Maggie's Farm

I cannnot believe some of the emails we receive. Honestly, getting bored with being called a moron. Let's get a little more creative out there, critics:

Editor Bird Dog,

You stupid ---- ---- Republican jerks why dont you look at yourselfs and see how stupid you are, the whole country is dieing from pollution and no food and needs help and all you do is look at birds and get jobs while people are starving and not getting education because of Bush or disability which I need and cannot get and what do you care. You are hopeless morons and I do not read your blog and you are right there is no cure for stupidity - and I mean yours.

Anonymous

Dear Loyal Reader,

Thank you for the genteel and constructive criticism. We must earnestly try to be less stupid, but it is hard to do with the limited brain content we have. We can't all be as wise and perceptive as you obviously are. I would suggest that you run for office, instead of writing to blog editors. You have a future in politics, along with John Dean and all the others, and you wouldn't have to worry about that disability problem. I think you meet the IQ hurdle, but take it easy on the Old Milwaukee or you might slip below the bar, which is 75. But hey - we aren't Republicans so much as we try to be Rationalists who vote for whoever makes the least bad sense and is the least corrupt. There are many dogs we'd be glad to vote for but they are way too smart to run for office. Running for squirrels or ducks is a wiser game. But keep reading Maggie's - we need the numbers.

Sincerely,

Bird Dog (yup, that's my photo)

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.

 Albert Einstein

1944 Farmall Model H

Time to get back to work, fellow bloggers. Check the oil, crank that thing up, and get rolling.

"90% of this game is half mental."

Yogi Berra

Pardon this poor photo of this wonderfully-colored bird which is common in the eastern woodlands and edges, and in suburbia, with its masterfully-woven hanging nests and its loud call which announces its presence.

We must have seen a dozen of them last weekend in New Haven. Like the tanager, it looks like a jungle bird and, indeed, during our winter, it is. Read about this splendid bird here.

Last chance to email the FEC

Today is the last day the FEC will be taking public comments on their plans to regulate campaign-related speech and advertising on the internet, including blogs. Reportedly, the FEC has been disappointed by the low volume of comment. Please refer to yesterday's post here, and send the FEC a polite email, not a rant, about how you use or view blogs and how that relates to your opinion on political campaign speech-regulation on the Internet, esp in the "Blogosphere". Make sure you include your name and address - they don't read anonymous.

Live Aid, Band Aid, etc.

Bob Geldorf is back with another version of his save-the-world rock concerts. Chrenkoff has the real story about how these well-meaning but naive efforts misfired.

"There is no cure for stupid."

Anonymous but famous psychiatric quote

Guns and Tort Law

Naturally the WaPo calls this a handout to the gun business but I wonder whether it might be a model for tort reform in general. If you kill someone with a Stanley hammer, can your victim's family sue Stanley, and Home Depot, where you bought the hammer? There are plentiful laws regulating the sale of firearms already, and none concerning the very lethal hammer. What is insane in this country is tort litigation, which has become a gold mine, and not "evil" products. This isn't about justice, it's about $.

Steyn on Broadway

Who is this mystery man, and how does he know everything about everything? Steyn on Spamalot and the Broadway scene.

The Top 125 Political Blogs

Surprising list, compiled by Right Wing News. Don't look for Maggie's there - we are an "eclectic" blog, not a political blog. In fact, we are kinda bored by politics unless something stupid tees us off. Which it does, all too often, alas. 

Tom Lehrer's "The Elements"

As sung by the great Tom Lehrer with charming animation by Private Hand.
Lehrer's CDs here.

It's hard to imagine that in 1972 this large fish-catching water bird was named a species "of special concern" by the Audubon Society. It's numbers have rocketed since the banning of DDT.

Like their cousin Anhingas in the Everglades, they are often seen drying their feathers on rocks and buoys, with wings outstretched. They swim very low in the water - often only their neck and head are visible - and pursue fish underwater.

It has a wide breeding range, both coastal and inland, but instead of welcoming its resurgence, in some areas it is being killed as a competitor to recreational fishing. All animals beware: when it's dollars vs. you, watch out!

 Read more about this unusual bird here.  Photo courtesy of Bill Horn - his bird photography link to the left.

