisions did best when they were distracted and were not able to think consciously about the choice at all.

The notion that art has a political function is a hold-over from the Hitler and Stalin years, when overt, unsubtle propagandizing was at its height. The notion that art is meant to unsettle the comfortable bourgeoisie is mainly a product of the juvenile and narcissistic 60s.

Indeed, the notion that art is a "personal statement" is a modern and, I feel, vain concept. However, it does fit well with the desire for instant celebrity and fame: "It's all about me."

In support of Free Speech, I post two infamous, blasphemous and hideous examples of recent "art." What do you think? I think they are high-school level attention-seeking and tasteless examples of adolescent rebellion against the grown-ups. But Free Speech protects jerks - as it should. Riots? No. Sadness? Yes. And hey - the "controversy" fills the galleries. Mind you, the American newspapers have no problem with these forms of "personal expression" - because they know the Christians won't behead them. There happens to be a little item that says "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us..."

The first is "Piss Christ."

 

This one is The Holy Virgin with Elephant Dung:

 

Dr. Weinberg: Ms. Thomas, I'd like to begin by asking you a few questions.
Helen Thomas: I ask the questions here. I am the Deanette of the Washington Press Corps!
Dr. W: Well, please just indulge me for a minute. What city are we in now?
Helen Thomas: Washington DC. Where else would anybody be?
Dr. W: Excellent. And what year is this?
Helen Thomas: 1974. Everyone knows that.
Dr. W: And who is the President?
Helen Thomas: Richard Nixon, the lousy rat bum warmonger fascist pig - that's who!
Dr. W: You seem a bit upset...
Helen Thomas: I am gonna get that Republican wiretapping SOB.
Dr. W: Nixon did wiretapping?...Not that I recall...maybe J. Edgar Hoover and Bobby Kennedy...oh, never mind. Let's move on...
Helen Thomas: Exactly right, Professor. Move On - that's the ticket. But don't you dare criticize my Bobby.

(the tape mercifully but mysteriously cut at this point)

 

The New York Sun figured out what The New York Times and the Dems won't say: This is about the unions.

We have all figured it out by now, but Henniger articulates it best. It's the Japanese water torture - you drip drip drip on everything until people just get "tired of the Republican experience." Meanwhile, the Repubs tie themselves in knots trying to respond - but that's not the point! Quote from his WSJ op piece (H/T, Soxblog):

Absent any fresh or positive message for voters, why not try winning by turning politics under the Republicans into an experience of unrelenting discomfort? The substance of any given issue falls in importance. Connecting Jack Abramoff to George Bush personally was always a stretch. So what?

The most telling evidence of a strategy of discomfiting the body politic was the January bonfire over terrorist wiretaps. Here the opposition shrieked for days about a "constitutional crisis" even as polls were indicating public support for the Bush program, including 28% who would OK tapping anyone's phone "on a regular basis" to catch terrorists.

Read the entire piece. He gets it, like totally.

Improbable things happen frequently because there are lots of opportunities for them to occur.  

Dr. Charles Bennett, NASA

Best, most sober, and thoughtful piece I have seen lately about Islam's clash - not so much with Western Civilization, but with modernity. Covers everything from the cartoons to Moslem men's relationships to women to war. Gerecht in The Weekly Standard:

This is all about internal Muslim evolution, about coming to terms with the centuries-long absorption of both good and bad Western ideas. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether the Israeli-Palestinian peace process can somehow soon resume. When al Qaeda's princes--bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi--rail against the intrusion of Western democracy into the Muslim world, they know what they are talking about. If it succeeds, democracy will eventually kill them off. It will pull fundamentalist believers--the pool that bin Ladenism must draw from to survive--into the great ethical and spiritual debates that can best happen when free people fight it out in elections. Only Muslims--only fundamentalist Muslims--have the power to kill off bin Ladenism. Historically, there is no reason to believe this will happen under the dictatorships that gave birth to Islamic extremism in the first place.

Like Christendom before it, the Muslim Middle East will have to work out its relation to modernity. The faster democracy arrives, the sooner the debates about God and man can begin in earnest. It will probably be for both Muslims and Westerners a nerve-racking experience. But we have no choice, since continuing autocracy will only make the militants' message stronger and judgment day, as in Iran, a possibly bloody revolutionary event. The electoral victory of Hamas should not give us pause. It should give us hope and encourage us to push for real elections where our national interest stands to gain the most--in Egypt and Iran. We should also not neglect to defend vigorously Christian, Muslim, or Jewish satirists, be they clever, banal, or ugly, wherever they may be found. Both elections and satire are basic to the evolution of the Muslim world.

Read the whole thing.

Q: How do I protect my cockatoo or canary from bird flu?
A: If you keep a cockatoo or canary as a pet, slaughter it immediately. The proper way to do this is to grab its body in your fist, walk it into the kitchen, place it on the cutting board, and lop its head off with a knife. Pretty much any knife will do. Bird necks are about as tough as celery.

Read the rest here.

From a piece by McClay at First Things, on Columbia's Religion and Liberalism Conference (H/T, MassRight):

We often fail to remember what a socially conservative coalition, by our standards today, the New Deal era Democratic Party was, with its essential contingents of Northern Catholics and Southern Protestants. In today’s Democratic Party, white Southern Protestants are largely gone, and the Catholic vote has split, and is trending more and more toward the Republicans. Much of the latter change can be attributed to rank-and-file Catholic disaffection with the Democratic party’s decision to give issues of cultural “values”—and most particularly issues that relate to the individualistic concerns of sexuality and expressive freedom, and abortion rights in particular—a prominence and energy that they felt it was no longer given to larger economic and political issues, and that offended them deeply. This emphasis has not yet cost the Democrats their entire Catholic constituency, but it has cost them a very large part of it, and perhaps the most commitedly Catholic part of it. The trend shows no sign of reversing in any decisive way. Many Catholics who now routinely vote Republican clearly still do not feel at ease about it. But with each passing election, they are less reluctant.

The loss of its morally and socially conservative but politically progressive Catholics has been a calamity, then, for the Democratic Party, and has seriously undermined its claim to be the vehicle of an effective and humane progressive politics.

Read entire.