Well that big dumb blond
With her wheel in the gorge
And Turtle, that friend of theirs
With his checks all forged
And his cheeks in a chunk
And his cheese in the cash
They're all gonna be there
At that million dollar bash.

Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
Ooh, baby, ooh-ee
It's that million dollar bash

Well I looked at my watch
I looked at my wrist
I punched myself
In the face with my fist
I took my potatoes
Down to be mashed
Then I made it over
To that million dollar bash.

Excerpted from Million Dollar Bash, on Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes

Dear Editor:

Your blog is just a bunch of gasbags, and I have a suspicion about from which orifice the gas is emerging.

Sincerely,

JL in Massachusetts

Dear JL:

Ouch. I think you might be right. At least we don't do it in elevators. Never blog in elevators. Can you offer any constructive suggestions, or do you suggest that we simply shut down Maggie's Farm and spend our time engaged in more productive, profitable, and worthwhile pursuits?

Eagerly, nay, anxiously awaiting your reply,

Bird Dog

The Population Bust

The world has come a long way from the "population bomb" that we have been warned about for 50 years. We have already begun to see the effects of population declines in Europe, but the entire world is facing dramatic demographic changes, for better or worse. The subject deserves more attention. Krikorian at Claremont Inst:

Although the birthrate decline has begun to have significant effects in the U.S., it is in Europe and East Asia that the consequences will be most dramatic. In demographic terms, a "total fertility rate" (TFR) of 2.1 is necessary to keep a population from declining—the average woman needs to have two children (plus the 0.1 for girls who die before reaching reproductive age) to replace herself and the father. The TFR in the U.S. is just a hair below that benchmark, having bounced back from its nadir in the 1970s. But in every other developed nation it is lower, and falling: Ireland, 1.9; Australia, 1.7; Canada, 1.5; Germany, 1.35; Japan, 1.32; Italy, 1.23; Spain, 1.15. Birthrates this low are unprecedented in peacetime societies. As Wattenberg writes, "never have birth and fertility rates fallen so far, so fast, so low, for so long, in so many places, so surprisingly."

Not only is this causing an increase in the median age of these populations, as in the U.S., but many of these countries will soon see declines in total population. By the middle of this century, we could find a Europe home to 100 million fewer people than today, and a Japan shrinking by one-fourth.

Despite their huge and growing populations, the most rapid birthrate declines (and thus the most rapid rates of population aging) are taking place in the Third World. The total fertility rate in less-developed countries as a whole, as defined by the U.N., has fallen by half since the 1960s, to 2.9 children per woman, a much faster drop than anything experienced in the developed world. This is happening almost everywhere: China and India, Mexico and South Africa, Iran and Egypt. Population "momentum" will cause continued increases in these countries for a time, as large numbers of girls have babies, albeit fewer than their mothers, and the Third World will potentially add another 2.5 billion people before population growth stops. This is still a very large increase, but it will come to an end in the foreseeable future (in some countries surprisingly soon). After that, their populations will also start to fall.

Read entire.

Emily, Franklin, and Coriolis

Storm Track is watching Emily and Franklin. And there is also the NOAA site, which you are paying for.

As these lows, deriving from the north African coast, move north of the equator, the air surrounding them begins to spin, due to the coriolis effect of the earth's rotation - counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere, clockwise in the southern hemisphere, and not at all near the equator. Contrary to the old-wive's tale, the coriolis effect does NOT determine the direction of rotation of water down the toilet.

Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.

Will Rogers

Exactly what we are afraid of:

In Dalston market in north-east London on Thursday, "Abdullah," a Muslim watch-mender and evangelist, was in a pugnacious mood. "We don't need to fight. We are taking over!" he said. "We are here to bring civilization to the West. England does not belong to the English people, it belongs to God." Piece on Jihad Watch

Hey, England! Stop the invasion! If such people arrived on landing-craft with AK-47s, you'd kill them. But instead, these invaders walk right in. Wake up. It's a Trojan Horse.

Auster agrees, with a vengeance, here.

Imagining the Apocalypse

Predictions of the End Times run through the Old Testament, and maybe Noah's flood could be seen as a mini-preview of the big and final apocalypse. Efforts to imagine the end, or to create metaphors for the end, run through literature, song and art, but none are as familiar as the visions that St. John experienced in his cave on Patmos and are captured in the mystical Revelations, the final book of the New Testament. Alan Jacobs, in Touchstone, discusses some literary depictions of Apocalypse and concludes that it is "inexpressible." A sample from his piece, this bit on the Narnia series:

In The Last Battle, the conclusion to the Narnia series, C. S. Lewis has Aslan bring the chronicle of Narnia itself to a close. “All the stars were falling,” he writes. “Aslan had called them home.” Soon thereafter, Aslan commands the Time-giant to “make an end”; the Giant extends his arm and crushes all light from the sun; Peter, the High King, closes and locks the great Door; and Narnia is no more.