An Observation on Thompson's Piece

Keith Thompson's piece, Leaving the Left: a Free Liberal's Manifesto, which we posted last week, seems to have rapidly made the rounds of blogs world-wide. I guess it resonates. Most of us are ex-liberals who finally realized the truth about the Left.

Read these two sentences - (it's my bold print):

I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I’m separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.

Is he describing ordinary political views, or a false religion? It's honest of him to put it this way, and I think very revealing of whence the ferocity and desperation of the left derives. If political views make up the core of your identity and "sense of the cosmos," you are both lost and dangerous. (Real politicians know it's a game they play to make a living and an outrageously good pension.) Thompson, a fine writer, got found.

He also edited an interesting-looking book - To Be a Man: In Search of the Deep Masculine. Deep Masculine - that has a good sound.

"Generally, in battle, use the normal forces to engage; use the extraordinary to win."

Sun-Tzu, The Art of War

Home Schooling

Our favorite gun-totin' blogger Kim du Toit has been doing it, and has constructed a curriculum. Go for it, Kim. Man, what a big job.

Proud of Buddy

Buddy, the son of my dear friends, has just graduated from his Navy Seals training. From the tales I have heard, it is tough beyond imagining. There are two kinds of men - Seals and regular guys. Buddy is a tough kid. Good going, big guy. America needs you.

Ambulance Chasing

Lawyers converge on Gitmo. This is the kind of thing that gives them a bad name. Who has deeper pockets than the US Treasury? From LGF.

The American Chesterton Society

The best writer, on every subject, of the 20th century that many have never read. We have one reader who is determined to make G.K. Chesterton her summer reading, beginning now. The website has lots of his witty quotes - we'll use them for QQQQ.

Back to work day. This is a 1985
John Deere, Model 60

Would you say that's a Farmall-lookin' machine?  A handy light-weight, like some people.

"At the end, it's not the words of your enemies but the silence of your friends that you will remember."  

 Dr. Martin Luther King

Cinderella Man

See it. Our entire theater clapped at the end. Sure, movies manipulate our emotions, but the story of James J. Braddock was a heck of a story. The real comeback-kid. And a good, old-fashioned movie - pure story-telling, without layers of irony, negativity, propaganda, high-tech flash, or emotional confusion, and with compelling boxing action which will make males sweat and ladies "glow." Thus an honest movie, with neat kids too. Thanks, Ron, for another wonderful movie that puts worthwhile and lasting images in our heads, which few movies do these days.

The Bird Dog father-in-law remembers listening to the Baer vs. Braddock fight on the radio in Jersey City, just like the movie: Braddock - the Pride of the Irish of Bergen County. And the story is true - he did repay his welfare checks when he was able to. The movie makes it all real, including the male indignities and the female stresses of the Great Depression. Braddock could take the punches of life - including the punches delivered below the belt by a sleaze-bag like Max Baer and the punches delivered by fate - for his family, not for himself. Thus a real adult male without excuses - the kind we admire and to which we men aspire - a true father. And that is what the movie is about - American fatherhood.

Best line: "I do it for the milk."

Despite being the end of migration, and despite the leaves being fully unfurled, we were able to find a few good birds Sunday morning in the expansive and lovely East Rock Park in New Haven:

Black and White Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Canada Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Yellow Warbler
Redstart
Red-Eyed Vireo
Warbling Vireo
Solitary Vireo
Philadelphia Vireo
Baltimore Oriole
Wood Pewee
Yellow-Billed Cuckoo
Red Bellied Woodpecker
Rough-winged Swallow
Red Tailed Hawk
Turkey Vulture
Black Crowned Night Heron
Wood Thrush
Scarlet Tanager

Plus of course the regular stuff. Always good to see woodland robins - we think of them as suburban lawn birds but they aren't - they are woodland thrushes which found our suburban lawns to be an easy source of earthworms. Thanks to Ron Bell, the great Connecticut ornithologist, for joining us yesterday for the final warbler outing of the year, and thanks to M and J for their auditory skills. The Phila. Vireo was a first for the Bird Dog.

My photo of New Haven's Soldier's and Sailor's Monument, which overlooks New Haven and Long Island Sound from its perch on the peak of East Rock. God Bless both our eager and reluctant warriors, who give us the freedom we thrive on.