The children and their friends live now and always in Aslan’s country, and for a few pages—pages that are not, I believe, among the more successful in the stories—Lewis sketches for us what Aslan’s country is like. But it can be only a sketch. Aslan utters his famous final words: “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.” And then the final paragraph:

And as he spoke he no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter 1 of the Great Story, which no one on earth has ever read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Read the entire here: Click here: Touchstone Archives: The Inexpressible Apocalypse . Listening to Dylan, on a bootleg - I mean an "audience recording" - If Dogs Run Free

A lot of people spend time talking to the animals but not that many people listen. That's the real problem. 

Winnie-the-Pooh

The devil can quote scripture for his purpose.

Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Powerful Storm

Dennis could be one of the most powerful hurricanes in our lifetime, says Storm Track.
Follow details with him.

Update 6 pm: Woops. Lost power over the cooler northern Gulf waters while I was weeding my garden and munching on sun-hot early raspberries. Still a majestic storm, though. And now Emily might turn into something. We are due a good hurricane in New England - it's been too many years without one. Listening to: Faure Concerto for Piano and Strings.

Jeremiah 31:31-34, NLT

"The day will come," says the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife," says the Lord.  "But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day," says the Lord. "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ³⁴And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their family, saying, `You should know the Lord.' For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will already know me," says the Lord. "And I will forgive their wickedness and will never again remember their sins."

The most widespread heron in the world, this
medium-sized heron is locally abundant in its summer breeding areas around much of the US, near water. A colony nester, like most herons, he is most often seen along shorelines at dusk, stalking frogs and minnows. He winters mainly in Central and South America.

Read more about this elegant heron here.

Photo courtesy of P. LaTourette - link to the left.

"For God's sake, stop the aid to Africa"

says Kenyan economist James Shikwati:

Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

Read entire in der Spiegel (thanks, RCP)

And similar sentiments from Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai

T-Shirt

Free advertising: Shirt available from Northeast
Intelligence Network

Map of all serious Islamic terrorism acts, to date, on Powerline.

London transport update: getting back to normal !

The Left continues its descent into madness, on RWN

Keith Thompson, at Moonbat Central:

Today, there are two groups of people in the world: those who recognize the jihadists as a stark and  fundamental threat to civilization; and those who reflexively seek ways to absolve the jihadists of responsibility for their murderous ways, by blaming Britain and America. The first group knows that civilization must win this battle. The second group urges caution and understanding.  read entire.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Winston Churchill

Four Thoughts

First, I predict that the bombers will turn out to be "home-grown" London Moslems, linked to European Moslem groups, not terrorists who snuck into England directly from the Middle East. Hence their comment about hitting other European nations and not the US or the Aussies. They are locals, the Trojan Horse of radical Islam. See Mannes on NRO re the well-tolerated radical Islamic presence in London.

Second, that Brit unsentimental, stiff-upper lip is really something, isn't it? In the US, there would be public weeping and wailing, days of mourning, mountains of candles and teddy bears, emergency prayer services, and teams of grief therapists. In contrast to the Brits, we look like a nation of over-emoting-obsessed, self-indulgent hysterics.

Third, from Steyn: "the more you insist the Islamist psychosis is a rational phenomenon to be accommodated, the more you risk sounding just as nutty as the terrorists."

Fourth, Churchill: "Danger - if you meet it promptly and without flinching - you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"

Comment from Gwynnie

Gwynnie likes Sky News: http://www.sky.com/skynews/home as she was annoyed at this mornings conclusion by BBC that the attacks were “in retribution for” Afghanistan & Iraq (like the Battle of the Bulge was “in retribution for” the Normandy landings). Perhaps the Beeb would like to withdraw from Iraq; would it pull out of Northern Ireland too?

The Reuters “News” Service still can’t bring itself to use the term “terrorism”. Maybe it would like to refer to the bombings in London as caused by “insurgents”.

From BBC:

The organisation calls itself the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda [literally the base] of Jihad Organisation in Europe. The group not previously been heard of. The website has previously carried statements purporting to be from al-Qaeda. It is not possible to verify such claims published on the web. This is the full text of the statement.

---

In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, may peace be upon the cheerful one and undaunted fighter, Prophet Muhammad, God's peace be upon him.

Nation of Islam and Arab nation: Rejoice for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist Crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters.

We have repeatedly warned the British Government and people. We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid.

We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all the Crusader governments that they will be punished in the same way if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He who warns is excused.

God says: "You who believe: If ye will aid (the cause of) Allah, He will aid you, and plant your feet firmly."

Final Word from Bird Dog

Along with the anger in reaction to yet another ruthless attack by the barbarians comes the anger in listening to some BBC comments, and people like Galloway and other miscellaneous leftist Islamofascist sympathizers or America-haters as are spouting off today on Democratic Underround. Truly they do not believe that these attacks are retaliation - if they are, then what were WTC #1 and #2 in retaliation for? Was that Bush's fault too? It all seems very simple to me: Radical Islam declared war on the West in 1993, and we could surrender Iraq, we could surrender Israel, we could even surrender France, and they would still keep on coming.

BBC seems to be best source of minute-to-minute updated details.

From Jihad Watch one year ago:

Asked if a British Muslim was allowed to carry out a "terrorist attempt" in a foreign country, Muhammad said "That is another story."

He added: "We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity."

God Bless and Protect our Brit Cousins

That's all I have to say thus far...

Every step of the way we walk the line
Your days are numbered, so are mine
Time is pilin' up, we struggle and we scrape
We're all boxed in, nowhere to escape

City's just a jungle; more games to play
Trapped in the heart of it; trying to get away
I was raised in the country, I been workin in the town
I been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down

Dylan, from Mississippi, on Love and Theft

Abiogenic oil, Science and Politics

We have been hearing about how the earth is running out of oil for decades but thus far there seems to be no end of the petroleum reserves in sight. Those warnings begin to sound like just another Chicken Little story – the sorts of exaggerated scare stories which cause people to dismiss some valid claims and predictions coming from environmentalists.

The theory of “abiogenic” petroleum production  and also here - that is, petroleum production not from ancient plant and microorganism life, but generated chemically in the earth’s mantle – enters the debate about the limits of petroleum reserves. After all, if petroleum hydrocarbons are generated in the mantle from simple molecules like methane, then we are sitting happily on top of an essentially unlimited oil and natural gas production line.

Originally promoted by Russian scientists in the 1960s (eg: n for Natural Petroleum. Click here: Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connectio) in the US the theory has been mostly associated with astronomer Thomas Gold at Cornell. There are two interesting aspects of the abiogenic oil story: First, the science. Second, the politics.

The simplest way to demonstrate the origin of organic (carbon-containing) molecules is to look at the ratios of isotopes of carbon, especially carbon 13. Overall, the evidence strongly suggests that our fuel hydrocarbons do indeed have plant and bacterial origins – that they are “fossil fuels” - but it also indicates a likely but very minor production from non-living origins.

When science leaves the academy and the professional conferences, all sorts of things can happen, as in the global warming debates. Anti-environmentalists, and SUV drivers, want to believe the comforting abiogenic theory, and anti-growth and anti-oil environmentalists want to believe – or to make us believe – that we are down to our last drop. (Here is one such discussion.)

Psychologists and psychiatrists always are telling us about how powerful the wish to believe something can be, and how powerful wishes can be in distorting our version of reality. Even scientists are not immune from this human frailty, but they are hopefully more immune – and their results and opinions are always subject to the scrutiny and challenges of their colleagues. Trying to punch holes in one-another’s hypotheses and data is part of the job. Without the emergence of surprising new evidence, it appears that abiogenic oil is not a meaningful component of oil supply.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

If you have not read 100 Years of Solitude, your brain is experiencing a Garcia Marquez deficiency syndrome, even though you may not be aware of it. However, I want to mention a very short book of his, Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Knowing the outcome in advance adds to the suspense of this tale about Latin vengeance:

On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on. He'd dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling, and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit.

The below (from the UK?) borrowed from the The Owner's Manual:

I was walking across a bridge one sunny day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: 'Stop. Don't do it.'
'Why shouldn't I?' he asked.
'Well, there's so much to live for!'
'Like what?'
'Are you religious?'
He said: 'Yes.'
I said. 'Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?'
'Christian.'
'Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?''
'Protestant.'
'Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?'
'Baptist.'
'Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?'
'Baptist Church of God.'
'Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?'
'Reformed Baptist Church of God.'
'Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?'
He said: 'Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915.'
I said: "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off.